Free Republic

In March 2020, most of the world implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) including the use of face masks, social distancing, school closures, and teleworking to prevent the spread of Covid-19. We don’t yet know exactly how well these interventions worked to slow the Covid-19 pandemic. But we do know now that they have helped to slow the spread of influenza. Ideally, the effectiveness of an intervention (e.g. wearing a face mask), is measured by looking at the outcomes one is trying to affect (e.g. the number of cases of Covid-19). With seasonal diseases like flu, the ability to compare the current...

The battle against Covid-19 is entering a new phase, and the choice for society is whether to live with the virus or to live for it. This new phase has been marked by four developments: Many states have weathered post-shutdown outbreaks and case counts are falling; the percentage of Americans saying the pandemic is worsening peaked in July and is trending down, according to Gallup polling; the culture wars over lockdowns and distancing mandates are cooling; and inexpensive rapid testing and a vaccine will soon be available widely. These developments create an atmosphere of possibility—and an opportunity to pivot away...

This year’s stay-at-home orders and lockdowns imposed by governments on their populations represent a watershed moment in the history of the modern state. Before March 2020, it is unlikely that many politicians - let alone many ordinary people - thought it would be feasible or likely for government officials to force hundreds of millions of human beings to “self-isolate.” But it turns out governments were indeed able to force a sizable portion of the population to abandon jobs, religious practices, extended families, and community life in the name of “flattening the curve.” Whether through fear manufactured by the news media...

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice-President Joe Biden told CNN's Anderson Cooper and town hall viewers that "China is not our enemy. If they were they wouldn't have given my son a billion dollar deal. I'll grant you that China hasn't been a perfect global citizen. From time to time they've stolen our technology. And every deadly respiratory virus seems to emanate from there. But these are all minor flaws—mistakes and bad luck that could've happened to anyone." In a response to a potato farmer's question about why there are so many unnecessary regulations impeding her work, Biden advised the woman...

Van Morrison has described the British government as “fascist bullies disturbing our peace” in one of three new tracks he has written to protest against safety measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19. On No More Lockdown, Morrison sings: “No more lockdown / No more government overreach / No more fascist bullies / Disturbing our peace … No more taking of our freedom / And our God-given rights / Pretending it’s for our safety / When it’s really to enslave …” The song also condemns “celebrities telling us what we’re supposed to feel”, although the 75-year-old Northern Irish songwriter denied...

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — The Monroe County Department of Public Health says it’s seeing a growing number of COVID-19 cases that could be directly or indirectly connected to houses of worship. The department is asking communities of faith to review best practices for services, including mask-wearing at all times, six feet social distancing, putting markers on the ground, blocking off every other row of seating and encouraging frequent hand washing and sanitizing.

Does the Wuhan virus, which arguably escaped from a Chinese virology lab, supersede the rights guaranteed to American citizens under the U.S. Constitution? U.S. Federal District Judge William Stickman IV has ruled in a case brought before him that there is no pandemic exception to the U.S. Constitution and that the Bill of Rights cannot be trampled with impunity whenever there is a health emergency leftist ideologues try to exploit to impose their desired control over every aspect of our daily lives. As Reason Magazine reports: A federal judge on Monday has ruled that lockdown restrictions imposed by Pennsylvania Gov....

“You think you got the horses for that? Well, good luck and God bless, but I tell you this…the last place you want to see me is in court.” (attorney Arthur Edens, in the film, Michael Clayton, 2007) Memo to lawyers: What are you waiting for? File big cases now. by Jon Rappoport September 16, 2020 (To join our email list, click here.) I’ve been covering the decision in the Pennsylvania COVID case and the court filing in Ohio. They give us the templates for potential victories in other states and countries. (‘Lawsuit’ article archive here) In Pennsylvania (ruling), a...

Riots and Covid Restrictions: Is it time to go there and ask the following questions? I'm no mental health professional but just curious. What are the Covid restrictions like and how long were the lock-downs and are the lock-downs still in place in these democrat cities where rioting is taking place?" Is this all partly the result of being locked down? I realize that yes the left, the media and the democrats support this and encourage it and incite it all but have many of these people become vulnerable mentally due to extended lock downs and Covid restrictions? Like to...

Six months after he first issued a disaster proclamation tied to the coronavirus pandemic, followed quickly by a stay-at-home order that shut down businesses and kept people inside for months, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he wouldn’t hesitate to act in similar fashion if COVID-19 cases bloom exponentially this fall. “We were the second state in the United States by a few hours, I think, to put a stay-at-home order in and if we needed to do that, the answer is, it worked," Pritzker told the Tribune in an interview earlier this month about the state’s response to the pandemic at...

