Honestly I don't know, neither do the experts. The one thing I know is the current course of action is not sustainable. We are doing irreparable damage to our economy and the American psyche. Something has to change. Unfortunately I don't know the answer, I'm a dumb electrician.

quote:

It would be pretty expensive to pay a third of US to stay home, and if not paying them, what will we do to keep them from being armed robbers?

We already do. My parents get a social security check every month.

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...-battle-intensifies/

True The Vote (TTV), a grassroots organization supporting election integrity, on Tuesday stopped leftist efforts to force New Mexico to shift to a mail-in election system in the state’s upcoming June primary.

What leftist county clerks and the Secretary of State were trying to accomplish in New Mexico was to get the state’s Supreme Court to assert control over how the state would handle elections rather than the legislature, where elected state lawmakers normally set procedure for how elections are conducted.

The leftist petitioners argued that the coronavirus crisis would provide the state courts cover to do so. Until TTV stepped in, there was little to no opposition to the left’s efforts that fit into a broader national agenda that Democrats throughout the party’s leadership are embracing.

“When the citizens of New Mexico reached out to True The Vote, there was no opposition in place to stop this,” Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder and president of True The Vote, told Breitbart News exclusively on Tuesday evening. “And, within days, we assembled a legal team and put together a 59-page brief that was used as the core document in today’s argument. The outcome was the court decided it didn’t have a role in controlling elections and it should stay within the bounds of the state constitution. All of us sitting at home watching headlines about the left trying to fundamentally change the way we conduct elections, get involved. Now is the time to get in the field and have your voice heard. If you are facing this in your state and are fighting back, True The Vote will have your back. This is just the beginning. We’re headed to Nevada next, where a similar situation is in play, and we’re going to stop it there too.”

Engelbrecht added that this is a playbook the left intends to roll out nationwide in any state they can.

“The thing they wanted most of all was they wanted legal precedent to be able to say to the courts, ‘you can make these decisions,’” Engelbrecht said. “Had we not stopped it here, it would have rolled across this country like a subversive fog.”

Jim Bopp, TTV’s general counsel, added in a statement to Breitbart News about the legal brief that TTV filed that the organization’s argument here framed the court’s ultimate decision noting that, had the NM Supreme Court gone the other way, it would have resulted in federal litigation.

“TTV made clear in our amicus brief that if the NM Supreme Court jumped off a cliff and illegally ordered a mail-in election that they would be sued in federal court for violating the rights of voters,” Bopp said. “They pulled back from the edge of the cliff.”

This historic loss for the left was the first of many battles to come on this front. Top national Democrats ranging from former President Barack Obama and his wife. former first lady Michelle Obama, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, to many others have openly embraced the vote-by-mail push–using the coronavirus crisis to try to instill their agenda.

Engelbrecht, whose group True The Vote survived an effort by the Obama administration to target her via the IRS scandal, said leftists are going to be pushing this everywhere, anytime they can.

“It’s playing out now in the primaries,” Engelbrecht said. “The laws that are being passed, the court cases that are being filed to advance their efforts are under the guise of ‘oh it’s only just for the primary.’ Read closely. No it’s not. We are pro-vote, and defenders of the people and of free and fair elections. We’re going to go in just as we did in New Mexico and we’re going to represent citizens. In Nevada, we’ll be representing a group of citizens from Reno, Nevada.”

President Trump tweet:

GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD. THE USA MUST HAVE VOTER I.D., THE ONLY WAY TO GET AN HONEST COUNT!

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sought to impose “ballot harvesting” in her version of the stimulus bill last month, after she rejected bipartisan negotiations in the Senate. Her legislation caused emergency relief to be delayed by several days, as millions of jobs were lost.

“Ballot harvesting” was legalized in California in 2016, and first used in the 2018 midterm elections. It allows anyone to drop off someone else’s mail-in ballot at a polling station. There is no process for vetting or verifying those delivering the ballots — no background checks or identification requirements. Democrats dropped hundreds of thousands of ballots off at polling stations in 2018, helping Democrats as they flipped seven Republican seats.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
President Trump tweet:

GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD. THE USA MUST HAVE VOTER I.D., THE ONLY WAY TO GET AN HONEST COUNT!

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sought to impose “ballot harvesting” in her version of the stimulus bill last month, after she rejected bipartisan negotiations in the Senate. Her legislation caused emergency relief to be delayed by several days, as millions of jobs were lost.

