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North Korea Declares Emergency Over COVID-19

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North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un has declared a state of emergency over what he said was the potential entrance of novel coronavirus into the country.

Kim convened on Saturday an emergency meeting of the political bureau of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party Central Committee. The country is one of only about a dozen in the world that has not declared a single COVID-19 case, though new circumstances over the past weekend near the border city of Kaesong could reportedly affect this record.

“Amid the intensified anti-epidemic campaign for thoroughly checking the inroads of the world’s threatening pandemic, an emergency event happened in Kaesong City where a runaway who went to the south three years ago, a person who is suspected to have been infected with the vicious virus returned on July 19 after illegally crossing the demarcation line,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported Sunday. . .

“Despite the intense preventive anti-epidemic measures taken in all fields throughout the country and tight closure of all the channels for the last six months, there happened a critical situation in which the vicious virus could be said to have entered the country,” Kim was cited as saying, noting he has completely sealed off Kaesong City and isolated each district and region as of July 24. (Read more from “North Korea Declares Emergency Over COVID-19” HERE)

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Italian Community Stuns Scientists Amid Virus Outbreak

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Questions abound as a tiny Italian island has been mostly spared from the devastations of COVID-19.

Were people on Giglio Island perhaps infected but didn’t show symptoms? Was it something genetic? Something else, or just plain luck?

None of Giglio’s roughly 800 close-knit islanders said they developed COVID-19 symptoms even though the conditions seemed favorable for the disease to spread like wildfire, as The Associated Press reported.

The Gigliesi, as the residents are known, have socialized in the steep alleys near the port or on the granite steps serving as narrow streets in the hilltop Castle neighborhood, with densely packed homes built against the remnants of a fortress erected centuries ago to protect against pirates.

Dr. Armando Schiaffino, the island’s sole physician for around 40 years, shared worry about a potential local outbreak. (Read more from “Italian Community Stuns Scientists Amid Virus Outbreak” HERE)

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Speed of COVID Vaccine Leaves People Hesitant

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Many people are hesitant about the prospect of taking a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus, and the speed of development is one of the major reasons.

“I’m a bit unsure. I’d like to, but I would not want a vaccine that is rushed to market,” said Terrell M., a Democrat from Texas. He would at least want it to be a year before he would feel comfortable getting the vaccine.

Although anti-vaccine sentiments have been on the rise, a majority of people still support vaccines. However, only around half of the American public would be open to getting the coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll shows.

“I would not take a vaccine that has been rushed into existence to satisfy the political agenda,” said Sharlotte White, a Republican from Georgia. She would want it “thoroughly tested and researched” for at least five years. . .

“My honest opinion is that I might wait for the second round to see how people react,” Clay Robinson, a 20-year-old Republican from Arizona, told the Washington Examiner. (Read more from “Speed of COVID Vaccine Leaves People Hesitant” HERE)

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NYT Falsely Claims Huge Spike in COVID-19 Hospitalizations

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The New York Times on Wednesday reported that coronavirus hospitalizations have risen dramatically and are nearing their April peak. The Times, however, either overlooked or ignored a serious factor: Way more states are reporting hospitalizations now than were reporting at the April peak.

“The rising hospitalizations reflect the scale of serious illnesses,” the Times said. “Nearly as many people are in hospitals now as there were when New York was at its worst.” The latter part is true. The Times notes that as of July 22, 59,628 people were being treated in hospitals for the Wuhan virus. During the peak of the outbreak on April 15, when New York was the nation’s hot spot, 59,940 were hospitalized for the virus. The data comes from The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project, which collects virus data daily from all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., and five U.S. territories.

“[H]ospitalizations may be the clearest measure of how widely the virus is causing the most serious illnesses, and could offer a glimpse of what is ahead,” the New York Times reports.

The problem is that the article’s own source reveals that the spike in numbers can be partly attributed to the fact that Florida, the country’s third-most-populous state, began reporting hospitalizations only two weeks ago, meaning sheer hospitalization numbers are not the clearest measure of the virus’s seriousness— at least not the way the Times compares them.

A deeper dive into the data reveals Florida wasn’t the only addition to hospitalization counts. On April 15, a total of 37 states and territories were included in the near-60,000 hospitalization figure, with New York bearing the brunt of the caseload. July’s so-called spike includes data from 52 states and territories. (Read more from “NYT Falsely Claims Huge Spike in COVID-19 Hospitalizations” HERE)

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Justice John Roberts Votes Against the Constitution Again, Turns Away Church’s COVID Challenge

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The US Supreme Court on Friday denied a petition from a church in Nevada that argued a policy limiting in-person church attendance to 50 during the coronavirus pandemic violated the Constitution. . .

The church argued that the state policy treated church services differently from other large gatherings including casinos, gyms and restaurants. . .

Although the court’s order was unsigned, Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch dissented, meaning that Chief Justice John Roberts provided the necessary fifth vote by joining the liberals on the bench.

The order marks the second time Roberts has voted to reject a request from a church amid the pandemic.

