Jan. 24, 2022 - Epoch Times
19:17
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| Good evening. | |
| Over in California, due to the rise in COVID cases, as well as the firing of many of the unvaccinated employees in the state, well, the hospitals there are now facing a shortage of healthcare workers. | |
| However, there is nothing to fear, because the California Department of Public Health, they have a solution. | |
| They are now allowing COVID-positive healthcare employees, meaning COVID-positive nurses, as well as COVID-positive doctors and so on, Meanwhile, five days ago, a group of Navy SEALs, they scored a victory in their fight against the vaccine mandates. | |
| Specifically, a federal court ruled in their favor, and they issued an injunction against the Biden administration. | |
| And then lastly, over in the state of New York, according to new data that was just released by the state, by specifically the governor's office, it shows that nearly half of the patients who are currently hospitalized with COVID were admitted to the hospital for reasons other than COVID. | |
| Let's go through it all together. | |
| This is your Daily Facts Matter Update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times. | |
| And now let's begin today's discussion over in California, where allegedly they are currently facing severe hospital staff shortages. | |
| And those shortages, they are coming largely from two factors. | |
| The first is an uptick in the number of COVID hospitalizations, and the second is that due to the vaccine mandates that were pushed forward by Joe Biden, as well as Governor Gavin Newsom last year, well, thousands of healthcare workers, they have been terminated. | |
| Specifically, over in California, throughout the second half of last year, you had quite a lot of stories coming out of both hospitals as well as other healthcare facilities wherein they were terminating their unvaccinated employees, including Kaiser Permanente, which fired about 2,000 of their unvaccinated workers. | |
| And now the state of California is beginning to see the effects of these actions. | |
| However, do not worry, because they have a solution. | |
| In addressing these shortages, just yesterday, the California Department of Public Health, they issued new guidance which will allow healthcare workers who are COVID positive to keep working as long as they don't have any symptoms. | |
| Meaning that if you are a nurse working inside of a California hospital and you test positive for COVID, well, you will be able to keep working as long as you don't have any symptoms. | |
| However, because this is California, if you are a nurse who tests negative for COVID, but you happen to be unvaccinated, well, then you will not be allowed to work. | |
| Here's in fact what the California Department of Public Health issued in the statement over the weekend. | |
| The department is providing temporary flexibility to help hospitals and emergency service providers respond to an unprecedented surge and staffing shortages. | |
| Hospitals have to exhaust all other options before resorting to this temporary tool. | |
| Facilities and providers using this tool Furthermore, according to the new temporary guidance which was released over the weekend, California healthcare workers, they no longer have to either isolate themselves at home nor show a negative COVID test before coming back to work, as long as they are asymptomatic. | |
| As you can imagine, not everybody was thrilled with this decision. | |
| For instance, shortly after this new guidance was released, several of the unions who are representing both the nurses as well as the medical workers in the state, they raised the alarm. | |
| Here's, for instance, what the head of the SEIU California, which is a large trade union in the state, here's what he told local media. | |
| Healthcare workers and patients need the protection of clear rules guided by strong science. | |
| Allowing employers to bring back workers who may still be infectious is one of the worst ideas I have heard during this pandemic, and that's really saying something. | |
| Likewise, the president of the California Nurses Association, she told local media outlets that this decision by the Department of Public Health will put the people of California at risk. | |
| Here's specifically what she said. | |
| We're very concerned. | |
| If you have healthcare workers who are COVID positive, care for vulnerable populations, we can spread the COVID virus inside the hospital as well. | |
| However, on the flip side, there are some other doctors who say that this is a creative solution to a vaccine problem. | |
| For instance, Dr. | |
| George Rutherford, who is a professor of epidemiology over at the University of California in San Francisco, he told local media outlets that within the realm of infectious diseases, this type of guidance is not anything new. | |
| Here's specifically what he said. | |
| This is about having infected people taking care of infected people. | |
| We did this with Ebola in South Africa. | |
| We've done it before. | |
| It's not the first play option in our playbook. | |
| I think staffing issues are such that it led the state to put this guidance out. | |
| And so, with both sides of the argument now in front of you, you can make up your own mind as to whether you agree with the California Department of Public Health's decision to let COVID-positive healthcare employees continue working at hospitals. | |
