Tag: Coronavirus

Commentary: ‘Pandemic Pods’ Make Homeschooling Easier for Parents and Profitable for Teachers

Virginia Star Staff

This tumultuous back-to-school season has parents and teachers alike scrambling to make sense of the madness: from ever-changing district directives to COVID-19 response protocols. Some school systems have announced that the academic year will start with remote-learning-only. Others are pursuing partial reopening options with both online and in-person instruction. Still others are planning to fully reopen for in-person learning.

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Worldwide Pediatric Experts Argue Schools Should Reopen

Virginia Star Staff

Several reports published in western countries worldwide argue that children should be returning to in-person classrooms in the fall.

Reports by the top pediatric hospital in Canada and by a leading expert in the British government argue that schools should reopen with relatively few restrictions because of growing evidence that indicates that children appear to be at little risk of contracting or spreading COVID-19.

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Newt Gingrich Commentary: Cheating the Children or Empowering the Parents

Virginia Star Staff

The United States is gradually grinding to an educational collapse as the giant bureaucracies and extraordinarily powerful teachers’ unions ignore children and education in pursuit of power.

Many of the wealthiest school systems have decided that they simply will not go back to school this fall. They will offer virtual classes even though the evidence is overwhelming that for younger children virtual classes are dramatically less effective than in person instruction.

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US Supreme Court Denies Nevada Church’s Appeal of Virus Rule

The Associated Press

A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court denied a rural Nevada church’s request late Friday to strike down as unconstitutional a 50-person cap on worship services as part of the state’s ongoing response to the coronavirus.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court refused to grant the request from the Christian church east of Reno to be subjected to the same COVID-19 restrictions in Nevada that allow casinos, restaurants and other businesses to operate at 50% of capacity with proper social distancing.

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Steve Bannon Presents ‘War Room: Pandemic’

Virginia Star Staff

An all new LIVE STREAM of War Room: Pandemic starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday.

Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon began the daily War Room: Pandemic radio show and podcast on January 25, when news of the virus was just beginning to leak out of China around the Lunar New Year. Bannon and co-hosts bring listeners exclusive analysis and breaking updates from top medical, public health, economic, national security, supply chain and geopolitical experts weekdays from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon ET.

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White House Drops Payroll Tax Cut After GOP Allies Object

The Associated Press

The White House reluctantly dropped its bid to cut Social Security payroll taxes Thursday as Republicans prepared to unveil a $1 trillion COVID-19 rescue package, yielding to opposition to the idea among top Senate allies.

“It won’t be in the base bill,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, speaking on CNBC about the payroll tax cut, killing the idea for now. The cut in the tax that finances Social Security and Medicare has been a major demand of President Donald Trump.

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Study Finds That Full Lockdowns Did Not Reduce Coronavirus Mortality Rate

Virginia Star Staff

A study published Tuesday in The Lancet medical journal found that full lockdowns, border closures and high rates of coronavirus testing are not associated with a statistically significant reduction in the total number of critical cases or the virus’s overall mortality rate.

However, the study, which was based on data from the 50 countries with the most reported cases as of May 1, noted that lockdowns and border closures are likely associated with better overall health outcomes, as the measures helped drive down the rate of the virus’s transmission and reduce the load on hospital systems.

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Unemployment Claims Rise for the First Time Since March to 1.4 Million

Virginia Star Staff

The Department of Labor reported Thursday that over 1.4 million Americans filed additional claims for unemployment last week, marking the first weekly increase in claims since March.

The number of Americans filing for unemployment had been declining each week before mid-July, but the Thursday report marks the 18th week in a row that unemployment claims have been above one million, CNBC reported.

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Commentary: Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

Virginia Star Staff

Dr. Carl Sagan was one of the premier scientists when it came to trying to bridge the gap of hard science with general public understanding. In the process, his personal enthusiasm for the wonder of science became evident to all. He also understood that science could be hijacked and that the highest standards of evidence were required when fantastic claims were being made.

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Christopher Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ Delayed Indefinitely by Virus

Virginia Star Staff

Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” which had hoped to herald Hollywood’s return to big theatrical releases, has yet again postponed its release due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Warner Bros. said Monday that “Tenet” will not make its August 12 release date. Unlike previous delays, the studio this time didn’t announce a new target for the release of Nolan’s much-anticipated $200 million thriller.

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Guidance for Masks in Schools Varies Widely Across US States

The Associated Press

School districts that plan to reopen classrooms in the fall are wrestling with whether to require teachers and students to wear face masks — an issue that has divided urban and rural schools and yielded widely varying guidance.

The divide has also taken on political dimensions in Iowa, among other places, where Democratic-leaning cities like Des Moines and Iowa City have required masks to curb the spread of the coronavirus, while smaller, more conservative communities have left the decision to parents.

