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Feb. 8, 2022 - Epoch Times
24:12
All Vaccine Passports, Mask Mandates, and Work Restrictions END in England: Virus Treated Like Flu
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Good evening.
Just yesterday, over in England, the Prime Minister announced that the COVID pandemic is officially becoming an endemic, and therefore, he announced that England will be lifting all vaccine passport schemes, all mask mandates, as well as their work-from-home restrictions.
Essentially, they will begin treating COVID much like the flu.
On the flip side, however, here in America, it is a different story.
In fact, a new national survey found that close to half of the Democrats in this country, they would support a government measure which would force unvaccinated people to live temporarily in what are known as designated facilities if they refuse to get the shot.
And then lastly, I had the chance to sit down and speak with Ms.
April Moss, who is the journalist who quit live on air and blew the whistle on her local CBS affiliate, and she discussed how the media in America have essentially transformed themselves into machines which quash narratives that they don't agree with.
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 by talking about COVID restrictions, or more specifically, about the lifting of COVID restrictions.
That's right.
Just yesterday, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he announced that England will be ending all vaccine passport schemes, they will be ending all of their mask mandates, as well as all of their work-from-home restrictions.
Specifically, Mr.
Boris Johnson, who is of course the Prime Minister of the UK, he delivered a speech in Parliament just yesterday, wherein he stated that since COVID is becoming an endemic, sort of like the flu, it's high time to change the legal requirements into just simple advice.
Here's specifically what he said, once again, in front of Parliament.
As COVID becomes endemic, we will need to replace legal requirements with advice and guidance, urging people with the virus to be careful and considerate of others.
That speech, by the way, just for your reference, was met with roaring cheers from the lawmakers who were seated in Parliament.
Now, in terms of what this actually means in practice, let's go through the four points together.
To start with, effective immediately, the English government is no longer asking people to work from home.
Second of all, the COVID vaccine passport system that they had in place will not be renewed when it expires in a week, meaning that people can go to nightclubs, they can go to large venues, they can go to pubs, all without showing their paperwork.
Third of all, the requirement on secondary school students to wear masks during class is lifted effective immediately, effective today on January the 20th.
And then lastly, starting exactly one week from today, on January the 27th, indoor mask wearing will no longer be compulsory anywhere in England.
And on that last point regarding the masks, here's what Mr. Johnson said during his speech in front of Parliament.
We will trust the judgment of the British people and no longer criminalize anyone who chooses not to wear one.
And then also, besides those four main points, Mr. Johnson said, Johnson also suggested that within the next few days, the UK Health Secretary will be announcing plans to ease up restrictions on healthcare home visits within the country of England.
And then furthermore, while at this very moment, people who test positive for COVID are still required to self-isolate, Mr.
Boris Johnson said that, quote...
There will soon come a time when we can remove the legal requirement to self-isolate altogether, just as we don't place legal obligations on people to isolate if they have the flu.
And then, in regards to the self-isolation, in terms of when specifically that will be lifted, well, Mr.
Johnson added that he, quote, Now, it is worth noting here that the lifting of all these restrictions applies specifically to England.
Whereas the governments of both Scotland and Wales, they have announced that they will keep both the mandatory mask wearing as well as the vaccine passport systems in place, at least for the time being.
And then also, it's worth noting that just like what we saw here in America with the Supreme Court decision just a few days ago, well, healthcare workers over in England, they are likewise being treated differently than the rest of the population.
That's because during his speech, Mr.
Johnson refused to rescind the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, saying that, quote...
The evidence is clear that healthcare professionals should get vaccinated.
And so, just like here in America, if you happen to be a healthcare professional over in England, well, the lifting of these restrictions don't apply to you.
However, as you can imagine, the business community over in England, they welcome this news with open arms.
For instance, here's what the chief policy director of the Confederation of British Industry told the Associated Press.
There is a vital need now for greater consistency in how we live with the virus in the longer term.
