Free Republic

Committee to Unleash Prosperity President Phil Kerpen suggested on "The Ingraham Angle" Wednesday night that the increase in reported coronavirus cases is largely due to states counting "repeat tests" as though they are from separate individuals.

ORLANDO, Fla. - The Florida Department of Health released its daily coronavirus testing report showing a statewide positivity rate of 11 percent, but FOX 35 News investigated and quickly noticed some shocking positivity rates. … The report showed that Orlando Health had a 98 percent positivity rate. However, when FOX 35 News contacted the hospital, they confirmed errors in the report. Orlando Health's positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent as in the report.

The country’s top testing official said Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has suggested states should pause reopening where coronavirus cases are spiking, is “not 100 percent right.” “I respect Dr. Fauci a lot, but Dr. Fauci is not 100 percent right, and he also doesn’t necessarily, he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind,” Adm. Brett Giroir said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “He looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view.” Host Chuck Todd asked Giroir, the testing coordinator at the Department of Health and Human Services, about a Washington Post report...

On June 12, 2020, the FDA granted an amendment to the EUA for the CDC diagnostic test used to detect COVID 19 to address global shortages of materials needed to perform the test. This amendment provides alternatives for processing the test: Four additional extraction reagents were approved that can be used in the existing extraction methods; An additional extraction instrument and associated reagents were approved; and a new process that can be used in place of the extraction method when materials for the current method are limited

Today, Governor Ned Lamont reported CDC results from the first six sites of large-scale seroprevalence surveys, including Connecticut. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today released the results of the first six sites involved in its large-scale seroprevalence survey, which includes Connecticut. The federal agency partnered with commercial laboratories for the survey that tested de-identified clinical blood specimens for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The survey included people who had blood specimens tested for reasons unrelated to COVID-19, such as for a routine or sick visit blood test by commercial laboratories in participating areas. In Connecticut, the survey estimates that...

There is a rise in Coronavirus cases because our testing is so massive and so good, far bigger and better than any other country. This is great news, but even better news is that death, and the death rate, is DOWN. Also, younger people, who get better much easier and faster!

I went boating with someone in the know. The reason why testing has gone crazy here is if you work for fed.gov, state/local government or the big corporations and test positive for COVID - it's a free two week paid vacation. Just wait on line and done. We had only SIX deaths on Saturday. NINE the day before that... but we're still ruining our economy over it. If anyone is still falsely claims Florida has a substantial COVID problem, THIS LINK has everything you need to know.

Each year in June, the United States observes National Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Testing Day.  An estimated 1.2 million people in the United States are currently living with HIV.  Sadly, 1 in 7 of these individuals are unaware that they have HIV, which poses serious health risks.  On this day, we reaffirm our Nation’s leading role in advancing prevention, research, treatment, and cures for this virus and pledge to continue working to raise awareness about the importance of testing and early diagnosis in combating HIV.While infections in the United States have dropped by more than two-thirds since the onset...

Once again, the U.S. is undergoing a media-driven COVID-19 scare after a “spike” in infections. But as we noted earlier this week, the number of cases depends on the amount of testing. The key gauge to watch is deaths. They’ve been falling since April, and there’s strong reason to believe they’re lower than the official count suggests. The dreaded Wuhan virus is no doubt a nasty bug, worthy of our vigilance and ongoing concern. That said, its virulence, as measured by the daily number of deaths, appears to be waning, as the chart with this piece, courtesy of the COVID-19...

A federal review by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found that the early version of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) coronavirus test kits failed because of “likely” contamination. The review, which was first reported by Sinclair Broadcasting Group, found that there was “time pressure’’ at the CDC to launch testing, and “lab practices that may have been insufficient to prevent the risk of contamination.” Their review also found they did not check the kits despite “anomalies” during manufacturing. The review does not appear to assign blame directly to the CDC, The Washington Post reported....

Liberty: "the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views; the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved." These are the days. These are the days when men and women accept draconian measures as if they were trifles. The nation and the world come grinding to a halt, and it is just another “interruption.” In 1776, there was a revolution against restraints from a foreign power. Now there is bleating from domestic governors about lockdowns, tracing, testing, vaccinating, and the majority of the populace obeys these tyrants...

