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If you’ve felt the media has heavily emphasized bad news throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, your judgment now has some scholarly corroboration. Dartmouth College and Brown University researchers have analyzed tens of thousands of Covid-19 articles and found major US media outlets have overwhelmingly pushed negative narratives about the virus."The most striking fact is that 87 percent of the U.S. stories are classified as negative, whereas 51 percent of the non-US stories are classified as negative," according to the study by Dartmouth economics professor Bruce Sacerdote, Dartmouth’s Ranjan Sehgal and Brown University’s Molly Cook.Thwarting Public Clarity About Covid-19Though the study doesn’t...

I think, for several reasons lately – paramount among them are Covid-related issues – people are stressed, worried and afraid. It has even been stated that suicide, including among children, has increased. We have a new normal now, like it or not. Actually, for some, there are a few positive things and blessings to note in our new normal. For instance, some can now work from home, avoid the commute traffic, lessen distractions, stay inside out of bad weather, and dress more casually and comfortably at home than in an office. But there are many disadvantages of working from home,...

Don't be afraid. This is what fear is doing. Fitting Pink Floyd in the background of this short video.

Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine was bold in his projection that we’ll have herd immunity by April. This has been disputed by those who are nowhere near his level of expertise when it comes to public health, but I get the pushback since it shreds the Democratic Party’s COVID lockdown regime. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Makary says that we’re underestimating natural immunity and with the pace of vaccinations, we’ll reach that critical benchmark towards reclaiming normality by tax season. “About 1 in 600 Americans has died of Covid-19, which translates to a...

New virus in China similar to Covid?Reports: Another virus reportedly starting in China similar to Covid, say Chinese researchers.— FrontalForce (@FrontalForce) March 14, 2021"I just saw this tweet below from Dr. Gordon Chang. I have no idea at this point what it means. Better to share the information with a caveat." #China’s military is talking about pathogens that will sicken only non-#Chinese, so one day #Beijing will develop a civilization-killer. In the meantime, we need to deter #XiJinping from spreading it as he deliberately spread #COVID19. #coronavirus https://t.co/tRcK1bs4xw— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) March 14, 2021

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Although it may feel like North Carolina hit a crucial benchmark in returning to normalcy from COVID-19 this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci is voicing concern for states that have pulled back on regulating limits on social life. In an interview with "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, advised caution for what he feels is prematurely lifting restrictions among some states. North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia all eased major restrictions on Friday, as did Massachusetts, Arkansas and Wyoming. Several other states eased some level of...

Speaker Pelosi’s Capitol security plans recommend adding more fencing around the building, as well as more than 1,000 Capitol Police officers, two sources with direct knowledge of the findings told CNN. This is ridiculous. Unhinged retired Lt. General Russel Honoré is reviewing security around the Capitol after the January 6th riot. Pelosi had said Honoré’s review was to focus on “security infrastructure, interagency processes and procedures, and command and control.” $100 MILLION TO PROTECT THE CAPITOL FROM 75 MILLION TRUMP SUPPORTERS The additional 1,000 personnel, which could cost nearly $100 million, would include roughly 350 officers and expanded staffing in...

here is a sense in the air that the pandemic is winding down, and the toxic culture of division, fear, and hatred along with it. Cases are down dramatically. Deaths too. Hospitalizations are no longer irregular. Restrictions are being repealed. You can follow all the action daily at the CDC’s new and unusually competent landing page on the virus (it only took them a year to build this). Despite all the talk of a new normal and infinite mandates, there is hope that it could all unwind quickly, pushed by force of public impatience and frustration with restrictions, and a...

My father, a journalist named Boris Shcharansky, was born in 1904 in Odessa, the cultural and economic center of the Pale of Settlement, where the Russian empire stuck most Jews. He studied in the Jewish Commercial Gymnasium, because most other gymnasiums accepted very few Jews, if any. By the time he was 16, he had already lived through the Czarist Regime with its anti-Semitic restrictions, the “February” Socialist Revolution, the “October” Bolshevik Revolution, and the years of civil war when power in Odessa seesawed back and forth from faction to faction, as hunger, pogroms, and destruction decimated the population. When...

Draeger’s Market in Los Altos (California) was found to have violated safety protocols and failed to protect its employees against the spread of COVID-19, which may have led to a major outbreak last summer that included transmission among employees... In January, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) fined Draeger’s $13,500 after inspections between July 24 and Jan. 13 revealed “serious” violations of the state’s guidance regarding COVID-19. According to the Cal/OSHA report, Draeger’s “failed to prevent harmful exposures of its employees to COVID-19 airborne particles,” citing three instances that led to the write-up.Draeger’s didn’t make sure its...