Swinging back and forth between restrictions and normality has been damaging.
Now, what is really interesting to note here is that the lifting of these COVID restrictions comes amidst several concurrent events.
First of all, as Mr.
Johnson alluded to during his speech, the data seems to suggest that the Omicron wave has peaked across the country and that the hospital admission numbers have stabilized.
Secondly, for the last several weeks, Mr.
Johnson has been facing severe pressure to resign as prime minister ever since it became public knowledge that during the pandemic, even though publicly he was pushing for all these lockdown policies, he was privately hosting parties at his official residence, in which, naturally enough, he went against lockdown policies and commingled with his friends and coworkers.
Which is kind of cool to know that even though we have an entire ocean between us, the politicians here in America and the politicians in the UK, well, they are playing the same hypocritical game.
It's kind of nice to know that the world is so small in that regard.
Although ironically, as England is now in the process of lifting all of their restrictions, here in America, we are instead still in the process of debating all these vaccine mandates, booster mandates, mask mandates, and so on.
I mean, as just one small example, here in the beautiful state of New York, where we filmed this program, the governor, she just extended the indoor mask mandate all the way to February.
And furthermore, while England is now in the process of repealing all their mandates, and they're starting to treat the COVID more like the flu, well, here in America, a new poll just revealed that nearly half of the Democrats in this country, they would support a measure, a government measure, which would force unvaccinated people to live temporarily in what are known as designated facilities or locations.
Perhaps something like a COVID camp.
Specifically, this was a national poll conducted by the Heartland Institute in conjunction with Rasmussen, and they found that 45% of likely Democratic voters, they would support placing the unvaccinated into some sort of designated facilities if they continue to refuse the shot.
And then furthermore, in that very same poll, it also found that 59% of the respondents who said that they were Democrats would also favor a government policy which would require that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID vaccine.
And then going even further, the same survey found that almost half of the Democratic voters in this country, they think that federal and state governments, they should be able to both fine and even imprison people who publicly question the efficacy of the COVID vaccines.
Either on social media, television, radio, or just somewhere online.
The survey, by the way, had a margin of error of three percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Meaning that according to this rather credible survey, almost half of the Democrats in this country believe that people should be fined or imprisoned if they question the efficacy of the vaccines.
And then furthermore, if they refuse the vaccines, they also believe that they should be locked up in some sort of designated facility.
Which is pretty amazing if you think about it.
And it leads directly to the second topic that I wanted to discuss today.
And that topic is government-sanctioned censorship right here in America.
Specifically, censorship which is being requested by Joe Biden himself.
And we'll go through that together after a super quick word from the sponsor of today's episode.
That's right, Roman.
The sponsor of today's episode is an awesome company called AMAC. That's A-M-A-C. And it stands for the Association of Mature American Citizens.
Now, what I learned earlier today, though, is that you don't actually need to be a mature American citizen yourself in order to join AMAC because even though they're an organization that's geared towards people who are 50 years of age and above, you can actually join at any age as long as you're an American-loving patriot.
And so what they say is that as our fundamental freedoms here in this country are being threatened by politicians who don't even necessarily know how to balance their own checking accounts, And as there is a concerted effort to censor conservatives by this woke ideology, one thing that you can do to fight back is to join the two million people who are already members of AMAC. And by joining, you'll have access to three main benefits.
The first benefit is the money-saving benefit, because by joining, you'll have access to discounts on things like vitamins, restaurants, retail shops throughout the entire country.
Second of all, you will gain access to the AMAC website, The AMAC app, as well as the AMAC magazine, which gives you something that the mainstream media doesn't, which is honest news that is grounded in facts.
And third of all, and this is what a lot of people say is their favorite benefit, is that AMAC has your back over on Capitol Hill.
Because with two million freedom-loving members, they are a voice for conservatives that cannot be ignored.
