2000 FACTS

Published by Jack Wright for The Daily Mail Scientists are racing to tweak existing vaccines against the new Covid variant spreading rapidly across the planet. The 'monster' strain, named Omicron and designated a 'variant of concern' by the World Health Organisation on Friday, has reached the UK and Belgium after being discovered in South Africa. The UN public health body sparked panic by warning that preliminary evidence suggested that the mutation has an increased risk of reinfection and is more transmissible than other strains. Scientists previously said that the variant could be vaccine resistant. UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid banned flights from South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Namibia yesterday, telling MPs that there is 'huge international concern' about the mutation. Now a number of pharmaceutical firms have said they are working to adapt their vaccines to beat Omicron. AstraZeneca said it has 'developed,

Published by Ryan Kelly for The Republic Brief As the new COVID-19 variant Omicron emerges in a growing list of countries, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sunday that the U.S. is preparing to tweak COVID-19 vaccines to account for the new strain. However, he acknowledged that it’s not yet clear whether it will be necessary. “We’re preparing to [modify the vaccines],” Fauci said on NBC News’ Meet the Press, “but we might not have to.” The World Health Organization (WHO) classified Omicron, first detected in Botswana, as a “variant of concern” on Friday. Political alarm spread quickly across the world, as the U.S. joined many other countries in slapping new travel restrictions on South Africa to contain the virus. Omicron bears a troubling number of mutations that researchers believe could make it more contagious and possibly even evade vaccines and therapeutics. But scien

Published by Mimi Nguyen Ly for NTD The World Health Organization (WHO) has explained why it skipped the Greek letters “nu” and “xi” in naming the new COVID-19 variant Omicron. “Two letters were skipped—Nu and Xi—because Nu is too easily confounded with ‘new’ and Xi was not used because it is a common surname and [the] WHO best practices for naming new diseases … suggest avoiding ‘causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional, or ethnic groups,'” the United Nations agency said in a statement to The Epoch Times on Saturday. The WHO best practices for naming new diseases was developed in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the U.N. and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in 2015. Prof. Jonathan Turley, a criminal attorney and professor at George Washington University, speculated that the WHO “is again avoiding any discomfort for the Chinese government” in skipping the “Xi” letter and naming it Omicron. “T

Published by Natalie Colarossi for Newsweek Michael Flynn claimed that Democrats are plotting to "gain greater control over society" by manipulating inflation and attempting to stop the 2022 midterm elections from taking place. Flynn, a former advisor to Donald Trump, said he's "not convinced" that next year's elections will take place and alleged that Democrats are orchestrating a "financial collapse" of the economy to seize control of the government. "I believe that our 2022 national elections are at risk, meaning that, you know...I am not convinced that we are going to have national elections in 2022. The reason why I believe that is because the Left does not want to risk losing to the conservative movement that has clearly grown in the country," Flynn said during a recent interview as part of the Reawaken America tour. Flynn then went on to say that he believes Democrats are attempting to manipulate inflation to higher lev

Published by Andrea Blanco for The Daily Mail Former Trump campaign advisor Steve Cortes is reportedly leaving his role as prime-time host at Newmax after he refused to comply with the network's vaccine mandate and repeatedly criticized it on social media. Cortes, who co-hosts Cortes & Pellegrino, a weeknight show with former White House correspondent for One America News Jenn Pellegrino, will be leaving the network in the upcoming days, The Daily Beast reported . Cortes was hired just six months ago, but sources told the outlet that his relationship with the right-wing network had been largely strained by his relentless comments that the 2020 Presidential election was rigged, and Cortes & Pellegrino's floundering ratings. His refusal to take the vaccine was seemingly the last straw. The veteran news pundit had voiced on social media his discontent with Newsmax's requirement of proof of vaccination, which followed President Joe Biden's executive or

Published by Will Henney for Reclaim The Net Disney+ has censored an episode of The Simpsons in Hong Kong, where the streaming service recently launched. The episode was censored over references to the Tienanmen Square massacre. Until June last year, Hong Kong operated separately from China. Hong Kongers enjoyed more freedoms than the mainland. However, since Beijing enforced the national security law in Hong Kong, the censorship laws enforced in China started applying on the island. On social media, Disney+ subscribers began reporting that an episode in Season 16 had been removed in Hong Kong. We’ve managed to confirm that the Season 16 episode “Goo Goo Gai Pan” has been removed in Hong Kong. The episode had two references to the Tienanmen Square Massacre. It featured the infamous Tank Man Photo and a plaque with the statement “Tien An Men Square: On this site, in 1989, nothing happened.” People often use the statement to mock the government’s attempts to erase the event from

Published by Paul Sacca for The Blaze New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a "disaster emergency" for the state in anticipation of the newly-identified omicron variant of COVID-19. The Democratic governor declared a state of emergency for the entire state of New York through Jan. 15, 2022, when it will be evaluated if the order needs to be extended. The previous coronavirus-related state of emergency was enacted by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo from March 7, 2020, until June 24, 2021. Hochul admitted that there have yet to be any omicron variant cases in New York state. "We continue to see warning signs of spikes in COVID this winter, and while the new Omicron variant has yet to be detected in New York State, it's coming," Hochul tweeted on Friday. "Today I signed an Executive Order to help @HealthNYGov boost hospital capacity ahead of potential spikes. Through this action, we will also be able to acquire critical supplies more quickly to comb