“Ballot harvesting” was legalized in California in 2016, and first used in the 2018 midterm elections. It allows anyone to drop off someone else’s mail-in ballot at a polling station. There is no process for vetting or verifying those delivering the ballots — no background checks or identification requirements. Democrats dropped hundreds of thousands of ballots off at polling stations in 2018, helping Democrats as they flipped seven Republican seats.

That might not be an area we want to highlight as in North Carolina 9th congressional district.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

My sister told me today that she tested positive for the Wuhan. She is a Sheriff's deputy in New Jersey so I figured it was only a matter of time. She is completely asymptomatic. She only got tested because her department offered it for anyone who wanted it, symptoms or not. She said what the hell and did it. Otherwise she would right now not even suspect having it.

Ok, all this testing positive for the Chinese virus leads me to questions.

If someone has the antibody, I'm assuming they'd still test positive for the virus (since they had to have the virus in order to have the antibody)?
And they'd need a new different test to see if they had the antibody?

If they test positive with no symptoms and assuming they only had it a few hours/days, could they still have symptoms in a few days/weeks? As in, can it lay dormant and show up later like shingles?

^^^ currently unknown.

Another query, for those who might know: I keep looking at the IHME projections by states, and at this point in many of them the actual death rate to date would have to jump sharply to match the projected death rate. Is it fair to say this makes it look like IHME's projected death rates were high for those states or is there something else going on?

I have not spent my time as constructive as some people during this hyped crisis...



The holo and laser sights options are a nice touch. I can hear Sleepy Joe now say this is all you need.

Some sign of action here in PA, YA!!

Linky


Pa. House votes to replace business closure recommendations with federal guidelines

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania are pushing legislation aimed at easing some of the business-closure guidelines offered by Governor Tom Wolf's administration.

The State House passed a bill Tuesday that would get rid of Wolf's closures and replace them with the less restrictive federal guidelines.

It passed 107-to-95, mostly on party lines.

Lawmakers in favor of the bill say Governor Wolf's business restrictions are "chaotic and confusing." They say they unfairly target small businesses, allowing corporations like Lowe's and Home Depot to remain open while restricting mom-and-pop hardware stores and garden centers.

Opponents of the bill say the change would put tens of thousands of workers in jeopardy.

The bill heads to the Senate next. Even if it passes there, it's unlikely to get the support of Governor Wolf. At this point, it would not have the support necessary to override a veto.

quote:

If someone has the antibody, I'm assuming they'd still test positive for the virus (since they had to have the virus in order to have the antibody)?
And they'd need a new different test to see if they had the antibody?

Having the antibody means the body has activated its immune system and presumably destroyed the virus. The test for the virus would then be negative--that test is actually for viral RNA in the nose.

Shingles is a special case in which the chickenpox virus is dormant in the nervous system and is reactivated years later. I know of no other viruses that act in that fashion, but I'm not an infectious disease specialist.

quote:

Originally posted by Excam_Man:
If someone has the antibody, I'm assuming they'd still test positive for the virus (since they had to have the virus in order to have the antibody)?
And they'd need a new different test to see if they had the antibody?

If they test positive with no symptoms and assuming they only had it a few hours/days, could they still have symptoms in a few days/weeks? As in, can it lay dormant and show up later like shingles?

There was a video (yesterday I think, maybe the day before) by a doc in Idaho. There are two types of tests, the PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction or something like that) and the serum or blood test. The PCR takes a sample (often from the back of your sinuses) and does lab magic on it to try to multiply the virus if it is present to get it to a detectable level. The serum test involves looking for antibodies. Interestingly, the are two types of antibodies, one which indicates that you have the virus now and are fighting it and another which indicates that you previously had the virus but don’t anymore.

My understanding from reading stuff here is that there are two kinds of folks that test positive but are asymptomatic: those lucky souls whose immune system will kick the viruses backside without them ever developing symptoms, and those who haven’t developed symptoms yet, but will.

ETA: Yesterday at 9:15, third post on page 371, Fla. Jim quoted leavemebe’s post and embedded the video for him.

quote:

Originally posted by Excam_Man:
If they test positive with no symptoms and assuming they only had it a few hours/days, could they still have symptoms in a few days/weeks? As in, can it lay dormant and show up later like shingles?

