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Got Coronavirus Antibodies? Tests that show immunity are crucial to beating Covid-19.

Posted By on April 2nd, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/got-coronavirus-antibodies-11585782003?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

One of the great uncertainties in the coronavirus pandemic is how many people have been infected without knowing it or showing symptoms. Fortunately, there are now tests for that, and broadly deploying them will be critical to saving lives and getting Americans back to work.

Dozens of commercial and public health labs around the world are rolling out antibody tests that can show if an individual was recently infected with the virus and has developed immunity. When fighting a pathogen, the immune system produces proteins known as antibodies that bind to specific molecules known as antigens on the invader’s surface like a lock and key.

Antibodies circulate in the blood for weeks and even months after infection, providing resistance to another onslaught, though the immune system remembers how to produce them on demand. Vaccines work by instructing the immune system to make antibodies to shoot down pathogens before they proliferate.

Because antibodies linger in the blood, they are especially useful for determining if someone has been infected with the coronavirus. Some experts estimate that more than half of infected individuals show mild or no symptoms, though the true figure could be higher. Around three-quarters of people infected with flu viruses show mild or no symptoms.

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The New York Neighborhoods With the Most Coronavirus Cases Working-class and Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn among city’s hardest hit areas, according to new data By Katie Honan

Posted By on April 2nd, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-york-neighborhoods-with-the-most-coronavirus-cases-11585781164?mod=hp_lead_pos5

The new coronavirus has struck hardest in working-class neighborhoods in New York City’s outer boroughs, city data shows, underlining how the pandemic has ravaged densely packed lower-income areas where social-distancing guidelines have proved difficult to implement.

Two areas of Queens—Corona and Elmhurst—have led the city in reported infections, with 947 and 831 as of March 31, respectively, the data show. Both neighborhoods are heavily populated by immigrants who live in close quarters, often with multiple families sharing a dwelling, said City Councilman Francisco Moya.

Many residents there don’t have the luxury to telecommute because they work in the hospitality industry, at restaurants or supermarkets, he said. “One person gets sick, it spreads around that household,” said Mr. Moya who represents Corona.

New York City has become the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic and the Covid-19 disease that the pathogen causes. As of Wednesday morning, there were 44,915 positive cases in the city and 1,139 deaths. Queens had the most positive cases, with 14,966, and the most deaths in a borough, with 386.

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LIZ SHIELD: TIME TO CANCEL THE W.H.O.

Posted By on April 2nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/01/morning-greatness-time-to-cancel-the-world-health-organization/

The pernicious World Health Organization: It’s time to cancel the clowns over at the WHO. They are in no way a simple outfit, monitoring and coordinating world health situations. They are a China proxy who lied to the world about the deadly China virus, praised China’s handling of the virus (which included forcibly kidnapping people to imprison them with those infected and soldering them inside their houses and of course, lying)  and continue to defend China, who is responsible for releasing a plague on the world.

World Health Organization Spends Twice As Much On Travel As On Medical Supplies
Tucker Carlson blasts WHO leadership as ‘lapdogs’ for the Chinese government
Rick Scott calls for congressional inquiry into WHO’s coronavirus response

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LIZ SHIELD ON THE MEDIA

Posted By on April 2nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/01/morning-greatness-time-to-cancel-the-world-health-organization/

Media, blue check mark mafia want networks to blackout China virus task force briefings Why on earth would the media not want the public to watch the daily China virus briefings with key personnel involved in our fight against the pandemic? If you intend to brainwash the public and don’t want them to see and hear the information themselves, that’s certainly something the media would do. And of course, they don’t want viewers to see Trump appearing to “handle” the crisis because it makes him look competent and like a leader. And the “journalists” who ask questions during the press conference aren’t taking the health crisis seriously. The celebrity journalists don’t ask questions about medical, health or epidemiology, they ask questions designed to “get” Trump. CNN clown Don Lemon is a big advocate for keeping the public in the dark and amenable to CNN gaslighting. When are people going to get it through their heads that the corporate media is trying to indoctrinate their viewers rather than transmitting information to the public.

Fox News reports, “CNN raised eyebrows Tuesday after it chose not to air President Trump’s initial prepared remarks at the daily White House coronavirus briefing.”

Media darling, Dr. Tony Fauci, called Jim Acosta on his schtick in yesterday’s conference. Acosta wanted someone, preferably Trump to admit there would be less death and illness if social distancing had been forced upon us sooner. In other words he wanted an admissions they had delayed saving Americans by not cracking down. Fauci responded, “If there was no virus in the background, there was nothing to mitigate. If there was a virus there that we didn’t know about, then the answer to your question is probably yes,” he said. Fauci added, “The only trouble with that is that whenever you come out and say something like that, it always becomes almost a soundbite that gets taken out of context.” He also said, “In a perfect world, it would have been nice to know what was going on there, and we didn’t,” he said. “But I believe, Jim, that we acted very, very early in that.” BOOM.

