Free Republic

Map dated: 03/28/20 The data for this map was pulled from: https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/tree/master/csse_covid_19_data/csse_covid_19_daily_reports I am validating data by comparing it with other sources: https://covidtracking.com/data/ https://infection2020.com/ https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en as well as various state .gov websites I was beginning to worry that the data may be skewed by the availability of testing and the factors that determined if a test was needed. After looking at state data where the number of positive results and the number of hospitalizations as compared to the number of tests performed remains fairly constant, I feel like this is still a valid representation of the situation. Previous post links...

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has produced a report titled "Social Justice Education in America." Written by David Randall, it defines, describes, and delineates many of the destructive and deceptive ideas behind the innocent-sounding social justice programs that have mushroomed in American institutions of higher learning. According to this December 2019 report, "in the last twenty years, a generation of academics and administrators has transformed higher education into an engine of progressive political advocacy." Identity politics plays a major role in how social justice will be administered. Social justice activists work to increase the "state's coercive power" to decide...

In her first address to the nation on the coronavirus pandemic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel calmly appealed to citizens’ reason and discipline to slow the spread of the virus, acknowledging as a woman who grew up in communist East Germany how difficult it is to give up freedoms, yet as a trained scientist emphasizing that the facts don’t lie. Then, wearing the same blue pantsuit from the televised address, the 65-year-old popped into her local supermarket to pick up food, wine and toilet paper to take back to her Berlin apartment. Merkel has run Germany for more than 14 years...

Our medical care system itself is one of the biggest problems we face as we fight the coronavirus. As we learn more about the COVID-19 Wuhan virus each day, it is becoming increasingly obvious that it isn’t the great threat to our health and survival we were initially led to believe. It is turning out to be more like the schoolyard bully I remember from grade school days who intimidated me with all sorts of name-calling and threats until the day arrived when I decided to fight back. He wasn’t expecting that and when he retreated, I realized he was...

The King of Thailand has taken a harem of 20 concubines with him into self-isolation at a grand hotel in southern Germany, it has been reported. King Maha Vajiralongkorn, also known as Rama X, is believed to have booked out all of the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in Bavaria to self-isolate during the coronavirus pandemic. German tabloid Bild reports the 67-year-old has booked out the entire hotel, with permission from the local district council.

Wealthy elite throughout the United States are taking their families from urban cities and jetting off to more secluded locations, with some even stowing away in entire floors of hotel rooms. Several hotel and inns across the country are offering unique packages for families willing to spend top dollar in order to keep their loved ones safe during the pandemic. Some, like Cape Arundel Inn in Kennebunkport, Maine, are even providing takeovers.

I understand what Ralph Northam, Governor of Virginia was trying to say. After all, he is the governor of all Virginians and cannot cater to one faith group above another. But his tweet could easily be misunderstood, and it does call for a response. On Monday night Gov. Northam tweeted, “Tonight, I held a call with faith leaders across Virginia. I'm grateful for their leadership in bringing people together spiritually, while remaining physically apart. “This virus does not care who we pray to or how we worship––we must all work together in fighting against it.” Mr. Governor, with all due...

ew York Knicks owner James Dolan has tested positive for COVID-19. The Knicks announced the news on Saturday, noting that Dolan is experiencing “little to no symptoms” and “continues to oversee business operations.” It’s not clear from where or how Dolan is running his business as the team announced that he’s been in self-isolation.

With the sports world on hiatus amid the COVID-19 pandemic, ESPN is gearing up to show a multitude of classic Monday Night Football games in the coming weeks. The network will air five games over the next five Mondays at 8 p.m. ET each week, giving football fans a way to pass the time while stuck self-isolating due to the coronavirus.

“I am an Emergency Room MD in New Orleans, UNC class of ’98. Every one of my colleagues have now seen several hundred Covid 19 patients and this is what I think I know. Clinical course is predictable. 2-11 days after exposure (day 5 on average) flu like symptoms start. Common are fever, headache, dry cough, myalgias (back pain), nausea without vomiting, abdominal discomfort with some diarrhea, loss of smell and taste, anorexia, fatigue. Day 5 of symptoms- increased SOB, and bilateral viral pneumonia from direct viral damage to lung parenchyma. Day 10- Cytokine storm leading to acute ARDS and...