A Dallas woman is detailing her battle with not one but two rounds of coronavirus. Over the weekend, Meredith McKee posted a tearful photo -- that's now been seen by more than 100,000 people -- from her hospital bed at Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas. McKee is sick with the coronavirus again, and she told NBC 5 she wouldn't wish it on her worst enemy. "To be alone in the hospital and not have anyone, you know," McKee said tearfully. McKee tested positive for COVID-19 in February. She was diagnosed after feeling "clear and obvious" symptoms. "I had a dry...

Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday that, with the exception of a few places, the United States is seeing strong drops in COVID-19-related hospitalization and mortality rates, attributing the “vast majority” of new cases to a surge in testing. Speaking at a White House roundtable, Pence said that increased cases of COVID-19 infections in some states were caused by a “dramatic increase in testing.” “Our team has been working with governors over the past week. We’re carefully analyzing those new cases, and we really believe that the vast majority of new cases is a reflection, as you said, of...

Over the two last weeks, Mayor Bill de Blasio and others have voiced concerns that packed police brutality protests across the city could trigger a new wave of COVID-19 infections. Whether or not that’s the case, however, remains unknown — and de Blasio’s team won’t be directly trying to find out. The hundreds of contact tracing workers hired by the city under de Blasio’s new “test and trace” campaign have been instructed not to ask anyone who’s tested positive for COVID-19 whether they recently attended a demonstration, City Hall confirmed to THE CITY. “No person will be asked proactively if...

For the second time in about a month, Washington state leaders have completely changed how they track and report key metrics in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Two weeks ago, as we noted, the previous dashboard with five dials proved to be largely useless, inaccurate, and irrelevant. Soon afterward, state officials stopped updating the dials and now they have abandoned them entirely. The new dashboard the governor has put up is, potentially, an improvement. For example, where his old dashboard with the dials claimed daily testing for COVID-19 was improving, saying the amount of testing was “very roughly steady,” his new...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted Thursday that she has not been tested for coronavirus, nor has she been tested for antibodies to determine if she had previously been infected. Pelosi was asked about her testing status during a weekly press briefing, during which she espoused the significance of widespread testing in helping get the pandemic under control, after 1.7 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and more than 100,000 have died. "There has to be a stop to this. The answer is testing," Pelosi said. "We have in our HEROES Act a plan for testing. Testing to open up...

TOPLINE In updated guidance posted on its website over the weekend, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged an inability to accurately determine if individuals had been infected with Covid-19 via antibody tests; if the test is used in a population where prevalence is low, it's possible that "less than half of those testing positive will truly have antibodies."

Earlier this month, Chinese authorities announced plans to test all 11 million people in Wuhan within ten days, a plan they referred to as “ten days of mass battle.” This was prompted by the discovery of a half dozen new cases of the virus in one apartment building. In the end they didn’t quite get it done in ten days. They did however test about 9 million people using a technique called sample pooling: Most of those nine million samples have already been processed, according to a daily record of nucleic-acid tests by Wuhan health authorities. In total, they...

According to a NYU study, the legendary five-minute Abbott coronavirus test misses close to 50 percent of positive infections. Abbott disputes this. The company claims its own false negatives are just .02 percent and it is not convinced NYU did the tests correctly. ... This test is the one currently in use at the White House and the one President Trump touts as the five-minute test because it can produce a positive result in five to 13 minutes, and a negative result in 13 minutes.

March 31, 2020 San Diego, CA (March 31, 2020) – Cue Health Inc. (“Cue”), a healthcare technology company, announced that is has been awarded a $13 million contract to accelerate the development, validation and FDA clearance of a portable, molecular diagnostic test capable of detecting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in less than 25 minutes using a simple nasal swab. The test is part of the Cue Health Monitoring System, which is designed to be a portable device that can perform a molecular test and connect patients to a mobile health platform that features interventional components such as telemedicine...