Newborn Dies of Coronavirus in Connecticut; Healthy 30-Year-Old Baseball Coach Dies; Experts Tell White House Virus Can Spread Through Talking or Even Just Breathing

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By NBC Connecticut. The governor of Connecticut delivered heart-breaking news Wednesday about the COVID-19 pandemic and said an infant girl here in the state died of coronavirus.

The 7-week-old baby girl was from Hartford, according to Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin.

The unidentified child was unresponsive when taken to the hospital recently and could not be revived. The infant tested positive during a postmortem exam for the virus that causes COVID-19, said Josh Geballe, the governor’s chief operating officer. . .

Dr. James Gill, the state’s chief medical examiner, said the infant had no other known medical conditions, the Associated Press reported. An autopsy has been done but more tests are needed before a cause of death can be determined, he said. (Read more from “Newborn Dies of Coronavirus in Connecticut” HERE)

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Healthy 30-Year-Old Baseball Coach Dies of Coronavirus

By Breitbart. An otherwise healthy 30-year-old baseball coach in New Jersey has died of the coronavirus, according to a report.

District Superintendent Michael Romagnino released a letter on Monday to parents noting that Ben Luderer, a teacher and varsity baseball coach at Cliffside Park school #6, passed away this week.

Luderer took ill last week, and by March 27 was taken to a local hospital where he soon went on oxygen, his family told BuzzFeed.

The family added that Luderer was soon sent home but began spiraling down. By Sunday, he was reportedly unable to move in bed. . .

By 6 AM on Monday, Luderer had died in his bed at home. (Read more from “Healthy 30-Year-Old Baseball Coach Dies of Coronavirus” HERE)

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Experts Tell White House Coronavirus Can Spread Through Talking or Even Just Breathing

By CNN. A prestigious scientific panel told the White House Wednesday night that research shows coronavirus can be spread not just by sneezes or coughs, but also just by talking, or possibly even just breathing.

“While the current [coronavirus] specific research is limited, the results of available studies are consistent with aerosolization of virus from normal breathing,” according to the letter, written by Dr. Harvey Fineberg, chairman of a committee with the National Academy of Sciences.

Fineberg told CNN that he will wear start wearing a mask when he goes to the grocery store.

“I’m not going to wear a surgical mask, because clinicians need those,” said Fineberg, former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. “But I have a nice western-style bandana I might wear. Or I have a balaclava. I have some pretty nice options.” (Read more from “Experts Tell White House Coronavirus Can Spread Through Talking or Even Just Breathing” HERE)

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Navy Removes Captain of Coronavirus-Plagued Carrier Who Wrote Letter Pleading for Help

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The U.S. Navy has removed Capt. Brett Crozier from his command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, after the media obtained a letter he wrote begging for help for sailors amid a spreading COVID-19 outbreak on the aircraft carrier. . .

Last week, the ship was forced to dock in Guam with its roughly 4,800 crew members on board after roughly 100 tested positive for coronavirus. On Monday, Capt. Crozier sent a letter to senior military officials, pleading for help and pushing for a coordinated effort to remove most of the crew from the ship, warning that “the spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating.”

“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do,” Crozier wrote. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.” . . .

On Thursday, acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly announced Capt. Crozier had been removed from command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

“I don’t know who leaked the letter to the media,” Sec. Modly said during a briefing. “That would be something that would violate the principles of good order and discipline, if he were responsible for that. But I don’t know that.” (Read more from “Navy Removes Captain of Coronavirus-Plagued Carrier Who Wrote Letter Pleading for Help” HERE)

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China Is Lying About COVID-19 Death Toll and Confirmed Cases, and the U.S. Intel Community Knows It

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The Chinese government is underreporting the outbreak of the coronavirus in its country, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, three U.S. officials confirmed to Bloomberg News Wednesday.

The officials were not at liberty to discuss the details of the secret report, which was sent to the White House last week, but confirmed that the upshot of the report is that “China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete.”

Two officials told the news outlet that the report confirms that the communist country’s publicly reported numbers are “fake.”

As of Wednesday, China had reported about 82,000 confirmed cases of the virus resulting in around 3,300 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Those figures pale in comparison to the 190,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths already recorded in the United States.