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Reports of a Surge in Coronavirus Cases in Texas Infants is False, Official Says

Virginia Star Staff

A viral report of a sudden surge of coronavirus cases in infants in a single county in Texas is inaccurate, a local official said on Saturday.

On Friday, the top health official for the Corpus Christi area said at a press conference that the county currently has 85 cases of newborns with coronavirus.

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Commentary: Why Sweden Succeeded in ‘Flattening the Curve’ and New York Failed

Virginia Star Staff

Coronavirus deaths have slowed to a crawl in Sweden. With the exception of a single death on July 13, no deaths in this nation of 10 million have been reported since July 10.

But the debate over Sweden’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, which relied on individual responsibility instead of government coercion to maintain social distancing, is far from over.

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Pandemic Triggered Massive Decline in US Prison Population: Report

Virginia Star Staff

More than 100,000 state and federal prisoners were released from custody between March and June as the coronavirus spread nationwide, according to analysis from a criminal justice organization.

The overall U.S. prison population declined by 8% over the course of those four months compared to the 2.2% decrease that occurred in the entirety of 2019, according to data compiled by The Marshall Project and The Associated Press. The decrease was mostly a result of prisons not accepting individuals from county jails to stop the virus from spreading and court closures, although some facilities did elect to release some prisoners early, The AP reported.

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Man Arrested After Illegally Obtaining $8.5 Million in Coronavirus Relief

Virginia Star Staff

A California man was arrested on Thursday after being charged with fraudulently claiming $8.5 million in coronavirus relief funds through the Payment Protection Program (PPP) and spending hundreds of thousands at a Las Vegas casino, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.

The criminal complaint charges Andrew Marnell, 40, of Los Angeles, CA, with submitting fake documents in the PPP funding application, lying about the expenses and business operations of several businesses and using fake aliases to obtain these federal government sourced funds.

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Health Professionals Advocate for School Reopening Despite Coronavirus Pandemic

Virginia Star Staff

Health professionals nationwide released statements in a Tea Party Patriots Action Second Opinion Project email on Thursday that they believe schools should reopen and that it is the safest option for kids.

The consensus among the physicians, that kids would benefit academically, socially, and health-wise from schools reopening this fall, echoes a statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released on July 10 addressing the issue of schools reopening in the fall.

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List of National Retail Chains Requiring Masks Is Growing

The Associated Press

Target, CVS Health and Publix Super Markets on Thursday joined the growing list of national chains that will require customers to wear face masks regardless of where cities or states stand on the issue.

Target’s mandatory face mask policy will go into effect Aug. 1, and all CVS stores will begin requiring them on Monday. Publix Super Markets Inc., based in Lakeland, Florida, said that its rule will kick in on Tuesday at all 1,200 stores.

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Walmart to Require Face Masks for All Customers

Virginia Star Staff

Walmart will require all customers to wear face coverings inside its stores beginning July 20, the company announced Wednesday.

“As the number of confirmed cases has spiked in communities across the country recently, so have the number and types of face covering mandates being implemented,” the retailer said in a press release.

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Commentary: Fake News Media Continues to Focus on the Wrong Things During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Virginia Star Staff

Each new dawn brings another farcical rant from the mainstream media. Facts be damned, hypocrisy ignored, truth summarily rejected—all in the name of “But Trump!” and “Orange Man bad!” Pravda veterans would be proud and perhaps, even a little jealous, as nobody in the MSM is being forced to propagandize at the point of a gun, with threats of a permanent vacation to sunny Siberia. No, the American news media does all of this of its own volition.

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Commentary: In-Person Schooling Would Be One of the Safest Activities to Reopen

Virginia Star Staff

Most students around the country haven’t been to school since March, when large parts of the country began to lock down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the data increasingly suggests that reopening schools entails the least risks and should be a goal of every level of government.

The early hope was that the closures would be temporary, such as Michigan’s school-closure order that was originally meant to end in April—but that was extended for the rest of the school year.

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Serbia Police Detain 71 After Fourth Night of Virus Protests

The Associated Press

Serbian police detained 71 people after clashes during the fourth night of anti-government protests against the Serbian president that were initially sparked by his plans to reintroduce a coronavirus lockdown.

Fourteen policemen were injured in the rioting Friday evening when hundreds of right-wing demonstrators tried to storm the parliament building in downtown Belgrade, police director Vladimir Rebic said Saturday. Many demonstrators and several reporters were also injured in the protests. More protests were expected Saturday night.

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United Will Warn 36,000 Workers They Could be Laid Off

The Associated Press

United Airlines is warning 36,000 employees – nearly half its U.S. staff – they could be furloughed in October, the clearest signal yet of how deeply the virus pandemic is hurting the airline industry.

