July 24, 2021Updated
July 25, 2021, 12:56 a.m. ET
July 25, 2021, 12:56 a.m. ET
A conservative radio host in Tennessee who had expressed unwillingness to be vaccinated is now hospitalized with Covid pneumonia and urging his listeners to get the shots.
Phil Valentine, 61, whose show airs on 99.7 WTN in Nashville, contracted the virus about a week ago, the station said in a statement on Friday.
“Phil would like for his listeners to know that while he has never been an ‘anti-vaxer’ he regrets not being more vehemently ‘pro-vaccine’, and looks forward to being able to more vigorously advocate that position as soon as he is back on the air, which we all hope will be soon,” the station said.
In an update on Saturday morning, the station shared a message from his wife, Susan: “They say he is still not getting well,” it read, “please pray for me. I am at a breaking point.”
Morning Update on Phil: Susan (his wife) asks for prayers “They say he is still not getting well.. please pray for me. I am at a breaking point.” We continue to lift up our brother in prayers & ask that you do the same. Your kindness and support is overwhelming and we thank you pic.twitter.com/GGXZI0MHD4
— SuperTalk 99.7 WTN (@997wtn) July 24, 2021
In a blog post in December, Mr. Valentine praised the development of the vaccine as “President Trump’s ability as a businessman to get things done.” But he also expressed concerns about being vaccinated.
“I’m not an anti-vaxxer,” he wrote. “I’m just using common sense. What are my odds of getting Covid? They’re pretty low. What are my odds of dying from Covid if I do get it? Probably way less than 1 percent. I’m doing what everyone should do and that’s my own personal health risk assessment. If you have underlying health issues, you probably need to get the vaccine. If you’re not at high risk of dying from Covid then you’re probably safer not getting it.”
Through 2019, Mr. Valentine reached a national audience on up to 100 stations across the country for 12 years through a syndication deal, according to The Tennessean. He wrote and starred in the 2012 documentary “An Inconsistent Truth,” which sought to counter the evidence of global warming.
Mr. Valentine is also the author of several books, including “Right From the Heart: The ABC’s of Reality in America” and “The Conservative’s Handbook: Defining the Right Position on Issues from A to Z.”
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Mr. Valentine’s brother, Mark Valentine, said that seeing his brother in the hospital has “persuaded me to get vaccinated when I was previously not inclined to do so.”
“Having seen this up close and personal I’d encourage ALL of you to put politics and other concerns aside and get it,” he wrote. “I don’t believe there is a chip in the vaccine and I don’t believe 5G is gonna trigger some sort of mass casualties or any of that stuff. The reason roughly half of the population hasn’t taken it is because they (formerly me) assumed we were being lied to for any number of nefarious reasons.”
Mr. Valentine is one of nearly 500 Covid patients currently hospitalized in Tennessee, representing an increase of 77 percent over the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database.
The state has also seen a 207 percent increase in new coronavirus cases over the past two weeks. The spikes have largely been attributed to the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus and low vaccination rates.
Tennessee, like much of the South, has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country: Only 54 percent of the state’s adults have received at least one dose, and 48 percent are fully vaccinated, according to New York Times data.
Over 160,000 demonstrators took to the streets in France on Saturday to protest the government’s Covid-19 health pass policy, with brief clashes between largely unmasked protesters and police officers in Paris followed by wafts of tear gas that were reminiscent of the Yellow Vest turmoil of several years ago.
Similarly, in cities across Italy, thousands of people protested the government’s requirement that, as of Aug. 6, they show a so-called green pass, an extension of the European Union’s digital Covid certificate, to enter many venues.
And in Australia, 3,500 mostly maskless people protesting Sydney’s monthlong lockdown clashed with police officers on Saturday, raising fears of a superspreader event that could add to the city’s growing caseload. There were also protests in Melbourne and Adelaide, which are under lockdowns, and in Brisbane, where there are no restrictions.
Demonstrations against lockdowns are hardly new, but the European protests had a fresh element. They took aim against France and Italy’s new, semi-coercive strategy to speed up vaccinations and keep a recent surge of infections in check: Make social life unpleasant for those who refuse to get vaccinated, while stopping short of making the shots mandatory.
