Republican Lawmakers Blast Minnesota’s Coronavirus Omnibus Bill: ‘Zero Transparency’

The Minnesota Legislature passed a $330 million omnibus bill this week to address the coronavirus pandemic, but some Republican lawmakers were frustrated with the unprecedented lack of transparency in the process.

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Shelter in Place Order Now in Effect in Minnesota: Here’s What You Need to Know

Gov. Tim Walz has issued a statewide shelter-in-place order for Minnesota to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The order took effect Friday at midnight and will remain in effect until 5:00 p.m. on April 10. As opposed to a complete lockdown, a shelter-in-place order still allows for many everyday activities and permits numerous industries to continuing working.

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Omar and Bernie Ask Bezos for Answers About Amazon’s Efforts to Slow COVID-19 Spread

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) sent a letter Friday to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos asking for “detailed information” about his plans to protect warehouse workers from the coronavirus.

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Star Tribune Was Refusing to Run Ad Warning of Economic Consequences of Walz’s Coronavirus Response

The Star Tribune initially refused to run an advertisement in its print edition that was critical of Gov. Tim Walz’s “severe reactions” to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Chinese Propaganda Has Infected the U.K.’s Daily Mail Coronavirus Coverage

The Daily Mail, the popular British tabloid widely read in the United States, has published dozens of articles in recent months about coronavirus that were based on stories originating from People’s Daily, the communist party’s official newspaper, and other Chinese propaganda mills.

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Commentary: America’s Amazing Neighborhood Response to the Coronavirus

The coronavirus has triggered a disruption of ordinary life most of us would’ve considered unimaginable a few weeks ago. Some jobs have vanished as if by a cruel magician’s trick; others have mutated beyond recognition. Parents have become school teachers, while school teachers struggle to find how best to continue practicing their profession from behind computer screens.

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Mexican Protesters Block Border Traffic, Tell Americans to ‘Stay At Home’

In a seemingly-paradoxical turn of events, Mexican protesters on Wednesday blocked incoming traffic at the U.S. southern border, demanding their government do more to restrict American travel into their country.

A group of about a dozen protesters, holding signs and wearing face masks, used two vehicles to block southbound traffic coming out of a U.S.-Mexico port of entry near Nogales, Arizona, according to a report from the Arizona Republic. The protesters said their stunt was meant to highlight the dangers posed by incoming U.S. residents who may carry the coronavirus.

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Minnesota Had 116,000 New Unemployment Claims Last Week

Minnesota has seen 182,000 workers apply for unemployment insurance since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) Commissioner Steve Grove said Thursday.

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Gov. Walz Issues Shelter in Place Order for Minnesota

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced during his Wednesday press briefing that he is issuing a statewide shelter-in-place order to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

The stay-at-home order, as the governor is calling it, will go into effect at midnight Friday and will remain in effect until 5:00 p.m. on April 10.

“What our objective is now is to move the infection rate or slow it down and buy time,” Walz said during the press conference. The governor noted that the order won’t necessarily reduce the infection rate, but will postpone the peak of the outbreak while the state prepares.

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Carol Swain Commentary: How Coronavirus Showed Andrew Cuomo the Sanctity of Human Life

“My mother is not expendable, and your mother is not expendable, and our brothers and sisters are not expendable, and we’re not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable, and we’re not gonna put a dollar figure on human life. The first order of business is save lives, period. Whatever it costs.” Governor Andrew Cuomo (NY-D).

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Delaware Says It Reports Negative Cases to CDC, Will Report to Public

The Delaware Department of Health has confirmed that it is reporting both positive and negative test results of coronavirus testing to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, despite not making that information available to the public.

“Yes, we are reporting both positive and negative results to the CDC,” a spokesperson said in an email to The Michigan Star on Wednesday. “We absolutely understand the interest in knowing the number of negative test results received, as well as the number of positives.”

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Commentary: Trump’s Coronavirus Response Is Foiling His Enemies

The political aspect of the coronavirus crisis is developing in a familiar way. The president’s enemies in the media have led the propagation of panic in the country, and have been given enough encouragement to do that from the scientific community, some of whose members are enjoying their 15 minutes of world fame a little more than is seemly.

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Mike Rowe: We Will Need More Skilled Tradespeople Because of the Coronavirus

American television host Mike Rowe said Tuesday that the effects of the coronavirus emergency could radically alter how Americans perceive the skilled trade industry.