I think the question misses the mark. Reports and studies that have come out (linked in this thread) indicate a high percentage of those testing positive will be asymptomatic with an even higher percentage recovering from symptoms with little to no medical assistance. And if a huge majority of the population has already been exposed to the virus (highly probable since its likely been circulating for months) herd immunity should help protect these folks from exposure. Again, the true focus, at least IMO, should be firmly focused on the known at risk groups and hot areas, and how to isolate and protect them. Turn the rest of us loose and do it now for god sake.

This article deserves a full reading by everyone here: https://www.foxnews.com/opinio...coronavirus-response


President Trump was right to announce Tuesday that he will immediately stop funding the World Health Organization, which was scheduled to get $893 million from the U.S. in the current two-year funding period.

The president’s action is the first step needed to spark meaningful reform of the United Nations organization and the global health architecture.

Trump last week signaled he was unhappy with the WHO. In an interview aired April 7 on “Hannity” on Fox News, Trump suggested the U.S. might stop contributing to the organization.

By Tuesday, Trump had seen enough.

“So much death has been caused by their mistakes,” Trump said of the WHO. He is absolutely correct.

The WHO helped spread the coronavirus in four principal ways.

First, in public the WHO disseminated China’s false narrative that the virus was not transmissible person-to-person.

The U.N. organization, however, knew or should have known the Chinese government was not telling the truth. Among other things, Taiwan on Dec. 31 told the U.N. body it suspected the pathogen was contagious in this fashion – and WHO professionals also knew that to be the case.

Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO doctor, said at a press briefing on Monday that “right from the start” she thought the coronavirus was human-to-human transmissible, but senior WHO leadership disregarded the evidence of this.

Second, the WHO in its public statements supported the Chinese government’s attempt to prevent the imposition of travel bans and quarantines on travelers from China. It was these travelers who turned an epidemic in central China into a global pandemic.

Third, the WHO publicly backed the reliability of Beijing’s statistics. China’s substantial undercounting of its coronavirus cases and deaths lulled the U.S. into not taking precautions it would otherwise have adopted.

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator, said March 31 that her team reviewed China’s statistics and thought the coronavirus outbreak would be no worse than SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), the 2002-03 epidemic that effected more than 8,000 people in 26 countries.

It was not until Birx saw the coronavirus strike Italy and Spain that the White House realized the truth – the coronavirus was far more dangerous than the Chinese government claimed. But by then it was too late.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key Trump adviser in the coronavirus crisis has made comments similar to Birx.

As of Tuesday, there were nearly 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 – the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus – around the world, including nearly 610,000 in the U.S. There were over 126,000 deaths confirmed worldwide, including nearly 26,000 in the U.S. However, all these figures are understated because of Chinese underreporting and because few people around the world have been tested.

Fourth, the WHO unreasonably delayed declaring the coronavirus epidemic a “public health emergency of international concern” until Jan. 30.

The WHO, President Trump correctly said Tuesday, failed its “basic duty and must be held accountable.”

There is no nation in a position to hold the WHO accountable other than the U.S., which gives the WHO far more money than does any other country.

“As the organization’s leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability,” Trump correctly said.

Trump’s withdrawal of funding does not mean the U.S. is abandoning the world during the middle of a pandemic.

“We will continue to engage with the WHO to see if it can make meaningful reforms,” Trump pledged. “For the time being, we will redirect global health and directly work with others.”

Who are these others? The U.S. can work with Taiwan, which of all the countries in the world has had arguably the best response to the coronavirus pandemic.

But Taiwan is the one country the World Health Organization – bowing to Beijing’s demands – will not work with.

This shunning of the island republic was something painfully evident from Dr. Bruce Aylward’s March 28 interview with Hong Kong’s RTHK. The senior adviser to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus refused to talk about Taiwan.

Now, after Trump’s announcement, the global community has the opportunity to work closely with a valuable partner.

Of course, it’s not certain Trump will be able to fashion a better response to the coronavirus pandemic in the middle of the emergency, but defunding the WHO was a precondition for doing so.

Thanks to Trump taking the right step Tuesday, at least now there is hope.

You can sign up to be considered for this study.


