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US medical professionals have devised an inventive to celebrate Christmas in the time of the coronavirus: by decorating trees with facemasks, hand sanitizer and other personal protective equipment (PPE). The trend is currently getting attention on social media, despite a continuing shortage of the equipment in increasingly burdened hospitals

Discarded masks and personal protective equipment (PPE) have begun to wash into the San Francisco Bay with the arrival of the first winter rains, creating a new local pollution problem. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday: The Bay Area’s first rain of the season is washing away worries of wildfire and drought. But it’s also bringing a new concern: gobs of face masks flooding San Francisco Bay. Early season storms typically sweep a slurry of debris from streets and sidewalks into rivers, creeks and bays. This year, the fall flush not only contains the usual gunk, waste experts say, but...

1. Joe Biden says everyone should wear a mask. But what he does not say is that the only reason we have enough masks for everyone to wear is due to the efforts of the Trump administration.— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) October 27, 2020 2. Early on, Fauci told the American public NOT to wear masks. He intentionally lied to us because the Obama-Biden administration had not produced enough PPEs to go around. There was no proper planning for a pandemic.— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) October 27, 2020 3. And Fauci held his current position back them as well....

The Great Barrington Declaration offers a way forward, but do most Americans have the courage to risk their sense of security to maintain enduring liberty?In an era in which every dubious decision is “due to COVID-19,” we hear policymakers repeating the same mantra: “If just one life is saved,” it’s worth relinquishing our freedoms, our sanity, and possibly our future. More often than not, this ethical dilemma is presented without mentioning the obvious trade-offs or long-term consequences.Imagine you’re an administrative dictator. If you could “save just one life” — or even thousands — by crippling the youth, vaporizing a million...

It’s PPE to die for. The city Department of Education is supplying schools with defective thermometers, “low quality” masks, and smelly wipes, a disgusted Queens principal told The Post. “The s—t they gave us won’t protect us — not the students, teachers or parents,” fumed the educator. “Every principal in NYC is banging their head against the wall.” “The “cheap, black-market crap” includes touchless, electronic thermometers that registered temperatures at 40, 50 and 60 degrees. “You’d be dead,” she said. “We keep taking each other’s temperatures like we’re clowns.” The school leader, who asked for anonymity to avoid repercussions, said...

I was possibly exposed to COVID 19 over the weekend and was surprised to see this on the CDC Website: A couple of things: 1. Exposed means being closer than 6 feet to a KNOWN or suspected COVID carrier for at least 15 minutes. In that criteria isn't met then the CDC doesn't consider it exposure to COVID 19. But note the note: "Note: This is irrespective of whether the person with COVID-19 or the contact was wearing a mask or whether the contact was wearing respiratory personal protective equipment (PPE)" In other words WEARING mask doesn't matter. If you...

Daniel Horowitz Retweeted       Replying to @Hi5HANK @RMConservativeand@thehill

In a similar way, face masks are tied to the political conflict over our response to the coronavirus. Those who lean left politically tend to see the virus as a more dire threat; those on the right are more likely to downplay its seriousness or compare it to less deadly strains like the flu, often following the lead of conservative politicians. Accordingly, masks may be seen as a marker of political loyalty, triggering feelings of us-versus-them. A politically liberal person may assume that someone wearing a mask is “on their team,” while those who don’t wear masks must be Fox...

China’s Communist Party is again seizing factory lines churning out the world’s supply of medical safety gear — sparking fears the country is preparing for a second wave of the coronavirus, American traders in China told The Post. New Yorker Moshe Malamud, who has done business in China for over two decades, was moving tens of millions of pieces of protective gear to the U.S. at the height of the crisis but said suppliers in recent weeks had been overwhelmed with orders from the Chinese government. “I was placing a larger order with one of the bigger distributors and he...

The Trump administration has sent another large haul of personal protective equipment to the hard-hit Empire State as it continues to battle the deadliest coronavirus outbreak in the US, The Post has learned. The shipment sent on Friday includes nearly one million pairs of gloves, 200,000 masks, 194,000 gowns and 18,000 protective eye goggles and will be received by New York state health authorities who will decide where to distribute it, a White House source said. “Under President Trump’s leadership, New York has received an unprecedented level of federal resources to respond to COVID-19,” one White House official said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday announced that it has canceled the approval for some manufacturers in China to sell N95 respirators in the United States, as they failed to offer adequate protection against the new coronavirus. A number of these respirators failed to demonstrate a minimum particulate filtration efficiency of 95% upon testing, the agency said. The FDA’s move on Thursday follows its decision last month to ask China to revise new export quality control rules for protective equipment needed, so they are not an obstacle to timely supplies. The agency said it had previously authorized the...

