(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 625,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.4 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 59.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
Aug 21, 7:47 pm
Jesse Jackson hospitalized with COVID
Civil rights pioneer Jesse Jackson Sr. and his wife have been hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19.
The 79-year-old and his wife, 77-year-old Jacqueline Jackson, are both being treated at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, according to a statement from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the nonprofit he founded in 1996. The statement said doctors were “monitoring the condition of both,” but provided no further details.
The former Washington, D.C., shadow senator has been a prominent civil rights activist for 60 years, first joining forces with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s and working with King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
The activist was arrested earlier this month as part of a group in Washington, D.C., protesting restrictive voting rights being implemented in many states, including Georgia and Texas. One week earlier, he’d been arrested as part of a large group during a sit-in at Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s office.
Aug 21, 11:21 am
US sees 3rd straight day of 1M doses
The U.S. reported over 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered for the third straight day, according to a White House official.
There were more than 1.05 million doses administered Friday, including 526,000 newly vaccinated, White House COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar said on Twitter.
Nationwide, 60% of people ages 12 and up are now fully vaccinated, he said.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 625,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.4 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 59.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
Aug 21, 11:21 am
US sees 3rd straight day of 1M doses
The U.S. reported over 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered for the third straight day, according to a White House official.
There were more than 1.05 million doses administered Friday, including 526,000 newly vaccinated, White House COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar said on Twitter.
Nationwide, 60% of people ages 12 and up are now fully vaccinated, he said.
(NEW YORK) — Bees — whether wild or managed –are integral to the production of the world’s food supply. But as populations continue their steep decline, the crops that rely on pollination could become more scarce and even cease to exist in the future, according to scientists.
There are more than 4,000 species of bees in America, a large proportion of which are experiencing widespread decline, Scott McArt, assistant professor of pollinator health at Cornell University, told ABC News. In New York, 53 species, about 13%, are either experiencing population declines or range contractions over the past three or four decades, McArt said.
The honey bee population decreased 40% in the winter of 2018 to 2019 alone, and the annual rate loss for the 2019 to 2020 winter was also 40%, declines that experts described as “unsustainable.”
The situation “isn’t good,” and most likely is even worse than researchers are estimating, he added.
“It’s likely an underestimate of the true scope of population declines, simply because we don’t have great historical records on a lot of these species,” McArt said.
The production of crops that depend on pollinators generates more than $50 billion a year in the U.S., researchers say. Managed bee populations, which involve a beekeeper arriving to put down hives just as the crops are flowering, alone contribute to about $20 billion worth of U.S. agricultural production, Matthew Mulica, senior project manager at the Keystone Policy Center, a consulting company that works with the Honey Bee Health Coalition, told ABC News.
A “large proportion of what we eat” relies to some extent on pollinators, McArt said. An estimated 87% of angiosperms, or flowering plants, are reliant on pollinators, while around 75% of those are crops that rely on pollination, he added. The commercial production of more than 90 crops relies on about 3,600 bee species, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Some of the crops that rely most on pollinators include almonds, blueberries, pears, apples, cherries, peppers, cucumbers and broccoli, Mulica said.
The bees also oil seeds in other crops, such as corn and soybean, Mulica said.
“It’s an amazing service that honey bees and beekeepers provide for for agriculture,” Mulica said.
Conservationists and scientists who study food security alike are concerned about how the downward trend of bee populations will affect food supply going forward, McArt said.
In the short term, food prices could rise if the number of bees pollinating crops continue to die off.
In the future, the crops could disappear forever, experts say.
“Imagine walking into your grocery store and seeing a third of your fruits and vegetables missing, and you can really see the impact the [bee] health decline has on produce,” Mulica said.
There is already “good evidence” of pollination shortfalls in the U.S., McArt said. A study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences last year found that crop yields for apples, cherries and blueberries across the U.S. are being reduced by a lack of pollinators.
