Stanford Study Shows COVID-19 Infection Rates May Be “50 to 85 Times” Higher Than Official Numbers (VIDEO)

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By The Mercury News. In a startling finding, new Stanford research reveals between 48,000 and 81,000 people in Santa Clara County alone may already have been infected by the coronavirus by early April — that’s 50 to 85 times more than the number of official cases at that date.

The estimate comes from a first-in-the-nation community study of newly available antibody tests that suggest how widespread the invisible — and perhaps benign — companion has been in the Bay Area’s hardest-hit county. Not only do the numbers show how the U.S.’s severe shortage of testing led to a profound undercount of COVID-19 cases, they indicate the virus is far less deadly than believed.

Just how much of an undercount? Stanford’s low-end estimate of Santa Clara County cases is nearly double the confirmed total — 28,000 — for the entire state of California. The study estimated 2.5% to 4.2% of residents here carry antibodies to the pathogen, a marker of past infection that suggests it may be safe for them to go back to work and school. . .

Santa Clara County, home to Stanford University and 1.9 million residents, was one of the first hot spots for the coronavirus in the country. As of Friday, it officially had recorded 1,833 cases and 69 deaths related to coronavirus.

The new Stanford study comes at a time when health experts and elected officials look to immunity as one way to blunt the impact of the pandemic. It is not yet known if antibodies prevent future infection. If so, antibody protection could offer people a safe route out of strict “sheltering.” (Read more from “Stanford Study Shows COVID-19 Infection Rates May Be “50 to 85 Times” Higher Than Official Numbers” HERE)

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Study Suggests Coronavirus Is More Widespread Than Realized

By Spectator USA. [I]t is one more piece in a jigsaw which is slowly building up a picture of a virus which may be far more prevalent — and possibly far less deadly — than was at first believed. As has been argued here before, knowing the general level of infection in the population is absolutely crucial because this informs both the virulence and the mortality rate of the infection. If only a small percentage of the population have had the virus, then it might be worth continuing with lockdown policies. But if SARS-Cov-2 is already endemic in the population there is nothing we can do to stop it but no great reason to try to stop it, either: it has already ripped its way through the population with only a small proportion showing any symptoms.

Last week, I reported a similar study from the town of Gangelt in north-western Germany where 15 percent of the population were found to have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. Were that to be reflected in the wider population, it would still mean we were a long way short of the 60 percent infection rate which scientific advisers originally considered necessary for ‘herd immunity’ of the population. But it would mean we were well on the way.

That scientists in Germany and California have been able to perform antibody tests on good-sized samples of the population yet again raises the question: why have we still not performed such studies elsewhere? (Read more from “Study Suggests Coronavirus Is More Widespread Than Realized” HERE)

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China Quietly Puts Lockdowns on Wuhan Residential Compounds After ‘Reopening’; Chinese Writer Hit by Nationalist Backlash Over Diary About Wuhan Lockdown

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By The Epoch Times. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced to the world it would end its lockdown of Wuhan, the epicenter of the new coronavirus, on April 8. Yet, when the date arrived, the regime only partially reopened the city. Locals are now saying that the “opening up” of Wuhan has only applied to people traveling for work, and that entire residential compounds are being locked down with each new case of infection.

Human rights abuses in China have also continued despite the spread of the coronavirus, the CCP Virus. In March, alone, there were 747 recorded cases where practitioners of the spiritual practice Falun Gong were abducted or harassed by CCP authorities. (Read more from “China Quietly Puts Lockdowns on Wuhan Residential Compounds After ‘Reopening'” HERE)

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Chinese Writer Hit by Nationalist Backlash Over Diary About Wuhan Lockdown

By South China Morning Post. A Chinese writer who published an online diary about her life in Wuhan during the Covid-19 lockdown is facing a nationalist backlash on social media with people accusing her of empowering Western critics of Beijing’s handling of the crisis.

Fang Fang, an award-winning poet and novelist, was called a traitor after it emerged that her book, simply titled Wuhan Diary, would be published in English and German. Observers said the controversy reflected the rising nationalism in mainland China, especially among the younger generations.

