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Dr. Scott Jensen is both a physician and a Minnesota state senator. Yesterday he was interviewed by a local television station and dropped a bombshell: he, and presumably all other Minnesota doctors, got a seven-page letter from the Minnesota Department of Health that gave guidance on how to classify COVID-19 deaths. The letter said that if a patient died of, e.g., pneumonia, and was believed to have been exposed to COVID-19, the death certificate should say that COVID-19 was the cause of death even though the patient was never tested, or never tested positive, for that disease. Dr. Jensen found...

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Interim Police Supt. Charlie Beck on Wednesday decried the warm weather outbreak of violence straining police resources and filling hospital space desperately needed for patients with the coronavirus. “This violence has to stop. There are two pandemics that face Chicago — and only one of them is virus-induced,” Beck said. In the 24-hour period starting at midnight Monday, seven people were shot to death and 21 more were wounded, including a 5-year old girl. Another man was killed after being pushed onto CTA Red Line tracks at Jackson and run over by a train. The death...

As the therapeutic efficacy of hydroxychloroquine becomes more and more provable, the left gets more and more hysterical. They have bet the farm on COVID-19 as a means of preventing President Trump’s re-election and then this old malaria drug appears on the scene. The first trial came from China and no one should take their word for it but a doctor there realized that every patient with lupus, even if sick, was negative for the disease. Then a French doctor, Dr. Didier Raoult, a world-famous microbiologist, tested the theory with more than a thousand patients and found it 100% effective,...

Austria will begin reopening Austria will lift some of its Wuhan coronavirus related restrictions next week. It will begin by reopening non-essential shops of less than 400 square meters on April 14, and then all shops and malls on May 1. Strict rules about masks, social distancing, and the number of people allowed into a store at any one time will remain in place.Schools will remain closed until mid-May. Public events are banned until the beginning of June. All of these decisions are subject to change, depending on conditions.Austria’s prime minister said that his early response to pandemic has enabled...

While Florida might not be the most important swing state come November’s presidential election, it is the largest. Simply put, it is near impossible for President Donald Trump to win a second term without Florida though the Democratic candidate, presumably former Vice President Joe Biden, could build an electoral college majority without the Sunshine State. Politicians from the Sunshine State always garner some buzz as potential vice presidential candidates but, in the 175 years of statehood, no Florida politician has ever been included on a major ticket. Of course, that could change this year since Trump moved from New York...

Researchers at Stanford Medicine are working to find out what proportion of Californians have already had COVID-19. The new study could help policymakers make more informed decisions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Paris, France, Apr 7, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- One year after the world watched the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris burn, the Archbishop of Paris will display the relic of Christ’s crown of thorns for veneration during a Good Friday broadcast. “When Mary is at the foot of the cross, she knows that from the most absolute evil God can always draw a much greater good," Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris said in an online press conference on April 7. “I do not see any meaning in the cathedral fire or the COVID-19 epidemic. On the other hand, I...

Threat was unfounded, investigators sayFBI agents arrested a San Antonio man after he posted on Facebook, claiming he paid someone to spread COVID-19 at grocery stores. Christopher Charles Perez, 39, was arrested Tuesday afternoon on suspicion of perpetrating a coronavirus-related hoax. Perez posted the threat “because he was trying to deter people from visiting the stores, purportedly in order to prevent the spread of the virus,” according to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office in San Antonio. The screenshot quickly caught the attention of the Southwest Texas Fusion Center, a team of law enforcement individuals who monitor...

NEW YORK CITY, April 6, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Evangelical leader Rev. Franklin Graham says the coronavirus pandemic is the result of sin — that “man has turned his back on God” — and urged people to pray and ask God’s forgiveness as Christians begin Holy Week. “As we come to this week, Easter week — I would encourage people around the world and across the country to pray,” Graham told Fox host Judge Jeanine Pirro Saturday. “I pray that God would protect us, and God’s hand would relieve us from this pandemic.” Graham’s humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse, which brings medical...

Don’t get too excited about the coming “certified recovered” caste of immune citizens just yet. If this study is confirmed, the segment of the population with durable immunity from COVID-19 may be smaller than everyone expects. A team from Fudan University analysed blood samples from 175 patients discharged from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre and found that nearly a third had unexpectedly low levels of antibodies…All of the patients had recently recovered from mild symptoms of the disease and most of those with low antibody levels were young. The researchers excluded patients who had been admitted to intensive...