And while the production rate for other crops the researchers looked at — watermelon, pumpkin and almonds — haven’t slowed, “that does not mean that that won’t occur in the future,” McArt said.
“While it might not be occurring right now, it’s predicted to occur in the future,” he said.
How to mitigate pollinator declines
The top stressor on pollinators is the lack of habitat and floral resources, McArt said. Bees are actually thriving in agricultural and natural areas, McArt said, adding that it’s the suburban and urban areas where they’re not doing well.
“That happens to be where most of us live,” he said.
McArt encouraged anyone with a plot of land or even an apartment balcony to plant a pollinator-friendly garden. He also suggested that homeowners hold off on mowing their lawns too often to encourage wildflowers to grow.
In addition, it will be necessary in the future to reduce the use of pesticides and mitigate climate change, which can cause plant pathogens to infect crops at higher rates, McArt said.
Lastly, beekeepers need to meticulously manage their hives, which can spread disease to wild bees if not monitored correctly, McArt said.
“That requires a lot of management by the beekeepers — a lot more splitting of hives and re-cleaning,” Mulica said.
(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Henri strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane Saturday morning.
Henri is currently located 200 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and 555 miles south of Montauk, New York.
Dangerous storm surge, hurricane conditions and flooding rain is expected in parts of the Northeast beginning late tonight.
Landfall is looking to occur tomorrow late morning on Long Island.
If Henri makes landfall as a hurricane on Long Island, it will be the first land falling hurricane there since Gloria in 1985.
Aug 21, 10:58 am
Henri strengthens into hurricane
Henri intensified into a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 75 mph Saturday morning around 10:45 a.m. as it continued on its track northeast.
Aug 21, 10:51 am
Connecticut declares state of emergency ahead of Henri
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont declared a statement of emergency on Friday due to the incoming storm, “to take any actions necessary to respond and protect the people of the state.”
He also requested 200 National Guard members pulled for active duty starting Saturday morning.
The storm is forecast to bring heavy rainfall, whipping winds, storm surge along the shoreline and potential flooding to the state.
“Right now, it’s a good idea for everyone to be prepared and expect to shelter in place by Sunday afternoon through at least Monday morning,” Lamont said.
A hurricane warning is in effect for New Haven, Middlesex and New London counties. A tropical storm warning is in effect for Fairfield County.
(NEW YORK) — As Americans across the country watch the situation in Afghanistan grow more chaotic, many are likely wondering how to help the thousands of Afghan nationals who have fled their country.
Many of those fled with only a small suitcase or even just the clothing on their backs, leaving a major challenge settling into a new life.
There are many ways to help incoming refugees settle in the U.S., from donations of goods and services to volunteering time to give rides and provide for other needs. Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, a nonprofit organization that aids refugee relocation, said that that there is need for basic necessities and cash assistance.
“Contributions of goods are so helpful as we provide those basic necessities to these families and children in the first few days and first few weeks on American soil,” O’Mara Vignarajah told ABC News. “You know some of these families have literally no connections here in the U.S.”
Aundrea Paulett, who works in external affairs at the U.S. Embassy of Afghanistan, said that the needs also go beyond the basics, citing the importance of volunteers to give refugees rides to appointments, to help translate and for help with legal services when it comes to navigating the immigration system.
Paulett also encouraged people “to be very patient” with refugees as they may face culture shock.
“They’re not going to know English, so patience is going to be the biggest key for them to feel safe here,” Paulett said.
But Paulett and O’Mara Vignarajah also noted that people should be cautious about where their donations go. O’Mara Vignarajah said that there are many established and well-vetted organizations that are able to navigate the complexities of settling refugee families. Paulett also said that local mosques are a good place to donate, as mosques may provide connections and support for recently settled refugees.
Beyond goods and services, groups are urging Americans to wield their political power and contribute through activism.
“At this critical moment, we also need public pressure on the Biden administration to keep America’s promise to protect Afghan allies,” Nisha Agarwal, the deputy executive director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, said in a statement to ABC News. “The U.S. government must secure Kabul airport and ensure continuous access to it to vastly expand evacuation of Afghan allies and refugees before it is too late.”