During a press briefing Tuesday, Dr. Deborah Birx, a leading health official on the White House coronavirus task force, said that China’s public reporting, or lack thereof, greatly influenced how the officials responded to the outbreak within America. (Read more from “China Is Lying About COVID-19 Death Toll and Confirmed Cases, and the U.S. Intel Community Knows It” HERE)

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Subways, Buses and Trains Still Running in Coronavirus Hot Spots. How Exactly Does That Help Fight the Virus?

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It’s hard to think of a more opportune place for a contagious virus to spread than in subways and on buses. Yet, weeks into the shutdown of businesses that never engender large crowds and prohibition in some states for citizens to hike in wide-open state parks, mass transit is still running to some degree in almost every major hot spot. Let me guess: This is also scientifically sound policy built on the vaunted “models and projections,” right?

So many parts of America are now thankful they don’t live in Europe, where so many people don’t have cars and rely instead on public transportation for everything. Cars are the great beacon of freedom, movement, and individualism and the symbol of America’s wide-open expanse. Cars are extremely reliable and facilitate every level of personal liberty and economic movement, yet at the same time they are the perfect long-term and short-term vehicle for social distancing and the antidote against viral spreading. Mass transit, on the other hand, is to coronavirus what water and sunlight are to plants.

Here is a sample of some major city or state transit systems still operating either at full or at reduced capacity as of April 1:

New York City

Chicago

New Jersey

Atlanta

D.C. (reduced service)

New Orleans (weekend schedule)

Detroit (limited schedule)

San Francisco (buses, not trains)

Los Angeles

Miami

Seattle

Indianapolis

In some of these cities, you could be pulled over and questioned for simply traveling alone in your car, but the subways are still open! New York is the big shocker. Police have to patrol the cars to count how many people are in them.

Wouldn’t you expect mass transit to be the first thing shut down during this epidemic? National Review’s Dan McLaughlin observes how by tracing the zip code map of coronavirus cases in New York City, it is quite evident that the subway lines could have played an outsized role in transmission of the virus.

Yes, shutting it down would be disruptive, but not nearly as disruptive as a full nuclear winter on all businesses and even very important medical care, which is now causing the furloughing of vital health care providers.

I live right outside Baltimore, not exactly rural Wyoming. Everyone in my neighborhood has two cars, and it is by no means an upper-income neighborhood. Keeping most businesses open, facilitated through individual car travel and wearing masks and gloves, would result in exponentially better outcomes for our lives, economy, and yes, defeating the virus than shutting everything down but leaving open mass transit.

Whatever value added one can possibly see in keeping mass transit open in large cities, even under a weekend schedule, it would not get nearly as many people to work as lifting some of the more draconian bans on businesses. And with so many people working at home anyway, lots of friends and neighbors who don’t have cars would be able to borrow them. It wouldn’t work for everyone, but it would sure get more people to work than a mandatory lockdown.

According to payroll provider ADP, the entirety of the net job losses in March came from small businesses, which are the easiest venues to implement safe sanitation and distancing. With mass transit still running and criminals being released, this is exactly the time we should apply the Illinois Supreme Court’s exception to state quarantine powers – when “regulations adopted for the protection of the public health are arbitrary, oppressive and unreasonable.” (People ex. rel. Barmore v. Robertson, 1922.)

Alas, the reality is that mass transit is a holy grail of the Left, just like jailbreak, which is why these authoritarian policies, not grounded in reality, are so arbitrary and political. Shockingly, rather than moving away from mass transit, $25 billion in transit funding was slipped into the coronavirus rescue bill that was signed into law last week. Nancy Pelosi is already calling for a “phase 4” coronavirus bill to fund mass transit, among other pet projects.

Again, at what point and after how much devastation are we the citizens going to start asking questions of the government and the media and why their supposed concern for science and regard for “science” always results in inconsistent outcomes benefiting their long-standing political beliefs? (For more from the author of “Subways, Buses and Trains Still Running in Coronavirus Hot Spots. How Exactly Does That Help Fight the Virus?” please click HERE)

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Florida Sheriff Who Arrested Pastor Now Releasing 163 Actual Criminals (While You’re Locked in at Home)

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In case you still think every unilateral action taken by local officials is driven by science and intrepid concern for public safety and health, I present to you the case of Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister.

