Zucker resigns as New York health commissioner after months of criticism over COVID policies

Dr. Howard Zucker, the embattled commissioner for the New York State Department of Health, tendered his resignation Thursday to Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Dr. Howard Zucker, the embattled commissioner for the New York State Department of Health, tendered his resignation Thursday to Gov. Kathy Hochul, with the governor telling reporters he would stay until the position has been filled.

In a letter to the governor dated Thursday, Zucker said he worked with “fierce dedication to the public’s health” through several crises during his nearly seven-and-a-half-year tenure in the position. The last 18 months of which have been no exception to that due to the COVID-19 crisis.

“With almost 75 percent of the state’s population age 18 and older fully vaccinated, we are at the point of trying to ‘normalize’ living with this, now seemingly endemic, infectious disease, as we have done with other illnesses for which immunizations benefit the individual and the community,” he wrote in his letter. “The one important unresolved aspect is the need for pediatric vaccinations, which I see happening in the near future.”

New York was hit especially hard by the first wave of the pandemic in March and April of last year, and while the state took several aggressive measures that turned it from being a hot spot to a national leader, it occurred with controversy.

The biggest issue that hung over Zucker was a March 25, 2020, order that required nursing homes to admit COVID-19 positive individuals as residents. The move was deemed necessary because of the overwhelming need for hospital beds at the time.

Shortly after that policy was implemented, death rates due to the virus spiked. Zucker, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others in the administration would claim staff members and visitors were the ones responsible for introducing the coronavirus into the long-term care facilities.

For months, the state tracked COVID-19 deaths at both nursing homes and hospitals. It wasn’t until a review by Attorney General Letitia James in January determined that the state downplayed the impact the virus had on nursing homes by about 50%. It did so by tying the death to where it occurred, at a hospital, instead of where it was contracted.

Others, including members of Congress and federal authorities, also have reviewed the state’s policies on nursing homes and reporting practices under the Cuomo Administration. It was also part of the impeachment inquiry undertaken by the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

After the attorney general’s report in January, Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt, R-North Tonawanda, called for Zucker’s resignation.

“Howard Zucker chose to protect Andrew Cuomo’s political career above protecting the health of New Yorkers,” Ortt said in a statement. “We hope that he and Andrew Cuomo have occasion to continue discussing and refining their warped version of science during their retirement from public service.”

James, in a statement issued Thursday afternoon, said his departure “marks the end of a difficult chapter” for New York.

https://justthenews.com/nation/states/zucker-resigns-new-york-health-commissioner-after-months-criticism-over-covid

Ron DeSantis Purchases Antibody Treatments for Florida After Joe Biden Cuts Shipments

In defiance of the Biden administration, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis purchased monoclonal antibody treatments this week to circumvent the federal restriction on shipments to states with higher needs.

Speaking at a news conference in Tampa on Thursday, the governor said that Florida will receive approximately 3,000 doses of the GlaxoSmithKline antibody treatment product, sutrovimab. The product will serve as a supplement for shortages in the Regeneron supply for the state of Florida, which will receive a shipment of 18,000 treatments from the federal government this month, according to NBC Miami.

DeSantis said of the treatments:

It’s clearly saving lives. It’s clearly keeping people out of the hospital. But it’s also something that, even short of being hospitalized, this is something that can really knock you on your rump for a week or two … it assists in the recovery. People get better much quicker if they get this treatment.

As Breitbart News reported last Thursday, the Biden administration last week:

…began to cut the distribution of monoclonal antibodies to red states, such as Florida and Alabama, contending those states, including Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, and Louisiana, are comprising too big a share of the supply in recent weeks — 70 percent.

In response to criticism and backlash, the White House press secretary said the Biden administration’s policy was to make the distribution of monoclonal antibodies more “equitable.”

During his press conference on Thursday, DeSantis rebuked the Biden administration for denying life-saving treatments to people in his state:

We should be doing everything we can to get them the treatment, not cut the treatment. So the fact that the Biden administration is doing this, I just think it’s wrong. The implications I think are going to be negative, we may have less access, we may have to close sites, the hospitals may not have all that they need. So this is fundamentally wrong.

When announcing his plan to circumvent the Biden administration last week, DeSantis touted the GlaxoSmithKline treatment for reportedly having a stronger efficacy than the Regeneron treatment.

“The clinical data on that was even better than the clinical data on Regeneron – 85% reduction in hospitalizations,” he said. “It is not approved for subcutaneous injections, so if we get it, and we use it at our sites, we have to expand the amount of IV treatments that are available, which we are going to be willing to do.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/09/23/ron-desantis-purchases-antibody-treatments-for-florida-after-joe-biden-cuts-shipments/

Anthony Fauci, Rochelle Walensky Meeting Raises Question of ‘Outside Influences’ on Federal Vaccine Mandate

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/09/23/exclusive-anthony-fauci-rochelle-walensky-meeting-raises-question-of-outside-influences-on-federal-vaccine-mandate/

: CAPIAS-WARRANT.Fauci

https://youtu.be/9EYXD274O5s

Building Lives Matter: It's dangerous to be a tradie in Melbourne today

>>14648137

somebody don't like being watched over

TN Mass shooting reported days ago. They got a little ahead of themselves. Check this out

https://www.bitchute.com/video/xqpkiAGFzbAG/

Fauci Defends NIH Funding Wuhan Lab: ‘Only Regret’ Is That It’s Caused ‘Such a Degree of Distraction’

During an interview with CBS’ “The Takeout” podcast recorded on Wednesday and released on Thursday, White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci defended the NIH funding research at the Wuhan Institute Virology and said that “the only regret is that what it has caused right now is such a degree of distraction” from combating the pandemic.

Host Major Garrett asked, [relevant exchange begins around 7:35] “There were two grants from the National Institutes of Health into investigatory work in the field in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and another institution there. Have you run to ground what those did or didn’t do in terms of creating any atmosphere in which a leak could have occurred or might have occurred?”

Fauci responded, “Well, the grants that [were] funded were to do surveillance in the environment to ask and answer questions that I just mentioned, when you go out, do you see any viruses out there that could potentially evolve to infect humans and do you do surveillance among people in those areas in China to see if there’s any inkling that, under the radar screen, such viruses may have been circulating. In fact, one of the papers that came out from studies from that grant was extremely important in putting a definitive stamp of understanding of how the original SARS-CoV-1 was able to evolve. So, those were questions that got a high priority in peer review to do the research to try and understand that.”

Garrett then asked, “And to those who think there might be some type of scandal or something incorrect or ill-advised about those grants, what would you say, Dr. Fauci?”

Fauci answered, “Well, what you do, Major, is you take a look at the viruses that [were] worked on under the auspices of that grant and what the grant was directed for. And you look at the publications that came from the research associated with that grant. The viruses that were worked with in that environment, in that particular context of that grant could not possibly molecularly evolved into what we know now as SARS-CoV-2. Because when you look at how you can go from one virus and do something with it to get to be another, the viruses that the grant allowed the investigators, competent investigators to work with, molecularly, were so different than what ultimately came out to be SARS-CoV-2 that anyone that looks at those two viruses who knows anything about evolutionary virology will tell you that they’re so far apart that you couldn’t possibly have had it emerge into that particular virus.”

Garrett then asked, “Real quickly, no regrets about those grants?”

Fauci responded, “Well, the only regret is that what it has caused right now is such a degree of distraction [from] trying to do what we really should be doing, is addressing the outbreak, and what we did, and did quite successfully, was to develop vaccines that have now been life-saving. That’s what the job of myself and my team and my institute is, and, thankfully, we did that very successfully.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/09/23/fauci-defends-nih-funding-wuhan-lab-only-regret-is-that-its-caused-such-a-degree-of-distraction/