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Jan Howard, a longtime singer who spent nearly five decades as part of country music’s famed Grand Ole Opry, has died. She was 91. Howard died Saturday in Gallatin, Tenn., the Grand Ole Opry announced. “Jan Howard was a force of nature in country music, at the Opry, and in life,” said Dan Rogers, the musical institution’s vice president and executive producer. “We were all so lucky so many nights to hear her voice on stage and to catch up with her backstage. We’re all better for having had her in our lives.” The Grand Ole Opry, which Howard joined...

Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday sent a letter to hospital administrators requesting they provide any Wuhan coronavirus testing data available to the Trump administration. The goal is to arm the White House Coronavirus Task Force with data so they can make informed decisions about how to best protect the American people from the Wuhan coronavirus.  The administration is asking every hospital with testing information to update the spreadsheet they were sent every day by 5 p.m. ET. The full letter is below: Dear Hospital Administrator:On behalf of President Trump and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, I want to extend...

Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare has created guidelines for the priority of care for Chinese coronavirus patients that could see elderly Swedish citizens left to die in favour of illegal migrants.Sweden’s elderly, along with Swedes with pre-existing health conditions, can be given lower priority than healthy young illegal migrants, according to the new guidelines. Dr Thomas Lindén, of the National Board of Health and Welfare, said that health professionals should prioritise based on medical needs and not on the basis of citizenship, according to Nyheter Idag. “The principles of prioritisation say that we should prioritise on the basis...

When it came to deadly epidemics, the Soviets didn’t do half-measures. Not only doctors, but the police, army, navy, and even the KGB were all brought in to curb the spread.In 1939, microbiologist Abram Berlin brought a dangerous disease back with him to Moscow from Saratov. There in Saratov, during experiments on animals, he used the living causative agent of the plague, and was strictly confined to quarantine. However, an urgent call from Moscow forced him to go immediately to the capital, unleashing the plague. Berlin checked in at the Hotel National, dined there, and visited a hairdresser. Feeling very...

Covid fatality rates per age groups:Based on VOX (with brief excerpts): Covid-19 risks for different age groups, explained (Mar 23, 2020. (https://www.vox.com/2020/3/23/21190033/coronavirus-covid-19-deaths-by-age) â–º Kids under 10 years old:Italy, South Korea, and China have no reported fatalities for this group. Out of 28,600 total cases in Spain, 26 percent were hospitalized, and one child was put in the ICU (a 0.8 percent rate); and there have been zero fatalities. Zero have ended up in intensive care, while one person has died (0.4 percent). â–º Tweens and teens (10 to 19 years old):Italy and South Korea have reported no fatalities for...

Here at home, there are rising concerns about the Wuhan coronavirus. Philadelphia officials are hoping to give residents, as well as restaurants and businesses, a boost of confidence and support. “We have confidence that everybody’s safe coming to Chinatown,” Mayor Jim Kenney said. As a major show of support for residents and businesses in Chinatown, Kenney and other city officials had lunch at the Ocean Harbor Restaurant on Thursday afternoon. They’re hoping to quell rising fears about the coronavirus

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is distributing its 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel to public health labs through the International Reagent Resource...Tests using two components were not determined to be reliable until 28 February 2020, and it was not until then that state and local laboratories were permitted to begin testing. The test was approved by the Food and Drug Administration under an Emergency Use Authorization. From the CDC, updated March 15, 2020 regarding the above:Is this test FDA -approved or cleared? No. This test is not yet approved or cleared...

Songwriter John Prine is hospitalized and in critical condition with COVID-19 symptoms, according to a statement posted to his Twitter account on Sunday afternoon. “After a sudden onset of Covid-19 symptoms, John was hospitalized on Thursday (3/26),” the statement reads. “He was intubated Saturday evening, and continues to receive care, but his situation is critical.” The news follows a video posted to Instagram 12 days ago from Prine’s wife, Fiona, in which she revealed she’d been diagnosed with the Coronavirus. At the time, she said, John also was tested but the results came back “indeterminate.” She noted that John had...