NIH begins study to quantify undetected cases of coronavirus infection

https://www.nih.gov/news-event...oronavirus-infection

A new study has begun recruiting at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to determine how many adults in the United States without a confirmed history of infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), have antibodies to the virus. The presence of antibodies in the blood indicates a prior infection. In this “serosurvey,” researchers will collect and analyze blood samples from as many as 10,000 volunteers to provide critical data for epidemiological models. The results will help illuminate the extent to which the novel coronavirus has spread undetected in the United States and provide insights into which communities and populations are most affected.

The study will be conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), with additional support from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), all parts of NIH.

“This study will give us a clearer picture of the true magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States by telling us how many people in different communities have been infected without knowing it, because they had a very mild, undocumented illness or did not access testing while they were sick,” said Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID director. “These crucial data will help us measure the impact of our public health efforts now and guide our COVID-19 response moving forward.”

Investigators will test participants’ blood samples for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies(link is external) , proteins the immune system produces to fight a specific infectious agent. A positive test result indicates previous infection. To date, reporting of U.S. cases of COVID-19(link is external) has mostly relied on molecular tests that determine the presence of the virus in a person’s airways using a noninvasive cotton swab. While these cotton swab-based tests rapidly and effectively identify active infection, they do not determine whether a person was previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and recovered.

“An antibody test is looking back into the immune system’s history with a rearview mirror,” said Matthew J. Memoli, M.D., M.S., principal investigator of the study and director of NIAID’s Laboratory of Infectious Diseases Clinical Studies Unit. “By analyzing an individual’s blood, we can determine if that person has encountered SARS-CoV-2 previously.”

Investigators will analyze blood samples for two types of antibodies, anti-SARS-CoV-2 S protein IgG and IgM, using an ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) developed by researchers at NIAID and NIBIB. In blood samples found to contain antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, researchers may perform additional tests to evaluate the volunteers’ immune responses to the virus. These data may provide insight as to why these cases were less severe than those that lead to hospitalization.

Healthy volunteers over the age of 18 from anywhere in the United States can participate and will be asked to consent to enrollment over the telephone. Individuals with a confirmed history of COVID-19 or current symptoms consistent with COVID-19 are not eligible to participate.

After enrollment, study participants will attend a virtual clinic visit, complete a health assessment questionnaire and provide basic demographic information—including race, ethnicity, sex, age and occupation—before submitting samples in one of two ways. Participants working at the NIH Bethesda campus will have blood drawn at the NIH Clinical Center. Other volunteers will participate in at-home blood sampling. Neoteryx, a medical device firm based in Torrance, California, will supply at-home blood collection kits. Researchers will ship each study participant a Mitra®Home Blood Collection Kit and provide detailed instructions on collecting a microsample of blood and mailing it back for future analysis in the laboratory.

“Researchers have considerable experience using these at-home blood collection kits to track the spread of other infectious diseases like influenza, and this method is safe, effective and easy-to-use,” said Kaitlyn Sadtler, Ph.D., study lead for laboratory testing and chief of NIBIB’s Section for Immunoengineering. “With a small finger-pick, volunteers can help scientists fight COVID-19 from their homes.”

People interested in joining this study should contact clinicalstudiesunit@nih.gov(link sends e-mail). For more information on the COVID-19 Pandemic Serum Sampling Study Launch, see the Questions and Answers. For more information on this study, please visit ClinicalTrials.gov using identifier NCT04334954. For more information on the U.S. government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, visit www.coronavirus.gov(link is external).

NIAID conducts and supports research — at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide — to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

Both Princess and Holland America announced cancelling Alaska cruise and land tours this summer. This is going to be a huge hit for our state's economy.

https://www.adn.com/business-e...oronavirus-pandemic/

Princess and Holland America cancel 2020 Gulf of Alaska sailings because of coronavirus pandemic

pencil Author: Zaz Hollander
clock Updated: 38 minutes ago
calendar Published 8 hours ago


In another blow to Alaska’s struggling economy, Princess Cruises and Holland America Line are canceling Gulf of Alaska sailings for the entire season as the cruise industry grapples with the coronavirus pandemic.

The Carnival-owned lines are the state’s biggest cruise ship operators. Both companies announced the cancellations Tuesday along with broader sailing delays fleetwide until July.

About half the cruise voyages in Alaska this year have been canceled, including 175 involved in Tuesday’s announcement.

