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Archives for May 2021

GOP leaders condemn Greene over Holocaust comments

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders forcefully condemned GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday, calling her comments comparing COVID-19 safety measures like mask-wearing to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany “appalling.”

“Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling,” House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a statement, which stopped short of calling for Greene to face disciplinary measures. “The fact that this needs to be stated today is deeply troubling.”

Greene, a conservative firebrand from Georgia and ally of former President Donald Trump, has thrived on stirring controversy, pushing conspiracy theories and forcefully confronting her colleagues since taking her seat in the House in January. But, until now, Republican leaders have proven hesitant to criticize her and refused to join with Democrats earlier this year when they voted to strip her of committee assignments.

Their rebuke Tuesday came after Greene made an appearance on a conservative podcast, “The Water Cooler with David Brody,” released last Thursday. In her interview, Greene excoriated safety protocols adopted by House Democrats, including a requirement that masks be worn on the House floor. She also called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “mentally ill” and suggested that the rules were comparable to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust.

“You know, we can look back in a time and history where people were told to wear a gold star. And they were definitely treated like second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany,” Greene said on the podcast. “This is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.”

After her remarks sparked a firestorm of online criticism, Greene leaned in to the comparison further.

On Tuesday, she tweeted out a news story about a grocery store chain that plans to allow vaccinated employees to go maskless. Those who do would have a logo on their nametags indicating they had been vaccinated.

“Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi’s forced Jewish people to wear a gold star,” Greene tweeted.

Pelosi, who previously suggested that Greene could face an ethics inquiry, called her comments “so beyond reprehensible” that they should have “no place in our country.” Democratic Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider proposed censuring Greene.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called Greene’s comments one of her “frequent outbursts that are absolutely outrageous and reprehensible.” Still, he said any disciplinary action against her would have to come from the House.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 House GOP leader, said “equating mask wearing and vaccines to the Holocaust” minimized “the most significant human atrocities ever committed.”

The furor is just the latest provocative chapter in the activist-turned-lawmaker’s brief tenure in the House.

Earlier this month, Greene followed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez off the House floor, shouting that the Democrat supported “terrorists” and doesn’t “care about the American people.” She also appeared in Facebook Live video filmed outside Ocasio-Cortez’s office, taunting the congresswoman through the mail slot of a locked door to “get rid of your diaper and come out and be able to talk to the American citizens.”

Before her election, Greene supported Facebook posts that advocated violence against Democrats and the FBI. In one 2018 post, she speculated that “lasers or blue beams of light” controlled by a left-wing cabal tied to a powerful Jewish family could have been responsible for sparking California wildfires.

And in February 2019, Greene appeared in an online video filmed at the U.S. Capitol, arguing that two Muslim lawmakers weren’t “really official” members of Congress because they didn’t take the oath of office on the Bible.

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Postal reform bill could raise health premiums for federal workers, employee group warns

A bipartisan bill designed to bring desired financial relief to the U.S. Postal Service could have implications for the rest of the federal workforce, potentially raising health insurance costs for employees and retirees, an employee advocacy organization warns.

For the first time in years, momentum is building in Congress over postal legislative reform. The Postal Service Reform Act, which House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) introduced earlier this month, cleared the committee and has approval from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy himself.

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Ranking Member Rob Portman (R-Ohio) introduced a Senate companion last week. The bill has 20 Senate co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle.

Nearly all of the debate and discussion associated with the bill at this point has been focused on bringing financial stability to the Postal Service.

But the legislation, at least as it’s currently written, proposes serious structural changes to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), which provides insurance to roughly 8 million federal and postal workers, retirees and their families.

Without changes, the bill could raise FEHBP premiums for some, the National Active and Retired Federal Employees (NARFE) said in recent letters to House and Senate members.

The legislation would split the existing Federal Employees Health Benefits Program into two, creating a separate Postal Service Health Benefits Program for USPS employees and retirees.

