Coronavirus mystery: Medics baffled by Lombardy village with NO cases.

HEALTH chiefs have launched a scientific investigation into a village in the heart of the coronavirus-stricken stricken Italian region of Lombardy after it emerged none of its residents had tested positive for the deadly disease.

Baffled medics said Ferrera Erbognone, the village of a thousand inhabitants in the province of Pavia, appears immune to the COVID-19 virus. They are now hoping to carrying out a series of tests on residents to try to find out why.

Mayor Giovanni Fassina has told all families that until April 2, they can book for blood tests in a laboratory in the nearby town of Sannazzaro de 'Burgundi.

The tests will be voluntary and citizens who are unable to make th journey to Sannazzaro de 'Burgundi will have the opportunity to take a blood test at home.

Mr Fassini said: "We have had more than 150 bookings and many from entire families which would increase the number of examinations.

"I believe our zero cases is not due to genetics. We are like everyone else.

"It is only a contingent situation because apparently the population has respected the precautions of the ordinances.

"But Ferrera could be a good laboratory but this initiative cannot assume any diagnostic or prognostic significance, in order to avoid generating false myths and unfounded expectations in the population.

"The goal for us is to develop a method to know if the antibody is sufficient to tell if a population is immune.

"I am convinced that many people have come into contact with the virus and have developed infection in an asymptomatic form.

"We could establish the percentage of the population that is immune".

Lombardy is at the epicentre of Italy's contagion with 6,360 deaths and more than 41,000 confirmed cases but Ferrera Erbognone has so far been spared.

The investigation aims to clarify whether antibodies capable of fighting coronavirus are present in the population of Ferrera Erbognone.

Researchers from Pavia's Mondino Institute are hoping to trace something in the immune system of the small population which may explain why no one has been affected and potentially provide data which could help stop the pandemic.

Coronavirus mystery:
Medics baffled by Lombardy village with NO cases

Biased Media Exposes Itself .... Again

Scott Whitlock for mrc Newsbusters

Alcindor: Covering Trump
Is a ‘Team Sport’ for Press:
We ‘Have Each Other’s Back’

By Scott Whitlock | March 30, 2020 11:39 AM EDT

In a way, it’s refreshing for a reporter to admit that they see themselves as on the opposite team of Trump. Alcindor chided the President for moving back his estimates for opening up the country. She continued:

So he's been telling people, the country, churches should be packed by Easter Sunday and today he had to admit, “Actually I have to extend my guidelines to April 30th.” And, of course, my question was about the fact that he's been saying repeatedly that governors don't need the medical equipment that they're requesting, specifically saying New York doesn't need 30 to 40,000 ventilators. Of course, the President lashed out.

Alcindor described her role as a reporter this way: “Stay forward, stay focused, be steady and continue do the job you were there to do. For me it's a journalist, to hold presidents accountable and that's what I did today.”

Of course, she’s rushed to the defense of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, so maybe this doesn’t apply to all politicians. For more on Alcindor’s back and forth with Trump on Tuesday, go here.

Other guests during this 9pm hour of MSNBC on Sunday included Democrat Congressman Bobby Scott, Democrat Governor Jared Polis of Colorado, Austan Goolsbee, cabinet member to Democrat Barack Obama. Much of MSNBC’s coverage now is just hammering Trump at every turn when it comes to the coronavirus.

For a partial transcript visit the link at the top of the article.

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Eeyup, this is how F'd in the head the Left is: Coronavirus - Abolish the Family

Sophie Lewis, Retarded Feminist
for the ironically named Open Democracy

The coronavirus crisis shows
it's time to abolish the family

Sophie Lewis | 24 March 2020

At the time of writing, humankind has well and truly entered the time of corona.

In the hopes of ‘flattening the curve’ of the pandemic, vast swathes of society have adopted contagion-slowing practices (be they mandatory, voluntary or semi-voluntary, depending on the local legislature) known as ‘social distancing’ and ‘sheltering in place.’

Media platforms are flooded with chronicles of these practices, many of them understandably anxious, shell-shocked and despairing, due to loss of income or fear for the ill-health of loved ones. Yet many of them, on the contrary, humorous, horny, happy to be off work, and full of the comic creativity of the unexpectedly house-bound (genres here include: playing tic-tac-toe with your goldfish; DJ-ing with the hobs on your stove-top; and strap-hanging off your shower-rail on a simulated subway commute).

Certainly, there have been eco-fascist sentiments, and calls for authoritarian state control over the situation, but mutual aid has also proliferated: grocery runs and disinfection supplies for the immunocompromised; childcare and safe injection kits for sex workers and substance users; co-pay waivers; eviction moratoriums; rent strikes; and efforts to secure shelter for the houseless. The latter, in particular, exposes the unspoken and mostly unquestioned crux of the prescribed response to the pandemic: private homes.

Nuclear households, it seems, are where we are all intuitively expected to retreat in order to prevent widespread ill-health. ‘Staying home’ is what is somehow self-evidently supposed to keep us well. But there are several problems with this, as anyone inclined to think about it critically (even for a moment) might figure out – problems one might summarize as the mystification of the couple-form; the romanticisation of kinship; and the sanitization of the fundamentally unsafe space that is private property.

