Free Republic

A virus is “simply a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein,” the biologists Jean and Peter Medawar wrote in 1977. In January, scientists deciphered a piece of very bad news: the genome of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The sample came from a 41-year-old man who worked at the seafood market in Wuhan where the first cluster of cases appeared. Researchers are now racing to make sense of this viral recipe, which could inspire drugs, vaccines and other tools to fight the ongoing pandemic.

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to lead Labour “into a new era with confidence and hope” after decisively winning the contest to succeed Jeremy Corbyn. The 57-year old defeated Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey in a ballot of party members and other supporters. The lawyer, who became an MP in 2015, won on the first round of voting, with more than 50% of ballots cast. […] In a video message released by the Labour Party, Sir Keir promised to work constructively in opposition and said he hoped Labour “when the time comes can serve our country again — in government”....

After all kinds of complaining that his state of New York needs ventilators, oh so many ventilators because there aren’t nearly enough in New York, has refused help from Remington when they offered to send ventilators to New York. But as we previously reported the Democrats in New York not up to the task of handling the Coronavirus threat. Now there are some conservative commentators who questioned how busy American hospitals actually are. On Twitter, photos and video clips purporting to show nearly empty hospital parking lots. More of t he same on a YouTube “citizen reporters” video. https://twitter.com/toddstarnes/status/1243302444970520578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1243302444970520578&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fconservativeus.com%2Ftruth-or-fiction-citizen-reporters-go-out-and-record-videos-about-allegedly-empty-hospitals-in-coronavirus-epicenter%2F Todd...

...A popular political twitter username, Thao Nguyen @helloitsthao (followed by people like Matt Gaetz and Scott Pressler), posts election news and data from around the country. All the data posted under her twitter handle is backed up by statistics posted on local, state and national sites. She gathers it, so we don’t have to...You can see that from 2016-2018 we lost around 75k voters, but from 2018-2020 we have seen 35,210 new Republican voters.

This "Time of Great Uncertainty". "These Uncertain Times". Notice how this terminology is ubiquitous now? It's everywhere. Last night there were earthquakes and the local news opened with that story. The anchor says, in this time of Great Uncertainty there have been a series of earthquakes. Then the commercials. Hyundai does a commercial for their car, says "in these uncertain times". Next it's Sprint, again, "in these uncertain times".

In an effort to alert residents to the parish-wide curfew in Acadia Parish, Crowley Police rode around town broadcasting an alarm signal at 9:00 last night, but it's not what anyone expected. In a video provided to KATC, the audible alarm from Crowley Police is actually the alarm sound from the successful film franchise "The Purge". The implementation of the siren, which Crowley Police told residents would be different than regular police sirens, is to enforce the 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew. When residents hear this sound, Crowley Police say it is for their citizens to be notified that...

You’ve been triaged, upstate New York. The governor put the black tag around your neck. Some will live and some will die and, well, you don’t get to live. That’s what Andy Cuomo’s decree of Friday means. Your ventilators go to his voters and when you get the COVID, well, good luck to you. If all goes well, your family can have a memorial service in a year or two, after the Chinese sell us the vaccine. And if it’s not you, it’s your grandmother, or somebody’s grandfather, suffocating alone on a gurney in a tent. He has decided to...

CNN’s Brooke Baldwin announced on Friday that she has tested positive for the coronavirus. Baldwin announced her diagnosis on Instagram, in a post which read, “I am OKAY. It came on suddenly yesterday afternoon. Chills, aches, fever. I’ve been social distancing. Doing ALL the things we’re being told to do. Still — it got me.” “Honestly, I feel like one of the lucky ones,” Baldwin added before giving a “shout out” to the doctors and nurses on the front lines. Before testing positive, Baldwin had covered the virus extensively on CNN’s Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin. Although the anchor will take...

I contacted the University of Pittsburgh because I wanted to volunteer for testing their new COVID-19 vaccine. They said it was way too soon, and they weren’t looking for any volunteers now. By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)April 4, 2020On April 2, 2020, the Tribune Review reported:Pittsburgh scientists develop possible coronavirus vaccine, hope FDA can fast-track itA potential vaccine against the novel coronavirus causing the covid-19 outbreak has been created in a University of Pittsburgh lab.Researchers say the first phase of human clinical trials — which would include healthy volunteers in the Pittsburgh area — could start in the...

