Tag: covid-19

Defense Department closes last federal vaccination site amid continued vaccine hesitancy

The Defense Department wound down the last of 48 federal vaccination sites manned by troops across the country with the closing of a New Jersey facility Sunday after service members vaccinated nearly 5 million people nationally.

The effort by 5,100 active-duty service members that began in February spanned medical personnel from across the services and acted in addition to the National Guard’s support of state and local vaccination sites across the nation. Guard members were called by their governors to help administer 12 million vaccines.

“The last federally supported community vaccination center, which was located in New Jersey, conducted its final day of operations yesterday,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told defense reporters Monday.

The federal effort began in February, when President Joe Biden asked the DOD to prepare up to 10,000 soldiers to fan across the country and help vaccinate 100 million people. As the national vaccination rate surpassed 60% and vaccination hesitancy remains, the Federal Emergency Management Agency effort was deemed no longer necessary.

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Massachusetts Android users alarmed to wake up to COVID tracking app auto-installed

Massachusetts recently launched a contact tracing app for COVID-19, called MassNotifyApp, to track the spread of the virus in the state. But there is one big problem with the app; it is installing itself on Android devices without users’ consent, and even on devices with parental-lock.

“Thank you MA/Google for silently installing #MassNotify on my phone without consent. But I have a request: Can you also silently install an app that makes my phone explode and kill me?” someone wrote on Twitter.

The story is perhaps one of the most egregious violations of an app during the pandemic. It also contradicts what Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, said about the app; that it would be voluntary.

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Oi! Where’s Your Being Outside Licence? Police Break Up Midsummer Celebration at England’s Ancient Stonehenge

Normally an annual gathering of British eccentrics marking the midsummer at one of the world’s most ancient sites, police descended on Stonehenge Monday morning to break up a meeting that contravened the government’s coronavirus lockdown regulations.

Police officers physically removed celebrants as they dispersed a crowd at the world-famous Stonehenge site, a Bronze Age UNESCO World Heritage Site formed of circles of enormous standing stones. Thought to be at least 4,000 years old, the stones are so arranged as to align with the rising sun on the morning of Summer Solstice — today.

The stones have major significance for British people generally, for world history, but also for British counter-cultural groups including Pagans and Druids, who celebrate simulacrums of pre-Christian festivals at Stonehenge annually.

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Iowa man jailed for 10 years after spitting on “mask Nazi”

A 42-year-old father of six from Iowa will spend the next 10 years in prison after being convicted of a Class C forcible felony for defending himself against a “mask Nazi” who assaulted him in an eyewear store.

Shane Michael says he was “shoulder-checked” and “poked” in the stomach by Mark Dinning, a Branch Covidian who confronted Michael on Nov. 11 inside a Vision 4 Less store in Des Moines.

Even though there was no mask mandate in place, Dinning felt the need to try to force his mask fetish on Michael through assault, to which Michael responded in kind by spitting on Dinning.

Michael was reportedly wearing a mask at the time and pulled it down to spit on Dinning, who accused Michael of wearing his mask “incorrectly.” This is how the altercation started with Dinning as the aggressor.

“If I have it, you have it!” Michael reportedly shouted at Dinning, who refused to mind his own business in the store and instead decided to be a mask Nazi.

The situation devolved from there with more physical altercations that resulted in injuries. Dinning pressed charges against Michael and ultimately won in court, illustrating how the Branch Covidian cult has successfully embedded itself within the judicial system.

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Gov’t helicopter discovers ‘unauthorized’ church service, pastor put in handcuffs

The moment that local governments in the Western world began to issue guidance or full-on mandates for religious gatherings in the early days of the pandemic, many were concerned that society had stepped onto a slippery slope.

Fast-forward 15 months later, and we’re seeing pastors arrested in front of their children after their “underground” church services were discovered by a police helicopter.

This is the stuff of tyranny and totalitarianism, not Western-style democracy. Yet here we are.

This week, Pastor Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church was arrested outside his home as his distressed children cried, all for holding a church service discovered the day before by a police helicopter.

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Nearly 4,000 fully vaccinated people in Massachusetts have tested positive for coronavirus

Almost 4,000 people in Massachusetts who are fully vaccinated have tested positive for coronavirus, according to new data from the state Department of Public Health.

There have been 3,791 COVID cases out of more than 3.7 million fully vaccinated people as of June 12. That breaks down to 0.1% of vaccinated individuals testing positive for coronavirus in Massachusetts.

The state Department of Public Health did not say how many of the breakthrough infections have been severe, but public health experts tell the Herald that many of such cases are either asymptomatic or mild.

“We’re learning that many of the breakthrough infections are asymptomatic or they’re very mild and brief in duration,” said Boston University infectious diseases specialist Davidson Hamer. “The viral load is not very high.

“Breakthroughs are expected, and we need to better understand who’s at risk and whether people who have a breakthrough can transmit the virus to others,” he added. “In some cases, they’ll be shedding such low levels of the virus and won’t be transmitting to others.”

People who are immunocompromised are at a greater risk for breakthrough cases.

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