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Dr. Anthony Fauci has repeatedly warned this week that Americans should not get too comfortable in living in a restriction-less world, asserting yet again that people must be aware that they “may have to reverse” their move to pre-pandemic normality.

TWEET FROM THE PRESIDENCY OF SOUTH AFRICA Presidency | South Africa 🇿🇦@PresidencyZA· Jan 31, 2022 Replying to @PresidencyZABased on the trajectory of the pandemic and the levels of vaccination in the country, Cabinet has decided to make the following changes to Adjusted Alert Level 1 with immediate effect: • Those who test positive with no symptoms do not have to isolate. · If you test positive with symptoms, the isolation period has been reduced from 10 to 7 days.· Contacts do not have to isolate unless they develop symptoms.— Presidency | South Africa 🇿🇦 (@PresidencyZA) January 31, 2022 South...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reportedly planning to do away with all COVID-19 laws in the United Kingdom as case numbers drop and the country learns to treat the virus like a seasonal flu. The government is considering ending all legally enforced policies in England and is instead moving to a guidance-based system, a source told the Daily Mail. Laws that have existed since the beginning of the pandemic, including enforced self-isolation after an infection, could come to a halt, the source said. Emergency COVID-19 laws put into effect at the beginning of the pandemic are already scheduled to...

ROME — Humanity needs a global reset because the unjust, pre-pandemic world is not worth going back to, Pope Francis asserted Monday. In a message to the Paris Forum on Peace, the pope painted a dire picture of a pre-coronavirus world dominated by corruption, war, and capitalistic oppression. The reality we knew before the pandemic was that wealth and economic growth were reserved for a minority while millions of people were unable to meet the most basic needs and lead a dignified life,” Francis said, “a world in which our Earth was plundered by a myopic exploitation of resources, by...

AOC's calling a robot police dog racist greatly amused me. NYPD dispatched the dog to patrol high-crime areas, which happen to be black and Hispanic. Hey, if you don't want robot police dogs in your neighborhood, stop crime. Today I was amused by the New York Times article, "Who Is Making Sure the A.I. Machines Aren’t Racist?" The problem, according to the Times, is too many white men are involved in the development of artificial intelligence machines. The assumptions are 1. that the white men are biased and 2. they will transfer their biases onto the robots they create. I...

The nation’s top infectious disease doctor offered a timeline for ending the COVID-19 pandemic this week, saying that if the coming vaccination campaign goes well, we could approach herd immunity by summer’s end and “normality that is close to where we were before” by the end of 2021. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Wednesday that that estimate is dependent on significant numbers of Americans being willing to be inoculated with one of several vaccines in various stages of development. If 75 percent to 80 percent of Americans are vaccinated in broad-based...

<p>In a Thursday interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais, Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, said that the novel coronavirus may never go away.</p><p>Lipkin said that it is likely future generations will be vaccinated against COVID-19, but noted that additional booster doses may be necessary. The expert described the progress in vaccine development as “staggering,” suggesting that vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer will be able to significantly reduce the spread of the virus.</p>

Recent shootings serve to highlight how we live in times that are violent and lonely. Young shooters are breaking the precarious rhythms of our daily lives with tragedy. We know little about them. However, one thing they all have in common is loneliness. The Loner as Ideal Revolutionary In times past, subversives would seek strength in organization and numbers. They would conspire with others to carry out their nefarious deeds. Intelligence services could trace links and patterns to uncover vast conspiracies. The loner finds his strength in loneliness. He does not need or seek others. There is no organization or...

From now on, I'm no longer going to call myself a conservative. I am a proud "Normal"! Words have power and we've allowed the left to define terms of the debate for too long. By calling myself a "Normal", I'm declaring that the left, the sexual anarchists, the communists and all their ilk are "not normals". The right lost the marriage debate when we allowed the left to frame the argument in terms of "marriage equality." Time to change the debate.

Today’s politics has no place for legitimate authority based on higher standards, so power must base itself on Choice, otherwise known as the Triumph of the WillVery recently the view that homosexuality is entirely normal has become not only widespread but compulsory in secular public discussion. Leaders of thought tell us the change has been part of a general deepening of moral insight and improvement in the art of living. The older outlook oppressed millions out of fear, bigotry, and ignorance. We have learned better now, except for a few haters and dimbulbs who need to be re-educated or else...

The image of the Middle East in general and the Palestinian territories in particular is one of squalor and bloodshed. There has been plenty of the latter throughout the years, but anyone who visits the Palestinian areas knows how far from the truth is the commonly held assumption that the West Bank and Gaza in particular are awful places where the inhabitants are barely hanging on for dear life. There are plenty of poor Palestinians – and more than a few living in poverty across the border in Israel, too. But many of the towns and cities on the West...

Hong Kong unmasks in slow return to normality By Andrew Gumbel 25 April 2003 Hong Kong is still the city worst affected by the outbreak of SARS, but the past few days have seen the first tentative signs of life returning back to normal. The number of probable cases reported by local hospitals peaked about a week ago and has fallen steadily since. Most of Hong Kong's secondary schools reopened this week after a three-week hiatus. Residents who fled the city in panic at the beginning of the outbreak are beginning to trickle back home. Taxi-drivers and bus riders are...