Covidiots

Reuters reports: Canadian cities, including the financial hub Toronto, faced disruptions on Saturday as protests against vaccine mandates spread from the capital of Ottawa, raising fears of clashes with counter protesters. The so-called “Freedom Convoy” began as a movement against a vaccine requirement for cross-border truckers, but has turned into a rallying point against public health measures and Prime Minister …

Perugia Today reports: Franco Trinca, the 69-year-old biologist who had expressed his no-vax and home therapies against COVID, died in the hospital in Città di Castello. The Perugian biologist and nutritionist had been hospitalized for COVID with bilateral pneumonia. Trinca refused intubation. Trinca had been the protagonist of heated TV clashes with Selvaggia Lucarelli, speaking in favor of alternative therapies. …

Reuters reports: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on Saturday it was fraud for GoFundMe to “commandeer” $9 million in donations sent to the Freedom Convoy in support of the truckdrivers and said he would work with his state’s attorney general, Ashley Moody, to investigate. “(T)hese donors should be given a refund.” But hours before DeSantis posted his statement on Twitter, …

The New York Times reports: Missouri’s top health official, a Republican who opposes mask and vaccine mandates but spoke approvingly of the Covid vaccine, was supposed to have been confirmed by State Senate by Friday. Instead, conservative state legislators stonewalled the process earlier this week and Donald Kauerauf resigned on Tuesday, becoming the latest public health leader to be forced …

Reuters reports: Delta Air Lines wants the U.S. government to place passengers convicted of on-board disruptions on a national “no-fly” list that would bar them from future travel on any commercial airline, according to a letter seen by Reuters. Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian, in a previously unreported letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, said the action “will help …

The Guardian reports: The podcast host Joe Rogan has offered “sincere and humble apologies” after footage emerged of him repeatedly using the N-word on his hit show. The comedian said it was the “most regretful and shameful thing” he has ever had to speak about, but stressed the clips were “taken out of context”. “There’s a video that’s out, that’s …

The CBC reports: The crowdfunding platform GoFundMe says it will stop payments to the organizers of Freedom Convoy 2022 because the protest violates its rules on violence and harassment . The company announced its decision in a blog post Friday evening, just two days after it froze disbursements of the fund. “GoFundMe supports peaceful protests and we believe that was …

France 24 reports: Love in the time of Covid is a complicated affair. In France, dating got trickier this week after a “vaccine pass” came into force on Monday. The new pass requires people aged 16 and above to show proof of vaccination (that is, three doses) to enter public places such as bars, restaurants and cinemas. When it comes …

Agence France-Presse reports: Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro tweeted his support for embattled American podcast host Joe Rogan, whose spreading of disinformation about Covid-19 has caused a firestorm of controversy on streaming service Spotify. The leader known as the “Tropical Trump,” who has himself been accused of spreading disinformation on the pandemic, waded into the Rogan row with a rare …

The Daily Beast reports: Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner on Thursday teed up a segment on the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” by seemingly criticizing the notion that such anti-vaccine activists are “fringe,” instead claiming their beliefs have gone “mainstream.” Moments later, the program rolled footage of such demonstrators waving flags and signs boosting the crazed far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which centers …

MSNBC reports: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handpicked state surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, is currently doing the job, but he still needs to be formally confirmed by the Republican-led state Senate. To that end, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement did a routine background investigation. It apparently didn’t go especially well. The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reports that Ladapo’s former supervisor …

Courthouse News reports: Federal prosecutors have reached a plea deal with a homeopathic doctor accused of peddling unapproved Covid-19 “immunization pellets” and selling phony vaccination cards she falsely claimed would satisfy immunization requirements for California schools. Juli Mazi appeared by video link before U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler on Thursday where she entered an initial plea of not guilty. Assistant …

The CBC reports: RCMP say a second blockade on a highway leading to the main United States border crossing in Alberta has choked off traffic. “Protesters have stopped traffic from going southbound on Highway 4,” RCMP Cpl. Curtis Peters said Thursday. “There’s a crowd there. We are advising the public to avoid the area again.” The new blockade is about …

The Associated Press reports: Italy’s Catholic military chaplain has pushed back strongly against calls by a former Vatican ambassador for the armed forces to resist COVID-19 vaccine mandates, saying the ambassador’s “conspiracy theories” were a source of confusion and disinformation. Archbishop Santo Marcianò penned a letter to Italian law enforcement personnel in response to the latest missive from Archbishop Carlo …

The Daily Beast reports: An Italian priest who shunned COVID-19 vaccines over the false belief that they contain “aborted embryos” has died at the age of 51 after battling coronavirus for several weeks. Don Paolo Romeo had resisted pleas to get vaccinated from friends and colleagues who tried to talk sense into him, according to the L’Unione Sarda newspaper. Romeo, …

The New York Post reports: His biggest haul came from the anti-vax organization Children’s Health Defense, which paid him $345,561 as chairman in 2020. But those figures could be dwarfed from the massive earnings of “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” in which Kennedy slams the infectious disease expert …

Media Matters has the transcript: Road rage — look, everybody’s on edge. I’m afraid in the supermarket anymore. You never know who’s going to flip their lid, take that carriage, and beat you over the head. But you look at this, and you realize that people are — they’ve lost it. More people have guns now, okay, people are buying …

First, a reminder about this guy: A group of Ontario doctors accused of dispensing vaccine exemptions like candy to the anti-vax crowd are fighting for their “right” not to co-operate with an investigation by their regulatory body. But one of the lawyers usually by their side was conspicuously absent in Superior Court Friday. Constitutional lawyer Rocco Galati, who represents Dr. …

The Washingtonian reports: The DC health department officially shut down H Street bar and burger joint the Big Board Tuesday night, days after its liquor license was suspended for repeated violations of DC’s indoor mask and vaccine mandates. Stripped of its ability to sell alcohol, the business had continued operating with only food. Four Republican members of Congress—Rand Paul, Thomas …

Nashville Scene reports: HatWRKS, the Nashville headwear distributor previously famous mostly for various MAGA-adjacent messaging on the side of its Eighth Avenue store, found itself in a bit of a pickle last year. Its owner, Gigi Gaskins, posted a picture of a woman wearing a yellow Star of David, similar to the ones the Nazis made Jewish people wear, with …