In May, he sided with the liberals in a 5-4 order against a church in California that was challenging limitations on the number of people who could attend services. (Read more from “Justice John Roberts Votes Against the Constitution Again, Turns Away Church’s COVID Challenge” HERE)

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New CDC Guidelines Come Down Hard in Favor of Opening Schools

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New US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on education and child care come down hard in favor of opening schools, saying children don’t suffer much from coronavirus, are less likely than adults to spread it and suffer from being out of school.

But the new guidelines posted Thursday do recommend that local officials should consider closing schools, or keeping them closed, if there is substantial, uncontrolled transmission of the virus. . .

“It is critically important for our public health to open schools this fall,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said in a statement announcing the updates.

“School closures have disrupted normal ways of life for children and parents, and they have had negative health consequences on our youth. CDC is prepared to work with K-12 schools to safely reopen while protecting the most vulnerable.” (Read more from “New CDC Guidelines Come Down Hard in Favor of Opening Schools” HERE)

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A Man Died From a Gunshot Wound to His Head. He Was Listed as a COVID-19 Death — and There Are Several More

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A local news outlet in Palm Beach County, Florida, is saying that several deaths reported in the county were incorrectly attributed to COVID-19 — including a 60-year-old man who died from a gunshot wound to his head.

The investigative team at WPEC-TV reported Thursday that at least eight of the 581 deaths listed on a spreadsheet tallying COVID-19 deaths provided by the county medical examiner’s office are incorrectly attributed to the virus. . .

According to the outlet, included on the list is a “90-year-old man who fell and died from complications of a hip fracture” and “a 77-year-old woman who died of Parkinson’s disease.”

Upon presenting their findings to the medical examiner’s office, Operations Manager Paul Petrino acknowledged that the eight cases were errors and said they would be removed.

Palm Beach County resident Rachel Eade, who reportedly also obtained the spreadsheet to fact-check it, added that of the 581 deaths listed, only 169 are listed without any other contributing causes. (Read more from “A Man Died From a Gunshot Wound to His Head. He Was Listed as a COVID-19 Death — and There Are Several More” HERE)

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Fox News Anchor Flubs America’s Virus Death Rate While Playing Gotcha With Trump

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In the minds of the media figures who shape public opinion about the virus in America, up is down and down is up. They believe that America is doing horribly in dealing with COVID-19, except of course in New York and New Jersey, where more people died per capita than anywhere on Earth, yet the media, along with their saint, Anthony Fauci, believe those governors saved the country.

During a pretaped interview with the president on Sunday, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace played the classic gotcha game, trying to show how America is worse off than almost any other country. After Trump explained that the high number of cases is a results of more testing per capita than any other country, Wallace brought up the mortality rate.

Wallace asserted that the U.S. has “the seventh highest mortality rate in the world … higher than Brazil, it’s higher than Russia, and the European Union has us on a travel ban.”

The president was confused about the source of Wallace’s numbers and requested a pause in the interview so they could clarify the data. Trump was then handed a piece of paper with information, after which the president exclaimed, “Number one low mortality rate.”

America is not exactly number one in terms of the lowest number of deaths per capita, but it is near the bottom compared to most major countries.

Later on, Wallace admitted he was using a chart from Johns Hopkins that showed the U.S. in eighth place for the highest mortality rate in the world.

But this chart is random and includes cherry-picked countries with only a few European nations. It also doesn’t take into account the insane amount of testing we have, which means we have discovered many more cases and therefore actually have a much lower case fatality rate.

This is dishonest beyond belief. The White House was using a much more appropriate chart from Our World in Data, which compared the U.S. to primarily other Western countries with much better data reporting.

As you can see, America’s case fatality ratio is even lower than Japan, which has gotten a lot of accolades for the way it handled the virus.

But here’s the broader issue. To the extent that America is recording a lot of COVID-19 deaths, it’s mainly driven by the Democrat-run states the media is placing on a pedestal as the paradigm for a successful coronavirus result. By listening to the media, one would think Texas and Florida are like Italy, while New York and New Jersey are like Taiwan. In reality, our fatality rate is being driven almost entirely by the six states that placed COVID-positive patients back into nursing homes.

Here is a presentation from Yinon Weiss comparing the deaths of various states:

Here is the comparison by hospitalization rate:

Here is a chart comparing different states to various countries:

As you can see, the four northeastern states were worse than the worst European country (Belgium). New York and New Jersey have twice the fatality rate of Europe’s worst country. Florida is right in line with Canada and Switzerland, while Texas is much lower.

Thus, much of what is driving America’s higher mortality rate per million people is the nursing home slaughter from those six states.

Also, as Trump rightly noted, mass testing is a huge factor. On the one hand, America does have a high death rate, but on the other hand, America has one of the lowest death rates per case count. What that demonstrates is that, because we are counting and often miscounting so many cases, many deaths are erroneously being blamed on COVID-19. In countries where they have very little testing, they are either missing some legitimate COVID deaths, or they are not counting those who died with COVID where the virus had little to do with the fatality.

This is also why England has so many deaths and even Sweden has recorded a relatively high share of deaths compared to some other similar Nordic countries. Both England and Sweden have an extremely broad definition of a COVID-19 death.

