Boston, MA

Boston urges masks as battle brews over transit rule

Published

3 years ago

April 21, 2022

Boston urges masks as battle brews over transit rule

Boston urged folks to start out carrying masks Thursday and the Biden administration weighed its subsequent authorized step in what’s shaping as much as be a high-stakes courtroom battle over the abrupt finish of the nationwide masks mandate on airplanes and mass transit.

The Boston Public Well being Fee famous an increase in hospitalizations, in addition to a 65% enhance in instances and an excellent bigger spike in COVID-19 ranges in native wastewater samples. It additionally careworn that the steerage was merely a suggestion, not an order.

The nation is wrestling with take care of the following part of the pandemic and discover the proper stability in enacting well being measures at a time when many Individuals are prepared to maneuver on after two exhausting years.

A federal choose in Florida this week threw out a nationwide masks mandate on mass transportation, and airways and airports responded swiftly Monday by repealing their necessities that passengers put on face coverings. That put the Biden administration within the place of making an attempt to navigate an enchantment that would have sweeping ramifications over the facility that the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention has in regulating future well being emergencies.

Los Angeles County bucked nationwide traits and mentioned Thursday it is going to nonetheless require masks on public transit together with trains, subways, buses, taxis and rideshares. Circumstances have risen up to now week and hospitalizations have plateaued after falling the earlier two months.

Philadelphia final week turned the primary large metropolis to carry again a masks mandate, responding to an increase and infections and hospitalizations there, and different cities within the Northeast have been carefully watching the pattern strains and a brand new color-coded map from the CDC to determine subsequent steps.

The map that the CDC switched to in late February is much less centered on constructive check outcomes and extra on what’s taking place at hospitals to present neighborhood leaders clearer pointers on when to induce masking. Practically 95% of U.S. counties nonetheless have low transmission primarily based on the map, however extra locations have shifted to medium and excessive transmission in current weeks, together with many locations in upstate New York.

Hospitalizations nationally have ticked up in current weeks however are nowhere close to the height reached on the top of the omicron surge.

“COVID-19 instances have elevated quickly citywide, so we’d like folks to be vigilant and take precautions that may assist us keep away from one other potential surge,” mentioned Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, the Boston fee’s govt director. “Dwelling with COVID-19 is about collective duty and dealing collectively.”

She mentioned folks in Boston ought to masks indoors, keep updated with their vaccinations and check for suspected infections.

The Boston suggestion got here two days after town’s transit system lifted masks necessities in response to the nationwide transportation ruling, reflecting the mishmash of reactions following the courtroom determination by an appointee of former President Donald Trump.

Because the Biden administration figures out an enchantment, Lawrence Gostin, a public well being regulation skilled at Georgetown College, mentioned a “monumental battle” was shaping up, with the way forward for the CDC at stake. The company continues to advocate that folks put on masks in all indoor public transportation settings.

“The query the courts are going to should determine, and the general public should determine, is when the following well being disaster hits — and it’ll — will now we have a robust public well being company to guard the inhabitants?” he mentioned. “Or will the CDC merely have its fingers tied behind its again? I believe it’s a really actually chance we’re going to see the CDC handcuffed.”

Whereas the Supreme Courtroom did strike down the company’s eviction moratorium for housing, that was extra on the fringe of the company’s authority. Setting guidelines for masks carrying on public transit is a fundamental, core tenant of the CDC’s energy, Gostin mentioned.

“If somebody will get on a flight from New York to LA, there’s no state stopping them. The one factor stopping that transmission is the CDC,” Gostin mentioned.

Temple College Regulation Professor Scott Burris echoed that sentiment, saying that the U.S. authorities’s authorized authority to reply sensibly to epidemics and different kinds of emergencies is at stake within the case.

Burris mentioned the power to handle future well being emergencies “will need to have weighed closely” within the reasoning of the Justice Division to enchantment the ruling, “however let’s not neglect we’re going into one other surge” and there may be the potential for brand new variants.

An enchantment would go to the eleventh Circuit Courtroom of Appeals, which is taken into account a right-leaning courtroom, and conservative justices have a majority on the U.S. Supreme Courtroom. A ruling may take away the CDC’s energy to situation masks orders and forged any future orders below a “authorized cloud,” he mentioned.

Temple Regulation’s Craig Inexperienced mentioned the federal authorities’s technique is “actually nearly sensible” as a result of it may win in two methods with its enchantment. If COVID-19 instances numbers proceed to fall, Justice Division attorneys may argue that the difficulty is moot and ask to have the case thrown out.

“Nobody could have motive to quote it ever sooner or later as a precedent,” he mentioned.

However he mentioned that if instances rise, the federal authorities can be higher positioned to reimpose a masks mandate.