PLEASANTON (CBS SF) –People shut in their homes in Pleasanton were jolted by the sounds of honking horns and shouts reverberating through their streets Wednesday, coming from a rolling parade of teachers saluting their students and families amid the coronavirus sheltering in place. The parade was organized by teachers at Donlon Elementary School in Pleasanton on Wednesday. Led by members of the Pleasanton Police Department, the Donlon teachers rode in a caravan of vehicles throughout the neighborhoods served by the school, bringing smiles to the faces of those who were roused out of their homes. Many of the teachers’ cars...

Civil rights leader asks why Pope Francis is not subject to same lawROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - A priest who was fined €400 ($432) for processing with a "miraculous crucifix" through the picture-postcard town of Rocca Imperiale in southern Italy is refusing to pay the penalty in protest against the state's repressive measures to "punish the Church."Father Domenico Cirigliano, 76, says he was doing what every parish priest overseeing Rocca Imperiale in the province of Calabria has done for the last 300 years: re-enacting the procession that has been the town's tradition since March 30, 1691 — the date on which the...

DR. AI FEN According to China’s Ministry of Public Security, police investigated more than 5,100 instances of “fabricating and deliberately disseminating false and harmful information” between January 20 and February 21. The actual number as of today is unknown as are details of most of the cases. However, a group called Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) has collected information on 897 such cases between January 1 and March 26. What they found was government censorship of social media which resulted in some people having their social media accounts deleted and others being put into administrative detention. From our incomplete list...

Technology bolsters US dominance of the list, but coronavirus fallout looms largeThe inaugural FT Americas ranking comes at a perilous and uncertain time for many companies, as the coronavirus severely curtails economies, workforces and ultimately growth. Yet the ranking also highlights 500 businesses across the continent for whom innovation and creativity have paid off — attributes that will underpin resilience and enable many of them to thrive once the worst effects of the pandemic are behind them. The FT list was compiled with Statista, a research company, and ranks entrants from across the Americas by compound annual growth rate (CAGR)...

A microbiologist in Germany believes that the use of an updated version of a 100-year-old Tuberculosis vaccine may work as an intermediate treatment for Covid-19. CNN's Frederik Pleitgen reports.

ROME — Bologna Cardinal Matteo Zuppi said Monday that he opposes Matteo Salvini’s call for open churches on Easter, saying that it is too “risky” and the Church has to “obey the rules.” Salvini, the leader of Italy’s Lega party, said this weekend that people of faith should be able to care for their spiritual health as they care for their bodies. “I support the requests of those who ask to attend Easter Mass, in an orderly, composed, and safe way, maybe even in groups of three, four, or five,” Mr. Salvini said. “You can go to the tobacconist because...

As the coronavirus bore down on New York, Dr. Doug Bass' family begged him to work from home. He refused, pointing to his patients at Phoenix House, a drug and alcohol treatment center where he served as medical director. “He said he was on the front lines and they needed him,” his brother, Jonathan Bass, told The Associated Press. “Too many people relied on him.” Bass, 64, died suddenly last month after suffering symptoms commonly caused by coronavirus, including coughing, a fever and severe stomach cramping. That made him possibly the first physician still treating patients in New York City...

Around the time Jews celebrate Passover and Christians celebrate Easter, the ABC television network airs the timeless 1956 classic film “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston, which is still the most popular rendition of the Exodus account to date. And yet, beginning in 1994, Steven Spielberg, former chairman of the Walt Disney Studios Jeffrey Katzenberg, and music recording mogul David Geffen decided to make a uniquely distinct version as their new studio’s first full length animated feature film. In 1998, DreamWorks Pictures released one of the most memorable and moving adaptations of the biblical account of Moses ever, and in...

Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s support of hydroxychloroquine makes him a “drug pusher.” “He’s got to stop … We don’t want a drug pusher for president. We want somebody who takes that stage and speaks to the crisis in a way that is about bringing relief,” Harris told “The View,” in reference to Trump’s daily participation in the coronavirus task force news conferences from Washington. Harris claimed that she has “no idea” why Trump continues to promote the drug that has been licensed since 1955 and has proven to be an effective remedy against...

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and key member of the White House coronavirus task force, on Wednesday suggested that Americans should never shake hands again. "When you gradually come back, you don't jump into it with both feet. You say what are the things you could still do and still approach normal. One of them is absolute compulsive hand washing. The other is you don't ever shake anybody's hands," Fauci told The Wall Street Journal's podcast. "I don't think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you. Not...