Pennsylvania's Wolf begins to feel pressure from fellow Dems over restrictions: report

Some Democrats in Pennslyvania are reportedly beginning to put some pressure on Gov. Tom Wolf about the state’s reopening process two months after his office issued a stay-at-home order.
The Philadelphia Inquirer pointed to a few recent instances where Democrats seemed eager to see bigger steps in the state's reopening, including a letter from State. Sen. Maria Collett that relayed some frustrations of residents in Montgomery County. 
The Tuesday letter informed Wolf that many in her county have seen little evidence that Wolf's administration “recognizes and sympathizes with the added physical,  emotional, and financial suffering they are facing as a result of  our prolonged stay-at-home conditions, which you know.”
Wolf has maintained that his top priority is safety, but like other states, residents have suffered financially from coronavirus guidelines.
About 2 million Pennsylvania residents have lost their jobs since mid-March. Food and milk giveaways draw long lines. Some people have gone two months without money because of the state’s problem-plagued online unemployment benefits portal.
“We’re making decisions based on the best information we have, and making the best decisions we can, based on the best models that are always changing and moving," Wolf said, according to PennLive.com.

The state is reportedly taking a county-centric approach. The PennLive report said 37 of the state’s 67 counties are in the yellow stage, which essentially means caution and mitigation. Eighteen counties are red, which means a stay-at-home order is in place.
President Trump recently talked about the state’s lockdown and said Pennsylvanians “want their freedom now.”
The paper reported that Wolf’s response to the coronavirus has been praised and “Democrats aren’t exactly defecting” but there is some pressure.  The paper reported that 16 Senate Democrats signed a letter recently for the governor’s office to consider permitting non-“life-sustaining” stores for curbside pickup.
“The truth of the matter is we do need to start thinking about getting people back to work," State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, a Democrat, said. "I really think we’re getting very close to that point. Curbside pickup is part of that question. I think that would really help get things moving again.”
Dr. Rachel Levine, Wolf’s health secretary, said the Health Department will soon release criteria for moving a county into the green phase of Wolf’s reopening plan.
“As we release the metrics to go into the green zone, we’re also working on what life in the green zone would (look) like, especially for businesses, restaurants, etc.,” Levine said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Barr says America's 'democratic values' are dependent on the US beating China in the 5G race

In a round table with the State Department Thursday, Attorney General William Barr emphasized the importance of the US beating China in the race for 5G telecommunications networks.
“The United States and our partners are in an urgent race against the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to develop and build 5G infrastructure around the world,” said Barr in a statement.
5G is expected to change the way people live and work by supplying a faster and more reliable internet connection - along with a host of technological advances such self-driving cars, smart cities and remote surgeries.
“Our national security and the flourishing of our liberal democratic values here and around the world depend on our winning it,” Barr said Thursday. “Future 5G networks will be a critical piece of global infrastructure, the central nervous system of the global economy.”
The race to achieving 5G first, is in developing infrastructure to allow 5G to work in the United States and allied countries.
Security officials warn that China may use the development of 5G and its infrastructure to be able to spy on people more easily.
“5G technology lies at the center of the technological and industrial world that is taking shape,” said Barr in a February speech addressing a conference on the security risks China poses.
“In essence, communications networks are not just for communications anymore. They are evolving into the central nervous system of the next generation of internet.”
Barr noted that telecom giants like Huawei are leading the 5G race, and currently account for 40 percent of the global 5G infrastructure market.
US intelligence officials have also said that the equipment made by Chinese telecom companies could possibly threaten national security.
“If the PRC [People’s Republic of China] wins the 5G race, the geopolitical, economic, and national security consequences will be staggering,” said Barr Thursday.
Huawei is known to have built equipment that preserves and shares private information to Chinese law enforcement officials, through a process known as “lawful interception interfaces.” US security officials believe this access could be shared on a larger scale with the Chinese government and put US intelligence in jeopardy.
But Barr said he believes the US could catch up with China’s 5G progress by working “closely with trusted vendors to pursue practical and realistic strategies.”
We can win the race, but we must act now.”