Indeed, if Trump is guilty of one thing it’s not firing Fauci. During a weekend interview, Fauci had the shocking audacity to suggest that New York is the model to follow and how the state “did it correctly.”

Well, you can’t have it both ways – complaining that America has a high mortality rate and treating New York like the road to paradise.

Not only is politics trumping science, it is trumping simple arithmetic. (For more from the author of “Fox News Anchor Flubs America’s Virus Death Rate While Playing Gotcha With Trump” please click HERE)

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Joe Biden Makes Racist Comments While Accusing Trump of Being Racist Towards China; Senate Transcripts: Joe Biden Quoted N-Word 13 Times in 1985 Hearings

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Senate Transcripts: Joe Biden Quoted N-Word 13 Times in 1985 Hearings

By Breitbart. The presumptive 2020 Democrat presidential nominee, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, used the N-word 13 times in a 1985 hearing series, U.S. Senate transcripts reveal.

Video of one such instance where Biden used the N-word twice when he was quoting someone else already surfaced late last month. The Senate hearing series during which Biden repeatedly used the offensive term was when he was questioning William Reynolds, then-President Ronald Reagan’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, when Reynolds was under consideration for a promotion to be associate attorney general. In particular, Biden was asking Reynolds about his role in providing clearance for a redistricting plan in Louisiana that courts later struck down.

A memo was submitted to Reynolds before he approved the redistricting plan that included a racist quote from someone described as a “key legislator” in defeating the alternative redistricting plan. According to this memo, that legislator, then-Republican Rep. Charles Emile Bruneau of New Orleans, allegedly said he opposed the left’s desired redistricting plan for Louisiana in starkly racial terms. We already have a n***** mayor (in New Orleans), and we don’t need another n***** bigshot,” Bruneau was quoted in that document as saying.

In his line of questioning Reynolds in these 1985 hearings—which stretched over multiple days—Biden repeatedly brought up this exact quote and kept using the N-word. In fact, U.S. Senate transcripts from the time demonstrate that Biden used it a grand total of 13 times.

The first instance occurred during the morning of June 4, 1985, when Biden first used the term twice. A later instance, from the next day, June 5, has already had widely circulating video of Biden reciting the derogatory term from the quote twice. While some people circulating the video left out the context that includes proof Biden was not using the N-word himself but quoting someone else saying it, the mere question as to if that is even acceptable has dogged politicians for some time. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, for instance, faced questions last year over his use of the word in a book in the late 1990s, especially from leftists and Democrats on Twitter:

[Warning: Tweets contain explicit language.]

(Read more from “Senate Transcripts: Joe Biden Quoted N-Word 13 Times in 1985 Hearings” HERE)

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Joe Biden Makes Racist Comments While Accusing Trump of Being Racist

By The Federalist. Former Vice President Joe Biden believes that President Trump is wrong to hold China accountable for COVID-19 and that Trump’s comments on the “Chinese virus” and “Wuhan virus” are harmful because people can’t tell those of Asian origin apart. The presidential candidate made the claims in a virtual town hall event hosted by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) on Wednesday.

“People don’t make a distinction, as you well know, from a South Korean and someone from Beijing” he said while gesturing to members of the town hall. “They make no distinction. It’s Asian.” . . .

Biden has a long history of suspected racism. Whether it was the time he told members of the Asian and Latino Coalition in Des Moines, Iowa that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,” the time he apologized for referring to then Sen. Barack Obama as the “first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” or the time he claimed “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” Biden has shown lack of poise when it comes to racist commentary.

More recently, Biden even claimed in an interview with Charlamagne tha god that “you ain’t black” if you vote for Trump. (Read more from “Joe Biden Makes Racist Comments While Accusing Trump of Being Racist” HERE)

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U.S. Doctor Reveals Unspoken Tragedy of COVID: People Have Permanent Damage Due to Delayed Care

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Dr. Scott Barbour, an Atlanta-based orthopedic surgeon, noted that some Americans with health problems who avoided seeking medical care due to fears of COVID-19 are now stricken with permanent damage as a result of delayed treatment. He shared his comments on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

Some Americans have had heart attacks and strokes due to avoidance or delays in receiving medical care, Barbour said.

“There are people that are suffering from long-term negative effects of other medical problems because they’re afraid to go to the hospital,” Barbour remarked, “[including], in fact, strokes [and] heart attacks. In my own business, I’ve had one ankle fracture dislocation. [My patient is] going to have a destroyed ankle forever because they didn’t come to the hospital.”

Barbour continued, “I have another patient [with] a dislocated finger that waited ’til it was impossible to relocate the finger, and so they’re going to have long-term consequences. So there are real negative effects by not opening, and I know that there’s a way to open safely. I’ve been doing it for the last seven months and I’m not the only one, so let’s talk about it and let’s figure out a way to get ourselves back to normal.” (Read more from “U.S. Doctor Reveals Unspoken Tragedy of COVID: People Have Permanent Damage Due to Delayed Care” HERE)

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