Three Norwegian health care workers have been hospitalized after receiving the newly-unveiled single-dose AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, authorities have announced, which has led to a temporary suspension of giving out the shot.
Reuters reported that the workers experienced issues relating to blood clots and other vascular issues. Norwegian authorities did not say how long the distribution of the vaccine would be halted as those people remain hospitalized.
Sigurd Hortemo with the Norwegian Medicines Agency told reporters at a media briefing with members of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health that each of the hospitalized health care workers were under the age of 50, but said the hospitalizations could not be definitively linked to the shot.
“We do not know if the cases are linked to the vaccine,” Hortemo said.
The hospitalizations will be investigated by the European Medicines Agency, Hortemo added.
Steinar Madsen, the medical director at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, told regional media that the affected individuals were very ill after receiving the shots.
“They have very unusual symptoms: bleeding, blood clots and a low count of blood platelets,” Madsen said. “They are quite sick … We take this very seriously.”
Reuters reported that no such issues were reported during its clinical trials.
AstraZeneca defended the vaccine while pointing out that those hospitalized might have experienced their symptoms with or without taking its single-shot vaccine.
“In fact, the reported numbers of these types of events for COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca are not greater than the number that would have occurred naturally in the unvaccinated population,” the pharmaceutical giant said.
The European Medicines Agency maintained that the benefits of the shot still outweigh the risks.
Denmark had already stopped the company’s shots forgoing into arms, and health authorities in Iceland followed suit this past week. Austrian authorities had previously stopped using one batch of the vaccines over concerns with the shot, as had authorities in Italy.
Meanwhile, Thailand became the first Asian country to halt the use of the company’s vaccine this past week, CNBC reported. The country’s health officials were vague when announcing the suspension.
Thai Public Health Ministry secretary Kiattiphum Wongjit called the shot a “good vaccine,” but said it would be paused because the emergence of new cases is being slowed through mitigation efforts such as quarantines.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order that will eliminate all fines issued by local government officials over the past year to people and businesses in the state who violated restrictions related to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
The order (pdf) was signed after the Board of Executive Clemency approved DeSantis’s proposal on March 10 to categorically remit all fines related to local government CCP virus restrictions.
“I hereby remit any fines imposed between March 1, 2020, and March 10, 2021, by any political subdivision of Florida related to local government COVID-19 restrictions,” DeSantis confirmed in the order, referring to the disease caused by the virus.
Fines excluded are those related to hospitals, assisted living facilities, and other health care providers. The order also does not apply to any CCP virus-related orders or enforcement taken by the state.
The governor mentioned during a press briefing on Thursday he thinks the fines issued are “out of control,” adding that he wants to make sure citizens are “protected.”
“Most of those restrictions have not been effective,” DeSantis told reporters at the briefing, WPTV reported.
“The evidence is in on that, so we just want to really go forward fresh,” he stated. “We want people to make decisions, but we don’t want it under the heavy-handed government.”
In September, the Republican governor announced in a similar executive order (pdf) suspending the collection of fines and penalties related to COVID-19 restrictions by local governments.
DeSantis, like the overwhelming majority of governors in the country, forced many businesses to close down in March 2020 and enacted restrictions on individuals. But he was among the first governors to ease rules, as state officials chose to focus on protecting the elderly and others with serious underlying illnesses while keeping statewide restrictions light for the less vulnerable population.
“Every Floridian has a right to earn a living and all businesses have a right to operate,” the governor told a crowd at CPAC. “Florida got it right and the lockdown states got it wrong.”
According to federal data, Florida has had 144 deaths involving COVID-19 per 100,000 residents since the beginning of the pandemic. That compares favorably with large states that enacted stricter measures. New York, for instance, has had 245 deaths per 100,000 residents.
“Humanitarian” open borders have launched a new migrant crisis and overwhelmed the immigration system. “Wins” on climate are draining the public school system dry in oil-dependent states. Biden’s White House is destroying America.
Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed to broaden the definition of a public charge as not just those who might rely on the government for cash handouts, but those who would depend on services like food stamps, Medicaid, and housing assistance. It also proposed to specifically define “public charge” based on various factors such as age, health, employment history, and education.