Fang began writing her diary on January 25, just two days after the central China city in which the coronavirus outbreak was first identified, was put under lockdown.

In it she describes the difficulties of life in quarantine, as well as the spread of the disease and how it wreaked havoc, taking lives and breaking up families and homes.

Her work quickly attracted a large following but she also came under heavy fire, with people accusing her of betraying her country and trying to stir up trouble by giving China’s critics ammunition with which to attack it. (Read more from “Chinese Writer Hit by Nationalist Backlash Over Diary About Wuhan Lockdown” HERE)

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Donald Trump Vows to Investigate Wuhan Lab, Challenges China’s ‘Revised’ Death Toll

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By Breitbart. President Donald Trump said Friday at the White House that the United States would continue to investigate the origin of the coronavirus.

Recent reporting has questioned whether the virus could have come from a virology lab in Wuhan that was studying bats, rather than a bat sold in a Wuhan wet market. . .

“It seems to make sense, they talk about a certain kind of bat, but that bat wasn’t in that area, if you can believe this, that’s what they’re down to now, is bats,” Trump said. . .

The president also challenged China’s death toll, noting that news reports were uncritically saying that the United States had the most coronavirus deaths in the world.

“We don’t have the most in the world deaths, the most in the world has to be China, it’s a massive country, it’s gone through a tremendous problem with this,” Trump said. “They must have the most.” (Read more from “Donald Trump Vows to Investigate Wuhan Lab, Challenges China’s ‘Revised’ Death Toll” HERE)

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China Decimated U.S. Intelligence Apparatus Years Ago, Posing Steep Challenge During Coronavirus Cover-Up

By Fox News. A glaring spotlight has been cast on U.S. intelligence operations in China in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and how exactly the novel pathogen originated in the city of Wuhan.

While China’s official narrative is that the disease was born out of a wet market in the city, sources within the U.S. intelligence community are now examining the theory that the origin of the pandemic stemmed from a laboratory — not out of malicious intent, but from an accident while undertaking dangerous virus research to keep up with the United States. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin U.S. intel is investigating the origins.

Intelligence experts stress that the attempt to usurp the U.S. as the global superpower is at the heart of their brutal dismantling of intelligence operations within the country. But American intel has been working from a disadvantage ever since several operatives’ covers were blown over the last decade, leading to a purge by Beijing.

Reports emerged in 2017 that China had dealt a huge blow to the CIA’s infrastructure within its borders. From 2010 through to around 2013, according to The New York Times, more than a dozen carefully curated assets in China were jailed or killed — with one even brazenly shot outside a government building as a perceived warning to others.

“It was devastating. The setback probably delayed the U.S. national security community from fully comprehending Beijing’s move toward a more oppressive and assertive policy,” Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair for the Hudson Institute, told Fox News. “The gap in a sharper understanding of the Chinese Communist Party’s true aims bought it more time to enact greater information suppression at home and more aggressive political warfare abroad.” (Read more from “China Decimated U.S. Intelligence Apparatus Years Ago, Posing Steep Challenge During Coronavirus Cover-Up” HERE)

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Pelosi ‘Satisfied’ With Joe Biden’s ‘Answer’ to Sexual Misconduct Allegations; Biased Journalism Is Gutting the #Metoo Movement

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By Breitbart. Friday on MSNBC, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she was “satisfied” with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden’s denial of the sexual misconduct allegations[.] . .

Pelosi said, “Yes, I am. I’m very much involved in this issue. I always want to give the opportunity that women deserve to be heard. I am satisfied with his answer, yes.” (Read more from “Pelosi ‘Satisfied’ With Joe Biden’s ‘Answer’ to Sexual Misconduct Allegations” HERE)

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Biased Journalism Is Gutting the #Metoo Movement

By National Review. . .It was the birth of a movement, #MeToo, which at its worst has been captured by those who insist we must believe every woman who claims to have been assaulted. For centuries, these advocates say, women’s stories have been disbelieved, and now it’s time to tip the balance of power and believe them all, no matter what. . .

