RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/queens-words-comfort-and-thanks-katie-hopkins/

It takes a lot to make a nation sit up and take notice.

But on Sunday evening at 8 p.m., Her Majesty the Queen did exactly that, addressing the whole of Britain for only the fifth time in her 64-year reign, to deliver a message of comfort and thanks.

It was brilliant, in that word’s truest sense, splendid with light. A tonic for the nation in testing times, changing not only what we were thinking but how we were feeling, reminding us of how fundamental our Queen is to our lives.

She gave thanks to our front-line medical workers and those working so hard to support us all, and to those staying at home to try to stop this virus, assuring us that long after this pandemic has passed we will take pride in the way we came together as a nation to deal with it:

“And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any. That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet, good-humored resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country. The pride in who we are is not a part of our past; it defines our present and our future.”

She seemed to ask us to dig deep into something much bigger than ourselves and the trifling piffles of our everyday existence. To connect with our place in history and see that we are part of something much greater that comes from deep in our past and stretches far into our future. We are a moment in time.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/04/07/stop-comparing-u-s-to-south-korea-on-coronavirus/

Democrats looking to blame President Donald Trump for every single coronavirus death in the U.S. — as well as the economic wreckage caused by the shutdown — keep pointing to South Korea as proof of his guilt. 

In his statement on the coronavirus, Joe Biden had this to say: “South Korea detected their first case of coronavirus on the same day we did, but they had tests and sophisticated tracing programs to stop the spread of the virus, so they didn’t have to put the entire country on lockdown.”

At a press conference last week, PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor hit Trump with a question about testing rates in the U.S. versus South Korea.

“You’ve said several times that the United States has ramped up testing. But the United States is still not testing per capita as many people as other countries like South Korea. Why is that and when do you think that that number will be on par with other countries?”

The media eagerly jumped on Trump’s goof about there being 38 million people living in the capital of Seoul, which has a population of 10 million.

But they’ve all missed the bigger problem with this fixation on South Korea. The comparisons are utterly pointless. 

Yes, South Korea has had just over 10,000 confirmed cases and only 186 deaths. Whereas the U.S. has more than 363,000 cases and nearly 11,000 deaths.

But South Korea could hardly be more unlike the United States in almost every way. Its population is 16% of the U.S. population to start with. There are 16 million more people living in California and Texas alone than all of South Korea.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-coronavirus-threat-south-of-the-border-11586214286?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

The Covid-19 pandemic has yet to strike Latin America and the Caribbean at full force, but the region’s fragile societies are already groaning under the stress. In Guayaquil, Ecuador, with hospitals and morgues overwhelmed, relatives have been storing the bodies of the deceased in their homes; some bodies lay unattended in the streets. That could be a sign of things to come; Latin America is almost completely unprepared for the multifaceted catastrophe now headed its way.

After decades of underinvestment in health systems, most of Latin America and the Caribbean are nowhere near ready for a pandemic. The region’s average annual health-care spending per capita is $949: less than one-fourth of average spending across the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and only two-thirds of the level in the Middle East and North Africa. The region’s health systems are already stretched beyond capacity to meet the needs of a “normal” year; going into the crisis, Mexico had fewer than 6,000 ventilators for a population of almost 130 million, and even relatively well-developed Costa Rica has less than half as many hospital beds per 1,000 people as the U.S.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/australias-high-court-overturns-cardinal-george-pells-convictions-for-child-sexual-abuse_3301141.html

Cardinal George Pell is to be released from prison after he won his appeal, and Australia’s highest court on Tuesday overturned his convictions for child sexual abuse.

A full bench of seven judges ruled that Pell’s conviction for child sex abuse should be overturned and he should walk free immediately. They unanimously determined that the jury should have had reasonable doubts as to Pell’s guilt and that the jury had not properly considered all the evidence at his trial.

Pell, 78, became the highest-ranking Catholic clergyman worldwide to be imprisoned for child sex offenses after he was arrested in 2018 for five counts of sexual assault.

Pell, who has always maintained his innocence, went to the High Court after having lost in the lower Court of Appeal in Victoria in August 2019, when a two to one majority dismissed his appeal.

Over two days in March, Pell’s latest and final appeal to the High Court was heard by seven justices. Many questions about the prosecution’s case were raised during the hearing.

Pell will leave Barwon Prison, near Victoria’s city of Geelong, after having spent more than 400 days there as part of a six-year prison sentence.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/freeze-travel-to-and-from-cuba/

There are reasons to think that the coronavirus there is rampant. The Communist regime has a record of downplaying its public-health crises.

The actions of China’s Communist leaders concerning the coronavirus pandemic have, yet again, made abundantly clear that totalitarian regimes do not behave like responsible nations. Rather than share information promptly to avert a global health emergency, the “revolution,” or regime, puts itself before all else, regardless of how many human beings are infected or die.

Only when the ghastly reality of the Wuhan coronavirus could no longer be contained did Beijing’s leadership stop some of the censorship, shifting to propaganda, lies, and baseless attacks to deflect responsibility for the crisis. The Iranian regime has followed a similar pattern. So will Communist Cuba, as history has shown that it cannot be relied on for accurate and complete health data on pandemics or other urgent global health challenges.

Unlike China or Iran, however, Cuba is just a 45-minute flight away from the U.S. mainland. To safeguard the American people, it was essential for the U.S. to suspend all travel to and from Cuba. It appears from a tweet Thursday by the U.S. mission in Havana that the administration has implemented such a measure. It should also consider blocking entry to the U.S. for all foreign travelers who have visited the island within the previous 120 days. This suggested timeframe is based on estimates of the spread of the novel coronavirus and on statutory limitations concerning access to American ports by vessels that have been in Cuba. Once the health crisis subsides, the U.S. can reassess travel protocols based on verifiable measures, not Cuban-government rhetoric.