Free Republic

"It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes." It may have been Stalin and it may have been Napoleon. It may have been Boss Tweed. Regardless of the original source, this truism describes government corruption and manipulation to perfection. Even in the face of a global pandemic and an unprecedented government-ordered economic shutdown, politicians are using their power to corrupt vital needed data regarding the Chinese coronavirus and its deadly toll on Americans. The latest escapade comes from America's "ground zero" for COVID-19 infections, New York, where the death tally just surpassed 10,000....

Grassfire reports: "According to data obtained from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics Mortality Surveillance System website, total U.S. deaths for the first three weeks of March are DOWN 10% from the average of the prior four years for the same three week period. The average for weeks 9 through 11 for the four prior years was a total of 170,555 deaths. For weeks 9 through 11 this year, the total is 153,015, meaning 17,540 fewer people died in America during the first three weeks of March than could be reasonably expected. And the gap between historic deaths and...

Are we overreacting to Coronavirus? The answer is hell yeah! At this time, the United States is seeing what very well may be the peak in deaths from the latest human Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. The media reporting and governmental response to this viral outbreak are unprecedented. But what is more concerning than the virus itself is our American collective response to it. It is no less than tragic. If it is not seen for what it is, it very well may mean the end of the American experiment and will lead to new totalitarianism that will harm and...

Donald Trump's top advisors have expressed doubts about the accuracy of the White House's apocalyptic forecast that 240,000 Americans will die from the coronavirus pandemic, sources have said. As the US death reached 6,056 Thursday and the nation's healthcare system buckles under the crisis, administration officials said the stark forecasts could have been a tactic to warn the president he needs to act now. The White House made the shock prediction Tuesday that there will be between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths in the US if the nation continues on its trajectory and current social distancing guidelines are maintained. Trump said...

A few points, right off the top: First, the US response to coronavirus has been poor in some aspects, better in others, and is complicated by an uneven patchwork of state and local policies. Some of the failures can be laid at the feet of the federal government -- including within both the Trump administration and previous administrations -- while other levels of government also have mistakes to answer for. Second, whenever you see a graph purporting to demonstrate that America's reaction to the pandemic has been the worst in the world, proceed with extreme skepticism. Some of these graphics...

ITALY may be fighting back in the battle against coronavirus as the nation's death toll slowed for the second day in a row, offering renewed hope. Data revealed a drop in the rate of deaths and new infections with the number of deaths in the world's worst-affected country rising by 602 on Monday, the smallest increase for four days. Italy's Civil Protection Agency showed 4,789 new cases on Monday, nearly 700 fewer than the day-to-day increase of 5,560 new cases reported from a day earlier. The number of deaths followed a similar trend with 602 virus-related deaths registered on Monday...

Sweeping new federal recommendations announced on Monday for Americans to sharply limit their activities appeared to draw on a dire scientific report warning that, without action by the government and individuals to slow the spread of coronavirus and suppress new cases, 2.2 million people in the United States could die. To curb the epidemic, there would need to be drastic restrictions on work, school and social gatherings for periods of time until a vaccine was available, which could take 18 months, according to the report, compiled by British researchers. They cautioned that such steps carried enormous costs that could also...

European journalist David Carretta posted a grim video Saturday morning that's getting a lot of attention on Twitter. It shows the stark comparison between obituary pages in an Italian newspaper on Feb. 9 versus March 13. As Carretta's contrast depicts, the daily paper L'Eco di Bergamo had a page and a half of obituaries on Feb. 9, 2020. On March 13, the obituary section took up 10 pages.

While everyone is in a panic about the coronavirus (officially renamed COVID-19 by the World Health Organization), there's an even deadlier virus many people are forgetting about: the flu. Flu season is hitting its stride right now in the US. So far, the CDC has estimated (based on weekly influenza surveillance data) that at least 12,000 people have died from influenza between Oct. 1, 2019 through Feb. 1, 2020, and the number of deaths may be as high as 30,000. The CDC also estimates that up to 31 million Americans have caught the flu this season, with 210,000 to 370,000...

Covid-19 death toll jumps 36% in Italy The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has jumped by 168 to 631, an increase of 36%, the Civil Protection Agency said on Tuesday, the largest rise in absolute numbers since the contagion came to light on 21 February, Reuters reports. The total number of cases in Italy, the European country hardest hit by the virus in Europe, rose to 10,149 from a previous 9,172, an increase of 10.7%. The head of the agency said that, of those originally infected, 1,004 had fully recovered compared to 724 the day before....

