Masks, Social Distancing and More Are Creeping Back as Election Season Builds

With little more than a year until the 2024 elections, the reappearance of some COVID-era protocols has sparked concerns that more widespread measures may be ordered in the months ahead. 

This week, Morris Brown College announced on Instagram that “effective immediately,” several COVID-19 protocols, including a campus-wide mask mandate, had been enacted for at least 14 days despit there having been no confirmed COVID-19 cases on campus recently. The measure, the college says, is instead “due to reports of positive cases among students” at other Atlanta-area schools.

Read More

Researchers Flay Medical Journals for COVID ‘Misinformation’ Claims

Three and a half years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, American medical journals are still calling out what they consider commonly shared misinformation on vaccines, masks, transmission and viral origins, sometimes promoted by health professionals.

Yet voluminous research and real-world experiences over that span suggest the journals themselves are promoting outdated, unsupported or exaggerated COVID claims, if not outright misinformation.

Read More

Masks Offer ‘Small’ Benefit Against COVID, Increased CO2 May Be Tied to Stillbirths: Research

The termination of the COVID-19 national emergency has not ended mask mandates in various jurisdictions and settings such as healthcare, even as more peer-reviewed research suggests that face coverings can cause more harm than good.

The Annals of Internal Medicine published the “final update” to a three-year “living, rapid review” of research on mask effectiveness against COVID infection, which concluded masks in healthcare and community settings “may be associated with a small reduction in risk” — 10-18% — but that the evidence is weak.

Read More

International Research Suggests Masks Better at Causing ‘Long COVID’ than Stopping Virus

Government-backed assumptions about the safety and effectiveness of high-quality mask-wearing against COVID-19 are facing scrutiny from new international research that shines a harsh light on the feds’ continued faith in face coverings.

Surgical and N95-grade masks might induce symptoms misidentified as biologically elusive “long COVID,” according to a “systematic review” in the peer-reviewed Swiss journal Frontiers in Public Health. It echoes a recent study of Norwegian adolescents and young adults on long COVID’s connection to “loneliness” and physical inactivity — conditions exacerbated by pandemic interventions.

Read More

Despite Comprehensive Study Showing Masks Ineffective Against COVID and Flu, CDC Director Tells Congress, ‘Our Masking Guidance Doesn’t Really Change With Time’

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky testified during a recent House committee hearing that, despite the recent release of an international research review that found masks are ineffective against COVID-19 and the flu, her agency’s masking guidance “doesn’t really change with time.”

During a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) asked Walensky to explain how the CDC uses evidence to update or change its guidance.

Read More

Ohio Think Tank Wins Lawsuit for D.C. Tavern Against COVID Mandate

A Columbus, Ohio-based think tank this week prevailed in an administrative case on behalf of a Washington, D.C. tavern owner against D.C.’s since-rescinded mandate forcing indoor establishments to require that patrons wear masks and submit proof of COVID-19 vaccination.

The Buckeye Institute handled the matter for Eric Flannery, a Navy veteran and co-proprietor of The Big Board, a bar and grill operating three blocks east of Washington’s Union Station. Despite the city’s mask and vaccine-card rules, Flannery announced that “everyone is welcome” at his restaurant. This winter, the D.C. Department of Health (DOH) officials responded by suspending the tavern’s operating and liquor licenses, ordering the place to temporarily shutter and slapping Flannery with a $2,000 fine. 

Read More

Whistleblower Docs: DHS’s Disinformation Board Was Poised to Crack Down on Information Questioning Vaccines, Masks, and Validity of 2020 Election

by Debra Heine   The Department of Homeland Security’s paused “Disinformation Governance Board” (DGB) was set up to respond to matters the government unilaterally determined to be mis-, dis- or mal-information (MDM)—specifically information that counters official regime narratives on “the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines,” “the efficacy of masks,” the validity…

Read More

New Study Shows Red States Handled COVID-19 Better Than Blue States

A new study by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity found that states led by Republicans did a better job than Democrat-led states at managing the coronavirus and keeping their states from slumping into an economic and social recession.