The Chinese embassy to Canada on Monday claimed that a minor “contractual” issue caused a million Chinese N95 masks exported to Canada last month to be defective and useless. The Chinese claimed the contractual issue has been addressed. Canadian officials were literally left speechless by the embassy’s breezy statement. The huge shipment of masks in question was rejected by inspectors from the Canadian Health Ministry in the last week of April because they did not meet filtration standards. The masks were actually built to the KN95 standard, a Chinese designation considered substandard by the United States but normally accepted as...

In January, Chinese consulates across the world issued an urgent call for personal protective equipment (PPE) in order to fight the new coronavirus epidemic. Chinese government data shows that Beijing imported 2.4 billion pieces of protective equipment, including 2 billion masks. When the pandemic hit other countries — now short on PPE to fight the virus — China demanded governments praise the Middle Kingdom in exchange for much-needed relief. Georgette Mosbacher, the U.S. ambassador to Poland, told The New York Times that the Chinese Communist Party extorted President Andrzej Duda to call Chinese President Xi Jinping to thank him for...

A third Russian doctor has plunged from a hospital window after complaining about medics facing intolerable coronavirus pressures. Alexander Shulepov, 37, is fighting for his life with head injuries after taking part in in a video which claimed he was ordered to work despite testing positive for Covid-19. He and colleagues also warned about PPE shortages in Voronezh city. Later - lying in a coronavirus hospital bed - Shulepov made a second video to retract the claims amid suspicions he was pressured to do so. On Saturday, while being treated at Novousmanskaya district hospital, the experienced ambulance doctor plunged from...

“We’ve been competing against other states, against other nations, against our own federal government for PPE — coveralls, masks, shields, N95 masks — and we’re not waiting around any longer. And we’re no longer interested in the progress that we were seeing in the past.” That was California governor Gavin Newsom in an April 7 MSNBC appearance with Rachel Maddow. As Newsom added, “In the last 48 hours we have secured –through a consortia of nonprofits and a manufacturer here in the state of California – upwards of 200 million masks on a monthly basis that we’re confident we can...

White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro said during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures” that China "cornered" the personal protective equipment (PPE) market during the coronavirus outbreak and “is profiteering.”

White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro said during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures” that China "cornered" the personal protective equipment (PPE) market during the coronavirus outbreak and “is profiteering.” Navarro, who is also the National Defense Production Act policy coordinator, made the comment on Sunday reacting to a recent Fox News report, which cited multiple sources, that there is increasing confidence that the COVID-19 outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory, though not as a bioweapon but as part of China's attempt to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than...

Gov. J.B. Pritzker defended his decision Wednesday to arrange for two charter flights to transport millions of masks and gloves from China to Illinois to bolster the state's limited supply of personal protective equipment as it responds to the COVID-19 pandemic. The flights, which cost about $1.7 million, were listed in a new state comptroller portal that tracks state spending on the public health crisis. Details of the fights are being kept secret out of fear President Donald Trump's administration might seize the cargo, Pritzker said. “It is true that the federal government seems to be interrupting supplies that are...

... Granting grocery store workers a temporary designation of first responder or emergency personnel would "ensure these frontline workers have priority access to personal protection equipment like masks and gloves," the statement reads. The groups say this is not just about employees – it's about protecting the customers they serve and our nation's food supply in general. First responders like health care workers are lacking the necessary PPE, so government officials have been working to ensure the equipment gets to those who need it the most and that supplies on conserved. ...

As hospitals face an overload of COVID-19 patients struggling to breathe, innovative medical staff are turning to snorkelling masks from sports stores to stop their lungs collapsing. The idea started in Italy, the European country worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with hospitals in other nations taking note and adding their own specific medical parts to make it work. One such is the Erasme Hospital on the outskirts of Belgium's capital Brussels. It is attached to the city's ULB university - and through it to a private spin-off, Endo Tools Therapeutics, whose knowhow in 3D printing for medical use has proved...