Free Republic

"The US surgeon general on Sunday warned Americans that the coming week will be the “hardest and the saddest” in most people’s lives due to the coronavirus pandemic — comparing it to Pearl Harbor and 9/11." I wish the Surgeon General would just can the hyperbole. He's making a broad brush statement without any regard to what he knows about people's lives. I'm pretty sure that a family that has lost a young child or the sudden death of a parent is the "hardest and the saddest" for many people. If he meant something different then he expressed it inartfully....

WASHINGTON - More than two months into what President Donald Trump calls a "war" against COVID-19, his administration's efforts to combat the deadly disease, along with its disastrous effects on the U.S. economy, are often creating more problems than they solve. Bidding wars for life-saving equipment, a power struggle between Trump's son-in-law and the vice president, political gamesmanship, the centralization of authority and decentralization of accountability, and the creation of new government programs while standing bureaucracies are ignored, have all contributed to chaos within the political, economic and health care systems. Banks haven't been able to process loan applications for...

The George H.W. Bush Foundation has helped donate two million masks to China despite American healthcare workers approaching dire shortages of the vital equipment, and the American public now being advised to wear masks. In partnership with the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and the U.S.-China Business Council, the foundation “sourced” the sizable donation. American companies Chubb and Walmart also contributed, and FedEx comped shipping fees.A LinkedIn post described the eveMeanwhile, China’s reaction to the onset of the pandemic was to poach vast quantities of medical supplies from other countries.A company insider at the Chinese Communist Party affiliated developer Greenland Group...

In defending his strategy against the deadly coronavirus, President Donald Trump repeatedly has said he slowed its spread into the United States by acting decisively to bar travelers from China on Jan. 31. “I was criticized by the Democrats when I closed the Country down to China many weeks ahead of what almost everyone recommended. Saved many lives,” he tweeted, for instance, on March 2. But Reuters has found that the administration took a month from the time it learned of the outbreak in late December to impose the initial travel restrictions amid furious infighting. During that time, the National...

Ignore the hype about Coronavirus. Go to Chinatown. Enjoy the Lunar New Year.. I recall reading about New York City's director of health, or some such, making the above statement. His statement seemed to reflect the cavalier attitude of New Yorkers, but I can't find the thread/reference. Can some Freeper post the link? Thanks.

Elon Musk’s prediction of multiple failures of SpaceX’s Starship program came true again on Thursday with a different kind of utter destruction. The SN3 prototype of the silo-like vehicle that is purported to be the future of interplanetary space travel this time appeared to implode before collapsing in a heap of twisted stainless steel. The massive cylinder was undergoing a critical pressure test of the fuel tanks using supercooled nitrogen. It appears a leak occurred and that caused the stubby structure to collapse before a major breach ended its role as a prototype. “We will see what data review says...

The Netherlands has tried to adopt an "intelligent lockdown", but the infection is spreading rapidly and it has one of the world's highest mortality rates from the pandemic. The Dutch have also been accused of failing to show solidarity with countries in southern Europe hit hardest by coronavirus. So what are the Dutch trying to achieve and how has stricken Italy reacted? The Dutch are among the few openly embracing the contentious idea of group or herd immunity. It's an approach characterised by one Dutch global health expert as cold and calculated. Having shunned the stricter measures of neighbouring states...

Speaking regarding the Coronavirus crisis, Governor Newsom of California stated: "We see this as an opportunity to reshape the way we do business and how we govern." The Governor of California best first find himself an expert in miniaturization. California’s self-vaunted fiscal health has been a public charade for years and now with the Coronavirus will be fully exposed as nothing less than a Zombie nightmare. The size and scope of California’s governmental expenditures is not sustainable. The governor best concern himself with the State of California’s wallet before trying to concern himself with reshaping how we govern. U.S. News...

Reports out of Berlin tell of a German Arctic cruise ship being fired on by a Venezuelan naval vessel, which then rammed the passenger liner, sinking itself in the process.No, this is not a story that appeared in The Onion. The Jerusalem Post says that the incident occurred on March 30 and took place in international waters. The Iranian regime-allied Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused the captain of the RCGS  RESOLUTE cruise ship of “terrorism and piracy" and sought to force the ship into a new direction on the high seas. The cruise ship, which had no passengers on board...