When Christine Blasey Ford came forward in 2018 with the claim that a teenaged Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her, progressives revealed their unwillingness to accept a #MeToo movement that didn’t “believe all women.” Her story deserved investigation, but when all was said and done, it was problematic in several key aspects, among them that Ford couldn’t produce anyone to affirm she and Kavanaugh had ever met, that she had told no one about the alleged assault for decades, and that she later gave conflicting accounts of what she believed had happened. . .

By publicizing accusations that lacked the most basic aspects needed for credibility, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee jettisoned their responsibility to seek the truth and instead used vulnerable women as pawns in an effort to tarnish a political enemy. In doing so, they made it less likely that subsequent women who publicized their credible accusations would be believed.

A year and a half later, Democrats and the media are again undermining the principles of #MeToo, this time by ignoring and downplaying sexual-assault allegations against Joe Biden. While Biden himself has said in the past that we must believe every woman who alleges assault, he has since changed his tune. Now, he and his prominent backers — including one of Kavanaugh’s most vigorous critics, #MeToo celebrity advocate Alyssa Milano — have begun singing the praises of due process. (Read more from “Biased Journalism Is Gutting the #Metoo Movement” HERE)

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Department of The Interior Proposes Access to 2,300,000 Acres for Hunting and Fishing

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. . .Secretary of the Department of the Interior David Bernhardt announced a public hunting and fishing access plan of historic proportions. Sec. Bernhardt is proposing a rule that would open 2.3 million acres to hunting and fishing at 97 national wildlife refuges and nine national fish hatcheries. It’s the largest ever expansion of public hunting and fishing opportunities in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s history.

For hunters, it is a welcome announcement that America’s heart is wild, open and welcomes the contributions of conservation-minded hunting.

The proposal dramatically increased hunting opportunities across the country. It increases hunting on National Wildlife Refuges to 399 locations and will open hunting and fishing on nine units of National Fish Hatchery Systems lands. When totaled up as one species at one station in one state, it’s nearly 900 distinct new hunting and fishing opportunities. Those opportunities will be in just about every corner of the country too. . .

This is another example of how the Trump Administration and Sec. Bernhardt continue to deliver to outdoorsmen and women they know are paying for the abundant wildlife in America. The administration already opened 1.4 million acres for new or expanded hunting and fishing opportunities. This proposed rule change would grow that to nearly 4 million acres for sportsmen and women to take the outdoors. (Read more from “Department of The Interior Proposes Access to 2,300,000 Acres for Hunting and Fishing” HERE)

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South Korea Seeing Rise in Patients Who Test Positive for Coronavirus a Second Time; The Coronavirus Is Particularly Unkind to Those Who Are Obese

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By Fox News. South Korea says it’s continuing to see a rise in patients who test positive for the coronavirus for a second time after being diagnosed as recovered. However, the risk of transmissions from such cases so far appears to be low.]

Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday at least 163 people have tested positive again after their initial release from hospitals, accounting for more than 2% of the country’s 7,829 recoveries.

She says the patients on average were 13.5 days removed from their release when they tested positive again, although the longest gap was 35 days.

Jeong says none of the patients were in serious condition although 61 of them were exhibiting mild symptoms. Officials are monitoring about 300 people who contacted the patients but have so far detected no transmissions of the virus. (Read more from “South Korea Seeing Rise in Patients Who Test Positive for Coronavirus a Second Time” HERE)

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The Coronavirus Is Particularly Unkind to Those Who Are Obese

By Los Angeles Times. America’s obesity epidemic appears to be making the coronavirus outbreak more dangerous — and potentially more deadly — in the United States, new research suggests. For younger and middle-aged adults in particular, carrying excess weight may significantly boost the likelihood of becoming severely ill with COVID-19.

The evidence for this comes from thousands of COVID-19 patients who sought treatment in emergency departments in New York, and it’s prompting alarm among doctors and other health experts. In the U.S., 42.4% of adults have obesity, which means their body-mass index, or BMI, is 30 or more.