And so, if you are a person who considers themselves a constitutional conservative, then I would consider joining AMAC. You can do so over at amac.us.
That's amac.us.
So consider signing up, consider helping AMAC's effort, and getting access to these excellent membership benefits.
So, AMAC, thank you so much for sponsoring this episode.
Now, Roman in the studio, back to you.
Now, let's move on over and discuss government-sanctioned censorship right here in America.
And to start with, last week, during a press conference that he held, Joe Biden made an appeal directly to both the news outlets as well as the social media companies in this country.
And here's specifically what he told them.
I make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets.
Please deal with the misinformation and disinformation that is on your shows.
It has to stop.
COVID-19 is one of the most formidable enemies America has ever faced.
We have got to work together, not against each other.
Now, you might naturally ask yourself, who exactly gets to judge what exactly is misinformation?
And who has the authority to decide what you, as an American, are able to see and hear?
Well, it looks like we are beginning to find out.
That's because just two days after Joe Biden made that public appeal, DirecTV announced that they will be dropping OANN from their airwaves.
That's right.
DirecTV, which is one of the largest digital satellite service providers in the entire country, they decided that they will no longer be carrying OANN. Now, Bloomberg News was the first outlet to break the story, and here's how they described the general situation.
DirecTV, one of the largest U.S. paid TV providers, plans to drop one American news network dealing a major blow to the conservative channel that's been criticized for spreading misinformation and had a loyal fan in former President Donald Trump.
The satellite TV provider has notified OANN's owner, Herring Networks Inc., that it plans to stop carrying the company's two channels when their contract expires.
But there's actually more to this story than meets the eye because DirecTV is actually majority owned by AT&T. And AT&T has been receiving letters for a while now from left-wing organizations as well as politicians urging them to essentially drop OANN. For instance,
there was a letter that was sent, it was kind of a group letter written by multiple organizations including Media Matters for America, GLAAD, which stands for Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Greenpeace, as well as several other groups which sent their letter to both AT&T as well as DirecTV, saying this, quote, We call on you to do the right thing and demand that DirecTV takes all available means to end its relationship with OANN so that its customers are no longer forced to subsidize hate and disinformation.
And by the way, it's not just these non-governmental groups like Media Matters and Greenpeace, but also it's actually government officials as well.
You might remember that last year, there were two congressional Democrats who wrote letters to 12 different cable, satellite, as well as streaming providers, asking them to provide answers to the government as to why they are still allowing Fox News, Newsmax, as well as ONN to be streamed on their platforms.
Here is what the letter, which was, again, written from two congressional Democrats to these private companies, here's what that letter said.
Quote, experts have noted that the right-wing media ecosystem is much more susceptible to disinformation, lies, and half-truths.
Right-wing media outlets like Newsmax, One American News Network, and Fox News all aired misinformation about the November 2020 elections.
Fox News, meanwhile, has spent years spewing misinformation about American politics.
Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN on U-Verse, DirecTV, and AT&T TV, both now and beyond any contract renewal date?
And if so, why?
And so then, wouldn't you know it, just two days after Joe Biden also threw his hat into the ring and called on these types of companies to clamp down on what he referred to as disinformation and misinformation, well, DirecTV announced that they will not be renewing their contract with OANN and the liberal groups they celebrated.
here is what the president of Media Matters, and Media Matters was one of the organizations that wrote that letter that we referenced earlier.
Here's what the president said after that decision was made public.
Quote, DirecTV made the responsible decision to drop OAN. OAN is a cauldron of misinformation and extremism.
And so this example gives us a great glimpse into how this game is played.
Because on the surface, of course, America has the freedom of press.
We have the First Amendment, the freedom of speech.
However, underneath that, if you look into stories like this, how it actually works is that you have the president as well as several members of Congress putting a lot of pressure on to companies like DirecTV, AT&T, to not carry channels like ONN. Well,
starting soon, will now no longer be able to tune in to OANN. And the way that it kind of played itself out, well, there's kind of this plausible deniability element to it, right?
