Jerusalem's haredi schools return to nearly normal functioning

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/280547

Following the dramatic improvement in coronavirus infection rates in Jerusalem, the city's mayor, Moshe Lion, ordered the city's haredi schools to reopen nearly fully.

On Tuesday, Rabbi Yisrael Kellerman and Rabbi Avraham Bezalel, who are in charge of the city's haredi education resources and haredi education portfolio, respectively, presented the plan for reopening the schools.

The plan was made in coordination with rabbis, and in accordance with Health Ministry guidelines, and was approved by Lion.

Trump sows division and confusion as anxious country edges toward opening

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics/trump-coronavirus-response/index.html

 If America navigates its risky pursuit of a comeback without unleashing a vicious resurgence of coronavirus, it will be in spite of President Donald Trump, not because of him

 

But they will not be shepherded by a President offering advice on how to safely open, empowering his public health officials, or publicly shouldering the fear and concern of his compatriots.

 

 Trump, disdaining a mask and flouting the scientific advice of doctors, portrays himself as a warrior President standing up for Americans who believe liberal elites have leveraged the crisis to stifle freedoms and defeat their hero.

 

Trump's behavior in recent days flies in the face of every template of convening presidential leadership amid a crisis that will join the list of the greatest challenges in US history.

 

He and his son-in-law Jared Kushner and chief of staff Mark Meadows swept barefaced into the US Capitol for lunch with GOP Senators on Tuesday. The President's resolve will be tested on Wednesday when he heads to a Ford plant in Michigan. Managers have told the White House that masks are mandatory.

Pence's Doctor Disagrees With Trump's on Using Hydroxychloroquine to Prevent Coronavirus

https://www.newsweek.com/pences-doctor-disagrees-trumps-using-hydroxychloroquine-prevent-coronavirus-1505265

Vice President Mike Pence says he is not preemptively taking the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to ward off COVID-19 like President Donald Trump because his doctor does not recommend using the drug.

 

Michael Flynn's Attorney Files Emergency Appeal to Force Judge to Dismiss Charges Despite Guilty Plea

https://www.newsweek.com/michael-flynns-attorney-files-emergency-appeal-force-judge-dismiss-charges-despite-guilty-plea-1505252

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has asked a U.S. Appeals Court in D.C. to force the U.S. District Court judge overseeing his case to grant the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss his case.

 

President Trump Says America's 1.5 Million Coronavirus Cases Are ‘Badge of Honor’ for Testing

https://time.com/5839262/trump-badge-of-honor-coronavirus/

P resident Donald Trump said it’s “a badge of honor” that the U.S. has more than 1.5 million cases of coronavirus — the highest number of infections globally — saying the total is simply a reflection of a successful testing regime.

“I view it as a badge of honor, really, it’s a badge of honor,” Trump told reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday. “It’s a great tribute to the testing and all of the work that a lot of professionals have done.”

At least 91,000 Americans have died from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, since February. The U.S. has now performed more than 11.8 million tests for infection by the virus, according to the Covid Tracking Project, after the government experienced delays in getting tests developed and manufactured. The U.S. continues to face testing shortages and sets priorities for who gets one.

Contrary to Trump’s claim, U.S. testing levels aren’t extraordinary. The U.S. trails countries like the U.K., Italy and Germany in tests conducted per 1,000 people, Bloomberg data show. And the U.S. is finding a case for every 7.8 tests, far behind other countries like New Zealand, Australia and South Korea, who have to test far higher numbers of people to find a case, according to figures compiled by Our World In Data.

 

Cabinet approves further relief measures

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/280528

The Cabinet on Tuesday night approved a series of changes to the emergency regulations and lifted some of the restrictions that had been placed on the public as part of the fight against the coronavirus.

The prohibition of staying at a beach has been lifted, and from now on, staying at a beach will be possible in accordance with several guidelines, including maintaining physical distance between bathers.

The prohibition on prayer in a building was lifted as well. Prayer will be possible under restrictions that include up to 50 people in the building, while maintaining a distance of two meters between people, wearing masks and appointing a person who will be tasked with ensuring that the guidelines are followed.

The ban on operating a museum has been lifted as well. Operation of facilities or exhibits for children that can be touched will not be permitted in museums. Museums will adhere to the guidelines on the operation a public space, including allowing the entrance of one person per 15 square meters.

 

Mnuchin asked if workers should give their lives to increase GDP

Mike Pompeo's explanation for the firing of State's inspector general doesn't make sense

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/19/politics/mike-pompeo-steve-linick-state-department/index.html

 In the wake of the removal of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick by President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to quell the controversy in an interview with The Washington Post on Monday. He did the opposite.

"I went to the President and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn't performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to, that was additive for the State Department, very consistent with what the statute says he's supposed to be doing," Pompeo told the Post by way of "explanation" for his push to have Linick fired by Trump. "The kinds of activities he's supposed to undertake to make us better, to improve us."

 

OK. So, Pompeo -- according to Bulatao's explanation -- asked Trump to fire Linick because of leaks to the media about ongoing IG investigations that they had absolutely no evidence that Linick had been involved in? Uh, what?