In one of two new studies released this week, COVID-19 patients who were younger than 60 and had a BMI between 30 and 34 were twice as likely as their non-obese peers to be admitted to the hospital for acute care instead of being sent home from the ER. They were also 1.8 times more likely to require critical care in a hospital’s intensive care unit.

More severe obesity posed an even greater risk to COVID-19 patients in this under-60 age group. When these patients had a BMI of 35 or higher, they were 2.2 times more likely than their non-obese peers to need standard hospital care and 3.6 times more likely to end up in the ICU. (Read more from “The Coronavirus Is Particularly Unkind to Those Who Are Obese” HERE)

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This Isn’t the First Time The WHO Director Was Accused of Covering up Epidemics; How the World Health Organization Collects Its Money

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By The Blaze. A report accusing the director of the World Health Organization of covering up epidemics has resurfaced in light of current accusations that the WHO aided China in covering up the global coronavirus pandemic.

The report was first documented in a 2017 New York Times article about Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who goes by the name Dr. Tedros, and his campaign to become the director of the WHO.

The accusations centered around his time as health minister of his native Ethiopia.

“Dr. Tedros is a compassionate and highly competent public health official,” said global health law expert Lawrence O. Gostin of Georgetown University at the time.

“But he had a duty to speak truth to power and to honestly identify and report verified cholera outbreaks over an extended period,” he added. (Read more from “This Isn’t the First Time the Who Director Was Accused of Covering up Epidemics” HERE)

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How the World Health Organization Collects Its Money

By Fox News. President Trump sent shock waves around the world this week when he slammed the World Health Organization, claimed it favored China, blamed it for causing thousands of coronavirus deaths and ordered a freeze on funding from the U.S. . .

The organization itself runs on a two-year budget cycle. For 2020 and 2021, its budget for carrying out its missions is $4.8 billion — about one quarter of the cash the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gets, said Lawrence Gostin, a law professor at Georgetown University and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, which is an independent agency that works with the WHO.

Funding for the WHO is split into two uneven categories.

The first are assessments or dues each member state is required to pay, and is based on population and income. The second category is labeled “voluntary” and includes extra money governments float to the organization as well as private donations. These assessed contributions make up about 20 percent of the WHO’s total budget while the voluntary funds make up the rest.

The United States is the largest single government donor to the WHO and accounts for about 20 percent of the WHO’s total budget. The U.S. also gives the most money in voluntary contributions. (Read more from “How the World Health Organization Collects Its Money” HERE)

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Roger Stone Reveals in New Interview That His Prison Sentence Will Likely Kill Him

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By The Blaze. Roger Stone claimed that he was being wrongly persecuted in the first interview free from a gag rule after he was denied a new trial on Thursday.

The former Trump campaign official and longtime friend to President Donald Trump talked to Tucker Carlson on his Fox News show on Friday.

“I’ll just get right to it. I’m a little bit confused by why with all the pardons going around, everyone I’ve ever met has been pardoned, you haven’t been by a White House that has done a lot to push criminal justice reform and let a lot of really bad people out of jail in the name of humanitarian concerns, but you’re not in that category,” said Carlson. “Why is that, do you think?”

“Well, I really don’t know, Tucker, I was very hopeful that the motion for a mistrial in my case based on flagrant and blatant, even egregious juror misconduct would have won me a new trial,” responded Stone. . .

“At this point, the judge has ordered me to surrender in two weeks, and at 67 years old, with some underlying health problems, including a history of asthma, I believe with the coronavirus, it is essentially a death sentence!” he claimed. (Read more from “Roger Stone Reveals in New Interview That His Prison Sentence Will Likely Kill Him” HERE)

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Roger Stone Must Report to Prison Within Two Weeks

By Newsweek. United States District Judge Amy Berman Jackson denied a motion requesting a new trial for Roger Stone, the convicted former adviser to President Donald Trump, in a Thursday ruling. Court documents show that Stone must appear in person “at the institution designated by the Bureau of Prisons” within 14 days to serve out his sentence. Stone is currently out on bond.

