Tag: Coronavirus

Antidepressant Prescriptions for Youth Surged During COVID Pandemic

Connecticut Star Staff
Therapist Session

A new study shows that the prescription of antidepressants for youth skyrocketed during the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic, rising by a staggering 65.3%.

As reported by Axios, the research from Pediatrics shows that the spike in such prescriptions may have been caused by a number of factors, including a shortage in mental health workers in schools and the shift towards remote forms of medical treatment such as “telehealth” and remote prescribing, which only contributed to a sense of isolation and depression brought on by the nationwide lockdowns.

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Commentary: More Evidence That U.S. Intelligence Analysis Is Broken and Politicized

Connecticut Star Staff
Wuhan Institute of Virology

Last week, American Greatness reporter Debra Heine reported a bombshell story that a “highly credible” CIA whistleblower has told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the CIA “bribed” six of its analysts with significant financial incentives to change their initial conclusion that the COVID-19 pandemic originated from a biolab leak in Wuhan, China and to instead conclude that the virus emerged naturally.

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NIH Renews Grant to Organization That Funded Coronavirus Experiments in Wuhan

Just the News

The National Institutes of Health have renewed a grant to EcoHealth Alliance, an organization that funded experiments in Wuhan at a facility identified as the possible origin point of the COVID-19 pandemic.

EcoHealth announced the renewal on Monday, noting that the grant had been suspended in April of 2020 “due to concerns about continuing collaborative laboratory research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” EcoHealth’s experiments involved on-site work at the WIV and involved the study of coronaviruses.

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Blue State School Districts Are Mandating Masks for Christmas

Admin
Girl with mask on and braids

Ahead of the holiday break, several schools in blue states are implementing mask mandates in light of the “tripledemic.”

Schools in states such as Pennsylvania, Washington and New Jersey are fearing a “tripledemic” of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza (flu) and coronavirus. To combat the “tripledemic” some schools are considering mask mandates while other states have already asked their students to mask up.

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‘Shocking’: EcoHealth Alliance Receives Another Round of Funding for Coronavirus Bat Research in Asia

The Center Square
Anthony Fauci

A coalition of leading House Republicans is raising the alarm and demanding answers after the Biden administration approved another round of grant funding for research on coronaviruses and bats in Asia.

The lawmakers sent a letter to Anthony Fauci, who leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and serves as the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden.

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President Biden Tests Positive for COVID-19 Again

Admin

President Biden on Saturday tested positive for COVID-19 again, the White House state in a statement.

A statement was from the White House physician and said the 79-year-old president tested positive “late Saturday morning” after multiple negative tests earlier in the week. He returned to in-person work Wednesday, after having tested positive days earlier. The situation of getting COVID soon after having already contracted the virus is frequently referred to as “rebound” COVID.

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Connecticut Republican Senators Find Governor’s Oversight of West Haven’s COVID Spending Inadequate

Bradley Vasoli

Gov. Ned Lamont (D) this week approved the Municipal Accountability Review Board’s (MARB) request to heighten state oversight of the city of West Haven which is alleged to have misspent COVID-19 relief money, but Republican lawmakers are arguing that the move falls short.

The state now deems West Haven a Tier IV municipality, subjecting it to the most rigorous financial scrutiny for which state law provides. This comes as a result of an audit MARB issued last month which detailed numerous fiscal-management problems the city has incurred. Earlier in April, a separate review by the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management found that the city misused nearly four-fifths of over $1 million in funds it received as part of COVID response efforts.

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Former Connecticut Public Health Commissioner Sues over 2020 Firing

Bradley Vasoli

Connecticut’s former Public Health Commissioner Renee Coleman-Mitchell filed a lawsuit this week against the state and the Department of Public Health, for Gov. Ned Lamont’s (D) decision to fire her in 2020.

Her lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut, alleges that Gov. Ned Lamont (D) dismissed her “simply on the basis that he did not prefer to have an older, African American female in the public eye as the individual leading the State in the fight against COVID-19.” The complaint argues that she is entitled to compensatory damages for violations of the anti-retaliation and anti-discrimination components of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as the state’s Fair Employment Practices Act.

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Dr. Yan: Trump’s COVID-19 Actions Saved American Lives

Julie Carr

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed former World Health Organization researcher and Wuhan virus whistleblower Dr. Li-Meng Yan, who told him about the actions of President Donald J. Trump saved American lives.

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Despite Connecticut Governor Lamont Ending Statewide School Masking, Hamden Keeps Mandate

Bradley Vasoli

Although Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont (D) allowed the statewide school-mask mandate to end on Monday, the Hamden Board of Education (BOE) voted that evening to indefinitely extend its requirement.

The vote came down along party lines, with Republican BOE members Austin Cesare, Kevin Shea and Gary Walsh supporting the mandate’s cancellation; Board Chair Melissa A. Kaplan as well as fellow Democrats David Asbery, Siobhan Carter-David, Mariam Khan and Réuel Parks voted to keep it.

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South African Doctor Who Discovered Omicron Refuses to ‘Create Fear’ by Hyping Variant’s Threat

Connecticut Star Staff

“I cannot make a disease worse, and create fear out there,” says Dr. Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who discovered Omicron.

In an interview on Just the News Not Noise, Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, described the pressure she faced from public health authorities worldwide to portray the now-dominant variant of COVID-19 as more severe than she was witnessing in real time.

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FDA Announces Postponement of Approval of COVID Vaccine for Babies and Young Children

Susan Berry, PhD
Young girl with a blue shirt on getting a vaccine

Pfizer and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Friday they are delaying their plan for Pfizer’s Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for its coronavirus vaccine for children under five years old due to insufficient data on the efficacy of a third dose.

Pfizer announced February 1 FDA had asked the drug company, and its partner BioNTech, to submit data on a COVID vaccine series for babies as young as six months old and young children up until age five.

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Commentary: The Longevity of the COVID Emergency

RealClearWire

Two years after COVID burst on the American scene, leading to lockdowns, school closures, mask and vaccine mandates, and trillions of dollars in emergency government spending, the question on many minds is: When will the emergency end?

The answer to that question is not an easy one. An examination of past emergencies does not resolve it. Rather, it is clear that emergency situations, including this one, may be understood through various lenses, yielding different perspectives on what the endpoint will be.

Take, by way of comparison, World War II, an emergency that had at least four distinct endings because it had at least four distinct faces:

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Democrats and Media Allies Claim ‘Science Has Changed’ on Mask Mandates as Midterms Approach

Susan Berry, PhD

As the mid-term elections approach, a number of Democrat governors are now following in the steps of Republican Governors Ron DeSantis (FL) and Glenn Youngkin (VA) in support of dropping mask mandates.

Supported by their political and media allies, the governors of states, including New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, California, and Oregon are now announcing mask mandates in schools may be dropped soon, as the New York Times reported Tuesday.

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Governor Whitmer Touts ‘Delivering for Older Michiganders,’ Despite Newly-Released Report on Nursing Home Deaths

Cooper Moran

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Saturday touted her record for “delivering for older Michiganders,” ahead of her State of the State address.

Seemingly, the governor ignored a recent report that demonstrated thousands of additional deaths in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that were not reported by her administration’s Department of Health and Human Services.

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