McConnell says Senate 'not quite ready' to craft new stimulus: 'It won't be a $3 trillion left-wing wish list'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told "The Story with Martha MacCallum" Thursday that the Senate is "not quite ready to intelligently" lay out the next coronavirus stimulus package, but added "it's not too far off."
"The [CARES] Act, which passed a month or so ago on a bipartisan basis, only about half of that money has gone out yet," McConnell said. "I think there's a high likelihood we will do another rescue package, but we need to be able to measure the impact of what we've already done, what we did right, what we did wrong [and] correct that.
"Let me tell you what it won't be," McConnell added. "It won't be a $3 trillion left-wing wish list as it passed the House."
The majority leader went on to say that lawmakers "need to work smart here, help the people who are desperately in need, try to save as many jobs as possible and begin to open up the states, which are decisions by the governors that are going on all over America now and get this economy growing again."
With that in mind, McConnell said any new stimulus package would not include enhanced unemployment benefits.
"The problem was by paying people more not to work than to work, it's making it difficult to get people back to work. You can understand that," McConnell told MacCallum. "We do need to continue unemployment insurance, [it's] extremely important at a time like this.
"But to pay people more not to work than to work doesn't encourage resuming your job. And that will end in July. And we think that in order to create jobs, we need to incentivize people to go back to work, not encourage them to stay home."
The senator also reemphasized the need for businesses to receive liability protections in any future stimulus.
"You're going to have liability protection in there so that people, or the plaintiffs' lawyers are prevented from stealing, in effect, all of this public money we're sending down to hospitals and doctors and non-profits as a result of the coronavirus," McConnell told MacCallum. "And so that's one of our red lines, that the next bill will need to have liability protection in there just to cover narrowly cover the coronavirus, not anything else."
McConnell also responded to criticism that such liability provisions would shield nursing homes and care facilities where coronavirus victims died from legal action
"Well, the answer is it wouldn't protect any nursing home from from a gross negligence or intentional misbehavior [claim]," McConnell said. "So it's not an absolute protection against any kind of behavior. So those kinds of lawsuits would still lie."

Trump blasts Michigan AG for 'viciously threatening' Ford for letting him tour plant without mask

President Trump blasted the attorney general of Michigan late Thursday after she said she was going to have a “very serious conversation” with Ford Motor Co. for allowing the president to go without a mask during part of a tour of the company's Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti.
“The Wacky Do Nothing Attorney General of Michigan, Dana Nessel, is viciously threatening Ford Motor Company for the fact that I inspected a Ventilator plant without a mask,” Trump tweeted after his tour. “Not their fault, & I did put on a mask. No wonder many auto companies left Michigan, until I came along!”
Trump did wear a mask for part of the tour of the plant that has been repurposed to make medical supplies, but refused to put it on in front of reporters -- although at least one photographer snapped a photo that was posted on social media. It showed the president wearing a mask that included the presidential seal.

President Trump holds his protective face mask as he speaks while touring Ford's Rawsonville Components Plant that has been converted to making personal protection and medical equipment, Thursday, May 21, 2020, in Ypsilanti, Mich. (Associated Press)