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What Would Tom Coburn Do? Adam Andrzejewski

Posted By on April 2nd, 2020

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/03/31/what-would-tom-coburn-do/#53cfcf6b759a

Last Saturday, America lost a true giant and one of the great men in our nation’s history. Dr. Tom Coburn, the legendary former U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, passed away after a seven-year battle with prostate cancer. 

The first time I met Dr. Coburn was at his Senate office on Capitol Hill in 2013. Coburn would soon be listed on the Time 100: Most Influential Persons in the World. I didn’t have a national reputation.

In fact, our organization had only a handful of employees and a small budget. Frankly, I was a little intimidated and uncharacteristically nervous. I had spoken before large groups, but I didn’t know how a national figure like Coburn would receive my ideas.

He immediately put me at ease with his no-nonsense demeanor and heartfelt enthusiasm about what our little citizen-led operation was up to.

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Some Toronto-Area Mosques Remain Open Despite Coronavirus Restrictions & Warnings The ever-persistent clash of civilizations. Christine Douglass-Williams

Posted By on April 2nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/canada-some-toronto-area-mosques-remaining-open-christine-douglass-williams/

According to a CBC report in Canada: “A group of Ontario imams and Islamic scholars is fighting an uphill battle to convince management at a handful of Toronto-area mosques to completely shutter their doors. They say that while a majority of mosques are closed….a few insist on remaining open. The imams believe the refusal to close the mosques exposes an allegiance to certain foreign scholars not heeding the calls.” This issue is beyond the Muslim community and there is no indication that it is being treated as such. 

On a global scale, the battle continues within Islam on whether to heed the orders and warnings about the coronavirus and practice social distancing, or to listen to Islamic clerics who insist on continuing prayers amid the coronavirus outbreak, and die a martyr if that is Allah’s will. Case in point: in a video that went viral, devoted Muslim Jafar Ghafouri was shown licking the metal gating of a shrine, saying  “I am eating the virus to reassure you and keep you coming to the mausoleum”. Another worhipper said: “Stop playing with people’s beliefs, coronavirus is nothing in the Shia shrines,” while yet another declared “I am licking this and I don’t care what happens.”  

The risky behavior does not stop in Iran. Pakistan was reported to be the coronavirus super-spreader to the entire Muslim world, precisely because of the influence of determined Muslim clerics and an increasingly popular Islamic revival group called Tablighi Jamaat, which Pew Research Center describes as one of the largest faith-based movements in the world. According to an article in Haaretz:

The Tableeghi Jamaat’s reluctance to cite an infectious virus as cause for the disbandment is rooted in its regressive ideology, whose exponents have ranged from militant jihadists to radical preachers to Islamic televangelists unleashing a perilous blend of unscientific fantasies and bigoted fallacies. For these ideologues, cancelling congregational prayers owing to an infectious disease is synonymous with repudiating Allah’s command.

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Austria: The Coronavirus Chronicles by Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff

Posted By on April 2nd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15835/austria-coronavirus-chronicles

Borders matter. For many years, Europeans have been told by their leaders that borders could not be closed to curb illegal migration due to the Schengen Agreement…. In the 14th century, Poland was less affected by the plague because King Casimir isolated his country, closed borders and quarantined the border regions.

Freedom of speech matters. The Austrian government has installed a “ministry of truth” in the office of the chancellor….

“[W]henever a government got its hands on truth control, it has massively abused it within a very short time to gag and ban critical and oppositional voices. Once they have the power to control opinion, it is a massive temptation for those in power to use it in the self-interest of a government.” — Andreas Unterberger, blogger, March 22, 2020.

Week 1 in a country in complete shutdown. Austria has been at the forefront of forcing its citizens to “shelter in place” by enacting measures so severe that even the country’s elderly cannot remember anything similar.

To snuff out a virus that originated in China in November and has since made its way around the world, roughly a month ago, the Austrian government, led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, thankfully heeded a dire warning by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took hard a look at Austria’s neighboring country, Italy, and immediately enacted a first set of measures, followed by the drastic rules mentioned above, that were first extended until April 13 and stepped up on March 30.