The Postal Service Reform Act would separate 2 million postal workers and retirees from the federal program, creating a smaller, riskier pool of participants for FEHBP to cover, NARFE said.

FEHBP premiums are based on how much its participants use the health care system and the average costs for those services during a given year. Older employees with more health conditions tend to drive prices up, while younger, healthier members keep costs down.

The new legislation requires current postal workers to enroll in Medicare Part A and B when they reach age 65. It gives current retirees the option of enrolling in Medicare, waiving the usual late enrollment penalties. Medicare will pick up initial hospital and prescription costs, and the Postal Service will become the secondary payer.

But current retirees who choose not to opt into Medicare will stay in the FEHBP.

While this arrangement is designed to save the Postal Service billions over the next decade, NARFE worries it could raise premiums for federal employees and retirees still enrolled in the FEHBP. Those who are Medicare-eligible but choose not to enroll are some of the most expensive participants to insure.

“For those who don’t have Medicare, they’re older, they’re age 65 or [more], and you don’t have Medicare picking up the first dollar of coverage for you,” said John Hatton, NARFE’s legislative director. “Those costs to the FEHB program are much higher than average, and premiums are based on average costs. If you’re pulling out people who are less costly to insure and keeping those others who are more in the FEHB side, it could cause an increase in premiums.”

Allowing USPS to cherry-pick which individuals to insure also sets a dangerous precedent, NARFE said. Advocates of the FEHBP say the buying power of 8 million participants gives enrollees a variety of options at competitive rates. Reducing the size of the insurance pool and populating it with older, more expensive participants could diminish that buying power, NARFE said.

Still, it’s unclear at this stage how exactly the Postal Service Reform Act might impact FEHB premiums, and, if the bill does indeed raise costs for participants, what they might be.

“We see integrating postal workers more fully into Medicare as a vital component of putting the Postal Service on a more sound, long-term financial footing,” a senior Democratic aide on the House Oversight Committee told Federal News Network. “The committee is aware of concerns about the effect this could have on the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program and takes them very seriously. We will be working with the Office of Personnel Management and the Postal Service to address this issue, if necessary, as the bill moves to the floor.”

In a letter to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee leadership, NARFE urged members to consider technical analysis and feedback from the Office of Personnel Management, which administers the FEHBP, before taking further action on the Postal Service Reform Act.

“OPM is working with Congress to address concerns involving how the healthcare provisions of the legislation will impact the cost and delivery of health care benefits and services for federal employees and other FEHBP beneficiaries,” Shelby Wagenseller, an OPM spokeswoman, told Federal News Network.

Proposed health benefits changes aren’t new

While Congress is moving with a new sense of urgency to bring legislative relief to USPS, this isn’t the first time it’s considered splitting the Postal Service from the FEHBP.

The health care provisions in this new bill are similar to those the Senate considered in 2012, when former Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.), as well as Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), introduced the 21st Century Postal Service Act.

Like the current bill, the 2012 legislation split the FEHB into two to include a separate Postal Service Health Benefits Program for postal workers.

OPM previously found the arrangement would raise health insurance premiums by 10% for participants in the three largest FEHB plans, according to a 2012 article from the Hill.

The Senate excluded those provisions at the last minute and went on to pass the 2012 bill without the health benefits changes. The bill never cleared the House.

But this time, a broad coalition in Congress is eager to build off momentum from the last year, when service levels at USPS dipped and gained public attention.

Maloney and Comer introduced the bill together, and members are anxious to pass the first comprehensive postal reform legislation in 15 years. At an oversight committee markup earlier this month, Comer said the bill had “a good chance of becoming law.”

The Postal Service Reform Act also includes several changes that stakeholders, including NARFE, have long advocated.

The bill would eliminate the agency’s 2006 mandate to fund retiree health benefits well into the future, a significant cost for USPS, at least on paper. The agency has defaulted on billions of dollars in annual payments to the retiree health fund.

