Free Republic

Los Angeles County reached a “high” level of COVID-19 infections on Thursday, according to public health officials, meaning a mask mandate could be imposed in two weeks as the highly transmissible Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 make waves across the country. The health department bases its decision on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s three-tier criteria of community high, medium or low levels of COVID-19 rates. L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer expressed concern to reporters Thursday about the new infections, saying “we have a ton of transmission right now,” and stressed her position on masking up.

Center for Disease Control reported Thursday that Tulsa County is at a high-risk level for COVID-19 transmission. Tulsa currently has 236.05 cases per 100,000 people, according to the CDC. Until the next booster vaccine is developed, Dr. Holden recommends wearing an N95 or KN95 mask when traveling and in areas with heavy foot traffic. BA.5 lingers in the air longer, he said, so places where many people constantly come and go are potential hotspots. Not only did Dr. Holden reiterate that masks work, but he stressed that COVID vaccines are both safe and effective. It may seem like they were...

We're not out of the woods just yet. The start of the school year in the ArkLaTex is still a few weeks away, and who knows what will happen. If infection and hospitalization rates continue to climb at the rate they are now, school officials could very well put all-too-familiar policies in place to mitigate the spread of the virus.

When Will the Indoor Mask Mandate Return? A mandatory indoor mask mandate will be imposed if the county remains in the "high" category for two consecutive weeks -- which, under the current pace, means the mandate will take effect by July 29. "I do recognize that when we return to universal indoor masking to reduce high spread, for many, this will feel like a step backwards,'' Ferrer said. But she said universal masking "makes a lot of sense because it helps us to reduce risk.''

Anthony Fauci said that Americans should still wear masks in an indoor setting. Fauci's comments came while discussing the BA.5 variant, calling it something that we "absolutely need to take seriously." "The CDC makes it very clear, depending upon the density of infection, the dynamics of infection, in the place where you live," Fauci said on CNN. "And you see, if you look at the map, where just a couple months of ago, it was a lot of green and some yellow, now we're seeing a fair amount of orange, which means you really should, in an indoor setting, a...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nick Barragan is used to wearing a mask because his job in the Hollywood film industry has long required it. So he won't be fazed if the county that's home to Tinseltown soon becomes the first major population center this summer to reinstate rules requiring face coverings indoors because of another spike in coronavirus cases. “I feel fine about it because I’ve worn one pretty much constantly for the last few years. It’s become a habit,” said Barragan, masked up while out running errands Wednesday. Los Angeles is the most populous county, home to 10 million...

Many of those who opposed lockdowns for the pandemic, predicted that the policy — if normalised — could one day be taken advantage of by opportunistic political forces to deal with almost any crisis. It was, as Lord Sumption once suggested, a potential pathway to authoritarianism. “If we confer despotic powers on government to deal with perils, which are an ordinary feature of human existence, we will end up doing it most or all of the time,” he wrote in November 2021.Well, we are now facing just such a crisis. And there is a not insignificant chance that lockdowns might...

Now It’s the “Ninja” Variant of Covid They Want You to Be Scared Of: WILL IT EVER END? It almost reads like satire, but the corporate-controlled media claims that a brand new variant of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), which they are hilariously calling “ninja,” is on the move – and it is the most dangerous one yet, we are told. BA.5, as they are also calling it, is said to be a “subvariant” of the “Omicron” variant, which is an anagram for the Moronic variant. Yes, they really expect people to believe that a Moronic Ninja will kill us all...

White House pandemic advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has returned to public duties following his own bout with COVID-19, and is warning that the country could face a new viral surge due to 'waning immunity.' On Tuesday, two weeks after his last public appearance in late June, Fauci appeared on MSNBC and joined a White House press briefing by videoconference to warn about the spread of the BA.5 variant, a subvariant of the Omicron strain. He called on Americans to get vaccine booster shots, and said health officials are now 'recommending' people return to wearing masks in indoor group settings. Fauci,...

While fears may be growing that another COVID-19 surge will be upon us in the coming months, there is some indication that the future is now.There’s a reason data show that, while the positivity rate of COVID tests has spiked to five-month highs, and hospitalizations have steadily climbed to four-month highs, new daily COVID cases have held steady for the past couple of months.The new cases are being undercounted because results of widely available at-home tests aren’t being reported for government tabulation. The Fourth of July holiday has also caused reporting delays. And many states have stopped providing daily updates,...