Stone was found guilty in 2019 of obstructing an investigation conducted by Congress, witness tampering and making false statements to the U.S. Government in relation to alleged meddling in the 2016 election by Russia. . .

Legal counsel for Stone requested a new trial after the foreperson of the jury, Tomeka Hart, was revealed to have posted anti-Trump sentiments on her social media pages. Allegations were also made that Hart lied on her jury application to appear as if she were not biased against Republicans. (Read more from “Roger Stone Must Report to Prison Within Two Weeks” HERE)

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Militants in Yemen Vow to Shoot COVID-19 Victims

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Authorities in some jurisdictions across the United States have threatened arrest and jail for various violations by people infected with the coronavirus.

But that’s nothing compared to what members of the militant Houthi faction in Yemen want to do to the infected. . .

At an English-language site for the Middle East broadcast organization al-Arabiya, a video shows members of the Iranian-backed fighting force making plain their intent.

“Our best method is to kill in the interest of the rest,” one member of the organization said. “There is no treatment, no quarantine, and no procedures that will do, only bullets.” (Read more from “Militants in Yemen Vow to Shoot COVID-19 Victims” HERE)

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REVEALED: FBI Withheld Negative Information About Steele; Outlets That Covered Steele Dossier During ‘Russiagate’ Go Silent as Steele’s Ties to Kremlin Revealed

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By Daily Caller. Bill Priestap, the FBI’s former chief of counterintelligence, told Justice Department investigators he agreed not to disclose information he learned about Christopher Steele as a precondition for a meeting with British government officials regarding the former MI6 officer, according to recently declassified information.

Priestap and his deputy, Peter Strzok, traveled to the United Kingdom in November and December 2016 to assess the reliability of Steele, a former MI6 officer whose dossier the FBI used for its investigation into the Trump campaign.

Priestap and Strzok received mixed reviews about Steele from his former colleagues, according to a Justice Department inspector general’s report on the FBI’s probe.

Some vouched for Steele’s honesty and integrity, but several others questioned his judgement and “lack of self-awareness.” Some colleagues described Steele as “smart,” and a “person of integrity,” their notes said. . .

But their notes also reflected negative reviews on Steele. He “[d]emonstrates lack of self-awareness, poor judgment,” was “underpinned by poor judgment,” and “[r]eporting in good faith, but not clear what he would have done to validate,” one source said. (Read more from “REVEALED: FBI Withheld Negative Information About Steele” HERE)

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Outlets That Covered Steele Dossier During ‘Russiagate’ Go Silent as Steele’s Ties to Kremlin Revealed

By National Review. Many of the same news outlets that provided comprehensive coverage of Christopher Steele’s opposition research dossier during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation have yet to cover newly declassified information that indicates the much-publicized Steele Dossier contained Russian disinformation.

In response to requests from Senators Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R., Wisc.), the Department of Justice on April 10 declassified four footnotes included in Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation. As of Thursday — six days after the footnotes became public — The New York Times and CBS News are the only mainstream outlets to cover the development. A host of other news outlets that closely followed the “Russiagate” story — and reported constantly on information related to Steele’s findings — have thus far ignored the new information. . .

Buzzfeed — which published the entire dossier composed by former British spy Christopher Steele in January 2017 — CNN, The Washington Post, Politico, and other outlets still have yet to cover the developments, despite widely circulating Steele’s claims following the release of his dossier, which played a “central and essential” role in obtaining FISA warrants against the 2016 Trump campaign.

In February 2017, CNN cited anonymous officials who had corroborated some of Steele’s claims for the first time, giving them “greater confidence” about the dossier’s credibility, and whose television anchors have insisted multiple times that “much of the dossier has been corroborated.” (Read more from “Outlets That Covered Steele Dossier During ‘Russiagate’ Go Silent as Steele’s Ties to Kremlin Revealed” HERE)

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