Princess also announced that, given the already shortened summer season, the company isn’t opening five wilderness lodges it operates in Fairbanks, Cooper Landing, Denali National Park and Preserve, Denali State Park north of Talkeetna, and Copper Center. Princess will not operate bus or train excursions.

Holland America has also canceled this season’s land excursions into Denali National Park and the Yukon. The company operates Westmark hotels in Fairbanks and Anchorage.

Industry observers were expecting the biggest cruise season yet this year before the pandemic hit.

The announcement “is devastating not just to the hundreds of businesses that rely on cruise passengers for their livelihoods, but the communities that receive a large portion of their revenue from visitor taxes and fees,” Alaska Travel Industry Association President and CEO Sarah Leonard said in a statement.

Last year, Alaska’s visitor industry supported more than 52,000 jobs and created more than $4.5 billion in economic activity for Alaska, according to the association. Leonard said Tuesday’s announcement makes state and federal assistance for the state’s tourism businesses “all the more imperative.”

More than a million out-of-state tourists come to Alaska on cruise ships every year — more than by any other form of transportation.

Passengers on day excursions pour into jewelry stores, gift shops and restaurants around the state. They charter flightseeing trips and glacier cruises. From Seward and Whittier, they’re bused or take the train to Anchorage, where they stay in hotels, eat out and maybe travel farther north to Talkeetna, Denali and Fairbanks.

Princess officials say they hope two vessels — the Emerald Princess and Ruby Princess — will be able to sail later this summer round-trip to Southeast Alaska from Seattle.

No cruise ships will call at Whittier and a large part of Seward’s cruise traffic will be gone, industry officials say.

There are now more than 601,000 fewer passengers cruising to Alaska this season, according to Cruise Lines International Association Alaska. That includes 126,000 canceled round-trips in Southeast Alaska, 246,000 others already canceled and Tuesday’s cancellations of 228,364 in Whittier and Seward.

The state estimates each cruise passenger spends $624 in Alaska on average, according to the association.

That’s an estimated $375 million that won’t be spent here this summer.

The cancellations will also cause a direct loss of thousands of jobs, company officials said.

“We deeply regret that we will not be able to employ the approximately 3,500 teammates who help show our guests the Great Land each summer,” Princess President Jan Swartz said in a YouTube video posted Tuesday.

“Our thoughts are also with all of our small business partners throughout Alaska who we have supported every summer for decades,” Swartz said. “We know these decisions will have a large adverse economic impact on the state of Alaska which relies on tourism.”

Princess announced cancellations of Alaska cruises of the following ships: Coral Princess; Emerald Princess; Golden Princess; Grand Princess; Pacific Princess’ Royal Princess; Ruby Princess; and Star Princess.

Holland America canceled Alaska cruises on the following ships: Maasdam, Volendam, Oosterdam, Noordam and Westerdam.

Nationally, the cruise industry shut down about a month ago amid the rising toll of the new coronavirus that causes the infectious disease known as COVID-19. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended a “no-sail order” for 100 days.

The virus has sickened hundreds of cruise ship passengers and stranded thousands -- including some Alaskans -- as well as infecting and isolating crew members. Dozens on cruise ships have died.

“Our outlook for a restart of travel continues to slip further into summer,” Princess spokeswoman Negin Kamali said in an email. “This, combined with the reality of our short Alaska operating season, has forced us to make the extremely difficult decision to cancel our 2020 Alaska gulf cruise and cruisetour programs.”

Representatives of Holland America didn’t immediately respond to questions Tuesday.

Some communities, like Fairbanks, aren’t located on saltwater but still rely on the summer surge of cruise traffic. The cruise lines advertise sternwheeler tours and gold mines as well as flights to the Arctic Circle and Yukon River.

The “cross-Gulf” cruises canceled this week generally start in Vancouver and end in Seward or Whittier, but passengers can book land tours to Denali National Park or Fairbanks.

“It’s bad news,” said Deb Hickok, president and CEO of nonprofit visitor marketing organization Explore Fairbanks.

The organization gets 86% of its budget from reinvested hotel and motel taxes taking a hit because of the virus, Hickock said. The organization laid off employees and cut its $4.2 million budget to $2.9 million -- just below the level of the state’s 2009 recession.

A 2016 study found land tours make up more than 40% of summer business in Fairbanks, Hickok said. “We know it’s over 150,000 visitors. What the exact portion of that is Holland and Princess I don’t know. But I can tell you the majority for sure.”