“The 2019 public charge rule was not in keeping with our nation’s values,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “It penalized those who access health benefits and other government services available to them.”
Meanwhile, the White House is searching out even more facilities to house the unmitigated influx of unaccompanied minors arriving at the southern border.
“We’re looking at additional facilities where we can safely house children,” press secretary Jen Psaki said. “We are looking at facilities; a lot of consideration is underway. And certainly, part of the reason is we’re—we want to have more kids able to transfer from CBP facilities to HHS facilities.”
Oil And Gas Moratorium Hurts Schools—But There’s No End In Sight.
Funding for public schools was one of the major pitches for Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan—but the pandemic has not stopped the president from making climate concessions that drain away education budgets in America’s heartland.
One week into his presidency, Biden announced a temporary moratorium on new oil and gas sales on federal lands and waters, which make up about a quarter of U.S. production.
On Tuesday, the administration said to expect an “interim report” by summer—but the ban has no end in sight.
While scoring points with climate activists, it’s only a matter of time before the restrictions push companies to move investments and jobs outside of the United States. Potentially tens of thousands of energy jobs hang in the balance—but there’s even more at stake.
In February, NPR reported how states like New Mexico depend on oil sales to fund various government programs:
When Stan Rounds heard about U.S. President Joe Biden’s plans to suspend new drilling on federal lands to fight climate change, he worried about the education budget.
Rounds heads a state association of school administrators. He knows that New Mexico—home to the country’s richest oil fields on federal lands—depends heavily on drilling revenues to finance its struggling public schools. And budgets have already taken a hit from falling crude prices as the coronavirus pandemic sapped global fuel demand. . . .
The U.S. federal lands drilling program yielded some $1.8 billion directly to states in 2020, supporting schools and other programs in places like Wyoming and Utah, according to data from the U.S. Interior Department.
School superintendents from Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Utah, and Alaska have written to Biden asking him to reverse the ban, calling it “imperative that we bring to light the arbitrary and inequitable move to shut down oil and gas production on federal lands in our states that depend on revenues from various taxes, royalties, disbursements, and lease payments to fund our schools, community infrastructure, and public services.”
On a visit to W.S. Jenks & Son—Washington, D.C.’s oldest hardware store and a PPP beneficiary—Biden seized an opportunity to blame President Trump for not getting sufficient PPP funds to small businesses.
“We found out that an awful lot of that [money] went to big—bigger businesses that, in fact, weren’t supposed to qualify for this. Because they—there used be a thing called an “inspector general” to see where the money went. And the last administration fired the inspector general, so a lot of money went to people who shouldn’t have gotten help, and it didn’t go to folks who—but, you know, the significance with this new program—and we’re going to continue this, by the way—it’s not only—(inaudible) only businesses with fewer than 20 folks could apply for the last couple weeks.”
Biden then looked up at a group of employees waving down from a balcony and quipped, “Don’t jump, we need you.”
To be fair, under a Biden regime, some were probably tempted.
COPENHAGEN—A 60-year-old Danish woman who died of a blood clot after receiving AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine had “highly unusual” symptoms, according to the Danish Medicines Agency.
The woman had a low number of blood platelets and clots in small and large vessels, as well as bleeding, it said.
A few similar cases were found in Norway and in the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) database of drug side effects, the Danish Medicines Agency said.
“It was an unusual course of illness around the death that made the Danish Medicines Agency react,” it said in a statement late on March 14.
Norway said on Saturday that three people, all under the age of 50, who had received the AstraZeneca vaccine were being treated in hospital for bleeding, blood clots, and a low count of blood platelets, which were labeled “unusual symptoms” by health authorities.
Denmark, Norway, and Iceland said last week they would halt the introduction of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
European vaccination programs have been upset in the last two weeks by reports that recipients of the AstraZeneca inoculation have suffered blood clots.
The EMA has said there’s no indication that the events were caused by the vaccination, a view that was echoed by the World Health Organization on Friday.
AstraZeneca Plc said on Sunday a review of safety data of people vaccinated with its COVID-19 vaccine has shown no evidence of an increased risk of blood clots.
MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell said that the social media platform he’s launching in the coming weeks will be a “safe place” for those who have been “canceled” by big tech platforms such as YouTube and Twitter.
“You won’t have to walk on eggshells anymore,” said Lindell, whose personal and MyPillow accounts were suspended by Twitter last month, noting that the release of his platform, Vocal, is scheduled within the next fortnight.
“It’s YouTube and Twitter kind of combined. There’s nothing like it out there … journalists can actually go out and invite guests on and speak the truth,” Lindell told NTD’s “Focus Talk” host Jenny Chang. “I’m really looking forward to it and it’s been four years in the making and it is absolutely amazing, there’s technology out there that nobody else has.”
Lindell’s site would compete with the likes of Parler and Gab, which have attracted conservatives and supporters of former President Donald Trump. Trump and his advisers have said he’s considering starting his own social media company.
Lindell and his MyPillow account were suspended by Twitter over his election claims. When Lindell released his video on YouTube, the Google-owned platform deleted it, citing its “presidential election integrity policy.” The video was also taken down by Vimeo.
He has also been sued by Dominion Voting Systems over his statements about the election technology vendor after the Nov. 3 presidential election. The company filed a lawsuit against Lindell on Feb. 22 in the District of Columbia.
It alleges that Lindell, a staunch supporter of Trump, harmed Dominion’s brand by raising questions about the company’s vote-counting equipment. The company is seeking damages in excess of $1.3 billion.
Mike Lindell of MyPillow speaks at a Make America Great Again rally in Rochester, Minn., on Oct. 4, 2018. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
“I think it’s great to have more than one place to speak out the truth,” said Lindell, when questioned on the possibility of a platform launched by the former president, who has also been suspended by Twitter, Facebook, and others.
“For me, my platform is made for more for the influencers out there—people that have podcasts, people that have radio, and TV stations that they can’t speak the truth or they lose their YouTube or they get threatened to being sued by Dominion or whatever it is.”
“I have so many friends of mine that lost their followers on Facebook, they lost their Twitter, they lost their YouTube channels, they maybe lost Vimeo—you lose these things and that’s their livelihood. I know a friend of mine had 12 employees, they’re all laid off right now because they took away his whole platform, and just for speaking out and his opinions and free speech,” he continued.
“I want to be able to talk about election fraud with the machines, and I want to talk about the vaccine, which I don’t believe in. I want the word to get out.”
Lindell told NTD that his company has so far lost 22 retailers. In a recent interview with Business Insider, he said that he lost about $65 million in revenue this year due to mass boycotts from various firms like Kohl’s and Bed Bath & Beyond.
“Right now my company has been attacked. Google has attacked me; they won’t let me buy my own name. My Twitter is taken down; my company Twitter’s taken down; my YouTube down; Vimeo’s down; Facebook won’t let me live stream. All these attacks,” he said.
The MyPillow CEO said that he intends to sue Dominion Voting Systems back because “this is about our First Amendment right of free speech.”
“What’s coming is communism and socialism, it came into our country, they’re suppressing free speech, and right now, it’s terrible,” Lindell warned. “Even Democrats see that’s not who they voted for. This is terrible, what is happening. It’s happening to everybody.”
President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy budget director, Shalanda Young, believes that abortion is “a matter of economic and racial justice.”
News of Young’s position on abortion was made public after her nomination was advanced out of the Senate Budget Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee down party lines last week.
What are the details?
Despite having earned general bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, 15 of the 18 Republicans who sit on both committees ultimately voted against advancing Young’s nomination.
According to the New York Post, the Republican senators who voted against Young cited her perspective toward the Hyde Amendment, the law that prohibits federal tax dollars from funding abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Young told senators that eliminating the Hyde Amendment is necessary to promote “racial justice.”
“The President has spoken in favor of Congress ending the Hyde Amendment as part of his commitment to providing comprehensive health care for all women,” she said, the Post reported.
“Further, eliminating the Hyde Amendment is a matter of economic and racial justice because it most significantly impacts Medicaid recipients, who are low-income and more likely to be women of color,” Young added.
What did lawmakers say?
Ohio Sen. Rob Portman (R) said he initially supported Young’s nomination. But that changed after he became aware of her perspective of the Hyde Amendment.
