Free Republic

Following two years of suffering under some of the strictest lockdown measures in the Western world, New Zealand will finally lift its Chinese coronavirus border restrictions in July, leftist Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Wednesday. New Zealand’s borders will be fully reopened on July 31st, two months before the government had previously planned as the economy inches closer to a recession.

A more infectious type of the Omicron variant has surged to account for more than a third of global Covid-19 cases sequenced recently, adding to the debate about whether countries are ready for full reopening. Health authorities are examining whether the subvariant of Omicron, known as BA.2, could extend the length of Covid-19 waves that have peaked recently in Europe, Japan and some other places. “We’re looking not only at how quickly those peaks go up, but how they come down,” World Health Organization epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said. “And as the decline in cases occurs…we also need to look...

The federal government showered government schools with money to stay open, but they’re shutting down anyway. It’s turned into a ruse and the victims are the children and the taxpayers. Ohio received more than $6 billion in federal COVID relief funds earmarked for keeping our public schools open. After two years of this pandemic, any schools who accepted this funding and still haven’t found a way to keep kids in class should be forced to refund their share of the money. Instead of reopening, many public schools in Ohio are returning to remote learning. While traditional homeschooling is terrific for...

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has promised better things are coming for the state with a new recovery plan to keep restaurants open, bring workers back to their offices and invigorate Sydney's Covid-weary west. The new leader has vowed NSW will turn a new leaf in coming months as he attempts to steer Sydney out of a gruelling 14-week lockdown. Mr Perrottet is set to announce a recovery package that will prioritise the needs of business owners and residents in Sydney's west and southwest. Businesses including cafes, pubs and restaurants that begin to purchase perishable produce will be able to claim...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has begun preliminary internal discussions about reopening the border with the U.S., even as Canada remains well behind its neighbor in vaccinations. Senior officials have begun to formally talk about options for how to proceed, three people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition they not be identified. One question under consideration is whether to employ a two-track system in which quarantine and testing requirements would be relaxed for vaccinated travelers. The world’s longest international border has been shuttered since March 2020 to most non-essential travel, dramatically reducing land and air traffic between...

The CDC has finally bowed to reality, acknowledging that there is no reason for vaccinated people to wear masks indoors, let alone outdoors. Call me cynical, but my guess is the polling has gone South on mask mandates. People have had enough. Next thing you know, Joe Biden will take off his mask to celebrate his administration’s great victory over the coronavirus. Must have been those vaccines Biden was so instrumental in developing. As Scott reported this morning, Minnesota’s proto-fascist governor, Tim Walz, has revoked his state’s mask mandate. His declared state of emergency remains in place, although no one...

Broadway theaters can reopen at 100 percent capacity on Sept. 14, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday. Tickets for shows will go on sale beginning Thursday, the governor said during a press briefing in Manhattan. When asked whether vaccinations against the coronavirus will be required for theater lovers, state budget director Rob Mujica said, “It’s not finalized yet.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning COVID-19 vaccine passports and also announced an executive order that suspends all local pandemic emergency mandates effective July 1. DeSantis signed Senate Bill 2006, passed by Florida state lawmakers last month granting DeSantis the ability to override local emergency orders. The bill also includes a ban on vaccine passports that would levy fines of $5,000 per violation. “I’m going to sign the bill. It’s effective July 1. I’ll also sign an executive order pursuant to that bill invalidating all remaining local emergency COVID orders effective on July 1,” the Republican governor said...

The American Federation of Teachers lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on, and even suggested language for, the federal agency’s school-reopening guidance released in February. The powerful teachers union’s full-court press preceded the federal agency putting the brakes on a full re-opening of in-person classrooms, emails between top CDC, AFT and White House officials show. The emails were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative watchdog group Americans for Public Trust and provided to The Post. The documents show a flurry of activity between CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, her top advisors and union...

A powerful teachers’ union was influencing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and their recommendations for school reopening since right after Joe Biden took office. Based on bombshell emails released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, it seems clear that this “influence” went far beyond recommendations. They were calling the shots. All the while, we’ve continuously heard that science is guiding these recommendations. Questions being asked about the efficacy of closing down schools and keeping children at home for a disease that is far less deadly to them than the flu have been quashed. Now, it...