As reported by The Daily Caller, the three states that ranked the worst in mortality, economy, and schooling during the COVID pandemic were New Jersey, New York, and California, all of which had implemented some of the strictest lockdown measures in the nation. By contrast, the states that ranked the highest were Utah, Vermont, and Nebraska.

Read More

Analysis: Coming to Grips with the Facts About Masks

Allegations that “masks work” and “don’t cause harm” have been enforced by governments and corporations around the world for more than 18 months through arrests, firings, censorship, fines, and denial of access to schools, supermarkets, hospitals, streets, and other public spaces. This has made it virtually impossible for many people to live without complying with mask mandates.
In recent weeks, however, more medical scholars and media outlets are coming to grips with facts about masks that Just Facts has been documenting for more than a year and painstakingly compiled in a September 2021 article sourced with more than 50 peer-reviewed science journals. Here’s a sample of people who are speaking up about the facts and their implications:

Dr. Vinay Prasad—an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco—has written an article that examines the scientific evidence for masking children and concludes that:

Read More

Missouri Attorney General Sues Nine More School Districts over Mask Requirements

young girl getting face mask put on her face

Missouri Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt on Monday filed lawsuits against nine public school districts with mask requirements.

Schmitt, a candidate for the seat of retiring U.S. Republican Senator Roy Blunt, filed suit against 36 school districts on Friday. Today’s districts being sued include the Kirkwood School District and the Special School District of St. Louis, both serving where Schmitt resides in Glendale, Mo.

“As we’ve made clear from the beginning, the power to make health decisions for their children should be in the hands of parents, not bureaucrats,” Schmitt said in a statement. “Today I’m filing nine more lawsuits against school districts that are illegally enforcing mask mandates on schoolchildren. Masking children all day in school is ineffective and these endless pandemic restrictions lead to lasting, negative psychological impacts on children and teens. This is a fight worth fighting, and I’m not going to back down.”

Read More

Commentary: It’s 2022, But Many Schools Are Reverting to 2020’s COVID Playbook

young girl getting face mask put on her face

It’s 2022 but you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s still 2020—especially if you have children enrolled in K-12 district schooling. Some parents are grappling this week with a return to, or threat of, remote learning first introduced nearly two years ago.

Fear of the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus is leading school officials across the country to once again shutter schools. In Cleveland, for example, this first week of school for the new year is entirely remote for public school students. Several districts throughout Ohio are following suit, while others are re-imposing 2020 virus-related restrictions or extending the holiday break into this week.

Newark, New Jersey public schools announced they will be fully remote for the next two weeks, as did other districts throughout the state. Public schools in Atlanta will also be closed this week, reverting back to remote learning.

Read More

CDC Says Five-Year-Olds Will Still Need to Wear Masks After Vaccine Is Approved for Kids

Blonde child wearing hair up, holding journal and wearing a mask

Students as young as five years old may still need to wear masks in school after the COVID-19 vaccine is approved for children ages 5-11, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said in a White House briefing Wednesday. Walensky did not discuss if or when children would not be required to wear masks in school.

“After we have authorization from (the Food and Drug Administration) and recommendations from the CDC, we will be working to scale up pediatric vaccination. That said, it will take some time … as we head into these winter months, we know we cannot be complacent,” Walensky stated.

Read More

Commentary: The Insufferable Piety of the Progressive Elites

Freedom in Australia is now at the mercy of a state and its police apparatus bent on controlling people’s every movement.

But despite the extensive footage of protests gone violent, neither American liberal media nor domestic social justice movements are raising alarms about police brutality in that country.

Read More

Former Biden COVID Adviser Concedes Cloth Masks ‘Are Not Very Effective’

Someone holding a bunch of cloth masks

Akey SARS-Cov-2 expert acknowledged this week that a mainstay of the global coronavirus response — the use of cloth masks — does little to stop the spread of the virus.

Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and an adviser on President Joe Biden’s transitional COVID-19 advisory board, made the stunning claim on CNN this week amid escalating worldwide fears and concerns over the “Delta variant” of COVID-19.