Because in theory, you can say, like, yes, this is an act of government censorship.
This is an act where the government is directly putting pressure on companies to censor American publishers.
However, because it's several steps removed, you can make the argument that, hey, this is DirecTV's own initiative.
This is what they're choosing to do.
And so there's this...
Plausible deniability wherein you can say this is not actually government censorship.
It's kind of amazing how it works if you really dig in and think about it.
However, DirecTV's plan to remove One American News actually is facing some pushback from Senate Republicans.
As an example, Mr.
Steve Daines, who is a senator from the state of Montana, he sent a letter to the president of DirecTV, well, rather the CEO of DirecTV, calling them to stop the removal of OANN from their lineup once the contract expires.
Here's what he wrote to the CEO of DirecTV, quote, There has not been sufficient justification from DirecTV as to why OANN's contract was not renewed by your company.
A vague routine internal review and the lack of transparency with the viewers of OANN in Montana in your decision-making process is unacceptable and has the appearance of targeting supporters of former President Donald Trump.
And then further, he referred to the fact that DirecTV was the only option for live television in certain parts of Montana as the reason that DirecTV should rethink their decision.
Here's what he wrote, quote, It is important to have a range of media outlets in today's political atmosphere, and by removing conservative content such as OANN on your platform, you are hindering Montana's ability to view their preferred outlet.
Likewise, Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa, he also wrote this on Twitter in defense of OANN, quote, And then the Congressman Jim Jordan from Ohio,
he added, quote, Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we did reach out to both OANN and DirecTV for comment on what's happening, but both have yet to get back to us on the matter.
Regardless, though, that is the story as of now.
Maybe things will change.
Actually, One American News had a post on their website sort of detailing what was happening with the With this battle between them and DirecTV.
However, that post was actually taken down.
So maybe there's some things going on in the back end that we don't know about.
And maybe, indeed, they will not be dropped once their contract expires.
We'll have to see once either DirecTV or ONN get back to us here at the Epoch Times.
I'll let you know right away.
Until then, let's get back to the studio.
Now, if you'd like to read more about either the censorship, about that recent survey that we discussed, which found that Democrats overwhelmingly support the censorship, or anything regarding the lifting of the COVID restrictions over in England, 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.
Since we're discussing the topic of censorship, while I was down in Texas just a few months ago, I had the unique opportunity to sit down and speak with Ms.
April Moss.
You might remember her.
She's the journalist who announced on air that she's blowing the whistle on CBS News.
And we discussed how the media in America have transformed themselves into essentially machines which quash narratives that they don't agree with.
Take a look.
My name is April Moss.
I'm the whistleblower from CBS Detroit affiliate.
I'm a meteorologist, but also a journalist as well.
And Project Veritas was instrumental in getting my story to the public.
And basically what I did was...
Blow the whistle on the fact that CBS has very far-left narratives and they muzzle your viewpoint as a journalist if you want to have more objective, balanced stories, but specifically in my situation in regards to COVID-19.
So I dealt with a lot of issues regarding editorial, selective editorial decisions where they would say, listen, we want you to interview this woman who's Head of the vaccine rollout program in Detroit.
That's Dr.
Joni Khaldun.
But you are not to ask her anything about vaccines.
And so as a journalist, I have to stay true to what I know is the right thing.
And the thing that the media right now is forgetting is that we are providing a service to the public.
And so if we're going to be interviewing people That have knowledge and experience, okay, regarding the vaccines, then it's my duty as a journalist to make sure that the public is getting all of the information about that.
And so I went ahead and inserted my own questions as I was asking her.
And I wanted to ask her about the safety and efficacy of these vaccines because I had done my own research.
And she continued to tell the public that these are very safe and effective vaccines.
And then she went on to say that, in fact, those that have been vaccinated in the trial studies did not become hospitalized, that the vaccine saved them from hospitalization.