The outlook for a recovery in air travel has dimmed in just the past two weeks, as infection rates rise in much of the U.S. and some states impose new quarantine requirements on travelers.

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Protective Gear for Medical Workers Begins to Run Low Again

The Associated Press

The personal protective gear that was in dangerously short supply during the early weeks of the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. is running low again as the virus resumes its rapid spread and the number of hospitalized patients climbs.

A national nursing union is concerned that gear has to be reused. A doctors association warns that physicians’ offices are closed because they cannot get masks and other supplies. And Democratic members of Congress are pushing the Trump administration to devise a national strategy to acquire and distribute gear in anticipation of the crisis worsening into the fall.

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Paycheck Protection Program Is Supporting More Than 51 Million Small Business Jobs, Trump Administration Announces

Virginia Star Staff

The $670 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has supported more than 51 million jobs since its launch in April, the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration announced Monday as it released information on 4.9 million loans disbursed by the program.

“The PPP is providing much-needed relief to millions of American small businesses, supporting more than 51 million jobs and over 80 percent of all small business employees, who are the drivers of economic growth in our country,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Monday.

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Millions of Potential Coronavirus Vaccine Doses Already Being Made, NIH Director Says

Virginia Star Staff

Millions of coronavirus vaccine doses are being manufactured, even before testing has been completed, the National Institutes of Health director said in an interview recently.

Doses of potential vaccines are being made to shorten the time it traditionally takes to develop a drug for public use, director Dr. Francis Collins told Intelligencer. Collins said he is “guardedly optimistic” that at least one vaccine will pass through the large phase of trials by December.

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Gov. Cuomo’s Order Sent More Than 6,000 Coronavirus Patients into Nursing Homes, Officials Say

Virginia Star Staff

Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s orders sent more than 6,300 coronavirus patients to nursing homes at the height of the pandemic, new numbers from state officials show.

Thousands of elderly coronavirus patients died after Cuomo issued an order March 25 mandating assisted-living facilities admit coronavirus patients, and state officials are now reporting that the number of admitted carriers is even higher than previous estimates.

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Brazil’s President Bolsonaro Tests Positive for COVID-19

The Associated Press

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said Tuesday he has tested positive for COVID-19 after months of downplaying the coronavirus’s severity while deaths mounted rapidly inside the country.

The 65-year-old populist who has been known to mingle in crowds without covering his face confirmed the results while wearing a mask and speaking to reporters huddled close in front of him in the capital, Brasilia. He said he is taking hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug that has not been proven effective against COVID-19.

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Commentary: Trump Economy Is Well Ahead of Schedule

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. economy has added a record 7.8 million to 8.8 million jobs back in May and June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) respective establishment and household surveys, bringing the reported unemployment rate down to 11.1 percent even as the number of Americans returning to the civilian labor force following the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns continues to increase.

This is incredible news because it means for certain that the labor market hit its bottom in April, the same month the IHME-estimated number of new cases daily was peaking at about 250,000 on March 29, down to an estimated 70,000 new cases a day now.

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Study: Unemployment Pays Better Than Work for 68 Percent of U.S. Workers

Virginia Star Staff

The federal unemployment insurance emergency payments of an additional $600 per week to those laid off because of COVID-19 restrictions discourages work and slows down economic recovery, several reports indicate. Several congressmen have introduced proposals to address the issue.

A report published by the Foundation for Government Ability (FGA) found that by nearly tripling average unemployment benefits through the CARES Act, “Congress has created a situation where unemployment now pays better than work” for roughly 68 percent of U.S. workers.

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Commentary: Blue States Have Been Hit Much Harder by COVID-19

Virginia Star Staff

In March, data guru Nate Silver wrote about the different ways blue states and red states were experiencing the COVID-19 epidemic, noting that “states Clinton won do have considerably more total reported cases.”

COVID-19 was not just a blue state problem though. Silver pointed out that cases in red states were increasing far more rapidly.

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Britain’s Boris Johnson says COVID-19 Has Been a Disaster

Virginia Star Staff

Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged Monday that the coronavirus pandemic has been a “disaster” for Britain, as he announced a spending splurge designed to get the country — and his faltering Conservative government — back on track.

As the U.K. emerges from a three-month lockdown, Johnson has lined up big-money pledges on schools, housing and infrastructure, in an attempt to move on from an outbreak that has left more than 43,000 Britons dead — the worst confirmed death toll in Europe.

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Joe Biden Keeps Inflating the Coronavirus Death Toll

Virginia Star Staff

Former Vice President Joe Biden has repeatedly inflated America’s coronavirus death toll by hundreds of thousands and millions of deaths when talking about the virus.