How can a zone defined by the power asymmetries of housework (reproductive labor being so gendered), of renting and mortgage debt, land and deed ownership, of patriarchal parenting and (often) the institution of marriage, benefit health? Such standard homes are where, after all, everyone secretly knows the majority of earthly violence goes down: the W.H.O. calls domestic violence “the most widespread, but among the least reported human rights abuses.”

Queer and feminized people, especially very old and very young ones, are definitionally not safe there: their flourishing in the capitalist home is the exception, not the rule. It follows that, upon closer inspection, both terms – ‘social distancing’ and ‘sheltering in place’ – appear remarkable as much for what they don’t say (that is, what they presume and naturalize) as what they do. Sheltering in what place… and in whose? Distance from whom… or everyone but whom?

But the first and starkest problem with the directive to stay home is simply this: not everybody possesses access to a private dwelling. As the Oakland-based Moms 4 Housing put it: “how do you #ShelterInPlace when you don’t have a place?” It turns out there are at least a couple of different ways: sharing and occupying. In ethical defiance of state directives, relatively immune neighbors in many cities have been voluntarily opening their homes to the exposed and sick, judging the duty of neighborly solidarity with the unhoused more pressing than the imperative to avoid contagion.

Meanwhile, by taking vacant properties without permission, and living in them (“self-quarantine in progress,” reads one mom’s window-sign), Moms 4 Housing is leading the way in beating back gentrification in California and enacting an understanding of comfortable housing as a basic human birthright.

Unfortunately, there are still many other populations whose response to the pandemic could not be ‘stay home,’ even if they wanted it to be, besides the houseless: for instance, people warehoused in prisons, detention centers, refugee camps or factory dormitories, people stuck in overcrowded retirement homes, or those held against their will in medical and/or psychiatric facilities. If COVID-19 is incompatible with these institutions, in the sense that a humane response to the pandemic is impossible in such undemocratic spaces, then it will have demonstrated by the same token that they are incompatible with human dignity.

In L.A., state officials are providing individual trailers and pop-up isolation cabins for the houseless. But a far more logical response might be: open all the hotels and private palaces on the basis of airy and light-filled, sanitary (uncommodified) housing for all. Free all prisoners and detainees now, remake the care facilities as spacious self-led villages, and dismiss all the workers with full pay so they can leave their bunks forever, move in with their friends, and pursue laziness for at least the next decade.

Secondly, among those of us who do have private homes, a huge proportion are not safe there; and being unable to leave only multiplies the threat. A quarantine is, in effect, an abuser’s dream – a situation that hands near-infinite power to those with the upper hand over a home. Accordingly, early on in China’s epidemic, women’s rights NGOs published guides to surviving coronavirus-specific domestic abuse. Police stations throughout the country reportedly saw a threefold increase in cases of domestic violence; on March 21, 2020, The Guardian quoted the founder of a Chinese women’s not-for-profit as saying: “According to our statistics, 90% of the causes of violence are related to the Covid-19 epidemic.”

And as the virus spreads through America, we would do well to heed this. Already, the CEO of the national domestic violence hotline in the United States has noted: “Perpetrators are threatening to throw their victims out on the street so they get sick… We’ve heard of some withholding financial resources or medical assistance.”

In short, the pandemic is no time to forget about family abolition. In the words of feminist theorist and mother Madeline Lane-McKinley; “Households are capitalism’s pressure cookers. This crisis will see a surge in housework – cleaning, cooking, caretaking, but also child abuse, molestation, intimate partner rape, psychological torture, and more.” Far from a time to acquiesce to ‘family values’ ideology, then, the pandemic is an acutely important time to provision, evacuate and generally empower survivors of – and refugees from – the nuclear household.

And thirdly, even when the private nuclear household poses no direct physical or mental threat to one’s person – no spouse-battering, no child rape, and no queer-bashing – the private family qua mode of social reproduction still, frankly, sucks. It genders, nationalizes and races us. It norms us for productive work. It makes us believe we are ‘individuals.’ It minimizes costs for capital while maximizing human beings’ life-making labor (across billions of tiny boxes, each kitted out – absurdly – with its own kitchen, micro-crèche and laundry). It blackmails us into mistaking the only sources of love and care we have for the extent of what is possible.

We deserve better than the family. And the time of corona is an excellent time to practice abolishing it. In the always lucent words of Anne Boyer: “We must learn to do good for the good of the stranger now. We now have to live as daily evidence that we believe there is value in the lives of the cancer patient, the elderly person, the disabled one, the ones in unthinkable living conditions, crowded and at risk.”

We do not know yet if we will be able to wrench something better than capitalism from the wreckage of this Plague and the coming Depression. I would only posit with some certainty that, in 2020, the dialectic of families against the family, of real homes against the home, shall intensify.

Please feel free to not visit the source link.
It's a garbage site filled with garbage commentary like this.
This is just how messed up in the head your average leftist is.

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Biden says Healthcare Professionals are Lying

Joe Biden to NY Health Care Professionals That Blew the Whistle on Masks Being Stolen: I Don’t Believe You!

Donald J. Trump (dot com)

After President Trump raised the issue of people stealing medical equipment and supplies from hospitals, the Biden campaign pounced at the opportunity to further politicize a global pandemic. No one is stealing masks, they insisted, despite news reports to the contrary. "This is ridiculous and completely false," said Joe Biden in a statement calling it "conspiracy mongering."

