COVID-19

WHO Chief urges governments to ‘bring back face masks’ and Los Angeles may be first

Published

2 years ago

July 14, 2022

Americans fought for their freedom from mandates surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic for over two years and the World Health Organization and city of Los Angeles may take it all back in the blink of an eye.

The Associated Press reports “Los Angeles County, home to 10 million residents, is facing a return to a broad indoor mask mandate later this month if current trends in hospital admissions continue, county health Director Barbara Ferrer said this week.”

On Tuesday, the White House response team urged all adults 50 and older to get a booster shot if they haven’t yet this year. The White House also suggested getting any available booster shot, and not wait for the next wave.

The AP notes that the latest variant, BA.5, is highly transmissible and now accounts for 65% of cases. Its “cousin” BA.4 makes up another 16% of cases. “The variants have shown a remarkable ability to get around the protection offered by vaccination.”

World Health Organization Chief Dr Ghebreyesus is urging all governments to reinstate Covid measures like masking and ventilation due to an “increasing trend of deaths”

“I am concerned that cases of Covid-19 continue to rise – putting further pressure on stretched health systems and health workers,” he said. Governments should “deploy tried and tested measures like masking, improved ventilation and test and treat protocols.”

Requiring masks again “helps us to reduce risk,” Ferrer told Los Angeles County supervisors. She is expected to discuss details of the potential new county mandate during a public health briefing Thursday afternoon.

“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 Tuesday.

For most of the pandemic, Los Angeles County has required masks in some indoor spaces, including health care facilities, Metro trains and buses, airports, jails and homeless shelters. The new mandate would expand the requirement to all indoor public spaces, including shared offices, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, retail stores, restaurants and bars, theaters and schools.

China

House Report Uncovers DOJ Secretly Investigated Nonprofit Accused of Channeling Taxpayer Funds to Wuhan Lab

Published

2 days ago

December 3, 2024

Sara Carter Staff

A bombshell House committee report released Monday, after a two year investigation, revealed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) secretly initiated a grand jury investigation into EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. nonprofit accused of channeling taxpayer funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the lab suspected of causing the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report, prepared by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, highlights concerns about EcoHealth’s grants, which allegedly funded gain-of-function research at the Chinese lab. Such research, aimed at enhancing viruses to study their potential risks, has been linked to theories suggesting the virus may have escaped from the lab. Efforts to access related records were reportedly obstructed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Internal emails and documents included in the report reveal that the grand jury issued subpoenas for genetic sequences and correspondence between EcoHealth Alliance’s president, Dr. Peter Daszak, and Dr. Shi Zhengli, a WIV scientist known as the “bat lady” for her work on coronaviruses. One email from EcoHealth’s legal counsel advised omitting references to the DOJ investigation when addressing congressional document requests, underscoring the probe’s secrecy.

The report also criticizes EcoHealth Alliance’s failure to comply with grant requirements. NIH funding facilitated a $4 million project on bat coronaviruses, $1.4 million of which was funneled to WIV. NIH deputy director Dr. Lawrence Tabak admitted the grant supported gain-of-function research, leading to highly infectious virus modifications.

The committee’s findings claim these experiments violated biosafety protocols, and Daszak failed to adequately oversee the research. Calls to bar Daszak and EcoHealth from future funding were reinforced by bipartisan agreement within the subcommittee.

The New York Post writes that the report also evaluated U.S. pandemic response measures, describing prolonged lockdowns as harmful to the economy and public health, especially for younger Americans. Mask mandates and social distancing policies were criticized as “arbitrary” and unsupported by conclusive scientific evidence. Public health officials’ inconsistent messaging, particularly from Dr. Anthony Fauci, contributed to public mistrust, according to the subcommittee.