The White House is refusing to share details about its coordinated efforts to engage in a federal takeover of election administration.President Biden really does not want the public to know about his federal takeover of election administration. Dozens of members of Congress have repeatedly asked for details, to no avail. Good government groups, members of the media, and private citizens have filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Not a single one has been responded to. All signs indicate a concerted effort to keep the public in the dark until at least after the November midterm elections. The lack...

The Democrats are going to cheat again in the mid-term elections. We know this because they are beginning to brag about winning despite having the worst record in history. This weekend the Associated Press reported the following: Democrats are going to hold onto the House after November’s midterm elections. They will pick up as many as four seats in the Senate, expanding their majority and overcoming internal dissent that has helped stifle their agenda. As the challenges confronting President Joe Biden intensify, his predictions of a rosy political future for the Democratic Party are growing bolder. The assessments, delivered in...

Cruise stocks were tumbling to their lowest point since 2020 on Thursday as fears intensified over rising inflation and a potential recession. Fueling the selloff were concerns that consumers will be curbing discretionary spending in response to rising prices and economic uncertainty. There’s also an uptick in Covid-19 cases that may be increasing consumer reluctance to hop on a cruise. The seven-day moving average for known Covid-19 cases has hovered around 100,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and likely is higher amid an increased reliance on at-home testing kits that don’t get reported to public officials....

The Irish state is planning on reimplementing harsh COVID-style lockdown rules should the Ukraine crisis cause a major fuel shortage. The Europhile government of Ireland is planning a return to draconian COVID-style lockdowns should a fuel shortage arise out of the ongoing Ukraine crisis, a leak revealed to the public on Monday has claimed.

The White House COVID-19 coordinator issued a dire warning Thursday about the nation’s ability to battle a potential pandemic surge this fall if Congress fails to provide billions more dollars to brace for the next wave. Speaking at the White House briefing, Dr. Ashish Jha said the government purchased a large amount of both vaccines and therapeutics that will get the country through the summer, even with rising case numbers. But he warned, those tools will begin to run out by the fall and winter, a time when some models show there could be “a sizeable wave of infections.” “That’s...

In its evolutionary fight for survival, the COVID virus is switching strategies: It’s becoming a master at slipping past our immune systems. And that, say experts, is largely why we’re dealing with an unexpected surge. Powered by two mutations, new lineages of the omicron variant — called BA.2 and its more recent descendants BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 — are increasing rates of vaccine breakthrough and reinfection, according to an analysis published Saturday by Trevor Bedford, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who studies the evolution of viruses.

As the US marks Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial start of summer, the seven-day average for COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are more than six times what they were a year ago. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center showed a seven-day average of 119,725 cases as of Saturday. That figure held at 17,887 cases on May 28 of last year. Despite the rising infection rate, COVID-related deaths were down from last year, a sign of increased immunity through vaccines and prior infections, along with wider availability of treatments.

CHICAGO (CBS) -- With the holiday weekend upon us along with a surge in COVID-19 cases, we're all asking the same questions: Should we gather? and if we do, should it be outside? and what about masks? CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot talks to an expert to get some answers. "Now we've moved into the high risk and high risk means we have more people hospitalized related to COVID infection."

It’s an oldie but a goodie: the Biden Regime is telling us to brace ourselves for a new wave of COVID coming this fall… just in time for the midterm elections. When something proves successful, you’d be a fool not to try it again, right? COVID fears led to mail-in balloting… which in turn allowed Biden to be “elected” president of the United States. Therefore, Democrats and their sycophants believe that reintroducing those fears can keep Congressional Democrats in power -- against all odds. Perhaps lightning can strike twice. (Mules on your marks… get set… go!) Without offering up any...

Washington (CNN)The Biden administration is issuing a new warning that the US could potentially see 100 million Covid-19 infections this fall and winter, as officials publicly stress the need for more funding from Congress to prepare the nation. The projection of 100 million potential infections is an estimate based on a range of outside models that are being closely tracked by the administration and would include both the fall and winter, a senior administration official told CNN. Officials say this estimate is based on an underlying assumption of no additional resources or extra mitigation measures being taken, including new Covid-19...