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided a grim reminder of the toll that the flu has taken on Americans. The CDC said that so far this season, about 20,000 people have died of the flu, including 136 children. The CDC's most recent flu report says that as of February 29, hospitalization rates among children aged 4 and under were the highest on record at this point in the season, surpassing rates reported during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. The 136 children's deaths also mark the highest on record since...

There was a record increase in the number of infections detected in the past 24 hours, while 589 patients have recovered, Italian health officials stated on Saturday. Here's the latest news. The death toll from the outbreak of coronavirus in Italy rose to 233 on Saturday, up from 197 on Friday. The increase of 35 was lower than in the previous two days, marking a slight slowdown in the number of fatalities being reported in the country. The number of cases in the country however shows no sign of slowing, with more than 1,000 new cases confirmed in the past...

World health officials said Tuesday the case fatality rate for COVID-19 is 3.4% globally, higher than previous estimates of about 2%. “Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. In comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected, he said. ...During a press briefing Monday, WHO officials said they don’t know how COVID-19 behaves, saying it’s not like influenza. They added that while much is known about the seasonal flu, such as how it’s transmitted and what treatments work...

SEATTLE - The novel coronavirus tightened its grip on Washington state Tuesday, with nine deaths reported and at least 25 total cases confirmed statewide. Eight deaths have been reported in King County, and one in Snohomish County, health officials said. One of the deaths confirmed Tuesday happened six days ago at Harborview Medical Center, but the coronavirus diagnosis wasn't made until well after the person's death, said Harborview spokesperson Susan Gregg.

Six people in Washington have now died from COVID-19, the illness caused by a new coronavirus, state and King County officials announced Monday, as they said that an extraordinary effort to contain and manage the health crisis is moving toward a new stage. While stressing most people will experience mild symptoms, the officials say more cases are inevitable and they will soon stop intensively following up on each one. Rather, they will focus on outbreaks and giving individuals, schools and other institutions the best advice on how to minimize illness... The majority of King County’s cases are also linked to...

The deadly coronavirus rapidly sweeping the world kills up to 15 per cent of patients over the age of 80, scientists have revealed. Chinese health officials carried out the biggest ever study on the never-before-seen strain of the virus, using data from 72,000 cases. Results showed the SARS-CoV-2 virus posed the greatest threat to older patients and those with underlying conditions, such as cancer. Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention researchers also found 80.9 per cent of infections are mild. Less than five per cent are critical. A separate group of virologists studying the coronavirus have also claimed it...

Number of confirmed cases jumps by almost 2,000 in one day, as total figure tops 9,600 in China From CNN's Steven Jiang in Beijing China's National Health Commission has announced that as of the end-of Thursday January 30, the total number of confirmed Wuhan coronavirus cases in mainland China had risen to 9,692.That's a jump of 1,982 from the previous day, with the total figure now far exceeding the number of cases associated with severe respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 -- previously among Asia's worst outbreaks.The death toll in mainland China has now reached 213, with 42 new deaths occurring...

At least five people are dead after an eruption on a volcanic island off the coast of New Zealand on Monday, local officials have confirmed. New Zealand police say a number of people were injured and have been taken to an area hospital, but it remains too dangerous for emergency services to access the island and search for those missing. Authorities believe fewer than 50 New Zealanders and international tourists were on or near White Island – about 30 miles off the coast of New Zealand's North Island – but the exact number of people unaccounted for is unclear. "We...

UNICEF is vaccinating thousands more children against measles and rushing life-saving medicines to health centers across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as deaths from the world’s largest measles outbreak top 4,000. Since January, 203,179 cases of measles have been reported in all 26 provinces of the country, and 4,096 have died. Children under the age of five represent 74 per cent of infections and nearly 90 per cent of deaths. The number of measles cases in DRC this year is more than triple the number recorded for all of 2018. The measles outbreak in DRC has become far...

The death toll from devastating Hurricane Dorian will be 'staggering' with thousands still missing, officials have warned amid reports looters are 'trying to shoot people' in the scramble for food and water. Up to 70,000 are in need of 'life-saving assistance' while Great Abaco is said to be virtually uninhabitable, with bodies piled up and witnesses say there is a 'smell of death' with corpses floating in the water. While the official death toll stands at 30, that number is expected to rise today and hundreds of body bags have been ordered along with extra freezers. A massive international relief...