'As though something has changed': Former WHO official says coronavirus not increasing in reopened areas

A former World Health Organization official said an increase in coronavirus cases is not happening in areas of the world that have reopened. Dr. Karol Sikora, an oncologist and former chief of the WHO's cancer program, joined Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on Tuesday evening to discuss the "strange" data. "It strikes me that as you look at all of the data all around the world where people have come out of lockdowns, things are actually going along quite nicely on the whole, and it's strange," he said. "It's as though something has changed, and none of us can explain why.” "We need to make a vaccine, of course," he added. "We need … to try to get one. But let's hope that we don't need to wait until we need to vaccinate 60% of the community because that could certainly take until next year."

Sikora then outlined three things that end a pandemic.

“The first, our behavior … how humanity reacts to it: social distancing, avoiding crowds, that sort of thing. The very fear that this virus inspires changes our behavior pattern,” he said. "The second thing is the virus itself, how it deals with the fact [of] increasing immunities out there in its host. And it's changing: The summer weather's come to Europe and North America. Things are moving on." "The third thing, of course, is what actually happens in terms of the fear factor and how we go into the autumn and see another wave," Sikora added. "I've heard all of the doom-laden theories. I'm an oncologist, I can't treat cancer patients properly because they're not coming forward for diagnostic service at the moment, so I am incentivized to get things moving."

Sikora’s comments come after President Trump threatened to end funding to the WHO permanently over its response to the coronavirus. Trump sent a letter to Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus this week, saying: "I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organization that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America's interests."

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/as-though-something-has-changed-former-who-official-says-coronavirus-not-increasing-in-reopened-areas

Pelosi announces start of proxy voting in House

Speaker Nancy Pelosi Wednesday sanctioned remote voting for the next 45 days due to the coronavirus outbreak. The move follows a House vote Friday that changed the 230-year-old rule requiring lawmakers to vote in person. The new rule authorizes each lawmaker present in the House chamber to vote in place of up to 10 absent colleagues.

House Republicans opposed the rule change. The GOP-led Senate has been in session since early May and has not approved proxy voting. The House will hold votes late next week, and it will mark the first time since the body convened in 1789 that lawmakers can vote while absent from the chamber. The rule change is supposed to remain in place only during the coronavirus outbreak. Pelosi, a California Democrat, can renew it after 45 days.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/congress/pelosi-announces-start-of-proxy-voting-in-house

White House counsel advised Susan Rice to write memo on Oval Office discussion about Michael Flynn

Obama national security adviser Susan Rice wrote an email to herself detailing an early January 2017 Oval Office meeting pertaining to the incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, at the guidance of the White House counsel. The email, which was fully declassified and released on Tuesday, describes a Jan. 5 discussion in the Oval Office. The newly revealed portion of the memo Rice sent to herself on President Trump's Inauguration Day showed then-President Barack Obama and then-FBI Director James Comey discussing the bureau's investigation into Flynn and the apparently suspicious frequency with which the retired lieutenant general made contact with a Russian envoy during the transition period. Erin Pelton, a spokeswoman for Rice, confirmed to Fox News on Wednesday that Rice drafted the memo at the advice of Neil Eggleston, who was the White House counsel. This echoed what Rice's attorney said in a 2018 letter to GOP senators.

“Given the importance and sensitivity of the subject matter, and upon the advice of the White House Counsel’s Office, Ambassador Rice created a permanent record of the discussion,” Rice's attorney, Kathryn Ruemmler, wrote. “Ambassador Rice memorialized the discussion on January 20, because that was the first opportunity she had to do so, given the particularly intense responsibilities of the National Security Advisor during the remaining days of the administration and transition.” Still, the memo, which was mostly unredacted prior to Tuesday, has raised questions about why Rice would send herself the note in the final hours of Obama's presidency.

K.T. McFarland, who was a deputy of Flynn's during his brief tenure as national security adviser, told Fox News on Tuesday that sending the memo to herself was an "odd thing to do." “Why would you write a memorandum to the record for yourself unless you assumed that somebody was going to come and look for those clues, that somebody was potentially going to come after the fact and see that they’ve done something wrong?” McFarland said.

In the newly revealed portion of the memo, Rice wrote that Comey insisted to the outgoing president that the Flynn investigation was being conducted "by the book" and raised concerns about the incoming national security adviser despite not having any evidence that Flynn shared classified information with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. "Director Comey affirmed that he is processing ‘by the book’ as it relates to law enforcement. From a national security perspective, Comey said he does have some concerns that incoming NSA Flynn is speaking frequently with Russian ambassador Kislyak. Comey said that could be an issue as it relates to sharing sensitive information," Rice wrote. "President Obama asked if Comey was saying that the NSC should not pass sensitive information related to Russia to Flynn. Comey replied ‘potentially.’ He added that he has no indication that Flynn has passed classified information to Kislyak, but he noted that ‘the level of communication is unusual.’" After the email was declassified by acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and released by GOP senators on Tuesday, Pelton said Rice "welcomes the release" of the email in its entirety and called for the disclosure of the transcripts of Flynn's conversations with Kislyak.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house-counsel-advised-susan-rice-to-write-memo-on-oval-office-discussion-about-michael-flynn

CDC Director Robert Redfield's job in jeopardy over coronavirus handling

Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is reportedly in the hot seat as the Trump administration has seemingly grown tired of his handling of the coronavirus. Rumors that members of the White House are growing increasingly tired of Redfield grew louder over the weekend when White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who is also coordinator of the Defense Production Act response, said that the CDC had "let the country down" with regard to coronavirus testing in the beginning of the pandemic. President Trump has also privately derided the CDC, but he did not single out Redfield during his Tuesday lunch meeting with Republican senators on Capitol Hill, sources familiar with the discussion told CNN.

While one official said no change to Redfield's role is imminent, another indicated that the White House has had informal conversations about potentially replacing him at the helm of the CDC, the outlet reported. Redfield told colleagues as recently as last week that he didn't believe his job was on the line but grew concerned over the weekend that he has a target on his back, according to CNN. He has recently clashed with Dr. Deborah Birx, a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, who took issue with the way the CDC gathers data on the coronavirus, arguing that its process is antiquated and causes inaccurate and delayed numbers on both COVID-19 cases and deaths. “There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust," Birx reportedly said, arguing that the CDC's tracking data might be inflating figures, such as the mortality rate, by as much as 25%.

During his Tuesday luncheon, Trump briefly criticized the CDC for the slow rollout of adequate testing but also touted the increased production of testing that is now widely available, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, said. He “covered lots of topics,” and “one-half of one line” was about the initial CDC coronavirus tests that failed in February. “I would not call that as quite critical. I would call that a kind of observation that everybody else has made. But then he spoke about how many tests we have now," Cassidy said.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cdc-director-robert-redfields-job-in-jeopardy-over-coronavirus-handling

>>9254675

Indeed, proof positive it was never about the virus. Fear Panic over Election 2020.