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Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/12/january-6-hearing-trump/

The Uvalde cop who was caught on video nonchalantly using hand sanitizer inside the Robb Elementary School as children were dying in a nearby classroom has been identified.

Sheriff’s Deputy Eric Gonzales — who faced intense backlash for the bizarrely timed act — was IDed by the Daily Mail as a one-time recipient of a medal of valor for “bravery in the line of duty.”

The 30-year-old cop, who was wearing a helmet and bulletproof vest, casually pumped the hand sanitizer wall unit to clean his hands as officers mulled around the hallway for more than an hour before taking out the shooter, the footage first obtained by the Austin-American Statesman showed.

Viewers of the 77-minute clip were outraged by the officers’ retreat and hour of inaction as the 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos slaughtered 19 children and two teachers.

Social media users found Gonzales’ act particularly off-putting.

“[S]o let me get this straight. Uvalde officers were inside within five minutes, stood around for over an hour, made sure to get HAND SANITIZER … while still hearing rounds being fired and the kids screaming,” Kayce Smith, a Barstool Sports media personality, tweeted. “What the F— are we doing here?? This is revolting.”

Sheriff’s Deputy Eric Gonzales casually pumped the hand sanitizer wall unit to clean his hands an active shooter roamed the school.
Austin American-Statesman

“Would love to hear from this Uvalde cop why he was worried about putting on hand sanitizer while a shooter was massacring kids twenty feet down the hall,” tweeted Cabot Phillips, a senior editor at the Daily Wire, a conservative outlet.

Ironically, Gonzales was awarded a bronze star for valor and bravery in the line of duty in December 2020 after he exchanged gunfire with a man during a traffic stop, according to the Uvalde Leader News.

The Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a Post inquiry. However, Sheriff Ruben Nolasco told the Daily Mail that Gonzales was sanitizing his hands in preparation to assist medics in tending to injured victims.

No medical team, however, can be seen nearby the deputy in the video.

A special Texas House panel investigating the May 24 mass shooting and police response concluded that the nearly 400 cops who showed up to the deadly scene “failed to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety” in a scathing new report.

“No amount of hand sanitizer is going to wash off those hands in Uvalde. None,” tweeted Jack Posobic, senior editor of the conservative news site Human Events.

Source Article from https://nypost.com/2022/07/18/uvalde-officer-who-used-hand-sanitizer-during-massacre-ided-as-eric-gonzales/

Although Vice President Kamala Harris was infected by the coronavirus in April, it’s not impossible that she could become infected again — a prospect raised by her being with President Biden just two days before he tested positive.

According to her schedule for that day, Ms. Harris received the president’s daily briefing in the Oval Office. She also met with Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, with Mr. Biden and others at the White House.

The prospect of both Ms. Harris, 57, and Mr. Biden, 79, contracting the virus could be unsettling, but both are fully vaccinated and have received two booster shots, which remain highly protective against severe disease. Ms. Harris received her second booster on April 1, and Mr. Biden on March 30.

Ms. Harris, who traveled to North Carolina on Thursday, said that she had spoken with Mr. Biden by phone and that he was “in good spirits.”

According to a White House official, Ms. Harris tested negative Thursday morning. On the advice of the White House medical team, she will remain masked, but her schedule will continue as planned.

She may not be in the clear. To account for the virus’s incubation period, many experts recommend taking a rapid test two to four days after a potential exposure, and taking at least two rapid tests about a day apart.

Ms. Harris previously tested positive for the coronavirus on April 26. In announcing her positive test, her office said she was not experiencing symptoms and would isolate at home. At that time, Ms. Harris was already fully vaccinated and had received two booster shots. She was prescribed the antiviral treatment Paxlovid.

At the time of her infection, the vice president had not been in close contact with Mr. Biden. She had spent several days in California and had not seen the president in person in eight days.

A month before that, Doug Emhoff, Ms. Harris’s husband, tested positive for the virus. Ms. Harris was not infected then, but while she isolated and continued to test negative, Mr. Emhoff’s positive test forced her to cancel an appearance at an event with Mr. Biden.

It is possible the vice president could contract the virus again. The antibodies that help protect against infection wane over time, and Omicron is more adept at dodging those antibodies than previous variants were.

Even a previous Omicron infection may not protect against a subsequent one. Although it is not clear what version of the virus Ms. Harris had in April, at the time, the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron was the dominant version in the United States.

Now, the BA.5 subvariant, which has spread even more quickly than previous versions, is causing a new surge of cases, including a spate of reinfections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated last week that BA.5 was accounting for nearly 80 percent of new infections across the U.S.

“You can be previously infected — even as recent as the last couple of months — and have a very high rate of reinfection,” Dr. Ashish K. Jha, Mr. Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator, said in an interview last week.

A recent study from Qatar, which has not yet been reviewed by outside experts, suggests that BA.4 and BA.5 are better at evading antibodies from previous coronavirus infections than earlier versions of Omicron were.

However, people who were infected with an earlier version of Omicron should be better protected than those infected with other variants of the virus. According to the Qatar study, an infection with a pre-Omicron variant was 28 percent effective at preventing a subsequent infection with BA.4 or BA.5. A previous Omicron infection, however, was 80 percent effective at preventing a BA.4 or BA.5 infection.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/07/21/world/covid-19-biden-cases