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Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson is partnering with the U.S. government to produce up to 1 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine for use around the world by the end of next year. Asked on NBC’s “Today” on Monday how quickly the first vaccines could be available, CEO Alex Gorsky replied, “This is like a moonshot for us.” “What would usually take five to seven years, we expect to be able to accomplish in five to seven months,” he said. ------------ SNIP ------------ SEE BELOW FOR IMPORTANT RELATED INFORMATION

It started with an unsubstantiated rumor. “You can laugh now,” Johnny Carson said on The Tonight Show on December 19, 1973, “but there is an acute shortage of toilet paper.” There wasn’t—but it didn’t matter. The broadcast sent America into a mass panic. Millions of shoppers swarmed into grocery stores and began hoarding toilet paper. Ex nihilo, a shortage was born. The Scott Paper Company urged people to stop panic-buying the product. Nevertheless, for four months, toilet paper—absent from shelves—was bartered for, traded, and even sold on the black market....Some experts regard the toilet-paper shortage of ’73 as a...

Macomb County patient was recently given a drug typically used for malaria that is showing positive results for beating COVID-19. Jim Santilli said it helped him and he believes it could help others, too. "I was struggling to breathe. I felt like I was slowly drowning and I was sitting there thinking I'm not going to make it until midnight," he said. Santilli says the experimental drugs Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin brought him back from the brink. The 38-year old was prescribed the drugs a little more than a week ago at Henry Ford Macomb where he was hospitalized for COVID-19....

March 31 2020 Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent Reading 1 Nm 21:4-9 From Mount Hor the children of Israel set out on the Red Sea road, to bypass the land of Edom. But with their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!”In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died. Then the people...

Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil/Easter Day are all important, even essential, to the Christian faith. The church encourages all Christians to participate in all the liturgies of this weekend, because only then do we hear the whole story; only then do we remember and reconnect [“re-member”] emotionally, mentally, and spiritually to the fullness of God’s love for humanity through Jesus Christ.A focal point of our liturgical journey through the weekend is when the presider proclaims at the Easter liturgies, “Alleluia. Christ is risen.” and the people respond, “The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.” To make that joyful proclamation even more joyful,...

The Chinese government now is deep into a disinformation campaign denying that this all started in Wuhan. A key component of that campaign is controlling the language used to describe the pandemic, stripping it of its connection to Wuhan and China, mandating that only generic terminology is used. Meanwhile, Chinese diplomats and media spread claims that the virus either started in the U.S. or was planted in Wuhan by the U.S. So if you claim that calling it Wuhan coronavirus is racist, you are part of the cover-up. Speaking the truth is not the problem, covering up the truth is...

"The longest chronology in the world stretches back 12,000 years. But in the Mediterranean, the problem is that we don't have a full, continuous record going back to the time of Thera," Pearson said. "We have recorded the last 2,000 years very well, but then there's a gap. We have tree rings from earlier periods, but we don't know exactly which dates the rings correspond to. This is what's called a 'floating chronology.'" Filling this gap could help pin down the Thera eruption date and paint a climatic backdrop for the various civilizations that rose and fell during the Bronze...

A Moorestown man is on a ventilator in Cooper ICU. His family is searching for a potential plasma donor. MOORESTOWN, NJ — A Moorestown family is seeking help for a man who is currently hospitalized on a ventilator in the Cooper Hospital ICU with new coronavirus. John Pratsinakis is fighting for his life against the virus, his daughter said on Monday. She is asking if anyone who has already fully recovered from their battle with the virus might be a potential blood donor. “We don’t know where this journey will lead us, but we must be prepared,” said Katerina Pratsinakis,...

Baruch Feldheim, 43, is facing charges of assault and making false statements to the feds on Sunday outside his Borough Park home where he allegedly peddled and stored massive amounts of N95 respirator masks, federal officials said. Feldheim is also accused of price-gouging. On March 18, he’s suspected of selling a New Jersey doctor about 1,000 of the masks for $12,000, a markup of roughly 700 percent, authorities said. [cut] The arrest comes after President Trump claimed that some medical supplies were being swiped from New York City hospitals, which Mayor Bill de Blasio dismissed as insulting.

On the last Sunday in March a year ago, The Washington Post Magazine published a goopy cover story titled "Pelosi's Moment." On the last Sunday in March this year, The Post published an "Opinion Essay" in the A section that went on for three pages (with eight photographs) celebrating Pelosi as "A troublemaker with a gavel." Reporter-turned-columnist Karen Tumulty wrote what sounded like a very long, saccharine Hallmark greeting card for Pelosi's 80th birthday. She has been the target of thousands of Republican campaign ads, though that assault failed spectacularly in 2018, when Democrats swept the midterm elections and regained...