But that is at odds with what New York's Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo said earlier this month. "One of the things we've heard from health care professionals, there have been thefts of medical equipment and masks from hospitals, believe it or not," said Cuomo. "Not just people taking a couple or three, I mean just actual thefts of those products. I've asked the state police to do an investigation, look at marketplaces that are selling masks, et cetera, medical equipment, protective wear, playing into this, exploiting the anxiety."

So health care professionals told Governor Cuomo that people are stealing equipment and masks in bulk from hospitals, and Joe Biden doesn't believe them? What happened to "listen to the experts"?

Speaking of the lack of masks, let's not forget Biden's failure to restock the nation's stockpile while he was Vice President. He left America unprepared:

• In 2009, the H1N1 swine flu pandemic "triggered the largest deployment in U.S. history of the Strategic National Stockpile," which "distributed 85 million N95 respirators — fitted face masks that block most airborne particles — along with millions of other masks, gowns and gloves." But while Joe Biden was Vice President, no effort was made to replenish the stockpile of masks, despite warnings from multiple experts and a 2010 report funded by the federal government recommending the repository of masks be restocked for a future pandemic. "In hindsight, it appears to be shortsighted," said the senior director of public health preparedness for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

The Coronavirus May Make Trump Stronger

Gallup finds 60% of voters approve of his handling of the crisis. As usual, the establishment is clueless.

Walter Russel Mead at WSJ

This is not what his critics expected. At 49% overall job approval in the latest Gallup poll, and with 60% approval of the way he is handling the coronavirus epidemic, President Trump’s standing with voters has improved even as the country closed down and the stock market underwent a historic meltdown. That may change as this unpredictable crisis develops, but bitter and often justified criticism of Mr. Trump’s decision making in the early months of the pandemic has so far failed to break the bond between the 45th president and his political base. 

One reason Mr. Trump’s opponents have had such a hard time damaging his connection with voters is that they still don’t understand why so many Americans want a wrecking-ball presidency. Beyond attributing Mr. Trump’s support to a mix of racism, religious fundamentalism and profound ignorance, the president’s establishment opponents in both parties have yet to grasp the depth and intensity of the populist energy that animates his base and the Bernie Sanders movement. 

The sheer number of voters in open political rebellion against centrist politics is remarkable. Adding the Sanders base (36% of the Democratic vote in the latest Real Clear Politics poll average, or roughly 13% of the national vote considering that about 45% of voters lean Democratic) to the core Trump base of roughly 42%, and around 55% of U.S. voters now support politicians who openly despise the central assumptions of the political establishment. 

That a majority of the electorate is this deeply alienated from the establishment can’t be dismissed as bigotry and ignorance. There are solid and serious grounds for doubting the competence and wisdom of America’s self-proclaimed expert class. What is so intelligent and enlightened, populists ask, about a foreign-policy establishment that failed to perceive that U.S. trade policies were promoting the rise of a hostile Communist superpower with the ability to disrupt supplies of essential goods in a national emergency? What competence have the military and political establishments shown in almost two decades of tactical success and strategic impotence in Afghanistan? What came of that intervention in Libya? What was the net result of all the fine talk in the Bush and Obama administrations about building democracy in the Middle East?

On domestic policy, the criticism is equally trenchant and deeply felt. Many voters believe that the U.S. establishment has produced a health-care system that is neither affordable nor universal. Higher education saddles students with increasing debt while leaving many graduates woefully unprepared for good jobs in the real world. The centrist establishment has amassed unprecedented deficits without keeping roads, bridges and pipes in good repair. It has weighed down cities and states with unmanageable levels of pension debt. 

The culture of social promotion and participation trophies is not, populists feel, confined to U.S. kindergartens and elementary schools. Judging by performance, they conclude that people rise in the American establishment by relentless virtue-signaling; by going along with conventional wisdom, however foolish; and by forgiving the failures of others and having their own overlooked in return.

The blame game playing out over how the president has handled the coronavirus epidemic reflects the dynamics of this struggle. Mr. Trump’s establishment critics want a narrow fight over the dismal trail of bluster, evasions, missed opportunities and failed predictions that marked the president’s approach to the virus earlier in the year. Like many criticisms of Mr. Trump, these arguments against him are by and large correct and significant and it is part of the proper job of a free press to make them. 

However, Mr. Trump’s supporters are not comparing him with an omniscient leader who always does the right thing, but with the establishment—including the bulk of the mainstream media—that largely backed a policy of engagement with China long after its pitfalls became clear. For Americans who lost their jobs to Chinese competition or who fear the possibility of a new cold war against an economically potent and technologically advanced power, Mr. Trump’s errors pale before those of the bipartisan American foreign-policy consensus. 

The establishment’s massive, decadeslong failure to think through the consequences of empowering Communist China and creating a trading relationship that, among other things, left the U.S. dependent on Beijing for pharmaceuticals is a much less excusable and more consequential error than anything Donald Trump has done in 2020—and it has a direct bearing on the mess we are in. 

