RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15905/iran-america-free-day

With the exception of this year, since 1989 Tehran has hosted an annual “End of America” conference attended by anti-Americans from across the globe.

The “end of America” dream has not been, and may never be, realized, for at least two reasons…. America, perhaps above all, is an idea that, even if formulated as a myth, as most great ideas are, continues to appeal to a large segment of mankind across cultural, racial, and socio-economic borders.

Rather than bombarding Iranians with America-bashing discourse, Khamenei and his associates might be better off designating an “America free” day every month, a day in which the very word “America” is not spoken, written, or heard anywhere in Iran.

On that day, Iranians could devote their intellectual energies to pondering the question: Apart from further digging, is there something that we can do to creep out of the hole we have dug for ourselves?

The United States is on the verge of losing its position as the global superpower. Even worse, it may be heading for disintegration as a nation, with its most populous state California seeking secession while the African-American minority set up an independent black state, probably in Mississippi. One thing is certain: by 2025 the US will no longer be the world’s biggest economic power.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democracy-gangnam-style-11587164416?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

While Kim Jong Un was busy testing missiles this week, another North Korean was making news in the South. Thae Yong-ho, one of the highest-ranking defectors from the totalitarian state, was elected to a seat in South Korea’s National Assembly. Mr. Thae is the new member from Seoul’s fashionable Gangnam district. If that name rings a bell, you may be one of the 3.5 billion people who have watched the music video “Gangnam Style” on YouTube.

Mr. Thae was the No. 2 diplomat at North Korea’s embassy in London when he defected in 2016, saying that he wanted his two sons to grow up in freedom. He has since traveled the world as a critic of the Kim regime and what he sees as the world’s tepid response to its provocations. Pyongyang returns the compliment by calling him “human scum.” He lives under 24-7 guard to protect against assassination by North Korean agents.

Mr. Thae is the first North Korean to be directly elected by South Korea voters as their representative. Another escapee, Ji Seong-ho, won a seat in the National Assembly this week as a proportional representative. Mr. Ji, a human-rights activist and amputee, is best known in the U.S. for raising his crutches in a triumphant gesture at the 2018 State of the Union address.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/medical-students-in-europe-and-u-s-graduate-early-to-join-coronavirus-front-lines-11587233541

Young students just finishing medical schools across the U.S. and Europe are being rushed into hospitals overwhelmed by the new coronavirus to combat a global health catastrophe.

Many are forgoing final elective classes, logging onto Zoom or Webex to recite the Hippocratic oath and donning protective gear to begin their careers, often in areas far from the specialties they plan to pursue.

“We finished exams in March, and two days later we were asked if we would volunteer to work in hospitals. We didn’t even have our results then,” said Caroline Olabisi, 29, who trained in London. Some of her final exams were canceled because of safety concerns.

“They just sent us an email saying we’d been awarded the degree on the same day as we got our results.” She started work in a London hospital three weeks ago.

“Now, we just have to learn on the job,” Dr. Olabisi said. “This week, I’ve had to do two 12-hour nursing shifts and have been putting IV lines in under supervision from consultants. Things that I wouldn’t usually be doing.”

Julia Probert says she has ‘a waxing and waning course of nervousness’ as she reckons with the possibility of contracting Covid-19.

Julia Probert, 31, is heading to a residency in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in July. But until then, she is reporting for duty at Bellevue Hospital in New York, having signed up for early graduation from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-koreas-new-coronavirus-twist-recovered-patients-test-positive-again-11587145248

SEOUL—More than 160 South Koreans have tested positive a second time for the coronavirus, a development that suggests the disease may have a longer shelf life than expected.

Many had volunteered for re-examination after exhibiting symptoms such as coughing. Others submitted to extra testing on little more than a hunch despite not showing symptoms. So far, these patients—all of whom needed to twice test negative before leaving medical supervision—haven’t spread the virus to others, local health officials say. 

The initial belief, according to South Korean doctors directly involved with a government review, is that the virus has “reactivated” in the patients, meaning the disease went dormant and came back. The research remains ongoing and inconclusive. The Seoul government’s report will take at least a month to complete, they say.

South Korea is closely watched as an early indicator of how Covid-19 lingers across a population, having flattened its curve of new infections and now contemplating an unwinding of social-distancing measures. The results showing people testing positive a second time could signal a worrisome potential for the virus to linger that could impact health policy.

South Korean SlowdownThe country was the first to hit 8,000 casesapart from China, though new infections haveleveled off in recent weeks.Cumulative casesSource: Johns Hopkins

Feb. ’20MarchApril02,0004,0006,0008,00010,00012,000

“It may be that you have to test these recovered people every month for symptoms or viruses,” said Mary Guinan, a former chief scientific adviser to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director. “Maybe it comes and goes. We don’t know.”

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/04/17/china-tries-fails-get-wisconsin-pass-law-praising-beijing-on-coronavirus/

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Thursday that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) outrageous effort to pressure the legislature of Wisconsin to pass a resolution praising Beijing for its handling of the coronavirus effort “backfired spectacularly,” leading to a motion that will condemn the CCP for lying to the world if it passes.

The Chinese consulate sent emails in February and March to Wisconsin Senate President Roger Roth, a Republican, urging him to pass a resolution praising China. The emails even contained the text of a resolution written by the CCP for the Wisconsin legislature to rubber stamp, praising the Chinese government for being “transparent and quick in sharing key information of the virus with the WHO and the international community” – the exact opposite of what actually happened.

Roth told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview last week he was so stunned by the audacity of the first email, and its dubious origin from a Hotmail account, that he dismissed it as a prank. When he received a follow-up email from the consulate in March, he instructed his staff to research it, and they determined it was a genuine communique from the Chinese consulate, whose diplomats sometimes use Hotmail and other public email services because they are “faster” than their official email accounts.

Roth fired back a one-word response to the CCP: “Nuts.” This was the answer famously given by American commander Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe when a different gang of fascists demanded his surrender at Bastogne in 1944.

“I was mad as hell,” Roth told RFA on Thursday.