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California Pauses Plans to Require COVID Vaccinations for Schoolchildren
California will not require schoolchildren to be immunized for COVID-19 after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he is pausing a state mandate set to go into effect before the upcoming academic year while an influential Democratic lawmaker said he will drop his bill pushing even stricter inoculation rules.
Newsom made headlines in October when he announced California would be the first state to mandate the vaccine in schools once shots were fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for children ages 12 and older, with the requirement going into effect by July 1.
On Thursday, the California Department of Public Health announced that the timeline will be pushed back to at least July 1, 2023, since the FDA has not yet fully approved the vaccine for children and the state will need time afterward to initiate its rule-making process.
Fauci: ‘You Use Lockdowns to Get People Vaccinated’
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said this week that governments use lockdowns to “get people vaccinated.”
Fauci, who served on former President Donald Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force and is now President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser on COVID-19, discussed coronavirus lockdowns in China on Wednesday during an interview on MSNBC. Fauci said that China has a “number of problems,” noting that the country’s strict lockdowns would never be able to be implemented in the United States, “although that prevents the spread of infection.”
“But lockdown has its consequences,” he continued. “You use lockdowns to get people vaccinated so that when you open up, you won’t have a surge of infections, because you are dealing with an immunologically naive population, to the virus, because they’ve not really been exposed because of the lockdown.”
NYC Mayor Pushes for Gun Detection Tech After Brooklyn Subway Shooting
New York City Mayor Eric Adams may well believe that all those who aren’t as big as he is on surveillance tech don’t have nearly as much “swagger” as he does, but he’s pushing for what could potentially be the widest adoption of a gun surveillance system of any city in the world.
The mayor has already been a known proponent of facial recognition tech among other surveillance systems. Other cities like San Francisco have outright banned the technology, and studies have shown that similar policing systems can be unreliable and more than a little problematic, especially in regard to race.
Last month, Adams also mentioned that he wants to bring gun sensing technology into city schools as well.
Over Half of Americans Would Delete Themselves From the Internet if They Could
More than half of Americans (55%) surveyed in a new study from NordVPN say that they would choose to delete themselves from the internet if they could. To compile its study, the VPN maker commissioned the market research firm Propeller Insights to survey 1,002 U.S. consumers aged 18 and over in December of last year.
As to why respondents would choose to delete themselves from the internet if possible, 47% said they don’t trust the internet, another 46% said they have no reason to have their name on the internet and 42% said they fear that they will eventually be hacked. Surprisingly, 18% of those surveyed said they wish there wasn’t an internet while eight percent said that they don’t use the internet at all.
When it came to the kind of information about themselves that respondents wanted permanently deleted from the internet, 6 in 10 Americans said they wanted their personal financial information wiped from the web. However, other information Americans want deleted from the internet included embarrassing moments (26%), old dating or social media profiles (26%), unflattering photos and videos (24%) and their previous employment history (23%).
Broadway Adjusts COVID Vaccine Requirements, Extends Mask Policy
Many Broadway theaters will no longer require proof of vaccination against COVID-19 after this month, The Broadway League announced Friday.
The organization announced the shift in policy as it announced another extension of its rule that require patients to attend productions with a face covering. That rule will remain in place until at least May 31. Face masks have been the rule of thumb regardless of vaccination status since Broadway unveiled its revamped mask and vaccination policy last summer. They must be worn at all times except for while eating or drinking.
The league said up-to-date requirements for vaccine information will be provided by individual theaters and ticket sellers. Exceptions can also be made for ticket holders with a medical condition or “closely held religious belief that prevents vaccination.”
Ontario’s Top Doctor to Recommend Extending COVID Mask Mandate for Hospitals, Transit
Ontario’s chief medical officer of health will recommend that the province extend the remaining mask mandates — in settings such as hospitals, long-term care and public transit — as new COVID-19 modeling suggests a tenuous plateau in transmission.
Dr. Kieran Moore will be submitting that proposal to the government, for a four-week extension beyond the current expiry date of April 27, he told The Canadian Press in an interview Thursday.