“We know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out,” Osterholm said during the interview.

Read More

Commentary: Politically Correct Ideology Is Masking and Contributing to the Widespread Failure of Our Institutions

close up of green masks on a table

We know the nature of mass hysterias in history, and how they can overwhelm and paralyze what seem to be stable societies.  

We know the roots and origins of the cult of wokeness.  

And we know, too, how such insanity—from the Salem witch trials to Jacobinism to McCarthyism—can spread, despite alienating most of the population, through fear and the threat of personal ruin or worse. These are the dark sides of the tulip, hula-hoop, and pet-rock fads, the mass obsessions so suited to past affluent Western societies.  

Read More

Biden Requiring Federal Government Workers to Show Proof of Vaccination

COVID-19 AstraZeneca Vaccine vial and NHS record card

President Joe Biden on Thursday said his administration will require all federal employees and contractors to show proof of vaccination, a move met with swift opposition from Texas elected officials.

Federal workers or contractors who can’t show a proof of vaccination will be required to wear masks, practice physical distancing, and be subject to twice-weekly COVID-19 tests under the new rules.

Biden encouraged the private sector and professional sports leagues to follow suit in an address on Thursday.

Read More

Commentary: The CDC’s Hysterical Delta Flip-Flop Might Be Its Final Undoing

The crazy, convoluted, mixed up messaging from the CDC – it’s been this way from the beginning of the pandemic until now – has taken yet another turn. Now the CDC is recommending masks not just for the unvaccinated but for the vaccinated too. This is supposedly because of the discovery that the variant known as Delta is making an end-run around the vaccines, causing not only infections but infectious spread. 

Read More

Ohio Will Not Mandate Masks in Schools

Saying he does not believe he has the authority to mandate masks in Ohio public schools, Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday turned that decision over to local school boards and parents.

DeWine, along with other state health officials and physicians, almost pleaded with parents to either have their children vaccinated or wear masks as the beginning of the school year draws near and a new COVID-19 variant is causing increased infections.

“I do not believe I have the ability today to mandate [masks in schools]. There is not the appetite in this state for that kind of a mandate,” DeWine said. “We are at a point in the pandemic where information is out there but these decisions must be left to the local community and must be left to the parents.”

Read More

Columbus Schools Will Require Masks When Ohio Students Return

Woman sitting alone with a mask on.

Ohio’s largest school district will require all students, staff and visitors to wear masks inside buildings and on buses this fall, but an Ohio lawmaker has introduced a bill that prohibits schools from requiring masks.

The Columbus City Schools Board of Education said in a news release it relied on recommendations from The American Academy of Pediatrics and guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with talks with Columbus Public Health, to reach the decision.

“Safely returning to in-person instruction in the fall is a priority, and masks provide and extra layer of protection in reducing transmission of the COVID-19 virus,” Superintendent Talisa Dixon said Wednesday in a news release. “Throughout this pandemic, we have relied on the guidance of our public health officials. We feel that this was the best decision for our district and community.”

Read More

Prominent Medical Journals Highlight Harm to Children from Masks, Death Risk from COVID Vaccines

The range of acceptable opinion on COVID-19 mitigation efforts may be widening, with peer-reviewed medical journals recently publishing research finding that masks likely harm schoolchildren and questioning whether benefits from COVID-19 vaccines outweigh risks.

Measured carbon dioxide content in “inhaled air,” observed in a study of masked German schoolchildren, was at least three-fold higher than German law allows, according to a research letter published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics.

Last week, the journal Vaccines, affiliated with the American Society for Virology, published research that estimates every three COVID-19 deaths prevented by vaccination are offset by two deaths “inflicted by vaccination,” using Israeli and European data.

The papers share a lead author, Harald Walach, a professor in Poznan University of the Medical Sciences’ Pediatric Clinic in Poland and University of Witten/Herdecke’s psychology department in Germany.

Read More

Commentary: Remote Work’s Impending Transformation of Middle America

Computer with video chat on screen and mug next to laptop

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a great deal about America and Americans. Most have acquiesced to anything and everything government bureaucrats asked for in the name of public safety. Masks have been donned, churches have been shuttered, and many of us stayed at home for months, working remotely.

