Tag: vaccines

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Biden: Trump Administration Left COVID Situation ‘Even More Dire Than We Thought’

President Joe Biden speaks with Norah O'Donnell of CBS News

President Joe Biden speaks with Norah O'Donnell of CBS News
President Joe Biden speaks with Norah O’Donnell of CBS News
In a his first sit-down interview since taking office, President Biden shared with Norah O’Donnell of CBS News that his administration was disappointed to learn that the Trump administration had far fewer doses of COVID-19 vaccine available than previously thought. “One of the disappointments was, when we came office, is the circumstance relating to how the [previous] administration was handling COVID – it was even more dire than we thought,” said the president. “They indicated there was a lot more vaccine available and it didn’t turn out to be the case.” The president went on to say he has ordered vaccine makers to ramp up production, and he’s received the ok from National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell to use all NFL stadiums as mass vaccination sites.

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Trump Officials Lobbied Congress Against Funding Vaccine Rollout

The FDA has approved updated versions of COVID-19 vaccines

Frustrated by the rollout of the coronavirus vaccines? This is a reason why it’s going so poorly. StatNews journalist Nicholas Florko reports Trump officials actively lobbied against giving states money for Covid-19 vaccine administration. Via StatNews:

Top Trump officials actively lobbied Congress to deny state governments any extra funding for the Covid-19 vaccine rollout last fall — despite frantic warnings from state officials that they didn’t have the money they needed to ramp up a massive vaccination operation.

The push, described to STAT by congressional aides in both parties and openly acknowledged by one of the Trump officials, came from multiple high-ranking Trump health officials in repeated meetings with legislators.

Without the extra money, states spent last October and November rationing the small pot of federal dollars they had been given. And when vaccines began shipping in December, states seemed woefully underprepared.

Paul Mango, the former deputy chief of staff for policy at the Department of Health and Human Services, was apparently a big part of the lobbying effort. He told StatNews that since states hadn’t spent the $200 million that the CDC sent in September, they must not need the funds. Mango told StatNews he believed the states were asking for the funding to help fill empty tax coffers. “A lot of them had shut down their economies and they weren’t getting tax revenue,” he said. There’s much more over at StatNews – quite the deep dive into the facts.

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News Round-Up: January 26, 2021

(image via Depositphotos)
Some news items you might have missed: • Right Wing Watch: Religious anti-gay loon Scott Lively told his radio audience that God removed Donald Trump from the White House because he was too pro-gay. #srsly • NewNowNext: Montana’s House of Representatives has voted in favor of two vehemently anti-transgender bills. The first is House Bill 112, which would bar trans student athletes from playing on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity. The second is House Bill 113, which would block medical professionals from providing potentially life-saving gender-affirming health care to trans or nonbinary youth. • The Frontier: Last April, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt ordered $2 million worth of hydroxychloroquine based, in part, on Donald Trump’s promotion of the malaria drug for use against the coronavirus. Now, the state is trying to unload nearly the entire shipment.

• Instinct Magazine: Nearly two months after coming out as a transgender male, Elliot Page and wife Emma Portner have filed for divorce. • NBC News: A gay New York City couple say they were harassed and asked to leave a restaurant this month because of their sexuality. Because the incident happened in New York, the men may have legal recourse, but in nearly half the states, they would not. • New York Times: Grindr has been fined 100 million Norwegian kroner, or about $11.7 million, for illegally disclosing private details about its users to advertising companies.

• Justice Department: The Wisconsin pharmacist who intentionally intended to render hundreds of doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine ineffective pleaded guilty to two charges filed today in federal court. Steven R. Brandenburg, an admitted skeptic of vaccines in general, now faces up to 10 years for each charge against him. • Reuters: The good news – By a vote of 55-45 the U.S. Senate on Tuesday rejected a Republican effort to stop former President Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial on a charge that he incited the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. The bad news – Democrats need more than 5 GOP Senators to vote to convict Trump.

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Biden Will Deploy National Guard & FEMA To Ramp Up Vaccinations

President-elect Joe Biden will utilize the National Guard and FEMA to ramp up vaccinations against the coronavirus
President-elect Joe Biden (via campaign)
President-elect Joe Biden has announced he will direct FEMA and the National Guard to build coronavirus vaccine clinics across the United States in order to make vaccinations more widely available faster. From CNBC:

The Biden administration will also “quickly jumpstart” efforts to make the vaccines available at local pharmacies across the U.S., which should ensure that Americans have access to doses at facilities only miles from their home, according to the plan.

