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CDC Under Fire for Not Releasing Information on How Coronavirus Patients Recovered

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The CDC is again falling short of its responsibilities under the impending coronavirus pandemic. The agency that was once considered the best public health agency in the world for preventing the spread of infectious disease has withered under President Donald Trump, who installed as the head of the CDC a physician who “has no experience leading a public health agency.”

First the CDC botched the coronavirus test. The CDC insisted on creating and producing its own test rather than using one from the World Health Organization. Then it produced a faulty one that renders the test useless.

That likely explains why less than 500 people in the U.S. have been tested for COVID-19, while in other countries the number of people tested is dramatically higher. South Korea, according to the CDC, has tested 70,940 people as of Feb. 28.

The British government is tweeting out the number of people tested and the number of positive tests – again, testing a far greater number of people than the U.S. has:

Meanwhile, the CDC is now inexplicably refusing to share with physicians across the county the details of treatment for all but one of the coronavirus patients who have recovered.

“As new cases of coronavirus arise daily in the United States — including several announced over the weekend and one death — the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has failed to release crucial information physicians say could help save the lives of Americans diagnosed with the novel coronavirus,” CNN reports. “The CDC is the federal agency that communicates with physicians about how to handle outbreaks. Whether it’s SARS, Ebola or last year’s measles outbreak, the agency uses information from cases around the world — and in particular the United States — to advise doctors on how to diagnose, evaluate and treat diseases.”

The former Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (PHPR) at the CDC, Dr. Ali Khan, criticized his former agency for not releasing the information, for the faulty test “fiasco,” and for releasing “somebody from quarantine” who later was revealed to have tested positive.

Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told CNN “it’s absolutely essential that physicians with experience with a particular condition disseminate information to others,” and he calls the CDC’s decision to not “inexplicable and inappropriate.”

“Health officials in three states that have already had coronavirus patients,” CNN adds, “say they shared detailed clinical information about their patients with the CDC, but the CDC has not yet released it.”

 

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WHY?

‘Riding Bikes While Black’: New Jersey Cops Under Fire for Confiscating Bike and Arresting Teen

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3 years ago

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April 20, 2021

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Police officers in Perth Amboy, New Jersey are under fire after video clips of them appearing to harass a small group of Black teens who were riding their bikes through town went viral. Perth Amboy has a law requiring a bicycle “license tag” but the teens say they live in Edison, and were just riding home.

At one point six police cars were involved. The officers ordered the teens off the bikes, confiscated at least one, and arrested one teen who was arguing they shouldn’t have to give up their bikes.

Later, at the police station, one officer told the teen he was lucky to get his bike back, asking if he had the purchase receipt for the bike, and if it is registered with them. The officer also says the teens were told “to stay on the sidewalk,” but they were also told to stay on the road and ride with traffic. She says they did all this for their safety.

Part of Perth Amboy’s extensive bicycle law reads: “An application for a license to own and operate a bicycle shall be made to the Chief of Police in writing upon a form approved by the City Council. Upon approval of an application, the Chief of Police shall provide, at the expense of the city, a proper license tag which shall be attached to the frame of the bicycle in a substantial manner. The removal of such tag, except by proper authority, shall be a violation of this chapter. A license fee of fifty cents ($0.50) shall be charged per year for each bicycle. Such license shall be issued as of the calendar year and shall be effective for such period.”

It also bans “fancy riding”:

“The rider of a bicycle shall not allow it to proceed in a street by inertia momentum, with his feet removed from the pedals, nor remove both hands from the handlebars while riding the bicycle, nor practice any trick or fancy riding in a street or carry another person upon the bicycle.”

Many are outraged:

 

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Trump-Appointed Judge Blocks Biden’s Order to Halt Deportations After Texas AG Sued

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3 years ago

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January 26, 2021

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A federal judge in Texas has just placed a temporary stay blocking President Joe Biden’s 100 day moratorium on deportations.

U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton, a member of the right wing Federalist Society, sided with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

“Defendants are enjoined from executing the 100-day pause on removals for 14 days,” Judge Tipton ruled. That apparently means deportations can continue for the next two weeks.

President Biden enacted the 100 day deportations pause on January 20.

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern notes Republicans did exactly what they have been accusing Democrats of doing for years.

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WHY?

Trump Orders Secret Service to Protect 14 Family Members in Rare Post-Presidency Demand – Taxpayers on the Hook

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3 years ago

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January 20, 2021

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The U.S. Secret Service will protect former President Donald Trump and more than a dozen members of his family, including extended family members, after the 45th President, defying usual agency regulations, ordered the expanded protections.

“Trump issued a directive to extend post-presidency Secret Service protection to 14 members of his family who were not automatically entitled to receive it,” The Washington Post reports.

Taxpayers will be on the hook for the millions of dollars the additional protections will cost, even after the Trump family decimated the protective agency’s budget over the past four to five years.

Once a president leaves office he or she, their spouse, and children up until they reach the age of 16 are entitled to Secret Service protection. Protection for the president and spouse is for the rest of their lives.

But Trump has demanded every family member who has ever been covered to continue receiving protection, for the next six months.

“That means the expensive, taxpayer-funded security will continue for his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, their three children, his son Donald Trump Jr. and his five children, his son Eric Trump and his wife Lara and his daughter Tiffany Trump,” the Post explains.

In just the first two years of his presidency Trump and his family members who are protected by the Secret Service took more than 4500 trips.

Citizens for Ethics (CREW) on Wednesday noted that “the Trump family took more trips that required Secret Service protection in one year than the Obama family took in seven.”

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