O’Mara Vignarajah said that it is an all-hands-on-deck effort to help refugee families get settled. A lot of that effort will come from community members who feel compelled to help, especially in states like California, Texas and Virginia, which are set to accept many of the refugees, according to Paulett.
One of those community members is Fatima Popal, one of the co-owners of a group that operates Washington, D.C., restaurants Lapis and The Berliner. Popal utilized social media to collect donations of supplies, including clothing, household supplies, toiletries and gift cards.
“As Afghans, we felt a little helpless sitting here, not being able to do anything for our homeland, for our people,” Popal said. “And so we decided we can’t just sit here idle and do nothing, so the best thing that we can do is try to help those that are resettling here in the … area, and try to make their transition a little bit smoother by getting all these donations.”
Popal teamed up with organizations such as the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and the International Rescue Committee to get donations where they were most needed. Popal said that the outpouring of “love and support” from the community has been inspiring.
“It’s just one of the most beautiful things, considering what is going on around the world, not just in Afghanistan, but everywhere else,” Popal said. “So you can see that humanity is still not lost and that’s the beauty of what I see today and from the people that are volunteering and donating.”
Here are some organizations that accept donations for Afghan refugees:
International Refugee Assistance Project
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Women for Afghan Women
International Rescue Committee
Committee to Protect Journalists
Mercy Corps
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 623,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 59.5% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Friday. All times Eastern:
Aug 20, 3:54 pm
US sees highest daily case total in nearly 7 months
The U.S. reported the highest single-day COVID-19 case total in nearly seven months overnight, with just under 158,000 new cases, according to federal data.
The daily case average in the U.S. has surged to approximately 133,000 a day, up by nearly 14% in the last week and more than 1,040% in the last two months, an ABC News analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.
The South has the highest case rates in the country, led by Mississippi and followed by Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.
The national case total now stands at nearly 37.3 million, which means one in approximately every eight Americans has tested positive for the virus.
The U.S. is also experiencing its steepest increases in COVID-19-related hospitalizations since the winter of 2020. More than 93,000 patients are now hospitalized across the country with COVID-19, according to federal data.
The country’s average daily COVID-19 deaths stands at 640, an increase of 233% in the last six weeks and the highest in four months.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Aug 20, 3:05 pm
University of Virginia disenrolls over 200 students who did not meet school’s vaccination policy
The University of Virginia has cut 238 students from its rolls after they failed to comply with the university’s vaccination policy, school officials confirmed to ABC news.
“We first announced this vaccination requirement on May 20 and the deadline for compliance was July 1,” Brian Coy, a spokesman for the university, told ABC News in an email.
“Since then, students received multiple reminders about this policy and the need to either be vaccinated or request a medical or religious exemption. Students who remained out of compliance after the deadline received multiple communications in the form of emails, texts, phone calls, and in some cases phone calls to their parents. The University’s vaccination policy was also covered extensively on our digital platforms, our daily news product, the student newspaper, and local media all over Virginia.”
The university has given the students until Aug. 25 to comply or they won’t be allowed to come back school in the fall.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Aug 20, 11:39 am
200 million people have received at least 1 COVID vaccine dose, White House says
Two hundred million Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the White House announced Friday. That figure includes more than 1 million doses administered in 24 hours on Thursday, 534,000 of which were first doses.
“Today we hit a milestone: 200M people w/ at least one dose!” Cyrus Shahpar, the White House’s COVID-19 data director, wrote on Twitter. “On avg., over 33,000 people have gotten their first dose, every hour of every day since mid-Dec 2020. Keep it up!”
Aug 20, 11:26 am
Boston indoor mask mandate goes into effect next week
Boston will require face masks in all indoor public settings beginning Aug. 27 at 8 a.m., Mayor Kim Janey announced in a Friday statement.