Attacks on the establishment aren’t always rational or fair. They can be one-sided and fail to do justice to the accomplishments the U.S. has made in the recent past. Populism on both the left and the right always attracts its share of snake-oil salesmen, and America’s current antiestablishment surge is no exception. But the U.S. establishment won’t prosper again until it comes to grip with a central political fact: Populism rises when establishment leadership fails. If conventional U.S. political leaders had been properly doing their jobs, Donald Trump would still be hosting a television show. 

Unless the president’s opponents take the full measure of this public discontent, they will be continually surprised by his resilience against media attacks. And until the establishment undertakes a searching and honest inventory of the tangled legacy of American foreign and domestic policy since the end of the Cold War, expect populism to remain a potent part of the political scene.

Delingpole: Dissenting Voices Question ‘Police State’ Coronavirus Policies

 

Article by James Delingpole in "Breitbart News":

Lockdown measures imposed by governments to tackle coronavirus may be excessive and based on false assumptions, according to some senior doctors and scientists and former Supreme Court justice Lord Sumption.

Lord Sumption has criticised the British government’s lockdown measures on the grounds of liberty.

Writing in the Times, he raises concerns that Britain is being turned into a “police state” and that this may have disastrous long-term consequences:

Public pressure for action at whatever cost pushes the measures beyond what they can realistically expect to achieve. It may well push them beyond what is worth achieving if the price is the destruction of our personal liberty, livelihoods and sociability. There are dissenting voices, but not many and they are drowned out in a torrent of collective emotion and abuse.

Sumption cautioned that “There is a difference between law and official instructions. It is the difference between a democracy and a police state,” adding: “Liberty and the rule of law are surely worth something even in the face of a pandemic.”

Lord Sumption’s concerns about civil liberties echo those of conservative columnist Peter Hitchens, one of a small but growing number of British journalists — others include Andrew Neil and Quentin Letts — to suggest that government policy on the coronavirus is doing more harm than good.

As Hitchens told me on a special edition of the Delingpod podcast, he is deeply concerned about the “unprecedented curbs on liberties” which he thinks “neither a proportionate nor effective answer” to the pandemic.

“You get the news from Italy that huge numbers of people are being recorded as having died from the coronavirus who have actually died with the coronavirus. Their real problems were major heart problems, major lung problems, high blood pressure, and other things. Plus in almost all cases they were all very old,” he suggested.

The point about “co-morbidities” — the underlying health problems which may turn a survivable encounter with coronavirus into a fatal one — has also been made in the Spectator by Dr John Lee, a recently-retired Professor of Pathology and former senior National Health Service (NHS) consultant.

Lee writes:

There is a big difference between Covid-19 causing death, and Covid-19 being found in someone who died of other causes.

According to Lee, the way deaths are recorded gives a false impression of how dangerous Covid-19 is and how great its fatality rate. He believes that this can in turn exert a distorting effect on government policy.

“The moral debate is not lives vs money,” he wrote.

“It is lives vs lives. It will take months, perhaps years, if ever, before we can assess the wider implications of what we are doing. The damage to children’s education, the excess suicides, the increase in mental health problems, the taking away of resources from other health problems that we were dealing with effectively. Those who need medical help now but won’t seek it, or might not be offered it,” he suggested.

“And what about the effects on food production and global commerce, that will have unquantifiable consequences for people of all ages, perhaps especially in developing economies?”

Governments everywhere say they are responding to the science. The policies in the United Kingdom are not the government’s fault. They are trying to act responsibly based on the scientific advice given.

But governments must remember that rushed science is almost always bad science.

Professor Dr Sucharit Bhakdi — an infectious medicine specialist and one of the most highly cited medical research scientists in German, formerly head of the Institute for Medical Microbiology at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz — has expressed similar concerns.

Here is an interview he gave earlier this month, transcribed from the German on Peter Hitchens’s blog.

Bhakdi describes the lockdown policies introduced in Germany and elsewhere as “grotesque, absurd, and very dangerous.”

He says:

“Our elderly citizens have every right to make efforts not to belong to the 2200 who daily embark on their last journey. Social contacts and social events, theatre and music, travel and holiday recreation, sports and hobbies , etc, etc, all help to prolong their stay on earth.
The life expectancy of millions is being shortened.
The horrifying impact on world economy threatens the existence of countless people. The consequences on medical care are profound. Already services to
patients who are in need are reduced, operations cancelled, practices empty, hospital personnel dwindling.
All this will impact profoundly on our whole society.
I can only say that all these measures are leading to self-destruction and collective suicide because of nothing but a spook.”

Governments like Boris Johnson’s in Britain claim they are only acting on the advice of “experts”. But which experts?

One of these, Professor Neil Ferguson, has continually revised downwards his scary prediction that 250,000 people were going to die of coronavirus in Britain. His response to Britain’s foot and mouth epidemic resulted in what is now largely regarded as the needless slaughter of millions of healthy animals.

So far in the United Kingdom, deaths from respiratory disease are 3,004 below the five-year average. Unless something dramatic changes, this would suggest that vast resources are being poured into trying to lengthen by a few months the lives of people who may have died soon anyway.

Hector Drummond, high on a hill, a lonely goatherd @hector_drummond

Here's a graph of respiratory deaths in Eng & Wales for the last 6 years. Thanks again to Hector Drummond blog reader David Clark for doing these and sending them to me.

For this to be a once-in-a-century health disaster, we're going to have to see a *lot* of exponential growth.