| If you'd like to read more about any of the specifics of this new policy, I'll throw all those links into the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And all I ask in return is that you take a super quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| However, while we're on the topic of COVID patients, let's move on over and discuss the U.S. Supreme Court. | |
| On Friday, so about two days ago, the nine justices of the Supreme Court, they heard oral arguments from the different states which are fighting back against the national vaccine mandates. | |
| And during one of the exchanges, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said certain things that were rather shocking. | |
| For instance, she claimed that COVID deaths are currently at an all-time high, which they aren't. | |
| She claimed that the Omicron variant is much deadlier than the Delta variant, which it isn't. | |
| And then lastly, she claimed that in this country, over 100,000 children are currently hospitalized in serious conditions due to COVID, with many of them being hooked up to ventilators. | |
| Here's specifically what she said in that last point. | |
| We have hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people seriously ill on ventilators. | |
| We have over 100,000 children, which we've never had before, in serious condition, many on ventilators. | |
| Now, that is of course a very, very sad state of affairs, and I think we can all agree that having so many children on ventilators is not good. | |
| However, the only problem with that statement was that it wasn't true. | |
| In fact, according to federal data, there are currently 3,342 children in all of America who are hospitalized with COVID. And please note that I said hospitalized with COVID and not because of COVID, which is a very important distinction to make. | |
| And to clarify what that distinction actually means, well, here's Dr. | |
| Fauci himself. | |
| If a child goes in the hospital, they automatically get tested for COVID, and they get counted as a COVID hospitalized individual, when in fact, they may go in for a broken leg or appendicitis or something like that. | |
| So it's overcounting the number of children who are, quote, hospitalized with COVID as opposed to because of COVID. And then likewise, after Justice Sotomayor made those false comments on Friday, the director of the CDC, Dr. | |
| Rochelle Walensky, she went on Fox News where the host of the news program, he asked her to refute the false claim about hospitalized children. | |
| However, instead of simply acknowledging that the statement was incorrect, Dr. | |
| Walensky, she made a pivot to blame the unvaccinated. | |
| Here's what she said. | |
| Yeah, but you know, here's what I can tell you about our pediatric hospitalizations. | |
| First of all, the vast majority of children that are in the hospital are unvaccinated. | |
| And for those children who are not eligible for vaccination, we do know that they are most likely to get sick with COVID if their family members are not vaccinated. | |
| So, the most important thing we can do for those children to keep them out of the hospital is to vaccinate them and vaccinate their family members. | |
| Regardless of her attempts to not answer the question directly, though, it is the case that late last week, when speaking about the topic of hospitalized children, Dr. | |
| Walensky said this. | |
| Many children are hospitalized with COVID as opposed to because of COVID. Which is actually a perfect segue for us to discuss what is happening in New York. | |
| That's because just two days ago, state officials in New York, they said that nearly half of the patients who are currently in New York hospitals with COVID, they were admitted to those hospitals because of reasons other than COVID. Specifically, according to a statement from the Office of Governor Kathy Hochul, they said that 43% of the 11,548 hospitalized patients did not have COVID listed as one of the reasons for hospital admission. | |
| In fact, during a press conference, here's what Governor Hochul said about the matter. | |
| Some of the patients test positive for COVID, but they're in there for other reasons. | |
| Think of all the other reasons people end up at a hospital. | |
| It's an overdose, it's a car accident, a heart attack. | |
| Now, that statement, it comes on the heels of an earlier announcement that she made, specifically an announcement that she made a week ago, where Governor Hochul said that the state of New York would begin to separate their statistics between people hospitalized for COVID versus people hospitalized with COVID. Which is great, although quite frankly, to me at least, it's shocking that we are already a full two years into this pandemic, and only now are these government officials realizing that they should be separating these numbers. | |
| And that's especially shocking given the fact that this is not even a new idea. | |
| In fact, there was a study published in September of last year, in September of 2021, which found that approximately half of the hospitalizations in all of America, they showed just mild or no COVID symptoms. | |
| Meaning that, at least according to that earlier study, about half of the hospitalizations that were marked as being for COVID are very likely just hospitalizations with COVID. And then there was another study that was published in August of last year, which found that 4 in 10 children 40% of all children who are hospitalized with COVID were asymptomatic, | |
| meaning again that they were likely hospitalized with COVID rather than because of COVID. However, if you've been following this story for any length of time, then you know that opinions like that, that the hospitalization rate that's being reported in the media is exaggerated, well that was largely dismissed as being conspiratorial. | |