The one size fits all solution is going to ruin us as a nation. This needs to stop!! Below are what I propose as a common sense approach to dealing with COVID-19. Breaking us up into risk groups makes sense, at least to me. Group 1: Ages 0-40 This group does not need to practice social distancing or change any behavior with respect to each other in this group. This group can work, play and go about their daily lives as normal with the exception of respecting the practice of social distancing with group 2, 3 and 4. Group 2:...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB2drJIWI7Y

A group of armed vigilantes cut down a tree and dragged it across a man’s driveway in Maine to force him to quarantine in his home amid fears he could be infected with the coronavirus, officials said. A man residing on Cripple Creek Road in Vinalhaven, an island off the coast of Maine, called authorities around 3:35 p.m. Friday to report a group of people with guns had cut down a large tree and dragged it in front of his driveway, blocking access to the main road. The man said he left his house to check his property when he...

New York’s health commissioner on Wednesday dismissed a call from White House officials for anyone who left or is leaving the New York metro area to self-quarantine for two weeks. “I would not follow that,” Dr. Howard Zucker told reporters in Albany. “These cases are all over the country, it’s not just in New York,” he added.

Elections Under Evers’s proposal, Wisconsinites would no longer be required to provide a photo ID in order to vote when a public health emergency is declared. The bill includes provisions the governor floated Friday, such as allowing absentee ballots to be counted as long as they are postmarked by election day and extending the time for voters to register online.

Charles Mackay wrote not of pandemics but “moral epidemics” 179 years ago in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. “We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object,” he observed, “and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, [until] their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” Mackay wrote of hopes overriding reason in the public’s manias for tulips and alchemy and so much else. Now, our fears override our reason. The Moscow boogeyman seizing our democracy this...

A second cadet has been found dead at the U.S. Air Force Academy, days after officials reported that a “firstie” who was due to graduate in May had died. Cadets and staff were told in an online briefing on Saturday of the latest death at the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based academy, several members of the institution’s community told Stars and Stripes, asking not to be named because they were not authorized to comment on the incident.

Edible cups made from seaweed. Shopping bags from cassava starch. Food containers from sugarcane fiber. These are some of the bioplastic alternatives being tried out in Indonesia, the world’s No. 2 producer of seaweed.It’s just after sunrise here in Bali, and a group of locals are preparing to sail their wooden boats out to a bay off Nusa Lembongan, a small island southeast of the tourism hotspot. They’re neither fishermen nor tour guides. They’re farmers, cultivating a watery crop that promises to be part of the solution to the increasingly urgent problem of marine plastic waste that’s become woven into...

In a CNN interview on Sunday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) blamed the Wuhan coronavirus on President Trump, accusing the president of fiddling while Americans died. "I don't know what the scientist said to him," Pelosi told CNN's Jake Tapper. "When did the president know about this and what did he know? What did he know and when did he know it? That's for an after-action review. But as the president fiddles, people are dying and we just have to take every precaution." Pelosi's mention of an after-action review suggests the Democrats may already be mulling their next impeachment witch hunt....

Publicly acknowledging that reusable bags spread germs, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has temporarily lifted the City's ban on using disposable plastic bags to carry merchandise out of stores. Gov. Charlie Baker (R) bolstered this move by banning reusable bags statewide and allowing merchants to offer plastic bags in their place while the COVID-19 pandemic persists. Numerous studies have amply demonstrated that reusable bags are infested with pathogens. It is one thing to allow anti-plastic zealots to carry them around. It is yet another for such bags to be made the only legal option for shoppers. Plastic bags became dominant in...

President Donald Trump on Sunday, March 29 announced the extension of federal social distancing guidance for 30 days — until April 30 — as scientists warn virus continues to spread. The coronavirus outbreak could kill 100,000 to 200,000 Americans, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease expert warned on Sunday as smoldering hot spots in nursing homes and a growing list of stricken cities heightened the sense of dread across the country.

President Trump on Sunday issued a major disaster declaration for Washington, D.C., as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread in the city and the country. The declaration allows the city to access federal funds to help D.C.’s efforts in combating the coronavirus. The president’s declaration for D.C. marks the 22nd territory that has received a major disaster declaration and federal assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Nineteen states, Puerto Rico and Guam have received the other designations. The funding will be available to the city government and certain private nonprofit organizations for "emergency protective measures." The declaration follows...