 

Meanwhile, there is evidence from other countries to suggest that it is possible to control coronavirus without shutting down the economy. Here is an interview from Andrew Bolt’s Sky News programme in Australia which examines policy in Taiwan.

https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6145350586001 

Taiwan, being so close to China, ought in theory to be greatly threatened by coronavirus. In reality, “life is pretty much the same as before the Covid-19 outbreak three months ago”‘ Only 260 people have been infected — and just two have died.


https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/29/dissenting-voices-question-police-state-coronavirus-policies/
  

Hydroxychloroquine: Help Is On The Way

Hydroxychloroquine:
Help Is On The Way!

Kevin McCullough reporting for Townhall

Over the past couple of days I’ve lost literal count of how many people have written to me asking about the clinical trials in New York State regarding the use of Hydroxychloroquine.

The trials began last Tuesday.

In this column’s space and much more liberally on my Twitter feed I have attempted to stay up-to-date on the rapidly developing reports of the effectiveness of Hydroxychloroquine. I’ve also dedicated a considerable percentage of my radio show over the last two weeks highlighting these developments.

It’s strange that I should need to.

Before the drug was mentioned by President Trump there had been a robust interest in looking at the replicated results from China, India, South Korea and France. Sadly, American medical authorities didn’t really give any credence to the claims until the controlled study in southern France, which returned a one in 10,000 chance that the results were anecdotal or in anyway not possible to replicate repeatedly.

Dr. Fauci dragged his feet even as that study was becoming public. Then the president mentioned it, and all of a sudden it became a political issue.

It should not be.

The willingness by anyone of either political party to weaponize an actual solution or series of solutions to COVID-19 is utterly inhuman.

And as the good news is coming in there is a greater reason for hope!

Here are just a handful of new developments from the last few days and hours.

1. Dr. Fauci when asked if he would use the Hydroxychloroquine cocktail, answered with resounding affirmation. (Simply because he had asked for better clinical evidence previously did not mean he was unaware of what the data was already showing).

2. France reversed its previous ban on the drug. When the highly esteemed Dr. Didier Raoult released his first survey’s findings the French medical authorities were resistant. As he released an even larger study, with more patients and improved results from his initial study, the French public health officials had no choice but to give guidance as to its use.

3. India’s public health guidance granted affirmation for physicians and front line medical workers to begin taking it as a preventative. This use was the very suggestion I recommended as first steps in this column a week ago. Since our own CDC has cited its prophylactic benefits our doctors and front line medical personnel should be taking it now.

4. Given the increased acceptance here in the states not one, but as many as seven different pharmaceutical companies have agreed to mass produce as much as 250 million doses by mid-April. Given Dr. Raoult’s guidance in both of his studies this would give the globe enough inventory to cure 46,000,000 cases. Presently we have not yet hit one million cases worldwide. Notably Bayer, Novartis and Teva Pharm stepped up, pledging to donate several million doses right out of the shoot.

5. Doctors began prescribing off-label use and in doing so are replicating the clinical results in remarkable fashion. One doctor in Monroe, New York has treated in excess of 700 patients. As of this writing he’s lost zero patients to death, zero to intubation, and only two to hospitalization. Another doctor in New York City has treated in excess of 100 patients with zero deaths.

You can expect to see some clinical findings begin to trickle in on Monday through the end of this coming week.

The clinical results showed the patient going from symptomatic to negative testing on average in 5-6 days. Tuesday will mark one week since the trials began. So watch the “recovery” numbers in New York closely, as there may be a bit of a pop.

The Democrats, the media, and people who despise the president don’t want these trials to succeed. Three Democrat governors have gone so far as to ban the use of the drug cocktail. And one has even threatened action against doctors who prescribe it. Which is an odd juxtaposition for the days we live in. It appears that the President cares more about their constituents in their states than their own governors do.

Bottom line: results will begin to filter back. The global medical focus is back on what the drugs can actually do as opposed to who is promoting them. Use of them in the USA is already demonstrating life-saving results, and it appears there will be no inventory problem in prescribing them due to the generosity (not greed) of “big pharma.”

Check back to my Twitter feed often. I will relay results as fast as they come in. (@KMCRadio)

And pray that this potential cure helps us all as we seek to normalize life again... because we desperately need to!

Be encouraged! Help is on the way!

We're All Germophobes Now

 
 Article by Andrew Thomas in "The American Thinker":

After 9/11, life in America changed in significant ways.
  
Assumptions of our safety and security were shaken to their roots.  Our behavior and our beliefs were greatly modified.

Air travel was completely transformed, as well as security measures in our buildings, sporting events, and schools.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its sub-agency, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) were created.  Our freedoms and privacy were negatively altered with the introduction of the Patriot Act.  Our heightened fear resulted in increased government authority.

What will our post-Wuhan world look like?  When we emerge from our erstwhile sanctuaries like nuclear war survivors coming out of their bomb shelters, will everything appear the same, or will it be a barren, post-apocalyptic landscape (metaphorically speaking, of course)?  A lot depends on how long our self-imposed national quarantine continues.

We are witnessing another 9/11-esque event, with economic structures crumbling in slow-motion all over the country.  When we wander through our towns in the aftermath, many of our favorite shops and restaurants will be gone.  Our personal situations, investments, and incomes will be negatively impacted.

