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U.S. hospitals desperate to help very sick patients with COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, are trying a treatment first used in the 1890s that relies on blood plasma donated by recovered patients. People who survive an infectious disease like COVID-19 are generally left with blood containing antibodies, or proteins made by the body's immune system to fight off a virus. The blood component that carries the antibodies can be collected and given to newly infected patients - it is known as "convalescent plasma." More than 275,000 Americans have tested positive for COVID-19, and epidemiologists...

Torrance County, New Mexico, is now at six individuals with the virus. Does anybody know where they are in the county?

Outbreaks of human coronavirus infections have often been centered around hospitals and health-care providers in their early stages. This was seen with SARS-CoV-1 in 2003-04,<1>, <2> MERS-CoV in 2018-19<3>, and SARS-Cov-2 in 2020.<4> It is presumably related to the non-specific symptoms of these illnesses early in their clinical course coupled with close contact of health-care providers with infected patients in hospital, and inadequate personal protective equipment use.<3> Infection of health-care providers with highly morbid human coronaviruses is problematic not just due to their subsequent role in propagating infection among vulnerable inpatients, but due to the impact of illness in health-care...

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, Manhattan -- A woman who was treated with an experimental drug to fight the coronavirus is sharing her recovery story. "Once my fever was gone, it was gone, that was it," Suzanne Schwing said. Schwing is smiling again and with good reason. She spent 10 days in a hospital room after she was rushed to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, where she was diagnosed with COVID-19. "I was never on a ventilator, fortunately, and at one point, even with the Tylenol, my temperature reached 104, apparently, which I found out when the nurses came in...

PORTSMOUTH, U.K., April 3, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― An English bishop has admitted that he is reflecting on his decision to close the churches of his diocese in the context of other public places, including places of worship, remaining open. Bishop Philip Egan of the Diocese of Portsmouth wrote of his agony and confusion in the face of the British government’s self-contradictory orders regarding church closures. “It was an agonising decision as a priest and as a Bishop to mandate the cessation of the public celebration of the Sacraments and to close our churches,” he wrote last Sunday. “Regarding the latter,...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) defended deeming churches as “essential” in his stay-at-home order, telling reporters during Thursday’s press conference that the government does not have the authority to close a church and adding that they play an important role, particularly “in times like this.” DeSantis formally issued a stay-at-home order on Wednesday after days of mounting pressure. The order is designed to “limit their [Floridians’] movements and personal interactions outside of their home to only those necessary to obtain or provide essential services or conduct essential activities.” Essential activities include picking up groceries, going to doctor appointments, and, notably,...

President Donald Trump on Saturday doubled down on his support for a drug that is still being tested to treat the coronavirus, saying he might take the medicine himself and encouraging others with doctor approval to do the same. At his daily press briefing, Trump also chided some states for requesting more ventilators from the federal government than he said they needed. Trump said the next week would be particularly tough with a "lot of death" coming from the coronavirus. But he also reiterated his concern that the social distancing "cure" for the outbreak was worse than the problem. Trump...

Did coronavirus leak from a research lab in Wuhan? Startling new theory is 'no longer being discounted' amid claims staff 'got infected after being sprayed with blood' Ministers fear that the coronavirus pandemic might have been caused by a leak from a Chinese laboratory, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Senior Government sources say that while 'the balance of scientific advice' is still that the deadly virus was first transmitted to humans from a live animal market in Wuhan, a leak from a laboratory in the Chinese city is 'no longer being discounted'. One member of Cobra, the emergency committee...

I have been discussing Catholic Moral Teaching in the last two columns. The authentic Magisterium of the Catholic Church affirms that there are intrinsically evil acts which can never, ever, ever be chosen. A clear summary of this teaching is found in paragraph 80 of the encyclical letter of Pope St. John Paul II entitled The Splendor of Truth (Veritatis Splendor): “Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature ‘incapable of being ordered’ to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which,...

The head of the Food and Drug Administration said he is hopeful about finding a treatment for coronavirus after federal health officials approved two treatments for emergency use. Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, spoke Saturday during the White House coronavirus task force press briefing. He highlighted a program that uses convalescent plasma as a way to treat COVID-19 patients. The program collects blood plasma from people who have recovered from the novel coronavirus and transfers the immunoglobulins - antibodies produced by white blood cells and offer immunity - to help patients recover more rapidly....

