Coronavirus

Publix pharmacies in Florida will not offer coronavirus vaccine shots to children younger than five even though U.S. health authorities now approve the procedure, various news outlets reported Thursday. The grocery store chain said it decline offering the vaccine approved for children ages four and under “at this time,” according to the Tampa Bay Times . The chain declined to say why when asked by the outlet. The Lakeland company’s website indicates it is still accepting coronavirus vaccine appointments for children ages five and up. A Publix spokesperson reportedly confirmed the decision to Tampa television station WTVT later Wednesday afternoon. Pfizer and Moderna got the OK for their under-five coronavirus vaccines Friday from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Saturday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as Breitbart News reported . Children in the age group began receiving the vaccines this week. Today, we authorized emergency … [Read more...] about Publix Declines to Offer Coronavirus Vaccine to Children Under 5

The heatwave in northern and central China grew even worse on Wednesday, with temperatures of 105 degrees and higher reported. Shandong, one of the most populous provinces in China, bumped several of its cities to the highest level of heat alert. The tremendous demand for air conditioning from Shandong’s many residents pushed demand on its electrical grid to a record high of 92.94 million kilowatts Tuesday. Neighboring Henan province also reported two straight days of record power demand. Chinese officials such as Premier Li Keqiang called for even more coal production and consumption to “resolutely prevent power outages” during the dangerous heatwave, the South China Morning Post ( SCMP ) reported . Demand for air conditioning during the northern heat emergency combined with “robust factor activity due to an accelerating economic recovery from recent Covid-19 outbreaks” to produce record-breaking demand for electric power, China’s state-run Global Times … [Read more...] about China’s Electricity Demand Sets Records During Heat Wave

The global oil price collapse is a historic “opportunity” to “bottom out” Chinese energy assets and increase reserves, the communist country’s state media reported on Tuesday. The Global Times article was published after news on Monday that China – the world’s top importer of crude oil – nearly doubled crude oil storage inflows in the first quarter of this year, compared to 2019. The coronavirus pandemic decreased oil demand, and there was news on Tuesday that China has granted additional oil import quotas for private refineries, Reuters reported. United States oil-future prices went negative on Monday for the first time in history, as oil demand plummeted amid disruption in global supply and demand chains caused by the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Government-mandated lockdowns meant to curb the spread of the Chinese coronavirus have forced the effective shutdown of economies around the world. “Analysts say the historic drop in oil prices offers China, a major source … [Read more...] about Chinese Media: Oil Price Collapse a Historic “Opportunity”

Cai Qi, the Chinese Communist Party secretary of Beijing, told state media Monday that the city would adhere to its “zero-Covid” policy of lockdowns and quarantines for the next five years. State media rapidly deleted his comment — and Chinese censors relentlessly scrubbed it from websites — after a burst of shock and outrage on social media. The original quote from Cai, as published by the state-run Beijing Daily, read as follows: “In the next five years, Beijing will unremittingly grasp the normalization of epidemic prevention and control.” The rest of the article made it clear that Cai was talking about the harsh lockdowns of residential compounds, districts, and entire cities that have plagued China this year, most notoriously in Shanghai . Policemen wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) check a person on a scooter on the street during a Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown in the Jing’an district in Shanghai on April 24, 2022. (Photo by HECTOR … [Read more...] about Beijing Communist Chief Announces Five More Years of Lockdowns

China’s state-run Global Times on Monday reversed a good deal of spin from Beijing by admitting U.S. demand for Chinese goods is falling sharply enough to damage the Chinese economy. Previous official statements and state media propaganda have striven to dismiss American actions like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), and efforts to “decouple” supply lines from China in the wake of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, as trifling inconveniences that would hurt the U.S. more than China. The Global Times studiously avoided mentioning China’s human rights violations against the Uyghur Muslims or the American response, a law requiring that importers prove goods sourced to the Uyghur homeland in East Turkistan are free from the taint of forced labor. Instead, the Chinese paper solely blamed “runaway inflation” for “increasingly weak consumption” in the U.S., which is forcing Chinese companies to reduce their production capacity. After citing a … [Read more...] about Beijing: Americans Are Buying Fewer Chinese Goods

