Coronavirus

Yahoo News reports: A Florida official admitted Thursday that as many as 1 million COVID-19 test kits expired in a state warehouse over the last few days of December while coronavirus cases were skyrocketing and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said nothing about the health crisis. Kevin Guthrie, director of the state Division of Emergency Management, made the startling revelation about …

iHeart Radio Canada reports: Some of the passengers of the now-infamous Sunwing “party plane” on Dec. 30 will be coming home to unhappy employers or worse, with at least two already fired. Frédérique Dumas-Joyal is one of them, losing her job of several years at Quebec’s financial markets authority, the AMF. “She was fired,” Sylvain Théberge, an AMF spokesperson, said …

The Montreal Gazette reports: Requests for appointments to receive a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine spiked just hours after the Quebec government announced the vaccine passport would be required to access provincial liquor stores and cannabis outlets. Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé pointed out the increase on his Twitter account Friday morning. Dubé wrote that while the daily average …

The New York Times reports: Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia said he would ask the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for authorization to begin offering fourth doses of a coronavirus vaccine to residents. At a news conference, Mr. Justice, a Republican, said he wanted to start offering fourth doses to people 50 and older, as well as to …

The Washington Post reports: Conservative Supreme Court justices on Friday appeared skeptical that the Biden administration has legal authority to impose a broad vaccination-or-testing requirement on large employers. They seemed more in agreement with private businesses and Republican-led states that such policies need to be approved by Congress or implemented by state governments than a federal agency — in this …

The Oregonian reports: An Oregon man who created several hundred employees out of thin air and then fraudulently obtained $3.4 million in COVID-19 relief funds has been sentenced to four years in prison. Andrew Aaron Lloyd invested his ill-gotten gains and won big — eventually purchasing more than 15,000 shares of Tesla stock and 25 rental properties in Oregon and …

The Associated Press reports: The Supreme Court is taking up two major Biden administration efforts to bump up the nation’s vaccination rate against COVID-19 at a time of spiking coronavirus cases because of the omicron variant. The justices on the conservative-oriented court are hearing arguments Friday about whether to allow the administration to enforce a vaccine-or-testing requirement that applies to …

The New York Daily News reports: A group of Canadian social media influencers and reality TV stars are now stranded in Mexico, after at least three airlines refused to fly them home over a maskless on-air party. The group flew from Quebec to Cancun aboard a Sunwing charter flight on Dec. 30. Footage of the wild ride showed many of …

The BBC reports: Boris Johnson has accused anti-vaccine campaigners of speaking “mumbo jumbo” when it comes to coronavirus jabs. The prime minister said those spreading false information on social media were “totally wrong” and it was time for him “to call them out”. Some European countries are making vaccination mandatory, but Mr Johnson stressed it was important for the UK …

Australia’s Seven News reports: Rafael Nadal has urged Novak Djokovic to accept the consequences if he continues to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine, saying “the world has been suffering enough to not follow the rules”. “I think if he wanted, he would be playing here in Australia without a problem. He went through another – he made his own decisions, and …

First, a reminder from ten days ago: A podcaster who opposed the COVID-19 vaccine contracted the disease and was on a ventilator Saturday after he attended the right-wing “ReAwaken America” event in Dallas early this month, according to conspiracy theorist attorney Lin Wood. Podcast network Frog News said on the social media site Telegram that Doug Kuzma’s last communication with …

The Washington Post reports: The U.S. Postal Service has asked federal labor officials for a temporary waiver from President Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandate, setting up a showdown on pandemic safety measures between the president and one of the government’s largest agencies. In a letter dated Jan. 4 to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Deputy Postmaster General Douglas A. Tulino …

Los Angeles’s ABC News affiliate reports: California’s indoor mask mandate has been extended one month, through at least Feb. 15, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly announced in a briefing Wednesday. The mandate went into effect on Dec. 15, 2021, and was set to expire Jan. 15, 2022. It requires that masks be worn in all indoor public …

CBS Sports reports: Novak Djokovic has reportedly been denied entry into Australia ahead of the Australian Open. This comes after the tennis star was granted a medical exemption from tournament organizers to compete in the event, even though he is not vaccinated against COVID-19. All players and staff at the tournament must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or have an exemption …

Reuters reports: The government on Wednesday defended President Emmanuel Macron’s use of a coarse insult in a stepped-up campaign against France’s unvaccinated, after the phrase drew condemnation from the opposition and mixed reactions from voters. Parliament suspended debate on a COVID-19 bill as opposition lawmakers demanded explanations from Macron, who earlier said he wanted to “piss off” unvaccinated people by …

The Chicago Sun-Times reports: Chicago Public Schools classes are canceled Wednesday as the Chicago Teachers Union voted to refuse in-person work, defying district plans because of post-holidays COVID-19 concerns. The cancellation came despite a last-minute proposal from city leaders that introduced improved testing and safety measures but wasn’t enough to avoid upending in-person schooling for about 290,000 students at non-charter …

CBS News reports: President Biden announced on Tuesday that he’s directing his team to double the United States’ order of Pfizer antiviral pills from 10 million COVID-19 treatment courses to 20 million treatment courses, and the delivery will be accelerated from September to June. “We may need even more. That’s the estimate we need right now,” Mr. Biden said, noting …

From the Justice Department: A Georgia woman was sentenced today to 41 months in prison for her scheme to fraudulently obtain more than $7.9 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. According to court documents, Hunter VanPelt, aka Ellen Corkrum, 49, of Roswell, …

The Washington Post reports: Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Tuesday declared a 30-day state of emergency that mobilizes the National Guard to assist state and local health officers at coronavirus testing and vaccination sites and authorizes the state Department of Health to take steps to increase staffing at overwhelmed hospitals. Hogan predicted that Maryland will see its “most challenging” phase …

The Associated Press reports: A federal judge in Texas has granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Navy from acting against 35 sailors for refusing on religious grounds to comply with an order to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The injunction is a new challenge to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to make vaccinations mandatory for all members of the military. The …