Free Republic

For now, social distancing is the best America can do to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. But if the U.S. truly mobilizes, it can soon deploy better weapons—advanced tests—that will allow the country to shift gradually to a protocol less disruptive and more effective than a lockdown. Instead of ricocheting between an unsustainable shutdown and a dangerous, uncertain return to normalcy, the U.S. could mount a sustainable strategy with better tests and maintain a stable course for as long as it takes to develop a vaccine or cure. The country will once more be able to plan for the future, get...

On a Jan. 15 conference call, a leading scientist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assured local and state public health officials from across the nation that there would soon be a test to detect a mysterious virus spreading from China. Stephen Lindstrom told them the threat was remote and they may not need the test his team was developing "unless the scope gets much larger than we anticipate," according to an email summarizing the call. "We're in good hands," a public health official who participated in the call wrote in the email to colleagues. Three weeks...

(Harrisburg) — A family in Cumberland County is quarantined at home after one member got sick with COVID-19. Dominic and several friends cut short a spring break trip to Spain when President Donald Trump announced a travel ban to the United States from Europe last Wednesday. He said he landed in New York City Thursday but wasn’t screened at the airport as he expected. He took a bus back to Philadelphia to collect his things. It wasn’t until Sunday, when one of his friends who had been on the trip texted him that he had tested positive, that Dominic realized...

Two hours. That’s all the time medical teams in Singapore are given to uncover the first details of how patients contracted the coronavirus and which people they might infect. Did they travel abroad? Do they have a link to one of the five clusters of contagion identified across the city-state? Did they cough on someone in the street? Who are their friends and family, their drinking buddies and partners in prayer? As Western nations struggle with the wildfire spread of the coronavirus, Singapore’s strategy, of moving rapidly to track down and test suspected cases, provides a model for keeping the...

Several weeks ago, I started work on a Monday with a sore throat and headache. I was doing a final review of my high rise building in anticipation of the Fire Marshall's visit that week. Tuesday, I was sick as a dog. Raging fever, aches and chills, migraine, and a persistent, dry cough. Used Dayquil and Nyquil to dampen the effects and clear my system. By Wednesday, I was at my doctor's office. I tested negative for the flu. Blood pressure and temperature were way up. They gave me a cocktail booster shots, ciprofloxacin, and prednisone. Doctor ordered chest x-rays....

“Stealth” coronavirus cases are fueling the pandemic, with a staggering 86% of people infected walking around undetected, a new study says. Six of every seven cases – 86% — were not reported in China before travel restrictions were implemented, driving the spread of the virus, according to a study Monday in the journal Science. “It’s the undocumented infections which are driving the spread of the outbreak,” said co-author Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University Mailman School, according to GeekWire. Using computer modeling, researchers tracked infections before and after the Chinese city of Wuhan’s travel ban.

A top Ohio health department official who said Thursday that 100,000 or more people in the state have coronavirus now says she was “guesstimating” to arrive at the alarming number. “I am not saying there are absolutely for certain 100,000 people,” Dr. Amy Acton, the director of the Ohio Department of Health, said at a press conference Friday. “I’m saying I’m guesstimating. If I’m guesstimating community spread, that’s my best number.” Acton raised eyebrows Thursday when she said that because there is community spread of coronavirus in Ohio, at least 1% of residents in the state are likely to have...

"World War C" can be taken in two ways: a war against coronavirus (COVID-19) or a world war against China, which is now being found out as the country responsible for unleashing a pandemic on the world. In times of uncertainty and crisis, the American people look to the president of the United States. As President Roosevelt once said, "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." President Trump, in a White House Rose Garden event flanked by great captains of American private-sector companies, had his finest hour in instilled confidence that all will be well throughout America. Thoughtful, courageous...

RUSH: I’m always interested in people’s reaction to this program. I think I have a lot of empathy, and I think one of the reasons why the relationship you and I have is good is ’cause I know how you hear this show. That, I think, is a key ingredient. It’s called empathy. I know how you hear it. So when I check emails and get questions from people, usually I’m not surprised, and I’m not surprised that I got beaucoup number of questions: “Rush, you don’t sound panicked over any of this. The last two days, you don’t sound...