Almost a year after retreating inside from a deadly virus whose spread has only gotten monumentally worse since, I turned on the Super Bowl. It might be weird to see a sports event as typically hyperbolic as the Super Bowl brought down to a simmer Amid Pandemic, I thought, but at least I’d have some new shade of background noise on as I put together my 80th puzzle of quarantine. The reality of the event was almost stranger than the strangeness I’d expected. Instead of making obvious changes to reflect the fact that the entire country is in some version...

The highly-contagious COVID-19 variant first detected in the United Kingdom is now spreading rapidly throughout the US — doubling around every 10 days, according to a new study. Researchers predicted the strain known as B117 could become the most prevalent in the nation by next month, according to the study, which is yet to be peer reviewed and was released Sunday on the preprint server MedRxiv. The group led by scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif, determined that the new variant arrived in the US as early as Novembe

Concerned that COVID fatigue may undermine adherence to the government's rube goldberg concoction of health edicts, disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is looking closely at the Chinese anal test protocol. "With reports now indicating that the shutdowns mandated around the world may have killed more people than the virus, that the CDC's recommendations against using hydroxychloroquine were mistaken, and the seemingly hypocritical behavior of many government officials from Gov. Gavin Newsom in California to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Washington, too many people have become jaded and skeptical about the pandemic," Fauci said. "We need something dramatic to regenerate a...

There are probably multiple reasons why coronavirus cases in the US are down nearly 50% in the US in the last month. Could be seasonal. Could be the vaccine. Could be herd immunity from natural infection. Could be the post-holiday default to endemicity. Could be a change in the cycle threshold of PCR that generates fewer positive cases. Could be data tweaks in light of political changes. Anyone who says he knows for sure which is dominant is pretending to know the unknowable. The New York Times, which obliquely reports the case decline, is still certain that you should still...

But former President Donald Trump? He leaves office today the very same man who swore the oath of office four years ago. He leaves the very same man who launched his campaign for the presidency over five years ago. It is true he has been denied a second term. For now. But they also stole his first term from him. In a town where everybody gets a honeymoon, Mr. Trump was not even allowed to work one single day without the constant onslaught of distraction. From his first moment in office, they threw everything they had at him. They made...

WASHINGTON (ABC7) — There will be around 6,200 military personnel in D.C. by the end of the weekend, a massive response to the U.S. Capitol riot from earlier this week. The Virginia National Guard currently has 1,000 personnel in D.C. as of Saturday. The Guard plans on adding another 1,000 by Sunday night, joining National Guard Soldiers and Airmen from states around the District. "The VNG plans to provide about 2,000 personnel total to join a force of National Guard Soldiers and Airmen from neighboring states expected to reach 6,200 by the end of the weekend," according to a statement.

Rush Limbaugh told listeners on Friday that Democrats are still petrified of Donald Trump and his ability to reveal all of their crimes before China Joe is inaugurated in 12 days. Democrats are nervous that President Trump will release the documents that show how Democrats broke the law for years in their attempts to overturn the 2016 election. Via Rush Limbaugh:I swear. The entire Washington establishment is poised. They are recoiling in fear. They are cowering in fear in the corners. They are scared to death of Donald Trump. They are scared to death of you. You have been defeated....

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. ( I John 4:18-19)Do Not Fear for I am with you, Be not anxious for I am your God. I will uphold you, surely I will help you, surely I’ll deliver you with my righteous right hand…” (Isaiah 41:10)When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, In God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do...

The pandemic has shown how much America has changed for the worse. Our American ancestors were incredibly courageous people but today, we live in fear—of illness, of our fellow neighbors, of intellectual diversity, of alternative ideas, of climate change, of dying from COVID. The world never stopped before because of a virus. How did Americans become conditioned to be so fearful? Dennis's column: When 2-Year-Olds Are Thrown Off Airplanes, You Know America Has Changed

Dr. Deborah Birx said she took her Thanksgiving jaunt to Delaware because her parents were so down in the dumps, they “stopped eating and drinking”—a justification ripped by people who said it was her coronavirus restrictions that prevented them from seeing their own dying loved ones. In her interview with Newsy, in which the White House coronavirus task force coordinator revealed she plans to retire over the scandal of breaking her own travel guidance, Birx complained about how her family had been suffering over her own guidelines. “My parents stopped eating and drinking because they were so depressed,”the 64-year-old complained...