"I had one on before,” Trump told reporters during the visit. “I wore one on in this back area. I didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it. In the back area I did have a mask on. I had goggles and a mask right back there.”
He added it wasn’t necessary to wear a mask around reporters and Ford representatives in the front of the plant because “Everybody's been tested.”
Nessel told CNN the state would be speaking to Ford about allowing the president to go without a mask for the public portion of the tour in what she said was a violation of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive order requiring masks in enclosed public spaces.
"They knew exactly what the order was and if they permitted anyone, even the president of the United States, to defy that order, I think it has serious health consequences potentially to their workers,” Nessel told CNN.
She also said she was "ashamed" to have him as the president and she hoped Micigan voters voters "will remember this when November comes, that he didn't care enough about their safety, he didn't care about their welfare, he didn't respect them enough just to engage in the very simple task, the painless task, the easy task of wearing a mask when he was provided one."
Trump suggested in another tweet that Ford might leave Michigan if they’re held accountable for his actions.
“Do nothing A.G. of the Great State of Michigan, Dana Nessel, should not be taking her anger and stupidity out on Ford Motor - they might get upset with you and leave the state, like so many other companies have - until I came along and brought business back to Michigan. JOBS!”  he wrote.
When asked if it was true that it wasn’t required that the president wear a mask, Ford’s CEO, Jim Hackett, told reporters, “It’s up to him.”
In a statement Thursday afternoon, the Ford Motor Company added: “Bill Ford encouraged President Trump to wear a mask when he arrived. He wore a mask during a private viewing of three Ford GTs from over the years. The president later removed the mask for the remainder of the visit.” Bill Ford, the great-grandson of Henry Ford, has been the company’s executive chairman.
Nessel later responded to Trump on Twitter, defending the state's auto industry.
"Hi! After struggling with our Gov & SOS, impressed you know my name," she wrote. "Seems like you have a problem with all 3 women who run MI-as well as your ability to tell the truth. The auto industry has been thriving for years bc of our incredible auto workers & companies."
She added that it was hard to say she's done nothing "with all the lawsuits myself and the other @DemocraticAGs have filed and won against you."

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Kayleigh McEnany slams CNN's Chris Cuomo's use of 'less safe' drug to fight coronavirus

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday called out CNN’s Chris Cuomo for taking a “less safe version" of hydroxychloroquine during his recent bout with the coronavirus.
"You had Chris Cuomo saying, ‘The president knows that hydroxychloroquine is not supported by science. He knows it has been flagged by his own people and he has been using it.’ Well, Cuomo mocked the president for this,” McEnany said.
She then compared hydroxychloroquine -- which President Trump recently said he is taking to prevent catching the virus -- to the version that Cuomo claims to be using.
“Hydroxychloroquine, of course, is an FDA-approved medication with a long-proven track record for safety," she continued, "and it turns out that Chris Cuomo took a less safe version of it called quinine which the FDA removed from the market in 2006 because of its serious side effects, including death. So, really interesting to have that criticism of the president."
Cuomo’s wife, Christina Cuomo, recently addressed her husband's coronavirus recovery, explaining he’s taking “potenized quinine,” which she called a “natural antibiotic.”
On Monday, President Trump told reporters he has been using hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic against the coronavirus for a little more than a week.
Trump has been extolling the potential benefits of hydroxychloroquine since the beginning of the crisis, but medical experts and health officials have debated how effective the anti-malaria drug is for either preventing or treating the coronavirus.

'Shady backroom deal' could swing upcoming Nevada primary election, RNC tells state attorney general

Together with the Nevada GOP, Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Wednesday demanded the state investigate what she called a "shady" and potentially illegal "backroom deal" by local politicians that would alter voting procedures ahead of the state's all mail-in June 9 primary.

In a letter to Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, McDaniel and the state party charged that the Democratic-controlled Clark County Commission reached a secretive agreement with state Democrats that could have violated the state's open public meeting law. The RNC is specifically concerned that "Democrat Party bosses are now forcing Nevada’s largest county to waste over $300,000 of taxpayer money to mail ballots to all inactive voters."
That break in normal protocol, Republicans warn, would greatly enhance the risk of fraud. The money would also effectively finance some "ballot harvesters," or operatives who can retrieve scores of ballots from individuals and turn them in. Some states, including Nevada, ordinarily prosecute ballot harvesters; others permit the practice to varying degrees.
The Clark County District Attorney’s Office, on behalf of the Clark County Registrar of Voters, has filed a joinder that states: “At the direction of local county officials, the Clark County Registrar of Voters is setting up two additional election day voting sites and will mail absent ballots to all registered voters, including inactive voters, at additional expense.”
The new rules came just 48 hours before a trial was set to begin in a lawsuit filed by state Democrats against the Nevada secretary of state, which the RNC was contesting as an intervening party. As part of the lawsuit, Democrats demanded the suspension of provisions of Nevada law that enhance ballot verification.
Marc Elias, an ex-Hillary Clinton lawyer representing Nevada Democrats, specifically called for Nevada to stop throwing out ballots when signatures on voters' ballots appear different from those on voters' registrations, saying "lay election officials have never had the necessary expertise" to make an accurate determination.
Elias also demanded that Nevada "require mail-in ballots be sent to all registered voters in Nevada, not just those in an active status." Elias said that state election law doesn't distinguish between the two categories of voters. Further, Elias pushed for the state to suspend prosecutions for ballot harvesting, ostensibly for safety reasons during the pandemic.