The Talk Shows March 29th, 2020 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md.; Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Panel: Marc Thiessen, Kristen Soltis Anderson and Juan Williams. “Power Player of the Week” segment: Joel Osteen.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Gov. John Bel Edwards, D-La.; Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, NOPE*; Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force; Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich. Panel: Hugh Hewitt, Carol Lee, Andrea...

"Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (Matt. 6:13). Have a healthy sense of self-distrust. At the moment of your salvation, judicial forgiveness covered all of your sins—past, present, and future. Parental forgiveness restores the joy and sweet fellowship broken by any subsequent sins. But concurrent with the joy of being forgiven is the desire to be protected from any future sins. That's the desire expressed in Matthew 6:13: "Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil." That petition seems simple enough at first glance, but it raises some important questions. According to...

Consider a little history from the Hawkeye state. The University of Iowa basketball team has a junior center who just completed one of the most amazing seasons in Big Ten history. Luka Garza scored at least 20 points in 16 consecutive games. He set a single season Hawkeye scoring record. He was named Big Ten player of the year and a first team All-American. His achievements came against some of the best big men in the country, in spite of the fact he was usually double and occasionally triple-teamed. The Northwestern coach described Luka with one word, “relentless.” Ironically, even...

By now it should be fairly obvious that we are headed for an economic depression. Even small dips America’s economic activity produce recessions. The unprecedented lockdown of large parts of the United States will inevitably produce a depression such as we have not witnessed in our lifetime. This would actually be a lucky scenario. If the shutdown goes on much longer the result will be a severe economic depression followed by fiscal breakdown and the unavoidable societal upheaval. Please make no mistake: the federal government cannot legitimately finance this country’s closure. The fact is that it simply does not have...

To ascertain how fatal a virus is, we need an accurate picture of how many people have it (the denominator) and how many have died as a result (the numerator), we have neither, but the data is improving and with it some substantial shifts away from the original model, which predicted far more deaths as a result of the Wuhan virus than we are seeing. (Rather like the Zika scare where the claim that virus resulted in natal microcephaly was proven upon examination to be anecdotal and not scientific -- but only after the WHO declared it a pandemic and...

Obviously, we are a very badly divided nation: so divided we agree on virtually nothing; so divided we can't even talk to one another anymore; so divided one side doesn't believe in anything the other side says; so divided California, New York and Illinois might as well be on a different planet than Texas. We can't even agree on how to respond to the novel coronavirus, and when to get back to business. Check out the latest Rasmussen poll. Sixty-one percent of Republicans believe America will rise from the dead by Easter. Count me among them. But only 41% of...

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the eurozone’s economy, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire issued a rallying cry to the nation’s supermarkets on 24 March: ‘Stock French products!’ Supermarkets in France have heeded the call for what Le Maire termed "economic patriotism". French supermarket chain Carrefour has already moved to source 95% of its fruits and vegetables from within France. The supermarket industry’s trade body told French business daily Les Echos that once fresh foreign produce runs out on French supermarket shelves, it won’t be replaced. “Delegating our food supply […] to others is madness. We...

A company in Austin, Texas is looking to dock pay from workers who receive government stimulus checks, according to an anonymous employee. With the historic $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus deal signed, Americans can look forward to receiving some economic relief during the pandemic. An unnamed company in Texas, though, appears to be looking to use the stimulus to relieve their payroll strain. On Wednesday, the company sent out a form titled “Employee Acknowledgement of ‘Government Assistance’ Pay Reduction.” The form was reported by an employee who wished to remain anonymous, but the employee spoke to local news KXAN about the...

Given how Democrats have conducted themselves with control over just one half of one branch of government, the thought that they could retain that control, let alone gain more in November, is horrifying. Imagine the people who insisted on inserting cronyism into a bill designed to save the economy from collapse having the power to implement the entirety of their agenda. There would be no pulling up from that nosedive. That is why it’s important not only to retain the Senate and the White House but to retake the House as well. That, as most things in politics are, is...

While swathes of Europe's population endure lockdown conditions in the face of the coronavirus outbreak, one country stands almost alone in allowing life to go on much closer to normal. After a long winter, it's just become warm enough to sit outside in the Swedish capital and people are making the most of it. 'Each person has a heavy responsibility' Public health authorities and politicians are still hoping to slow down the spread of the virus without the need for draconian measures. There are more guidelines than strict rules, with a focus on staying home if you're sick or elderly,...