“I had planned to support Ms. Young based on her testimony before the committee,” Portman said, Roll Call reported. “In reviewing her answers to the committee’s questions for the record, though, I’ve got to say I was really troubled by her responses, particularly her strong advocacy for eliminating the Hyde amendment.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the ranking member of the Budget Committee, voted to advance Young’s nomination, but sought reassurances that she would not support regulation that “changes Hyde or chips away at it.”
Senate Homeland Security Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.), however, voiced concern over sudden opposition by Republicans, and called Young’s perspective “fact.”
“In her written responses, Ms. Young stated that ending the Hyde amendment is a matter of economic and racial justice because its impact is felt most among low-income women of color. This is simply a statement of fact,” Peters said, Roll Call reported. “But she also confirmed that she will follow current law, which includes the Hyde amendment. So I have a hard time following the objections of my Republican colleagues.”
Anything else?
Young’s position on important issues like abortion found new prominence after reports indicated that top Democrats want Biden to nominate Young as director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
Biden’s previous nominee for the job, Teera Nanden, withdrew her nomination amid bipartisan scrutiny.
CNN host Brian Stelter has analyzed the ratings losses of niche network Newsmax in the aftermath of former President Donald Trump’s exit from office, but his own team is taking the biggest viewership hit among major cable outlets.
A report this week by Variety Intelligence Platform (VIP) showed that three of CNN’s primetime shows were the biggest ratings losers between November 30-December 4, when Trump was still in office, and March 1-5. Programs hosted by Chris Cuomo, Anderson Cooper, and Don Lemon posted declines in viewership of 29%, 32%, and 33% respectively between the two periods, VIP’s data showed.
As Stelter acknowledged in his article on the post-election ratings decline at Newsmax, “news ratings rise and fall like tides.” But among mainstream media outlets, CNN is clearly falling the hardest after losing the so-called ‘Trump Bump’ in ratings. The fourth- and fifth-biggest decliners measured by VIP were both MSNBC shows – hosted by Lawrence O’Donnell and Chris Hayes – which lost 18% and 17% of their audiences, respectively. Lemon’s CNN show nearly doubled their losses with a 33% drop.
In contrast, no other primetime show lost more than 12%, and Fox’s Tucker Carlson posted a ratings decline of just 4.8%. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was second-best in minimizing losses, at 9.1%.
The final days of Trump’s presidency were perhaps the best of times for CNN. From the November 3 election through President Joe Biden’s January 20 inauguration, CNN was the most-watched cable news network, with an average of 1.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings. Fox, the long-time leader, dropped behind both CNN and MSNBC, averaging 1.5 million viewers.
But the ranks quickly changed with Trump safely removed to Florida and the public’s appetite for Orange Man Bad conspiracies waning. Fox said it returned to No. 1 in primetime in February, while CNN lost nearly half of its audience. The losses grew after Trump’s impeachment trial ended in acquittal on February 13.
When Biden gave a primetime speech on Thursday, nearly 4.1 million viewers watched it on Fox, compared with 2.9 million on MSNBC and 2.6 million on CNN.
CNN is averaging 897,000 viewers in March, which Stelter pointed out is way more than Newsmax’s 152,000. But it’s about half the audience that CNN had between Election Day and Inauguration Day. Fox is once again far ahead, at 1.32 million.
Things are rough all over for the anti-Trump media outlets that flourished over the past four years. The Intercept earlier this week posted a statement saying that its donations were down sharply since Biden’s inauguration.
“Similar trends are being reported across media and progressive politics,” the outlet said. “While Trump railed against journalists as ‘the enemy of the people,’ grassroots outrage over Trump’s corruption, racism and incompetence fueled a spike in ratings, subscriptions and fund-raising that became known in the industry as the ‘Trump Bump.’”
Left-leaning news page The Intercept releases a statement announcing that donations to them “have gone down sharply” since Pres. Trump left office
With Newsmax and other niche networks vying for conservative viewers, Stelter said Fox will continue to face pressure “to satiate the audience with opinion and outrage content, not meat and potatoes news.” CNN has apparently lost its target for “opinion and outrage,” leaving the network searching for an audience that will appreciate “meat and potatoes.”
