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Former President Trump says “even” former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) handled the coronavirus pandemic better than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), his latest attack the day after DeSantis officially joined the 2024 GOP presidential primary. Trump said in a video from his campaign on Thursday that Florida had among the highest number of deaths from COVID-19 in the country and shut down numerous public locations at the onset of the pandemic, including beaches. “How about the fact that he had the third-most deaths of any state… Even Cuomo did better. He was No. 4,” Trump said. Data from...

Secondary bacterial infection of the lung (pneumonia) was extremely common in patients with COVID-19, affecting almost half the patients who required support from mechanical ventilation. By applying machine learning to medical record data, scientists found that secondary bacterial pneumonia that does not resolve was a key driver of death in patients with COVID-19. It may even exceed death rates from the viral infection itself. The scientists also found evidence that COVID-19 does not cause a "cytokine storm," so often believed to cause death. "Our study highlights the importance of preventing, looking for and aggressively treating secondary bacterial pneumonia in critically...

Cases of Omicron variant XBB are mounting in China, forming a new wave expected to crest around 65 million cases a week by the end of June.XBB, the “first major highly immune-evasive” group of COVID variants, “will sweep through China,” but the wave will be “largely invisible” due to low rates of testing and reporting, Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., and a top COVID-variant tracker, tells Fortune.When it comes to XBB variants, “the rest of the world has seen them all.” But up until recently,...

Justice Neil Gorsuch called government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic the “greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country” on Thursday... “Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale,” he said. “Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private. They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on.” ... Gorsuch slammed deference to “experts” for decision-making during the pandemic and warned that doing so could lead to losing “many cherished civil liberties.”...

We've all recently gotten a crash-course in drug repurposing, thanks to near-daily news reports about efforts to identify existing medicines that could help treat COVID-19 in the early phase of the pandemic. A team of scientists jumped into the fray in the spring of 2020, applying novel computational drug repurposing approaches to confront the COVID-19 challenge. In the flurry of clinical studies being published by other scientists studying COVID-19, some found that statins seemed to reduce mortality in COVID-19 patients, while others found no effect—but these studies did not discriminate between different types of statin drugs. Now, the team have...

...Here’s a sample of some of the most interesting essays, which have been edited for clarity and length: ... People fly off the handle so fast now, always ready to argue or fight. In the past when two people would have an argument or a physical altercation, people might have tried to step in and try to calm everyone down. Now everybody just reaches for their phone to make sure they can post it. ... The following Wednesday, I taught my last class at Rutger...For me, there is no such thing as a “post-COVID” world. I continue to “mask up”...

A new study by German scientists has concluded that face masks can cause brain damage in humans, even if worn for short periods. According to the research, published in the journal Heliyon, wearing face masks causes carbon dioxide poisoning and their use during lockdown contributed significantly to stillbirths when worn by pregnant women, as well as testicular dysfunction and cognitive decline in children, among other serious health issues. **************************************************************************** Possible toxicity of chronic carbon dioxide exposure associated with face mask use, particularly in pregnant women, children and adolescents – A scoping review : https://www.cell.com/heliyon/pdf/S2405-8440(23)01324-5.pdf **************************************************************************** The study warns that even...

The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed at least 7 million people worldwide. WHO first declared COVID-19 to be an emergency more than three years ago. The U.N. health agency's officials said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasn't come to an end, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East... Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging...

A new comprehensive US Senate report on the origins of COVID-19 is pointing to at least two different lab leaks ultimately causing the worldwide pandemic. According to Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), a lack of change in operations by both the Chinese and the United States could lead to another outbreak as well.While speaking to reporters (Just the News), Marshall bemoaned the fact that gain-of-function research was being done at the Wuhan facility and noted that there’s no indication that China has changed its procedures. US money is still flowing to Chinese labs despite the communist state’s attempts to cover up...

A study shows that compared with standard care that included low-dose corticosteroid use, treating hypoxic COVID-19 patients needing only oxygen therapy or no breathing support with higher-dose corticosteroids is associated with a 60% increased risk of death. This study had already identified that low-dose corticosteroids reduce mortality for patients with COVID-19 requiring oxygen or ventilatory support. However, in May 2022, the independent Data Monitoring Committee advised that this treatment assessment be stopped for those patients receiving oxygen alone or no breathing support. Eligible and consenting adult patients with COVID-19 and clinical evidence of hypoxia (i.e., receiving oxygen or with oxygen...

