Free Republic

Herd immunity is exactly what the spike in cases indicates is developing, and we need it to continue. Politicians have been reimposing and maintaining lockdowns and mask mandates due to media furor over “spikes” in coronavirus cases. This has happened in 21 states and many more localities, says The New York Times. One of the many problems with this is that the nation needs people to keep getting coronavirus.That’s because coronavirus spread is a natural vaccine that protects those who survive — which is the vast majority — and even those who don’t catch it, through herd immunity. This natural...

Today the public have been told via the mainstream press that UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock is now ‘looking into’ how data regarding coronavirus fatalities is being recorded. This, despite months of reporting by dissenting journalists who have been challenging the official government line . ... Dying *of* coronavirus? Or dying *with* coronavirus. The distinction is crucial, ... Public Health England confirmed that people who are dying of natural causes are also being counted as ‘COVID deaths’ by virtue of the fact that they had previously tested positive for the virus. Officials are calling this “a strange anomaly,” but it’s...

U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Headquarters Rockville, MarylandTHE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, thank you, Secretary Azar.  Thank you for your great leadership, and thank you for that inspiring story about your grandfather.  And I just can’t help but think what a great country this is, that, in just two short generations, your family went from Ellis Island and meeting a member of the U.S. Public Health Service to being the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  Join me in thanking Secretary Azar, would you please?  (Applause.)  What a great story.  (Inaudible.)And I want to thank someone, who has become...

Democrats say the president should use his emergency powers to mandate that everyone must wear a mask in public to improve our health and our economy. Ok, if we're now using emergency powers to negate the constitution and separation of powers, there are lots of things the president can do improve our health and our economy. For example: He can declare a total tax holiday for the next six months (hmmm... make it retractive to the first of the year), including all federal, state and local income taxes, payroll taxes, real estate taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, fuel taxes, telephone...

Gay Pride was held today in Chicago. Hundreds, if not thousands, flocked to the annual party in downtown Chicago. Of course, the media cheered this crowd since it was not a Trump rally.

By treating Black Lives Matters protests differently than other large gatherings, public officials and health experts have exposed themselves as hypocrites. We’re told a second wave of coronavirus infections is coming. As businesses open back up and states relax lockdown orders, the number of new cases is ticking up in a handful of states. We’ve heard warnings in recent days from the Centers for Disease Control and various public health experts and elected officials that a new series of lockdowns might be necessary.What these experts and officials don’t seem to realize is that Americans will never comply with their lockdown...

Democratic lawmakers in Ohio have proposed legislation to declare racism a public health issue amid nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd . . . “What we are witnessing around the country is a community simply begging to be seen and heard,” said Democratic Rep. Stephanie Howse, of Cleveland, and the caucus president. “Racism is real and it is the biggest public health threat citizens of color face.”

On May 26, Virginia’s Gov. Ralph Northam announced that wearing masks outside one’s home will be mandatory effective May 29. He first hinted he might issue a masking order a week ago, likely to test the water. A new refrain in public discourse is growing in volume by the day: “Things will never be the same.” The certainty with which we are assured of this pre-determined future is perplexing. Whether or not “things” will ever be the same is not at all clear, but that some people hope things will never be the same is certain. To those looking to...

The coronavirus news for kids has been overwhelmingly positive, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo is feeding fear by raising a tenuously connected specter of Kawasaki disease for children. Just when COVID death rates are declining and recovery appears around the corner in most states, the latest fear is that children are getting sick and are at risk of dying. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is one of those prominently pushing this inaccurate idea. He has emerged as the COVID-19 antihero due to his catastrophic policy of forcing nursing homes to accept infectious patients, which led to a surge in deaths. He...

By late March, nearly every country in Europe had closed schools and businesses, restricted travel and ordered citizens to stay home. But one country stood out for its decision to stay open: Sweden. The country’s moderated response to the coronavirus outbreak has drawn praise from some U.S. politicians, who see Sweden as a possible model for the United States as it begins to reopen. “We need to observe with an open mind what went on in Sweden, where the kids kept going to school,” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, said at a hearing Tuesday. But while Sweden has...

