Covid-19

The wife of a Maine Republican lost her battle with COVID-19 after advocating against taking the COVID-19 vaccine and wearing masks. Aroostook County Republican Party treasurer Cindy Johansen died earlier this month.

"It was all bad news today. Cindy has suffered several major set backs (sic)," said her husband, Maine state Rep. Chris Johansen on Aug. 7.

The vast majority of private and group health insurance plans are no longer waiving "cost-sharing" for those who contract the coronavirus and require COVID-19 treatment, including hospitalization, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Peterson Center on Healthcare.

The vast majority, about 95% of COVID patients requiring hospitalization are unvaccinated.

Fox News host Sean Hannity had a brief moment in which he begged his audience to get vaccinated to avoid catching COVID-19. Hannity even went so far as to say he believed in science. Just three days later, Hannity was back to saying that he never told anyone to get a vaccine.

MSNBC host Ari Melber this week pointed out that Hannity, a month later, now is promoting theories that "the science shows the vaccine won't protect you. It's not protecting many people." One study showed that the vaccine gives someone 80 percent protection from the virus killing a person. But with the more severe delta variant, the virus is more transmissible and appears to be able to take people down faster.

With no available ICU beds in the state, the city of Cullman, Alabama, has declared a COVID-19 state of emergency as it prepares to host former president Donald Trump's MAGA rally on Saturday.

The City Council passed a resolution declaring the state of emergency on Thursday, after it was requested by Cullman Regional hospital, AL.com reports.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick attacked Black Texans to deflect from criticism of GOP attacks on public health measures.

"Well, Laura," Patrick said to Fox News personality Laura Ingraham, "The COVID is spreading, particularly — most of the numbers are with the unvaccinated."

The co-director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Alabama painted a haunting portrait of the potential collapse of the state's healthcare system during a Thursday night appearance on "The Rachel Maddow Show."

The host noted a front-page headline in the Montgomery Advertiser warning of an emergency room "patient traffic jam."

After a year of Fox News pushing debunked conspiracy theories about masks and vaccines, host Tucker Carlson is complaining about the backlash against people who are still refusing to get vaccinated.

More than 70 percent of eligible Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine -- but many vaccinated people have been lashing out at the unvaccinated, whom they say are causing hospital shortages in red states.

The Texas Supreme Court dealt a stinging blow to GOP Gov. Greg Abbott's ban on local mask mandates.

"The Texas Supreme Court has left in place a Travis County judge's TRO (that blocked [Gov. Abbott's] ban on mask mandates in Austin), apparently because the State did not first seek relief from the intermediate court of appeals," University of Texas Law Prof. Steve Vladeck wrote.

Cases of COVID-19 among school-aged children are soaring in Tennessee as the state's Republican leaders fight against public health measures.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee's Department of Health halted all adolescent vaccine outreach in July and Republican Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives Cameron Sexton has threatened "legislative force" against school districts that enact mask mandates.

On Thursday, CNN reported that Facebook has announced action against an infamous group of pages known as the "disinformation dozen" by restricting and locking dozens of accounts and groups associated with them.

The "disinformation dozen" are a group of 12 people who, according to a study conducted earlier this year, are responsible for 73 percent of all anti-vaccine propaganda spreading on Facebook.

Hospitals in North Texas have "quietly developed" a plan to allow doctors to take vaccination status into account when deciding how to triage intensive-care beds if the coronavirus pandemic overwhelms ICUs, The Dallas Morning News reports.

"A copy of an internal memo written by Dr. Robert Fine, co-chair of the North Texas Mass Critical Care Guideline Task Force, was sent to members of the task force," the newspaper reported, noting a copy had been leaked to "The Watchdog" columnist Dave Lieber explained. "Although their recommendations are not enforceable, the guidelines are generally followed."

Parents in Georgia are pulling their children out of public schools that are refusing to enact public health guidelines to protect school children, the majority of whom are too young to get vaccinated.

"It's the third week of school in Cobb County, Georgia, and many parents are livid with the district's lax Covid-19 protocols and dangerous misinformation being disseminated by a school board member via his official email account," CNN reported Thursday. "Some parents, including those with children suffering from asthma and one whose 13-year-old has a flagging immune system after fending off a rare leukemia as a younger child, are taking their kids out of school, they told CNN."