Direct Scheduling for Mass Vaccination Sites Begins Saturday, May 1 ANNAPOLIS, MD—With consistent improvements in key statewide health metrics and a fast pace of vaccinations, Governor Larry Hogan today lifted the outdoor mask mandate in Maryland and all restrictions for outdoor dining. The governor also announced that the state has entered a new phase of its vaccination campaign, moving to direct scheduling at mass vaccination sites and continuing to expand points of distribution. “As our vaccinations continue to expand and our health metrics continue to improve, we expect to be able to take additional actions in the weeks ahead and...

New York City will be “fully open” on July 1 — nearly a year-and-a-half after the COVID-19 shutdown, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday morning. “We are ready for stores to open, for businesses to open, offices, theaters, full-strength,” Hizzoner said in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

They left everyone and everything they ever knew for a chance at a better life. Fleeing from the Soviet Union, my parents brought my older brother and I to America when I was just a baby.They didn’t come here to try and make America like the very communist tyranny they had just escaped, but to embrace what America is all about: Freedom. They didn’t come to see woke-scolds stifle free speech with “cancel culture” or listen to critical race theory dogma being beaten into children—and even parents—at public schools. Nor did they settle here to face the same anti-Semitism peddled...

States including Texas and Florida, which have completely reopened, are reporting fewer coronavirus cases than Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York, which have COVID-19 restrictions and mask mandates in place, according CDC data. Texas Gov Greg Abbott ended a mask mandate on March 10 and fully reopened the state. In Florida, which doesn't have a mandate, Gov Ron DeSantis allowed businesses to fully reopen in September. However, there are still restrictions in place for Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan, which for the last few weeks led the daily increase in COVID-19 cases.

Peterborough police have issued tickets under the Reopening Ontario Act for the weekly protests — organized by a group called No More Lockdowns Canada — held at Confederation Square across from city hall, including four last Saturday. First offences are out-of-court $880 tickets, subsequent ones are court-summoned tickets with fines up to $5,000 or more. However, this week Maxime Bernier, leader of the federal People’s Party of Canada, and Randy Hillier, independent MPP for Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston have stated they will be there this Saturday and have publicly invited people to attend. Global News Peterborough directly asked the chief if officers would...

California’s pause on using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as federal agencies examine a possible and rare side effect is unlikely to affect vaccination efforts in the nation’s most populous state as it moves to start inoculating people 16 and older this week. State officials directed counties and other providers on Tuesday to halt use of the vaccine per federal recommendation. But Gov. Gavin Newsom said he does not expect the halt to “materially impact our ability to fulfill our expectations.” Vaccinations are expected to be available for people 16 and older Thursday and California plans to lift most pandemic...

“This is not politics,” President Joe Biden said last week. “Reinstate the [mask] mandate.” This follows his dismissal of Gov. Greg Abbott’s decisions in Texas as “Neanderthal thinking.” But maybe the Neanderthals got it right. COVID-19 deaths in Texas plunged in March, and as National Review’s Philip Klein points out, there’s no relationship between mask mandates and coronavirus levels. Biden is clearly wrong on another point. This is not “not politics.” America’s constitutional federal system, and the latitude that both former President Donald Trump’s administration and the Biden administration have given state governments, have produced distinctly different Democratic and Republican...

When will it be safe to shop at a grocery store or show up at the office without wearing a mask? Sooner than most experts are willing to admit. If the coronavirus epidemic in the U.S. continues on its current trajectory, the need for masks outside particular local outbreak areas will pass in a matter of weeks. One way to think about the problem is by analogy to seasonal influenza. Hardly anybody wears a mask in ordinary settings to protect against the flu, and no one is required to do so. The worst flu seasons of recent years saw an...

Texas COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to see a downward trend more than two weeks after the state scrapped its mask mandate and allowed businesses to reopen at full capacity. On Saturday, Texas' seven-day COVID positivity rate reached an all-time low of 5.27 per cent, while hospitalizations fell to their lowest level since October, according to the latest state data. The state recorded 2,292 new coronavirus cases, about 500 fewer on average from last week, and 107 new deaths.

More than a dozen Oakland elementary schools and preschools will not reopen as planned Tuesday after the majority, if not all, teachers at the sites opted not to return until required to do so in mid-April, despite an $800 incentive and prioritized vaccinations. District officials had to rescind reopening plans at six elementary schools and 10 preschools Thursday, days before students in preschool through second grade were scheduled to head back after seven months of distance learning. Under an agreement between the district and the unions, those students were scheduled to return to school on March 30, with all elementary...