Rowe said this while appearing on Tucker Carlson Tonight.

“I think if you’re looking for a silver lining in all of this, in my own foundation our prime directive over the past 10 years has been to affirmatively confront and debunk the stigmas and stereotypes and myths and misperceptions that dissuade people from pursuing a career in the trades. When we come through the other end of this thing, the need for skilled tradespeople in this country, I believe, is going to be at an all-time high. That is basically good news for the middle class. If we can somehow level the playing field by the way in which we present opportunities to kids, middle class kids in particular, I think we might see real success in not only closing the skills gap but getting people on a path to a six-figure job that doesn’t require a big, giant college debt,” Rowe said.

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Commentary: Pelosi And Schumer’s Plan to Kill the Republican Party and Conservative Movement

Conservatives on Capitol Hill and in the media have been spreading the word about all the extraneous provisions Democrats have been trying to insert into the third coronavirus stimulus bill that is now before the Senate. And we should all be concerned about the massive spending and pork that Democrats want to add to the bill – but that’s not the worst part of what Democrats are demanding.

What conservatives must recognize as a life or death struggle for the future of constitutional liberty and the Republican Party are the election law changes that Democrats are demanding as their price for allowing the coronavirus relief bill to pass.

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Doctor in Minnesota Senate Warns That Reaction to Coronavirus Could Be More Dangerous Than Virus Itself

A doctor in the Minnesota Senate warned leaders Monday that the reaction to the coronavirus pandemic could be more harmful than the virus itself.

Sen. Scott Jensen (R-Chaska), a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and founder of Catalyst Medical Clinic, said that the disruption to everyday routines could have devastating consequences for people with underlying medical conditions.

“Scaring people to death isn’t helping us. We are going to in short order, if not already now, have supply chains get interrupted and some of these are critical supply chains. We need to be careful,” Jensen said in a video posted to Facebook.

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Gov. Walz Self-Quarantines After Contact with COVID-19 Patient

  Gov. Tim Walz announced Monday morning that he is in self-quarantine at the Governor’s Residence after contacting someone with the coronavirus. “After learning I had contact with someone who has COVID-19, I plan to lead by example and work from home. I currently have no symptoms and will continue…

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Commentary: The Virus Is Not Invincible, But It’s Exposing Who’s Irreplaceable

In all the gloom and doom, and media-driven nihilism, there is actually an array of good news. As many predicted, as testing spreads, and we get a better idea of the actual number and nature of cases, the death rate from coronavirus slowly but also seems to steadily decline.

Early estimates from the World Health Organization and the modeling of pessimists of a constant 4 percent death rate for those infected with the virus are for now proving exaggerated for the United States. More likely, as testing spreads, our fatality rates could descend to near 1 percent.

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WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Won Election with China’s Help, Now He’s Defending China on Coronavirus

by Peter Hasson   World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus won his post after China backed him in the May 2017 election. Now, Tedros is leading the WHO, an arm of the United Nations, in providing cover for China’s oppressive regime as it attempts to shirk responsibility for…

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Alabama Now Provides Negative Coronavirus Testing Data

Alabama is now providing aggregated data for the coronavirus pandemic, state officials told The Michigan Star earlier this week.

Per Section 1702 of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requires states to provide “aggregated data on testing and results from State and local public health departments.” Aggregated data includes both positive and negative test results.

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Klobuchar’s Husband Hospitalized After Testing Positive for COVID-19

Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Monday that her husband (pictured right) has been hospitalized after testing positive for the coronavirus.

Klobuchar said her family received the test results early Monday morning and said her husband, John, is currently “cut off from all visitors.”

He started to feel sick when the senator was in Minnesota and he was in Washington, D.C. for his teaching job. According to Klobuchar, her husband was “checked into a hospital in Virginia” after he “started coughing up blood.”

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Commentary: Giddy Democrats Exploit the Economic Crisis to Hurt Trump

President Trump’s policies have brought this country historic levels of prosperity, but Democrats have been predicting an imminent economic crisis from virtually the moment he was elected. Now, as the novel coronavirus sows panic in the markets, the president’s opponents are hoping they’ve finally found a way to hamstring the strong and growing American economy.

The Democratic presidential candidates, for instance, quickly began stoking fears of a possible recession caused by the coronavirus, preemptively asserting that it would be the president’s fault.

