Free Republic

Sweden, unlike its Scandinavian neighbors, made different decisions to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. It issued no mandatory orders. It did not require its citizens to shelter at home. True, as of May 4, more Swedes had contracted and died from the coronavirus (2,679 total deaths, a rate of 263.08 per 1 million people) than people in Norway (211, rate of 39.7) and Denmark (484, rate of 83.49), but fewer when adjusted for its population size compared with the U.K. (28,446 deaths, a rate of 427.83), Spain (25,264, rate of 540.71), France (24,864, rate of 371.18) and Italy (28,884, rate...

A Surrey, B.C. woman is looking for answers after her husband died after a planned surgery was cancelled because of COVID-19 measures. Delia Oliveira's husband, Chris Walcroft, had been dealing with failing kidneys for several years. He was due to get surgery for the condition on March 17, but on March 16 the hospital called to cancel the surgery. "I called the hospital and asked why," Oliveira told CTV News Channel. "They said non-essential surgeries are being cancelled."

Video at link.

Genova Diagnostics Inc., a clinical laboratory services company based in Asheville, North Carolina, has agreed to pay up to approximately $43 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act, including claims that it billed  for medically unnecessary lab tests, the Department of Justice announced today.“Government healthcare programs are designed to provide beneficiaries with care that is medically reasonable and necessary,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division.  “Providers of taxpayer-funded federal healthcare services will be held accountable when they knowingly cause false claims to be submitted for services that do...

What some who don’t live in Georgia may not realize is that Gov. Brian Kemp’s original shelter-in-place order was not a total lockdown. Undeterred by his critics, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is moving forward with the bold decision to begin to reopen his state’s businesses and launch our return to normal life. According to an order Kemp promulgated Monday, nail salons, massage therapists, tattoo parlors, bowling alleys, gyms, and other businesses may reopen on Friday. In-person church services can reopen. On Monday, restaurants and movie theaters may reopen. Dentists’ and doctors’ offices and all other health care-related practices and services...

Oval Office12:11 P.M. EDTTHE PRESIDENT:  Okay.  Thank you very much.  We’re gathered today for a very historic bill signing that will provide vital financial relief to American workers and families.  We’re grateful to be joined by Vice President Mike Pence, and also with us are Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Administrator Jovita Carranza, Senators Roy Blunt, John Cornyn, Dan Sullivan, as well as Leader Kevin McCarthy and Representative Steve Scalise and Liz Cheney.  We appreciate you all coming.  A very big moment.I want to thank Congress for answering my call to pass this critical funding.  And the bill includes, as you...

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR AMERICANS: President Donald J. Trump is signing new legislation to further assist American small businesses, workers, and healthcare providers. President Trump is signing into law additional funding to support Americans impacted by the coronavirus.This legislation provides $320 billion in additional funding for the incredibly successful Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which has already aided countless small businesses and millions of American workers. With this new round of funding, President Trump will have signed into law more than $670 billion for the program. The bill also appropriates $60 billion more for the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Disaster Loan Program.To...

Now we have better data and experience that beg a more sophisticated approach as our nation grapples with balancing public health and the economy. “First, do no harm.” It’s a saying almost as old as the idea of medicine itself. I heard it a lot in medical school. And it’s a saying that our state and national leaders need to think long and hard about right now. In many respects, I am proud of the way our leaders and experts have stepped up to find ways of fighting the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. They acted quickly, on limited information, and based...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The chief executive and a managing partner of the collapsed Dubai private equity firm Abraaj Capital Ltd were arrested on U.S. charges that they defrauded their investors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a federal prosecutor said on Thursday. Abraaj founder and Chief Executive Arif Naqvi was arrested in the United Kingdom last Friday, while managing partner Mustafa Abdel-Wadood was arrested at a New York hotel on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Griswold said at a hearing in Manhattan federal court. Abdel-Wadood appeared at the hearing and pleaded not guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud...

It may seem odd that hospitals are empty as planned medical procedures are canceled, but to subject your body to the stress of surgery and recovery would put you in danger needlessly. The recent article “I Can’t Get My Hip Surgery Because Of Coronavirus Even Though Nobody Is In Our Hospital” highlighted the very real problems coronavirus has created in all our communities. It is true that necessary preparations have compounded challenges and left many suffering in ways that are not immediately obvious. As a physician dealing with COVID-19, I have a different perspective.My heart goes out to you, Anonymous....

When the coronavirus outbreak hit one of the largest and most troubled nursing homes in the Northeast, coughing and feverish residents were segregated into a wing known as South 2. The sick quickly filled the beds there, so another wing, West 3, was also turned into a quarantine ward.But the virus kept finding frail and older residents, and one culprit became clear: The workers themselves were likely spreading it as they moved between rooms and floors, outfitted with little or no protective equipment.The nursing home, Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center II in Andover, N.J., which has 543 beds, was chronically...

