What’s Important
Border Patrol Agents Face Termination If They Do Not Get Vaccinated: A whistleblower is alleging that the Biden Administration is ordering U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees, which includes Border Patrol agents, to get vaccinated by November 1st or they will be fired. This comes on the heels of the Biden Administration’s mandate that all foreign travelers entering the United States must be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 – except if you’re an illegal immigrant.
Hundreds of Hospital Staffers Fired or Suspended For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate: Across the country, hundreds of health care workers are being fired or suspended for not complying with COVID-19 vaccine mandates imposed by states or employers. This is a precursor to what is to come when President Biden’s vaccine mandate for health care facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, impacting roughly 17 million health care workers, gets implemented.
Crisis Corner
Delta Variant Surges at Southern Border: One day after Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, announced that more than 10,000 Haitian migrants were released into the United States, Secretary Mayorkas conceded that the increase of COVID-19 cases with the Delta variant at the southern border took him by surprise.
Biden Blunders
Top Biden Health Official Shames Vaccine Hesitant Americans: Xavier Becerra, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, recently referred to people who are hesitant about the vaccines as “flat earthers” and blamed them for holding the United States back on COVID-19 vaccine rates and being responsible for the surge of new COVID-19 cases.
This Week in SSOCC
Select Committee Republicans Warn About Potential Workforce Shortages Because of Biden’s Vaccine Mandate: House Republican Whip and Ranking Member of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Steve Scalise (R-La.) voiced concerns that President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate may cause workforce shortages across the country because many police officers, nurses, first responders, and other frontline workers are opposed to vaccine mandates and may lose their jobs as a result. Whip Scalise called on Select Subcommittee Democrats to hold a hearing about the negative consequences and public health implications of President Biden’s counterproductive vaccine mandates.
What They’re Saying
Janice Dean: Victims of COVID in nursing homes deserve justice. This is our next step (Fox News)
“The ‘Justice for Nursing Home Victims Act’ will be announced by Kim on Wednesday. It will hold the state and for-profit nursing home industries accountable for depriving our family of the protection and quality of care they deserve. The act won’t bring back our loved ones but it will make sure that what we have all experienced never happens again to another family. The members of the Cuomo administration would like us to forget the thousands of loved ones we have lost. They want us to forget how Gov. Cuomo blamed everyone else except the administration that enforced the rules.”
House Intel GOP demand Biden instruct top spy office to reveal scientists who helped with COVID-19 origins report (Washington Examiner)
“House Intelligence Committee Republicans accused the Biden administration’s top intelligence office of “stonewalling” congressional overseers from learning about outside doctors and scientists whom U.S. spy agencies relied upon to put together a report assessing the origins of COVID-19. Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member on the panel, was joined by nine fellow GOP members who said they had no confidence in the origins assessment because the Office of the Director of National Intelligence personnel who briefed them had declined to identify which scientists were consulted during the investigation, which did not provide a definitive conclusion on whether the virus was transmitted to humans naturally or through a lab leak in China.”
WHO Seeks to Revive Stalled Inquiry Into Origins of Covid-19 With New Team (WSJ)
“The World Health Organization is reviving its stalled investigation into the origins of the covid-19 virus as agency officials warn that time is running out to determine how the pandemic that has killed more than 4.7 million people world-wide began. A new team of about 20 scientists—including specialists in laboratory safety and biosecurity and geneticists and animal-disease experts versed in how viruses spill over from nature—is being assembled with a mandate to hunt for new evidence in China and elsewhere.”
Changing recommendations for boosters lead to confusion for the vaccinated and their doctors (Washington Post)
“Confusion over boosters, which has been brewing for months, heightened over the past week as government regulators and advisers met to hash out the pros and cons of administering third doses. Hours of meetings were followed by a dramatic decision Thursday: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory group narrowed the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation for who should get a third Pfizer shot, only to be overruled in a late-night announcement by the CDC director: Along with Americans 65 and older, nursing home residents and people ages 50 to 64 with underlying medical conditions, who the advisory panel had suggested should get shots, Rochelle Walensky added the people in high-risk jobs.”
Pfizer testing oral pill for prevention of COVID (Axios)
“Pfizer announced Monday that it is testing an oral antiviral drug that would help prevent COVID-19. This drug is one of several antiviral pills that could have a massive impact on coronavirus treatment since not everyone will get a vaccine, and it may take years to fully vaccinate people in certain countries, per Axios’ Alison Snyder. The mid-to-late-stage study will test Pfizer’s drug, PF-07321332, designed to block the activity of the main enzyme the coronavirus needs to multiply, per a Pfizer Statement. This will be co-administered with a low dose of ritonavir, which is widely used in combination treatments for HIV infection. Remdesivir, a drug investigated earlier to treat Ebola and other diseases, is to date the only antivirLap in the U.S. for COVID-19.”
Member Mentions
Representative Mark Green (R-Tenn.) presses Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to acknowledge infection-acquired immunity.