Eliminating the 2006 mandate and implementing the bill’s Medicare integration scheme alone would save the Postal Service $45.9 billion over the next decade, Peters and Portman, the Senate co-sponsors, have said.

The bill also maintains six-day delivery and requires USPS to publicly post weekly service data on its website.

“There’s a lot to like about this bill,” said Jessica Klement, NARFE’s staff vice president for policy and programs. “It is difficult to be in a position of continuing to ask for changes when this bill has broad bipartisan support and other stakeholder support. But again, they’re attempting to fix the Postal Service on the backs of something else. Before it was postal retirees, now it could be the entire FEHB program.”

NARFE believes members could change the language of the bill to prevent USPS from “cherry-picking” lower-cost postal employees and retirees to insure. Congress could also include safeguards within the text of the bill itself to ensure the FEHBP isn’t stuck with higher costs.

“That might reduce USPS cost savings, but you wouldn’t have to remove this entire piece from the bill for it to move forward,” Hatton said.

At this stage, Congress has plenty of opportunities to change the Postal Service Reform Act as its currently written.

And while the House Oversight and Reform Committee cleared the bill earlier the month, the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees must mark up the bill as well. Both committees have jurisdiction over Medicare and may consider amendments.

But for NARFE, it’s worrisome that the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Postal Service and federal workforce, advanced the bill with little discussion — at least not publicly — about the legislation’s potential impact on the FEHBP.

“The Postal Service has been in a precarious financial position for over a decade,” Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said in a statement to Federal News Network. “I introduced the Postal Service Reform Act to help put the Postal Service on a sustainable financial footing for years into the future, and the bill has already received strong bipartisan support. I am also a strong advocate for federal employees and retirees, and I am working closely with stakeholders to ensure that the bill that passes the House addresses their concerns.”

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has jurisdiction over the postal reform bill and hasn’t scheduled a markup yet.

A Senate committee aide said members are working closely with stakeholders about concerns with the bill and is open to all feedback.

Growing pains as Spurs transition to younger roster

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — After relying heavily on veterans for two decades, the San Antonio Spurs are having growing pains in their transformation to a younger roster.

For the first time, San Antonio missed the playoffs for a second straight season after an NBA-record 22 straight appearances.

“Unique, roller coaster, weird,” Spurs veteran guard DeMar DeRozan said. “I think those are three things that sum up this season.”

The days of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili guiding a veteran roster have given way to Dejounte Murray, Derrick White, Keldon Johnson and Lonnie Walker learning on the fly through injuries, little practice and a compacted schedule because ot he pandemic.

It was one of the most confounding seasons for Gregg Popovich, but also one of the most rewarding in his 25 years as Spurs coach.

“If any team needs practices to work on consistency and execution, we did,” Popovich said. “(But) I don’t know if I have ever been more proud of a team that just doesn’t quit. No matter what the mistakes, no matter what the circumstances are, they really fight. That’s a good base. So, I’m really proud of the way they conducted themselves and played to win.”

Popovich, 72, completed the first year of a three-year extension with Spurs. He will coach the U.S. team in the Tokyo Olympics this summer.

San Antonio finished 10th in the Western Conference, losing to Memphis in a play-in game. San Antonio trailed by double digits in 58% of this season’s games, finishing 9-33 in those contests. The Spurs also led by double digits in 51% of their games, finishing 28-9.

They overcame or lost double-digit leads in multiple games.

“Regardless of the situation, we just kept fighting,” Johnson said.

VETERANS

DeRozan and fellow veterans Rudy Gay, Patty Mills and Gorgui Dieng are all unrestricted free agents. San Antonio would like to have all back, but their returns are uncertain.

San Antonio should have money to spend: The Spurs are projected to be second only to the New York Knicks in available cap space this summer.

YOUTH MOVEMENT

The Spurs have the 10th-youngest roster in the NBA with an average age of 25.3, but that drops to a league-low 23 years old without the four 30-something veterans.