On Monday, after holding a virtue-signaling press conference lecturing the public on the Bible, Chronister arrested Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne for holding services on Sunday, even though his lawyer says he was following CDC guidelines for sanitation and social distancing.

“His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people in his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week in danger,” the sheriff said.

The sheriff really cares about human life and public safety, right?

Well, now channel 10 news in Tampa is reporting that Chronister has released 163 prisoners as a “precautionary” measure to avoid spreading the virus in jail, as if somehow taking them out of the ultimate quarantine into the general population will stop the spread, and as if criminals will actually abide by the home confinement Chronister so zealously wants to impose on all citizens.

Chronister repeated the same disingenuous line that these criminals are all low-level. “These defendants are the lowest public safety risk,” Chronister said. “They were merely sitting in jail because they could not afford to pay the amount it would take to bond out.”

The problem is that most people who wind up in jail these days, especially with the trend of leniencies up and down the system, usually are serious criminals or repeat offenders. Non-serious criminals simply don’t serve time any more. These releases don’t take into account prior history and plea bargains, which are ubiquitous throughout the system. Judges will often keep people locked up for “low-level” crimes, if they have priors and have been arrested for more serious charges that were pled down.

Channel 10 lists the criminal charges among those released by the sheriff, and the bulk of them were locked up for theft, burglary, and drugs. Yes, some of them could be relatively low-level, but what we’ve seen nationwide is that it is usually high-level criminals who are rearrested and jailed on these sorts of crimes. Any cop looking at these crimes will tell you that these are not people who just simply couldn’t pay their bail and will stay out of trouble if released.

Last week, a woman in Utah was violently attacked by a man who broke into her home after he was released under coronavirus jailbreak because he was “only” serving time for drug charges.

As the streets remain quiet and lined with vacant stores, is now the time to release career burglars? Farther south in Florida, Palm Beach County is experiencing a rash of burglaries. “We have seen an uptick in the number of burglaries because, unfortunately, some people are trying to take advantage of others during this time of crisis,” said state attorney Dave Aronberg in an interview with WPTV.

Palm Beach County is under a shelter-in-place order, even as the rest of the state has not ratcheted the restrictions to that level yet. It turns out criminals don’t follow emergency edicts the same way they don’t follow basic laws.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that none of this jailbreak is rooted in concern for public health, and it certainly will not be limited to low-level offenders. California Governor Gavin Newsom commuted the sentences of 14 people charged with murder, citing coronavirus and the concern of spreading the disease for expediting their release. Several of them were convicted of murdering children, and one was convicted of murdering a pregnant woman. Two of them are immigrants who should be deported, but Newsom does not cooperate with ICE to ensure safe transfer, even of other countries’ murderers.

These jailbreaks are now occurring in every major city in both blue and red states. Despite Governor Greg Abbott’s efforts to block jailbreak, Harris County, Texas, still plans to release 1,000 inmates. But fear not, Houstonians, Mayor Sylvester Turner has begged criminals not to commit crime, so you will be safe. “Until the coronavirus is resolved, criminals take a break. Okay. Stay home. Stay home and don’t commit any crimes,” implored the Houston mayor on Monday. “Wait till the coronavirus is over and then we’ll all be okay.”

Thus, as pastors and business owners get arrested, just remember that if you are caught violating your home arrest, you can just tell the cops you are on your way to committing a “low-level” crime and you will be let off the hook. Whether you like it or not, this is what must be done for your well-being. It’s all in the scientific models and projections. A message brought to you by the Ministry of Truth in “1984.” (For more from the author of “Florida Sheriff Who Arrested Pastor Now Releasing 163 Actual Criminals (While You’re Locked in at Home)” please click HERE)

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Biden, Seeking an Answer to Irrelevance, Walks Into Trump’s Trap

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. . .Since releasing his plan, Biden has continued to attack Trump about the coronavirus, with limited success. In addition to the problems listed above, Biden’s appearances highlight that there’s something wrong with him. His blunders are not the usual gaffes of someone always under the spotlight. They’re the mistakes of someone who is a few cards short of a full deck. . .

Because the Trump team is intelligent, it’s so far opted to avoid attacking Biden’s obvious weaknesses. Instead, Kellyanne Conway chose to demand that Biden put his money where his mouth is if he has such great ideas. . .

