As always, the coronavirus is more complicated than we thought. This time, that might be good news. Britain’s health minister, Matt Hancock, created what one expert called the “Panic du Jour” on Monday when he told the BBC he was “incredibly worried” about the South African variant of the novel coronavirus. The British government moved on Christmas Eve to restrict all flights into the United Kingdom from the country, the latest in a series of travel embargoes aimed at warding off the hot new thing in pandemic terror. “This is a very, very significant problem,” Hancock said, adding, that “it’s even […]
Olivia Messer
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Authorities said at a press conference on Saturday that federal agents are pursuing at least 500 leads in the investigation of an explosion that rocked downtown Nashville on Christmas Day, injuring three people and damaging dozens of historic buildings. The vehicle detonated around 6:30 a.m. on Christmas morning in what police have called an “intentional act.” Officers responded to a call that shots were fired in the area, where they found an RV playing a recording warning that a bomb would detonate “in 15 minutes.” Police spokesperson Don Aaron called the six local officers who rushed to evacuate sleeping residents “heroes” […]
Dr. Vin Gupta was nervous. The pulmonary and critical care doctor wasn’t worried about getting the COVID-19 vaccine—or the fact he was receiving the shot live, the following morning, on The Today Show. But as he told The Daily Beast that Tuesday afternoon on the phone, the faculty member at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington had been barraged with messages and emails and Twitter mentions from vaccine skeptics, including threats on his life, and invitations to “come make me wear a mask.” It was more than enough to stir up some anticipatory anxiety […]
Leonard Lindsay thought his husband was going to die. Forty years ago, in 1980, he met Carl Zehner at a YMCA in Knoxville, Tennessee. They fell in love quickly. And though they were later able to legally marry—on the steps of a San Francisco courthouse, no less—they always considered that first meeting their anniversary. So on March 7, 2020, even as the coronavirus had already begun turning cruise ships into disaster zones in Japan and Australia, the pair boarded the MS Zandaam in Buenos Aires, Argentina, hoping for the best. “One time, when he still couldn’t speak, he wrote on a […]
Despite new, harsher state-ordered coronavirus restrictions, some Pennsylvania gyms have deemed their business too important to let a little pandemic stand in the way. The man leading the charge: a big-time GOP donor in Bucks County, outside Philadelphia, whose organization, People 4 Trump, recently used its website to help rally attendees on buses for an “election integrity” march and fast in Washington, D.C. Some far-right protesters in Washington that day ripped down Black Lives Matter signs and vandalized Black churches. While the anti-lockdown businesses in Pennsylvania have found some community support, conversations with locals and experts paint a picture of a […]
When Donald Trump held an unhinged, election-focused event bizarrely trumpeting the massive coronavirus infection rate in the United States on Tuesday, he got one thing right: The hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine is going remarkably well. A survey of top infectious disease experts in the country—including the chair of the committee responsible for reviewing vaccine candidates—told The Daily Beast that the rapid march toward vaccination against the deadly scourge was a spectacular achievement. Scientists from the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday released a set of data analyses on the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine—which was injected into the first non-trial participants in […]
The photo of elated teens in football uniforms, fans in the stands, and high-school cheerleaders in maroon and white waving gold pom-poms could have been a still from Friday Night Lights. But when a Jenks, Oklahoma, school district posted images of its high school state champion football team celebrating victory this weekend, the response was far from congratulatory. Mixed in-between the extra-large gold bows, bright yellow cowboy hats, and hundreds of students shoved together in jubilation were a small handful of masks—reminders of the viral pandemic ravaging the region and the country. Hundreds of comments that rolled in on the Jenks […]
In any other time, a lighthearted photo of teens pretending to lick one another’s faces would not warrant national headlines. But the Nov. 7 Facebook post—in which three glittering teenage girls wear crowns, smiles, and red roses between pubescent boys blowing them kisses—is emblematic of a catastrophic divide between Americans in the middle of a pandemic. On the same day 1,007 Americans died from the highly contagious virus ravaging the nation, parents sent their children in sashes and sequins to a massive, indoor event. And while parents who planned massive homecoming dances in Rolla, Missouri and McDonough, Georgia were getting panned […]
The New York Young Republican Club doesn’t plan to let a little thing like a deadly pandemic stand in the way of its annual gala in Manhattan on Thursday—and already, there are questions about the group’s plans to adhere to public health restrictions. In a statement to The Daily Beast, club president Gavin Wax claimed the evening soirée headlined by Gov. Sarah Palin and Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe would comply with what he called New York’s “capricious” guidelines—which include a 50-person limit on indoor gatherings. But on a Facebook page for the 108th annual gala, 68 people had already marked […]
Meat-plant workers in Colorado condemned local leaders on Wednesday for refusing to enforce new state-directed COVID-19 safety restrictions, even after hitting a “level red” designation over the region’s spiraling increase in coronavirus cases and dire hospital situation. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said on Tuesday that Weld County hospitals had only three available ICU beds, and no non-ICU beds left in its facilities, as reported by The Denver Post. Level Red restrictions include banning personal gatherings of any size, closing indoor dining at restaurants, recommending remote learning at high school and colleges, and limiting office capacity to 10 percent. The state’s guide […]