In France, presenting the health pass — paper or digital proof of being fully vaccinated, a recent negative test or recent Covid-19 recovery — is mandatory to attend large events in stadiums and concert halls, and to enter the country’s cultural venues, including cinemas, museums and theaters.
In Italy, the green pass will be required at the same kinds of venues.
“Freedom!” and “Down with the dictatorship!” chanted flag-waving demonstrators from Naples in the south to Turin in the north, Agence-France Presse reported. Rain-soaked protesters in Milan shouted, “No green pass!”
A bill currently being examined by the French Senate and expected to be passed in the coming days will extend the requirement to produce a health pass to cafes, bars, restaurants and gyms, adding fines for establishments that fail to enforce the rule. A valid health pass will also become required for non-urgent visits to hospitals or retirement homes and long-distance train and bus rides.
The bill will also force health workers, firefighters and others — mostly those who deal with sick people or the older population — to be vaccinated by Sept. 15 or face penalties up to being fired. And the current version of the legislation, which can still be tweaked by lawmakers, makes it mandatory to isolate for 10 days after testing positive for the virus.
French television showed that some protesters wore the trademark reflective jackets of the Yellow Vest movement that rocked France in 2018 and 2019. The movement was rooted in anger over economic inequality but also espoused anti-elite rhetoric and deep distrust of the government, directing much of its vitriol directly at President Emmanuel Macron.
The same spirit has animated France’s burgeoning anti-health pass movement, raising worries that a radical fringe of violent protesters could coalesce in the coming weeks. However, there is not the same level of public sympathy as the Yellow Vest movement commanded. Polls show that a majority of the country approves of Mr. Macron’s strategy, and a record surge in the number of vaccinations shows that it appears to be working.
They acknowledged that they could have showed up months ago. Many were satisfied that they were finally doing the right thing. A few grumbled that they had little choice.
On a single day this past week, more than half a million people across the United States trickled into high school gymnasiums, pharmacies and buses converted into mobile clinics. Then they pushed up their sleeves and got their Covid vaccines.
These are the Americans who are being vaccinated at this moment in the pandemic: the reluctant, the anxious, the procrastinating.
“‘You’re going to die — get the Covid vaccine,’” Grace Carper, 15, recently told her mother, Nikki White, of Urbandale, Iowa, as they debated when they would get their shots. Ms. White, 38, woke up on Thursday and said she would do it. “If you want to go get your vaccine, get up,” Ms. White told her daughter, who agreed eagerly, and they went together to a Hy-Vee supermarket.
The people being vaccinated now are not members of the eager crowds who rushed to early appointments. But they are not in the group firmly opposed to vaccinations, either.
Instead, they occupy a middle ground: For months, they have been unwilling to receive a Covid vaccine, until something or someone — a persistent family member, a work requirement, a growing sense that the shot was safe — convinced them otherwise.
How many people ultimately join this group, and how quickly, could determine the course of the coronavirus in the United States.
SAN FRANCISCO — The article that appeared online on Feb. 9 began with a seemingly innocuous question about the legal definition of vaccines. Then over its next 3,400 words, it declared coronavirus vaccines were “a medical fraud” and said the injections did not prevent infections, provide immunity or stop transmission of the disease.
Instead, the article claimed, the shots “alter your genetic coding, turning you into a viral protein factory that has no off-switch.”
Its assertions were easily disprovable. No matter. Over the next few hours, the article was translated from English into Spanish and Polish. It appeared on dozens of blogs and was picked up by anti-vaccination activists, who repeated the false claims online. The article also made its way to Facebook, where it reached 400,000 people, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool.
The entire effort traced back to one person: Joseph Mercola.
Dr. Mercola, 67, an osteopathic physician in Cape Coral, Fla., has long been a subject of criticism and government regulatory actions for his promotion of unproven or unapproved treatments. But most recently, he has become the chief spreader of coronavirus misinformation online, according to researchers.