Conservative Twitter was outraged on Friday by a New York Times op-ed viciously titled "The Road to Coronavirus Hell Was Paved by Evangelicals." Later in the day, it was revised to a gentler meanness (the subtitle's the same): The Religious Right’s Hostility to Science Is Crippling Our Coronavirus Response Trump’s response to the pandemic has been haunted by the science denialism of his ultraconservative religious allies. The author is Katherine Stewart, author of a book called The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. On Friday night, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins appeared on Fox News at...

Several of my most recent posts have focused on how abortion providers and activist groups are using the coronavirus crisis to promote at-home chemical abortions and demanding special treatment so that they may keep their doors open while other businesses are shuttered across the country. (And this isn’t for the sake of helping to manage the spread of COVID-19. Planned Parenthood in Pennsylvania, for instance, has closed all of its health centers that don’t perform abortions.) The latest group to take up the refrain is the New York Times editorial board, which never misses an opportunity to proclaim from on...

Rose Garden5:12 P.M. EDTTHE PRESIDENT:  Okay, thank you very much.  Thank you.  Very comfortable here.  A lot of room.  And we appreciate you being here.Yesterday I announced that we would be extending our social distance guidelines through the end of April.  This is based on modeling that shows the peak in fatalities will not arrive for another two weeks.  The same modeling also shows that, by very vigorously following these guidelines, we could save more than 1 million American lives.  Think of that: 1 million American lives.Our future is in our own hands, and the choices and sacrifices we...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Healthcare; Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 JOHN 5:14 Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

WASHINGTON — Mayor Muriel Bowser is threatening residents of Washington, DC, with 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine if they leave their homes during the coronavirus outbreak. The threat of jail is alarming residents and civil libertarians who point out that at least five inmates tested positive for COVID-19 in the city’s 1,700-inmate jail near Capitol Hill. “Our message remains the same: stay home,” Bowser, a Democrat, said in a statement Monday. The stay-home order has exceptions for grocery shopping and work deemed essential. Outdoor recreation such as running is allowed, but cannot involve people outside of a...

Planned Parenthood, along with other pro-abortion organizations, sued government officials in four states on Monday after abortion in those states was deemed a “non-essential” procedure during the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, the abortion corporation also sued the state of Texas for its temporary suspension of elective abortions. Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Texas each issued orders that either call for — or appear to call for — abortion to be included in non-essential medical procedures that must be postponed during the COVID-19 crisis. As emergency medical teams and hospitals face a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff members...

A federal judge has blocked Ohio’s ban on abortion during the coronavirus pandemic just hours after Planned Parenthood, Preterm Cleveland, and other abortion facilities made the request. Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett temporarily blocked the ban for 14 days, but he also said he may issue a preliminary injunction to allow abortions to continue while the abortion facilities prepare their legal fight. Earlier this month, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sent letters to abortion facilities ordering them to stop committing “non-essential and elective” surgical abortions. The letters were sent after a request was made by the Ohio Department of...

Dr. Rodney Howard-Browne, pastor of The River at Tampa Bay Church, was arrested at his home today by Hernando County Sheriff Deputies for holding a church service yesterday. The church is located in Hillsborough County, Florida. Hillsborough County has issued administrative orders addressing meetings and social distancing, which will be addressed below. Pastor Howard-Browne and his wife founded the church in 1996. He also heads Revival Ministries International. He was born in South Africa and has resided in Tampa, Florida since the mid-1990s. Liberty Counsel has agreed to represent Pastor Howard-Browne, who was taken into custody today. As the arrest...

The Poconos region -- particularly Monroe County -- is being called a "hot zone" for the coronavirus pandemic. The president of St. Luke's Hospital's Monroe Campus, Don Seiple, said the the Poconos' close ties to New York City, the nation's virus epicenter, will likely lead a much larger increase in cases locally unless something is done soon. ---SNIP--- Those traveling from New York City are now supposed to self-quarantine for two weeks. However, Seiple said, plenty of people have already been exposed.

People living with HIV under the age of 50 lose lung function faster than HIV-negative people, a review of a large US cohort has shown. People with a previous low CD4 cell count also had faster declines in lung function. The findings were presented at the 2020 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. Conference presentations are taking place online to minimise the risk of coronavirus transmission.