No matter what happens at this point, some things will never be the same.  For one, we are all transforming into germophobes.  This will result in numerous cascading effects in our lives.

Our collective consciousness on personal hygiene and cleanliness has been permanently raised.  Most of us are experiencing a heightened awareness and an altered kinetic feedback effect toward shaking hands, touching our face, licking our fingers, and “social distancing”. 

Hand sanitizers will likely be standard accessories in homes and automobiles from this point on into the future.  Sanitizing wipes will be used more frequently.  Our motor learning reflexes have been re-tuned to urge us to wash our hands more often, especially after touching potentially contaminated objects like public door handles and stair rails.

More people are likely to turn into “Monk”, the fictional multi-phobic detective on the television series of the same name.  Played by Tony Shalhoub, Monk lived in constant fear of germs.  He would never get near anything he perceived as dirty or anyone who was sick.  If he was forced to shake hands with someone, he would immediately shout for “a wipe” from his assistant.  I thought his behavior was extremely neurotic (and funny), but now I’m not so sure.

The Japanese have been culturally programmed on hygiene for generations, particularly in food preparation and serving.  Shoes must be removed before entering traditional Japanese restaurant rooms (and hospitals, where sanitized sandals are provided).  Contamination of cooking utensils, kitchen areas, and eating surfaces is strictly verboten.  I once sat down in a casual airport restaurant in Tokyo, putting my shopping bag on the dining table.  You wouldn’t believe the horrified looks on the waiters’ faces as they ran toward me to take the bag off of the table.

Most, if not all Catholic churches no longer share the “Blood of Christ” communal chalice among the congregants during Mass.  The holy water receptacles at church entrances are dry.  The shaking of hands after the Apostles’ Creed has been eliminated and will stay that way.  (No loss there.  I always hated it when the guy behind me was sneezing and coughing into his hands before the Greeting.)

Social media and video communications are on the rise due to the need for social distancing and to avoid unnecessary travel.  This will most likely continue increasing in popularity over personal interactions after the crisis is over. 

As a result, the university system in America may face permanent disruption when more students turn to alternate learning platforms.  And it will be much harder for professors to spew their leftist propaganda over internet connections, where their indoctrination sessions become more visible.  I won’t be crying over the downsizing of excessively wealthy leftist-controlled ivy league schools. 

This past week, my granddaughter in her school program for three-year-olds had several video classroom sessions in lieu of physical classes.  She also went on a virtual class field trip to a butterfly zoo and a virtual play-date with a friend.  Next month when she turns four, her parents are planning a virtual birthday party with friends and relatives Skyping in.  What a brave new world evolving before our eyes, for better or worse.

Delivery and pick-up services from restaurants and grocery stores will continue to be booming businesses.  They are already gaining incredible popularity during this crisis period.  Online providers like Amazon are getting swamped with orders as well.  Avoiding crowded restaurants and retail stores will increasingly be imprinted into our psyches.

Crowded cities may also be increasingly less desirable habitats, contrary to the wishes of Green New Deal advocates.  Their goal is to eliminate private transportation by cramming everyone from the countryside and suburbs into mega-cities.  This also includes the homeless, whose unsanitary and disease-spreading presence will be less tolerable.

Unfortunately, as a consequence of this high density living the wealthier residents of NYC are rapidly fleeing like rats from a sinking plague ship to South Florida and the NY Catskills, bringing the contagion with them.

Many are also waking up to the dangerous myth of a perfect world with open borders.  Apparently, millions of “racists” and “xenophobes” are being spontaneously generated around the globe, as more citizens and their governments become advocates of strong borders. Suddenly all nations, including the states within the EU, are realizing the critical importance of border security in light of pandemic vulnerability.  Hopefully the lesson will stick.

My wife’s brilliant thought today (no sarcasm intended) was her belief that RV’s will become even more popular, as fewer people will want to fly in germ-ridden planes or be exposed to all of the potential foreign contaminants lurking in hotel rooms.  Maybe we will need to sell our Hilton stock (like hedge fund manager Bill Ackman recommended in his fear-mongering tirade that tanked the market while he walked away with $2.6 billion), and buy an RV park.

It’s a well-known fact that the most germ-infested thing in hotel rooms is the TV remote.  For the past several years, I have either cleaned it with a sanitizing wipe or put it into a plastic zip-lock bag before using it.  Many hotel rooms now have a sign next to the remote saying it was “sanitized”, but I don’t trust that and I don’t think others will, either.

I used to chuckle derisively at media stories of celebrities bringing their own bed sheets. pillowcases, and towels into hotel rooms, but I am re-thinking that dismissive attitude of mine.  On our next vacation, we will be bringing our own supply of Lysol to the hotel, if not some of our own linens.

Subtle changes to our collective lifestyle will be all but unnoticeable.  The potential downsides of small unsanitary habits and activities that we previously ignored now loom larger in our subconscious.  Handling money, licking a finger before turning a page, using a dirty public restroom, even buying a used book or dusty curio from a thrift shop will start triggering a stronger avoidance response in our brains.

Drive-in movie theaters are making a resurgence as people are getting less comfortable in an enclosed theater with a hundred coughing strangers while sitting in a filthy chair with a sticky floor.  However, the drive-in movie fad may fade when movie-goers try to use the grotesque rest rooms usually found in those places.  Meanwhile, Netflix stock is rising because more families are choosing to stream video while cocooning in their nests.

