Free Republic

Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on Friday vetoed a bill to limit the power of state health officials to mandate measures for contagious diseases, including face masks and vaccine passports. Kelly said the bill went beyond COVID-19 and would considerably limit government response to any infectious disease outbreak. Senate Bill 34, brought by the Republican-controlled Legislature, sought to curb the power of government agencies as well as state and local health officials in response to COVID-19 mandates imposed during the pandemic. Amendments to the Kansas Emergency Management Act would prohibit the mandating of protective mask requirements (pdf), except for hospitals...

We're starting to get nurses applying because of these hospitals mandating the vaccine," one employer who does not require the vaccine told Alpha News. While many health care facilities are firing their unvaccinated employees amid a nationwide staffing shortage, some Minnesota companies are taking the opposite approach. President Joe Biden announced earlier this month that all employers with over 100 employees will be required to institute a company-wide vaccine mandate or face massive recurring fines. Meanwhile, hospitals around the nation are facing nursing shortages that frontline workers say will only be made worse by the Biden mandate as unvaccinated nurses...

The problem has been going on for six years, Dr. Gary Davidson says.. An emergency room physician from Alberta has claimed that the hospital capacity crisis in his province was “created,” is nothing new, and is not from COVID-19 patients. “We have a crisis, and we have a crisis because we have no staff, because our staff quit, because they’re burned out, they’re not burnt out from COVID,” said Dr. Gary Davidson who works as an emergency doctor in Red Deer. “So, it has nothing to do with COVID, it’s been going on for six years, and it was created.”...

Two active-duty staff sergeants of US Armed Forces—one Army, one Marine—filed a class-action lawsuit on August 17 against the leaders of the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for being forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine despite having had and recovered from COVID and acquiring natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2. The lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Staff Sergeant Daniel Robert, US Army, and Staff Sergeant Holli Mulvihill, USMC, maintain US Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin “ignored the DOD’s own regulations and created an entirely new definition of ‘full...

Ever since the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for two new vaccines, employers, schools, and other organizations are grappling with whether to require Covid-19 vaccination.While organizations are certainly free to encourage their employees, students, and other members to be vaccinated, federal law provides that, at least until the vaccine is licensed, individuals must have the option to accept or decline to be vaccinated.Knowing what an organization can or cannot do with respect to Covid-19 vaccines can help them keep their employees, students, and members safe and also save the them from costly and time-consuming litigation.Much remains unknown...

Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware was seen joining a Senate hearing from a train while not wearing a mask despite President Biden’s executive order mandating masks be worn on public transportation. “Senator Carper is zooming on a train during a hearing,” CSPAN’s Jeremy Art tweeted Wednesday of a Senate hearing on drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. If I'm jumping around, it's because the train is jumping around. I'm not jittery,” Carper, a Democrat, said, adding that it was the first time joining a hearing in such a setting. Some social media users pointed out that Biden signed an executive order...

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said Tuesday he doesn’t see the U.S. mandating a COVID-19 vaccine. “I don't think you'll ever see a mandating of vaccine particularly for the general public,” Fauci said during a livestreamed interview with Healthline. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted that some workplaces, particularly those in health care fields, might prevent employees from coming to work or interacting with patients if they haven’t been vaccinated for the flu.

Parents, not mandatory government tests, are the best way to ensure that home-schooled children get a good education. That's what Montana LP State Chair Mike Fellows told the State Senate's Education and Cultural Resources Committee in testimony in Helena on February 10. The bill Fellows spoke against -- SB 276 -- was filed by State Senator Don Ryan (District 22/Great Falls). It would have required standardized tests for all home-schooled children. Ryan said the bill was inspired by President George W. Bush's "Leave No Child Behind" legislation, which will require standardized tests for most public school students. Currently, Montana parents...