Tag: Coronavirus

Commentary: Life Is Risky

Minnesota Sun Staff

Perhaps the most unserious response to the coronavirus pandemic has been the facile assertion that lockdowns, the destruction of the economy, and the suppression of our historic freedoms are all justified if they “save just one life.” As Joe Biden put it on Twitter, “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: No one is expendable. No life is worth losing to add one more point to the Dow.”

While every person is unique and has an immortal soul, we do not do anything and everything to save lives from all hazards, nor should we. Adults know that there are no easy solutions to most problems, and real life consists of tradeoffs.  

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Health Care Group: It Would Cost $440 Million to Provide 3 Million Tests for All Nursing Home Residents and Workers

Minnesota Sun Staff

Testing every nursing home resident and care facility worker in the U.S. for COVID-19 would cost $440 million in federal and state funding, a health care group found. 

Doing so would require almost 3 million tests, according to the American Health Care Association’s National Center for Assisted Living, an industry group representing nursing homes and assisted living centers that calculated how much it would cost for states to receive adequate funding so all resident and care facility workers could be tested.

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Students Sue Harvard Citing ‘Subpar Online Learning Options’ During Coronavirus Pandemic

Minnesota Sun Staff

On Wednesday, students sued Harvard University for not refunding tuition and fees after the coronavirus pandemic forced classes online.

This makes Harvard at least the fourth Ivy League school to be targeted for failing to reimburse educational costs, following Brown, Columbia, and Cornell. The school is facing a $5 million federal class-action lawsuit.  Students chose to pursue legal action as a result of not having “received the benefit of in-person instruction or equivalent access to university facilities and services.” 

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National Security Adviser ‘Wouldn’t Be Surprised’ if China Steals US Coronavirus Vaccine

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Jason Hopkins   White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien on Sunday suggested that the Chinese Community Party would very likely try to steal American developments on a coronavirus vaccine. During an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” O’Brien predicted that the United States would be the first country…

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Minnesota Reports 8.1 Percent Unemployment Rate for April

Anthony Gockowski

Minnesota’s unemployment rate increased to 8.1 percent in April, the first full month impacted by coronavirus restrictions.

Between March and April, the state’s unemployment rate jumped from 2.9 percent to 8.1 percent. Nationally, the unemployment rate rose from 4.4 percent in March to 14.7 percent in April.

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Minnesota State Fair Canceled for First Time in More Than 70 Years

Anthony Gockowski

The general manager of the Minnesota State Fair announced Friday morning that the annual gathering will be canceled this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’ve been working hard and doing our very best with preparations for the 2020 State Fair. The picture was cloudy in March, but things have cleared up considerably since then. Right now is the time of year when things need to really take off if we’re going to have a fair, but we can see that we’re out of runway and can’t get off the ground. There will be no State Fair this year,” General Manager Jerry Hammer said in a statement.

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Commentary: The CDC’s Guidelines for Back-to-School Under COVID Sound Traumatizing

Minnesota Sun Staff

When schools reopen in the US amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, they will be even more restrictive than they already were. Schools have long controlled students’ movements and imposed constraints on where they can go, when, and with whom. With virus concerns, those controls will increase in quantity and intensity.

NPR recently proclaimed that “disruption from the pandemic constitutes an ‘adverse childhood experience’ for every American child.” While many children are sad to be away from their friends and activities, being home with their family members for a prolonged period of time is hardly an “adverse childhood experience” for most American children. Returning to schools with extreme virus control and social distancing measures, however, could very well be traumatic for many kids.

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Republicans Criticize ‘Alarming’ Interpretation of Executive Authority in Letter to Walz and Ellison

Anthony Gockowski

The Senate Republican Caucus expressed concern over the governor’s “alarming” interpretation of executive authority in a letter sent this week to Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison.

“Your interpretation of the scope of the Governor’s authority under Minnesota Statutes, section 12.45, is incorrect and inconsistent with legislative intent and with a more measured reading of the law. Most importantly, it is an infringement on the Legislature’s fundamental and exclusive authority to define and prescribe the punishment for a crime,” states the letter.

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Watchdog Repeatedly Warned About Nursing Home Infections Before Pandemic Struck

Minnesota Sun Staff

Infection prevention and control deficiencies were widespread across most of the country’s nursing homes before the coronavirus outbreak, a watchdog group reported Thursday.