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Mayo Clinic Says It Can Now Perform Up to 4,000 COVID-19 Tests Daily

Mayo Clinic announced last week that it can now test up to 4,000 clinical samples for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on a daily basis.

Mayo officials said they now have the capacity to process COVID-19 test samples at all Mayo Clinic sites and have started processing test samples from their clients across the state, including eight major health systems.

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Photo of President Trump’s Briefing Notes Show ‘Corona’ Crossed Out and Replaced with ‘Chinese’

Despite a massive media outcry, President Trump has continued to go out of his way to pin the blame for the COVID-19 pandemic on communist China.

A photo of the president’s notes taken during Thursday’s press briefing with the coronavirus task force, underscores that effort.

“Close up of President @realDonaldTrump notes is seen where he crossed out ‘Corona’ and replaced it with ‘Chinese’ Virus as he speaks with his coronavirus task force today at the White House,” Jabin Botsford, a staff photographer at The Washington Post, tweeted.

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Coders Building Database Need Health Care Workers to Report Coronavirus Testing Sites So They Can Provide Data to Officials Battling Disease

A coalition of computer coders and medical experts is looking for volunteers — including from the Volunteer State — to help provide better information on COVID-19 coronavirus testing sites.

TechCrunch reported on the one-week-old Coders Against Covid project, which is building a database of testing sites. The team of about 15 developers includes Andrew Kemendo of KesselRun, an Air Force software developer, and Dr. Jorge A. Caballero, a clinical instructor of Anesthesia at Stanford University. The goal is to inform officials tracking the disease and to better distribute the tests where they are needed.

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Senator Rand Paul Tests Positive for Coronavirus

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has tested positive for COVID-19, according to a statement his staff released on his social media accounts Sunday afternoon.

“He is feeling fine and is in quarantine. He is asymptomatic and was tested out of an abundance of caution due to his extensive travel and events. He was not aware of any direct contact with any infected person,” according to the statement.

“He expects to be back in the Senate after his quarantine period ends and will continue to work for the people of Kentucky at this difficult time. Ten days ago, our D.C. office began operating remotely, hence virtually no staff has had contact with Senator Rand Paul.”

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FDA Authorizes New 45 Minute Coronavirus Test for Release Next Week

A California-based molecular diagnostics company announced Saturday they will ship a point-of-care test next week that they say can detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19 in 45 minutes.

Officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave that company, Cepheid, Emergency Use Authorization to do so, company officials said in a press release.

Called the Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2, the test is designed to operate on any of Cepheid’s more than 23,000 automated GeneXpert Systems worldwide, with a detection time of less than one hour.

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Commentary: Can We Prepare America for the Next Pandemic?

With every passing moment, nations are establishing precedents for how to contain and ultimately stop a global pandemic. Because the novel coronavirus apparently originated in Wuhan and was immediately covered up by the Chinese Communist Party, the health and welfare of the Chinese people and all other affected populations have suffered from this lethal malfeasance.

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Connecticut Relents, Orders All Labs to Report Negative Coronavirus Test Results, Leaving Ohio One of Two States to Fail to Comply With Federal Law

The State of Connecticut has gotten on board with the CDC to report negative test results to help the agency better track the spread of the coronavirus, leaving Ohio and Maryland as the only holdouts in complying with federal law.

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Canadian Doctor Uses Detroit Physician’s Concept to Rig One Ventilator to Treat Up to Nine People

Ventilators across the world are in scarce supply as the number of coronavirus patients continues to rise, but a Detroit doctor has provided health care workers with an ingenious solution.

To make sure his hospital is prepared, Dr. Alain Gauthier, an anesthetist at the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital in Canada, rigged a single ventilator to treat up to as many as nine people at once.

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Senate Leaders Signal Disagreement with Walz’s ‘Unilateral and Unchecked’ Coronavirus Actions

Gov. Tim Walz has issued 12 executive orders in response to the coronavirus pandemic, but Senate Republicans think some of his actions aren’t within his constitutional authority.

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Shelter in Place Order Possible for Minnesota

Gov. Tim Walz said Friday morning that a statewide “shelter in place” order is possible after Minnesota saw its number of confirmed COVID-19 cases soar past 100.

“Well, I certainly think it is a possibility,” the governor said during an interview with WCCO Radio. “We have to have every tool in the toolbox.”

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