Free Republic

Moscow: The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd have received renewed approval to conduct late-stage clinical trials in India of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, the sovereign wealth fund said on Saturday. Large-scale trials of the Sputnik V vaccine in India were first announced and then knocked back by Indian regulators, who said the scale of Phase I and II trials conducted in Russia earlier this year was too small, requesting that they be repeated.

Health Care Coverage Availability Already insured PPACA Marketplace insureds can contractually lock in coverage for 2021 starting November 1. Trump could and should open up the Marketplace early. Federal law still in effect dating from before the PPACA ensures coverage for pre-existing conditions of people who have choosen and paid to remain covered. Insurance through employers has already been designed and mostly contractually arranged for 2021 coverage. Health Care Coverage Scope Makers of expensive drugs wishing to have happy shareholders will always need to have the maximum practical number of insurance plans contracted to pay for them. Any future change...

Follow the science. Governor Cuomo, the media, and his supporters have claimed that his false accusation that the segregation of particular areas as hot zones, some appearing to target Orthodox Jews, was based on the work of health experts and statistics. But discovery is a wonderful thing. Even when judges refuse to do the right thing, the process provides invaluable insights into a deeply corrupt system. The Brooklyn Catholic Diocese sued Cuomo and produced some incredible admissions, via OJPAC. "NYGovCuomo’s Howard Zucker admits in a brief in the Brooklyn Catholic Diocese case that “there is no specific percentage threshold to...

Last night at the townhall, Savannah see you next Tuesday kept telling President Trump, 2 million would be done if we did nothing on Covid! She is implying the lockdowns saved us or what is her premise on this? Maybe I am just not getting it or missed something along the road since March. Thanks!

You can judge for yourself the snickering delight of the chattering media, and some Democrats, at his positive test, and those of other GOP politicians. This is perhaps understandable, although those who are actively pulling for their death are behaving in a very ugly manner. But rather than dwelling on that, I am writing about how versions of what we have seen with the President, his staff, and others around them are being re-enacted across the country in schools and in businesses.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie admitted it was a “big mistake” to let his “guard down” by going mask-free at the White House event where he contracted the virus. In his first televised appearance since his coronavirus diagnosis, Christie, 58, said he had a “false sense of security” in believing that everyone at the event for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett had been tested for COVID-19. “For seven months, I was able to avoid the virus in one of the worst-hit states in the country, New Jersey,” Christie said on “Good Morning America” Friday

TRENTON, New Jersey -- With another nearly 1,000 new coronavirus cases reported Thursday in New Jersey, state officials are discouraging large indoor holiday gatherings, including Thanksgiving dinner. For many, it'll be a very different kind of holiday season. Sandy Kramer, of Mount Laurel, typically hosts 15 to 18 people at her Thanksgiving table. "I do the turkey and the stuffing. My daughter does the rest," said Kramer. But this year's crowd will be much smaller - just a few people. "We always have a good time. But maybe next year," she said.

Lockdown measures, such as closing schools, likely prolonged the epidemic by preventing the virus from naturally moving through low-risk populations and building herd immunity. A recent study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that the closing of schools in response to the novel coronavirus could actually increase overall deaths resulting from the disease. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh reevaluated a model produced by the Imperial College London earlier this year that prompted the extensive government lockdown measures, including the closing of schools, implemented in the U.K., ... school closures and isolation of younger people would increase the...

President Trump taking zinc (WSJ) https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-ta... Low zinc levels at clinical admission associates with poor outcomes in COVID-19, (11th October) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.11... Zinc balances immune responses and also has a proven direct antiviral action against some viruses. Zinc deficiency (ZD) is a common condition in elderly and individuals with chronic diseases Increased intracellular zinc concentrations efficiently impair replication Resulting in a lower number of viruses Retrospective analysis Patients admitted in Barcelona 15th March to 30th April 2020 Clinical severity of COVID-19 and PMH assessed Fasting plasma zinc levels measured routinely at admission N = 611 Mean age, 63 years Male 332,...

On Wednesday, three Orthodox Jewish congregations in Rockland County, N.Y., sued Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) for issuing a “blatantly anti-Semitic” coronavirus order restricting religious services in Jewish areas, just before three sequential Jewish holy days. Cuomo falsely blamed the Orthodox Jewish community for a surge in COVID-19 cases in New York, referring to the surge as “a predominantly ultra-orthodox cluster,” and he admitted the lockdowns were based on “fear” rather than science. According to the lawsuit, Cuomo’s October 6 executive order “is blatantly anti-Semitic, creating religious-observance based color coded ‘hot-spot’ zones directed towards particular Jewish communities.” The order “not only...