Shanghai Residents Forced From Homes Clash With Police Over COVID Policy
Residents who have been locked down since late March have complained about food shortages and over-zealous officials forcing them into central quarantine facilities, as authorities rush to construct tens of thousands of beds to house patients with COVID. Daily infections are topping 20,000.
Late on Thursday, multiple videos circulated on social media showing residents outside a compound shouting at ranks of officials holding police shields as the officers tried to break through their line. In one clip, police appear to make several arrests as the residents accuse them of hitting people. Screaming and crying could also be heard in the background. Bystanders took out their phones to film the scene.
Thursday’s incident has provided a rare insight into public anger in China, a country where the authorities brook little dissent and censors routinely wipe information relating to protests from the internet as fast as it is uploaded.
Elon Musk Takes a Swipe at Mark Zuckerberg’s Ironclad Control of Meta, Says It’s Set up so Even ‘Mark Zuckerberg the 14th’ Will Be in Charge of Facebook and Instagram
Elon Musk dissed Mark Zuckerberg’s lasting control over Meta during an interview on Thursday. Musk was asked about his recent offer to buy Twitter during an interview at the TED conference in Vancouver. The interviewer, Chris Anderson, asked Musk whether his status as the richest man in the world and one of the platform‘s top influencers on the platform could pose a conflict of interest.
Musk took the opportunity to take a swipe at Zuckerberg and even appeared to compare the Facebook founder to King Louis XIV. “As for media sort of ownership, I mean, you’ve got Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg the 14th still controlling those entities,” Musk said.
The Tesla CEO was referencing Zuckerberg’s stronghold on Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The Facebook founder holds 55% of the company’s voting shares — meaning Zuckerberg essentially has complete veto power over other shareholders when it comes to the company’s future.
Debate Intensifies Over Use of Facial Recognition Technology in British Schools
For years, the UK has been using biometrics to identify school children, but now that facial recognition (FRT) software is becoming widely adopted, questions are being raised about ethical issues surrounding data and surveillance.
Companies say that the futuristic technology will radically improve productivity and efficiency during dinner times, but critics, including the UK’s snooping tsar, have come out strong against the use of facial recognition cameras in schools.
As independent Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner, Professor Fraser Sampson’s role is to encourage compliance with the surveillance camera code of practice. “There is not really a recognition that this is intrusive surveillance, and it’s increasingly intrusive surveillance,” he said. “If people think the use of facial recognition by the police is sensitive and controversial wait until schools start putting it in.
“Your starting point should be, ‘Where is the lawful purpose of introducing this clearly intrusive type of technology into a school?’” he said. “How does any of this fit with much wider government obligations on the U.N. convention on the rights of the child not to be subject to close scrutiny and have the freedom to sit in a classroom without being watched, let alone recorded?” said Sampson.
TikTok Under U.S. Government Investigation Over Child Sexual Abuse Material
TikTok is under investigation by U.S. government agencies over its handling of child sexual abuse material, as the burgeoning short-form video app struggles to moderate a flood of new content.
The Department of Justice is also reviewing how a specific privacy feature on TikTok is being exploited by predators, said one person with knowledge of the case. The DOJ has a longstanding policy of not confirming or denying the existence of ongoing investigations.
“It is a perfect place for predators to meet, groom and engage children,” said Erin Burke, unit chief of the child exploitation investigations unit at Homeland Security’s cybercrime division, calling it the “platform of choice” for the behavior.
The business is booming. A forecast from Insider Intelligence puts TikTok’s advertising revenue at $11.6 billion this year — up threefold from last year’s $3.9 billion.
Apple, Others Face Shipment Delays as China COVID Curbs Squeeze Suppliers
Shipments of some Apple products, as well as Dell and Lenovo laptops, are likely to face delays if China’s COVID-19 lockdowns persist, analysts said, as curbs force assemblers to shut down and closed-loop arrangements get harder to maintain.
China’s race to stop the spread of COVID-19 has jammed highways and ports, stranded workers and left countless factories awaiting government approval to reopen — disruptions that are rippling through global supply chains.