Dr. Anthony Fauci just spilled the beans: contrary to the implicit promise numerous politicians made that COVID-19 restrictions would only last “until there’s an effective vaccine,” Fauci says the arrival of a vaccine won’t mean life will return to normal, perhaps for more than a year. “If you’re talking about getting back to a degree of normality which resembles where we were prior to COVID, it’s going to be well into 2021, maybe even towards the end of 2021,” said the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on Friday. A safe and effective vaccine produced this quickly...

Large crowds of people rallied in Auckland on Saturday against the government’s social distancing restrictions imposed on the country’s largest city after an outbreak of the novel coronavirus last month. Local television footage showed tightly packed crowds, with many people not wearing masks, with estimates of the attendance varying in reports between a thousand and a few thousand people. “We are all here today because we believe we need to stand up for our rights,” the public Television New Zealand cited Jami-Lee Ross, the leader of the Advance New Zealand party, one of the organizers of the protest, as saying....

A Democrat bureaucrat finally said what we all have known to be the truth: the Wuhan virus limitations that Democrat politicians and bureaucrats have imposed on Americans will go away after the election because that was the plan all along. As 2019 ended, the Democrats knew that Trump was cruising to re-election. He'd kept his base because he kept his promises about the wall, trade deals, the military, abortion, and our Second Amendment rights. Best of all, he'd supercharged the economy with tax and regulation cuts. The surging economy enticed other Americans who had not voted for Trump in 2016...

The toll lockdowns have taken on human life and human rights has been incalculable. Increases in child abuse, suicide, and even heart attacks, all appear to be a feature of mandatory stay-at-home orders issued by politicians who now rule by decree without any legislative or democratic due process. And then, of course, there is the economic toll on employment, and which will feed negative impacts into the longer term. The economic burden has fallen the most on the young, and on working class families where earners are least able to work from home. These measures also have made a mockery...

More and more voices are now speaking out on the lockdowns, widespread testing, and other policies associated with the COVID-19 response. Now a professor from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, Ronald B.Brown, Ph.D., is questioning how mortality data was presented to Congress early in the pandemic. This hearing was held on March 11, 2020, in front of the House Oversight Committee. During the questioning, Dr. Anthony Fauci asserted that the mortality rate for COVID-19 was 3%. He then extrapolated to claim that if you added in the mildly symptomatic cases, it would probably be about 1%, which is...

Draconian enforcement of COVID-19 lockdown accelerates. Yet another shock video out of Australia shows police enforcing coronavirus rules by arresting an elderly woman sitting on a park bench for not wearing a mask. “This is unlawful, on what grounds am I under arrest?” asks the woman. An officer then walks around the back of the bench and snatches her friend’s phone away, preventing her from filming the encounter. The woman is told that she is being arrested for failing to provide her name and address. ... Once a person has been targeted for not wearing a mask or violating any...

In defiance of California's statewide ban on indoor hair cuts, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) made an appointment to get a cut, shampoo, and blow out at her favorite salon. When word backed up by video evidence got out that she had done this despite her constant, obnoxious prattling about how others are obligated to obey the COVID-inspired social distancing, mask wearing, and shutdowns of nonessential businesses, she was rightfully mocked by nearly everyone. This prompted her to claim that "I did nothing wrong. I was set up and am owed an apology for being humiliated by a nobody who...

Were lockdowns a mistake? To that nagging question, the answer increasingly seems to be yes. Certainly, they were a novelty. As novelist Lionel Shriver writes, “We’ve never before responded to a contagion by closing down whole countries.” As I’ve noted, the 1957-58 Asian flu killed between 70,000 and 116,000 Americans, between 0.04 percent and 0.07 percent of the nation’s population. The 1968-70 Hong Kong flu killed about 100,000, 0.05 percent of the population. The US coronavirus death toll of 186,000 is 0.055 percent of the current population. It will go higher, but it’s about the same magnitude as those two...

Angry San Francisco salon customers protested outside Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home Thursday by hanging blow driers and curlers from nearby trees. ... Pelosi was busted this week violating state and local coronavirus lockdown restrictions in San Francisco.. to get her hair done – and she wasn’t wearing a mask. She forced a local salon to open up just for her, and then when caught, claimed she was “set-up” by the salon owner. The salon owner steadfastly denies it was a set-up. ... San Francisco requires residents to stay 6 feet apart and wear a mask to cover the mouth and...

Since they were first implemented in March and April, mandatory lockdown orders and nationwide quarantines have had little to no effect in curbing the spread of COVID-19 and in fact “correlated with a greater spread of the virus,” according to an analysis in the Wall Street Journal. The research: On top of straining the economy and leading to long-term health consequences, lockdowns have also proven to be “a large policy error,” claims Donald L. Luskin, the Chief Investment Officer for Trend Macrolytics, a consulting firm that focuses on macroeconomic analysis which conducted the new research into the impact of lockdowns....