This last item may end up being the largest and most permanent transformation of the United States. The mobility that comes with remote work may end up transforming middle America as left-coast technologists migrate inward. Freed from the work-based ties that bind them to Silicon Valley and New York City, they can now easily take their jobs and their left-wing politics to the heartland, ushering in a transformative moment in American politics.

Thomas Edsall, writing for The New York Times, discusses how many from densely populated urban areas on the coasts are finding that remote work enables them to have big city paychecks while living in suburban or rural areas with lower costs of living. 

Read More

More Americans Are Living Their Lives, Leaving Masks at Home, Survey Shows

Group of people sitting at public restaurant, eating.

A majority of Americans said for the first time in over a year that returning to their “normal” pre-pandemic lives did not pose a moderate or large health risk, an Axios/Ipsos survey shows.

The survey, released Tuesday, showed just 43% of Americans saying that returning to “normal” posed either a large or moderate risk to their health. It also shows that majorities of Americans have begun to enjoy several aspects of pre-pandemic life: 54% of Americans have eaten at a restaurant, 59% have visited family or friends and 31% have made summer plans – all in the past week alone.

The return to normalcy and the mental health benefits associated with it directly corresponds with the amount of Americans who say they have been vaccinated. Almost two-thirds of respondents say that they have received at least one shot, and 18% say that their emotional well-being has improved in the past week, which the survey notes is an all-time high during the pandemic.

Read More

Biden Suggests Masks Will Be Worn Through Next Year

President Joe Biden indicated that Americans may need to wear masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus for the remainder of 2021.

Speaking during a visit to the National Institutes of Health complex on Thursday, Biden also spoke about the U.S. vaccine supply and his goals for the rollout, and suggested that mask-wearing will likely be a reality for the next year, Fox News reports.

Read More

Ohio Launching a New Unit to Ensure Mask Compliance as State Sees Record Number of Cases

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is doubling down on a mask mandate, and the state is launching a new unit to make sure businesses comply with the requirement.

The move comes as Ohio faces a record number of hospitalizations and intensive care admissions because of COVID-19. Roughly 3,000 Ohioans are hospitalized, including more than 700 people in the ICU, and during the first week of November, 104 Ohioans with the virus died.

Read More

Commentary: Trump Is Now One with Countless Essential Workers

Joe Biden has redefined mask wearing. It is now the thinking man’s patriotism, what every “scientific” and “refined” mind naturally does.

Biden, the media, and the progressive party all blame the now ill Trump for becoming infected. They accuse the president of becoming sick because he was selfish. You see, he was not always wearing a mask, or not always isolating in social-distancing fashion, or not always staying inside except for essential expeditionary trips.

Read More

Metro Nashville Council Member Wants People Not Wearing a Mask to Be Charged with Murder or Attempted Murder

Metro Nashville At-Large Council Member Sharon Hurt said Wednesday during a virtual meeting of the Joint Pubic Safety and Health Committee that there should be stronger legislation for those not wearing masks and suggested they be charged with murder or attempted murder.

Hurt said that she works for an organization that, “If they pass the virus, then they are tried for murder or attempted murder.”

Read More

DeWine Tells Meet the Press He May Implement Statewide Mask Mandate

As Ohio’s coronavirus testing and case numbers are increasing, Gov. Mike DeWine is threatening to impose a statewide mask mandate.

While Ohio’s coronavirus tests and cases are increasing, the rate of deaths is decreasing, even as Gov. Mike DeWine says he has not ruled out a statewide mask mandate.

DeWine spoke about mask mandates on Meet the Press on Sunday.

Read More

Dr. Simone Gold Commentary: We Do Not Consent

It is clear to me as a physician-lawyer that the disinformation about both Covid-19 and the Constitution has caused us to turn a medical issue into a legal crisis.

The scientific usefulness of a mask has been so aggressively overstated, and the foundational importance of the Constitution has been so aggressively understated, that we have normalized people screaming obscenities at each other while hiking.

Read More