Free Republic

Maskaholics Wearing a mask may still give some people a sense of security, but they could breathe more easily if they’d face the facts.The pandemic has eased, but not the compulsion of many Americans to cover their faces. Fully vaccinated adults are still wearing masks on their solitary walks outdoors, and officials have been enforcing mask mandates on airline passengers and on some city-dwellers and students. (Though today’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, declaring the Biden administration’s mask mandate for public transportation unlawful, comes as welcome news.) Maskaholics in the press are calling for...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The fast-spreading Omicron variant stoked U.S. interest in better masks for children to ward off COVID-19, and that is adding fuel to an effort that could set the stage for domestic oversight of their quality. While many U.S. states and schools have since stopped requiring mask-wearing for COVID, disease experts say children will still need high-quality masks for everything from current and future pandemics to seasonal flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) that can cause serious illness and death. "Every year there are opportunities for masks to make a difference - whether it's in the classroom...

There are 716 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19, up from 452 on July 16, officials said. The county also reported four new deaths, bringing the total to 24,628 fatalities since the pandemic began early last year. On Saturday, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer warned that the Delta variant was "one of the most aggressive and infectious respiratory diseases known and currently makes up over 80% of sequenced cases in L.A. County." Although cases remain at a lower point than they have been during any of the previous surges, the rate of increase between July 3 and 16 was...

Dr. Anthony Fauci said there seem to be "two kinds of America" as some people remain skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines even in the face of the more severe delta variant. [cut] To help those individuals, Fauci has suggested that even vaccinated people may need to consider wearing face masks in public indoor spaces. "The CDC agrees with that ability and discretion capability to say, you know, you're in a situation where we're having a lot of dynamics of infection," Fauci explained. "So even if you are vaccinated, you should wear a mask."

Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, said on Sunday top US health officials were discussing whether to revise mask guidance for Americans vaccinated against Covid-19. “This is under active consideration,” Fauci told CNN’s State of the Union, though he also emphasized that local governments can issue their own rules under current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that the return of local mask mandates due to the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19 is “quite understandable,” but stopped short of saying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s should reverse current guidance regarding mask-wearing for vaccinated people. “The general CDC guidelines still hold, that you do not need to wear a mask indoors if, in fact, you’ve been vaccinated,” the White House chief medical adviser told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. “But what’s very clear is that at the local level, in the trenches as it were,” Fauci went on, “you’re seeing...

Austin-Travis County's top health authority on Friday requested that residents return to wearing masks as the area moved back into Stage 4 coronavirus guidelines, a sign of worsening pandemic conditions in Central Texas due to the presence of a highly contagious variant known as delta. Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County's health authority, announced the stricter recommendations after the weekly average of daily hospital admissions reached 35 Thursday night, the highest it had been since late February. "In just five months, we have evidenced four new variants of this virus," Walkes, who was joined by five other local doctors during a...

President Joe Biden is claiming, on his official Twitter page, that the Delta variant of Wuhan coronavirus is "deadlier" than other variants seen during the pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci, who Biden administration officials continue to defend, is claiming the Delta variant "spreads more efficiently" and that unvaccinated individuals are most at risk for serious illness or death. "I'm here to talk to you today about the Delta variant that causes COVID-19," Fauci said. "The comparison is it is transmitted much more efficiently, which means the chances of getting infected upon exposure is greater than the dominant variant that we have...

(Reuters) - Fully vaccinated people can safely engage in outdoor activities like walking and hiking without wearing masks but should continue to use face-coverings in public spaces where they are required, U.S. health regulators said on Tuesday. The updated health advice comes as more than half of all adults in the United States have now received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "The release of these new guidelines is a first step at helping fully vaccinated Americans resume activities they had stopped doing because of the pandemic, while...

A New York City judge has removed a 6-year-old girl from her mother because she did not wear a mask while dropping her off outside of the school. In a shocking and egregious move, the court also told Dr. Epstein that in order to get short supervised visits with her child — she will have to wear a mask inside her own home. It was a normal day for Dr. Micheline Epstein, a family physician, when she went to drop her daughter off at the Birch Wathen Lenox School on the Upper East Side last week — until her entire...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) latest order, requiring individuals to wear masks when using public transportation or residing in transportation hubs, will be “further enforced by other federal authorities,” the agency announced in its order, which went into effect this week. Under the order, individuals are required to wear masks while using public transportation, which includes “awaiting, boarding, disembarking, or traveling on airplanes, ships, ferries, trains, subways, buses, taxis, and ride-shares as they are traveling into, within, or out of the United States and U.S. territories,” per the CDC.

Statewide mask mandate could mean immediate fines for violators HONOLULU (KHON2) — As the state moves toward passing a statewide mask mandate, there’s also a push to change the law so that violators are issued a fine on the spot rather than having to appear in court. State Attorney General Clare Connors says that it would be easier to enforce the mask mandate if law enforcers can issue a fine to violators right away, similar to a parking violation. But that means the state legislature has to change the law, either through a special session or next year’s legislative session....

German Medical Association president Klaus Reinhardt has been forced to clarify his position on mask-wearing after his claim that there was no “scientific evidence they are actually helpful” sparked an outcry from politicians and doctors. Reinhardt told a TV talk show on public broadcaster ZDF that he had doubts wearing simple non-medical masks outdoors was effective against the coronavirus. Such face coverings, he said, offered “no protection at all” to those wearing them, and only “very little protection against infecting others.” A sharp rise in coronavirus cases across Germany in recent weeks has led to stricter rules in many cities,...

A local family says their disabled son was unfairly turned away from the ABQ BioPark Zoo for not wearing a mask despite having a doctor’s note. The Peterson family decided to go to the zoo for a family outing on Sept 19. They were all wearing masks at the time, except for 14-year-old Nicholas who is severely disabled. “We just feel like he was definitely mistreated,” said his father, Robert Peterson. “He was refused because he was not wearing a mask…. By the time my wife got him back to the car he was in tears and just upset. He’s...

The World Health Organization is recommending healthy people, including those who don’t exhibit COVID-19 symptoms, only wear masks when taking care of someone infected with the contagion, a sharp contrast from the advice given by American public health officials who recommend everyone wear a mask in public. “If you do not have any repository symptoms such as fever, cough or runny nose, you do not need to wear a mask,” Dr. April Baller, a public health specialist for the WHO, says in a video on the world health body’s website. “Masks should only be used by health care workers, caretakers...

...There is still much that we don’t know. But what we do know is that we were wrong. Our CDC guidelines were wrong and continue to be wrong. Our models were unbelievably wrong, and they are only getting worse. Our politicians were wrong. Our Twitter and Facebook feeds were wrong. And that’s why we need masks. We are not willing to admit that we were wrong. We are not prepared to accept that we were powerless and that we continue to be powerless. We are not about to crawl out from under the house simply because somebody tells us that...

...“The city of Los Angeles now requires all citizens to wear masks even when they go outside,” Carlson noted during a quick segment of Thursday night’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”...“If you must rewear your cloth face mask before washing, wash your hands immediately after putting it back on and avoid touching your face,” the article read. “Think about that,” Carlson said. “What are they telling you? They are telling you that your face mask is so dangerous, you must wash her hands thoroughly after touching it. It’s like a bio weapon. But then you are required to put that same terrifyingly...