“I think overall we can be proud of us for a big majority of our season, but we also know we have a lot that we have to improve on,” Spurs starting center Jakob Poeltl said.

IN AND OUT

The Spurs battled multiple injuries this season, including a series of foot and ankle injuries that forced White to miss half the season.

The team also had multiple players miss two weeks after contracting or being exposed to COVID-19. The league’s health and safety protocols forced San Antonio to cut short their annual rodeo road trip in February. Those games were rescheduled for the second half, leading the team to essentially play every other day over the final three months.

“It’s a long season,” Walker said. “We came out and (fought) and gave it our all despite injuries after injuries and not really having a full team. But time goes on and we’re going to continue to work hard. We’re going to continue to get better. I just don’t like losing. I wanted to get to the playoffs.”

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Poland to acquire 24 Turkish-made combat drones

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey and Poland have signed a deal for the sale of Turkish-made combat drones, making Poland the first NATO and European Union member country to purchase Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday.

The agreement was signed during Polish President Andrzej Duda’s three-day visit to Turkey.

Under the deal, Poland is set to receive 24 armed drones, ground control stations and data terminals, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The first drone is expected to be delivered next year.

“We are one of the best countries regarding unmanned aerial vehicles,” Erdogan said during a joint news conference. “We feel great pleasure in sharing our experience, capability and potential with our NATO ally, Poland.”

Erdogan said: “With the document that was just signed, Turkey will, for the first time in its history, be exporting UAVs to a country that is a member of NATO and the EU.”

Turkey previously sold drones to Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Qatar.

The Bayraktar TB2 drones played a prominent role in Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia during the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh last year. Turkey is known to have used the drones in its cross-border operations against Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq.

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The Latest: Louisiana lifts mask requirement for students

BATON ROUGE, La. — Gov. John Bel Edwards is scrapping nearly every remaining coronavirus restriction in Louisiana and lifting the statewide requirement that students must wear a mask in the classroom and at school events.

The Democratic governor announced Tuesday that he’ll keep the statewide public health emergency declaration in place. But Louisiana will have almost none of the rules governing businesses and behavior over the last 15 months of the pandemic.

Edwards cited the wide availability of the coronavirus vaccine in Louisiana.

Masks still will be required on public transit, in health care facilities and in prisons. Schools, businesses and local government officials can decide if they want to mandate masks.

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MORE ON THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— Mascots, prizes rally students to get vaccinated at US schools

— Moderna says its COVID-19 shot works in kids as young as 12

— Japan says US travel warning for virus won’t hurt Olympians

— Volunteers in One Good Thing keep on giving a year later

— Follow more of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

WAILUKU, Hawaii — Police in Hawaii say an Oregon woman was arrested last week because she violated travel quarantine rules meant to protect the islands from the spread of coronavirus.

Maui police say 36-year-old Kelsey Newcomer didn’t have a negative COVID-19 test from an approved facility when she arrived on a flight from Seattle. Police say she also didn’t have approved lodging where she could complete at 10-day mandatory quarantine.

She was taken to a police station and later agreed to leave the island of Maui and return to Oregon. Travelers to Hawaii must comply with the state’s pre-travel testing program, even those who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

She couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

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HARTFORD, Conn. — A judge has upheld Connecticut’s requirement that children wear masks in schools, rejecting a challenge by some parents who say mask wearing can be harmful and education officials exceeded their authority.

A Superior Court judge in Hartford released his ruling Monday in response to a lawsuit filed by the CT Freedom Alliance and several parents and their children. The decision affirms the legitimacy of mask requirements in schools this academic year but does not give guidance for the next school year.

The CT Freedom Alliance says it will appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court, saying they can cause students distress and falsely claiming they are not useful despite assurances from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health experts that masks help prevent spread of the coronavirus.

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DENVER — Colorado will have a weekly lottery for five residents to win $1 million to incentivize COVID-19 vaccinations.