About 100,000 nurses quit due to stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic and and another 800,000 said they intend to leave by 2027, according to a new survey from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. There are about 6.2 million registered nurses total in the U.S. according to the survey. One in five of those surveyed said they plan to leave the industry or retire in the next five years, it found. Nurses who are older and more experienced are more likely to envision themselves leaving the industry soon, the survey found. More than 600,000 nurses with...

Since the emergence of COVID-19, much remains unknown, including the widespread organ damage beyond just the lungs. Increasingly, scientists are learning organ dysfunction results from damage to the blood vessels, but why is unclear. Now a team has discovered what they believe is the key molecular pathway. Results show COVID-19 damages the cells lining the smallest blood vessels, choking off blood flow. "We were surprised by the little overlap between our adult and pediatric patients," says Cheryl Maier, MD, Ph.D. "One pathway that stood out in adults was related to vessel health and blood flow." Maier says this was particularly...

A new paper from Germany posted on April 5, 2023 proves that the spike protein accumulates in the brain and causes death of brain cells (which would certainly explain a great deal of what we see around us). (click here) Key findings: “Our results revealed the accumulation of the spike protein in the skull marrow, brain meninges, and brain parenchyma.” “The injection of the spike protein alone caused cell death in the brain, highlighting a direct effect on brain tissue.” “we observed the presence of spike protein in the skull of deceased long after their COVID-19 infection, suggesting that the...

But the coronavirus and its variants are still very much around, and still sometimes resulting in hospitalization and death. And the virus continues to mutate. Last week, the World Health Organization said that it was monitoring a variant dubbed XBB.1.16, or “Arcturus.” This is an Omicron subvariant, similar to the most transmissible COVID variant yet -- XBB.1.5,, nicknamed “Kraken.” And if that weren’t enough, a descendant of the new subvariant, XBB.1.16.1, has been detected in several states. (These are alarming outbreaks currently ongoing in the U.S.) To compile a list of all the states where the new COVID variant has...

U.S. government officials are not happy as China confirms Chairman Xi Jinping visit to Russia next week to meet with President Putin. ... In the background of the Ukraine conflict, smiling Panda has been happy to see distracted western nations bleeding their resources and treasury in support of Ukraine. Meanwhile, happy Panda negotiates and brokers increased relationships between Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India and China. There is no downside to Chairman Xi visiting Russia and advancing a position that ‘peaceful negotiations’ should begin between Russia and Ukraine, unless a resolution to the conflict is against the geopolitical usefulness of the...

1.TWITTER FILES #19 The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories”

China's President Xi Jinping will travel to Moscow next week to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, officials say. The Kremlin said they would discuss a "comprehensive partnership and strategic co-operation". The visit comes as Beijing, an ally of Russia, has offered proposals to end the war in Ukraine, to which the West has given a lukewarm reception. Western countries have warned Beijing against supplying Moscow with weapons. This will be President Xi's first visit to Russia since Russian troops invaded Ukraine. He is due to have lunch with Mr Putin on Monday followed by talks on Tuesday. A...

High-dose anticoagulation can reduce deaths by 30 percent and intubations by 25 percent in hospitalized COVID-19 patients who are not critically ill when compared to the standard treatment, which is low-dose anticoagulation. These are the significant findings from the large-scale international "FREEDOM" trial, led by Valentin Fuster, MD, Ph.D. Patients were not in the ICU or intubated, and approximately half of them had signs of COVID-19 impacting their lungs with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Patients were randomized to receive doses of three different types of anticoagulants within 24-48 hours of being admitted to the hospital and followed for 30...

Intermittent fasting, especially when done over the course of decades, can have positive effects on metabolic and cardiovascular health. Now, a new study finds that it may also add an extra layer of protection from heart-related COVID-19 complications in people who had already sought cardiac care. "We already know that regular fasting over long periods of time can lead to overall health improvements. Here we found that it may also lead to better outcomes in COVID-19 patients who required a cardiac catheterization," said Benjamin Horne, Ph.D. "Fasting won't necessarily stop a cardiac event from happening, but it may prevent someone...

For years, our officials—from Anthony Fauci on down—maintained that Covid-19 probably originated from a natural pathway in Wuhan, China. Bats in a wet market, some said. But according to a new report, the U.S. Energy Department believes the virus likely escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology before going on to kill millions around the world. The FBI and a number of prominent scientists also think Covid may have leaked from the lab, where researchers were allegedly conducting “gain-of-function” experiments on coronaviruses, potentially making them deadlier.