Biden was unable to resist the bait, announcing that he would reach out to Trump. And Trump, seeing his fish on the hook, had the right answer:

When asked whether he would be receptive to a phone call with the Democrats’ primary frontrunner, the president said yes.

There’s no way Biden can come out of this conversation looking good. Trump will treat him with the utmost respect while making sure to highlight the fact that Biden was useless during the Obama presidency, that Biden’s plans are duplicative of what Trump has already done, and that Biden is mentally weak. The best thing of all would be to televise this meeting because it would highlight Trump’s vigor and acumen compared to Biden’s faded glory. (Read more from “Biden, Seeking an Answer to Irrelevance, Walks Into Trump’s Trap” HERE)

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Schiff Drafting Legislation to Set up 9/11-Style Commission to Review Coronavirus Response

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Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is drafting legislation that would set up an independent commission that would investigate why the country was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic.

“After Pearl Harbor and 9/11, we looked at what went wrong to learn from our mistakes,” the House Intelligence Committee chairman said in a tweet. “Once we’ve recovered, we need a nonpartisan commission to review our response and how we can better prepare for the next pandemic.”

Schiff did not give specifics regarding when the legislation will be dropped, but suggested it would be after Congress finishes the task at hand: mulling a series of stimulus packages aimed at alleviating the economic impact of the pandemic. Sources familiar with the legislation told NBC News the legislation is “very preliminary.” (Read more from “Schiff Drafting Legislation to Set up 9/11-Style Commission to Review Coronavirus Response” HERE)

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Senators Demand Secret Footnotes in Report on Obama Spying Be Revealed

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Two senators are urging the director of National Intelligence to work with the Justice Department to declassify the contents of four footnotes Michael Horowitz’s inspector general report on FISA abuse, contending it mischaracterized evidence about the government’s secret surveillance of the Trump campaign

The information blacked out “is significant not only because it contradicts key statements in a section of the report, but also because it provides insight essential for an accurate evaluation of the entire investigation.”

Horowitz’s report found the Obama FBI and Justice Department made 17 “significant errors or omissions” in its applications for warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

But the report concluded the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign was not motivated by political bias, even the warrants would not have been issued without the submission of the dubious, Democratic Party-funded Steele Dossier as evidence.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., addressed the request to acting ODNI Director Richard Grenell. (Read more from “Senators Demand Secret Footnotes in Report on Obama Spying Be Revealed” HERE)

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Report: Videos Show China Using Slave Laborers to Kickstart Economy

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China apparently is turning to slave labor to kickstart its economy, following the catastrophe created by the coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan.

Videos from Xianjiang province distributed by the social media platforms TikTok and DouYin in the past two weeks confirm fears that the communist government is using members of the Muslim Uyghur minority and other Turkic youth as slave laborers, reports Bitter Winter, an online magazine that focuses on religious liberty and human rights in the country.

The report says: “Given that the nation is only just getting back on its feet after months of lockdown, and experts still have yet to give the all clear regarding the virus, the clips showing hundreds of corona-masked Uyghurs being amassed at transport hubs around the region with marching orders to work in factories in inner China, are giving Uyghur activists deep concern.”

Videos on the Chinese video-sharing site DouYin Chinese have been collected by Uyghur exile Alip Erking, who posts them on his Twitter feed called Uyghur Bulletin.

They also are appearing on Radio Free Asia, where Alim Seytoff noted the “mass movement of young people out of the province coincided with China’s widespread coronavirus lockdown, when other Chinese were forbidden to leave their homes.” (Read more from “Report: Videos Show China Using Slave Laborers to Kickstart Economy” HERE)

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Did New York Governor Cuomo Pierce His Nipples?

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s ex-girlfriend Sandra Lee weighed in on the debate over whether Cuomo has pierced nipples, Wednesday, telling gossipers to stop “body-shaming.”

After pictures of Cuomo in a tight shirt surfaced on Tuesday following a press conference, leading to speculation that the governor has pierced nipples, Lee responded to the gossip in an Instagram story.

“I woke up this morning to a lot of stuff going on online. A lot of stories being written and a lot of nonsense being said, and I just want to say body-shaming is not okay,” she commented. “It’s never going to be okay.”

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