Free Republic

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (nyse and tase:TEVA) announced today the immediate donation of more than 6 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets through wholesalers to hospitals across the U.S. to meet the urgent demand for the medicine as an investigational target to treat COVID-19. The company is also looking at additional ways to address the global need. “We are committed to helping to supply as many tablets as possible as demand for this treatment accelerates at no cost,” said Brendan O’Grady, Teva Executive Vice President, North America Commercial. “Immediately upon learning of the potential benefit of hyroxychloroquine, Teva began to...

The incident suggests the Michigan governor’s office is either over its head in handling the pandemic, purposefully playing politics during the crisis, or both. Last week, a lawyer reportedly serving as a special counsel to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer published a leaked letter that falsely indicated a shortage of ventilators and intensive-care beds at the Henry Ford Health System had forced staff to leave some Wuhan virus patients to die. While the hospital has since made clear that it has ventilators and beds at all of its Michigan locations, the incident suggests the governor’s office is either over its head...

They were ready to roll whenever disaster struck California: three 200-bed mobile hospitals that could be deployed to the scene of a crisis on flatbed trucks and provide advanced medical care to the injured and sick within 72 hours. Each hospital would be the size of a football field, with a surgery ward, intensive care unit and X-ray equipment. Medical response teams would also have access to a massive stockpile of emergency supplies: 50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed. In 2006, citing the threat of avian...

On Saturday, President Trump visited Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia to send off the USNS Comfort as the hospital ship departs for New York City. The ship is stocked with medical supplies and has 1,000 beds and other equipment to help aide New York in its response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.  The ship has 12 fully-equipped operating rooms, two oxygen-producing plants, a pharmacy, a medical laboratory, an optometry lab, a CAT-scan, digital radiological services, and a helicopter pad, according to the Navy. Once in New York, the ship will provide medical services to non-coronavirus patients, freeing up New York's...

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Gov. Andy Beshear on Wednesday tightened restrictions on businesses and banned residential evictions under a state of emergency declaration aimed at addressing the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic. He also said Kentuckians will begin to see National Guard and additional law enforcement at local hospitals beginning this week. “This isn’t something to be concerned about. No one is patrolling your neighborhood,” Beshear said. “We are just making sure everyone inside our hospitals is safe as we see a surge in coronavirus cases. Remember, the National Guard are people you work with and see every day; they just don’t...

The heroic and pioneering American spirit that the world has known for centuries is on full display during the coronavirus outbreak. Our nation’s doctors and nurses—risking and sacrificing their own health—are on the frontlines in the global battle against a viral respiratory disease that still has no cure or vaccine. Cases continue to rise as the virus is highly contagious, but it is all-hands-on-deck at our local hospitals: medical professionals, usually in understaffed rural areas, are working long hours to curb the rise of the disease within our own borders. Medical supplies and protective gear are in short supply, yet...

Robyn Ross received the call on a Friday. With COVID-19 patients threatening to overwhelm the nation’s hospitals, her OB-GYN would be transferring to virtual appointments. “For how long?” Ross asked. For the foreseeable future.Due to deliver April 24 at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, where Virginia’s first COVID-19 case was quarantined in early March, Ross’ plan for birth care is now riddled with uncertainty.Hospitals around the nation have employed quick-response crisis policies, with visitor restrictions in most major metropolises. The decision in major hospital systems across the nation, including New York-Presbyterian, Central Illinois, Central Texas, and all San Francisco hospitals,...

Coronavirus is frightening. I'm working from home, practicing "social distancing." Experts say it'll help "flatten the curve" so fewer people will be infected simultaneously. Then hospitals won't be overwhelmed. But the infection rate grows. Doctors and hospitals may yet be overwhelmed. It didn't have to get to this point. Coronavirus deaths leveled off in South Korea. That's because people in Korea could easily find out if they had the disease. There are hundreds of testing locations -- even pop-up drive-thru testing centers. Because Koreans got tested, Korean doctors knew who needed to be isolated and who didn't. As a result,...

It didn’t have to get to this point. Coronavirus deaths leveled off in South Because Koreans got tested, Korean doctors knew who needed to be isolated and Not in America. In America, a shortage of COVID-19 tests has made it hard for people to get tested. Even those who show all the symptoms have a difficult time. Why weren’t there enough tests? Because our government insists on control of medical innovation. That’s the topic of my new video. When coronavirus appeared, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made its own tests and insisted that people only use those CDC...

