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ases of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that fly under the radar — without being detected or diagnosed — may have fueled the rapid spread of the disease, according to a new study.

When news of a mysterious viral pneumonia linked to a seafood market in Wuhan, China, reached the outside world in early January, one of my first reactions was to order a modest supply of masks. Just a few weeks later, there wasn’t a mask to be bought in stores, or online for a reasonable price — just widespread price gouging. Many health experts, no doubt motivated by the sensible and urgent aim of preserving the remaining masks for health care workers, started telling people that they didn’t need masks or that they wouldn’t know how to wear them. As the...

Healthcare workers across New York City are bracing for a surge in COVID-19 patients who need hospital care. But they are already seeing shortages of supplies and staff as their colleagues test positive for the virus, and while patients displaying flu-like symptoms continue to crowd emergency rooms. “Everything is being rationed,” said one nurse in a Queens hospital whose floor was just converted to the first COVID-19 floor, and is now full with two dozen patients. “We went from donning and doffing gowns, only in the patient room, to being told we can wear the same gown in two positive-Corona...

Although it’s impossible to say how many Americans will die because of the new coronavirus, under a reasonable set of assumptions the number of fatalities could be high — potentially in the hundreds of thousands or more. Deaths on that scale are not easy to grasp. To put the estimates in context, we’re comparing the possible toll with other leading causes of death in the United States in 2018, the most recent year with data available. We’ve started with an estimate from a University of Nebraska public health researcher, Dr. James Lawler, that was recently presented to hospital executives: 480,000...

Tom Brady is set to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after spending 20 years with the New England Patriots, reportedly agreeing in principle to a deal with the NFC South team. The NFL Network reported Tuesday night that Brady and the Buccaneers have reached “an agreement in principle.” According to the NFL Network and ESPN, the deal is worth around $30 million.

The Orthodox faithful throughout the world have been encouraged to increase their prayers and their focus on the spiritual life as the coronavirus continues to spread, while, of course, maintaining increased standards of hygiene. “If we pray, entreat God, and repent of our sins, then we will destroy this sickness,” His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine preached on Sunday. “Therefore, the most important thing in this is not so much sanitary standards as it is prayer and repentance.” And a recent statement from the Georgian Patriarchate called on the faithful to read special prayers every day, while...

NASA’s Juno mission captured this look at the southern hemisphere of Jupiter on Feb. 17, 2020, during the spacecraft’s most recent close approach to the giant planet. Not only is Jupiter the largest planet orbiting the Sun, it contains more than twice the amount of material of all other objects in the solar system combined — including all the planets, moons, asteroids and comets. In composition, Jupiter resembles a star, and scientists estimate that if it had been at least 80 times more massive at its formation, it could have become a type of star called a red dwarf rather...

The Democrats offer the free world, that cares about American greatness, the leadership choice spectacle of a spendthrift socialist with a recent heart attack a wide range of plans for bankrupting America and a sleepy old hasbeen who cannot be relied upon to remember his own name for the next four and a half let alone lead. They do have one better candidate than either of these two guys, but she is honest with them and does principled things like not voting for a rabidly partisan impeachment, so the DNC shuts her out of its debates. The good side of...

Moscow, March 17, Interfax - Clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church will not give up celebrating divine liturgies even if coronavirus spreads, head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion said. "I can tell you exactly: we will not close our churches and abolish divine services," head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations Metropoitan Hilarion said in The Church and the World program on Rossiya-24 TV. However, he said that the question of who will attend the services, how people should behave themselves, how to protect people, it is a question which the Church will...

[Catholic Caucus] Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston to suspend Mass 'indefinitely' amid coronavirus pandemic The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston will suspend Mass indefinitely amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, following days of civic leaders urging people to stay home and away from each other. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo said the suspension would begin Wednesday, but churches would remain open for "individual and private prayer." He also recommended that priests offer confessions in more places other than small confessional booths, which could bring two people closer than what health officials recommend. Weddings can also go on, but only the rite and with only 10 people in...

In the darkness of the early hours Monday, about a dozen immigration agents gathered outside a Starbucks in Bell Gardens, Calif. For the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, who make daily arrests, it was supposed to be business as usual. But that morning, they greeted one another with elbows instead of handshakes; the Starbucks where they rendezvoused was only grab and go; and they passed freeway signs that read: "Wash your hands stay healthy avoid COVID-19."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned Republican senators on Tuesday that failure to act on a proposed coronavirus rescue package could lead to U.S. unemployment as high as 20% and lasting economic damage, a person familiar with the closed-door meeting said. Mnuchin met with senators to persuade them to pass a $1 trillion stimulus package that would send cash to Americans within two weeks and backstop airlines and other companies.

In response to growing public health concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has announced the suspension of public Masses, at least until March 29. “I deeply regret that we are forced to temporarily suspend public celebration of the Mass in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,” Archbishop José H. Gomez said in a statement released March 16. “What we do in the Church, we do out of love for God and love for our brothers and sisters. We are taking this extraordinary step today out of love and concern for those in our families and...

A man flouted Spain's coronavirus quarantine rules by taking out the rubbish while dressed as a dinosaur. Police officers stopped the man - who was wearing a tyrannosaurus rex costume - and gave him a warning as he waddled away from a street-side bin where he had just dumped a bag. The bizarre incident in Vistabella, Murcia, happened days into a government-imposed lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus. Residents and tourists alike are banned from going outside except to buy food, go to work or get medical help for 15 days.

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There are so many things that we can't touch right now, so I thought I'd try to inject some humor. Not new, but my husband and I are Auto Brats, so its customary for us to watch a few of these in a row when we need a pick-me-up.

United States falls short of justifying the draconian measures that are now being implemented. As of two days ago, 39 states have declared states of emergency, and they have been joined at the federal level with President Trump’s recent declaration to the same effect. These declarations are meant to endow governments with the power to impose quarantines and travel bans, close schools, restrict public gatherings, shut down major sporting events, stop public meetings, and close restaurants and bars. Private institutions are imposing similar restrictions. The one-two punch of public and private restrictions has caused a huge jolt to the economy....

Honored Chinese Cardinal's Beatification Delayed 03/17/2020 China (International Christian Concern) – The beatification process of Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-mei has stalled, with the Vatican stating China-Vatican diplomatic sensitivity as the cause of the delay. Cardinal Kung is viewed as an icon of papal loyalty for spending 30 years in a Chinese jail for refusing to disown the church. The 20-year anniversary of his death recently passed on March 12.The Vatican has not yet started the Cardinal’s beatification process. Cardinal Joseph Zen, the retired bishop of Hong Kong, commented saying, “pushing for Cardinal Kung’s beatification is a waste of time, and...

A bug in Facebook's anti-spam system caused the platform to mistakenly mark some posts from individuals and publishers about the novel coronavirus as spam on Tuesday, a top Facebook official said. Guy Rosen, Facebooks vice president of integrity, said in a tweet that the company was in the process of "fixing and bringing all these posts back." He denied that the problem stemmed from Facebook's decision to send home contract workers who review content on the site in response to the outbreak of the virus. He made the denial in a direct response to a tweet from the company's former...

MSNBC Analyst Glenn Kirschner suggested Tuesday that he would attempt to prosecute President Donald Trump for negligent homicide over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Kirschner laid out his explanation in a series of tweets, first claiming that the president “may have criminal exposure for some level of negligent homicide or voluntary/involuntary manslaughter for the way he’s mishandled the Coronavirus crisis.” He went on to tout his own career as a prosecutor, saying that he had always been “on the lookout for novel ways to apply homicide … liability in an attempt to appropriately and ethically hold accountable those who...