Public wearing of surgical masks will be more commonplace in America, as they are currently in most Asian countries.  Salad bars and buffet restaurants will likely become much less popular, if they continue to exist at all.  Diners will not be as enthusiastic about using communal serving spoons at these places.  And there will be a lot less tolerance of any unsanitary behavior in public, where coughing on people and licking groceries is now considered an act of terrorism.

There will be many negative consequences in the aftermath.  Training ourselves to practice better hygiene in our daily lives may be one of the more desirable and positive outcomes of this Wuhan virus crisis.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/were_all_germophobes_now.html#ixzz6IBKZfqiF

Dr. Anthony Fauci -vs- Jake Tapper

Dr. Anthony Fauci and CNN’s Jake Tapper (appearing from a bunker) discuss why President Trump opted to not impose a quarantine on parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut after “very intensive discussions” at the White House.

In the past ten days Dr. Fauci has significantly scaled back his media appearances, as most networks reduced their staff of hair and makeup artists.

President Trump says Harry and Meghan must pay for security

President Donald Trump says the US will not foot the bill for Prince Harry and Meghan's security amid reports that the pair have moved to the US from Canada.

Mr Trump tweeted he was "a great friend and admirer of the Queen and the United Kingdom", but added: "They must pay!"
The couple said they had no plans to ask for publicly funded security in the US.
They have reportedly relocated to Meghan's home state of California amid the intensifying coronavirus outbreak.
They will formally step down as senior royals on 31 March and will no longer carry out duties on behalf of the Queen, but these arrangements will be reviewed after one year.
In a statement released through a spokesperson on Sunday, the couple said: "The duke and duchess have no plans to ask the US government for security resources. Privately funded security arrangements have been made."

The couple and their son Archie have spent much of this year residing in Canada's west coast, following a six-week Christmas break on Vancouver Island.

Last month, the Canadian government announced that it would stop providing security assistance to the family "in keeping with their change in status".
Now Mr Trump appears to have followed suit.
The family moved again last week to the Los Angeles area where Meghan was raised and where her mother, Doria Ragland, now lives, US media reports say.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52086992

Dr. Deborah Birx -vs- Chuck Todd

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, appears on Meet the Press to discuss next steps with Chuck Todd. Recently the media has become very angry at Dr. Birx because she has not been anti-Trump enough, and the resistance members are unhappy with her. If Dr. Birx does not tread carefully she could be identified soon as a Russian asset. 

Condescending Chuck Todd explains to Dr. Birx that his knowledge and political experience gives him keen insight into the world of virus mitigation; and that makes his status superior to the doctor.

Why Tom “Dr. No” Coburn Was...

Katie Bailey for The Federalist

Why Tom ‘Dr. No’ Coburn Was Truly 

‘The Conscience Of The Senate’

It is a rare political figure who was called “the conscience of the Senate” by none other than John McCain — and also forged a working friendship with a young senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. That was Tom Coburn.

The former U.S. senator from Oklahoma, who died today at age 72, was often called the Senate’s “Dr. No,” able to jam up legislation like a committee of one. But those who knew him best knew the truth: Tom Coburn was principled, not partisan.

Dr. Coburn, as his devoted staff called him, was an equal-opportunity offender. If he disagreed with your work product, you’d cross his path — no matter your rank or party. But if he agreed, count on him to go to the mat with you — no matter your rank or party.

The late Sen. John McCain, himself known as a man of principle, once commented, “Tom has often acted as the conscience of the Senate. He can be unmovable on matters of principle when to do otherwise would harm or do no good for the country.” Unmovable indeed.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell once said Coburn may have placed more holds on legislation than any equivalent senator in history. Senate Historian Emeritus Donald Ritchie once said Coburn’s “jam-fest likely ranks as one of the most prolific in the history of the institution.” Politico was even blunter: “A typical bill moving through the Senate has a number of institutional hurdles to clear: subcommittee, committee, leadership and Coburn. It’s that last one that you won’t find in a textbook.”

Make no mistake, he wore the moniker of Dr. No proudly. He was unabashed about fighting to preserve liberty. He felt strongly about trying to prevent the next generation of Americans from being crushed under the debt of their parents’ profligate spending.

But he wasn’t partisan or even stubborn. A longtime lobbyist and friend of Coburn once wrote, “I can tell the difference between being stubborn and being committed. Senator Coburn has become a valuable member of the U.S. Senate. As one of the most conservative senators, unlike a few hard-core libertarians, Dr. Coburn understands that the U.S. Congress has a responsibility to govern.”

And govern he did, including with the Illinois senator who would go on to become president. Coburn forged an authentic friendship with President Barack Obama despite their being on different ends of the political spectrum. Peers of the same freshman class, this odd couple joined forces to pass legislation creating USAspending, giving Americans greater transparency into federal spending and providing a case study in working across the aisle.

Coburn’s principles drove him to willingly take apolitical actions. As a Republican, for example, he donated to Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, because he appreciated that the West Virginia senator cared about the long-term interests of the country. Coburn also committed political malpractice by picking on his own state for pork-barrel projects and inefficient program administration.

