A Tulsa-based megachurch was under fire this week after its pastor posted a video showing 2,500 congregants singing, many without masks, just days before a Thanksgiving holiday widely feared as a driver of new COVID-19 surges. “I understand we’re all trying to do our part,” Pastor Paul Daugherty, of Victory Church, told KJRH-TV, noting that church leaders opted to fill a 5,000-seat auditorium at 50 percent […]
Olivia Messer
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For two weekends in a row, a staffer at a hotel in Key West has waited on guests at large weddings, smiling from underneath her mask at often drunk attendees, some of whom traveled from out of state in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. She’s spent hours watching wealthy revelers toast to their good fortunes while forgetting about their own face coverings, she told The […]
A wedding on Martha’s Vineyard earlier this month is veering toward superspreader status, causing the island to experience its first case cluster since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and sending the destination known for its elite visitors and lush vacations into a tailspin. Locals have every reason to be spooked, considering the now-notorious August wedding in Maine that led to 170 infections, killing eight people who did […]
Days after leading thousands of maskless worshippers across the eastern seaboard, Evangelical singer and activist Sean Feucht posted a photo of his family, masked, at the doors of the West Wing. Though it was unclear if Feucht went inside the White House on Friday, he has previously visited the landmark to pray with President Trump. And Feucht’s photo was posted just one day before five members […]
“You should be prepared for how bad it’s going to get.” The words of Dr. William Haseltine, an internationally renowned infectious disease expert, summarized the resounding—and sobering—takeaway from several public health experts and epidemiologists who spoke to The Daily Beast on Saturday, hours after the U.S. smashed its previous record of new daily COVID-19 cases. The country hit 83,757 reported infections in one day on Friday, […]
A concert that was canceled for its potential to massively spread COVID-19 in the hot zone of South Dakota has been brought back from the dead with a new featured artist—one who’s already been slammed for playing to packed pandemic crowds. Country singer Chase Rice will perform at Saturday’s event, after the original headliner, Chris Young, dropped out following a Daily Beast report on the potential […]
He’s at it again. Nashville city officials are investigating a massive gathering of thousands of maskless worshippers who tightly packed onto a local courthouse’s steps Sunday night. It was the latest stop of a “Let Us Worship” tour by a controversial musician and religious activist who has drawn ire from leaders across the country for his take on pandemic-era faith. “We have worked very hard to […]
At San Antonio’s Cornerstone Church on Sunday morning, hundreds of maskless congregants sang and prayed, swaying together in the pews, babies and grandparents in close proximity. It might have been easy to forget there was a deadly pandemic blazing through the country. That is, until about 25 minutes into the sermon, when pastor Matt Hagee, on a stage bathed in blue light, announced that his father, […]
While competing for playoff positioning and advocating for social justice, the basketball players at the NBA campus bubble outside Orlando, Florida, have also been conducting an admittedly exclusive science experiment that could help improve diagnostic testing in the United States. The National Basketball Association, the National Basketball Players Association, and the Yale School of Public Health announced in June that they had partnered to study SalivaDirect, […]
Between fiery exchanges and partisan monologues, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, testified on Capitol Hill on Friday that he wasn’t told until after a decision was made that hospitals would be directed to bypass his agency, sending COVID-19 data straight to another database in Washington. Redfield answered a string of questions on the subject from Rep. Maxine Waters […]
During a meeting with governors on Monday, the White House Coronavirus Task Force trotted out decreased COVID-19 case counts in Arizona as proof that masks and social distancing work, encouraging other states to impose similar measures as a way to contain and prevent surges. “Masks, closing indoor bars, decreasing indoor dining capacity to 25 percent, continued social distancing and personal hygiene messaging, according to the model, […]
When 27-year-old Samantha Shader was first arrested for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at police, she told detectives that the supplies—including glass bottles—were given to her by a group of Black men and women, according to federal court records. But weeks later, on Friday, police arrested a white man who admitted to providing the materials, 29-year-old Timothy Amerman. According to court records and a Facebook page […]
