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From staff reports

President Biden ordered the U.S. Labor Department to impose a COVID vaccine mandate on businesses with over 100 employees, medical providers that accept Medicare or Medicaid, and federal workers and contractors on Thursday.

“President Biden’s latest and most far-reaching COVID mandate completely ignores science. Forcibly vaccinating people who already have immunity ignores medical data and is a brazen violation of Americans’ privacy rights,” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), member of the Senate Judiciary Committee said. “While I support the vaccine and have received it, Americans have the right to exercise personal choice when it comes to their health. Getting the vaccine is a decision to be made in consultation with one’s doctor, not forced on Americans by the government. With these new mandates, President Biden and his administration have chosen to put politics over science and the rights of Americans once again.”

In Idaho, which has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, officials said Tuesday they were allowing health care providers to begin rationing care to make scarce resources available to patients most likely to survive because of a severe shortage of staff, beds and equipment, according to https://www.nbcnews.com/

As of Thursday, there were a total 3,766,614 confirmed cases of COVID in Texas and a total of 59,170 deaths.

In Orange County, the number of active cases rose by 431 over the previous week. The grand total of cases also rose by 497 in the past week. The total since March 2020 is now at 12,267.

The number hospitalized is up by 33 to a total of 76 as of Tuesday, Sept. 7. Of those, 15 are on ventilators which is 12 more than the previous week.

The number of currently active cases that are vaccinated persons is 4, one less than the previous week. There have been zero deaths from those who were vaccinated. The number of deaths remained the same at 153 since March 2020.