Organizers have not announced what rules will be in place for athletes, officials and coaches at the 2022 Winter Olympics, or if fans will be allowed.

ZHANGJIAKOU, China — With the postponed Summer Olympics set to open in Tokyo next week, Beijing has made moves to show its preparations for the Winter Games are well on track for February despite the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Journalists taken on a tour of snow event venues in the outlying city of Zhangjiakou this week were shown the locations for ski jumping, snowboarding and Nordic events.

While China has largely eliminated local transmission of the coronavirus, it has maintained strict quarantine regulations. Organizers have not announced what rules will be in place for athletes, officials and coaches at the 2022 Winter Olympics, or if fans will be allowed.

Jia Maoting, general manager of the company overseeing construction of the venues, told reporters that the “pandemic situation is uncertain, we cannot guess how it will develop.”

“We have solid determination to face the changing world,” Jia added. “We built good venues in any case and then we wait and expect a good result.”

China has also faced calls for a boycott of the games from foreign politicians and human rights groups over the country’s detention of more than 1 million members of the Uyghur and other Muslim ethnic groups in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

Beijing says it provided voluntary job training and anti-radicalization classes and has denounced boycott calls as a politicization of sports based on false evidence.

The Chinese capital hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and is the first city to be given rights to host the Winter Games as well.

Chen Rongqin, an official with the planning committee’s construction department, said work was largely completed apart from construction on temporary facilities that can’t be built too early.

“We still need to build some more facilities and houses in the next few months, and those are our major work now,” Chen said.

The National Ski Jumping Center was one of the major venues for the tour, highlighted with an evening light show. It is has been nicknamed Snow Ruyi, after an ancient ski slope-shaped jade ornament symbolizing good fortune. As well as its two ski jumping tracks, it has a football pitch at its base.

Zhangjiakou is about 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the west of Beijing in Hebei province, connected by highway and a high-speed rail line.

It is due to host ski jumping, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, cross-country skiing, and Nordic combined and biathlon competitions during the Games.

The 2020 Summer Games were last year postponed for 12 months because of the pandemic.

There’ll be heavy restrictions on all participants at the Games, which open July 23. And with Tokyo in a state of emergency and rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in the city, there’ll be no fans allowed at most of the Olympic venues.

Colorado is keeping a list of individuals in the state who have not taken the China coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine and calling them and encouraging them to take it.

One citizen in the state of Colorado shared with us that she had been contacted by the state.

I thought I’d share this with gateway. Tonight I received a phone call from a phone number called, CO VAX CO. After looking up the number, I was directed to the Colorado Department’s of Public Health and Environment’s website where I came across a paragraph that alarmed me:

REMOTE, (June 18, 2021): On Monday, June 21, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) will begin making outgoing phone calls to Colorado residents age 18 and older who have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine.

The individual shared the call information –

According to the Colorada Department of Public Health and Environment, they are beginning a call campaign to encourage people to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

On Monday, June 21, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) will begin making outgoing phone calls to Colorado residents age 18 and older who have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine. Callers will provide information about vaccination, help with scheduling appointments at local vaccine locations, and answer questions about the COVID-19 vaccines.

The outbound call campaign is an important step toward Colorado’s goal of having 70% of adults vaccinated with at least one dose by July 4. This goal is in line with President Biden’s National Month of Action, which aims to increase vaccination rates across the country.

“I’m excited that Coloradans will have a new opportunity to learn more about COVID-19 vaccines to help them make informed decisions about their health,” said Jill Hunsaker Ryan, executive director, CDPHE. “It’s normal to have questions about COVID-19 vaccines. These outgoing calls will provide Coloradans with accurate information and help them find a free vaccination appointment in their neighborhood if they choose to be protected from COVID-19.”

The calls will be completed by COVAXCO, the call center that has been answering inbound calls about COVID-19 vaccination in Colorado. Information will be available in multiple languages. Coloradans can continue to call the inbound vaccine hotline at 1-877-CO VAX CO (1-877-268-2926). The hotline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Our source shared – This confirms our government is indeed keeping a list of who has taken the COVID vaccine. 

Things got heated. Rand Paul is going hard against Doctor Fauci.

Riley, who has received millions from Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) as part of his 100 total grants the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has participated in several China Global Television Network (CGTN) programs.

Riley received most of the grants during his tenure as a Professor and Chair of the Division of Infectious Disease and Vaccinology at the University of California Berkeley’s Li Ka Shing Center.

His resume also reveals grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and United States Agency for International Development. Riley has delivered several lectures in China, including at Chinese Communist-run institutions such as the Zhejiang Provincial CDC. He also boasts of having “research collaborations” in China.

CGTN: State-Run, CCP Propaganda.

Forced to register as a “foreign agent” in the U.S. by the Trump administration, CGTN relies on participation from American experts such as Riley to grant credibility to the operation. CGTN has been identified as a “long-standing weapon in Beijing’s arsenal of repression” whose raison d’être is “to attack designated enemies of the Communist Party,” even airing forced confessions to do so. . . .

South Africa should prepare itself for a surge in coronavirus cases after days of widespread rioting and looting in the two most populous provinces, the World Health Organization’s Africa director said.

