Free Republic

In the face of today’s global health pandemic, we are experiencing a time of tremendous uncertainty. As the former CEO of a molecular diagnostic laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I believe advanced diagnostic technologies are ready to address the challenges we face. Today, Germany is testing between 360,000 to 500,000 citizens for viral infection weekly — tracking the spread of the coronavirus early. This enables self-quarantine for those who test positive and allows healthy individuals to move back to society. The German Health Ministry is investing 500 million euros to create a database to link hospitals with labs to provide information....

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...

Health experts from the National Academy of Sciences reportedly told the White House on Wednesday that limited research shows aerosolized droplets produced by talking or simply breathing may spread the novel coronavirus.

It’s just the flu, bro. Today I am presenting new science that I developed that will improve the situation we are in with this Coronavirus. My qualifications to speak on epidemiological matters are listed below: 1, Flubros member for 13 days 2. I am smart and creative and read the internet Herd immunity holds that when approximately 60% of a population gets a virus then the other 40% are way less likely to get it because there are fewer potential transmitters of the disease around. Therefore, I introduce the new science concept of encouraging healthiness-differentiated social distancing - or HSD....

It’s just the flu, bro. Worldometer’s Coronavirus website is very useful - Italy‘s deaths appears to be on the decline. We aren’t that many days behind them - some experts say somewhere between 1-2 weeks behind. What could we have done differently? State and local jurisdictions take their lead from the CDC. The CDC should have recommended the old and those with weakened immune system isolate themselves and let everyone else live their lives. The vulnerability of the old and already sick to Coronavirus was well known for many weeks. If the healthy live their lives normally then the healthy...

Thread #21 here: http://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3826151/posts?page=1

The Trump administration, moving quickly to halt the spread of the coronavirus, is seriously considering grounding all passenger air traffic for up to 30 days, temporarily halting stock trading on Wall Street, and imposing a shelter-in-place rule, according to officials. Key officials have begun alerting industry leaders, Capitol Hill, and agencies that the “radical” plan could come early next week if the warlike efforts to stop the spread of the virus fail. On Thursday, the administration began to prepare the nation for 9/11-style moves when the State Department issued a “Level Four” warning against traveling overseas. The warning is the...

If America is successful at fighting the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) within the next two weeks, the country could be through the "worst" part of the outbreak within six to eight weeks, Dr. Mehmet Oz said Wednesday. Appearing on "Fox & Friends" with hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade, Oz said that he was pretty confident in Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams' prediction that within 15 days Americans could potentially be over the hump. "We've got 15 days of holding our breath," he said. "In two weeks we will know exactly how successful we are. We can begin...

The state's temporary limit on size of gatherings violates the First Amendments "Assemble Peaceably" clause. The limit on size of gatherings for religious groups violates the First Amendments "Free Exercise" clause. There is no pandemic exception to the First Amendment in the United State Constitution. People should have the freedom to choose rather or not to go to a gathering. Many of us would rather take risks that make us happy, rather than live sad because many people are scared of COVID-19. We believe that states which do not follow the United States Constitution bring confusion. Not all states have...

As screening sites open and close, supplies run short and criteria for participation change, many can’t determine if they have the virus Feeling sick on Friday, Rachael Willingham went to the doctor, who gave her an order for the new coronavirus test and sent her to a mobile clinic the Colorado health department had set up. When she arrived at 9:45 a.m., a half-dozen police officers were blocking the entrance. She returned to the clinic that afternoon, but was told testing was over for the day. Ms. Willingham called a number for the state health department and was told to...

A 34-year-old man has died in California after testing positive of coronavirus just days ago, and 2 weeks after visiting Walt Disney World and Universal Studios in Florida ... TMZ has learned. Jeffrey Ghazarian from Glendora, CA, died Thursday morning at a Pasadena hospital after spending 5 days hooked up to a ventilator and battling for his life ... according to his family. His sister says ... "He suffered a lot and put up a good fight. We will miss our Jeff everyday but we are thankful for all the fun happy memories of the times we had together." Jeff's...

Taiwan and the US are to combat the COVID-19 pandemic together, with the partnership including medicine development, contact tracing technology and the exchange of medical supplies, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a joint statement yesterday. The statement, signed by AIT Director Brent Christensen and Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu said: “To further strengthen US-Taiwan consultation and cooperation on combating the COVID-19 virus, which originated in Wuhan, both sides will seek to share best practices and cooperate on a range of activities.” Following the AIT’s statement on Sunday, which said that...

Is it time to panic? NO. This document is trying to help you to understand the situation at hand and not to terrify you. We want to make sure you understand the facts and understand what is at stake. This is a Pearl Harbor moment for our country. We are facing a real threat and we need to face it with all of our resources. When people decry the seriousness of this moment they are steering our country off a cliff, we need everyone to understand that this is important and if we work together to slow the spread we...

Rome (CNN)Italy is entering its fourth week of the worst national crisis since World War II with no end in sight. More than 60 million people are living under an increasingly unbearable lockdown that is growing tighter by the day. The stores that remain open are shuttering earlier and police are patrolling in ever-greater numbers, chasing families out for walks back into their homes and ensuring no one is outside without a valid reason. Even so, the number of novel coronavirus cases in the country is rising at a rate of around 3,500 new cases or more every day, and...

American adults of all ages — not just those in their 70s, 80s and 90s — are being seriously sickened by the coronavirus, according to a report on nearly 2,500 of the first recorded cases in the United States. The report, issued Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that — as in other countries — the oldest patients had the greatest likelihood of dying and of being hospitalized. But of the 508 patients known to have been hospitalized, 38 percent were notably younger — between 20 and 54. And nearly half of the 121 patients who...

Seriously, how long does this stupidity continue? Charges of racism and xenophobia continue as the press objects to the Trump Administration referring to the COVID-19 virus by its place or origin.

Day #19 here: http://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3825446/posts?q=1&;page=1

(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...

Chaos, disorganization and cluelessness describe the current state of COVID-19 testing in the United States. Doctors, hospitals and state labs give patients needing tests the runaround, each pointing to the other as the place to get tested. Some people self-quarantine for days awaiting their results, only to be told the lab misplaced or bungled the test. As of March 11, the U.S. trailed most of the developed world in tests administered, with per capita numbers virtually the same as Vietnam's. A rigid federal regulatory regime that fails to make use of the innovation, flexibility and speed of the private sector...

This week, President Donald Trump came under fire for his use of the phrase "Chinese virus" to describe the coronavirus, the source of the new pandemic that has led to a global economic shutdown as well as lockdowns of citizens in every major Western country. That media have somehow found time to hone in on the one issue that matters least -- the labeling of a Chinese virus as such -- in the middle of an unprecedented planetwide freeze demonstrates the utter unseriousness of those objecting. That the term should be controversial at all is nearly beyond belief. The virus...