Tag: face masks

California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Certain Health Care Facilities

A county health officer in California issued an order requiring masking in acute care facilities starting on Nov. 1, an order authorities attribute to rising seasonal respiratory illnesses.

The mandate, which lasts until March 31 of next year, requires the use of face masks by people in acute care facilities, skilled nursing facilities, surgical and maternity centers, and infusion centers such as dialysis and chemotherapy centers, during respiratory virus season, not including patients.

“These respiratory viruses can cause serious illness, particularly in vulnerable groups such as infants, older adults, pregnant individuals, and those with weakened immune systems,” Lisa Hernandez, the Santa Cruz County public health officer, said in a statement. “This order aims to reduce the spread of these viruses and protect those most at risk from severe outcomes, including hospitalization and death.”

Santa Cruz County is located to the south of San Jose and other cities that make up Silicon Valley in California.

Last fall, officials in counties around California’s San Francisco Bay Area implemented similar mask mandates in health care facilities that lasted from Nov. 1, 2024, to April 2025.

An official in California’s Yolo County said last month that residents were advised to wear masks indoors because of COVID-19.

“Based on current wastewater levels of the virus that causes COVID-19, I recommend that everybody in West Sacramento wear a mask when they are around others in indoor public spaces,” Aimee Sisson, the Yolo County health officer, said in the statement.

The most recent data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the rates of positive tests and emergency department visits across the United States are continuing to fall.

Positive tests fell to 6.7 percent for the week ending Sept. 27, down from 9.6 percent during the previous week, according to the data. The percentage of emergency visits for COVID-19 fell from 1 percent to 0.7 percent.

Nineteen states are experiencing “high” or “very high” levels of COVID-19, according to wastewater data reviewed by the CDC. Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada, and Utah are seeing the highest levels.

“COVID-19 activity has peaked and is declining in many areas of the country, but emergency department visits and hospitalizations are elevated nationally,” the CDC said in a separate statement.

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DHS Probe Uncovers Biden’s TSA Put Mask Refusers on Terror-Linked No-Fly List

An internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigation has revealed that during the Biden administration, some American citizens who refused to comply with COVID-19 mask mandates were placed on federal no-fly lists.

The investigation documented that 19 Americans were flagged between September 30, 2021, and October 25, 2021. 

More than half of those individuals received no-fly designations, barring them from boarding domestic flights during that period.

The no-fly list is traditionally reserved for individuals suspected of terrorism or posing threats to national security. 

Its use against citizens resisting mask mandates raised questions inside and outside the agency.

The probe found that at least 11 of the individuals remained on federal watchlists until April 2022. 

That same month, a federal court struck down the federal mask mandate, effectively requiring the Biden administration to stop enforcing mask requirements on airplanes.

The revelations were first reported by Fox News, which obtained details of the DHS investigation. 

The disclosures triggered swift responses from agency officials and members of Congress.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issued a statement sharply criticizing the actions taken by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

“Biden’s TSA wildly abused their authority,” Noem said.

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Trump administration orders federal authorities to ignore California mask law

The Trump administration ordered federal authorities Friday to ignore new legislation in California banning law enforcement officers from wearing masks to conceal their identity. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) last Saturday signed the bill — which is slated to take effect Jan. 1, 2026 — making face coverings of local, state and federal officials a misdemeanor crime and imposing a civil penalty against officers for “tortious conduct.”

“Governor Newsom is confused about his role under the U.S. Constitution,” Bill Essayli, acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a Friday post on social platform X. “He oversees California, not federal agencies. He should review the Supremacy Clause.”

“California’s law to ‘unmask’ federal agents is unconstitutional, as the state lacks jurisdiction to interfere with federal law enforcement. I have directed federal agencies to disregard this state law and adhere to federal law and agency policies,” Essayli wrote in the post, which also featured a screenshot of his letter to agency heads. 

Essayli wrote in the letter that any official or individual who attempts to impede or interfere with operations will be prosecuted by his office.

The Hill has reached out to Newsom’s office for comment.

The Department of Homeland Security also publicly rejected Newsom’s bill on Monday in a social media post.

Trump officials and Newsom clashed over the summer after the president sent National Guard soldiers and Marines to quell Los Angeles’s protests against deportation tactics.

A series of targeted raids and arrests have been carried out throughout the Golden State, which local lawmakers have said are sparking fear for families of color about their future in the United States.

Newsom said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are using masks in an effort to be “hidden from accountability” alleging that face coverings prevent “transparency” for citizens and hinder “oversight.” 