You may have encountered the rumor that a lab in Winnipeg, Canada, might have played an inadvertent role in the creation of the COVID-19 virus. The general idea behind this is that Chinese communist medical spies worked in the lab at our invitation (which makes my use of the word inadvertent rather charitable), and that they illegally stole information and even had samples shipped to China. Here's the official disclaimer (lame at best) trotted out by our government for the (dis)information of the sheeple of Kanaduh. Do you believe a word of this? I don't. But I'm used to seeing...

Dr. Deborah Birx said Saturday that Americans should especially focus on social distancing guidelines in the next two weeks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. “This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe,” she said. Birx noted that Pennsylvania, Colorado, and the Washington, DC, metro area were starting to have an increasing number of cases. “We’re hoping and believing that if people mitigate strongly, the work that they did over the last two weeks will blunt that...

Most religious celebrations have been closed to the public.FRANCE, April 1, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – On Sunday, a widely shared message and a photo on the Twitter account of a Parisian priest became a symbol of hope. Father Franck Derville, hospital chaplain of one of the foremost hospitals in Paris, Hôpital Cochin, visited COVID-19 patients in the ICU ward. He posted a picture of himself wearing protective garb over his Roman collar as well as a mask and glasses. At a time when most religious celebrations have been closed to the public, visits of religious ministers to the sick and to...

SpaceX’s ban on Zoom Video Communications Inc illustrates the mounting challenges facing aerospace manufacturers as they develop technology deemed vital to national security while also trying to keep employees safe from the fast-spreading respiratory illness. In an email dated March 28, SpaceX told employees that all access to Zoom had been disabled with immediate effect. “We understand that many of us were using this tool for conferences and meeting support,” SpaceX said in the message. “Please use email, text or phone as alternate means of communication.”

Researchers in Australia report that Ivermectin, an FDA-approved drug commonly used to treat parasites, appears to be effective in treating the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus (COVID-19). The drug is widely available and can be “repurposed” for this application, doctors said. The ScienceDirect journal, Antiviral Research, published an article by a group of Australian researchers from Monash University in Melbourne reporting that Ivermectin appears to be effective at inhibiting the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The article states: Ivermectin is an inhibitor of the COVID-19 causative virus (SARS-CoV-2) in vitro. A single treatment able to effect ∼5000-fold reduction in virus at 48h in cell...

While it’s hard to see the bright side of things during the dark days of the coronavirus pandemic, one potential silver lining is the fact most consumers are cooking more at home. Research has shown that home cooking not only often can lead to healthier overall lifestyles, but it’s also a good life skill to teach kids. And whether you’re taking a casual tour of social media or looking at data from any number of sources, signs today definitely point to more of us making our own food. A lot more of us. But what specifically do the numbers say?...

Over the past few years, the United States’ approach to China has taken a hard-line turn, with the balance between cooperation and competition in the U.S.-Chinese relationship tilting sharply toward the latter. Most American policymakers and commentators consider this confrontational new strategy a response to China’s growing assertiveness, embodied especially in the controversial figure of Chinese President Xi Jinping. But ultimately, this ongoing tension—particularly with the added pressures of the new coronavirus outbreak and an economic downturn—is likely to expose the brittleness and insecurity that lie beneath the surface of Xi’s, and Beijing’s, assertions of solidity and strength. The United...

Not Only Zen. Cardinal Bo Is Also Openly Attacking China Myanmar borders China and is economically dependent on it. But that has not kept the archbishop of the capital of Yangon, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, from openly criticizing the powerful neighbor.He has done so with a statement made public with great emphasis on April 2 on the website of his archdiocese.The statement is reproduced in full below. It is very severe and detailed in denouncing the Chinese regime's guilt in the spread of the coronavirus epidemic, with the effect that "lies and propaganda have put millions of lives around the...

The National Basketball Association recently suspended its season. At the time, the reason given seemed justified, given the emergence of COVID-19 and that several players in the league have now tested positive. However, it has been confirmed by anonymous sources that a league shutdown has been in the making for months and that they were simply looking for a good excuse to shut it all down. The players, led by Washington Generals All-Star Power Forward Art Tubolls, held a secret vote prior to the beginning of the season to suspend the league for any credible reason until President Donald Trump...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, said Friday China and other nations should be pressured to shut down so-called “wet markets” as the new novel coronavirus spreads throughout the world. “[They] should shut down those things right away,” Fauci told 'Fox & Friends" Friday. “It just boggles my mind that when we have so many diseases that emanate out of that unusual human-animal interface that we don’t just shut it down.” Scientists have yet to determine exactly how the novel coronavirus spreading around the globe began infecting people. But theories have swirled that...