An internet-savvy entrepreneur who employs dozens, Dr. Mercola has published over 600 articles on Facebook that cast doubt on Covid-19 vaccines since the pandemic began, reaching a far larger audience than other vaccine skeptics, an analysis by The New York Times found. His claims have been widely echoed on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
The activity has earned Dr. Mercola the dubious distinction of the top spot in the “Disinformation Dozen,” a list of 12 people responsible for sharing 65 percent of all anti-vaccine messaging on social media, said the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. Others include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, and Erin Elizabeth, the founder of the website Health Nut News, who is also Dr. Mercola’s girlfriend.
Now, Dr. Mercola and others in the “Disinformation Dozen” are in the spotlight as vaccinations in the United States slow, just as the highly infectious Delta variant has fueled a resurgence in coronavirus cases. More than 97 percent of people hospitalized for Covid-19 are unvaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
President Biden has blamed online falsehoods for causing people to refrain from getting the injections. But even as Mr. Biden has urged social media companies to “do something about the misinformation,” Dr. Mercola shows the difficulty of that task.
GLOBAL ROUNDUP
Under orders from President Vladimir V. Putin, Russia has sent a shipment of coronavirus-related humanitarian assistance to Cuba, the country’s defense ministry said on Saturday.
This week, Cuba, which had long kept its caseload low, reported the highest rate of contagion per capita in Latin America. That has strained its health care sector and helped stoke rare anti-government protests this month on the Communist-run island.
Two military planes departed from an airfield near Moscow on Saturday carrying 88 tons of aid, which included food and more than a million medical masks along with other personal protective equipment, the defense ministry said.
The ministry did not mention the United States, but the aid could send a pointed message to the Biden administration.
The Cuban government attributed the protests mostly to what it calls U.S.-financed “counter-revolutionaries” who fanned public anger over economic hardships caused by a decades-old U.S. embargo. Cuba’s critics say the island’s economic troubles are largely caused by the inefficiencies of the state-run system.
Mexico said on Thursday it would send two navy ships to Cuba loaded with medical and food supplies, including syringes, oxygen tanks and masks, along with powered milk, cans of tuna, beans, flour, cooking oil and gasoline.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico has also blamed the U.S. embargo for fomenting the unrest in Cuba.
With a population of 11 million people, Cuba reported nearly 4,000 virus cases per million residents over the past week, nine times as much as the world’s average, in an outbreak fueled by the arrival on the island of the more contagious Delta variant of the virus.
In other news from around the world:
-
In Germany, about 65,000 people marched for L.G.B.T.Q. rights at Berlin’s annual Christopher Street Day celebration on Saturday in the biggest demonstration in the city since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, The Associated Press reported. The parade was led by five trucks that were spaced to give demonstrators more room as they danced past the Brandenburg Gate to techno music. Organizers made repeated calls for marchers to put masks on and keep their distance, but the size of the crowds made distancing sometimes impossible.
-
Vietnam announced a 15-day lockdown in its capital, Hanoi, starting on Saturday as a virus surge spread from the southern Mekong Delta region, The A.P. reported. The lockdown order, which was issued late on Friday night, bans the gathering of more than two people in public. Only government offices, hospitals and essential businesses are allowed to stay open. Earlier in the week, the city had suspended all outdoor activities and ordered nonessential businesses to close after an increase in cases.
The American golfer Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open winner, has dropped out of the Olympics after testing positive for the coronavirus.
He will be replaced by Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters winner.
DeChambeau tested positive as part of normal testing procedures for all athletes and others heading to Tokyo for the Games, U.S.A. Golf said.
“I will now focus on getting healthy, and I look forward to returning to competition once I am cleared to do so,” DeChambeau said in a statement.
The rest of the men’s team is Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa, the reigning British Open champion. The men’s tournament begins on Thursday.
Golf returned to the Olympics in 2016 after a more than 100-year absence. Justin Rose of Britain won the gold medal for the men and Inbee Park of South Korea for the women.
The merriment is back, with caution.
The Public Theater announced on Saturday that it was resuming performances of its free Shakespeare in the Park production of “Merry Wives,” ending a three-night halt caused by a production member’s positive test for the coronavirus.