“Unmarked cars, people in masks, people quite literally disappearing. No due process, no rights—no rights in a democracy where we have rights, immigrants have rights,” Newsom said Saturday. 

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California Bans Most Law Enforcement, Including Federal Agents, From Wearing Masks

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday signed a bill that would prohibit most law enforcement officers—including federal agents—from wearing masks during official operations in the state.

The first-of-its-kind law, which would go into effect in January 2026, was immediately criticized by Trump administration officials, who have instructed federal agents to ignore it. That sets the stage for a showdown in court.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents—who are most involved in carrying out President Donald Trump’s deportation operations—have taken to wearing masks while carrying out their jobs.

During the Sept. 20 bill-signing event, Newsom said the state was “pushing back against the authoritarian tendencies in action this administration.”

“The impact of these policies all across this city, our state, and nation are terrifying,” Newsom said. “It’s like a dystopian sci-fi movie. Unmarked cars, people in masks, people quite literally disappearing. No due process, no rights in a democracy where we have rights.”

The administration has defended the use of masking by federal agents, who officials say are facing increased threats and violence related to their work.

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NMSU Alumnus and Former Professor Files Legal Action Over Unlawful Vaccine Mandate

Today, David K. Clements, a former Assistant Professor of consumer protection and business law, announced the filing of a lawsuit against New Mexico State University (NMSU) and its Board of Regents, alleging breach of contract and violation of the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act.

The action stems from his wrongful termination on October 15, 2021, for refusing to comply with NMSU’s COVID-19 experimental vaccine and mask mandate, which he contends violated federal law by lacking informed consent and refusal rights.

“It is difficult to announce this lawsuit in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination. He fought for free speech on campuses just like NMSU. Before his life was tragically taken, lives and reputations were destroyed on campuses across America for exercising our First Amendment right to combat forced injections, masking, and invasive testing. For those who held the line against forced injection, many had to endure a six-inch nasal swab shoved up their nose, scraping the back of their throats every week, or else face the loss of their job. It was dehumanizing. I will fight these monsters with everything I have,” Clements stated.

Clements, who taught at NMSU until his dismissal, argues that the mandate disrupted educational services to both students and faculty—services generating $2.6 billion in economic output—and exploited his position as a tenure-track professor to pressure students to get an injection with virtually no scientific data advising them of their risks. The Complaint can be read here.

“The university effectively took bribe money tied to the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF), the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, among others. They chose to rake in millions of dollars rather than look out for the health and safety of faculty and students. The statute of limitations for breach of contract is six years. I hope this lawsuit will alert former colleagues and students that were harmed by the jab or denied accommodations, that a university’s greed should not outweigh their rights to receive an education free of coercion. There is still time on the clock for thousands of lawsuits to be filed,” Clements stated.

NMSU is no stranger to controversy. Over the past five years, it has been sued for allegations of hazing, sexual assault, discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination. These include an $8 million settlement in June 2023 with former basketball players Deuce Benjamin, Shak Odunewu, and William Benjamin for hazing and sexual assault claims; a $495,000 settlement in March 2024 with former provost Carol Parker for discrimination and retaliation; a $60,000 settlement in February 2024 with former Title IX coordinator Laura Castille for retaliation; a $1 million settlement in July 2025 with a female student alleging mishandling of a sexual assault case; and an undisclosed settlement in August 2025 with former basketball coach Greg Heiar for wrongful termination. These resolutions, totaling over $9.5 million in disclosed amounts, reflect a troubling track record.

Clements’ objection to the mandate’s illegality has been vindicated by recent developments, including the CDC’s 2025 withdrawal of vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant women and Moderna’s requirement for placebo-controlled trials. “As an alumnus and educator, I sought to protect my students and colleagues from potential harm, only to face retaliation,” Clements stated.

The lawsuit seeks reinstatement to a tenured position, compensatory and treble (triple) damages under the UPA for what Clements describes as a willful and unconscionable trade practice. He has requested preservation of all related records to ensure transparency.

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“Summer COVID Wave” Prompts Panic In California; Masks Recommended

At least one official in California has recommended that residents wear masks indoors due to an increase in COVID-19 in recent days.

Wastewater data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday show that California is seeing “very high” levels of the virus, while all states on the West Coast are either at “high” or “very high” levels.

As Jack Phillips reports for The Epoch Times, the top health official for Yolo County, located outside Sacramento, said in a statement last week that residents are advised to wear masks indoors. No mandate was issued.

“California is experiencing a summer COVID wave,” Aimee Sisson, the Yolo County health officer, said in the statement.