His honesty was unvarnished during an era wherein that wasn’t the norm. He once even called a former Senate majority leader an “absolute -sshole” (and later apologized), while using that same honesty to publicly defend House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a “nice person” when she was under attack. And he bucked his party’s special interests if the greater good was at stake — most notably by taking on Grover Norquist in the midst of negotiations on a bipartisan debt reduction package.

Coburn should be remembered for all the bills he stopped, no doubt. But he was more than just Dr. No. He was a beloved boss, colleague, and friend. That’s why dozens of senators from both parties sat to listen to his nearly 30-minute farewell speech on the Senate floor, including those outside his party, such as Sen. Chuck Schumer, who remarked that day, “I guess it would surprise the world in general to know that Tom Coburn and I are true friends, but we are. He is a man of integrity above all.”

Tom Coburn used to explain to his staff the difference between “important” and “significant.” He would constantly remind us that the work in Washington is important — have no doubt — but it is your faith, your family, and your relationships that are truly significant. Prioritize the significant at all costs, he used to say. He empowered me, a working mom in his operation, to work and not sacrifice my family. He welcomed my kids into the office, wrapped them in his arms, and gave them a Donald Duck impression that nobody would ever expect from the Senate’s Dr. No.

 To his team, he was the most significant of all the political figures of his time. And we loved him more on his last day than his first.

Special Report: Five days of worship that set a virus time bomb in France

March 30, 2020
By Tangi Salaün
PARIS (Reuters) – From the stage of an evangelical superchurch, the leader of the gospel choir kicked off an evening of prayer and preaching: “We’re going to celebrate the Lord! Are you feeling the joy tonight?”
“Yes!” shouted the hundreds gathered at the Christian Open Door church on Feb. 18. Some of them had traveled thousands of miles to take part in the week-long gathering in Mulhouse, a city of 100,000 on France’s borders with Germany and Switzerland.
For many members of this globe-spanning flock, the annual celebration is the high point of the church calendar.
This time, someone in the congregation was carrying the coronavirus.
The prayer meeting kicked off the biggest cluster of COVID-19 in France – one of northern Europe’s hardest-hit countries – to date, local government said. Around 2,500 confirmed cases have been linked to it. Worshippers at the church have unwittingly taken the disease caused by the virus home to the West African state of Burkina Faso, to the Mediterranean island of Corsica, to Guyana in Latin America, to Switzerland, to a French nuclear power plant, and into the workshops of one of Europe’s biggest automakers.
Weeks later, Germany partially closed its border with France, suspending a free-movement pact that has been in place for the past 25 years. The church cluster was a key factor, two people familiar with the German decision told Reuters. Church officials told Reuters that 17 members of the congregation have since died of complications linked to the disease.

France, like other governments in northern Europe, had imposed no restrictions on big meetings. There was no alcohol gel for the congregations to clean their hands, no elbow bumps instead of handshakes.
“At the time, we viewed COVID as something that was far off,” said Jonathan Peterschmitt, son of the lead pastor and grandson of the church’s founder. His father, Samuel, was unavailable for an interview because he had been sickened by the virus, his son and a church spokeswoman said.
The day after the first case linked to the church was identified on Feb. 29, public health officials followed the usual protocol and traced the people whom the carriers had been in contact with, to stem the spread. Using a list supplied by the church – which public health officials said cooperated fully – they first contacted those who had staffed the children’s crèche during the gathering.
At this point, the health inspectors realized they were too late. Some crèche staff were already sick, according to Michel Vernay, an epidemiologist with France’s national public health agency in eastern France.
“We were overwhelmed,” said Vernay. “We realized that we had a time bomb in front of us.”

It's a long read ,please consult the link.
https://www.oann.com/five-days-of-worship-that-set-a-virus-time-bomb-in-france/

New York Mayor Bill deBlasio Announces Immediate Government Suspension of First Amendment

New York Mayor Bill deBlasio is officially attempting to establish himself as the United States first totalitarian dictator by announcing a revocation of all New York City citizen rights under the first amendment.   A stunning move.

“[Government] shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In a stunning announcement Mayor deBlasio threatens that all religious services will be forcibly closed by city authorities “permanently” if they do not comply with the established dictates of city government. WATCH:

Let us be clear, the government can request, suggest and recommend that faith-based assemblies suspend their services; and in many cases those churches and religious groups may indeed choose to suspend their services. However, under no circumstance, including: war, famine or virus pandemics that could leave only a hand-full of people alive, can the government force the suspension; or punish those who refuse to comply.

Religious worship, including the assembly therein, is enshrined within the first amendment as it carries the first and ultimate essential service. There is absolutely no situation where that right can be removed.

Obviously de Blasio is surrounded by far-left sycophants and members of the totalitarian state. However, there is no legal adviser who would ever inform an official, any official, that they carry the power to supersede the preeminent constitutional right of their citizens.

Worse still is the use of the word “permanently” when de Blasio announces his unconstitutional suspension of rights. The mayor threatens to permanently close buildings?  What kind of mindset would even fathom forcing the permanent closure of houses of worship because they defy unconstitutional dictates from the state?

This decree by the New York mayor should alarm everyone.

Accept the removal of the primary right of U.S. citizens and there is no longer a country for coronavirus to infect.  This is not a slippery slope; this is akin to voluntarily jumping directly into the abyss….