“Here’s the deal: The more people we vaccinate, the faster we do it, the sooner we can save lives and put this pandemic behind us and get back to our lives and loved ones,” Biden said at a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, Thursday night. “We won’t get out of it overnight and we can’t do it as a separated nation.”

The rollout of the coronavirus vaccine has been much slower than anticipated. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of this morning more than 31.1 million doses of vaccine had been distributed across the U.S. Of that, just over 12.2 million vaccinations have been administered. At this writing, Johns Hopkins University of Medicine reports there have been 23,478,669 cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. and 391,279 deaths related to the virus.

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News Round-Up: January 2, 2021

Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness with new husband Mark

Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness with new husband Mark
Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness and husband Mark Peacock (via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • Deadline: Season 13 of RuPaul’s Drag Race will feature several A-list guest judges including Cynthia Erivo, Nicole Byer, Loni Love, TS Madison, and Jamal Sims. • Boy Culture: Taylor Dayne is getting dragged for pretending to be apolitical after she appeared at Donald Trump’s New Year’s Eve event at Mar-a-Lago. • Kenneth-in-the-212: Click over to KIT212’s weekly round-up of the what’s what in LGBTQ publications like Attitude Magazine naming out presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg as their ‘Person of the Year.’
Pete Buttigieg covers Attitude Magazine as their 'Person of the Year'
(image via Attitude Magazine)
• CNN: A federal judge has shitcanned Rep. Louie Gohmert’s ridiculous lawsuit to compel Vice President Mike Pence to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election. • New York Post: The “Soho Karen” who accused the 14-year-old son of jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold of swiping her iPhone in a hotel (turned out she left it in an Uber) has been identified. Apparently, she also had two brushes with the law last year — one for public intoxication and another for drunken driving, according to a report. • Men’s Variety: Breaking down the reasons why you shouldn’t be worried about the coronavirus vaccine. • NewNowNext: Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness secretly got married last summer. Congratulations to the happy couple!

 

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News Round-Up: December 31, 2020

Norm Lewis at 54 Below

Norm Lewis at 54 Below
Tony Award nominee Norm Lewis
Some news items you might have missed: • News Observer: LGBTQ people in North Carolina can no longer be prevented from getting domestic violence protective orders, the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled Thursday. North Carolina had been the only state in the country to withhold emergency protections from people seeking protection from abuse by a same-sex partner. • Instinct Magazine: My editor at my other journalistic home, Adam Dupuis, shares this wild and wooly tale of a stalker who utilized 11 different email accounts and numerous Growlr accounts in order to cyberstalk him. #strangeness • 54Below: My fabulous friend (and Tony Award nominee) Norm Lewis has the perfect song for tonight – from his recent Feinstein’s/54 Below streaming concert NORM LEWIS: Christmastime Is Here! 

• Facebook: Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) wrote a lengthy breakdown of efforts to undermine the election, concluding there was no evidence of voter fraud. Sasse adds that – in private chats – no Republicans in Congress think the election was stolen. • NBC News: Grafton Police have arrested the Aurora Health Care pharmacist who intentionally spoiled more than 500 doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine valued around $8,000 to $11,000. He has been arrested on charges of first degree recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug, and criminal damage to property. • Washington Examiner: Donald Trump promised in the 2016 campaign to eliminate the federal debt over a two-term presidency. Instead, he will leave office having added massively to the debt. Since his inauguration, the total national debt has increased 30% from nearly $20 trillion to $27 trillion as of Monday.

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News Round-Up: December 28, 2020

Daniel Newman launched an OnlyFans account

Daniel Newman launched an OnlyFans account
Walking Dead star Daniel Newman
Some news items you might have missed: • Playbill: Billy Porter and Cyndi Lauper, who won Tony Awards for starring in and composing, respectively, the Tony-winning Kinky Boots, will reunite December 31 for a duet in Times Square on ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2021, which kicks off at 8 PM ET. • Gay City News: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation on December 23 making single-use restrooms statewide open to people of all genders. Under the “gender-neutral bathroom” law, all public spaces including restaurants, bars, and schools are required to remove sex-segregated signs like “male” and “female” from single-occupancy restrooms. • Apple TV+: After 12 years in prison, former high school football star Eddie Palmer (Justin Timberlake) returns home to put his life back together—and forms an unlikely bond with Sam (Ryder Allen), an gender non-conforming boy from a troubled home who has trouble fitting in. Coming exclusively to Apple TV+ on January 29.