More than 82% of the United States’ 15,500 nursing homes were cited for infection prevention and control deficiencies between 2013 and 2017, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) wrote in a blog post Thursday.

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COVID-19 Unemployment Claims Approach 39 Million Since Mid-March

Minnesota Sun Staff

Even as much of the country eases restrictions and slowly begins to reopen state economies, new jobless claims continued their COVID-19 spike last week, increasing the total number of those filing for unemployment benefits to nearly 39 million since mid-March.

According to data released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor, an additional 2.44 million workers filed for benefits in the week ending May 16. That’s down 249,000 from the revised number of claims filed in the week ending May 9.

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Walz Stumbles Incoherently Over Explanation for Why Churches Are Limited to 10 People, But Restaurants Can Host 50

Anthony Gockowski

Gov. Tim Walz announced Wednesday that bars and restaurants can now host up to 50 people for outdoor dining, but churches are still required to limit both indoor and outdoor services to 10 people.

The governor was asked during his Wednesday press briefing why restaurants can host 40 more people than churches for outdoor gatherings.

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US Birth Rates Continue to Fall as Millennials Put off Having Kids

Minnesota Sun Staff

Birth rates in the United States continue to fall as millennials put off having kids, and experts warn that coronavirus could make people less likely to have children.

Federal figures released Wednesday show that women in the U.S. had babies record-low rates in 2019, causing the number of U.S. births to reach the smallest number in 35 years, the Wall Street Journal reports. The data demonstrates that birth rates in the U.S. have not rebounded since the 2007-2009 recession when childbearing began declining.

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Mayor Calls on Walz to Immediately Reopen Greater Minnesota Businesses

Anthony Gockowski

A mayor in Greater Minnesota called for immediately reopening businesses in his region in a letter sent Monday to Gov. Tim Walz.

Cambridge Mayor James Godfrey pointed to the “significant difference” in the spread of the coronavirus in rural Minnesota compared to the Metro area. Cambridge is located in Isanti County, which had just 20 confirmed cases and zero deaths as of Wednesday.

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Minnesota Senate Bill Would Require Governor to Seek Legislative Approval for Extending Future Peacetime Emergencies

Anthony Gockowski

The Minnesota Senate passed a bill last week that would require the governor to obtain legislative approval before extending any future peacetime emergencies.

The bill, authored by Sen. David Osmek (R-Mound), passed Friday in a vote of 36-31, but failed to advance in the DFL-controlled House before the legislative session expired Sunday night.

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Commentary: Resolving the Argument Between Lockdown and Liberty

Minnesota Sun Staff

As the debate between those who want an unlimited lockdown and those who want to reopen America as quickly as possible becomes more clangorous every day, months of intensive study and sad experience with the coronavirus enable us to determine the best course and resolve the argument.

The shutdown must end in all but severely afflicted areas. Its original purpose was to “flatten the curve.” In the early stages, the number of coronavirus reported cases and deaths in the United States was doubling every few days. Horrifying projections based on the scanty evidence available and hyped by the anti-Trump media to put as much pressure and blame on the president as possible for his initially somewhat casual treatment of the subject, stirred fears of millions of deaths and of a universal vulnerability to an almost untreatable fatal illness.

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‘Null and Void:’ Judge Overturns Oregon Gov. Brown’s COVID-19 Executive Orders

Minnesota Sun Staff

A judge granted a preliminary injunction Monday freezing Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s coronavirus executive orders restricting church services and business.

Brown exceeded her authority when she restricted activities for longer than the 28 days the governor is authorized under a state law, Baker County Circuit Court Judge Matt Shirtcliff said. The judge’s ruling effectively blocks enforcement of the 10 orders Brown gave since early March when she first imposed stay-at-home orders on citizens.

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Bonfire Restaurants Latest COVID Casualty, Announces Permanent Closure of All Locations

Anthony Gockowski

Bonfire Restaurants announced Friday that it will permanently close all five of its Minnesota locations because of the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The company said in a statement that its locations in Blaine, Eagan, Mankato, Savage, and Woodbury will not be reopening.

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Commentary: Trump Soars in Approval as America Begins Reopening, Challenging China

Minnesota Sun Staff

President Donald Trump continues to see his highest approval ratings of his first term in office, hitting 49 percent in the most recent Gallup survey (48 percent disapprove) and 51 percent in the Hill/HarrisX poll (49 percent disapprove) as the Trump administration continues its response to the China-originated COVID-19 pandemic and states begin reopening.

