Melissa Joan Hart is COVID positive, and she's blaming her kids not being forced to wear masks at school: 'I'm really mad!'



Actress Melissa Joan Hart said that the lack of a school mask mandate at her children's schools likely led to her family contracting COVID-19.

Hart made the comments in a video posted Wednesday to her 1.6 million followers on Instagram.

"Hi, I never do videos but I thought that this was really important," said the professing Christian actress on her video.

"I got COVID. I am vaccinated, and I got COVID, and it's bad. It's weighing on my chest, it's hard to breathe, one of my kids has it so far, I'm praying that the other ones are OK," she explained.

"I'm mad. I'm really mad," Hart said.

"Because we tried, and we took precautions and we cut our exposure by a lot," she continued, "but we got lazy and I think as a country we got lazy. And I'm really mad that my kids didn't wear masks at schools. I'm pretty sure that's where this came from."

Hart, who is the mother of three boys ages 8, 13, and15, went on to say that her youngest son bragged about wearing his mask every day when he got home from school.

"Scared and sad and disappointed in myself, and some of our leaders, and a lot of people, including myself," Hart continued.

"I just wish I had done better, so I'm asking you guys, do better," she concluded. "Protect your families, protect your kids. It's not over yet."

On Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, said that he strongly supported vaccine mandates by local authorities in schools among teachers and other staff.

Daily cases in the United States have spiked to a seven-day average of 130,000. Previously cases had reached a peak in January of 250,000 cases before dropping to an average of 12,000 cases in June.

Deaths from the pandemic have also spiked to 686 daily deaths after a high of 3,600 daily deaths in January. Daily deaths had fallen to a low of 200 in June.

Here's more about coronavirus striking the Harts:

Melissa Joan Hart Contracts Breakthrough COVID, Likely After Kids Exposed at School | PEOPLEwww.youtube.com

Martha's Vineyard Hospital claims it is 'bursting at the seams' along with 'highest amount' of COVID — 2 weeks after Obama's birthday bash



A surge in COVID-19 cases is reportedly wreaking havoc on Martha's Vineyard two weeks after former President Barack Obama hosted an extravagant birthday celebration on the island.

To this point, health officials have not made a connection between the 60th birthday bash and the outbreak, but the timing is hard to ignore.

What are the details?

The Virginia Gazette reported this week that Martha's Vineyard Hospital's emergency room is "jam-packed" and that the health facility grapples with its largest number of COVID-19 patients since the start of the pandemic.

During a press briefing Wednesday, hospital officials said that three patients are currently hospitalized with the virus and a fourth patient is being monitored for COVID-like symptoms, with one of those patients reportedly in serious condition. A fifth COVID-19 patient had to be critically airlifted to Boston last week.

"This is the highest amount of COVID-positive patient activity that we've had since the onset of the pandemic," the head of hospital operations and chief nurse, Clair Seguin, said.

The hospital's president and CEO, Denise Schepici, added that the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases has come at an already busy time for the facility.

"We're bursting at the seams," she said. "We're hoping there will be a reprieve in September. But that's a prayer right now."

She added that the hospital has resorted to urging residents not to come to the facility for treatment unless they are feeling "really, really sick" and believe the issue to be "an emergency."

What's the background?

The increase in hospitalizations follows a dramatic uptick in COVID-19 cases in the area over the past couple of weeks. Dukes County, where Martha's Vineyard is located, recorded a 1,350% increase in new cases last week.

Amid the spike in new infections, however, Janet Hathaway, assistant to the Edgartown Board of Health, said "it's too early to tell" whether Obama's party is the culprit.

Following mounting criticism ahead of the party, the Obamas announced that they would "significantly scale down" the celebration, which was originally slated to include 500 guests and more than 200 staff.

However, photos of the supposedly downsized party still showed massive tents constructed to house a lineup of celebrity guests on the Obamas' vast multimillion-dollar waterfront estate.

Obama's version of "family and close friends" still included a star-studded cast of guests such as Beyonce, Jay-Z, Eddie Vedder, Tom Hanks, and musician Questlove. Don Cheadle, Dwayne Wade, Stephen Colbert, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, and others were also reportedly present for the shindig. Presidential climate envoy John Kerry even rolled up to the party in his private jet.

Several social media posts showed a maskless Obama and other guests enjoying themselves at the party until its conclusion at around midnight.

