Wednesday, October 6 top news
It is Wednesday, October 6. Here are today’s top stories.
A 40-year-old man from San Antonio was sentenced to 15 months in prison for spreading a hoax related to Covid-19 in April 2020. Federal prosecutors said the man, Christopher C. Perez, posted two threatening messages on Facebook saying he paid someone who was infected with Covid-19 to lick items at grocery stores in the San Antonio area. Someone took a screenshot of the post and sent in a tip to federal authorities. Prosecutors said the man did not actually pay someone, but he must be held accountable for threatening to use Covid-19 as a weapon against others.
In Colorado, the UCHealth hospital system said it will not perform organ transplant surgery for unvaccinated patients in most cases. UCHealth said if patients who undergo an organ transplant contract Covid-19, their mortality rate ranges from 20% to more than 30%. That means one in five transplant patients will die if they get the coronavirus. UCHealth said this shows Covid-19 poses an extreme risk to transplant recipients after their surgeries. CBS Denver said there are some unvaccinated patients who are now looking for hospitals out of state for their organ transplant.
This morning there was a mass shooting at Timberview High School in Arlington, Texas that left four people injured. The suspect is a 18-year-old student named Timothy George Simpkins. He fled the school this morning and police were looking for him, but he was detained this afternoon and is now talking with detectives.
Police said the suspect got into a fight and then drew his weapon. Police said this was not someone trying to attack the school. Two people were shot while two others had unspecified injuries. Three victims were students and one was an older person who may have been a teacher.
The shooting caused a scene of fear at the school. Students barricaded themselves in classrooms by stacking shelves and chairs against doors. Police officers with guns drawn were seen walking around the high school. About 1,700 students were evacuated and were later reunited with parents and guardians.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a new vaccine against malaria called RTS,S or Mosquirix for widespread use in sub-Saharan Africa and other at-risk regions. Malaria is a disease that spreads mostly through mosquito bites and kills over 400,000 people a year, most of them children under 5.
The WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidio Moeti said there is now some hope for African children to be protected from malaria and grow into healthy adults.
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A woman who lived in the Seattle area passed away from a rare blood clotting syndrome just over a week after getting the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine. The woman was in her late 30’s. She received the vaccine on August 26 and died on September 7. Public health officials in King County said the cause of death is thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), which is a rare but serious condition among recipients of the J&J vaccine.
King 5 News reported that the woman's name was Jessica Berg Wilson. Her obituary said she was a healthy 37-year-old mother to two children, that she was very opposed to taking the Covid-19 vaccine, but took it to comply with a mandate to be a “room mom” and be involved with her children’s education. The obituary strongly criticized government vaccine mandates.
The CDC said in the U.S., there have been three other confirmed deaths from this TTS vaccine complication. In April, the J&J vaccine was paused for almost two weeks because of reports of blood clots. The vaccine pause was lifted because officials determined the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the potential risks.
The national death toll from Covid-19 on Tuesday was 1,808 new deaths. It is still a very high number, but it’s about 12% less compared with two weeks ago. A CDC study shows that unvaccinated people are over 10 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than those who are fully vaccinated.
Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky) said he is open to an extension of the debt limit to December. The deadline to raise the debt limit is October 18. The federal government currently owes more than it can pay and only Congress can raise the debt limit. If the federal government is unable to pay its bills, it would cause many severe economic shocks to the country. Democrats want to remove the debt ceiling for a year, but are unable to do so with Republican opposition. We will see if Democrats accept this offer. If they do, they would have a few weeks to pass a new bill for the debt limit using a complicated process called budget reconciliation.
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdtx/pr/san-antonio-man-sentenced-federal-prison-covid-hoax
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/us/texas-man-sentenced-covid-hoax/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/US/active-shooter-situation-reported-texas-high-school/story?id=80434656
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/arlington-texas-school-shooting-situation-10-06-21/index.html
https://www.foxnews.com/health/washington-woman-dead-jj-covid-vaccine-blood-clot
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html