Talkeetna, the quirky Susitna Valley town with Denali views, thrums with summer visitors as cruise passengers arrive by train and bus.

Chris Byrd grew up in Talkeetna and now owns the Swiss Alaska Inn, a 21-room hotel and restaurant that opened in 1976. He’s getting numerous calls a day from cruise passengers canceling room reservations.

Byrd voiced a hope shared by many in the tourism industry here: Once Alaskans can start leaving home again, they’ll be the first wave of visitors helping to rebuild the state’s tourist economy.

But even that isn’t certain, Byrd said.

“With the way the economy is going, oilfields shutting down, you don’t know what to expect,” he said. “Typically when tourism season isn’t great you’re hoping the oil fields are running and vice versa. Both of them being down at the same time is really not helpful for the state for sure.”

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 2000Z-71,

Taiwan Reports No New COVID-19 Cases for First Time in a Month

https://www.theepochtimes.com/...3ce9050095-238318549

As the number of confirmed global COVID-19 infections nears 2 million, Taiwan on April 14 reported no new cases for the first time in more than a month.

“Of course, we hope it has passed,” Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told a news conference, referring to the outbreak on the island.

Chen said the last time Taiwan reported no new cases was March 9, after which numbers spiked for a time as people came back to the island from places now reeling from the pandemic in Europe and the United States.

“But we still need to be on our guard. Of course, we feel happy at no new cases today,” he said.

Taiwan has reported a total of 393 COVID-19 infections as of April 14. Of these, 338 were so-called imported cases, in which people were suspected of being infected overseas before entering Taiwan, with the rest cases of local transmissions.

“It has navigated the pandemic with extraordinary skill given its proximity to the source, resulting in only six deaths in a country of over 23 million,” noted Roger L. Simon, senior political columnist for The Epoch Times.

“They are also a thriving democracy.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, has spread aggressively across the world, with a Johns Hopkins tally on April 14 showing more than 1.9 million infections globally. At the time of reporting, the number of fatalities attributed to the virus worldwide stood at 125,196.

The lack of any new cases of the virus in Taiwan and a death toll of just six are the latest signs that the island’s approach to the outbreak has paid off.

Taiwan has won praise from health experts for how it has fought the virus. The self-governing island, which isn’t part of the World Health Organization (WHO), started screening arrivals from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, as early as Dec. 31, the same day it found out about what was then a mysterious new respiratory illness.

By Jan. 5, anyone who had traveled to Wuhan in the previous 14 days was screened.

Then on Jan. 26, Taiwan became the first country to ban flights to and from Wuhan, before eventually banning all Chinese visitors on Feb. 6.

“The effectiveness of the Taiwanese response is all the more impressive given that it’s not a member of the World Health Organization,” wrote Young Kim, a former state assemblywoman and current Republican nominee for California’s 39th Congressional District, in an op-ed for The Epoch Times.

“Beijing has always rejected Taiwan’s membership as part of its decades-long policy of attempting to isolate it and diminishing its legal autonomy,” Kim added.

Taiwan has accused the WHO of ignoring its questions about the virus at the start of the outbreak, and stated it wasn’t given information about the pathogen, including whether there was human-to-human transmission.

Still, despite the low number of COVID-19 infections in Taiwan, restrictions remain in place, such as compulsory 14-day quarantines for all arrivals onto the island.

Taiwan hasn’t gone into total lockdown because of the virus, and life has continued relatively normally, though the government has promoted social distancing and mandated the wearing of masks on public transport.

Excellent! The WHO is a just another tool in the globalist tool bag. Next, we need to vastly reduce or halt altogether funding for the clearly anti-US United Nations. They should have been disbanded decades ago.

^^^
That’s tough for Alaska Frank. I didn’t realize the size of the industry and it’s impact on the states economy.

We are still hoping to get up there in June provided the Alaska ferry is still operational and the Canadian/US border opens up.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
And just playing devil's advocate for a moment, wouldn't it be far cheaper to pay ~10% of the population to stay home than 90% of the population, especially while the rest of the population reopens the economy and gets it moving again?

Well, it sure as hell wouldn't cost over 2 freakin' trillion dollars. Not to mention all the money sucked out of the economy and people's savings accounts.