Masks mandates near and far – Air travel begins to slacken again – Pressure on the unvaccinated intensifies – Dominion Voting System lawsuits – Evening statistics
I went to several stores today and in all of them both customers and employees were wearing masks. Neither the county nor the state has instituted a mask mandate (although Virginia has required the use of masks in schools), the surge in cases has made people apprehensive and they are wearing them of their own accord. Washington DC, Baltimore, and several Maryland counties have already required facemasks for indoor venues; the counties with such mandates are Anne Arundel, Howard, Montgomery, and Prince Georges, i.e., the counties within the DC-Baltimore-Annapolis triangle that are by far the most populous counties in the state. Some states have instituted state-wide mandates: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Washington. Oregon has a pending mandate that will begin on Friday. The mandates in Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, Oregon, and DC apply to vaccinated and unvaccinated alike, whereas those in the other states apply to unvaccinated only.
Airline travel is starting to decline again, on account of fear of the delta variant. The Transportation Security Administration officials yesterday screened just over 1.7 million passengers at U.S. airport security checkpoints – the lowest amount since June 15. Ironically, this development comes just as more destinations are opening up for travel: Canada, for instance, began to allow vaccinated Americans to cross the border earlier this week. Southwest Airlines has seen an increase in passengers canceling their reservations and has projected the surge in cancelations to continue into September. People are becoming hesitant about international travel in particular, since a traveler might not be able to come back into the U.S. for some time on account of the testing requirement. And of course, anyone who tests positive as a result of contracting an infection abroad will have much greater difficulties in re-entering the country.
An increasing number of organizations are now putting pressure on its unvaccinated employees. Amtrak has announced that all of its employees must be fully vaccinated by November 1st or else undergo weekly testing. Employees of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority and Port Authority will have to be vaccinated by Labor Day or undergo weekly testing. The New York Stock Exchange will require proof of vaccination for all personnel to access the trading floor. Education Secretary Miguel Cordona has advocated requiring all teachers to get vaccinated, while Governor Gavin Newsome of California has already announced a vaccination requirement for all teachers in the California school system. West Virginia Wesleyan College will be charging a $750 “COVID fee” from unvaccinated students. All students at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama will be charged a $500 fee for the fall term to offset the cost of weekly testing and quarantining, but vaccinated students will receive an immediate refund once they submit proof of having received their doses.
U. S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols denied motions of dismissal from Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Mike Lindall of the defamation lawsuits brought against them by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion has since filed three additional defamation lawsuits against right-wing media networks One America News, Newsmax, and Fox News. Nichols’ judgment virtually gives the Dominion lawsuits a green light to proceed. In the verdict that he delivered Nichols came down heavily on Powell in particular. Powell has claimed that her statements were hyperbole made in the course of political debate, but Nichols said that Powell must have had prior knowledge that her claims were false, that she may have personally fabricated sections of some affidavits, and that one “expert” she cited in her lawsuits was clearly a conspiracy theorist. The expert in question, who was not named, has publicly claimed that George Soros, President George H.W. Bush’s father, the Muslim Brotherhood, and “leftists” helped form the “Deep State” in Nazi Germany in the 1930s – in which case, George Soros must have been a master conspirator when he was three years old; he was born in 1930.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 205,408,150; # of deaths worldwide: 4,336,418; # of cases U.S.: 37,013,021; # of deaths; U.S.: 635,538. At this point over 11% of the population has come down with the virus since the pandemic began.