The theater had canceled the Wednesday and Thursday performances at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, in accordance with its existing protocols. It announced on Twitter on Friday that it would call off that day’s performance as well “to support the artistic and logistical efforts required to restart performances.” The production had started nearly two weeks late, after its leading man was injured onstage.
The Public Theater’s announcement of the resumption of the play said it would not return to an in-person standby line after all, but would retain a texting standby registry. In the past, hundreds of standby hopefuls have waited for hours in a line that snakes north of the venue.
As we return to Free Shakespeare in the Park performances of MERRY WIVES today, we will not be returning to an in-person standby line as previously announced. Our text-to-standby policy is still in place & you can enter beginning at 12pm every day.
Info: https://t.co/e7IdndcN8Z— The Public Theater (@PublicTheaterNY) July 24, 2021
Shakespeare in the Park is a much-loved summer tradition, and its culture is part of the lifeblood of New York. The return of arts and entertainment is also crucial to the city’s economy, employing some 93,500 people before the pandemic and paying them $7.4 billion in wages, according to the state comptroller’s office.
The show, a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” has been running in previews since July 6. Written by Jocelyn Bioh and directed by Saheem Ali, it is set in South Harlem and represents African immigrant communities not often seen onstage. Bioh and Ali have said they hope the production makes Shakespeare accessible to all audiences, especially people of color who may have been told Shakespeare was not for them.
The spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus has driven surges in many countries, and infections have led to the postponement of a number of stage productions and delays in television and film projects in Europe over the past month. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cinderella” musical recently moved its opening night in London’s West End back about a month after a cast member tested positive, while productions like “Hairspray” at the London Coliseum and “Romeo and Juliet” at Shakespeare’s Globe have also experienced delays after positive tests.
In Case You Missed It
As research continues into how long coronavirus vaccines remain effective, Biden administration health officials increasingly think that vulnerable populations will need booster shots.
Senior officials now say they expect that people who are 65 and older or who have compromised immune systems will most likely need a third shot from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, two vaccines based on the same technology that have been used to inoculate a vast majority of Americans thus far.
That is a sharp shift from just a few weeks ago, when the administration said it thought there was not yet enough evidence to back boosters.
The growing consensus within the administration that at least some Americans will need a booster is tied in part to research suggesting that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is less effective against infection with the coronavirus after about six months, though it remains strong in protecting against severe disease. More than half of those fully vaccinated in the United States so far have received the Pfizer vaccine.
And as schools are preparing to reopen and more employees are planning to return to offices in the fall, political leaders across the United States are weighing whether to require vaccinations to guard against a resurgence of the virus, especially the highly transmissible Delta variant.
This week, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City urged private businesses to require their workers to be vaccinated, days after he announced that all employees in the city’s public health system would have to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. The requirements would take effect after the Food and Drug Administration grants full approval to at least one Covid vaccine, which are all now being administered under an emergency order.
Vaccine mandates have remained relatively rare among municipal governments, which have faced strong opposition from unions. But some educational institutions are requiring students, teachers and staff members to be vaccinated or take other steps to prevent the spread of the virus. This week, Chicago’s public school system said it would require everyone in school buildings to wear masks this fall, regardless of vaccination status.
America’s most popular sports league, the N.F.L., had stopped short of mandating vaccinations, until now. Commissioner Roger Goodell sent a memo on Thursday to all 32 teams outlining Covid-19 guidelines for the 2021 season, including severe penalties for teams with unvaccinated personnel, including possibly having to forfeit games.
In other news from the past week:
-
The Tokyo Olympic Games is underway, as the city and athletes try to dodge a worsening outbreak in Japan. The opening ceremony was held in a near-empty stadium. Tokyo Olympic organizers announced 10 new positive tests on Sunday among people connected to the Games, bringing the total to at least 137, including 16 athletes. On Saturday, a Czech women’s beach volleyball team did not play because of a coronavirus infection, giving the win to Japan.
-
England’s months of lockdown rules ended on Monday, but the coronavirus-weary nation is being battered by a new crisis: a “pingdemic.” With virus case numbers surging again, hundreds of thousands of people have been notified — or pinged — by a government-sponsored phone app asking them to self-isolate for 10 days because they were in contact with someone who had tested positive. Supermarkets, trucking firms and food producers have warned of staff shortages.