| And yet now, it appears that it is the guiding principle of people like Dr. | |
| Fauci, Dr. | |
| Walensky, Governor Hochul, and so on. | |
| It really makes you wonder what has changed between then and now. | |
| Regardless, here's what Governor Kathy Hochul said in regards to the new methodology that the state of New York will use to counter COVID hospitalizations. | |
| I just want to always be honest with New Yorkers about how bad this is. | |
| Yes, the sheer number of people infected are high, but I want to see whether or not the hospitalizations correlate with that. | |
| And I'm anticipating to see that at least a certain percentage overall are not related to being treated for COVID. | |
| But we're still going to watch hospital capacity. | |
| Now, what's interesting to note is that when you look at the data in the state of New York, you find that most of the COVID positive patients who are admitted to a hospital for non-COVID reasons are in the city of New York, in New York City. | |
| And according to Dr. | |
| Steve Corwin, who is the CEO of New York Presbyterian Hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals in New York City, he said that about half of the COVID-positive patients in New York City were admitted for something other than COVID. Here's specifically what he said. | |
| About 50% are admitted with COVID and 50% are admitted for COVID. Now, what he mentioned there, this type of data, is not only seen in New York, but in other states as well, and it has some experts really scratching their heads. | |
| For instance, Dr. | |
| Scott Gottlieb, who is the former commissioner of the FDA, and now he's a board member of Pfizer, he said that this percentage was a lot higher than he expected, and that he's worried that people are actually contracting COVID while at the hospital. | |
| Here's specifically what he said. | |
| Unclear why I would see so much incidental infection. | |
| I'm hearing similar stats in New Jersey and Connecticut hospitals. | |
| And I wonder how those numbers will be affected by places like California now allowing COVID-positive healthcare workers to continue seeing patients. | |
| Regardless, if you'd like to read more about what's happening over in New York, across the country, or if you'd like to read more about the comments that were made during the Supreme Court hearing, I'll throw all that into the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And all I ask in return is that you take a super quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| And now, let's move on over and talk about the US Navy SEALs. | |
| That's right. | |
| Just last week, a federal court granted a preliminary injunction to a group of US Navy SEALs who was suing the Biden administration over the fact that they were denied religious exemptions to the COVID vaccine mandate. | |
| Now, in case you're not aware, what a preliminary injunction means is that as the case is going to be playing itself out in court, maybe over the next several months, maybe even the next year, the U.S. military cannot take any punitive actions against these U.S. Navy SEALs. | |
| So basically, as the case is playing itself out and they're suing the federal government, the U.S. military can't come in and court-martial them. | |
| They can't deny them pay. | |
| They can't fire them. | |
| So, in issuing this court order, here's what the U.S. judge said in his order that actually put this preliminary injunction into place. | |
| And for your reference, by the way, the U.S. judge, his name is Reed O'Connor, and he was nominated to the bench by George W. Bush. | |
| And here's what he wrote, quote, The Navy service members in this case seek to vindicate the very freedoms they have sacrificed so much to protect. | |
| The COVID-19 pandemic provides the government no license to abrogate those freedoms. | |
| There is no COVID-19 exemption to the First Amendment. | |
| There is no military exclusion from our Constitution. | |
| Now, to give you a bit of background on what's happening here, back on August 24th of 2021 of last year, Lloyd Austin, who is, of course, the defense secretary for the Biden administration, he's the chief of the Pentagon, he issued a memo saying that all branches of the military must get fully vaccinated. | |
| And after he issued that memo, the different branches of the U.S. military, they each set their own deadlines for when all service members must get fully vaccinated. | |
| However, in setting that deadline, they did offer the possibility for people to submit applications to get a religious exemption. | |
| However, this is where things get a little bit tricky because to this very day, which is already now January, the U.S. military has not given out any religious exemption to any member of the military in any branch, which of course includes the U.S. Navy and it includes these U.S. Navy SEALs. | |
| Furthermore, according to the lawyers who represent the US Navy SEALs who are suing the federal government, what happened was that when the Navy SEALs actually went to their superior officers and they inquired about seeking a religious accommodation for the vaccine, they were informed, many of them were informed, that they could face either court-martial or involuntary separation If they refuse to take the vaccine. | |
| So it was almost like a threat for just asking whether they can get a religious exemption. | |
| And then furthermore, in terms of the people who were already denied religious exemptions, because some of them are still like pending, they're still being reviewed, but some of them have already been flatly denied. | |
