Covid-19

Appearing on CNN on Saturday morning, the mayor of Miami Beach fired back at Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) who has dismissed his concerns about taking additional measures to contain the surging COVID crisis.

Speaking with host Boris Sanchez, Mayor Dan Gelber was shown a clip of the DeSantis response and asked to comment.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is coming under withering criticism after officials in Orlando were forced to ask locals to conserve water due to the surge in COVID patients.

Late Friday, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, with local officials at his side, urged residents to voluntarily restrict their water usage, stating, as WESH explained, "that many COVID-19 patients require liquid oxygen for their treatment, helping them breathe easier. OUC has used the same liquid oxygen to treat the water supply for years. The process is called ozonation. Liquid oxygen takes away the contaminants and the sulfur smell."

The Associated Press has issued a warning to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) following his press secretary's allegedly "abusive behavior" leveled toward one of its reporters.

The push from AP comes after Pushaw's Twitter account was temporarily suspended following a series of seemingly threatening tweets aimed at Tallahassee-based reporter Brendan Farrington.

Former Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) shut down Bill Maher after the HBO "Real Time" host complained about booster shots to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I mean, I don't want a booster," Maher said. "I never wanted the vaccine, I took one for the team."

On Friday, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow laid into Fox News for hyping up Ivermectin, a chemical used to deworm livestock, as an unproven drug for COVID-19, which has caused people in Mississippi to poison themselves with livestock formulations and worsen the state's hospital crisis.

"In that state that, frankly, has enough to deal with, they are now facing a new challenge related to COVID," said Maddow. "The Mississippi State Department of Health confirming today that, quote, 'at least 70 percent of the recent calls to poison control in Mississippi have been related to ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of Ivermectin purchased at livestock supply centers.' Why are people taking livestock formulations of Ivermectin in Mississippi? That's a horse dewormer. Literally people won't take the vaccine because they're super suspicious of that, but they're taking horse deworming medication that they're buying at a feed store? For COVID? Why, on top of everything else Mississippi has to deal with right now, why are they dealing with this? I don't know, but I have a guess."

Florida's ban on mask mandates in schools has been rejected by yet another school district.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had banned mask mandates despite the surge of coronavirus in Florida.

The state of Mississippi is warning residents against attempting to prevent coronavirus with drugs purchased from feed stores.

"The Mississippi Poison Control Center has received increased calls due to livestock or animal formulations of ivermectin taken to prevent or treat COVID-19 infection. Animal drugs are highly concentrated for large animals and can be highly toxic in humans. Do NOT take drugs made for animals in any form," the Mississippi State Department of Health warned.

On Friday, progressive political group Meidas Touch dropped a new political video tearing into Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for allowing COVID-19 to spread out of control in his state.

At the beginning of the month, 1 in 3 new COVID cases in the U.S. were in either Florida or Texas, as both DeSantis and Texas' Gov. Greg Abbott publicly fought with local governments and school officials to block public health measures like mask mandates.

The University of Virginia in Charlottesville has disenrolled dozens of students for not documenting that they had received coronavirus vaccines.

In all, 238 students were officially disenrolled, although only 49 had scheduled their fall classes, The Virginia-Pilot reported Friday.

The Food and Drug Administration is expediting full approval of the Pfizer vaccine in an effort to announce the decision on Monday, The New York Times reported Friday.

Citing "people familiar with the agency's planning," the newspaper reported regulators were unable to finish the approval by Friday and "were still working through a substantial amount of paperwork and negotiation with the company."

Orlando is facing a water shortage as COVID-19 surges in the Sunshine State.

On Friday, WFTV interrupted a speech on Afghanistan by President Joe Biden to deliver the breaking news on a water shortage.