Using some detective work, the RNC assessed that Nevada Democrats have already implemented some of those measures without disclosing them to the public.

Voters masked against coronavirus line up at Riverside High School for Wisconsin's primary election Tuesday April 7, 2020, in Milwaukee. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

"Some unspecified Clark County officials voluntarily decided after the suit was filed on April 16—but before the joinder was filed on May 4—to yield to part of the plaintiffs’ demands," the RNC wrote to Ford. "Yet between those two dates, the only advertised County Commission meeting where commissioners could have discussed those decisions occurred on Tuesday, April 21, 2020. And the agenda for that meeting provides no evidence that the commissioners addressed issues of additional in-person voting places or mail-in ballots during it."
"We respectfully ask you to investigate under NRS 241.039 whether the Clark County Commissioners violated Nevada’s open public meeting law when they decided, behind closed doors, to capitulate to the plaintiffs’ demands," the RNC added. "The Clark County Commission took costly, substantial action regarding the June primary without notifying, broadcasting, or allowing citizens to provide their input. To be complete, your investigation should examine not only which unidentified county officials made the decision referred to in Clark County’s joinder, but also when they made that decision, and whether they consulted with outside groups before doing so."
The RNC continued:" No doubt the governmental defendants in that case—including your office—exchanged emails throughout the weekend before Clark County filed its May 4 joinder. Some of those emails very likely disclose at least in part how Clark County’s decision unfolded. But whether focused on those emails or not, time is of the essence; actions taken in violation of the public meeting law are void, NRS 241.036, yet the primary is scheduled for June 9."
The furtive move to mail out more ballots was particularly troubling, the RNC said, citing a Fox News report that thousands of ballots have been sent out by the Clark County Election Department to inactive voters – those who have not voted in recent elections, a roster that can include people who either have moved or are deceased – and the envelopes are piling up in post office trays, outside apartment complexes and on community bulletin boards in and around Las Vegas.
HOW BALLOT HARVESTING HELPED DEMS ROUT GOP IN CALIFORNIA
The excess ballots have drawn complaints from local residents who worry that anyone could pick up a ballot off the street and cast a fraudulent vote, as well as from Republican Party officials in the state who see a nefarious motive behind the vote-by-mail system being employed by the Democrat-dominated Clark County Commission.

“What’s going to happen with these things, they’re not secured at all and there are thousands of them just sitting here,” Jenny Trobiani, a postal worker in Clark County, told Fox News that she has seen hundreds of ballots being mailed to inactive voters. “This just seems fraudulent to me, something stinks here."
Republicans have argued that many states fail to adequately clean up their voter rolls. Last year, California was forced to remove 1.5 million ineligible voters after a court settlement last year when California's rolls showed a registration of 112 percent.
"The Clark County commissioners’ decision to capitulate behind closed doors is bad enough, but that harm is compounded by the significant monetary costs of these secret changes," the RNC argued. "Ms. Lorena Portillo, Assistant Registrar of Voters of Clark County, affirmed in an affidavit that the cost for additional printers to be delivered and programed will be $138,997.50; the cost for mailing the additional ballots will be $184,738.01; and that '[b]ased on past experience, at least 90% of those' additional ballots 'will come back as undeliverable.' In other words, the additional costs Clark County taxpayers will incur based on the direction that Mr. Gloria received from unnamed county officials exceeds $300,000, with more than $166,000 to be spent on mailings that even county officials expect will not reach their intended recipient."
The RNC has taken aggressive steps to combat what it sees as an increasing risk of election fraud. Earlier this month, the RNC launched ProtecttheVote.com, a digital platform that the GOP says is part of its all-hands-on-deck effort to "protect against the Democrats' assault on our elections" as progressives push for sweeping changes, including vote-by-mail and more ballot harvesting, amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The launch comes after the RNC and Trump campaign doubled their legal budget to $20 million after an initial commitment of $10 million in February, saying they wanted to "fight frivolous Democrat lawsuits and uphold the integrity of the elections process."
“In battleground states across the country, Democrats are using the coronavirus as an excuse to push through their long-sought partisan agenda, but we are fighting back to protect the vote," RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement to Fox News. "The RNC will stop at nothing to ensure the integrity of our elections is upheld in the face of Democrats’ brazen assaults.  Americans deserve to have confidence in their elections, and we will not stand idly by while Democrats try to sue their way to victory in November.”

