LifeSite’s previous (and future) live updates on the coronavirus crisis and how it relates to issues our readers care about can be viewed HERE.
Obamacare architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel – a bioethicist who thinks people should die at age 75 and is advising 77-year-old presidential hopeful Joe Biden on the coronavirus – predicted it will be at least 18 months before Americans are able to resume “conferences, concerts, sporting events, religious services, [or] dinner in a restaurant.”
“Realistically, COVID-19 will be here for the next 18 months or more. We will not be able to return to normalcy until we find a vaccine or effective medications,” he said. “I know that’s dreadful news to hear. How are people supposed to find work if this goes on in some form for a year and a half? Is all that economic pain worth trying to stop COVID-19? The truth is we have no choice.”
Ezekiel Emanuel is the brother of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
April 9, 2020, 4:18 p.m. EST: White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci now says Americans should adopt “compulsive hand-washing” and not shake hands “ever again.”
“I don't think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you,” Fauci said.
April 9, 2020, 3:12 p.m. EST: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has the coronavirus, is out of intensive care.
April 9, 2020, 10:21 a.m. EST: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has, for the first time in its history, cancelled its plenary assembly. It was scheduled to take place in Detroit in June.
April 8, 2020, 9:23 p.m. EST: Here are two other notable articles, one from yesterday and one from today:
- Tucker Carlson rips WHO emergency expert for call to raid homes, remove sick family members
- Despairing about the sacraments and COVID-19 just isn’t Catholic
April 8, 2020, 9:21 p.m. EST: Below are some of today’s LifeSite stories on the coronavirus and how it relates to issues dear to our readers:
- Numbers don’t line up: Case for panicking over coronavirus is falling apart
- In dealing with coronavirus panic, stick with what you know for sure
- Medical supplier cancels abortion provider’s order: ‘masks are for health professionals’
- Trudeau to fund abortion as part of $159 million pledge to fight COVID-19 overseas
- Coronavirus is proving how essential family is for survival
- BREAKING: US Homeland Security warns pandemic ‘stressors’ could trigger attacks on ‘houses of worship’
- Irish govt allows women to abort babies at home during pandemic, without seeing a doctor
- Politician calls for home abortions in Northern Ireland during pandemic
- Mainstream journalists have disgraced themselves covering coronavirus
- David Benham: coronavirus crisis is being used to shut down pro-life free speech
- China lies all the time. Why would we believe it about the coronavirus?
Here are three of today’s stories that are related to the Catholic Church:
- Spanish police shut down Palm Sunday Mass on church rooftop
- UK Catholic bishops suggest priests shouldn’t attend to dying faithful due to coronavirus
- WATCH: Sick woman in hospital begs priests to courageously minister to sick, dying
April 8, 2020, 6:47 p.m. EST: Trump began his daily coronavirus briefing by mentioning Holy Week:
This is a holy week when religious believers across the nation will observe Passover, Good Friday, and Easter. Millions of Jewish families begin Passover at sundown tonight – a sacred, unbroken tradition that traces back to the ancient land of Egypt and on Sunday, we celebrate our beautiful, wonderful Easter, which we all look forward to. And we’re going to have many Easters together in churches in the future – we’re getting closer. You see the numbers, we’re getting much closer to getting our country back to the way it was.
April 8, 2020, 4:22 p.m. EST: Two major stories have just broken. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to intervene in the legal dispute over Texas’ inclusion of elective abortions among the non-essential procedures being suspended during the coronavirus crisis.
A Department of Homeland Security letter obtained by Politico warns that once religious services resume, the potential for attacks on “houses of worship” may increase because of “stressors” related to the pandemic.
April 8, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A number of today’s early afternoon updates are not about the coronavirus itself, but its larger effects on civil society.
Canada is joining the U.S. in releasing prisoners over pandemic fears, although many of the prisoners released in Canada are accused of violent crimes and have not necessarily been convicted. In the U.S., sex offenders are among those who have been released.
The George Soros-funded Brennan Center for Justice has urged the governors of all 50 states to release as many prisoners as possible. “We urge you to grant the broadest relief to the largest group of people possible,” the group wrote in a letter.
According to White House coronavirus coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, anyone in the U.S. who has COVID-19 at the time of his or her death will be classified as having died of the virus. This will be done “regardless of any underlying health issues that could have contributed to the loss of someone’s life,” the New York Post explained.
2. It emphatically provides that doctors are to enter the COVID19 code when recording the cause of death even whether it may not be the main cause of death or is the suspected cause of death. It is the default code to be used.https://t.co/IMBkxcgyNo
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) April 8, 2020
Well, Dr. Birx just said it. Anyone in U.S. who dies with Covid 19, regardless of what else may be wrong, is now being recorded as a Covid 19 death.
— Brit Hume (@brithume) April 7, 2020
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says that his city is now only using about one-third of the ventilators it had anticipated it would need.
“By this point this week we thought we’d be seeing 300 or more people each day, more people each day, who needed a ventilator. Now it’s about 100 people more each day and that might even be going down,” he explained.
China, where the virus originated and whose communist government has apparently been lying about its infection numbers and literally burning patients alive, is now selling face masks to the highest bidder. It stockpiled “two billion before [the] crisis escalated,” The Sun reports.
Conservative pundit Matt Walsh has highlighted the story of a man in Colorado who was handcuffed in front of his six-year-old daughter for playing softball with her in an empty park.
A guy in Colorado was cuffed and arrested in front of his 6 year old daughter for playing t-ball with her in an empty park. People keep assuring me that we’re not living in a police state. Well tell me what a police state looks like if not like this.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) April 7, 2020
In another blow to the economy, the restaurant chain Logan’s Roadhouse has fired all of its employees, calling the coronavirus crisis “unprecedented.”
On Monday, National Review published an article praising Sweden’s measured response to the coronavirus, which has neither included draconian forced lockdowns nor economic decimation. The liberal Scandanavian country does not have a high coronavirus death toll or infection rate, either.
The Culture of Life Studies Program has given away $6,000 worth of pro-life homeschooling and educational materials for free during the pandemic. Some of its now-free materials, which include movie discussion guides, human development and history lessons, and bioethics information, can be found HERE.
Catholic author Dan Burke, formerly of EWTN, has a serious lung condition and was expecting to die from the coronavirus when he contracted it, but credits prayer with his miraculous survival and recovery.