-
In addition to the rise of the Delta variant, there is also a Beta variant, which was first detected in South Africa and has now been reported in 123 countries. It remains far less prevalent than Delta and is not common in the United States. Beta contains several mutations that help the virus bind more tightly to human cells. It also contains the E484K mutation, sometimes known as “Eek,” which appears to help the virus partially evade antibodies.
-
Canada announced that it would reopen its borders to travelers from the United States beginning on Aug. 9. Citizens and permanent U.S. residents will be allowed to enter as long as they have been fully vaccinated for at least 14 days before travel. But the United States is retaining its bar against nonessential travel from Canada, instituted in concert with Canada in March 2020.
-
New federal data showed that life expectancy in the United States suffered its steepest drop since World War II, with Black and Hispanic residents seeing the biggest declines. From 2019 to 2020, Hispanic people’s average life expectancy declined by three years, while Black residents had a decrease of 2.9 years. The smallest decline was recorded in white people, whose life expectancy fell by 1.2 years.
For years, staffing shortages have plagued the U.S. home care industry, but the coronavirus pandemic has intensified the problem.
“I’ve never heard such frustration over finding workers, and I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” said Vicki Hoak, executive director of the Home Care Association of America, whose 4,000 member agencies collectively employ about 500,000 people.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated job losses of 342,000 in the direct care work force last year — including staff members in nursing home and other residential care and home care. (Typically, employment in these categories rises each year.) The losses came either through layoffs or from people resigning because of health problems or fears related to Covid, lack of child care and other impediments.
By the end of 2020, employment in home care had rebounded and was only 3 percent below prepandemic levels, according to an analysis by PHI, a direct-care advocacy and research group.
The bigger problem, industry sources say, is increasing demand. Whereas nursing home occupancy has declined for years and fell further during the pandemic, and assisted living is at about 75 percent of capacity, the number of people seeking home care keeps increasing.
More than 800,000 older and disabled people who qualify for Medicaid are on their state’s waiting lists for home care. Agencies serving private-pay clients are turning away business.
Congregate living looks less attractive after Covid, as residents died and family members were locked out for months. Moreover, a return to workplaces means that some adult children can no longer provide elder care. Even before the pandemic, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projected the addition of one million home care jobs by 2029.
“The surge is here, and we can’t meet the need,” Ms. Hoak said. “It’s disheartening.”
Tripped Up
This week, The Times’s Tripped Up travel columnist helps vaccinated and confused Americans make sense of the new rules of entry into the European Union.
Once upon a time, the requirements for international travel weren’t all that complicated: always a passport, sometimes a visa.
Today, to leave one country and enter another is to contend with confusing rules and restrictions that continue to change as borders reopen and travel resumes.
Americans will encounter varying health protocols while traveling abroad. France is allowing vaccinated visitors from a short list of “green” countries — which includes the United States — to enter without restrictions. Greece and Lebanon are, too. But since January, everyone traveling to the United States has been required to take a coronavirus test within three days of their flight. That applies to residents and visitors, vaccinated and unvaccinated, alike.
Airlines are not allowing passengers to check in for international flights without first verifying whatever documents their destination countries require, including vaccination records and virus tests.
What that means logistically depends. Passengers on Delta Air Lines flights, for example, will have their documents verified in person by a check-in agent and again by a gate agent before boarding. United Airlines passengers are cleared for check-in after the necessary documents are verified in person or online at United’s Travel-Ready Center. (The digital option allows carry-on die-hards to get a boarding pass without an in-person check at the airport.)
You should also expect to produce proof of vaccination at other touch points, including at customs and immigration after landing.
There are a bunch of new digital health pass initiatives that verify and store vaccination records and test results, including one from Clear, the biometrics company. Digital passes provide another layer of safeguard and allow you to easily show proof of vaccination when asked.
But because digital passes are accepted at a venue’s discretion, it’s important to always have your physical card when traveling, as well. Treat it like a passport or driver’s license; as in, something you would never leave home without and something you’re asked to routinely pull out on command while traveling.
from WordPress https://ift.tt/3zwgq8l
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment