Nevada Lifts Mask Mandate As More US States Ease Covid Restrictions - As It Happened - US News - The Guardian

Nevada lifts mask mandate as more US states ease Covid restrictions – as it happened | US news | The Guardian 13/02/2022 02:20
Nevada lifts mask mandate as more US states

ease Covid restrictions 5 as it happened
Governor
Updated 2d agoSteve Sisolak rescinds mask mandate immediately
‘Budgets are being stretched,’ Biden says amid record;high inflation
‘Severe economic pain’: Manchin decries government spending
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Nevada governor rescinds mask mandate effective immediately

20:19
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2022/feb/10/democrats-joe-biden-inflation-russia-ukraine-covid-live-latest Page 1 of 9
The governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak, has become the latest Democratic governor to
announce that he is relaxing coronavirus-related restrictions in his state.
Delivering an update on Nevada’s coronavirus response today, Sisolak said that the state’s
mask mandate would be rescinded effective immediately.
Sisolak pointed to the state’s falling coronavirus case rate and expanded access to tests to
justify ending the requirement to wear masks in public spaces, including schools.
“Given all of these updates and the tools we have, now is the appropriate time for me to
announce that Nevada will rescind our mask mandate, effective immediately,” Sisolak said.
Sisolak’s announcement comes one day after the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, said
she would allow the state’s indoor mask requirement to lapse. Several other Democratic
governors also announced plans earlier this week to relax mask mandates in schools.
However, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Rochelle
Walensky, said yesterday that the agency still recommends masking in areas of high or
substantial coronavirus spread. According to CDC data, about 99% of US counties currently
qualify as areas of high or substantial spread.
Today's
2d ago politics recap
00:25
The governor of Nevada announced he is immediately rescinding the state’s mask
mandate, joining several other Democratic governors who have recently moved to relax
coronavirus-related restrictions. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
continues to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial coronavirus spread,
which accounts for about 99% of all US counties right now.
US prices rose by 7.5% in January compared to a year earlier, marking the country’s highest
level of inflation in 40 years. A number of economists have said they expect inflation to
subside over the coming year, but Democrats fear that the high prices at grocery stores and
gas pumps could hurt their chances in the midterm elections this November.
Joe Biden delivered a speech on the urgent need to lower US healthcare costs in Culpepper,
Virginia. The president noted the US pays more than its peer nations for the same
prescription drugs, and he reiterated his administration’s commitment to lowering
healthcare costs for American families. “I’ve long said health care should be a right, not a
privilege, in this country,” Biden said.
The Senate unanimously passed a bill that will end the use of forced arbitration in
workplace sexual harassment cases. The bill, which easily passed the House earlier this
week, now heads to Biden’s desk for his signature. The White House has already indicated
the president supports the bill and plans to sign it.
The House oversight committee opened an investigation into potential violations of the
Presidential Records Act by Donald Trump, after he retained and destroyed some
documents relevant to the Capitol attack inquiry. The House committee investigating
Capitol attack has also reportedly found gaps in critical hours on the day of the riot in White
House telephone logs, according to the New York Times.
– Joan E Greve
2d
Joeago
Biden urged American citizens in Ukraine to “leave now”.
00:24
In that interview with Nightly News, Biden told NBC’s Lester Holt that “things could go
crazy quickly” in Ukraine.
If Putin is “foolish enough to go in, he’s smart enough not to, in fact, do anything that would
negatively impact on American citizens,” Biden said. “I didn’t have to tell him that, I’ve
spoken about that. He knows that.”
The US State Department has warned that it “will not be able to evacuate US citizens in the
event of Russian military action anywhere in Ukraine.” Updated at 12.24am GMT
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2d
Joeago
Biden said he has a shortlist of supreme court nominees and expects that some
23:51
Republicans will also support his pick.
In an interview with NBC Nightly News, the president said he’s already looked into “about
four people”. Like the judiciary committee Democrats, Biden said he looks forward to
appointing a justice with qualities similar to Justice Stephen Breyer, whoUpdated
is retiring.
at 12.03am GMT
2d
Theago
Senate judiciary committee Democrats have wrapped their meeting with Joe Biden.
23:16
“We don’t rule out that there will be some Republican support for this nominee,” said Amy
Klobuchar, a Democratic senator of Minnesota, but noted that the president would be
picking his nominee based on his and the Democrats’ values. Democrats, who hold a slim
majority in the Senate, will be able to confirm Biden’s pick without Republican support.
“We didn’t come up with a list of names,” said Dick Durbin, chair of the committee, but said
that members shared recommendations with the president. Updated at 11.29pm GMT
2d ago Pelosi has extended proxy voting in the House for another seven weeks, citing the
Nancy
23:01
ongoing “public health emergency”.
About three dozen members of Congress have tested positive for Covid-19 just this year so
far.
Havana
2d ago syndrome has ‘dramatically hurt’ morale, US diplomats say
22:49
Julian Borger
The spread of Havana syndrome has “dramatically hurt” morale in the US diplomatic corps
and affected recruitment, according to the head of the American Foreign Service Association
(AFSA).
Eric Rubin, whose association represents nearly 17,000 current and former diplomats and
foreign aid workers, said it was getting harder to find young people to work abroad, because
of concerns about Havana syndrome – and about whether the government would look after
them if they got sick.
“People have suffered real trauma and real injury, and it has dramatically hurt our morale,
our readiness, our ability to recruit new members in the foreign service,” Rubin told the first
medical symposium on the syndrome since it began affecting US diplomats and intelligence
officers in 2016, organised by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
The cause of the syndrome, which involves long-term loss of balance and cognitive
function, remains a mystery. A report by a US intelligence panel of experts last week found
that pulsed electromagnetic energy and ultrasound were plausible causes in at least some
cases.
A CIA assessment made public last month however determined that the majority of the
thousand possible cases reported were most likely not the result of a global campaign by a
foreign power, while in some two dozen incidents the cause could not be explained.
Rubin did not speculate over the cause, but said that the syndrome was having a potentially
serious effect on US diplomacy.
“It is getting harder when we recruit people,” the AFSA president said. “I’ve had young
members of the cohort that’s coming into the foreign service ask me: ‘If I do this, what am I
getting into? And is this going to get worse? Is this going to get solved? If I get attacked and if
I get injured, who’s gonna be there for me?’
“We’ve got to address that,” Rubin said.
Rubin said that care was improving for US officials who have been affected, but that the
AFSA was still encountering bureaucratic resistance.
Read more:
Today
2d ago so far
22:00
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for
the next couple of hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
The governor of Nevada announced he is immediately rescinding the state’s mask
mandate, joining several other Democratic governors who have recently moved to relax
coronavirus-related restrictions. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
continues to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial coronavirus spread,
which accounts for about 99% of all US counties right now.
US prices rose by 7.5% in January compared to a year earlier, marking the country’s highest
level of inflation in 40 years. A number of economists have said they expect inflation to
subside over the coming year, but Democrats fear that the high prices at grocery stores and
gas pumps could hurt their chances in the midterm elections this November.
Joe Biden delivered a speech on the urgent need to lower US healthcare costs in Culpepper,
Virginia. The president noted the US pays more than its peer nations for the same
prescription drugs, and he reiterated his administration’s commitment to lowering
healthcare costs for American families. “I’ve long said health care should be a right, not a
privilege, in this country,” Biden said.
The Senate unanimously passed a bill that will end the use of forced arbitration in
workplace sexual harassment cases. The bill, which easily passed the House earlier this
week, now heads to Biden’s desk for his signature. The White House has already indicated
the president supports the bill and plans to sign it.
The House oversight committee opened an investigation into potential violations of the
Presidential Records Act by Donald Trump, after he retained and destroyed some
documents relevant to the Capitol attack inquiry. The House committee investigating
Capitol attack has also reportedly found gaps in critical hours on the day of the riot in White
House telephone logs, according to the New York Times.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Biden
2d ago meets with Senate Democrats to discuss supreme court vacancy
21:52
Joe Biden is scheduled to now meet Democratic members of the Senate judiciary committee
at the White House to discuss the upcoming supreme court vacancy and the search for a
nominee.
Justice Stephen Breyer announced late last month that he would step down from the court
this summer, and Biden has promised to nominate a Black woman to the seat. If confirmed,
Biden’s nominee will become the first Black woman to serve on the supreme court.
The White House has said that the Democratic senators meeting with Biden will talk to
reporters after the discussion wraps up, and they may have some new insights into the
president’s search. Stay tuned.
Mario
2d ago Koran
21:29
Substitute teachers suddenly find themselves on the winning end of a supply-and-demand
problem facing schools across the country: Too few full-time teachers, and not enough
substitute teachers to cover for them.
As the Omicron variant hurtled across the nation, political leaders from the White House to
local school boards faced intense pressure to keep open brick-and-mortar schools – and
most have.
“Let’s put it in perspective: 95%, as high as 98%, of the schools in America are open,
functioning and capable of doing the job,” president Joe Biden said at a press conference last
month. He urged school districts to use funding to keep schools open.
But that reality has left the nation’s public schools scrambling to fill holes created by a lack
of available teachers to fill vacancies. And it’s created a cascade of day-to-day disruptions
within school buildings as staff chip in to cover for absent colleagues, leaving some assigned
duties aside in the process.
Read the Guardian’s full report:
2d
Drago
Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has
21:11
expressed skepticism about Democratic-led states’ push to relax mask mandates.
“We have always said at the CDC that these policies are gonna be made at the state and local
level. And so we stand by that. These are state and local decisions,” Walensky told SiriusXM
Radio on Tuesday.
“We will also say that our current recommendations have not changed, that we still
encourage all students in schools to wear well-fitting masks ... consistently and while
indoors.”
Walensky emphasized the importance of ensuring students are able to keep attending class
in person, given how much educational ground was lost when schools were forced to close
their doors because of the pandemic.
“Around the country, I know people are really cautiously optimistic as they’re seeing case
rates go down, but what I will say is that we still have about 290,000 cases a day and
hospitalizations that are higher than they ever were in our Delta peak even,” Walensky said.
“And so, right now I don’t think is the moment to start relaxing those restrictions.”
Melody
2d ago Schreiber
20:51
On Wednesday, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York and Rhode Island joined California,
Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon in lifting mask mandates for some public
places.
The wave of relaxations comes after months of private meetings among state leaders and
political focus groups after the November elections, according to reports. “Now, it’s time to
give people their lives back,” Sean Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee, tweeted in support of New York suspending its indoor mask-or-
vaccine mandate.
Yet the lifting of rules has not been universally applauded and is coming at a time when the
vast majority of the country (99%) is still seeing high transmission of the virus, according to
the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Public polls show consistent support for mask mandates and other precautions, and experts
say the time to relax precautions is not here yet – and acting prematurely could prolong this
wave.
“In my view, it’s too soon. I feel like we’re anticipating too much,” said Justin Lessler, a
professor of epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. “We’re being
too confident that things are going to keep going the direction that they have been going.”
2d ago
Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak underscored that there will still be some places in the state
20:34
where masks are required, such as airports, hospitals and long-term care facilities.
In schools, masks will no longer be required, but Sisolak emphasized that school districts
should work with local health officials to develop protocols for responding to potential
outbreaks.
“Masks are a great tool that we have at our disposal. I expect going forward to still see
Nevadans and visitors occasionally utilizing masks when they are out in public,” Sisolak
said.
The governor also reminded his constituents to continue abiding by the mask policies
implemented by individual businesses and to respect the decisions of others who may feel
more comfortable wearing masks.
“I hope that in this moment, and as we move forward, we can remember and continue to
lead with kindness and to treat our fellow Nevadans and visitors how we would like to be
treated,” Sisolak said. “I want kindness to be just as contagious as Covid is.”
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Nevada lifts mask mandate as more US states ease Covid restrictions – as it happened | US news | The Guardian 13/02/2022 02:20

Nevada lifts mask mandate as more US states

Show key events only

Nevada governor rescinds mask mandate eﬀective immediately

Support the Guardian

Unlike many others, the Guardian has no shareholders and no billionaire

Show your support

“We’ve got to address that,” Rubin said.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

The governor of Nevada announced he is immediately rescinding the state’s mask

Read the Guardian’s full report:

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