Nicknamed “Stumpy’’ by teammates, Dempsey seemed an unlikely football hero. He was born without fingers on his right hand or toes on his right foot. He wore a small, flat shoe on his kicking foot that is now on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As a rookie in 1969, Dempsey delivered an All-Pro season but was cut by the Saints in 1971 after missing seven of eight kicks during preseason, which he attributed to falling out of shape while being treated to countless drinks and meals after his historic kick. But he rebounded and played for several...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Saturday it has begun conducting antibody tests to determine the true number of people infected with the novel COVID-19 coronavirus, including those who never developed symptoms. Unlike normal diagnostic tests, the antibody test can detect if a person has recovered from an earlier infection. If so, there's a chance they've built up some protection, which could help inform future responses to the virus and perhaps even allow some people to re-enter the workforce. However, it's not yet confirmed if antibodies ensure immunity, and there are still questions about the accuracy of such...

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called on EU nations to invest billions in the bloc's budget to avert catastrophic economic consequences from the current coronavirus crisis. "We need a Marshall Plan for Europe," she wrote in a guest article for the paper Welt am Sonntag, referring to the recovery program put in place by the US from 1948-1952 to help Western European economies after World War II. She said that the EU budget was accepted by all member states as a means of leveling out inequalities in a spirit of solidarity and that it should now be...

<p>SINGAPORE - Singapore reported 120 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, by far its highest daily rise, and quarantined nearly 20,000 migrant workers in their dormitories.</p> <p>Of Sunday’s new cases, 116 were locally transmitted and many were linked to two dormitories that house migrant workers, who will now have to stay in their rooms for 14 days.</p>

Exercise outside the home could be banned if people ignore coronavirus social distancing rules, the health secretary has warned. Matt Hancock told the BBC's Andrew Marr that the government would "take action" if needed to control the virus. It comes after reports of groups of people gathering in parks during sunny weather this weekend.... Mr. Hancock said:"If you don't want us to have to take the step to ban exercise of all forms outside of your own home, then you've got to follow the rules". The health secretary said the vast majority were sticking to the guidelines, adding: "Lets not...

A Virginia pastor who became sick during a ministry trip to North Carolina in mid-March and tested positive for the new coronavirus shared the experience he had with severe and horrific symptoms of the COVID-19 disease and also with God as he cried out to Him for “a chance.” Pastor Kenny Baldwin of Crossroads Baptist Church in Fairfax County was preaching in North Carolina when he started feeling unwell and went to urgent care, according to WUSA90. He tested negative for the flu and strep but his fever shot up to 105 degrees with chills and aches. Soon, he felt...

"What are you afraid of?" Pope Francis asked this question during his March 27 prayer service, just two Fridays before the strangest Good Friday of most contemporary Western Christians' lives. At a time of such uncertainty, it was a reminder to trust in more than we can clearly see, more than is of this world. There's an old Bill Buckley column about Good Friday that I often read around this time of year. In it, the founder of National Review magazine shares his annual conundrum of whether to close the office on that sacred day. This is what he struggled...

US President Donald Trump has requested Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to supply hydroxychloroquine tablets to the US so that the drug can be used to treat COVID-19 patients. The two leaders spoke on the telephone to assess the situation with respect to the coronavirus pandemic. The US President Donald Trump said that the Indian administration led by Prime Minister Modi was giving serious consideration to export hydroxy-chloroquine to the US. Until now, India which manufactures a massive amount of hydroxychloroquine, has put a hold on the export of this drug and its formulations. Hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malarial drug which...

Initiated by the former Minister of Health Philippe Douste-Blazy and signed by several medical personalities, including Pr François Bricaire and Patrick Pelloux, a manifesto, which we are unveiling exclusively, asks Prime Minister Edouard Philippe that doctors can prescribe more easily to patients of hydroxychloroquine faced with the Covid-19 epidemic. Here is the text of their appeal: Collective of April 3, 2020 We are living in a major global health crisis and our country is severely hit by the Covid-19 epidemic wave. . . Maps published by Santé Publique France show a much lower mortality rate among hospitalized people in Marseille...

But the states that many experts are most concerned with are the ones that have been slow to clamp down on travel and nonessential businesses. “That’s alarming and scary because we know nobody is immune,” said Ali Mokdad, a health metrics expert at the University of Washington whose modeling has informed White House decisions and shows the peak of the pandemic in Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, among others, is still weeks away.

Amid a barrage of research on finding treatment for new coronavirus, Australian scientists have found that a common anti-parasitic drug killed SARS-CoV-2 virus, growing in cell culture, within 48 hours in lab settings. Ivermectin is an FDA-approved anti-parasitic drug that has also been shown to be effective in vitro against a broad range of viruses including HIV, dengue, influenza and Zika virus. Published in the journal Antiviral Research, the study from Monash University showed that a single dose of Ivermectin could stop the coronavirus growing in cell culture -- effectively eradicating all genetic material of the virus within two days....