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Bill Gates: ‘If Every Country Does What Australia Did,’ the World Could Prevent the Next Pandemic
For months, Bill Gates has warned of a new pandemic looming on the horizon. And according to the Microsoft co-founder, one country has already laid out a blueprint for successfully mitigating it.
“If every country does what Australia did, then you wouldn’t be calling [the next outbreak] a pandemic,” Gates, a health philanthropist who has dedicated billions of dollars to vaccine research, said at the annual Munich Security Conference earlier this month.
Gates cited Australia’s COVID response as the gold standard to follow. The country reopened its international borders this week for the first time since March 2020. Over the course of the pandemic, returning citizens and approved international travelers have been required to quarantine in hotels guarded by police and military members. Australia’s states even periodically locked down their respective borders.
Over 1,000 Texas Foster Children Have Been Allowed to Refuse COVID Vaccines, Despite the State Requiring Other Vaccinations
Over a thousand Texas foster children — some as young as 5 years old — have been allowed to refuse a COVID-19 vaccine, despite not typically being allowed to make their own medical decisions, according to a new report from protective services watchdogs.
Around 40% of the foster children in the state’s care who are 5 and older have not received a COVID-19 vaccine despite being eligible. This is due, in part, to guidance from the Department of Family and Protective Services that “may be confusing,” leading to caseworkers unnecessarily “querying even very young children as to whether they would agree to vaccination,” court-appointed monitors say.
The DFPS policy on the COVID-19 vaccine says “unlike other routine vaccines, the COVID vaccine is currently authorized by the FDA for emergency use authorization, which means getting it is voluntary and the youth should agree (if able) in addition to the medical consenter.”
WHO Making Moves on International Vaccine ‘Passport’
The World Health Organization will convene member states and leaders of COVID-19 immunization credential technology groups to recognize different vaccine certificates across nations and regions, a top Vaccination Credential Initiative official told POLITICO’s Ben Leonard.
The WHO is bringing together the groups to develop a “trust framework” that would allow countries to verify whether vaccine credentials are legitimate, said Brian Anderson, chief digital health physician at MITRE and a co-founder of the VCI.
The VCI is behind SMART Health Cards, which have become the de facto standard for digital vaccine credentials in the U.S., with dozens of states developing or adopting the technology. The group will participate in the initiative.
The move would be the most significant coordinated international push to enable interoperable credentials among nations and regions.
Despite Privacy Concerns, ID.me Nearly Doubled the Number of People Able to Create an IRS Account
Millions of people have filed federal returns that are stuck in a massive backlog, which is holding up refunds and resulted in the automatic mailing of collection notices that may or may not be warranted. They check “Where’s My Refund?” and “Where’s My Amended Refund?” only to find bureaucratically written language that tells them nothing.
The agency’s online account system, as I reported last year, is a hot mess. Fewer than half of the individuals who tried to establish an online account with the Internal Revenue Service succeeded, according to Erin M. Collins, the National Taxpayer Advocate.
To help improve that access record and improve the security in setting up an account, the agency brought in the private company ID.me to register people. The launch was immediately criticized because it required taxpayers to scan their faces to create an ID.me IRS account.
The IRS backed off that facial recognition requirement, while still moving ahead with the ID.me authentication platform. The turnabout is causing some confusion. So, here’s what you need to know if you have a legacy IRS account or need to create a new one with ID.me.
Explainer: Who Must Follow Biden’s Vaccine Mandates?
More than half the states are pursuing renewed legal challenges against a requirement from President Joe Biden’s administration for millions of healthcare workers across the U.S. to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
After a Supreme Court ruling allowed it to go forward, the vaccine requirement for health workers was implemented gradually in all states. But opponents are again trying to stop it, arguing among other things that circumstances have changed as cases tied to the Omicron variant have receded.
Following is an overview of the Biden vaccine mandates that affect the private sector and the status of the legal fights over them.
Florida’s New Coronavirus Guidance: ‘Buck the CDC’
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Thursday announced new coronavirus policy recommendations that discourage mask-wearing and push physicians to use off-label medications to treat the virus.
The guidance, titled “ Buck the CDC,” is the Republican governor’s latest break with federal officials over COVID-19 rules, a feud that has boosted his prominence in the GOP as he eyes a 2024 presidential bid.
