In a stunning statement President Donald Trump admitted his motivation in re-opening the country is to help not the American people but his re-election chances. In a mind-blowing tweet the president blasted the “LameStream Media” for what he claimed is “trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success.”
Right away Americans unloaded their anger and outrage of the president. Continue reading.
As the highly contagious virus has created clusters of illness, from Seattle to New York City, death has followed in turn. On Wednesday night, the country’s largest city reported 88 new deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. As of Thursday afternoon, Americans had died in 42 states and territories and the District, with punishing increases in Louisiana and Michigan. Experts fear the worst is still to come, pointing to a rapid acceleration of cases in communities across the country.
The Washington Post is tracking every known U.S. death, analyzing data from health agencies and gathering details from family and friends of the victims. In the first 1,000 fatalities, some patterns have begun to emerge in the outbreak’s epidemiology and its painful human impact. About 65 percent of the dead whose ages are known were older than 70, and nearly 40 percent were over 80, demonstrating that risk rises along with age. About 5 percent whose ages are known were in their 40s or younger, but many more in that age group have been sick enough to be hospitalized. Of those victims whose gender is known, nearly 60 percent were men. Continue reading.
The U.S. military is grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, as service members seek to provide aid and protect themselves from infection.
The Department of Defense is engaging in a balancing act, deploying field hospitals to different cities facing severe outbreaks, while scaling back operations elsewhere. Military leaders said Tuesday that 227 service members tested positive for COVID-19, and thousands of others in the U.S. and abroad are being monitored for potential exposure.
While the number of service members with the virus is relatively low, the military has still imposed tight restrictions as a precaution, scaling back on training new recruits, closing in-person recruiting centers, postponing major military exercises with allies and limiting travel. Continue reading.
An Arizona man died, and his wife was hospitalized, after taking a form of chloroquine, which President Trump has touted as an effective treatment for COVID-19. The couple decided to self-medicate with chloroquine phosphate, which they had on hand to kill parasites in their fish, after hearing the president describe the drug as a “game changer.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of NIH’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, quickly corrected the statement, explaining that Trump’s comments were based on anecdotes and not a controlled clinical trial.
I am a medicinal chemist who specializes in discovery and development of antiviral drugs, and I have been actively working on coronaviruses for seven years. Continue reading.
Congress is racing to pass a $2 trillion package as the rapid spread of the coronavirus has upended day-to-day life in the United States.
The bill, which passed by the Senate late Wednesday, marks an unprecedented attempt by the federal government to revive the economy and prevent a deep recession. By comparison, the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was $700 billion.
The legislation would have a far-reaching impact while it tries to pump money toward workers, small businesses and industries that have been impacted by the recent economic downturn. Continue reading.
More than 160 million Americans have been urged to stay home in what the World Health Organization has declared a global pandemic. Nonessential businesses and schools in states like New York, Illinois and California have shuttered. In parts of the country, coronavirus patients are flooding hospitals.
Yet listeners of Mark Levin’s syndicated radio program heard on March 16 that much of the furor is a politically motivated overreaction. “I don’t want to be part of the hype machine,” Levin said. One of the country’s most-listened-to talk radio hosts, Levin averages 11 million listeners a week, according to the trade publication Talkers. “People on TV who lied to you about Russia and the Ukraine and so forth, trashing the president, using this as another opportunity to hype and dramatize their agenda.”
Levin, a prominent conservative commentator, called the virus a “serious” matter. But he also emphasized that the death toll from the “Wuhan coronavirus” was significantly lower than that from the seasonal flu in the U.S. “We have 30,000 deaths this flu season,” he said, according to a ProPublica review of broadcasts since March 10. Continue reading.
The World Health Organization on Wednesday came out against sending people back to work and school in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that ending social distancing measures too soon could worsen the ongoing outbreak.
“These measures are the best way to suppress and stop transmission, so that when restrictions are lifted, the coronavirus doesn’t resurge,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
“The last thing any country needs is to open schools and businesses, only to be forced to close them again because of a resurgence.” Continue reading.
He put a boundary on that recommendation of 15 days but even on Tuesday insisted that any decision to rescind those recommendations would be “based on hard facts and data.” Continue reading.
“I had to make a decision: Do I stop people from China and specifically that area, but from China to come into the country? And everybody was against it. Almost everybody, I would say, was just absolutely against it. We’ve never done it before. We never made a decision like that. … It was instinct.”
Trump’s recollection — that his “instinct” led him to take action over the advice of “everybody” — conflicts with reporting on the decision-making that led to the administration, effective Feb. 3, to bar foreigners (with many exemptions) from traveling to the United States from China. The New York Times reported the plan was initially recommended by staff from the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Department, and they were soon joined by public health experts. Trump was reluctant at first when the idea was presented to him. Continue reading.
Over 80 percent of American adults will receive a paymentThe U.S. government is about to send checks — or direct deposits — to most Americans to help people survive financially as much of the economy shuts down in an effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Bipartisan legislation passed by the Senate on Wednesday evening — which still must be passed by the House — would provide $1,200 payments to adults with annual incomes up to $75,000, plus another $500 per child. Some Americans earning more than $75,000 would also receive money if they meet certain qualifications outlined below. For most Americans, the money is likely to arrive in April via direct deposit. Mailed checks may take longer.
Use the calculator below to see how much you would receive. Under that, see answers to frequently asked questions. Continue reading. Free article