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 capacity for the concert on Tuesday. “We are a church. We’re not going to reject people and push people out because they take their mask off.” Daugherty told the station that Bethel Music, a music […]
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 Daily Beast. And she’s sick of it. “Frankly, I’m freaking out,” she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity over fear of professional retaliation. “I think it’s incredibly irresponsible for the hotel to be hosting […]
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 not even attend the reception. Another regional cluster, tied to a September church gathering in Nantucket, also drew headlines and attendant fury. Perhaps most glaring: the Martha’s Vineyard outbreak appeared to be hitting people who […]
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 of Vice President Mike Pence’s team were reported to have been sickened by the novel coronavirus. The musician and activist’s “Let Us Worship” tour has gathered hundreds and thousands of Christians all over the nation—in […]
“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, while hospitalizations skyrocketed across the nation by 40 percent. The problem, experts say, isn’t Friday’s number. It’s the upward trajectory. “It’s going to get a lot worse,” said Dr. Haseltine, who was at the heart […]
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 danger of such a big indoor gathering. At the time, The Daily Beast reported that Sanford Health, a nonprofit hospital system, was sponsoring the event in conjunction with Gov. Kristi Noem, who also took heat […]
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 slow the spread of COVID by taking a measured approach to protect the community,” Brian Todd, a spokesman for the Metro Public Health Department for the City of Nashville, told The Daily Beast in a […]
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, the 80-year-old senior pastor and the church’s founder, John Hagee, had been diagnosed two days earlier with COVID-19. Hagee said during the Oct. 4 livestreamed service that his father “has been diligent throughout this entire […]
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, a saliva-based novel coronavirus testing method, using players, coaches, and staff members from the league’s (relatively) isolated Disney World stomping ground. A non-peer-reviewed pre-print of a promising initial study was published last week on medrxiv […]
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 (D-CA), saying he never discussed the decision with Vice President Mike Pence or Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar—but that he believes the plan will help allocate critical experimental COVID-19 drugs like Remdisivir to […]
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, dramatically decrease the rate of community spread,” Vice President Mike Pence, chair of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said in the meeting, according to a recording obtained by The Daily Beast. Pence said that […]
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 that appears to belong to Amerman, he works as a painter in Saugerties, New York. Amerman faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of civil disorder or civil disorder conspiracy, for which he […]
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 about his chances. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” Trump said, mimicking firing a gun with his fingers, at a campaign stop […]
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 of the Texas Capitol superimposed behind her. It was certainly not the first time Democrats in the state had inveighed against a pandemic approach criticized by some as too reckless, and followed months of power […]
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 particularly hard-hit by the virus in recent weeks—on June 30, according to a report from Talking Points Memo. The sites were set up earlier this year to assist local authorities after a series of missteps […]
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 any race and 22 percent of infections were among Black Americans, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released Monday found. For context, those communities account for about 18 percent and 13 percent of the U.S. […]
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 record daily highs of COVID-19 infections this week, as state public health leaders pleaded with their communities to take the ongoing crisis seriously. But there are few states whose experience of the coronavirus pandemic has […]
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 job in March at Kings County Hospital Center. He has spent the past several months moving medicine and patients around the facility, as well as piling hundreds of dead bodies—many of them COVID-19 victims—into refrigerated […]
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 crowds this week to protest the death of George Floyd—and decades of other black deaths at the hands of police officers—after the 46-year-old was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer who shoved a knee […]
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 Wednesday marking the first uptick in days. “It’s not an easy decision, but my parents have poured their life into this business,” Evans told The Daily Beast. “It might be a little dance with the […]
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 helped spread it to 26 others, which ballooned into a cluster of 61, of which four people died. The analysis mirrors past reports detailing—with painful precision—how just one case of COVID-19 can quickly spread within […]
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 high-tech mass testing initiative: TestNebraska.com. But when she completed the online survey of symptoms, the site told her she didn’t qualify. “I have spoken to many people who have had the same experience,” said Hunt. […]
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 to survey about 140,000 people over two weeks in order to “understand COVID-19 spread and provide New Yorkers with more clarity,” as his office explained. Five testing sites will be set up in each of […]