“Based on current wastewater levels of the virus that causes COVID-19, I recommend that everybody in West Sacramento wear a mask when they are around others in indoor public spaces.”

“I also recommend that people in the rest of Yolo County wear masks when they are around others indoors if they are 65 or older, have a weakened immune system, have an underlying medical condition that puts them at a greater risk of severe COVID-19, or spend time around people who fall into these categories.”

Sisson’s office also said in a news release issued by the county that “wearing a high-quality mask such as an N95, KN95, or KF94 that fits well continues to provide strong protection” before touting vaccines for the virus.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health told the Los Angeles Times, in an article published Sept. 3 that suggests multiple California officials have recommended masking, that it is also recommending people “consider wearing a well-fitted mask in crowded indoor spaces, including when traveling, and to stay at home if they feel sick.”

Multiple requests from The Epoch Times to the city health department have not been returned as of Friday.

In Canada, New Brunswick’s Horizon Health Network told The Epoch Times this week that it would mandate masks for certain clinical areas due to a rise in respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19. Several weeks ago, the government of Honduras announced it had reinstated a nationwide mask mandate in health care settings due to a rise in respiratory viruses.

Last year, multiple California counties implemented mandatory mask requirements in health care settings that lasted from November 2024 until the spring of this year, including counties in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of the countywide mandates were meant only for employees, while one county required all visitors and patients to wear a mask.

An Epoch Times review suggests that no counties in the United States have recently issued mask mandates or are planning to issue mask mandates for the coming fall or winter months.

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The mask charade returns in Ukraine, as medical tyrants mandate masks to save a beleaguered nation from “Nimbus and Stratus” COVID strains

We’re living in a world where the same failed policies—once exposed as useless, humiliating, and psychologically damaging—are dusted off and paraded back onto the stage like a washed-up magician repeating his worst trick. That’s exactly what’s happening in Ukraine right now, where health authorities, clutching their pearls over a few hundred COVID cases, have decided to drag the public back into the dark ages of mask mandates, restricted hospital visits, and the suffocating illusion of control.

The threat that Ukrainians now face? Two new Omicron subvariants, dubbed “Nimbus” and “Stratus,” which sound less like scientific designations and more like the names of rejected Transformers villains. But let’s cut through the theatrical fog: This isn’t about health. It’s about conditioning a population to accept that their freedoms are negotiable, that their bodies are not their own, and that the ruling class will never voluntarily surrender the power they seized in the name of a “pandemic.”

Key points:

  • Ukraine has reintroduced mask mandates in hospitals in the Rovno and Odessa regions, citing a rise in COVID-19 cases linked to new Omicron subvariants “Nimbus” and “Stratus,” with nearly 500 cases reported since August and 1,121 in Kiev alone last week.
  • The move mirrors the failed COVID policies of 2020–2021, when mandates and lockdowns were imposed globally despite no evidence they stopped transmission—only that they crushed economies, mental health, and civil liberties.
  • The same institutions pushing masks and vaccines—the CDC, FDA, WHO, and their globalist backers—have a documented history of regulatory capture, fraudulent science, and financial conflicts of interest with Big Pharma.
  • Natural immunity and early treatment options (like ivermectin, vitamin D, and zinc) were suppressed during the pandemic, while experimental mRNA injections were forced on populations with no long-term safety data—and now, vaccinated populations are seeing surges in infections.
  • The real agenda behind renewed mask theater may be distraction, control, or conditioning for future biosecurity measures, including digital health passes, vaccine mandates, or even another lockdown push.
  • Informed consent and bodily autonomy must be non-negotiable—no government or health authority has the right to coerce medical compliance under the guise of “public health.”

Why are “experts” still pretending masks work?

Let’s get one thing straight: Masks were never about science. They were about symbolism—a visible sign of submission to authority, a way to signal virtue while doing nothing to stop a respiratory virus. Study after study, from the Danish mask trial (which found no statistically significant reduction in COVID transmission) to the CDC’s own meta-analysis in 2020 (which admitted cloth masks offer “little to no protection”), confirmed what common sense already told us: A piece of fabric over your face doesn’t stop an aerosolized virus or a bioweapons that is being programmed directly into the cells through vaccination platforms. Yet here we are, three years later, watching Ukraine’s health bureaucrats dust off the same discredited playbook as if we didn’t just live through the largest-scale psychological experiment in modern history.