Rob Hoogland, a resident of Surrey, British Columbia, is the brave father of a young teenage girl who has been essentially stolen from him by the medical community and by the Canadian courts.
Rob, whose daughter decided in 7th grade that she wanted to be a boy, believed that at 14-years-old, she was too young to make the decision to medically transition to a male.
The doctors, school officials, and now the Supreme Court have decided that her father does not have the authority to make that decision, and furthermore, he is to always refer to his daughter by “his” proper pronouns or he will face legal action.
The Rair Foundation explains – Hoogland noticed changes in his daughter around sixth grade when she started to act more like a tomboy. She was hanging out more and more with boys around the same age and was getting into a little trouble. Hoogland sent her to a school counselor in hopes that some of that behavior would be remedied.
According to Hoogland’s original court application (which has since been pulled from the internet), his daughter began to identify as male after having seen the pro-transgender video “Handsome and Majestic” while at school.
Hoogland’s daughter expressed to her father that she would be appearing in the yearbook for seventh grade under the name of a male, and not her own name. Hoogland was angered that the school would go along with the delusion and expressed his concerns at the time. To his shock, it was later revealed in a court affidavit that the school counselor had arranged the change be made in the yearbook and in numerous meetings with the child. It was the school that began to pressure her to transition into a male. The child’s parents were not made aware of the changes per British Columbia’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) policy. The school further accommodated the child by referring to her by this new male name and allowing the child to now use the bathroom designated for males.
“They’re not thinking ahead, they’re making decisions based on feelings, that’s what children do. They don’t make decisions based on playing the tape forward and thinking down the road. Kids aren’t thinking at that age about having families or having children,” Hoogland stated.
Hoogland’s ex-wife told him she had been looking into finding professional counseling for their daughter and that she would soon be seeing Dr. Wallace Wong who deals in gender dysphoria. It wasn’t until much later that the father found out Wong had been recommended by the school directly, and not found through the mother’s research. The daughter was to be treated for depression, but instead, Wong began pushing his cross-sex ideology onto her instead.
Dr. Wong is the author of “When Kathy is Keith.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Hoogland is set to be arrested for violating the terms of the court which prohibit him from speaking out about the ghoulish behavior of the doctors, school counselors and the justice system in Canada that has stripped him of his parental rights.
School officials say the COVID-tracking app will keep kids safe. But critics warn the technology, required in order for children to attend class, infringes on kids’ privacy and that parents should be concerned.
Los Angeles schools plan to reopen next month — and when they do, every child will be required to have a COVID-tracking app that will be scanned daily before they can enter the classroom.
The Daily Pass generates a unique QR code — each day, for each student and staff member — that authorizes entry to a specific Los Angeles Unified location. An individual must have a negative test result for COVID, show no symptoms and have a temperature under 100 degrees in order to gain entry to class.
All data gathered by the app will be reported as required to health authorities. Anonymized data from Daily Pass will be used by Los Angeles Unified’s research and healthcare collaborators — Stanford University, UCLA, The Johns Hopkins University, Anthem Blue Cross, Healthnet and Cedars Sinai — “to provide insights and strategies” to implement in safe school environments, school officials said.
“Sort of like the golden ticket in ‘Willy Wonka,’ everyone with this pass can easily get into a school building,” Superintendent Austin Beutner told the Los Angeles Times. “We’ll know the status of everyone in the building,” he said.
Mary Holland, president of Children’s Health Defense, said parents should be concerned. “If data is the new gold, then LAUSD’s new Daily Pass is providing a lot of gold to Microsoft and other institutions,” Holland said.
Holland said LAUSD is “compromising the students’ privacy and freedom of movement” and segregating children based on unreliable testing. “Parents should be asking a million questions and demanding answers,” she said.
John Whitehead, constitutional law attorney, author and founder of The Rutherford Institute, said parents should ask why entities want all of this data, what they’re doing to do with it, where it is going and whether it should be given to government agencies.
Whitehead said the COVID Daily Pass is about control, not safety. He warned:
“We are moving into a total surveillance state and an entire generation of young people are acquiescing to the police state. Privacy as we know it will be deleted and no one will be overlooked.”