The deadliest and most widespread unrest since the end of apartheid followed the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma on July 7. The looting sprees have occurred amid the country’s third and most severe wave of Covid-19 infections.

“We are concerned about the last three or so days of rioting in some parts of South Africa, it may exacerbate the situation of a very severe wave,” Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s Africa director, said on a conference call on Thursday. “The government has to brace itself, and we in the WHO will be preparing, to see an increase in the cases again.” . . .

The way the discussion on the origin of COVID-19 was derailed by conspiracy labelling reminds environmental economist Ross McKitrick of the debate around climate change.

“There are ideas that were never disproven and actually have a lot of evidence to support them, but for political reasons and cultural reasons within the university they just aren’t looked at,” McKitrick, a professor at the University of Guelph, said in an interview.

As bias on a certain issue becomes structural, McKitrick says, it makes its way into government communications and even into “big tech” platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which make editorial decisions—decisions they “have absolutely no business making” —to censor one side of the debate.

In the case of the virus, as more scientists and even U.S. President Joe Biden joined the chorus that the lab leak theory can’t be dismissed since a natural origin hasn’t been proven, many media and online platforms such as Facebook had to backtrack on their decision to censor the one side.

“We saw that play out over a period of around 12 months. Now what happens with the climate change issue, it’s the same thing, but it’s playing out over a much larger time frame,” McKitrick said.

Author and veteran science journalist Nicholas Wade was one of the earlier observers who noted that the virus origin discussion had been wrongly steered in a certain direction by influential figures in the scientific community. . . .

“Those of us who want a secure border, those of us who want the laws enforced … we’re on the side of those who are trafficked. Those that want lawlessness on the border, those than want open borders … they place innocents in harm’s way.”

The details of the Biden administration’s (mis)handling of the border crisis remain a mystery to many, but Judicial Watch is fighting hard to get the most pressing questions answered. Concerned about the impacts of President Biden’s lax border policy, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton is raising important questions about the lack of immigration law enforcement. “Is our country being harmed, are citizens being harmed, are illegal aliens being harmed?” Fitton stated Friday. With U.S. Border Patrol failing to conduct COVID-19 testing for all migrants entering the country, Fitton believes the Biden administration’s policies are creating a dangerous public health crisis. “It’s not just national security, it’s not just crime, it’s also public health,” Fitton explained. “Public health rules and the ability of the government to control threats to public health are significant when it comes to controlling and protecting the borders, and the Biden administration has thrown it all out the window.” 

As Fitton announced , Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for information on the COVID-19 technical guidance provided to the Office of Refugee Resettlement to illegal aliens released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. The lawsuit seeks specific details related to the transmission, testing, mitigation, and/or treatment of COVID-19 for undocumented immigrants who are in or are released from Department of Homeland Security and/or Customs and Border Patrol custody.

“We’re being told by the Biden administration that COVID is a dramatic risk to the American people,” Fitton continued, “and yet all the rules relating to testing aren’t being enforced at the border.” 

If you’re concerned about the unfolding humanitarian crisis at our southern border, support Judicial Watch today.

The post Why The Border Crisis is a Public Health Crisis appeared first on Judicial Watch.

Covid lockdowns helped to fuel a 20% spike in alcohol-related deaths in 2020 with restrictions swaying people into drinking more at home, official data shows

• Alcoholic liver deaths in England jumped 21 per cent from 2019 to 2020
• Biggest increase in drinking during lockdown was seen in the North East
• Just over 12.6million extra litres of alcohol were sold in shops and supermarkets
• Ministers say increase in boozing during the pandemic is ‘deeply concerning’

Some of the legislators who wouldn’t comment revealed last year that they had contracted COVID-19. Last summer, Assemblywoman Autumn Burke (D-Marina del Rey) said that she had tested positive for COVID-19. Several weeks later, during the final days of the legislative session, state Sen. Brian Jones (R-Santee) revealed he, too, had tested positive.

Both Burke and Jones declined to comment on their vaccination status when approached this week in Sacramento and would not say whether they believe contracting COVID-19 provided them adequate immunity. At least three other legislators who also became infected with COVID-19 last year told The Times they have received a vaccination: Assembly members Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) and Patrick O’Donnell (D-Long Beach) and state Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton). . . .

Eight fully vaccinated health care workers tested positive for COVID-19 in June after attending a party in Las Vegas, according to a report.

A total of 11 health care workers had tested positive for COVID-19 after the gathering, and at least 10 of the 11—or seven out of the fully-vaccinated eight—had the Delta variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported, citing emails from the Southern Nevada Health District that the Brown Institute for Media Innovation’s Documenting COVID-19 project obtained and shared with the paper.

According to the report, eight fully vaccinated people were inoculated between December 2020 and January. Of the remaining three people, two had received one dose of a two-dose vaccine and one person was unvaccinated.

They were all employees of Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. Hospital CEO Todd Sklamberg told the paper that the source of the outbreak was “an off-site private party” on June 7 and that the employees have since recovered and returned to work.

He noted that the health care workers had experienced symptoms similar to allergies or the common cold and chose to get tested before finding out they had the CCP virus. . . .