A Covid-19 vaccine may be widely available by April 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview with CBS News Wednesday. Fauci said researchers should know by “November or December” whether some vaccines trials have a safe candidate and that even in the event that a safe candidate is determined, initial quantities will likely only be a few million doses. Pushing back against an assertion made by the President that the US can expect 100 million doses by year’s end, Fauci said that the 100 million number is only possible if every vaccine candidate currently in trials is determined to...

DUBAI—While the U.S. and Europe await the results of large-scale clinical trials before deploying Covid-19 vaccines, some other nations are moving much faster with emergency-use rollouts of experimental Chinese and Russian candidates in an attempt to stem the global rise in infections. Over the past month, the United Arab Emirates has been offering a Chinese vaccine to thousands of medical workers, teachers, airport staff and government officials in the most ambitious such program outside China itself. Indonesia plans to begin...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that he may close early voting locations in areas of Brooklyn and Queens that are currently under coronavirus lockdown restrictions imposed last week by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the New York Post reported. The specified zip codes are facing varying degrees of prohibitions that include bans on indoor dining, school closures, and strict caps on numbers allowed in houses of worship

MADISON, WI — The bureaucrat in charge of Wisconsin’s response to COVID-19 was an art teacher before rising through the ranks of the state Department Health Services. Stephanie Smiley serves as director of DHS’ Bureau of Communicable Diseases and interim administrator of the Division of Public Health. Yet, Smiley does not have degrees in medicine or science, a point state Sen. Steve Nass says should not be lost in Gov. Tony Evers’ constant mantra of “following the science” and relying on the experts in battling the coronavirus. Smiley holds a Bachelor of Science in Art Teacher Education from the University...

Two people involved with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign tested positive for COVID-19 late Wednesday, the campaign announced on Thursday. As a result, vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) canceled her travel schedule through Oct. 18. One of those who tested positive was identified as a non-staff flight crew member, while the other is Liz Allen, the communications director for Harris. “[Harris] will keep a robust and aggressive schedule of virtual campaign activities to reach voters all across the country during this time. She will return to in-person campaigning on Monday, October 19th,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California is easing its coronavirus restrictions to allow up to three households to socialize outdoors, an expansion of rules aimed at people tempted to have even larger gatherings around Halloween, Thanksgiving and end-of-year holidays, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday. Three households can gather so long as they wear masks and follow other safety precautions designed to stem the spread of the virus, under the new guidelines from the California Department of Public Health. State health officials previously discouraged gatherings outside of a single household. The goal is not to encourage larger gatherings, Newsom said, but to...

With Thanksgiving around the corner, Dr. Anthony Fauci issued a dire warning about the surging coronavirus cases around the country — saying that people “may have to bite the bullet and sacrifice that social gathering,” according to a report. The 79-year-old top infectious diseases doctor told “CBS Evening News” on Wednesday that his three children will not be coming home for the holiday because his age puts him at increased risk.

I suggest that the Senate offer the following Covid relief proposals in separate bills: 1. A federal unemployment weekly top-up of $300 (inclusive of Trump's diversionary payments) for up to 16 weeks prior to April 2021. 2. A retrospective residential rent/mortgage payment help program of up to 20% of amount paid by tenant/mortgagor for March through October 2020 rent/mortgage payment past due amounts, up to $2000 for a household, if requested by the tenant/mortgagor and accepted prior to December 22, 2020 by the landlord/mortgagee to cure all deliquency for that period, to be administered by a court empowered to issue...

Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t possibly get any weirder... Get this: Coronavirus internment camps on Canadian soil. Sounds impossible, but believe it or not, there’s a federal request for proposals (RFP) to construct them. So if their intended existence is clear as day, the question then becomes: just who is destined to reside in these camps? Ontario MPP Randy Hillier (Lamarck-Frontenac-Kingston) raised this issue during question period in the Ontario legislature a few days ago. He received strange, evasive answers, and some of his questions were just flat-out ignored. We have the video to prove it. Just what are...

Coronavirus cases in the U.S. are on the rise with 37 states seeing an uptick in daily cases over the last seven days. One of those states is New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo recently unveiled new lockdowns for nine "hot spots" where cases are surging. "What we're doing is we are targeting what we call micro-clusters, so when we see a small group of cases, we are the firefighters who rush in to stamp it out before it takes off," Cuomo told "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday. "So we have several areas in the state that are small, they're...