“I believe the arguments about what a authorities can do, what the federal degree can do below circumstances of emergency have been very tough and problematic,” he mentioned. “I can perceive why the Division of Justice and the USA authorities actually didn’t need to see that sort of restrict on their authority sooner or later, even when COVID finally ends up being extra managed sooner or later.

Amid the courtroom battle, American, United and Delta have all indicated that they will elevate the bans they imposed on passengers who refused to put on masks now that masks are optionally available on flights.

“We’ve got talked to them individually,” United CEO Scott Kirby informed NBC on Thursday. “Lots of them guarantee us that now that the masks mandate is off, all the pieces goes to be fantastic, and I belief that the overwhelming majority of them will.”

Many passengers have been shrugging off the adjustments. When Jon Schaudies flies from Chicago to San Antonio subsequent week, he’ll put on a masks, however will not fear if the passenger subsequent to him would not do the identical.

Schaudies, who travels steadily as vp of a small manufacturing firm, feels that he has sufficient safety from the COVID-19 vaccine and booster to keep away from changing into critically unwell if he does contract it.

“I really feel like persons are at such extremes, however I’m type of proper down the center,” mentioned Schaudies, 51, who plans to get a second booster shot.

He understands the concerns of oldsters touring with youngsters who’re too younger to be vaccinated, however says “they’ve determination to make” about whether or not to fly. “However for enterprise vacationers, we won’t cease.”

“The world has to go on sooner or later.”

————

Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas, and Whitehurst from Salt Lake Metropolis. Related Press author Carla Ok. Johnson contributed from Seattle.

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Boston, MA

Three Boston College Men’s Hockey Forwards Lead Team USA to Win Over Germany in Opening Round of World Juniors

Published

4 hours ago

December 26, 2024

Press Room

Three Boston College Men’s Hockey Forwards Lead Team USA to Win Over Germany in Opening Round of World Juniors

The U.S. National Junior Team opened its run the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship with a dominant 10-4 win over Germany.

The impressive performance was led by three Boston College men’s hockey forwards, Ryan Leonard, Gabe Perreault, and James Hagens.

Hagens and Perreault started the scoring off for Team USA. Hagens put the team on the board first at the 8:07 mark of the first period, followed by a score by Perreault at the 11:56 mark. Leonard recorded assists on both goals, while Hagens was also credited an assist on the second score.

In the middle frame, the pair each added an additional goal to the scoreboard, Hagens at the 14:01 mark and Perreault at the 19:39 mark. Both players tallied assists on the other’s goal.

In total, Leonard tallied two assists for two points, Hagens tallied two goals and two assists for four points, and Perreault tallied one goal and two assists for three points.

Perreault’s performance earned him the Player of the Game award.

Providence forward Trevor Connelly, Boston University forwards Brandon Svoboda and Cole Eiserman, Erie Otters (OHL) forward Carey Terrance, and Minnesota forward Brodie Ziemer (two).

Next up, Team USA takes on Latvia on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. ET. The contest will air on the NHL Network.

Ryan Leonard Records Goal in U.S. National Junior Team’s Pre-Tournament Win Over Finland

Boston College Men’s Hockey Forwards Named to Leadership Positions For 2025 U.S. National Junior Team

Six Boston College Men’s Hockey Players Earn Spot on 2025 U.S. National Junior Team Roster

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Boston, MA

Next Weather: WBZ midday forecast for December 26, 2024

Published

12 hours ago

December 26, 2024

Press Room

Next Weather: WBZ midday forecast for December 26, 2024 – CBS Boston

Watch CBS News

Jason Mikell has your latest weather forecast.

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Boston, MA

Boston.com readers were obsessed with these stories in 2024. Here's why.

Published

21 hours ago

December 26, 2024

Press Room

Boston.com readers were obsessed with these stories in 2024. Here's why.

Readers Say

Karen Read, campus protests, the Celtics and several other stories bubbled to the top this year.

Readers were obsessed with (clockwise from left) Karen Read, the eclipse, Councilor Tonia Fernandes Anderson, Bill Belichick, campus protests, and the Celtics in 2024. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff; Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff; Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff; AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File; Erin Clark/Globe Staff; Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff

The people — or at least the people who make up Boston.com’s readership — have spoken. A lot of news happened in 2024, but these are the stories that readers cited as the ones that most intrigued them over the course of the last 12 months.

In total readers sent more than 500 responses to our survey, and below you’ll find a countdown of the five they mentioned most often, followed by six more that bubbled up just underneath. (And how much do you want to bet at least a few of these turn up on the list again next year?)

5. Massachusetts gets (part of) the eclipse (7%)

OK, so Boston wasn’t in the “path of totality.” We’ll get our own total solar eclipse on May 1, 2079 (turns out the waiting is the hardest part), but in the meantime Boston.com readers seemed plenty content with getting our own little slice of the natural phenomenon here last April. Silly glasses were de rigueur, schools and businesses stopped everything to check it out, and plenty of people actually headed north to New Hampshire and Vermont to see the thing in toto. (Although a lot of them seemed to run into a few problems getting back home.)

