Free Republic

What is funny – not funny ha-ha, but funny, ironic – is the timing of the resurrected Covid alarm. The new alarms coincide quite nicely with a highly contentious and tenuous election. Jack Posobiec, tweeted this morning, “Amazing how Covid is back just as Trump is up in the polls. What are the odds!” What a perfect distraction from any drama in the White House around the Biden family’s alleged misdeeds. No doubt, Trump’s failures in handling the Covid crisis early on coupled with, of course, no mention of what he did get right, will be highlighted. It’s almost as...

A second American tested positive for the new highly-mutated BA.2.86 Covid variant that has been causing global alarm over its rapid transmission.A second American tested positive for the new highly-mutated BA.2.86 Covid variant that has been causing global alarm over its rapid transmission. The positive case was detected in an asymptomatic patient in Virginia who was tested August 10 after returning to the US from Japan. Scientists identified the case in a database that contains test samples from a small number of travelers entering the US. Independent experts told DailyMail.com they believe the new strain is spreading more widely and...

A highly mutated new variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 has countries on alert as scientists scramble to understand how far it has spread and how well our immunity will defend against it. The new variant, called BA.2.86 and nicknamed Pirola by variant hunters on social media, has more than 30 amino acid changes to its spike protein compared with its next closest ancestor, the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron, according to Dr. Jesse Bloom, who studies viral evolution at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. “This makes it an evolutionary jump comparable in size to that which originally...

Gross domestic product fell 4.8% in the first quarter, according to government numbers released Wednesday that provide the first detailed glimpse into the deep damage the coronavirus wreaked on the U.S. economy. Economist surveyed by Dow Jones had expected the first estimate of GDP to show a 3.5% contraction. This marked the first negative GDP reading since the 1.1% decline in the first quarter of 2014 and the lowest level since the 8.4% plunge in Q4 of 2008 during the worst of the financial crisis. The biggest drags on the economy were consumer spending, nonresidential fixed investment, exports and inventories....