Covid-19

On Tuesday, The Free Lance-Star profiled people in rural America, and found a lot of resistance to taking the COVID-19 vaccine — including among supporters of former President Donald Trump.

"While demand for vaccinations still far outstrips the available supply in most parts of the country, there are already signs in some places of slowing registration," reported Jill Colvin. "And the impact is expected to grow when supply begins to surpass demand by late April or early May, said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health."

President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus will start flooding into the US economy soon, and some analysts say much of that money could end up invested in stocks or even bitcoin.

Over the weekend, the government began sending the $1,400 direct payments that will go to nearly everyone in the United States.

A top-to-bottom review of Trump-era coronavirus guidance has identified public health recommendations issued under the banner of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that were "not primarily authored" by agency staff or backed by the best existing scientific evidence.

Ordered by current CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, the review (pdf) was seen as confirmation of widespread fears that the Trump administration—members of which repeatedly downplayed the severity of the pandemic—manipulated guidance coming out of the nation's leading public health agency to make it fit with the White House's views and political objectives. In September, Politico reported that Trump political aides reviewed and, in some cases, altered CDC recommendations.

A woman in Las Vegas was caught on camera recently throwing a tantrum over face masks at a Chipotle in which she compared mask mandates to racial segregation.

The video begins with the woman ripping her face mask off in front of Chipotle workers and screaming, "F*ck your masks, I'm taking a stand!"

The White House on Monday suggested former president Donald Trump shouldn't be waiting for an "engraved invitation" to join the public campaign encouraging Americans to take Covid-19 vaccines.

President Joe Biden's press secretary, Jen Psaki, noted that all other living former presidents, including Democrat Barack Obama and Republican George W. Bush, have delivered public service announcements.

A Palm Beach man was arrested at Disney World this week after he allegedly spit on a security guard who asked him to wear a face mask.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that 51-year-old Kelly McKin was walking around Disney World without a mask despite the amusement park's rules that guests should wear masks at all times while on Disney property.

In recent days, countries including France, Denmark, Ireland and Thailand have temporarily suspended their use of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine after reports that some people who got a dose developed blood clots, even though there's no evidence that the shot was responsible. The European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization say the data available do not suggest the vaccine caused the clots and that people should continue to be immunized. Here's a look at we know — and what we don't.

What happened?

A major provision in President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill aims to address decades of discrimination against Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian American farmers who have historically been excluded from government agricultural programs. The American Rescue Plan sets aside $10.4 billion for agriculture support, with about half of that amount set aside for farmers of color, and allocates extra federal funds to farmers who were "subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group." The U.S. Department of Agriculture has faced accusations of racism for decades, but little has been done to address the problem of discrimination in farm loans. John Boyd, a fourth-generation Black farmer and president of the National Black Farmers Association, says the new funds begin to address issues he has been fighting for 30 years. "This is a huge victory for Black farmers and farmers of color," says Boyd.

On Monday, Axios reported that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an uptick in the savings rate — and the bulk of this comes from large corporations and wealthy families "hoarding" money, locking it away from the greater economy.

"Thanks to the pandemic, the tendency of the wealthy socking away their money appears to be getting worse," reported Dion Rabouin. "A recent survey from Pew Research found that Americans have cut back on spending, especially at upper-income levels, over the past year. 32% of 'upper income' adults said they were saving more since the pandemic began, compared to 23% of all respondents and 17% of 'lower income' adults."

On Monday, writing for The Wall Street Journal opinion page, Dave Seminara urged college students to "come back to Florida" and flout COVID-19 safety recommendations.

"Much of the spring-break travel scare revolves around the effort to discredit Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose less restrictive approach to the pandemic has worked, infuriating Democrats," wrote Seminara. "Perhaps some of his critics perversely hope that a calamitous outbreak here will give them a chance to blame Florida, the state progressives love to loathe."

Direct payments from the newly approved coronavirus relief package began landing in people's bank accounts with striking quickness this weekend, but a glaring shortcoming of the American Rescue Plan caused by the arcane procedural tool that Democrats used to pass the bill could prevent checks from reaching many vulnerable households.

Unlike the Covid relief bill that Congress passed through regular order in December, the new $1.9 trillion legislation does not include protections barring debt collectors from hoovering up the checks and using them to pay off people's private debts—which, as The American Prospect's David Dayen put it, makes the American Rescue Plan "also a cash cow for debt collectors."

Many members of the Republican Party are refusing to take the novel coronavirus vaccine -- and it's delaying Congress's return to a full legislative schedule.

Axios reports that 25 percent of lawmakers serving in the House of Representatives still have not been vaccinated, even though Congress has its own supply of the vaccine.