“We know that masks work best when everyone wears one,” Janey said. “Requiring masks indoors is a proactive public health measure to limit transmission of the Delta variant, boost the public confidence in our businesses and venues, and protect the residents of our city who are too young for vaccination.”
Aug 20, 10:48 am
Unvaccinated Black people ‘biggest group’ driving COVID spike: Texas Lt Gov
Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham that “African-Americans who have not been vaccinated” are the “the biggest group in most states” driving the spike in COVID-19 cases, during a Thursday interview.
Patrick doubled down on his comment, adding that “over 90% of them vote for Democrats and their major cities and major counties.”
“It’s up to the Democrats to get — just as it’s up to Republicans to try to get as many people vaccinated,” he said. “In terms of criticizing the Republicans for this, we are encouraging people who want to take it to take it, but they are doing nothing for the African-American community that has significant high number of unvaccinated.”
NAACP President Derrick Johnson pushed back in a statement: “Lt. Governor Dan Patrick lives in an alternate reality, where facts don’t matter,” Johnson said.
“He’s delusional. Black Texans are not the driving force behind the surge of COVID cases in Texas. His statement is not only baseless, it’s racist. Falsely casting blame on the Black community is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and we expect better from an elected official.”
Aug 19, 5:57 pm
Mississippi’s only pediatric hospital sees record COVID-19 patients
Children’s of Mississippi, the state’s only pediatric hospital, reported a record number of patients Thursday.
There are 28 children, all unvaccinated, with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, the highest since the start of the pandemic, the hospital said on Facebook. Among those, eight children are in the intensive care unit, including five not yet old enough to receive the vaccine, the hospital said.
“The best way to protect ALL of Mississippi’s kids from COVID-19 is for everyone age 12 and up to get vaccinated,” said the hospital, which is part of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.
Nearly 43% of Mississippi residents ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data, one of the lowest rates in the country.
(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Henri is expected to become a hurricane on Saturday as it accelerates quickly up the East Coast toward southern New England.
Henri is predicted to touch down near Long Island and southeastern New England on Sunday afternoon, with winds nearing 75 miles mph.
Since the coastal Northeast is very close to the sea level, these areas are prone to flooding amid storm surge, which could reach as high as 4 feet in Queens and Long Island, as well as coastal Connecticut. In Rhode Island and southeast Massachusetts, the storm surge could reach 5 feet.
From Newport, Rhode Island, to Montauk, New York, wind gusts are forecast to reach up to 80 mph, and they may reach 60 mph in other coastal areas.
Hurricane watches have been issued for eastern Long Island, parts of Connecticut, Rhode Island’s coastal regions and southeast Massachusetts. Meanwhile, tropical storm watches have been issued for areas just north of New York City, including Westchester and Nassau counties.
It’s the first time in nearly 10 years that parts of New York have been issued a hurricane watch, according to the National Weather Service, which also noted that if Henri lands in New England as a hurricane, it’ll be the first direct hurricane landfall since 1991.
Fred, a tropical depression that passed by earlier this week, caused major flooding in parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts, areas that could see another 6 to 8 inches of rain from Henri.
(ATLANTA) — Georgia businesses won’t have to comply with local COVID-19 measures like mask or vaccine mandates under a new executive order, as the state’s hospitals continue to be stretched to their limit.
Gov. Brian Kemp issued an executive order Thursday that will keep businesses from being forced to follow COVID-19 ordinances put in place by local jurisdictions. The Republican governor said the order was issued to protect recovering businesses from “another round of shutdowns.” It doesn’t prevent businesses from complying with local orders, but the ordinances won’t be enforced, he said.
“Local governments will not be able to force businesses to be the city’s mask police, the vaccine police or any other burdensome restriction that will only lead to employees being let go, revenue tanking and businesses closing their doors,” Kemp said during a press briefing announcing the order.