The new measures include wearing compulsory masks when grocery shopping, which, in due course, will be extended to the wearing masks when outdoors at any time. In addition, vulnerable men and women, that is, those whose immune systems are compromised, are required to stay home, with their salaries covered by the government. The chancellor warned the population that “what we are witnessing right now is the quiet before the storm” and added that if measures are loosened, they will start with the opening of shops and some restaurants; universities and schools will follow at the very end of this process. Schools in Austria are therefore unlikely to reopen before the fall, although there are already extensive course online.

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Coronavirus Poses a Greater Threat to the Ayatollahs than US Sanctions Do by Con Coughlin

Posted By on April 2nd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15836/coronavirus-iran-sanctions

The Iranian regime’s failure to grasp the significance of the outbreak in its own country has led 16 other countries in the region to claim that their own outbreaks originated in Iran. These include Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates.

The European aid package, which is said to be worth $548,000, is the first transaction conducted under a trade mechanism known as the Instrument In Support Of Trade Exchanges, or Instex, which has been set up by the Europeans to enable them to barter humanitarian goods and food with Tehran after the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.

Tehran would be well-advised, though, not to regard the aid delivery as raising the prospect of the sanctions being eased. The new trading arrangements set up by Europe have been designed not to breach the Trump administration’s policy of applying “maximum pressure” against Iran, so that Instex can only be used for the delivery of humanitarian aid and food.

This means that, while the aid delivery might help to fight the coronavirus pandemic, it will do little to alleviate the pressure on Iran’s incompetent, and increasingly unpopular, leadership.

The Iranian regime’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus pandemic could ultimately pose a greater threat to the survival of the ayatollahs than the impact of Washington’s uncompromising sanctions regime.

Up until the coronavirus outbreak, the main challenge facing the clerical regime was the devastating impact the Trump administration’s hard-hitting sanctions were having on the Iranian economy.

With the economy shrinking at the rate of 10 percent a year, and unemployment hovering around the 20 percent mark, the regime was under increasing pressure from anti-government protesters angry at the regime’s mishandling of the economy.

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The Truth about the National Security Council’s Pandemic Team By Rebeccah Heinrichs

Posted By on April 2nd, 2020

ttps://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-truth-national-security-council-pandemic-team/

If anyone is to blame for the spread of the novel coronavirus, it’s ultimately Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party, thanks to its lies and obfuscations. Nonetheless, at this stage in the pandemic, President Trump is responsible for protecting Americans, working with our allies, and mitigating the effects of COVID-19.

Many are already condemning the Trump administration’s handling of the disease. It’s generally too early for that. We won’t be able to see the extent of the wisdom in most of the administration’s decisions and the timing of them until the country gets through this crisis, and we have the benefit of hindsight. Even so, the scale and scope of the domestic response would have been much better informed had we had more information sooner from the Chinese.

As for the matter of containing and mitigating the disease, Americans should have an idea about whether they can have confidence in their government. Dealing with a potentially devastating new disease to which the population has no immunity and of which there are no known vaccines is frightening enough without worrying about the government’s competence.

That’s why this charge from former Obama-administration officials — including Beth Cameron, who served as the senior director for global health security and biodefense on the National Security Council (NSC) under Obama — is so serious: that the Trump administration’s decision to “dismantle” the directorate the Obama administration created to quarterback pandemic responses is to blame for “leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like COVID-19.”

Former Trump officials, including former national-security adviser John Bolton and Tim Morrison, have disputed Cameron’s characterization.

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Blundering Pelosi, Irrelevant Biden Fade As Shrewd Cuomo Rises by Thomas McArdle

Posted By on April 2nd, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/04/02/blundering-pelosi-irrelevant-biden-fade-while-shrewd-cuomo-rises/

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Joe Biden may have spent their lives rising to power within the Democratic Party, but clearly somewhere back in their early days they were absent for Politics 101. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, was obviously sitting attentively in the front of the classroom, probably with his father and predecessor, Mario, the late three-term chief executive of the Empire State, serving as professor.

Far worse than letting a serious crisis go to waste, per Democrat hatchet man Rahm Emanuel’s infamous maxim, is being seen as exploiting a global emergency for the sake of petty politics. On CNN on Sunday, Pelosi did just that, charging that President Donald Trump’s management of the coronavirus pandemic is costing American lives and talking up an eventual congressional probe.

This week, she actually used the most famous line from the Watergate hearings: “What did he know and when did he know it?” Pelosi asked, echoing the late Sen. Howard Baker, the Republican who signaled that President Richard Nixon’s own party was not going to be able to protect him.

Pelosi also compared Trump to Nero, the corrupt first century emperor who allowed Rome to burn – if he didn’t actually instigate the fire – then blamed Christians: “As the president fiddles, people are dying,” she charged.