Month: March 2020

President Donald Trump has spent many of his recent daily coronavirus press conferences bragging about his administration’s response, promoting unproven treatments, attacking the press, and suggesting he planned to stop recommending social distancing.

Sunday, he continued to do the first three things, but took a new and more sober stance on the timeline for ending social distancing — announcing plans to extend his support for the measure by one month.

“Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won. That would be the greatest loss of all,” Trump said. “The better you do, the faster this whole …

President Donald Trump boasted about the ratings of his daily live news conferences on the coronavirus Sunday, and suggested that the large viewer numbers — rather than the misleading remarks he has made during them — are fueling discussions in the media about ending the practice of broadcasting them live and unfiltered.

“Because the ‘Ratings’ of my News Conferences etc. are so high, ‘Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers’ according to the [New York Times], the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY,” Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon.

Days after President Donald Trump signed into law a $2 trillion coronavirus relief package, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has begun to argue additional congressional aid may not be necessary — even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is eyeing “phase four” of coronavirus relief.

“I’m not sure you need a fourth package,” McCarthy said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. Congress has passed three relief bills in the last several weeks.

“What concerns me is when I listen to Nancy Pelosi talk about a fourth package now, it’s because she did not get out of things that …

As Covid-19 continues its spread across the United States, health care providers across the country face a staggering lack of necessary equipment, with shortages in a federal stockpile of emergency medical equipment contributing to unequal distribution among affected communities, according to new reporting by the Washington Post.

While it is still not clear which communities are receiving more or less federal support — or how distribution decisions are made — the Post article suggests, anecdotally, that federal allocation of medical resources do not seem to target density of need, but rather the political makeup of affected communities.

According to …

Speaking on Meet The Press Sunday morning, former Vice President Joe Biden called for widespread invocation of the Defense Production Act to not only meet the need for ventilators but also to scale up production of “masks and gowns … and shields and all the things our first responders and doctors need.”

“Why are waiting?” Biden asked, “We know they’re needed.”

Speaking on Meet The Press Sunday morning, former Vice President Joe Biden called for widespread invocation of the Defense Production Act to not only meet the need for ventilators but also to scale up production of “masks and gowns … and shields and all the things our first responders and doctors need.”

“Why are waiting?” Biden asked, “We know they’re needed.”

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he’s considering an enforceable short-term quarantine in certain parts of the New York metro area after a conversation with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — a claim that Cuomo says he has no knowledge of.

“I just spoke with Andrew Cuomo, I just spoke with [Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis. We’re thinking about certain things. Some people would like to see New York quarantined because it’s a hot spot” of coronavirus cases, Trump told reporters on the White House lawn. “We might not have to do it, but there’s a possibility that some time …

President Donald Trump sent a Navy hospital ship — the USNS Comfort — to New York City Saturday afternoon, in order to help hospitals overburdened by coronavirus patients.

Speaking at Virginia’s Naval Station Norfolk, Trump said the ship will arrive in New York City on Monday. The hospital ship was “rushed through” scheduled maintenance in four days, according to Trump, and will augment health care efforts in New York, where more than 23,000 Covid-19 cases have been confirmed and at least 517 people have died, as of March 28.

During his remarks, Trump also suggested that the severity of New …

Thomas Coburn, Oklahoma politician and physician, died Saturday after a years-long battle with cancer. He was 72.

Coburn, a Republican who served in the House of Representatives and the Senate, was best known as a staunch fiscal conservative who hated and highlighted excess government spending. He refused to support bills that included what he saw as an abuse of taxpayer money, rarely backing down from those convictions even when they went against his own party, and did everything in his power to block them.

He became known as “Dr. No,” a moniker he earned up until the very end of …

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a molecular test that can diagnose novel coronavirus infections within a matter of minutes.

The test, created by Abbott Laboratories, is highly portable and can be used in a wide variety of settings, from hospital emergency rooms to urgent care clinics to physicians’ offices. The company says it expects to start shipping the kit out to health care providers next week, and that it will be able to deliver 50,000 tests a day by April 1.

Abbott’s coronavirus test will be run on its “ID NOW” platform, which is already used for rapidly …