Month: March 2021

Ohio GOP lawmakers plan to introduce legislation that would prohibit mandated “vaccine passports.” The term “vaccine passport” refers to the concept of requiring citizens to show proof they have received a vaccination for the Chinese coronavirus in order to be allowed to enter an area or establishment.

“Ohio is not New York,” said State Rep. Al Cutrona (R-Canfield) in a statement. “I anticipate introducing this bill to ensure that the liberties of all Ohioans are instilled throughout this vaccination phase of the pandemic.”

New York is the first state to formally launch a “vaccine passport” program — called the “Excelsior Pass” — which allows residents to pull up a code on their phones to prove they have been vaccinated for the Chinese coronavirus, or have tested negative.

Rep. Cutrona went on to say that while he encourages Ohioans to get vaccinated by their own free will, “a vaccine should not be mandated or required by our government for our people to integrate back to a sense of normalcy.”

“We’ve had restrictions on our freedoms for over a year and more restrictions or mandates are not the answer to every issue related to COVID-19,” Cutrona added.

Fellow Ohio State Rep. Mike Loychik (R-Bazetta) echoed these sentiments on Monday, tweeting, “Vaccine passports have no place in a free society.”

Rep. Loychik, who is also a co-sponsor of the upcoming bill, told Breitbart News that “upending society to implement an invasive vaccine credential system will only serve to further slow our economic recovery and deepen divisions in our society.”

“I absolutely encourage everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated to do so as soon as they can, but vaccine passports are not the way to go,” Loychik added.

Rep. Cutrona, who currently holds a position as the Chief Operating Officer for a tri-county infectious disease medical practice in Ohio, told Breitbart News that he foresees a violation of privacy if a vaccine passport were to be implemented.

“It is quite clear that the purpose for these passports go far beyond COVID,” Cutrona told Breitbart News. “A certificate from a physician could establish whether you have had COVID or a vaccine, so there is no need for the passport if that was truly the only intention. Amazon is already discussing using this as a platform to handle financial transactions and tracking people.”

“This is a clear example of what it looks like to slowly steal our freedoms,” Cutrona added. “As a Chief Operating Officer of an ID medical practice, I can confidently say that breaching medical privacy and freedom in the face of what the government decides is best for us will never be acceptable.”

The State Rep. went on to say that “this level of government intrusion would begin a slippery slope for our country.”

“This is the exact opposite of what our founding fathers envisioned for our country and its liberty,” Cutrona affirmed.

“Good intentions rarely justify imposing on people’s freedoms,” Cutrona added. “More frequently, these good intentions result in unintended consequences. If we have learned anything over the past year, it is that more regulations isn’t the answer.”

Cutrona says that he anticipates introducing the bill within the next three weeks.

The Ohio lawmakers are not alone in their stance regarding a “vaccine passport,” as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) recently expressed the concept is a “terrible idea,” adding that a state mandate is “totally off the table.”

“The vaccine passport is a terrible idea. We are definitely not going to require anything from the state’s perspective. That is totally off the table,” DeSantis said.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), once scarce and now abundant, is morphing into a new wave of masks and glove litter that is threatening wildlife, according to a recent study published on the Brill website.

The study said that the discarded masks and gloves are showing up everywhere around the globe.

The abstract to the study said, in part:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is massively used, resulting in a new wave of litter: protective face masks and gloves. Here we present the first case of a fish entrapped in a medical glove, encountered during a canal clean-up in Leiden, The Netherlands. We also report the first cases of birds using medical face masks as nesting material, which were also found in the Dutch canals. To place these new findings in context, we collected online reported interactions of animals with PPE litter, since the start of the pandemic. 

This resulted in the first overview of cases of entanglement, entrapment and ingestion of COVID-19 litter by animals and the use of it as nesting material. We signal COVID-19 litter as a new threat to animal life as the materials designed to keep us safe are actually harming animals around us.