| According to the First Liberty Institute, which is the public interest law firm that is representing the U.S. Navy SEALs, So it appears to be that they are just rubber stamping it because all the denials are exactly identical, which wouldn't make sense if all the different religious exemption applications are different, with maybe different faiths or different reasoning that people are giving for why they don't want to take the vaccine. | |
| So this led the federal judge in this case to write this, quote, The process for seeking a religious exemption is nothing more than theater. | |
| The Navy merely rubber stamps each denial and the record overwhelmingly demonstrates that the Navy's religious accommodation process is an exercise in futility. | |
| Furthermore, the judge in the case noted that since the Navy has granted some medical exemptions to the vaccine but has not granted even a single religious exemption, well, this type of disparity between secular and religious is actually prohibited Here's what the judge wrote, | |
| quote, And then lastly, the judge in the case argued that the U.S. military did not provide a compelling enough argument for why the remaining very comparatively few service members who are not vaccinated but who are seeking religious exemptions should in fact get the shot. | |
| Here's what he said, quote, Defendants must provide more than a broadly formulated interest in national security. | |
| They must articulate a compelling interest in vaccinating the 35 religious service members currently before the court. | |
| Without individualized assessment, the Navy cannot demonstrate a compelling interest in vaccinating these particular plaintiffs. | |
| By all accounts, plaintiffs have safely carried out their jobs during the pandemic. | |
| Even if defendants have a broad, compelling interest in widespread vaccination of its force, they have achieved this goal without the participation of the 35 plaintiffs here. | |
| At least 99.4% of all active duty Navy service members have been vaccinated. | |
| The remaining 0.6% is unlikely to undermine the Navy's efforts. | |
| And as you can imagine, the plaintiffs in the case are rather satisfied with this injunction being passed. | |
| In fact, one of the lawyers for First Liberty, which is again the law firm representing the Navy SEALs in this case, he issued this in a statement, quote,"...forcing a service member to choose between their faith and serving their country is abhorrent to the Constitution and America's values." Punishing SEALs for simply asking for a religious accommodation is purely vindictive and punitive. | |
| We're pleased that the court has acted to protect our brave warriors before more damage is done to our national security. | |
| Now, as I mentioned earlier, what has been issued here is known as a preliminary injunction, meaning that as this case will continue to play itself out on court over the next several weeks or even the next several months, this preliminary injunction will stop the U.S. military from Taking any kind of punitive actions against the defendants in the case, against the US Navy SEALs. | |
| So basically, as the case will continue to work itself in court, the Navy SEALs can't be fired, they can't have their pay withheld, they can't be court-martialed, etc. | |
| Basically, they have to be treated as normal as the case is working its way through court. | |
| But as to whether the case as a whole will succeed, well, only time will tell. | |
| Now, in terms of the likely next step in this particular case, what will very likely happen is that the Department of Defense and the Biden administration, they will appeal this injunction at the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Fifth Circuit. | |
| And so we'll just have to wait and see what happens when they do. | |
| Otherwise, Roman in the studio, back to you. | |
| If you'd like to read more about this case with the US Navy SEALs, including the full PDF of that court order, I'll throw all that into the description box below this video. | |
| And all I ask in return is that if you haven't already, take a quick moment to smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| And now, since you've completed this episode of Facts Matter, I would highly recommend that you go on over to Epic TV and check out an awesome episode of American Thought Leaders, where Yan explores the question of how the Chinese Communist Party manipulates the narrative about China in the West. | |
| Here's a trailer for that episode. | |
| Simply renouncing your faith is not enough. | |
| You have to turn in your friends. | |
| You have to completely sell your soul to the regime in order to survive. | |
| Today I sit down with Peabody award-winning filmmaker Leon Li. | |
| In his new feature film, Unsilenced, he tells the story of a group of students who risked their lives to expose brutal persecution in China. | |
| The entire nation is mobilized in the crackdown against Falun Gong. | |
| Like most things critical of the Chinese regime, forces were at work trying to make this film disappear. | |
| Several senior cast members, even after signing a new memo, they would back off, sometimes only days before production would start. | |
| If you want to check out that awesome episode, as well as all the other phenomenal content over on Epic TV, the link tool will be right there at the very top of the description box. | |
| Hope you click on it. | |
| Hope you check it out. | |
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| And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. |
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