Well, I knew that that was not true.
So I called her out on that.
And I said, can you please clarify that statement?
Because we know this not to be true.
but there have been many studies showing that people have died and been seriously injured by these vaccines.
And that is when my producer, my ear said, move on to the next question, get off that topic.
And so later in discussions later, after that show had aired, my producer said, why did you do that?
Why did you insert those questions about the vaccines?
And I, you know, I just was very honest with him.
I said, you know, what are we doing here at this station if we're not going to give people the tools that they need to make informed decisions?
And And that is what the media is supposed to do.
We're supposed to be giving people information to protect them so that they can make their own informed decisions about what they want to put into their body.
So besides the example that you gave of your producer telling you not to ask questions about the vaccines to that director, can you give the viewers another concrete example of some of the types of censorship?
So, for example, on one of the shows that we were working on, you know, in the discussions of pitching ideas of, okay, what are we going to, who are we going to interview this week?
And this was for the topic of International Women's Month.
Well, the first person that came to my mind was Candace Owens, and I thought...
You know, she would be a great person to interview.
She is somebody who definitely has a voice in the conservative world and has not been represented on our station before.
We had many, many other political people on our show, including Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan, as well as the Lieutenant Governor, and many other, you know, political figures on our show.
But when I mentioned Candace Owens, the producer said, absolutely not.
She's too political.
So Candace Owens is too political, but the governor of Michigan is not too political, and people in her cabinet are not too political.
So that's another example.
One of the producers that is on the show, she's younger, she's in her 20s, and she writes the scripts in such a way that crafts the narrative and the story that everything has to be about race, about gender.
You can't just talk about...
If I was going to be interviewing somebody, an African-American female, From my perspective, I don't need to point out what her skin color is.
Everyone can see that clearly on the TV screen.
But they wanted me to, you know, everything had to be about how she's black.
She's black.
And so I would call my producers out on this and say, listen, you guys, this is a TV show.
Everyone can see her skin color.
We don't need to keep bringing this up.
I mean, let's talk about who she is.
Let's talk about her character.
Let's talk about this or that.
And And so this was never-ending.
And it was a constant discussion between myself and the producers, and nothing was changing.
I mean, this was two years of this type of left-leaning conversation.
You know, in my opinion, polarizing agenda.
Because as journalists, we are supposed to just present information to people.
Allow them to come up with the conclusions regarding a story.
Give them both sides of information.
Allow the viewers.
They're smart.
They're intelligent.
So what would you tell the viewers who might be watching this program and they're following, let's say, the mainstream media narrative or they've agreed with it, and they are sort of in agreement with companies like Viacom or companies like Facebook who fight back against what they're calling vaccine hesitancy because they think even though it might be a suppression of the truth, it might generally be still a good thing to do for society.
What would you tell those people?
Well, I would say that this is a fight for medical freedom.
And in America, we have the choice to be able to choose what we would like to put into our bodies or not.
And so if you're not going to understand that that is an important thing, then I would say you don't understand the value of freedom.
Because even though our freedoms are now becoming less and less, as we're seeing from these corporations all jumping on the bandwagon and saying, Unless our employees get vaccinated by a certain date, then they're terminated.
That mindset of thinking, you know, well, companies have every right to put these policies onto their employees and you could just go find another job.
But the problem, that's a terrible mindset to have because then you're not respecting people's freedom.
And I would say the left always wants to say, my body, my choice.
But in this case, they seem to be very silent on that issue.
Now, that was actually just a portion of the full interview, and if you'd like to watch the full thing in its entirety, you can do so over on Epic TV, which is our no-censorship video platform.
I'll throw a link to it.
It'll be right there at the very top of the description box.
I hope you click it.
I hope you check out that interview, as well as all the other phenomenal content that's on there, and I hope that you subscribe.
And now lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you haven't already in order to get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed while YouTube still allows it.
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And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epoch Times.
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