Our country is in trouble. Mutually exclusive worldviews now hinder the quest for scientific truth. The accelerated politicization of medicine has me more concerned than ever. In the past year, it seems politics will leave no rock unturned. Every aspect of our lives is becoming politicized. The NBA. The NFL. Nike. Thanksgiving. Now medicine. This is even more dangerous than it first appears. Recently, an online video by ER doctors Daniel Erickson and Artin Massihi went viral. They expressed views that differed from the presiding media narrative on COVID-19. Swiftly, the video was censored by YouTube, and their own professional...

With COVID-19, it is like that clichéd scene in the movies where the scientist looks up from the microscope and says, ‘This doesn't seem to behave like anything I've ever seen before.’ My father-in-law recently asked me if it is hard to see hospitals and death in film because their depictions are so inaccurate. Yes, it can ruin the realism for me and make me cringe. Then I realized that just watching the news or press conferences these days are giving me the same feeling.Everyone seems to be talking about intensive care units (ICUs) and COVID-19 patients. As someone who...

The decisions that are being made during this crisis are far too important and complex to be based on such imprecise data and with such unreliable results. There’s been a lot of armchair analysis about various models being used to predict outcomes of COVID-19. For those of us who have built spatial and statistical models, all of this discussion brings to mind George Box’s dictum, “All models are wrong, but some are useful”—or useless, as the case may be.The problem with data-driven models, especially when data is lacking, can be easily explained. First of all, in terms of helping decision...

Virus management is about power and control, the two things the elite always want and therefore don’t want to relinquish even when the virus recedes. The big-picture story of American politics of the last four years has been a battle royale between elite power structures and millions of ordinary Americans. Donald Trump’s 2016 election win, the Russia collusion hoax, and the impeachment drama were all essentially tussles between elite control and democratic norms, between the will of the powerful and the will of the 2016 voters, a.k.a. Trump supporters. A loose assortment of unelected bureaucrats, D.C. power players, Democratic leaders,...

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...

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...

On April 11, The Washington Post ran an article about plans being made to reopen the economy. The article complains that state governors (rather than the White House) are leading the planning, which has resulted in a “mind-boggling level of disorganization,” according to a Centers for Disease Control director. The incessant bleating of prominent health leaders over the lack of federal control in this crisis only underscores how little they understand or respect this country’s Constitution and the freedoms it seeks to protect. Although the White House certainly has emergency authority to mandate all number of efforts to respond to...

After failing to censor President Trump's press conferences, media are working on a new plan of pressuring him to remove himself from his press conferences. For years, the media complained that President Donald Trump wasnÂ’t holding enough press conferences. Now, as the mediaÂ’s poor performance in his daily coronavirus press conferences is on worldwide display, theyÂ’re begging him to leave his own press conferences, and leave them alone to craft their anti-Trump storylines. When March polls showed Trump receiving unusually high marks for his handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, and the media receiving their traditionally low marks for it, many...

The Wuhan coronavirus outbreak is finally forcing a conversation about our vast economic entanglements with communist China. While we’re reevaluating those ties, celebrities are flocking to TikTok and raising money for the China-complicit World Health Organization.Lady Gaga is helping organize a major star-studded special on April 18, set to air across CBS, ABC, and NBC. The list of celebrity participants is long and full of A-listers. Make no mistake, this is a major television event. It’s also funding and legitimizing the WHO, which has defended the Chinese Communist Party’s reprehensible response to the outbreak.But that’s where Gaga’s benefit will...

Just think of that: We can save nearly 2 million lives every year with these personal and collective sacrifices. In addition, we can prevent an estimated 100 million sicknesses and injuries! Those of us who have raised concerns about the tradeoffs of shutting down the nation indefinitely based on speculative models lacking essential data have been told we’re heartless, pro-death, un-Christian sickos who should be ejected from society and banned from all platforms.How dare we worry about things like money, the next generation’s education, the carnage of a destroyed economy, the deliberate wreckage of all non-pandemic medical services, the desolation...