In a call-back to simpler times—before the unprecedented global pandemic and nationwide civil unrest—supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden have co-opted a notorious joke made by President Trump four years ago on the campaign trail. The year was 2016, and there were just two weeks until the Iowa caucuses. Reality-TV star and real-estate mogul Donald Trump was the Republican frontrunner, and he was, well, confident […]
Democratic officials angry at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s handling of surging coronavirus numbers in the state this week had one lackluster place to voice their frustrations about the rapidly escalating public health crisis killing their constituents: a Zoom press conference. “While some states followed the advice of public health experts, Texas did not,” Dallas-area State Rep. Toni Rose said from a webcam on Wednesday, a photograph […]
About an hour after the nation’s top public health officials denied to Congress that President Trump had ordered a slowdown in COVID-19 testing, news broke that the federal government was winding down support for local testing sites in states like Texas that continue to break daily case records. The Trump administration will end support for 13 sites in five states—including seven in Texas, which has been […]
In a new, massive federal survey of novel coronavirus cases in the United States, a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers an in-depth breakdown by gender, race, ethnicity, and health factors. Among 1,320,488 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases considered by the CDC between January 22 and May 30, 2020—of which only 45 percent had race or ethnicity data—33 percent were Hispanic or Latino of […]
For months, New Yorkers saw their hospitals flood with COVID-19 patients and bodies pile up in refrigerated overflow morgue trucks. Meanwhile, other parts of the country never even implemented a statewide lockdown. For those hoping a slew of Southern and rural states might have avoided the worst of the pandemic entirely, Friday’s case counts provided a grim answer. Arizona, North Carolina, California, Florida, and Texas hit […]
Twenty minutes after leaving his job at a Brooklyn hospital on Saturday night, 32-year-old Rayne Valentine was lying in the fetal position on the sidewalk. He’d been beaten and kicked by New York police officers, his hospital ID smeared with his own blood, he told The Daily Beast. Valentine, a Marine veteran who worked as a chef before the pandemic hit the restaurant industry, got a […]
The word “unprecedented” has been used ad nauseam in recent months, but when public health authorities tried on Sunday to predict the potentially catastrophic effect of nationwide police brutality protests amid a deadly pandemic, it seemed hard to find a suitable alternative. After months of diligent social distancing to curb COVID-19 transmission, Americans in major cities all over the country took to the streets in huge […]
Actress Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli have agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges in the sprawling college admissions scandal, according to the Department of Justice. The couple was indicted for their alleged scheme to gain their two children admission into the University of Southern California as purported athletic recruits. Source link
“Just to be clear, we’re not COVID-deniers or anything.” Dustin Evans is nervous right now. But the 31-year-old general manager of Southern Roots Brewing Company in downtown Waco, Texas, is committed to reopening his bar at 25-percent capacity on Friday, even with small children and a pregnant wife at home. After all, COVID-19 cases seemed to taper off in his area, with four new infections reported […]
As states decide how and when to reopen churches amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, a new federal report analyzing a cluster in Arkansas shows how easily the virus can spread in faith communities—even when they take precautions. The analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) details how one couple—a pastor at a local church and his wife—contracted the virus and unwittingly may have […]
One morning two weeks ago, Megan Hunt woke up fearing the worst. The novel coronavirus pandemic was surging in Nebraska, and the 34-year-old midtown Omaha resident was winded, short of breath, sore, and had digestive issues, she told The Daily Beast. She continued to self-isolate, let her 10-year-old daughter help with the cooking, and tried to get a COVID-19 test from her state’s brand new, seemingly […]
New York City remains under seemingly interminable pandemic lockdown. But as researchers around the globe chase the promise of antibody tests—which have faced criticism for their mixed accuracy and dubious reputation as harbingers of COVID-19-immunity—a new wave of such testing in America’s largest city offered a glimmer of hope. Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday detailed a plan to ramp up antibody testing locally, and specifically […]