 

Medical journal says Trump is 'factually incorrect' about when it first published coronavirus reports

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/19/politics/trump-world-health-organization-lancet/index.html

In a letter Monday to the director-general of WHO, Trump said that his administration's review of WHO's response to the outbreak found that the organization ignored "credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019 or even earlier, including reports from the Lancet medical journal."

"The World Health Organization failed to independently investigate credible reports that conflicted directly with the Chinese government's official accounts, even those that came from sources within Wuhan itself," he wrote.

The Lancet, however, said Tuesday "this statement is factually incorrect" and that it "published no report in December, 2019, referring to a virus or outbreak in Wuhan or anywhere else in China."

The Lancet said it first published reports on January 24, 2020. The first report described the first 41 patients from Wuhan, China, diagnosed with Covid-19. The Lancet noted that the lead scientists and physicians on the study were from Chinese institutions and "worked with us to quickly make information about this new epidemic outbreak and the disease it caused fully and freely available to an international audience."

 

Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman blasts 'anti-Semitic' article on IKEA opening

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/280478

Former Health Minister blasts claims that IKEA stores were given special permission to open because of owner's donations to Hasidic movement

Turning to the charges that he permitted the opening of IKEA stores because of the owners’ donations to the Gur movement, Litzman said the link was based on a number of false points.

“One, I don’t know Fisher. I know who he is, but we’re not acquaintances. Two, he isn’t a Gur Hasid. Three, am I supposed to know who donates to what? Four, I didn’t even know about [the donations] until it was reported. Five, the Health Ministry didn’t request this [the reopening of IKEA stores], it was the Finance Ministry that requested it. That’s front-page news? What should I think about such a report?”

 

Trump Says Fox News Isn't the Same and He's 'Looking for a New Outlet' after Host Warns Against His Medical Advice

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-fox-news-hydroxychloroquine-neil-cavuto-1504977

Donald Trump believes Fox News is "no longer the same" after host Neil Cavuto urged caution over the use of hydroxychloroquine, which the president is taking as a preventative against COVID-19.

The president criticized the network and said he is "looking for a new outlet" after Cavuto's message, in which he warned of potential risks of taking the drug for vulnerable groups.

Cavuto cited a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) study of the drug on veterans hospitalized with COVID-19, which saw a higher mortality rate among those treated with the drug alone. He said: "Those with vulnerable conditions, respiratory conditions, heart ailments, they died."

 

Partly false claim: President Trump signed Executive Order 13769, temporarily barring foreigners from entering the U.S. if they had been to China

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-trump-executive-order/partly-false-claim-president-trump-signed-executive-order-13769-temporarily-barring-foreigners-from-entering-the-us-if-they-had-been-to-china-idUSKBN21739V

Reuters could not find evidence of major media outlets or Democrats calling the "Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus" racist, xenophobic or bigoted. This line of criticism has been widely used to condemn the travel ban (Executive Order 13769) and its later iterations ( here ), but this travel ban never included China, supersedes the coronavirus outbreak, and its latest iteration issued in January 2020 was not part of Trump’s coronavirus response.

 

Coronavirus quarantine, travel ban could backfire, experts fear

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/04/coronavirus-quaratine-travel-110750

"This is a virus that happened to pop up in China. But the virus doesn’t discriminate between Asian versus non-Asian,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), a former emergency room physician who will preside over Congress' first hearing on the outbreak on Wednesday. “In our response we can’t create prejudices and harbor anxieties toward one population."

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday that widespread travel bans and restrictions weren’t needed to stop the outbreak and could "have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit." Union leaders separately called for a coordinated government response and warned authorities against profiling people of Asian descent while addressing the threat.

Trump, Biden Spin China Travel Restrictions

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trump-biden-spin-china-travel-restrictions/

 

Trump has repeatedly boasted, as he did on April 4, that “I stopped people from China very early — very, very early — from coming into our country.” On April 1, Trump said that “banning dangerous foreign travel that threatens the health of our people” was one of the actions his administration took that was “far earlier than anyone would have thought and way ahead of anybody else.”

ThinkGlobalHealth, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations, has been tracking the travel restrictions on China due to COVID-19. Its country-by-country analysis of the date and type of travel restrictions shows that in the days after the World Health Organization on Jan. 30 declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, 36 countries imposed travel restrictions, including the U.S., by Feb. 2.

“What this data shows is that the United States was neither behind nor ahead of the curve in terms of imposing travel restrictions against China,” a co-author of the tracker, Samantha Kiernan, a research associate on global health, economics, and development at the Council on Foreign Relations, told us via email.

“Taking this all together, what this data shows is that the United States was neither behind nor ahead of the curve in terms of imposing travel restrictions against China,” Kiernan said.

The United States announced its restrictions the day after the WHO declared a public health emergency, “and those restrictions came into effect two days later. However, to say the United States was one of the first countries to impose an entry ban on travelers from China would be incorrect,” she said. “By my count, roughly twenty countries and territories (Hong Kong) imposed entry bans similar if not more stringent than the U.S. ban prior to the United States imposing its restrictions.”

That contradicts the narratives of both Trump and Biden.