Free Republic

My long-time doctor friends who have treated COVID-19 patients have been disappointed recently in some of the national and regional media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. They point out the over-emphasis often given to statistical information without proper understanding. For example, emphasizing the volume of reported cases without equally emphasizing increased testing and positivity ratios is misleading. Governors, doctors and hospitals seriously consider positivity ratios, and the media should not bury the lead here. It isn’t all about case volume. Also, some in the media and Democratic leaders, like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden have recently been critical of President...

A Texas tavern said this week it will not serve customers who wear coronavirus protective face masks, according to a report. The Liberty Tree Tavern, located in Elgin -- about 25 miles east of Austin -- posted a sign that read: “Due to our concern for customers, if they FEEL (not think), that they need to wear a mask, they should stay home until they FEEL that it’s safe to be in public without one. Sorry, No Mask Allowed.” The city has a population of around 10,000 residents, according to the 2018 census. Only 52 residents have tested positive for...

After patient volumes sink up to 90% in some areas, the Dallas hospital system ‘must re-examine everything,’ says CEO. Baylor Scott & White Health, the largest not-for-profit hospital system in Texas, will lay off roughly 1,200 employees, or almost 3% of its workforce, due to fallout from the coronavirus. Baylor said it would also furlough an unspecified number of workers, leave open positions unfilled and cut the pay of about 300 senior leaders. Furloughed employees, who are generally eligible for unemployment insurance, will continue to get company benefits and may be asked to return to the job eventually. Like many...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Texas officials fighting to block widespread mail-in voting during the pandemic claimed victory after the state's highest court ruled Wednesday that a lack of immunity to the coronavirus doesn't qualify someone to cast a ballot by mail. The decision was unanimous by the Texas Supreme Court, which is stocked with nine Republican justices, including one who revealed last week that she had tested positive for COVID-19. Texas generally limits mail balloting only to voters who are over 65 years old or have a disability. Justice Eva Guzman wrote the court was unified in the conclusion that...

Michigan is now the only state among the 19 states with more than 900 COVID-19 deaths that is not reporting the number of those deaths that are from nursing homes. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has failed to implement state level reporting on the number of COVID-19 deaths in the state from long term care facilities more than one month after local media reports first indicated the state of Michigan has a serious problem with COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes. That pattern of failing to report this key public health information continued on Tuesday when Gov. Whitmer refused to answer...

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday that counties can begin to reopen hair salons and barbershops, marking a transition to the third stage of a plan to ease his stay-at-home order as California nears 100,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. With cases on track to nearly double in the month of May, the governor has pointed to steady hospitalizations and other metrics as proof that the state is bending the curve. The shears will not be snipping immediately in Los Angeles County, however. The county, which accounts for the bulk of the state’s COVID-19 cases and more than half of...

Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s March 25 order requiring nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to accept recovering coronavirus patients has disappeared from the New York State Department of Health’s website. The webpage for Cuomo’s order says the document is “not found,” though it can still be seen on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. It took the governor roughly six weeks to reverse the order, which has been blamed for the high death rate among New York’s elderly. The order’s disappearance, which was first reported by Fox News on Tuesday, comes as Cuomo has faced increasing levels of...

Casinos in Las Vegas and other Nevada cities can reopen next Thursday for the first time since the coronavirus forced the gaming industry to shut down more than two months ago, Gov. Steve Sisolak says. The state plans to revive its gaming industry nearly a week after it starts Phase 2 of its reopening this Friday. "We continue to see a consistent and sustainable downward trajectory of percentage of positive COVID-19 cases and a decrease in the trend of COVID-19 hospitalizations," Sisolak said Tuesday night. Casinos are forming plans that they hope will entice customers to return. As Nevada Public...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - A Florida man is charged with providing material support to the Islamic State extremist group, including attempting to buy multiple weapons and scouting potential targets for an attack in the Tampa Bay area, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. A criminal complaint charges Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, with attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. The charge carries a potential 20-year prison term. **SNIP** According to the affidavit, Al-Azhari scouted a number of targets in the Tampa Bay region, including beaches, parks and even the Tampa FBI field...

Multiple former aides to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have cashed in on their connections by lobbying on coronavirus-related spending bills. According to a report Wednesday in the Washington Free Beacon, at least seven Pelosi aides are now on the other side of the revolving door of influence for such clients as Delta Airlines and Uber that have sought to cash in on the trillions of dollars of recovery spending sloshing around Washington this spring. “The former aides lobbied on policies related to the coronavirus pandemic for over 50 clients in the first quarter of 2020. Their firms received over $2...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday slammed President Donald Trump's insistence that the Republican National Convention occur as planned despite the pandemic, and suggested neither party had any business holding its massive quadrennial gathering given the risks to public health. "I don't think there's anyone who would say at this point that tens of thousands of people should come together for a political convention, no matter how great an ego trip it is for somebody,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said during a news conference with other Democratic House leaders. Her comments came just days after Trump threatened to move the Republican convention...

