De Blasio Breaks Up Rabbi’s Funeral and Lashes Out Over Virus Distancing

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/nyregion/hasidic-funeral-coronavirus-de-blasio.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

In a series of tweets, Mr. de Blasio denounced the gathering, which was broken up by the police, and warned that any violation of the social-distancing guidelines in place to stop the virus’s spread could result in a summons or an arrest.

“Something absolutely unacceptable happened in Williamsburg tonite: a large funeral gathering in the middle of this pandemic,” the mayor said in one post. “When I heard, I went there myself to ensure the crowd was dispersed. And what I saw WILL NOT be tolerated so long as we are fighting the Coronavirus.”

 Chaim Deutsch, a City Council member who represents a section of Brooklyn with a large Orthodox Jewish population, reacted with anger and disbelief on Twitter, writing, “This has to be a joke.”

Mr. Deutsch wrote: “Did the Mayor of NYC really just single out one specific ethnic community (a community that has been the target of increasing hate crimes in HIS city) as being noncompliant?? Has he been to a park lately? (What am I saying - of course he has!)”

“But singling out one community is ridiculous,” he added in another post. “Every neighborhood has people who are being non-compliant. To speak to an entire ethnic group as though we are all flagrantly violating precautions is offensive, it’s stereotyping, and it’s inviting antisemitism. I’m truly stunned.”

Others pointed to the crowds that gathered across the region earlier in the day to watch a military flyover by pilots from the Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds that was meant to honor essential workers.

 

Coronavirus antibody tests have "really terrible" accuracy, researcher says

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/28/health/coronavirus-antibody-tests-terrible/index.html

Of the 12 antibody tests that were studied by the COVID-19 Testing Project, one of the tests gave false positives more than 15% of the time, or in about one out of seven samples. Three other tests gave false positives more than 10% of the time.

 

She said while it's unrealistic to think all tests will be 100% accurate all the time, their false positive rates should be 5% or lower, or ideally 2% or lower. 

 

 

Bern said one of the reasons for the high false-positive rates is relaxed requirements from the US Food and Drug Administration.

In mid-March, when it became clear that Covid-19 was starting to whirl out of control, the FDA loosened its approval standards in order to get more antibody tests out on the market quickly.

The agency started to allow companies to sell tests without first providing evidence that they worked. Some 175 test developers have taken advantage of these new rules and can legally market their antibody tests without first having their validation data evaluated by the FDA.

‘Life Has to Go On’: How Sweden Has Faced the Virus Without a Lockdown

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-herd-immunity.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

The Swedish Public Health Authority has admitted that the country’s seniors have been hit hard, with the virus spreading through 75 percent of the 101 care homes in Stockholm. Employees of the homes complain of shortages of personal protective equipment.

When responses are assessed after the crisis, Mr. Tegnell acknowledges, Sweden will have to face its broad failing with people over the age of 70, who have accounted for a staggering 86 percent of the country’s 2,194 fatalities to date.

That percentage is roughly on par with most other countries, but some critics here say the mortality rate among seniors could have been far lower with adequate preparation. In a letter to one of Sweden’s most prominent newspapers, Dagens Nyheter, 22 scientists accused the Public Health Authority of negligence.

“They tell people, stay home, but they also keep the restaurants open,” said Lena Einhorn, a virologist and one of the signatories of the letter. “They are advising people working in elderly homes only to wear masks when a patient is sick. Their policies are both ambiguous and rigid.”

Approval for Trump's Handling of Coronavirus Outbreak Sinks to Record Low

 https://www.newsweek.com/approval-trumps-handling-coronavirus-outbreak-sinks-record-low-1500651

President Donald Trump has received his lowest marks yet for his handling of the coronavirus outbreak, with net approval of his leadership on combating the pandemic down 22 points, according to a new Morning Consult poll.

Of 1,984 registered voters surveyed between April 24 and 26, 51 percent said they did not approve of Trump's handling of the outbreak, compared with 43 percent who said they did approve.

As a result, the net approval for Trump's performance, which is determined by deducting the share of those who disapprove from the share who do approve, sat 8 percentage points "underwater," Morning Consult said in a breakdown of its findings.

Republicans, Who Do You Think Is Bailing Out Your State?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/opinion/coronavirus-state-budgets.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

As negotiations over the next coronavirus relief package heat up, a key point of contention — perhaps the key point — is whether Congress will provide meaningful aid to struggling state and local governments.

Boiling down the politics: Democratic lawmakers favor the move. Many Republicans, including the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, do not. Some in the Trump administration have suggested that withholding aid is a great way to pressure states to reopen sooner rather than later. This is both cynical and destructive. Denying states a financial lifeline, even as Washington is showering trillions of dollars on the private sector, will only exacerbate the economic devastation that Congress is trying to mitigate.

 The idea of thrifty, self-sufficient red states propping up blue states has long been a Republican canard. In 2017, Paul Ryan, who was the House speaker, trotted out this line while pushing to repeal the exemption for state and local taxes as part of the tax package. (Ultimately, the deduction was merely capped.) “States that got their act together are paying for states that didn’t,” he claimed, and promised that his desired repeal would put an end to the rest of the country “propping up profligate, big-government states.”

 This claim was wrong then, and it is wrong now. To the contrary, a 2017 Associated Press analysis noted that “High-tax, traditionally Democratic states (blue), subsidize low-tax, traditionally Republican states (red) — in a big way.”

 In other words, Mr. McConnell’s state is effectively subsidized by blue states like New York and New Jersey. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York reminded Mr. McConnell of this during his Thursday news briefing. “Senator McConnell, who’s getting bailed out here?” the governor demanded. “It’s your state that is living on the money that we generate.”