That was a message echoed by President Trump in a tweet last month: "GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD. THE USA MUST HAVE VOTER I.D., THE ONLY WAY TO GET AN HONEST COUNT!"

Illinois House votes to remove Republican rep from session for refusing to wear mask

A Republican state representative in Illinois was reportedly removed from a legislative session in Springfield Wednesday for refusing to wear a mask.
The Illinois House voted 82-27 to remove Rep. Darren Bailey for violating a newly adopted rule requiring masks for members, staff and visitors to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Democratic Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch made the motion for removal after Bailey refused to put on a mask when asked.

New Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, wearing a mask because of the coronavirus at State Capitol May 20, 2020, in Springfield. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune / Pool)

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Bailey showed a “callous disregard for life, callous disregard for people’s health” in his refusal.
“You just [ask] a doctor [to] tell you why people wear masks in the first place. It’s to protect others. So clearly, the representative is not interested in protecting others," he said.
Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin urged everyone to follow the new rule.
“We cannot ignore nor compromise the health and safety of every member of the General Assembly, their family members, every one of our staffers who works tirelessly for us,” Durkin said, according to the Tribune.
Other members were resistant to wearing masks but eventually complied.
"If we are required. I will play along," Republican state Rep. Chris Miller said, according to WMAQ-TV in Chicago. "I don’t want to be a distraction from the real issues of JB's Failed leadership."
Republican state Rep. Brad Halbrook agreed, “If the rule is adopted I will abide by it.”
Bailey sued the governor in April over Pritzker's extension of the state’s stay-at-home order. A judge ruled against him.
Earlier this month, Bailey told Fox News Pritzker is "trampling" the rights of Illinois residents with the continued coronavirus restrictions. "The law is not being upheld and that's our problem," he said
Bailey told reporters Wednesday he also refused to take a voluntary coronavirus test being offered to lawmakers before the session, WMAQ reported.

Doctors raise alarm about health effects of continued coronavirus shutdown: 'Mass casualty incident'

