CDC Rushes Out Pandemic Guidance For Religious Worship After Surprise Trump Announcement

After weeks of butting heads with the Trump administration over pandemic guidance, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued guidance on Friday for the reopening of religious institutions.

"Gathering together for worship is at the heart of many faith traditions," reads a statement from the CDC.

"Because there are several published reports of COVID-19 outbreaks sparked by large gatherings, both non-religious and religious in nature, the recommendations released today will help guide faith communities while respecting their fundamental right to gather for worship."

Recommendations include;

Encouraging staff and congregants to wash their hands with soap and water

Providing hand sanitizer

No-touch trash cans

Encouraging the use of cloth masks

"Suspending or at least decreasing use of a choir/musical ensembles and congregant singing, chanting, or reciting during services,"

Daily disinfection

Social distancing

Limiting the sharing of objects such as books and hymnals

Identify an area to quarantine people with COVID-19 symptoms

If someone in a congregation is diagnosed with COVID-19, perform contact tracing and inform anyone with exposure to the person to stay home and self-monitor

Close off any area used by a sick person and do not use until it has been disinfected - which should be performed at least 24 hours later.

Designate a staff member to handle COVID-19 concerns

The revised guidance comes after President Trump told a Michigan roundtable on Thursday "I said, 'You better put it out,'" - one day before calling an impromptu press conference where he announced that places of worship would be deemed "essential," and called for their reopening.

Trump said that he would "override" governors who keep places of worship closed.

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/cdc-rushes-out-pandemic-guidance-religious-worship-after-surprise-trump-announcement>>9289910

Carrie Severino: Far-left Obama-appointed judge launches political attack on conservative Federalist Society

U.S. District Judge John McConnell is an unabashed liberal, big donor to the Democratic Party, and a longtime friend of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a far-left Democrat from the judge’s home state of Rhode Island. McConnell owes his job to Whitehouse, who asked President Barack Obama to nominate him to become a federal judge.

A recent CQ Roll Call investigation showed that McConnell gave about $500,000 to Democratic political committees before becoming a judge – more than any other judge nominated by Presidents Obama or Trump.

Why should you care? Because McConnell sits on the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the U.S. Judicial Conference. The committee sets ethical guidelines for federal judges and recently proposed barring these judges from membership in the Federalist Society, a network of conservative and libertarian law students and lawyers.

While the Committee on Codes of Conduct wants to keep federal judges from joining the Federalist Society, which does not lobby or take positions on issues, it has no problem with their membership in the liberal American Bar Association, which does.

The draft advisory opinion by the committee has been portrayed by its cheerleaders – Sen. Whitehouse being the most prominent – as a high-minded effort to remove politics from the courts. This sounds like a noble idea on its face. But the reality is that everything about the behind-the-scenes effort to implement the draft to bar judges from membership in the Federalist Society has been partisan and unseemly.

To say that Whitehouse has been obsessed with attacking the Federalist Society would be an understatement. For years he has been on a one-man mission to delegitimize the Federalist Society and its co-chairman, Leonard Leo.

So it was no surprise when last week Whitehouse led six other Democratic senators in penning a letter enthusiastically endorsing the draft advisory opinion seeking to keep judges from belonging to the Federalist Society.

Whitehouse’s buddy, Judge McConnell, is a key player in the effort to ban federal judges from being members of the society.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/carrie-severino-far-left-obama-appointed-judge-launches-political-attack-on-conservative-federalist-society