World can’t agree on how to count COVID-19 deaths, muddying toll

https://www.timesofisrael.com/world-cant-agree-on-how-to-count-covid-19-deaths-muddying-toll/

Some countries list only those who die in hospitals, others include victims suspected of carrying the virus who were never tested

 

In the United States, which has the highest death toll in the world at more than 50,000, the counting method varies from one state to another: while New York counts deaths in care homes, California does not.

In the United States, there are an increasing number of complaints from people whose relatives have died, officially of pneumonia, before COVID-19 tests became available.

 

 

Hasidim clash with police in quarantined Beit Shemesh neighborhood

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hasidim-clash-with-police-in-quarantined-beit-shemesh-neighborhood/

A large crowd of Hasidim clashed with police in Beit Shemesh on Tuesday, three days into a government-mandated closure of two of the city’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.

Dozens of black-clad men screamed “Nazis” as law enforcement officers attempted to shut down Ateret Yehoshua Talmud Torah, an Orthodox elementary school in the Hasidic enclave of Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, which had remained open in violation of Health Ministry directives intended to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Sweden says its coronavirus approach has worked. The numbers suggest a different story

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-strategy-intl/index.html

Younger children have continued to go to school, although universities and schools for older students have switched to distance learning. Businesses -- from hair salons to restaurants -- have remained open, although people have been advised to work from home where possible.

On April 7, the government introduced a bill allowing it to act quickly and take decisions on temporary measures where needed. Care home visits were banned from April 1 and the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs asked people to refrain from non-essential travel, adding: "Keep your distance and take personal responsibility."

Among Nordic countries -- which share similar cultural, geographical and sociological attributes -- the contrast with Sweden is great. Finland declared a state of emergency, closed schools and banned gatherings of more than 10 people on March 16, restricted travel to and from its Uusimaa region on March 28 and closed restaurants, cafes and bars on April 1.

Jan Albert, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology at the Karolinska Institutet, told CNN: "It's clear that Sweden had more deaths [than many other European countries] up until now, and that's probably at least in part because we haven't had as strict a lockdown and not a lockdown enforced by law."

But he said he believed the majority of scientists in Sweden had been "relatively quiet" about the herd immunity plan because they thought it could work.

 

 

Asked whether the death toll would have been lower if Sweden had followed the same path as other European countries in introducing strict restrictions, Tegnell replied: "That's a very difficult question to answer at this stage. At least 50% of our death toll is within the elderly homes and we have a hard time understanding how a lockdown would stop the introduction of the disease into the elderly homes."

Whether Sweden's Covid-19 strategy has succeeded or failed may not be clear for months to come, but as countries across the globe count their dead and wonder whether they could have done more to halt the spread of the virus, the world will be watching.

Join - Jews come together to recite Psalms in memory of Israel's fallen

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/haredim-to-light-virtual-candle-for-soldiers-in-one-people-project-625987

In the framework of the project, participants can choose among the 24,000 soldiers who lost their life for Israel, learn about who they were and recite Psalms for them.

 

 Thousands of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Israelis are marking Yom Hazikaron (Remembrance Day) by lighting a virtual candle and reciting Psalms to honor the memory of fallen soldiers.

The project “One People – Loving and Remembering” features a special website where participants can sign up to read chapters of Psalms with the goal of completing the full book 24,000 times, as many as those who lost their lives fighting for Israel. In order to complete the task, everyone is invited to join (in order to join click here.)

Can COVID-19 cause heart inflammation in children?

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/279316

'Multi-system inflammatory state' noted in children who have coronavirus or may have suffered in the recent past, medical experts say.

 

The shuttered neighborhood next door: Touring one of Israel’s virus hotspots

https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-shuttered-neighborhood-next-door-touring-one-of-israels-virus-hotspots/

As life returns to something like normal for many Beit Shemesh residents like me, some of the town’s Hasidic residents find themselves under a government lockdown

 

Bnei Brak mayor thanks soldiers for their help during virus lockdown

https://www.timesofisrael.com/bnei-brak-mayor-thanks-soldiers-for-their-help-during-virus-lockdown/

“This is the place to express on our behalf, and on behalf of all the residents of our city, thanks, appreciation and esteem for the hundreds of IDF soldiers and their commanders from diverse and excellent units, for the high quality and welcome actions for the welfare of 210,000 residents during the difficult days of the coronavirus epidemic,” said Rubinstein, who initially opposed the quarantine restrictions.

 

Fact check: Trump repeats false claims and Pence misleads on previous testing comments

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/fact-check-trump-coronavirus-briefing-april-27/index.html

 President Donald Trump's Monday coronavirus news conference in the White House Rose Garden was shorter than usual and at least somewhat less acrimonious than many of the briefings he's held over the past month.

But Trump still made false and misleading claims, most of them repeats from past briefings. And Vice President Mike Pence accused a reporter of a misunderstanding about testing that Pence's own words had created weeks earlier.

Here are some fact checks from the briefing:

 

Trump returns to the stage with underwhelming testing promises

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/28/politics/donald-trump-testing-coronavirus-news-conference/index.html

Trump still thinks the best way to navigate out of the worst domestic crisis since World War II for which his administration has been exposed as unprepared and behind the curve is more Trump. But his routines of misrepresentation and overly optimistic assessments of the fight against the virus are doing little to build a convincing impression the President can find an exit strategy, or even is capable of keeping the nation heading in the same direction while one -- probably based on an elusive Covid-19 vaccine that is months away -- is found.