The Daily Pass will not catch people who are asymptomatic carriers of COVID, but officials hope to address that issue through weekly coronavirus testing of students and staff.
The app will be available to all LAUSD employees, students 13 and older and family members on computers and mobile phones, reported the Los Angeles Times.
The district released a video about the Daily Pass to help parents and their children understand how the app works, what steps children must take to get their “entrance ticket” and to ease fears about returning to school.
“The Daily Pass sets the highest standard possible for school safety,” said LAUSD Beutner. The school district has upgraded air filters in every school, requires COVID testing for all students and staff at least every week — and now has Daily Pass.
Students will also be required to socially distance, wear masks, receive regular temperature checks and undergo additional surveillance and screening testing, according to the “COVID-19 and Reopening In-Person Instruction Framework & Public Health Guidance for K-12 Schools in California, 2020-2021 School Year.”
Whitehead said schools should be doing everything in their power to bring parents into these discussions and parents need to come together and start speaking out against measures like Daily Pass before it’s too late.
“The government can accomplish many things with a ‘compelling state interest and a pandemic is just that,” Whitehead said. “But the school needs to provide an alternative for parents who do not want their children to participate in these measures — whether it’s a virtual learning option or a separate building.”
Microsoft, creator of the COVID Daily Pass, was founded by Bill Gates. Though he stepped down from Microsoft’s board in March of last year, he remains one of the top shareholders in the company, according to The Universal Science.
In a statement released by the billionaire last March, Gates said he intended to “remain active at the company and would work closely with Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive.”
“Microsoft will always be an important part of my life’s work and I will continue to be engaged with Satya and the technical leadership to help shape the vision and achieve the company’s ambitious goals,” wrote Gates. “I feel more optimistic than ever about the progress the company is making.”
United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing the district’s teachers and school personnel, said that no staff should return to work until they are fully immunized.
Beutner said LAUSD would begin offering childcare, one-on-one and small-group instruction and services for students with special needs, and would also return to athletic conditioning beginning this week.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, warned Sunday that another lockdown may become reality if coronavirus cases spike in the United States as states begin lifting pandemic-related restrictions.
Fauci’s comments came as COVID-19 cases rise across Europe. Italian officials said they would enact a national lockdown beginning on Monday through the Easter weekend, while top German officials said Europe’s “third wave” of COVID infections is now underway, CNBC reported.
What did Fauci say?
Despite a steep decline in COVID-19 cases thanks to vaccine efficacy, Fauci said on “Fox News Sunday” there is “absolutely no time to declare victory.”
“We know from previous surges that we’ve had over the year that when you see that leveling off at a high level there’s always the risk of a surge back up,” Fauci said. “In fact, unfortunately, that’s exactly what is happening in Europe right now.”
“They had the same kind of decline. They always seem to be a few weeks ahead of us in the dynamics of the outbreak,” Fauci continued. “Then they plateaued because they pulled back a bit. They thought that they were home free and they weren’t. And now they’re seeing an increase up.”
Lifting pandemic restrictions is “ill-advised,” according to Fauci, who declared that Texas reopening at 100% and lifting its mask mandate is “risky and potentially dangerous.”
In a separate interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Fauci reiterated his belief that lifting restrictions caused the new spike in Europe.
That’s what exactly happened in Europe. They had a diminution of cases, they plateaued, and they pulled back on public health measures. You see the pictures in the paper and on TV. They have opened the restaurants. They have opened some of the bars. The younger people particularly stopped wearing masks, and then, all of a sudden, you have a surge that went right back up. And that’s where we are right now.
We can avoid that, Jake. We can avoid that if we continue to vaccinate people, get more and more protection without all of a sudden pulling back on public health measures.
What about social distancing?
Later in his interview with CNN host Jake Tapper, Fauci said that social distancing of just 3 feet — despite 6 feet being the gold standard for the past year — is now “good enough.”
Fauci’s admission came after Tapper asked about new research from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which studied social distancing in Massachusetts public schools. The study found “no substantial difference” in case frequency between school districts that mandated social distancing of 6 feet and those that permitted just 3 feet of distance.
“Does this study suggest to you that 3 feet is good enough?” Tapper asked.