NEW YORK (AP) — A “cacophony of coughing” in packed emergency rooms. Beds squeezed in wherever there is space. Overworked, sleep-deprived doctors and nurses rationed to one face mask a day and wracked by worry about a dwindling number of available ventilators. Such is the reality inside New York City’s hospitals, which have become the war-zone-like epicenter of the nation’s coronavirus crisis. Faced with an infection rate that is five times that of the rest of the country, health workers are putting themselves at risk to fight a tide of sickness that’s getting worse by the day amid a shortage...

"By March 23 many of our largest cities & hospitals are on course to be overrun with cases."

I am calling official B.S. on this hoax of a "pandemic." We have been told by the "scientists" that hospitals would be overrun, the dead would be piling up, etc. Please post "on the ground" reports from your city/state. Are your hospitals overrun? Are healthy people dying? Any signs that a Bubonic Plague is among us?

If the novel coronavirus continues to spread widely in the U.S., a lack of hospital beds in certain areas will limit access to necessary care. Some of the states hit hardest by the COVID-19 outbreak, such as New York and Washington, have low hospital bed availability, making it vital for federal, state and local policymakers to take aggressive action to expand capacity. The Urban Institute released a report March 19 that shows availability of unoccupied hospital beds varies significantly across urban and rural areas, states and counties. An analysis by ProPublica and a report in Health Affairs revealed most communities...

Just got a call from the hospital where I had an appointment tomorrow (a major Boston hospital) telling me that my appointment has been cancelled.I was told that mine is not an essential visit (I agree with that) and,as a result,it's been cancelled due to a proclamation by the Governor yesterday. The nurse I talked to told me that the hospital is basically now on an "all hands on deck" status...and that that started before the Governor's speech yesterday. Looks like we're in this for the long haul.

In a dramatic sign that the coronavirus crisis is improving in China, the last two of 16 temporary hospitals in the epicenter city of Wuhan have been shut down, according to a report. The final group of 49 patients walked out of the Wuchang temporary hospital in the capital of Hubei province on Tuesday afternoon to cheers, according to the Xinhua news agency. The 784-bed facility — which was converted from Wuchang Hongshan Stadium — opened Feb. 5 and received a total of 1,124 patients, according to the news outlet, which said 833 were discharged and 291 were transferred to...

A former Homeland Security adviser warned that the US is just over a week away from the nation’s hospitals “getting creamed” by the rapidly spreading coronavirus, reports said. Tom Bossert, who served under President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2018, told NBC News Tuesday the US is headed for the same sort of health care crisis Italy is experiencing. In a Monday op-ed in the Washington Post, Bossert said it’s imperative for the country to “reduce the acute, exponential growth of the outbreak” as soon as possible “in order to reduce suffering and the strain on our health care system.

Confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus are swiftly ballooning across the United States, and President Trump's former Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert says time is running out to control the spread. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who is overseeing one of the country's largest clusters, said "if you do the math" there could be 64,000 cases of COVID-19 in the Evergreen State by May, while New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the positive cases in the city are "coming in so intensely now" that public officials are struggling to keep up with them. He said he wasn't in...

US hospitals are preparing for 96 million coronavirus infections and nearly half a million deaths from the outbreak, leaked documents have revealed. The spread of the deadly disease could be far worse than officials claim, with 480,000 Americans expected to die from the virus and 4.8 million hospitalized, according to a presentation hosted by The American Hospital Association (AHA) in February. This puts the crisis on a level more than 10 times greater than that seen in a severe flu season. The shock figures fly in the face of claims made by President Trump who has maintained on many occasions...

The first nine coronavirus deaths in the U.S. show the biggest risks are not traveling internationally, riding mass transit or attending a crowded event. The most dangerous place to be is in a rehab or nursing home. The second-most dangerous is a hospital. Five residents of the Life Care Center, a nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington, have died, and some 50 other residents and staff members there reportedly have coronavirus symptoms. Be on the alert for more deadly outbreaks in nursing homes wherever coronavirus, now dubbed COVID-19, spreads. Nursing homes are infection cauldrons. Most nursing facilities ignore precautions like separating...

... Patients are understandably confused. They see hospitals consolidating and creating vast medical empires with sophisticated marketing campaigns and sleek digs that resemble luxury hotels. And then there was the headline-grabbing nugget from a Health Affairs study that seven of the 10 most profitable hospitals in America are nonprofit hospitals. Hospitals fall into three financial categories. Two are easy to understand: There are fully private hospitals that mostly function like any other business, responsible to shareholders and investors. And there are public hospitals, which are owned by state or local governments and have obligations to care for underserved populations. And...