• Edge Media: Despite more than 1.3 million coronavirus cases throughout Mexico and upwards of 131,000 in the state of Jalisco — home to the bustling LGBTQ city of Puerto Vallarta — some gay party promoters intend to kick off 2021 with a bang that could potentially become the super spreader event of the season. White Party, we’re looking at you… • Reuters: Novavax Inc has begun a large late-stage study of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, the drug developer said on Monday, after delaying the trial twice due to issues in scaling up the manufacturing process. Novavax lags behind other drugmakers in the global race for COVID-19 vaccine, with shots from Pfizer and Moderna authorized for emergency use in the United States. • OnlyFans: Openly bi Walking Dead star Daniel Newman (top image) has launched an OnlyFans account telling fans ” It will all be PG to maybe R-rated tho just warning you no X.” Click here to visit Newman’s OnlyFans account.

 

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News Round-Up: December 27, 2020

Scarlett sleeps on my head
Me and my sleeping companion, Scarlett
Some news items you might have missed: • Life: In an attempt to escape Brody’s over-the-top puppy energy last night, this (above) was where Scarlett decided she wanted to sleep. #doglife You can check out more photos of the pups first Christmas with us here. • Gr8erDays: The Santa and Rudolph puppets used in the 1964 stop-motion classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (the only known survivors), were appraised and sold in 2006 for $10,000. Last month, the pair sold at auction for $368,000, and are now on loan to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. • KIT212: Check out Kenneth’s weekly round-up of the what’s what in LGBTQ publications like Eric Guilmette covering the latest from Wire Magazine.
Eric Guilmette covers Wire Magazine
Eric Guilmette covers the latest issue of Wire Magazine
• Deadline: I was excited for, but somewhat disappointed by, the recently released Wonder Woman 1984. Most of the smart folks I follow on social media felt the same way. And yet, the film did well enough ($85 million worldwide so far) that Wonder Woman 3 has been fast-tracked. • Mediaite: During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Brett Giroir said Sunday he’s encouraged by the timeline of the vaccine rollout and expects that “any American who wants a vaccine can be vaccinated by June.”

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Dr. Fauci Gets COVID Shot To Convey Confidence & Safety In Vaccine

Dr. Anthony Fauci receives the Moderna vaccine
From ABC News:

The country’s most prominent infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, received his first dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday in a ceremonial event at the National Institutes of Health.

The event was shown live on national television as part of an effort to reassure Americans that the vaccine was safe and effective.

“I feel extreme confidence in the safety and the efficacy of this vaccine and I want to encourage everyone who has the opportunity to get vaccinated so that we can have a veil of protection over this country, that would end this pandemic,” he said as he waited for his shot.

I sure hope my arm looks that good when I’m 80-years-old.

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News Round-Up: December 17, 2020

Austin Wolf scored at the 3rd annual PornHub Awards (image via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • OUT: Adult entertainment giant Pornhub held its third annual awards last night. The winners are decided by real data (based on what users searched, viewed, and sought after the most this year) from PornHub.com, which according to its website brings in over 140 million daily visitors and over 55 billion searches. Among the winners was Austin Wolf (above) who scored as ‘Top Daddy Performer’ of the year. • Boy Culture: Patti LaBelle’s gay Trumper nephew made headlines when he became involved in a deeply weird online mystery, in which he was apparently tweeting on behalf of a white Republican. Miss Patti had some words with her nephew. • LGBTQ Nation: Federal judge slaps down an Ohio law that bans transgender people from correcting birth certificates. Score one for the good guys! • Instinct Magazine: Josh Brolin is breaking the internet with his birthday suit photo. • TMZ: Atlantic City is auctioning off the opportunity of demolishing the long-closed, decaying Trump Casino. • The Advocate: Legendary gay actor Sir Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings, X-Men movies) is among the latest to get the new vaccine for the COVID-19 virus. The 81-year-old star said he’s feeling “euphoric” after getting his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. “I would have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone.”