Granite City, IL – Less than six weeks after one Illinois abortion patient was hospitalized after a botched abortion, a second woman required immediate transport to a hospital emergency room after suffering a serious abortion-related medical emergency. But this recent incident took an unusual twist. It began on May 7, 2020, at Hope Clinic for Women, a late-term abortion facility located in Granite City, Illinois. An ambulance was called for a 34-year old woman who suffered a seizure during a surgical abortion and needed a transfer to Barnes Jewish Hospital’s Emergency Department for a “higher level of care,” according to...

Flossmoor, IL – Two ambulances were called to the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Flossmoor, Illinois, on consecutive days for women who were injured by botched abortions. During the first incident, which took place on May 7, 2020, a private ambulance was called. Video provided to Operation Rescue by a local pro-life activist showed a woman on a gurney as she was removed from Planned Parenthood’s rear entrance. She was loaded into an ambulance from Bud’s Ambulance Services. Because this company is private and was likely directly called, no 911 records were available. Bud’s Ambulance Service is located in Dalton,...

Jacksonville, FL – An ambulance was called to the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 9, 2020, to help a woman who was suffering an abortion-related medical emergency during a busy day of COVID-19 panic abortions. The woman entered Planned Parenthood at 10:00 a.m., but was wheeled out on a gurney two hours and forty minutes later. She was transported to a local hospital for emergency care that the abortion facility could not provide. One local pro-life activist told Operation Rescue that the Jacksonville Planned Parenthood was especially busy that week, despite the fact that state and...

Who was the first patient infected with the novel coronavirus? That’s something China failed has to address so far, and the lack of an answer is what helped fuel conspiracy theories that the virus had been engineered in a lab and somehow escaped. The official story used to be that animals from the Wuhan wet market helped pass COVID-19 to humans and that the virus originated in a bat. Scientists were able to prove beyond any doubt that the virus did indeed evolve naturally, and we’ve had this data for months now. A few weeks ago, top US intelligence officials...

Jim McPhee, senior vice president of operations at Disney World, said that as part of the plan, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom would reopen on July 11. Epcot and Hollywood Studios would reopen on July 15. Disney's plan must be approved by the mayor of Orange County, and then Florida Gov Ron DeSantis. Officials said that as they reopen, the parks will not host parades or have firework shows. Character meet-and-greets will be paused as the park reopens, and all play areas will be temporarily closed. All guests' will need to reserve entry into the park in advance, and their...

Since the inception of this insanity, the following regulations, rules or consequences have occurred: I won’t get COVID if I get an abortion but I will get COVID if I get a colonoscopy. Selling pot is essential but selling goods and services at a family-owned business is not. Pot wasn’t even legal and pot dispensaries didn’t even exist in this state until five months ago and, in that five months, they have become essential but a family-owned business in existence for five generations is not. A family of six can pile in their car and drive to Carlyle Lake without...

Italian health authorities announced in a recent report that only 4.1 percent of fatalities testing positive for Wuhan coronavirus happened in the absence of serious comorbidities, while the average age of the deceased was over 80 years. The report also revealed an average age of 81 among those who have died with coronavirus in Italy. One of the most astonishing findings of the report was that only 1.1 percent of all coronavirus deaths in the country happened to people below the age of 50, while more than 57 percent were over 80. The average number of comorbidities among all Italian...

The coronavirus crisis is dying down, and the murder rate is back in solid blue Chicago, but that hasn't stopped city officials from enforcing their "priorities." Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Sunday launched a police raid on a predominately black church for holding services in defiance of her coronavirus shutdown orders. Lightfoot allegedly dispatched three marked squad cars and two unmarked police vehicles full of officers to Chicago Cornerstone Baptist Church in the South Side's Woodlawn neighborhood. Cornerstone Pastor Courtney Lewis was in the middle of his sermon when he heard loud banging on the church's front doors. After discovering...

Hopefully, many of the things that lay heavy upon the nation right now will be in our collective rear-view mirror in the near future. These things include constant mention of pandemic and crisis, hourly radio reports and TV news reports of coronavirus infections and deaths, face masks, the pronouncements of "experts" like the little gnome man and the scarf lady, and ubiquitous signs and messages that implore us to stay home and stay safe (OBEY!) All of this is aimed at creating and reinforcing a state of fear and panic because scared people are easier to manipulate. SNIP It is...