The types of financial shocks hospitals currently face illustrate the problems inherent in Democrats’ proposed expansions of government-run health care. The coronavirus pandemic has inflicted such vast damage on the American economy that one damaged sector has gone relatively unnoticed. Despite incurring a massive influx of new patients, the hospital industry faces what one executive called a “seismic financial shock” from the virus. The types of shocks hospitals currently face also illustrate the problems inherent in Democrats’ proposed expansions of government-run health care. Likewise, the pay and benefit cuts and furloughs that some hospitals have enacted in response to these...

Cabinet Room3:30 P.M.  EDTTHE PRESIDENT:  Well, thank you very much.  And I want to welcome many of our nation’s top hospital CEOs to the White House.  It’s an honor to have you.  Friends of mine for a long time, in many cases.  We’re glad to be joined by Vice President Pence, who’s in the other room — he’ll be coming in a little while; and Seema Verma, who you deal with all the time, Administrator; Jared Kushner; CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, Adam Boehler; Rear Admiral John Polowczyk; Army Colonel Pat Work.  We appreciate everybody for...

Focusing only on coronavirus deaths and illnesses doesn’t tell the full story of what is happening in America. Other patients, waiting with no end in sight, deserve not to be forgotten. I’m one of many Americans waiting in limbo for a surgery because of coronavirus. I have a hip problem that cannot be solved with physical therapy, and my quality of life is miserable while I wait for the hospital — cleared out to make way for potential COVID-19 patients — to reschedule my procedure.Each step I take is a deep, painful grinding feeling that makes my leg ache, and...

The coronavirus outbreak is a public health emergency that challenges our presuppositions about healthcare and calls for new and creative ways to make healthcare accessible, while protecting and promoting life. But abortion activists are falsely representing this healthcare challenge as an opportunity to increase abortion services. We’re currently confronting a problem of healthcare access. To promote social distancing, many healthcare clinics and services are restricting access to physical, brick-and-mortar locations for everything from elective procedures to routine healthcare. This is, of course, a sound decision, as it lowers the risk of infection for the sick and the healthy alike, and...

"Amazon has fired the worker at its Staten Island warehouse who organized a walkout on Monday to demand greater protections from the company amid the coronavirus outbreak. Chris Smalls, 31, a management assistant at the facility, told The Post he was canned in a phone call following Monday afternoon’s strike. “They pretty much retaliated against me for speaking out,” said Smalls. “I don’t know how they sleep at night.” He and dozens of other employees at the Bloomfield warehouse walked off the job to demand Amazon AMZN, +3.36% temporarily close and clean the facility after a worker tested positive for...

Once again, government intrusion into the health-care sector has proved disastrous. While New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blames the president and the federal government for the lack of beds and ventilators in his state, the power to determine the number of these critical medical supplies in New York hospitals falls squarely upon the shoulders of the governor.During a Tuesday press conference, Cuomo lashed out at the federal government for not sending enough ventilators as the Wuhan coronavirus continues to rattle the state. “Four hundred ventilators? I need 30,000 ventilators,” Cuomo said. “You want a pat on the back for sending...

The incident suggests the Michigan governor’s office is either over its head in handling the pandemic, purposefully playing politics during the crisis, or both. Last week, a lawyer reportedly serving as a special counsel to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer published a leaked letter that falsely indicated a shortage of ventilators and intensive-care beds at the Henry Ford Health System had forced staff to leave some Wuhan virus patients to die. While the hospital has since made clear that it has ventilators and beds at all of its Michigan locations, the incident suggests the governor’s office is either over its head...

COVID, the hallways are eerily empty because of you. At night, where there normally exists an air of calmness as patients sleep, the hospital walls that surround me instead convey a sense of uncertainty. It is palpable. It is heavy. It is unlike anything I have ever encountered as a physician. Perhaps this is because deep down in places where fear and dread reside, we know you are there watching and studying our patterns of behavior. All the while, you silently spread yourself at exponential rates, knowing that our testing capabilities, while ever-growing, still fail to keep up with you....

Through the garbled word soup of fancy buzzwords and bureaucratic newspeak, officials in Washington state are basically saying they are preparing to ration health services, with those whom the state seems as less desirable to receive less attention and care. In the age of what’s pretty much Bernie Sanders’s wet dream of socialized healthcare, there simply aren’t enough resources to care for everyone.The Seattle Times reports: Washington state and hospital officials have been meeting to consider what once was almost unthinkable — how to decide who lives and dies if, as feared, the coronavirus pandemic overwhelms the state’s health care...