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‘Pelosi Basically Lost Me:’ White House Says Checks for Illegal Aliens a No-Go for Stimulus Negotiations

Minnesota Sun Staff

White House adviser Peter Navarro swatted down the possibility that the coronavirus stimulus package passed by House Democrats would be acceptable by the Trump administration.

Navarro said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “lost” him with her party’s stimulus bill during a Sunday morning appearance on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos. The legislation includes cash assistance for eligible illegal aliens, protections for sanctuary cities and other progressive provisions.

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Illegal Aliens Can Begin Applying for Cash Assistance in California

Minnesota Sun Staff

by Jason Hopkins   Illegal aliens can apply for direct cash assistance from the California state government as of Monday, marking the implementation of the first relief program of its kind. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, announced in April the launch of The Disaster Relief Fund, a $125 million coronavirus relief program…

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Keith Ellison Sues Minnesota Restaurant Owner Who Planned to Open Early, Threatens $150,000 in Fines

Anthony Gockowski

Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Sunday night that his office has sued a Minnesota restaurant owner who planned to reopen for business Monday.

Kris Schiffler, owner of Shady’s Bar and Grill, planned on reopening his six locations for dine-in business Monday, two weeks earlier than the June 1 reopening date set by the state. He told one local outlet that he received a call from Ellison’s office Friday threatening $25,000 in fines per location, which would amount to $150,000 in total.

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Analysis: Minnesota Has Highest Percent of COVID-19 Deaths in Long-Term Care Facilities in the Nation

Minnesota Sun Staff

About 81.7 percent of Minnesota’s COVID-19 deaths were in nursing homes and residential care communities, the highest percentage state in the nation that reports such data.

That’s according to data from The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), a Texas-based nonprofit think tank.

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Commentary: Sweden’s COVID-19 Strategy Is Quietly Becoming the World’s Strategy

Minnesota Sun Staff

Sweden’s unique approach to the COVID-19 pandemic has been drawing a great deal of scrutiny for weeks, including both admiration and criticism.

The Swedes, unlike most other nations, have eschewed the hardline approach that has led to mass economic shutdowns and skyrocketing unemployment. Restaurants, bars, public pools, libraries and most schools remain open. While the nation’s “laissez-faire” approach has drawn rebuke from some quarters, it is also beginning to draw praise.

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Minnesota Citizens Protest Shutdown Again Outside Govs’s Mansion

Minnesota Sun Staff

Hundreds of protestors congregated in front of Governor Tim Walz’s executive mansion, Thursday, to protest Minnesota’s thrice extended economic shutdowns.

The demonstration began around noon, as concerned citizens lined the street outside the governor’s mansion holding protest signs and flags as vehicles adorned with anti-shutdown messages drove slowly down Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Those in attendance aimed to express their displeasure with how Walz has handled Minnesota’s COVID-19 response.

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New York Admits Knowingly Undercounting Nursing Home Deaths After Quietly Changing Reporting Rules

Minnesota Sun Staff

New York has omitted an unknown number of coronavirus deaths in recent reports regarding residents of nursing home and adult care facilities, the New York State Department of Health acknowledged in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In early May, those reports quietly began omitting long-term care residents who died of coronavirus in hospitals. Even so, New York still leads the nation with 5,433 reported deaths at nursing homes and adult care facilities as of Wednesday.

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More Than 40,000 File for Unemployment in Minnesota, State Totals Nearly 700,000

Jordyn Pair

More than 40,000 filed for unemployment insurance in Minnesota, bringing the state total to nearly 700,000, according to recent data.

Data from the U.S. Department of Labor showed that 40,427 people filed for unemployment insurance benefits in the week ending May 9. That number is down a little more than 1,000 applicants from the week prior.

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Wisconsin Supreme Court Strikes Down Evers’ Safer-at-Home Restrictions

Minnesota Sun Staff

A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Gov. Tony Evers’ extended safer at home order Wednesday, siding with Republicans who claimed the governor overstepped his authority when his administration extended restrictions on individuals and businesses through May 26.

In the 4-3 decision, all but one of the court’s conservative members ruled that the Evers’ administration does not have the legal power to continuously extend restrictions in the name of trying to slow the spread of COVID-19.