A local police officer allegedly said the band of celebrities leaving caused a traffic "s***show."

Viral Los Angeles restaurant owner slams renewed mask mandate: 'It's just insanity'



A Los Angeles-area restaurant owner who went viral in December for exposing the hypocrisy of the coronavirus restrictions in her city said the county's recent decision to reimpose a mask mandate will create "a lot of hostility."

Angela Marsden, the owner of Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill, told Fox News on Monday that Los Angeles County's decision to reimpose mask mandates beginning on Saturday will contribute to division in the city and confuse vaccinated Americans who believe they are protected from COVID-19.

"We had basically one month of complete freedom, of being able to be indoors and not have to wear a mask," Marsden said. "It's creating a lot of different feelings. It's creating anger, it's creating confusion, and the funny thing is it creates more vaccine hesitancy, in my opinion."

Last week, L.A. County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis informed reporters that the mask mandates would go back into effect because of rising coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. The county recently reported more than 1,000 new daily COVID-19 cases and public health officials have raised concerns over the Delta variant, a form of the COVID-19 disease that is more transmissible than other strains, though not necessarily more deadly.

The renewed mask mandate applies to everyone, vaccinated or not, even though current CDC guidelines indicated that fully vaccinated individuals are able to resume their normal lives without wearing a mask or social distancing. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva pushed back on the renewed mandates on Friday, explaining that police will not enforce the rules because "forcing the vaccinated and those who already contracted COVID-19 to wear masks indoors is not backed by science."

Marsden worries that the renewed restrictions will cause businesses to have a harder time finding employees to fill job openings.

"A lot of people don't want to come back to the restaurant business because they have anxiety that it's going to get shut down again or they'd have to wear a mask, a face shield," she said, explaining how the mandates affected her employees.

"Last August, in 120 degrees my servers were clocking eight miles in a shift running from the bar to outside with a face mask and a shield. I had two people almost have heat stroke on my patio and now we're putting masks on our face again.

"My manager, she's had COVID. She got vaccinated. And the second she found out that we were doing a mask mandate she also realized, 'wait a minute, I'm vaccinated and I can still get it?'" Marsden continued, adding that her manager is having "anxiety attacks" about contracting COVID-19 again after previously recovering.

"I don't understand the inconsistency, the confusion, and the fear-baiting that is basically being used by our leadership," she said.

Aside from the "psychological angst" inflicted on people by the return of the coronavirus restrictions, Marsden emphasized that the government was placing a burden on businesses, who will be required to enforce these restrictions or face punitive fines.

"As a small business owner, do you know hard it is for me to enforce a mask mandate when people are refusing to wear the mask? Nobody's there if I'm going to get punched in the face," she said.

"It's just insanity."

Watch:

CDC says reports of a new strain of coronavirus in the US are false, contradicting Dr. Birx



Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refuted reports of a new strain of coronavirus in the U.S. based on what they said was speculation from White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Deborah Birx.

Birx suggested to other members of the task force that there might be a new strain in the United States based on the rapid increase of infections. That hypothesis was included in a summary sent to state governors.

"This fall/winter surge has been at nearly twice the rate of rise of cases as the spring and summer surges. This acceleration suggests there may be a USA variant that has evolved here, in addition to the UK variant that is already spreading in our communities and may be 50% more transmissible," the report read according to the New York Times.

"Aggressive mitigation must be used to match a more aggressive virus," she added.

The Times reported that the CDC reached out to Birx in an attempt to have that suggestion removed from the summary sent to governors. A source told the Times that the request was denied, to their great frustration.

A spokesman for the CDC explained in an email to CNBC News why they believed Dr. Birx's hypothesis was premature.

"Researchers have been monitoring U.S. strains since the pandemic began, including 5,700 samples collected in November and December," wrote Jason McDonald.

"To date, neither researchers nor analysts at CDC have seen the emergence of a particular variant in the United States as has been seen with the emergence of B.1.1.7 in the United Kingdom or B.1.351 in South Africa," he added.

The Times reported that they reached out for comment from Birx about the dispute but did not receive a response.

Here's the latest from the CDC about the pandemic:

CDC: Most COVID-19 transmissions come from people with no symptomswww.youtube.com

Coronavirus spike!? Doctor says facts — not FEAR — should guide COVID-19 second wave regulations

Coronavirus spike!? Doctor says facts — not FEAR — should guide COVID-19 second wave regulations