4. Pro-Palestinian protests on campus (11%)

Greater Boston has a lot of colleges, and a lot of students who aren’t particularly shy about speaking up at them. So it probably made sense that when students started protesting over the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, our schools would be a hotbed of such activity. And sure enough, MIT, Tufts, and Emerson led the way, followed by Harvard, Northeastern, UMass Amherst, Dartmouth, and UNH, among others. Even the Rhode Island School of Design got into the act, occupying part of an administrative building. Protests, encampments, arrests, and resignations seemed to arise basically every day last spring, and readers followed live updates with interest (and probably no small amount of trepidation).

3. Bill Belichick says bye-bye (13%)

One of two sports stories to make our top five, a sizable number of readers pointed to the departure of Bill Belichick from the Patriots team he had led to six Super Bowl championships. Even though it happened way back in early January, readers reported his leaving as having taken up big chunks of their sports headspace throughout 2024 — maybe because he kept making headlines, whether it was his opinions about the team he left behind, reports about his love life (couples Halloween costume, anyone?), or his eventual landing as coach at North Carolina.

2. Celtics are national champs (19%)

While they might not have had the juice of our omnipresent No. 1 story mentioned below, readers named our Boston Celtics the second most intriguing story of the year, with their decisive championship victory over the Dallas Mavericks in June dispelling any doubt that this was — arguably by far — the best team in the NBA. It almost makes you feel bad for all those other teams that didn’t have Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, a roster of stellar complementary players, and Coach Joe Mazzulla churning out quotes-of-the-day like an Internet-era Yogi Berra. Oh, and their parade was pretty good too.

1. The Karen Read saga (28%)

In a year that saw the continuation of more than a few disturbing ongoing murder stories — the Brian Walshe and Lindsay Clancy cases come to mind — one captured people’s attention the most, by far. The trial of Karen Read made headlines and spurred water-cooler talk far beyond Boston, leading to the logical assumption among basically everybody that it would eventually be a Netflix documentary. Which of course it will be.

As you’ll probably recall, prosecutors allege that Read was driving drunk and deliberately backed her SUV into her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, while dropping him off at a house party in January of 2022. And Read’s lawyers allege that O’Keefe was actually beaten by people inside the house (and attacked by the family dog). It’s a case that has everything, including a Turtleboy. And since her first trial ended in a mistrial, we get to do it all again next April.

Honorable mentions:

Trump supporters rejoice during a “Massachusetts for Trump” 2024 election night watch party in Westport on election night. *– Barry Chin/Globe Staff*

Trump makes headway in Mass: People of the MAGA persuasion probably shouldn’t get too excited — Massachusetts remained solidly blue in November’s presidential election, with Kamala Harris earning about 61% of the vote. But Donald Trump took the whole shebang, and readers (well, about half of them) pointed to his gains even in liberal Mass. as part and parcel of his booming comeback — he flipped 10 Massachusetts towns that had voted for Biden in 2020 and shrunk the gap in a lot of others. Meanwhile, the anti-Trump contigent immediately began hand-wringing over how his policies might affect things in the Bay State.

The Mass. migrant crisis: Thanks to the state’s “right to shelter” law, migrants were everywhere — at Logan Airport, in repurposed community centers, at hotels and in a shuttered prison. And despite Gov. Maura Healey’s ever-tightening guidelines for shelter stays, the issue remains a thorn in her political side.

Crime in Downtown Boston: A shoplifting surge and violence on the Common — which many blamed on problems that spread from the former encampments of homeless and addicted individuals at Mass. & Cass — meant much consternation among the city crowd. Mayor Michelle Wu, though, assures us Boston remains the safest big city in America.

Ballot questions: There were five of them! And three — approval of a legislative audit, the elimination of the MCAS as a graduation requirement, and allowing rideshare drivers to unionize — actually passed. Sorry, psychedelics and increased tipped minimum wage.

The arrest of Tania Fernandes Anderson: It just happened a few weeks ago, but Boston City Councilor Fernandes Anderson’s federal public corruption arrest — charges involved a $7,000 cash payment in a City Hall bathroom — immediately caused a stir on Boston’s political scene. (One reader even suggested that outgoing President Joe Biden should pardon her.)

State police troubles: As if the classless texts from State Trooper Michael Proctor revealed during the Read trial weren’t enough, the mysterious training death of recruit Enrique Delgado Garcia cast a further pall over the organization. Plus all the fraud. (Not that your run-of-the-mill municipal police departments got off easy either. Case in point: the Sara Birchmore case in Stoughton.)

Stay tuned for a full list of the most-read stories on Boston.com in 2024 next week.