The introduction to the study said, in part:

To protect humans against this virus, personal protective equipment (PPE) is being used more frequently. China, for example, increased face mask production by 450 percent in just one month (Bown, 2020). It is estimated that we have a monthly use of 129 billion face masks and 65 billion gloves globally (Prata et al., 2020). Similar to the usage of other single-use plastic items, this also means an increase of PPE littering our environment (Fadare & Okoffo, 2020). 

PPE litter, also referred to as COVID-19 litter, mainly consists of single-use (usually latex) gloves and single-use face masks, consisting of rubber strings and mostly polypropylene fabric. Three months after face masks became obligatory in the UK, PPE items were found on 30 percent of the monitored beaches and at 69 precent of inland clean-ups by the citizen scientists of the Great British Beach Clean (Riglen, 2020). Even on the uninhabited Soko Islands, Hong Kong, already 70 discarded face masks were found on just a 100-meter stretch of beach (Kassam, 2020). 

The Study Finds website reported on the findings:

Biologists Auke-Florian Hiemstra from Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Liselotte Rambonnet from Leiden University are still examining how often and where animals are interacting the most with COVID products humans are discarding. Their samples and observations span the globe, from Brazil to Malaysia, coming from social media, websites, and local newspaper reports.

Researchers note incidents of foxes in the United Kingdom and birds in Canada all becoming entangled in discarded face masks. Hedgehogs, seagulls, crabs, and even bats are all encountering the disposable plastics in the environment.

The scientists also credited photographers, litter collectors, birdwatchers, wildlife rescue centers, and veterinarians who contributed to their project.

“As a result of this, we can learn more about the impact of this category of disposable products on wildlife,” Rambonnet said in a press release on the project. “We therefore ask people to keep sharing their observations so that we can maintain an up-to-date overview.”

People are asked to submit their COVID-19 litter observations online at www.covidlitter.com.

Follow Penny Starr on Twitter or send news tips to pstarr@breitbart.com

An 11-year-old girl in Bellevue, Nebraska, has been working hard to raise money to buy a police K-9 vest.

“He works patrol and narcotics. So patrol being he’ll go out and find bad guys for us and narcotics he’ll sniff for drugs,” Bellevue police officer Jim Bartley told WOWT of his K-9 named Max.

The department’s K-9 unit has four dogs but only two have the vests they need.

“It’s not something we can budget for because the dog’s life, working life is anywhere from 5-7 years. So typically it’s not something we’re able to buy,” Bartley explained.

However, when Izzy Greenfelder learned of the need, she decided to help by selling dog treats through her mom’s company, Dogalicous Dog Treats.

“When we went to their training they said they wanted lightweight, bulletproof vests, so I wanted to help them,” she commented.

In the course of the past year, Izzy raised more than $2,000 to purchase a custom vest for Max that will keep him safe while working with his partner.

“I have a vest on that I always wear to work, and it makes me more confident when I go out and do my job,” Bartley said, adding, “So now knowing that Max has one as well, this is a really nice gift.”

In a Facebook post on Saturday, Dogalicious Treats shared a photo of Izzy and Max wearing his vest, writing, “A special thank you to all of my wonderful customers, family, and friends that helped her goal come true”:

Although it is the first K-9 vest the company bought, it will not be the last.

“Starting this year wear doing dog scarves and now dog seatbelts that we’re putting labels and just different crafts on to keep raising money,” said Izzy’s mom, Brandi Kawula.

“So whether it’s for another dog for Bellevue or maybe one of the other community areas,” she concluded.

Via DailyMail:

Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki has stood by the decision by San Diego school officials to provide in-person teaching to migrant teenagers before children return to the classroom.

Parents are angry over plans for teachers providing in-person instruction to migrant children while their kids have been stuck at home slogging through virtual Zoom sessions.

Teachers from the San Diego County Office of Education as well as other nonprofit organizations started providing educational services on Monday to some of the 500 minors who arrived from Texas and Arizona over the weekend – a week before full in-person learning begins.

Keep reading…