Last November, Uber launched a pilot of its Uber Pool replacement, dubbed UberX Share , in Miami, Florida. Today, the company says shared rides have returned to nine cities: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Diego, Portland, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh. Like Lyft, Uber paused its Uber Pool service in March 2020 with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Lyft Shared rides resumed in several cities over the last few months, and now, UberX Share is following a similar rollout. According to Uber senior vice president of mobility Andrew Macdonald , the feature will only match riders headed in the same direction and is designed to add no more than eight additional minutes to your trip’s arrival time. The main difference between Uber’s carpool service and the pilot program is a looser approach to some COVID-19 precautions. While Uber Pool allowed riders to request up to two seats in a vehicle, UberX Share can only be used for one person at a … [Read more...] about UberX Share brings carpooling back to NYC, LA, Chicago, and six other cities

MEPs from across the EU have told Breitbart Europe that they will continue to challenge the EU’s COVID pass regime as it comes up for renewal on Thursday. Members of the European Union’s Parliament (MEPs) have told Breitbart Europe that they will continue to fight against the bloc’s regime of COVID passes as their renewal is voted upon by the European Parliament on Thursday. Having been set to expire at the end of this month, the bloc’s Civil Liberties committee voted last week to see the measures extended for another year, justifying the decision by saying that it was important to have the COVID pass system in place “in case it is needed”. However, several representatives elected to the European Parliament from across the EU have told Breitbart Europe that they vehemently oppose such a renewal, with a number of MEPs saying that the measures represent an unjustifiable intrusion on the rights of ordinary people. ‘Are You Serious?’ Eurocrat Claims Bloc Never Pushed People … [Read more...] about MEPs Vow to Fight ‘Immoral’ and ‘Dangerous’ EU COVID Pass Extension

While one congressional committee seems to be grabbing all the headlines recently, other investigations of the Trump administration have continued in the background. One of them is trying to determine how the US's response to the coronavirus pandemic went so wrong that the country ended up with over a million deaths and one of the worst per-capita death rates in the world. In its own words, the committee's goal is "to ensure the American people receive a full accounting of what went wrong and to determine what corrective steps are necessary to ensure our nation is better prepared for any future public health crisis." In its latest report , released on Tuesday, the committee details the White House career of Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no infectious disease experience. Atlas' hiring by the White House was expected to be so controversial that he was initially instructed to hide his staff ID from the actual government public health experts. Yet he quickly became a driving … [Read more...] about New report on how Scott Atlas made herd immunity an unofficial US policy

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping delivered a keynote address to the BRICS Business Forum on Wednesday that urged foreign investors to “do business in China” despite growing concerns about its costly coronavirus lockdowns, unsteady economy, unfair trade practices, human rights abuses, refusal to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and territorial aggression. BRICS is a coalition of emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. (Describing China as an “emerging economy” is increasingly laughable given its hyperactive industrial development and titanic carbon footprint, but Xi’s government insists on milking its “emergent” designation for all that it’s worth). Xi sees BRICS as a vehicle for building the ruthlessly amoral post-American, China-dominated world order of his dreams — an order in which imperial powers like China and Russia can seize territory like Taiwan and Ukraine by force and regimes can abuse their people to retain power … [Read more...] about Xi Jinping Tries to Calm Skittish Investors with Rallying Cry to ‘Do Business in China’

Over a year after the US authorized its first vaccines, COVID cases continue to pile up, leaving many vaccinated people wondering: “Do I need a vaccine upgrade?” People who are fully vaccinated and boosted have been testing positive in huge numbers, particularly since the omicron-triggered wave started its relentless burn across the United States in December. Vaccines that once caused experts to declare COVID-19 a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” don’t protect as well against illness, even as they continued to protect against the most severe disease. Breakthrough infections are so common that the near-miraculous protection the vaccine promised a year ago feels very far away. Part of the problem is that the virus that the vaccines target — the first version of the coronavirus that started spreading in early 2020 — doesn’t exist anymore. Now, regulators, researchers, and vaccine companies are turning to the next phase of the vaccine development process: finding a way to protect against … [Read more...] about Where’s the next generation of COVID-19 shots?