Several cities in Georgia have reinstated mask mandates amid rising COVID-19 cases. Last month, Atlanta issued a mandate requiring mask use in public indoor spaces, including private businesses. Nearby, Decatur issued a similar mandate, though businesses can opt out. Savannah has issued a mask mandate for some indoor public spaces, though it doesn’t include businesses.
The order comes as there is “substantial case incidence” of COVID-19 throughout counties in Georgia, according to the latest COVID-19 forecast from PolicyLab researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The number of available intensive care unit beds is also dwindling in the state. According to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ICU capacity in Georgia is at 94%.
Northeast Georgia Health System’s hospital in Gainesville is overflowing with COVID-19 patients. Hospital officials confirmed with ABC News Thursday that as COVID-19 patients fill up beds, doctors have been treating some patients needing emergency care inside their ambulance while waiting for a bed to open up. The hospital has also set up a tent behind the emergency department for overflow patients.
Some hospitals in the Atlanta metro area are on diversion and are turning away ambulances when their emergency departments are full, hospital officials said.
On Thursday, doctors from some of the state’s largest hospital systems pleaded with people to get vaccinated as they’re being inundated with COVID-19 patients.
“Our hospitals are once again filling up, and they’re filling up with young people and old people and those with comorbidities who have not been vaccinated,” Dr. Danny Branstetter of Wellstar Health System said during a press briefing with doctors and officials from several metro Atlanta health systems. “We’re seeing this peak rise very, very quickly, and rising to match or exceed the peaks we saw in the winter.”
Over 92% of those hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, Branstetter said.
Dr. James Fortenberry, the chief medical officer at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, told reporters the hospital is seeing a “significantly greater impact” on children during the surge of the highly contagious delta variant.
“Our teams are seeing more COVID-19-positive patients in our emergency departments, urgent care centers and hospitals than at any time in the pandemic,” Fortenberry said, noting that there were 31 patients across the system’s three hospitals with COVID-19 on Thursday. “Thankfully, only a small fraction of children who test positive for COVID-19 need to be hospitalized to treat their infection, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t experience illness, and what can be significant illness, and miss out on normal activities like school and sports.”
Fortenberry implored all teachers, staff, students and visitors at schools to follow recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics and wear masks regardless of vaccination status.
“We owe it to our kids to do everything that we can to protect them,” he said.
In Georgia, 47.4% of residents ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated, compared to 59.8% nationwide, according to CDC data.
Kemp has not issued any vaccine mandates for state employees, though he has closed state offices on Sept. 3 to encourage public employees to get the shot.
“We have three lifesaving vaccines widely available,” he said Thursday while urging people to speak with someone they trust about getting vaccinated.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 623,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 59.5% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Friday. All times Eastern:
Aug 20, 10:48 am
Unvaccinated Black people ‘biggest group’ driving COVID spike: Texas Lt Gov
Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham that “African-Americans who have not been vaccinated” are the “the biggest group in most states” driving the spike in COVID-19 cases, during a Thursday interview.
Patrick doubled down on his comment, adding that “over 90% of them vote for Democrats and their major cities and major counties.”
“It’s up to the Democrats to get — just as it’s up to Republicans to try to get as many people vaccinated,” he said. “In terms of criticizing the Republicans for this, we are encouraging people who want to take it to take it, but they are doing nothing for the African-American community that has significant high number of unvaccinated.”
NAACP President Derrick Johnson pushed back in a statement: “Lt. Governor Dan Patrick lives in an alternate reality, where facts don’t matter,” Johnson said.
“He’s delusional. Black Texans are not the driving force behind the surge of COVID cases in Texas. His statement is not only baseless, it’s racist. Falsely casting blame on the Black community is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and we expect better from an elected official.”
Aug 19, 5:57 pm
Mississippi’s only pediatric hospital sees record COVID-19 patients
Children’s of Mississippi, the state’s only pediatric hospital, reported a record number of patients Thursday.
There are 28 children, all unvaccinated, with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, the highest since the start of the pandemic, the hospital said on Facebook. Among those, eight children are in the intensive care unit, including five not yet old enough to receive the vaccine, the hospital said.