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib made the remarks during a hearing of the House of Representatives with members of the president's coronavirus task force, confirming earlier reports by US media outlets including Axios and NBC News. "Congress's attending physician told the Senate that he expects between 70 to 150 million people to eventually contract the coronavirus in the United States," Tlaib said.

Invitation to do the math for your state: COVID-19 cases as a percent of the population. Below is a list of states per currently reported COVID-19 infections (by CNN, of 3-12-20) in comparison with population size (note that variations in reported cases are partly be due to how comprehensive testing can and has been done). Using an online calculator as here, (see second row under “Percentage Calculator in Common Phrases”, and remove commas in population figure), then 95 “is what percent of” 6949503 = 0.001367. Is this correct? And what correlations do you see that may be of interest? In...

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has said he will self-quarantine and be tested for coronavirus after mingling with the Brazilian President and his infected aide at Mar-a-Lago last weekend. President Donald Trump will learn on Friday whether Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to reports out of Brazil, after the two men dined together at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night and shook hands. Bolsonaro was checked for the disease after his aide Fabio Wajngarten tested positive for it but South Carolina senator Graham said Thursday he doesn't recall touching the leader or the infected staff member. 'Senator...

LT is out today. Yesterday's thread is here: http://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3823556/posts?page=1

America has failed to meet the capacity for coronavirus testing that it needs, a top public health official publicly acknowledged Thursday. "The system is not really geared to what we need right now," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a House hearing about coronavirus test kits in the United States, which were initially dogged by technical glitches. "That is a failing. Let's admit it." Fauci was responding to a question from Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, who asked about a claim by trade organization National Nurses United alleging that "countless" health...

VANITY post. Please add your own and I hope someone 'in charge' reads this. A number of my doctor friends are telling me this: 1. Patient A goes to a primary care doctor with flu-like symptoms. Fever, cough, etc. and tests negative for the flu. They had just returned from international travel. Tells staff to request a coronavirus test. Told "patient doesn't qualify" UNLESS he or she has been to one of the specified countries (Italy, China, Iran) or has been near a specific person that has tested positive. 2. Patient B. Back from a cruise. Flulike symptoms. Not to...

A top health official in Ohio estimated on Thursday that more than 100,000 people in the state have coronavirus, a shockingly high number that underscores the limited testing so far. Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton said at a press conference alongside Gov. Mike DeWine (R) that given that the virus is spreading in the community in Ohio, she estimates at least 1 percent of the population in the state has the virus. "We know now, just the fact of community spread, says that at least 1 percent, at the very least, 1 percent of our population is carrying...

Topline: As the coronavirus pandemic wipes out markets, closes schools and colleges, suspends major conferences, sports leagues and cultural events as well as upends the travel industry, businesses losing out on cash flow have started laying off workers

RUSH: Now, there are other things still related to this that we didn’t get into in the first hour. And, you know, Trump’s banning travel from Europe. Democrats not happy about this, folks. They do not like losing their precious travel from their precious European Union even for a day. Some people have asked, “What did you think of president’s speech last night? You didn’t say.” I thought he gave the right speech at the right time. Look, I know some people get frustrated. “My gosh, couldn’t they do something with the sound? You could hear the president breathing.” You...

Continuation of the thread. Please use this thread to consolidate the discussion and stories.

As Placer County’s health officer, Dr. Aimee Sisson, did the math, she realized that quarantining those exposed to the new coronavirus was not going to contain the spread of the disease. This realization hit Sisson as she and her team investigated a case of COVID-19 in a Placer County resident who had returned home Feb. 21 from a cruise to Mexico aboard the Grand Princess. The respiratory illness wasn’t diagnosed until March 3, however, so for 11 days, other local people could have been infected. While researchers have put the maximum incubation period for COVID-19 at 14 days, Sisson said,...