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Lewis Says Any Politician Who Purports to Represent the People Can’t ‘Deny Them Their God-Given Right to Earn a Living’

Anthony Gockowski

  There’s no “pandemic exception” to the Bill of Rights, Republican Senate candidate Jason Lewis told The Minnesota Sun in a recent interview. That’s the same argument U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr made in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt. “We have three branches of government, and allowing the…

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Minnesota Organization for Retired Americans Sue To Keep Voting Rights for Quarantined Residents

Jordyn Pair

The Minnesota Alliance for Retired American Educational Fund, along with three of its members, filed a lawsuit to protect voting rights of those who may be self-quarantining without a legal adult.

The lawsuit alleges that those who are quarantining alone — or without a voting-age member of the household — essentially lose their ability to cast a vote, as mail-in absentee ballots require a witness signature.

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Judge Orders Paul Manafort Released from Prison to Home Confinement

Minnesota Sun Staff

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to be released from prison to home confinement amid concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

Manafort, 71, is serving a seven-year prison sentence on fraud and money-laundering charges. He was convicted in August 2018, sentenced to jail in March 2019 and scheduled to be released on Nov. 4, 2024.

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Gov. Tim Walz Signs Six Bills, Skips Mail-in Election Bill

Jordyn Pair

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed six bills into law on Tuesday on legislative topics ranging from health to underage marriage.

One law extends the funding used to increase testing capacity for the coronavirus pandemic, as well as ensure there are hospital beds and personal protective equipment. Another requires drug makers to provide a “detailed rationale to the state” for large price increases for drugs that cost $100 or more for a 30-day supply. A third prohibits marriage by residents in the state under age 18.

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Democrats’ $3 Trillion ‘Relief’ Package Declared Dead-on-Arrival, Republicans Say

Minnesota Sun Staff

A new Democratic bill proposed by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), without input from Republicans or the Trump administration is “dead on arrival,” top Republican leaders say.

The White House has said it wants to wait and see how the $3 trillion Congress already allocated will impact the economy and help Americans suffering from the economic shutdown due to the coronavirus.

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Gov. Tim Walz Extends Peacetime Emergency Order Until Mid-June

Zachery Schmidt

Gov. Tim Walz announced late Wednesday that he will extend Minnesota’s peacetime emergency order for thirty days.

“Our actions have saved lives, but the threat of COVID-19 remains,” Walz said. “The next stages of this pandemic are going to challenge us – an extension of Minnesota’s peacetime emergency will allow us to protect Minnesotans’ health and wellbeing and continue to respond effectively to this rapidly-evolving situation.”

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Speaker Pelosi’s Coronavirus Bill Includes Billions for Eligible Illegal Aliens

Minnesota Sun Staff

Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced her party’s coronavirus relief package, which includes billions of dollars in carve outs for illegal aliens, grants to sanctuary cities, and other protections for the undocumented community.

House Democrats released the HEROES Act on Tuesday, a bill that provides a total of $3 trillion in stimulus funds to state and local governments, along with other industries affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The legislation — which was not negotiated with the GOP or the Trump administration — includes $500 billion for state governments and $375 billion for local governments.

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Cherry Health, CBS News Slammed for Adding Staffers to Coronavirus Testing Line

Jordyn Pair

A Michigan health system and CBS News have come under fire after Project Veritas revealed that a line for a COVID-19 testing site was staged for television cameras.

Cherry Health and CBS News denied directing staffers to form a line to appear as patients for a coronavirus testing site before later reversing their statement and saying that the staffers were in line to “provide a visual backdrop.”

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Commentary: The Unbearable Truths About Our Current Political Moment

Minnesota Sun Staff

Sometimes the truth is like mythical kryptonite. It radiates power and yet promises great destruction. And so reality is to be left alone, encased in lead, and kept at bay.

Take the Chinese genesis of the COVID-19 epidemic. We started in February with the usual Chinese deceptions about their role in the birth, transmission, and worldwide spread of the virus.

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Eighteen Attorneys General Call for Congressional Probe into China’s Efforts to Mislead the World About Coronavirus

Minnesota Sun Staff

Eighteen Republican attorneys general called for a congressional probe on Friday into China’s deliberate concealment of the severity of the coronavirus outbreak at its onset.

“Recent reports suggest that the communist Chinese government willfully and knowingly concealed information about the severity of the virus while simultaneously stockpiling personal protective equipment,” stated the letter from South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, which 17 other state attorneys general cosigned.