Andrey Karaush, head of the Rovno regional council, proudly announced the return of mask mandates in a Telegram post, as if he were unveiling a groundbreaking medical breakthrough rather than recycling a failed policy of mental degradation. Nearly 500 cases in a region of over a million people—and suddenly, the entire population must don the muzzle again. But let’s ask the obvious: If masks worked, why are cases rising now? Why did fully vaccinated college campuses—like the University of Oregon, where 960 “breakthrough” infections erupted in January 2022—see massive outbreaks among the jabbed and the masked? Why did Israel, one of the most vaccinated nations on Earth, experience record-case surges in 2021?

What we’re seeing in Ukraine isn’t a public health response—it’s a power grab. The same institutions that suppressed early treatment, censored dissenting doctors, and pushed experimental injections with zero long-term data are now testing the waters to see how much compliance they can still extract. And if history is any guide, they won’t stop until they’re forced to.

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Masking Our Schoolchildren Was Child Abuse – A Rare Chance To Stop It Returning

While more and more people are becoming aware that masking healthy people is both ineffective and harmful – as illustrated by the current rarity of face coverings in community settings – pockets of pro-mask zealotry remain smouldering in certain sections of our society, constituting an ongoing risk of re-ignition in the future.

Health and social care is one such example – a hazard addressed in Smile Free’s recent film, Masking Humanity.

Another is our education system, where, for prolonged periods during the Covid event, headmasters and teachers cruelly muzzled our kids in schools.

Now, as a result of the sterling endeavours of the ‘Declaration of Dumfries’ (DoD) team – a fellowship of people promoting common law principles of truth, rights and sovereignty – a rare opportunity has arisen to land a telling blow against those in authority and thereby deter any future imposition of masks on our schoolchildren.

In brief, what the ‘Declaration of Dumfries’ (DoD) people have accomplished is to force a local council to explicitly admit that they never had the authority to mask children, nor to punish pupils for non-compliance. 

By doing so, there is now an opening for parents of children who were victims of the unlawful mask impositions during the Covid event to sue their local councils and, by doing so, land a blow that will ensure that those in positions of power within our education system think twice before ever pulling such a stunt on our nation’s children again. 

To achieve this victory required 17 months of dogged determination and persistence.

The sequence of events is detailed in a DoD flowchart.

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Canada’s top doctor, who pushed COVID jabs and masks, resigns from her position

Canada’s top medical adviser, known for her promotion of masking and COVID vaccines, is stepping down as chief public health officer.

Dr. Theresa Tam will resign on June 20 from her role as Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer (CPHO), ending her eight-year tenure during which she forced Canadians to follow dangerous COVID regulations, including masking and taking the experimental COVID shots.

“I’ve been in this role for over eight years now, so I think it has been an absolute privilege and honour. I never thought at the start of my career that I would end up here,” Tam told The Globe and Mail.

“Looking back, I put every ounce of my energy into this job. But I think it’s a purposeful job. It’s serving the public,” she continued.

Tam’s replacement has not been named.

In the early months of 2020, Tam became well-known by Canadians for leading the country’s response to the COVID “pandemic” and pushing arbitrary and dangerous regulations.

Initially, Tam assured Canadians that masking was unnecessary, ineffective, and could even pose health threats.

However, shortly after, Tam changed her policy, telling Canadians that they should even wear masks during sex. LifeSiteNews has published overwhelming evidence that masks are not effective in preventing the spread of COVID and can cause myriad health issues.

Additionally, Tam promoted experimental COVID vaccines for Canadians as young as six months old despite having no long-term studies on its effects.

LifeSiteNews has published an extensive amount of research on the dangers of the experimental COVID mRNA jabs that include heart damage and blood clots.

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FBI Arrests Driver Who Went Viral for Delivering “Bionic Shield” Face Masks to LA Rioters in Early Morning Sting

The FBI arrested the man who went viral last week for distributing what appeared to be military-grade “bionic shield” face masks to violent demonstrators in downtown Los Angeles.

“ARRESTED: Alejandro Theodoro Orellana was arrested this morning by FBI Los Angeles on an allegation of Conspiracy to Commit Civil Disorders (18 USC 371) for distributing face shields to suspected rioters on Tuesday. We are moving quickly to identify and arrest those involved in organizing and/or supporting civil disorder in Los Angeles,” U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said in a statement.

The suspect has been identified as Alejandro Orellana, an alleged member of the Brown Berets, a radical Chicano nationalist paramilitary organization with ties to far-left revolutionary groups.

The group, long known for its anti-police rhetoric and militant activism, has reportedly embedded operatives in several major U.S. cities.

On June 9, local reporter Elex Michaelson of FOX LA captured the moment protesters swarmed the trucks to grab the gear, noting, “It certainly seems like gear you’d wear if you’re preparing for conflict with police. Who is funding this?”

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