Biden gaffed on Thursday, saying that “over 120 million” people were “dead from COVID” before correcting himself. Biden has struggled to get right the number of coronavirus deaths, which is at roughly 121,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Gov. Abbott Orders Texas Bars to Close Again Amid Coronavirus Surge

Virginia Star Staff

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered that bars be shut down across the state for a second time on Friday amid a growing surge in coronavirus cases in his state.

Abbott also ordered restaurants to scale back their operating capacity from 75% to 50% starting Monday. In addition, Abbott ordered that outdoor gatherings of 100 people or more must also receive approval by local governments before taking place. Rafting and tubing businesses in the state have been ordered to close as well.

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US Health Officials Estimate 20M Americans Have Had Coronavirus

The Associated Press

U.S. officials estimate that 20 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus since it first arrived in the United States, meaning that the vast majority of the population remains susceptible.

Thursday’s estimate is roughly 10 times as many infections as the 2.3 million cases that have been confirmed. Officials have long known that millions of people were infected without knowing it and that many cases are being missed because of gaps in testing.

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US Breaks Single-Day Record of New Coronavirus Cases

Virginia Star Staff

The United States recorded nearly 37,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus Wednesday as the virus continued to spread across southern and western states, according COVID-19 trackers.

The 36,880 new cases is up from 34,700 recorded Tuesday, and broke previous single-day record for new cases set April 24 when 36,739 were confirmed, according to a New York Times database.

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Audit: US Sent $1.4B in Virus Relief Payments to Dead People

The Associated Press

Nearly 1.1 million coronavirus relief payments totaling some $1.4 billion went to dead people, a government watchdog reported Thursday.

More than 130 million so-called economic impact payments were sent to taxpayers as part of the $2.4 trillion coronavirus relief package enacted in March. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ auditing arm, cited the number of erroneous payments to deceased taxpayers in its report on the government programs.

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New York City Has 39,200 Criminal Cases Backlogged Amid COVID Outbreak

Virginia Star Staff

The New York City legal system has more than 39,000 pending criminal cases after trials were postponed in February, the city confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Trials by jury were postponed, prosecutions decreased as officials aimed to decrease the incarcerated population and various hearings were held virtually, The New York Times reported.

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US Citizens Likely to be Left Out as Europe Reopens Borders

The Associated Press

Americans are unlikely to be allowed into more than 30 European countries for business or tourism when the continent begins next week to open its borders to the world, due to the spread of the coronavirus and President Donald Trump’s ban on European visitors.

More than 15 million Americans are estimated to travel to Europe each year, and such a decision would underscore flaws in the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic, which has seen the United States record the highest number of infections and virus-related deaths in the world by far.

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Comedian DL Hughley Announces He Is COVID-19 Positive After Fainting Onstage

The Associated Press

Comedian D.L. Hughley announced he tested positive for COVID-19 after collapsing onstage during a performance in Nashville, Tennessee.

The stand-up comedian, 57, lost consciousness while performing at the Zanies comedy nightclub on Friday night and was hospitalized, news outlets reported. On Saturday, Hughley posted a video on Twitter in which he said he was treated for exhaustion and dehydration afterward.

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Brazil Tops 1 Million Cases as Coronavirus Spreads Inland

The Associated Press

Brazil’s government confirmed on Friday that the country has risen above 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, second only to the United States.

The country’s health ministry said that the total now stood at 1,032,913, up more than 50,000 from Thursday. The ministry said the sharp increase was due to corrections of previous days’ underreported numbers.

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McDonald’s to Hire 260K People in the US as Pandemic Lockdowns Come to an End

Virginia Star Staff

McDonald’s plans to hire more than a quarter of a million people over the course of the summer as economic lockdowns continue to slow down, the company announced Thursday.

The restaurant chain will add 260,000 employees as it reopens dining rooms after shutting down amid lockdowns designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, according to the president of the company.

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Commentary: The Lockdowns Crushed Minority-Owned Businesses the Most

Virginia Star Staff

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, minorities have disproportionately suffered from the virus’s health effects. A new study reveals that the government-mandated economic lockdowns have also hit minorities hardest.

In response to the outbreak and under the guidance of federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control, state and local governments imposed quarantine orders and mandated shutdowns for many businesses deemed “non-essential.” Whether one supports lockdowns as a public health measure or not, they undoubtedly resulted in tens of millions of Americans and counting filing for unemployment and a sharp economic downturn.

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Report: U.S. Companies Adapting to Produce Coronavirus Supplies Will Reverse Globalization

Virginia Star Staff

Solvay, a polymer-specialist company in the mid-Ohio Valley with operations in Washington and Pleasants counties, has partnered with Paragon, a medical-supplies development company to create a special shield for health care workers.

Officials at Memorial Health System told local news outlets they are grateful for the new equipment and for the innovations of U.S. companies that have quickly manufactured necessary equipment needed in the fight against the coronavirus. They said they will continue to use the equipment even after the coronavirus subsides.

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