Gov. Jared Polis said Tuesday that the state is setting aside $5 million of federal coronavirus relief funds that would have gone toward vaccine advertising for five residents to win $1 million each. The drawings will take place every week starting June 4 until July 7.

Every resident who has been vaccinated by the end of May will be entered in the first drawing. In order to be eligible for the drawing, residents need to be at least 18 years old and have received at least one dose of the approved coronavirus vaccines.

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas will be giving lottery tickets and gift certificates for hunting and fishing licenses to people who get the coronavirus vaccine.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson says $20 scratch-off lottery tickets or $20 Game and Fish gift certificates will be offered to residents who get the first dose of the vaccine starting Tuesday.

The incentives will be available starting June 1 at local health units or special events around the state.

Arkansas has had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country and Tuesday’s announcement follows efforts in other states to offer incentives.

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WASHINGTON — White House coronavirus adviser Andy Slavitt says “we need to get to the bottom” of the origins of the pandemic pathogen and the World Health Organization and China need to do more to provide definitive answers for the global community.

The precise origin of the virus remains undetermined and speculation has reigned about whether it jumped from animals to humans or whether it could have escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan, the city that saw the first outbreak.

“We need a completely transparent process from China,” Slavitt said at Tuesday’s coronavirus task force briefing. Full assistance from the WHO is needed, and “we don’t have that now.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci said “many of us” feel like it was a natural occurrence, but “we don’t know 100%” and it is imperative to investigate.

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MEXICO CITY — San Diego County and private businesses have donated 10,000 coronavirus vaccines to vaccinate workers at U.S.-owned border assembly plants in Tijuana.

Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard says the program is aimed at helping equalize vaccination rates at closely connected points along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This is the first cross-border agreement we have had. This is surely going to grow a lot,” Ebrard said. “We plan to replicate this all along the border.”

The vaccines are being administered by medical personnel from the University of California, San Diego, at the San Ysidro border crossing. The program started Monday with about 150 to 200 shots administered per hour.

Mexico has had a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, and has received only about 34.2 million doses for a population of 126 million. Since most vaccines require two doses, Mexico has only vaccinated about 15% of its population so far.

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ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland held its first of 40 consecutive $40,000 lottery drawings on Tuesday for people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19, one of several states using lottery prizes to encourage people to get inoculated.

The Maryland Lottery says the first winner lives in Baltimore County. There will be 39 more drawings for $40,000 in the $2 million total promotion, which ends with a $400,000 drawing prize on July 4.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 68.3% of Maryland adults have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Gov. Larry Hogan is hoping to reach 70% by Memorial Day.

Maryland’s statewide COVID-19 positivity rate has dropped below 2% for the first time during the pandemic. The state is reporting 160 new confirmed cases, the lowest number since March 26, 2020. Hospitalizations from the virus reached a seven-month low with 442, the lowest level since Oct. 19.

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ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp says public agencies in Georgia can’t require people to prove they have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Republican governor issued an executive order Tuesday banning vaccine passports and saying state immunization records can’t be shared with any private company aiming to create such a record.

A number of Republican-led states have moved to ban vaccine passports, even though they are not in widespread use in the U.S. Kemp’s order mostly doesn’t apply to private businesses.

Spokesperson Cody Hall says the move won’t ban prisons, mental hospitals or juvenile justice facilities from asking whether inmates or patients have been vaccinated.

The order doesn’t ban the state from including an entry for COVID-19 vaccines on the standard immunization record for children entering childcare or school. The forms don’t currently have an entry.

The University System of Georgia already announced it won’t mandate vaccines for students or staff.

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SAN DIEGO — A growing number of U.S. public schools are using mascots, food trucks and prize giveaways to encourage students to get vaccinated before summer vacation.

The massive effort to create a pep-rally atmosphere comes only weeks after the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine was approved for younger adolescents ages 12 to 15. Administrators want to get as many shots in students’ arms as possible and hope it will pave the way to return to regular classes in the fall.