“People want to live freely in Florida, without corporate masking creating a two-tier society and without overbearing isolation for children,” DeSantis said in a statement. “We are empowering healthcare practitioners to follow science, not (Dr. Anthony) Fauci’s status quo.”
NYC Schools Drop Outdoor Mask Mandate; Indoor Mandate Stays
New York City public school students will be allowed to remove their masks outside starting next week but must keep them on indoors for now, Schools Chancellor David Banks said Friday.
Mayor Eric Adams hailed the revised mask rules in several TV and radio appearances Friday but gave no target date for lifting the indoor mask mandate in schools. “Eventually we’re going to move to the place to ease up on many of these mandates so we can get back to a level of normality that we are looking for,” Adams said on WPIX.
Most Californians Back School Mask, Vaccine Requirements
Most California voters support mandated COVID-19 vaccinations and masking for students and teachers at K-12 schools, according to a new survey by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
About two-thirds of the roughly 9,000 respondents said they wanted the precautions to contain the virus, according to the poll, which was co-sponsored and published by the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. The views diverged according to political affiliation: While about 85% of Democrats backed vaccine mandates for schools about 70% of Republicans opposed them.
With City COVID Mandates Going Away, Here’s What Some Businesses Plan to Do Starting Monday
Craig Richardson, managing owner of Lincoln Park’s Batter and Berries, has followed the advice of experts throughout the ever-changing dynamics of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now he is eagerly ready to follow the latest moves from the state and city lifting both mask mandates and proof-of-vaccination checks.
On Monday, Chicago will lift the last remaining COVID mitigations that have dictated to business owners how — or even if — they can serve customers for the better part of two years. While the state is getting rid of its most recent indoor mask mandate — which has been in place since August — the city is also dropping a proof-of-vaccination requirement to get into restaurants, bars, gyms and some other businesses after less than two months in effect.
Hong Kong Families Despair as COVID Rules May Separate Them From Children
Guada, an Argentinian who has lived in Hong Kong for 3-1/2 years and has two girls aged 3 and 5 and is pregnant with twins, cries herself to sleep at night, worried that Hong Kong’s severe COVID-19 rules will separate her from her kids or force her to give birth alone.
Anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 in Hong Kong, including infants and children, are put into isolation facilities with no family contact allowed, as authorities enforce their “dynamic zero” COVID policy.
Parents’ worries have been heightened after authorities made an infected 11-month-old isolate by herself in the hospital.
Russia Partially Blocks Facebook for Fact-Checking State-Owned Media
The Russian government has partially blocked access to Facebook in the country after it claims the social network “restricted” the accounts of four Russian media outlets.
In a statement on Friday, Russia’s tech and communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, said Facebook was violating “the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens,” and that it had recorded 23 cases of “censorship” by the social network since October 2020.
Meta has yet to publicly confirm the actions it took against the Russian media accounts, though they likely have to do with state-backed propaganda about Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Startup Founder Says He Lost His Company and $100 Million by Relying on Facebook: ‘Sends Chills Down My Spine’ to Watch Others Build Businesses on Instagram and TikTok
A founder who says his company went under thanks to a Facebook algorithm tweak in 2018 shared more details about the incident in a lengthy Twitter thread this week.
Joe Spieser launched LittleThings.com in 2014 as a women-focused digital media site devoted to uplifting content, like animal videos, recipes and other feel-good stories.
Things were booming before an algorithm change, with 20 million social media followers mostly built from Facebook’s massive user base, he tweeted. Speiser said Facebook even used LittleThings as an example of how to build a successful media company at one of its annual conferences.
Discord’s New Policy Will Ban Harmful Medical Advice, Taking Aim at Anti-Vaxx Groups
Discord is overhauling its policies and community guidelines to tackle health misinformation, off-platform behavior, and hate speech, the company announced on Friday.
It’s the first big policy update for Discord in nearly two years and is designed to target groups or individuals that participate in organized violence, spread harmful anti-vaccination material, or harass other Discord users with hate speech.
After two years of a pandemic, Discord is making its policies more clear about health misinformation. In new community guidelines, which go into effect on Mar. 28, Discord says users “may not share false or misleading information on Discord that is likely to cause physical or societal harm.” This includes content that could result in damage to physical infrastructure, injury to others and content that endangers public health.
