
4h ago / 1:50 AM UTC
Kansas mayor resigns over mask mandate threats
A western Kansas mayor announced Tuesday that she is resigning, effective immediately, because of threats she has received after she publicly supported a mask mandate.
Dodge City Mayor Joyce Warshaw said she was concerned about her safety after being met with aggression, including threats via phone and email, after she was quoted on a USA Today article on Friday supporting the mandate, The Dodge City Globe reported.
“I understand people are under a lot of pressure from various things that are happening around society like the pandemic, the politics, the economy, so on and so forth, but I also believe that during these times people are acting not as they normally would,” Warshaw said.
The commission voted 4–1 on Nov. 16 to impose a mask mandate, with several exceptions.
Ford County, where Dodge City is located, has recorded 4,914 cases of Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to the state health department. The county has about 33,600 residents.
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BOISE, Idaho — A proposed public health order that would have included a mask mandate for Idaho’s most populated region was voted down on Tuesday as hundreds of protesters again gathered outside the Central District Health building in Boise.
A previous attempt to vote on the order was abruptly halted last week after Boise city police asked the board to end the meeting early amid protest-related safety fears.
During Tuesday’s meeting, three board members from Elmore, Valley and Boise counties — the more rural counties in the region — all voted against the mask mandate, saying they’d heard from constituents who were deeply opposed to the rule. But three board members from Ada County — the most populated county in the state — were in favor of the mask mandate, noting that Boise-area hospitals are reaching capacity because of an influx of COVID-19 patients, including many who are coming from neighboring counties.
The order lacked the required majority to pass.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan reactivated the state National Guard on Tuesday to help officials distribute the Covid-19 vaccine.
“I want to assure the people of Maryland that we will get through this together and that every single day, as we vaccinate more and more people and we continue to fight this virus with everything we’ve got, will bring us that much closer to victory over this deadly virus,” Hogan said.
7h ago / 11:00 PM UTC
State Department to receive first Covid vaccines this week
WASHINGTON — The State Department will be receiving its first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine this week, according to internal agency communications obtained by NBC News.
The “very limited number,” of the vaccines received by the department in the first tranche will be administered to a small prioritized group of staff undertaking “mission critical” work, according to an email sent to employees Tuesday by Under Secretary of State Brian Bulatao. He did not say how many doses would be immediately available to diplomats, but noted more would arrive “incrementally over the next several months.”
Frontline medical personnel are among those first to receive the vaccine as well as State Department employees serving on the frontlines in Kabul, Afghanistan; Baghdad, Iraq and Mogadishu, Somalia, where poor healthcare systems put them even more at risk. Diplomatic Security agents in Washington, D.C. performing critical operations and coming into close contact with the Secretary of State will also be a priority for vaccinations.
“As my father writes, vaccinations are the only hope to protect all of us,” Sandberg wrote. “I hope and pray that people will understand this and take the steps they need — including vaccination — to protect themselves and everyone else so this pandemic will come to an end.”
This content was originally published here.