The union that represents healthcare workers in California announced it had arranged the purchase of 39 million N95 masks for hospitals and government agencies that badly need the protective equipment. Among the intended recipients was Kaiser Permanente, which placed orders for 6 million masks. A week later, none of those masks have materialized, and Kaiser is cooperating with a federal fraud investigation into the deal, a spokesman for the health plan confirmed.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) is encouraging residents in his city to tattletale on their neighbors who defy his stay-at-home order. Specifically, he's targetting businesses that continue to remain open despite not being considered "essential" (at least by government standards). “If any non-essential businesses continue to operate in violation of the stay at home order, we’re going to act to enforce the safer at home order and ensure their compliance,” Garcetti said. “You know the old expression about snitches. Well, in this case, snitches get rewards.” “We want to thank you for turning folks in and making sure we...

Yesterday's thread here: http://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3831367/posts?page=1

Noontime Special edition. Four little kittens being raised by humans (lost their mom) learning how to play. Video, 3 minutes, 56 seconds.

Mexican brewers are halting production and domestic distribution in response to a federal suspension of nonessential economic activity to contain the spread of the new coronavirus. Heineken Mexico, which brews brands such as Dos Equis, Sol and Indio, said Friday it would suspend nationwide distribution of its products. Output at its seven breweries will be reduced to a minimum to prevent “irreversible effects that could make it impossible to reactivate our economic activity,” the company said in a statement. Its main rival, Grupo Modelo, brewer of Corona and Modelo, took similar measures on Thursday. The company is a unit of...

China has been appointed to a panel on the controversial U.N. Human Rights Council, where it will help vet candidates for important posts -- despite its decades-long record of systematic human rights abuse that the U.S. has said fueled the coronavirus pandemic. Jiang Duan, minister at the Chinese Mission in Geneva, was appointed to the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Consultative Group -- where he will serve as the representative of the Asia-Pacific states. He will serve as one of five representatives for blocs of countries and is joined by delegates from Spain, Slovenia and Chad.

NFL Chief Medical Officer Dr. Allen Sills said that "widespread testing would have to be available before the reopening of the league could be contemplated," according to Judy Battista of NFL.com. Sills "cautioned against assuming that earlier comments from league officials about the league's focus on starting the season on time mean it will definitely happen." He said, "That's everyone's hope, that we are in a position to do that. But the reality is none of us know those facts for certain right now." Sills added that the "widespread availability of point of care testing -- where a test could...

Oregon is sending 140 ventilators to New York, Gov. Kate Brown announced on Twitter Saturday morning. “New York needs more ventilators, and we are answering their call for help,” Brown tweeted. “We’ll be sending 140 ventilators to help NY because Oregon is in a better position right now. We must do all that we can to help those on the front lines of this response.” . . . . Oregon received 140 ventilators from the Strategic National Stockpile on March 27.

Experts now agree the virus’s spread can be slowed but not contained. It will take its place among mostly seasonal respiratory infections. After a time, recurrent outbreaks will be moderated by a large number of potential carriers who have immunity from their last infection. And then we can ask some questions. The cost to Americans of the economic shutdown is vast. What are they getting for their money? Essentially less excess demand for respiratory ventilators and other emergency care than can currently be supplied.

Retail giant Walmart on Friday announced changes to its retail stores across the country. The changes are geared to protect staff and customers from the Wuhan coronavirus. "While many of our customers have been following the advice of the medical community regarding social distancing and safety, we have been concerned to still see some behaviors in our stores that put undue risk on our people," Dacona Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, said in a post on the company's website. "We want to encourage customers to bring the fewest number of people per family necessary to shop, allow...

1) Trump proclaims Pence will not take part in the one VP debate. Reason: the #2 in a Biden WH has a decent chance to be #1 inside the 4 years so it's only right she's goes against the current POTUS. 2 )POTUS declares the ONE issue discussed will be racism thereby putting himself in position to challenge everything they stand by-especially an angry woman. We are all confident what the results will be.