So far, about 14% of the nation’s 15 million kids ages 12 to 15 have received their first shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among 7.5 million teens ages 16 to 17, that number goes up to 34%, and about 22% have had both shots, according to the latest figures released Monday. The doses are scheduled about three weeks apart.

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TOKYO — Tokyo officials were quick to deny a U.S. warning for Americans to avoid traveling to Japan will have an impact on Olympians.

Japan is determined to hold the postponed Tokyo Olympics, scheduled to open on July 23. The U.S. cited a surge in coronavirus cases in Japan. Most metro areas in Japan are under a state of emergency .

Those areas are expected to remain so through mid-June because rising COVID-19 cases are putting pressure on the country’s medical care systems. That causes concern about how the country could cope with the arrival of tens of thousands of Olympic participants if its hospitals remain stressed and so few of its population vaccinated.

About 2% of people in Japan have been vaccinated. No international fans are allowed at the Tokyo Olympics.

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NEW YORK — U.S. health officials say coronavirus cases in fully vaccinated people remain rare.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday issued a report on these “breakthrough” cases through the end of April, when 101 million Americans were fully vaccinated. Of those, about 10,300 breakthrough infections were reported — that’s about 1 infection in every 10,000 fully vaccinated people, based on the available data.

Nearly two-thirds were women, and the median age of all cases was 58. About 25% of the infections involved people who didn’t have symptoms. About 10% were hospitalized and about 2% died.

The report is based on voluntary reporting by 46 states and territories and isn’t considered a complete tally of all breakthrough infections that may have occurred. Health officials say no vaccine is perfect and infections were expected in some vaccinated people.

The CDC stopped reporting a total number at the end of April but has been posting weekly updates on breakthrough infections that resulted in hospitalization and deaths. As of May 17, the CDC listed reports of about 1,800 hospitalizations and 350 deaths.

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WASHINGTON — The White House says the United States on Tuesday will reach 50% of American adults fully vaccinated for COVID-19.

President Joe Biden previously set a goal of having 70% of all adults receiving at least one dose of the vaccine by July 4th.

The White House has ramped up is vaccine distribution, and coronavirus case and deaths have dramatically fallen across the nation.

There are currently three vaccines in use in the United States. The Biden administration has increased the number of inoculations it is exporting to other nations.

— By Jonathan Lemire

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CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — Moderna says its COVID-19 vaccine strongly protects kids as young as 12.

The company released the preliminary findings Tuesday based on testing on more than 3,700 youths ages 12 to 17 in the United States.

There were no COVID-19 diagnoses in those given two doses of the Moderna vaccine compared with four cases among kids given dummy shots. In a press release, the company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says the vaccine appeared 93% effective two weeks after the first dose.

Moderna officials intend to submit its teen data to the Food and Drug Administration and other global regulators early next month. The company says its vaccine triggered the same signs of immune protection in kids as it does in adults, and the same mild, temporary side effects.

It’s a step that could put the shot on track to become the second option for that age group in the U.S. Earlier this month, the U.S. and Canada authorized a vaccine by Pfizer and BioNTech for use, starting at age 12.

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LONDON — The British government has been accused of introducing local lockdowns by stealth after it introduced tighter restrictions for eight local areas in England that it says are hot spots for the coronavirus variant first identified in India.

On Tuesday, lawmakers and local public health officials said they hadn’t been made aware of changes that the Conservative government published online last Friday.

In that updated guidance, it recommended that people within the eight localities, which includes Hounslow in west London, the city of Leicester and the towns of Blackburn and Bolton, shouldn’t meet up indoors or travel outside their areas.

Yasmin Qureshi, a Labour Party lawmaker in Bolton, said she hadn’t been informed of the changes, saying it was “typical of this government’s incompetence.”

Cabinet minister Therese Coffey says the updated guidance shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone as it just formalized “on the record” the outlines of what the government had been saying for days.

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