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Cuomo Reverses, Says Nursing Homes Can Refuse COVID-Positive Patients

Minnesota Sun Staff

Gov. Andrew Cuomo partially reversed a March executive order Sunday that prevented nursing homes from denying admission of patients who tested positive for the new coronavirus.

Patients must now test negative for the virus before hospitals can admit them to assisted living facilities, Cuomo said during an Albany press briefing Sunday.

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Pennsylvania Counties Go Rogue, Ignore State Shutdown Orders

Minnesota Sun Staff

Officials from several counties across central Pennsylvania said over the weekend they likely will lift pandemic restrictions against Gov. Tom Wolf’s orders.

The news follows the governor’s decision Friday to transition 13 counties in the southwestern region of the state – including the Pittsburgh metro area – to the yellow phase of his economic reopening plan after showing signs of slowing community spread and ramped up testing and contact tracing abilities.

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Georgia’s Restaurants, Barber Shops Are Coming Back to Life as Lockdowns Ease, Data Show

Minnesota Sun Staff

Georgia’s restaurants and barber shops are seeing a slow but steady increase in traffic after Gov. Brian Kemp began easing up the economic lockdowns he imposed to slow the coronavirus pandemic, location data show.

Visits to the state’s barber shops and tattoo parlors increased to 80% of pre-coronavirus levels after Georgia began rolling back own stay-at-home orders on April 24, according to data released by Foursquare, a location technology platform. Data also show restaurants are on the rebound.

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Minnesota to Spend $6.9 Million on Warehouse Facility for Storing Dead Bodies

Anthony Gockowski

The state of Minnesota plans to spend $6.9 million to acquire a warehouse facility for the “temporary storage of human remains.”

The funds will come from the COVID-19 Minnesota Fund and was recommended for approval by Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Myron Frans.

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Commentary: Will COVID-19 Kill Environmental Leftism?

Minnesota Sun Staff

The coronavirus has had, at least, the unanticipated benefit of obscuring and diminishing the very tedious public clamoring about climate change. It is a slightly redeeming virtue of crises that they tend to supersede and diminish previous crises; if a crisis is serious, public opinion can rarely worry about more than one menace at a time.

When Iran took over the role of principal promoter of terrorism in the Middle East, and Turkey, rebuffed by Europe, began imposing itself on the fringes of the Arab world, support for the Palestinian onslaught against Israel effectively collapsed. All the nonsense about Israel as an “apartheid state” has almost stopped, and the simpering of naïve or devious advocates of one big happy, multiracial Palestine (a formula for the subjugation or expulsion or even massacre of the Jews one more time) is rarely heard.

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Commentary: American Prayer in the Midst of Crises

Minnesota Sun Staff

Several weeks ago, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave a press conference on – what else? – the coronavirus.

The press conference was, like many these days, a discussion of numbers and the problems of reopening the economy, but one statement was a bit startling. Discussing the hopeful sign of plateauing numbers, Cuomo expressed caution rather than enthusiasm. Then he made the following blunt announcement:

“The number is down, because we brought the number down. God did not do that. Faith did not do that. Destiny did not do that. A lot of pain and suffering did that. And that’s why we lost five pounds, because we went out every day and we exercise and we burned more calories than we ate. That’s how it works. It’s math.”

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Mexican National Illegally Crossed Border for Coronavirus Medical Care

Minnesota Sun Staff

A man crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally to seek treatment for COVID-19 symptoms, the head of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said Thursday.

“This week, [U.S. Border Patrol] agents encountered a Mexican national who after being apprehended, was showing symptoms of COVID-19,” CBP acting Commissioner Mark Morgan tweeted. “During his medical assessment he admitted to being exposed to COVID-19 and his deliberate intentions to illegally enter the US for medical care.”

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San Francisco Gives Drugs, Alcohol to Homeless Addicts in Coronavirus Hotels

Minnesota Sun Staff

San Francisco is giving free drugs and alcohol to some homeless addict isolating inside city-rented hotels during the coronavirus pandemic, the city’s department of public health confirmed Wednesday.

Fox News reports, San Francisco’s controversial  practice was recently brought up last Friday when a man who describes himself on Twitter as “Formerly homeless addict in #recovery advocating for the #truth about homelessness and drug addiction. Faith, Hope and Love. SF Native. Tweets are my own.” tweeted to the city.

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