“The best way to protect ALL of Mississippi’s kids from COVID-19 is for everyone age 12 and up to get vaccinated,” said the hospital, which is part of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.
Nearly 43% of Mississippi residents ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data, one of the lowest rates in the country.
(COLLEGE GROVE, Tenn.) — Amid a heated debate playing out in school districts across the country over whether students should be required to wear face masks, a Tennessee dad is going viral for an impassioned speech in which he explained why he is having his 5-year-old daughter wear a mask.
“She went to school and was one of just a few kids in her class wearing a mask, which made her ask why she had to. My answer was because we want to take care of other people,” Justin Kanew, of College Grove, Tennessee, said during a school board meeting Monday night. “She’s 5 years old but she understood that concept, and it’s disappointing that more adults around here can’t seem to grasp it.”
Kanew, also the dad of a 2-year-old son, spoke before the Williamson County Board of Education, which last week, just before the start of school, approved a temporary mask requirement for elementary school students, staff and visitors until Sept. 21, according to the school district’s website.
The school board’s ruling prompted an outcry from groups who opposed the mask requirement. Videos shared on social media showed people wearing masks heckled and confronted as they left the special session where the board ruled on masks.
Kanew said he had not planned to speak at Monday’s meeting, which he attended to cover for his website, TN Holler, but decided to do so when he saw so many people speaking out against masks in schools.
“It just seemed important for the school board to hear that there are other voices out there,” Kanew told “Good Morning America.” “I just hope people will really continue to make their voices heard, especially in counties like ours where we can sometimes be drowned out by the other side of this discussion.”
Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics , an organization of nearly 70,000 pediatricians, have called for schools to enforce universal masking mandates as the United States experiences a COVID-19 surge, including among children, brought on by the delta variant and low vaccination rates.
Some governors in states like Florida and Texas have banned mask mandates and threatened to remove local school officials who break state rules and require masks for students. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee this week signed an executive order requiring schools to allow parents to opt their children out of a school mask mandate.
Kanew said his daughter told him she is one of just a few students in her class to wear a mask, but will continue to wear one regardless.
“To her credit, she’s totally seemed to understand that concept of helping other people and we’ve reiterated that to her over and over again,” he said. “We just tell her that we want to keep everybody safe and the more people that wear masks, the safer everybody can be and the sooner we can get back to not wearing masks.”
“She fully understands that and I wish more people would stop making this political and start making it more about taking care of each other,” Kanew added. “At the end of the day, we should be doing everything we possibly can to keep our kids in school and to get back to some sense of normal, and if masks are a path to that, that seems like a small price to pay.”
Kanew said his speech before the school board was met with silence in-person, but that he has received thousands of supportive comments on social media and has also been thanked in-person by members of his local community.
“[A school board member] said at the meeting that she’d gotten over 1,000 emails about this issue and over 700 of them were in favor of a mask mandate, so she reminded the people in the room that they may be a majority in that room but and doesn’t necessarily reflect the reality of the greater situation,” he said. “You can’t judge based on who shows up to kick and scream.”
In his speech, Kanew also provided a counterpoint to parents claiming on behalf of their kids a religious exemption from wearing a mask.
“I asked a pastor friend of mine and he was very clear that there was no actual biblical justification for using the Bible to get out of a mask mandate passed by a majority of this elected board,” he said. “But thousands are doing it anyway, calling it a religious exemption, which is frankly just sad. Avoiding masks is not in the Bible, but taking care of others is.
Kanew told “GMA” that although he had not planned on speaking out publicly amid the mask debate, he is glad he did and hopes his example encourages others to do the same.
“I think it’s important to put a face on some of these disagreements whenever possible and actually see the humanity in each other,” he said. “It’s easy to hide behind our social media screens and keyboard and I think it’s good to get out and talk with each other. It doesn’t mean you’re going to agree with everybody, but at least you can be reminded that we’re all trying to do what we think is right.”
