Nation

Fauci: Federal government won’t mandate vaccine passports

Published

2 years ago

April 5, 2021

Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a Politico Dispatch podcast interview published Monday, said that the federal government will not require the use of vaccine passports for travel or business.

“I doubt that the federal government will be the main mover of a vaccine passport concept,” Fauci, the nation’s foremost infectious disease expert,

“They may be involved in making sure things are done fairly and equitably, but I doubt if the federal government is going to be the leading element of that.”

This echoes what the White House said last week that vaccine passports will be driven by the private sector.

Fauci’s comments also come as many Republicans express outrage at the concept. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday went as far as to ban them from being mandated via executive order.

During the interview, Fauci also said he believes “individual entities,” including theaters and colleges, will be the ones to decide on passports.

“I’m not saying that they should or that they would, but I’m saying you could foresee how an independent entity might say, ‘Well, we can’t be dealing with you unless we know you’re vaccinated,’ but it’s not going to be mandated from the federal government,” he said.

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @DouglasPBraff.

education

Parents, advocates call on leaders to step down after ZERO children pass math at 13 Baltimore state schools

Published

7 hours ago

September 27, 2023

Sara Carter Staff

How long will leaders who let our children down blame Covid-19 for their failures? Anger swept across Baltimore, Maryland, after not a single student passed their state math exams, and almost 75 percent testing at the lowest possible score.

The Daily Mail reports “The poor performances came in the latest round of Maryland‘s state testing, where 13 high schools in the city – a staggering 40 percent – failed to produce a single student with a ‘proficient’ score in math.” Baltimore City Schools not only received $1.6 billion last year from taxpayers, but the school district also received $799 million in Covid relief funding from the federal government.

“So, it’s not a funding issue. We’re getting plenty of funding,” said Jason Rodriguez, deputy director of Baltimore-based nonprofit People Empowered by the Struggle, to Fox Baltimore. “I don’t think money is the issue. I think accountability is the issue…This is educational homicide, there is no excuse for the failure, which has come after years of warnings over the city’s poor education standards,” added Rodriguez.

A bombshell study published this month by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) found that 16 million students were chronically absent during the pandemic. “The millions of students had missed more than 10 percent of schools days during the 2021-22 year, twice the number seen in previous years. More than eight in 10 public schools also reported stunted behavioral and social-emotional development in their students due to the pandemic, according to a May survey cited in the report.”

However, six years ago a similar report by Project Baltimore found that 13 schools in the city had zero students test ‘proficiently’ in math. An almost identical finding. “We’re still dealing with these same issues year after year,” Rodriguez continued. “It’s just scary to me and alarming to me because we know that what’s happening now, you know, it’s just opening up the floodgates to the school-to-prison pipeline. I’m beyond angry… This is why we’ve been calling for the resignation of the school CEO.”

Daily Mail notes that Rodriguez’s group has previously held rallies over the mounting educational crisis in the city, and in 2021 led calls for Baltimore City Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises to resign over low test scores and falling graduation rates.