More than 600 doctors signed onto a letter sent to President Trump Tuesday pushing him to end the "national shutdown" aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus, calling the widespread state orders keeping businesses closed and kids home from school a "mass casualty incident" with "exponentially growing health consequences."
The letter outlines a variety of consequences that the doctors have observed resulting from the coronavirus shutdowns, including patients missing routine checkups that could detect things like heart problems or cancer, increases in substance and alcohol abuse, and increases in financial instability that could lead to "[p]overty and financial uncertainty," which "is closely linked to poor health."
"We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future health of our patients," the doctors say in their letter. "The downstream health effects ... are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error."
The letter continues: "The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.
"Because the harm is diffuse, there are those who hold that it does not exist. We, the undersigned, know otherwise."
The letter comes as the battle over when and how to lift coronavirus restrictions continues to rage on cable television, in the courts, in protests and among government officials. Those for lifting the restrictions have warned about the economic consequences of keeping the shutdowns in effect. Those advocating a more cautious approach say that having more people out and about will necessarily end with more people becoming infected, causing what National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci warned in a Senate hearing last week would be preventable "suffering and death."
But these doctors point to others that are suffering, not from the economy or the virus, but simply from not being able to leave home. The doctors' letter lists a handful of patients by their initials and details their experiences.
"Patient E.S. is a mother with two children whose office job was reduced to part-time and whose husband was furloughed," the letter reads. "The father is drinking more, the mother is depressed and not managing her diabetes well, and the children are barely doing any schoolwork."
"Patient A.F. has chronic but previously stable health conditions," it continues. "Her elective hip replacement was delayed, which caused her to become nearly sedentary, resulting in a pulmonary embolism in April."
Dr. Mark McDonald, a psychiatrist, noted in a conversation with Fox News that a 31-year-old patient of his with a history of depression who was attending school to get a master's degree in psychology died about two weeks ago of a fentanyl overdose. He blames the government-imposed shutdown.
"She had to stay in her apartment, essentially in house arrest as most people here in [Los Angeles] were for weeks and weeks, she could not see her therapist -- she could speak to the therapist over the phone but she couldn't see her in person. She could not attend any of her group meetings, which were helping to maintain her abstinence from opiates ... and she relapsed into depression.
"She was just too withdrawn to ask for help," McDonald continued before noting that due to regulations only six people could be at her funeral. "She was simply trying to escape from her pain... I do blame these actions by the government for her death."
Fox News asked McDonald, as well as three other doctors who were involved with the letter, if they thought the indirect effects of the shutdowns outweighed the likely direct consequences of lifting them -- the preventable "suffering and death" Fauci referred to in last week's Senate hearing. All four said that they believe they do.
"The very initial argument ... which sounded reasonable three months ago, is that in order to limit the overwhelmed patient flux into hospitals that would prevent adequate care, we needed to spread out the infections and thus the deaths in specific locales that could become hotspots, particularly New York City... It was a valid argument at the beginning based on the models that were given," McDonald said. "What we've seen now over the last three months is that no city -- none, zero -- outside of New York has even been significantly stressed."
McDonald is referring to the misconception that business closures and stay-at-home orders aimed at "flattening the curve" are meant to reduce the total number of people who will fall ill because of the coronavirus. Rather, these curve-flattening measures are meant largely to reduce the number of people who are sick at any given time, thus avoiding a surge in cases that overwhelms the health care system and causes otherwise preventable deaths because not all patients are able to access lifesaving critical care.

Dr. Mark McDonald is one of the doctors who signed onto a letter raising the alarm about health harms caused by coronavirus lockdown orders. (Courtesy/Mark McDonald) 

McDonald said that "hospitals are not only not overwhelmed, they're actually being shut down." He noted that at one hospital in the Los Angeles area where Dr. Simone Gold, the head organizer of the letter, works "the technicians in the ER have been cut by 50 percent."
Gold also said the effects of the shutdown are more serious for the vast majority of people than the potential virus spread if it is quickly lifted.
"When you look at the data of the deaths and the critically ill, they are patients who were very sick to begin with," she said, "There's always exceptions. ... But when you look at the pure numbers, it's overwhelmingly patients who are in nursing homes and patients with serious underlying conditions. Meaning, that that's where our resources should be spent. I think it's terribly unethical... part of the reason why we let [the virus] fly through the nursing homes is because we're diverting resources across society at large. We have limited resources we should put them where it's killed people."
People of all ages, of course, have been shown to be able to catch the coronavirus. And there have been reported health complications in children that could potentially be linked to the disease. Fauci also warned about assuming that children are largely protected from the effects of the virus.
“We don't know everything about this virus … especially when it comes to children,” Fauci said in a Senate hearing last week. “We ought to be careful and not cavalier.”
Newport Beach, Calif., concierge doctor Dr. Jeffrey Barke, who led the letter effort with Gold, also put an emphasis on the disparity in who the virus effects.
"There are thousands of us out there that don't agree with the perspective of Dr. Fauci and [White House coronavirus response coordinator] Dr. [Deborah] Birx that believe, yes, this virus is deadly, it's dangerous, and it's contagious, but only to a select group of Americans," he said. "The path forward is to allow the young and healthy, the so-called herd, to be exposed and to develop a degree of antibodies that both now is protective to them and also prevents the virus from spreading to the most vulnerable."

Dr. Simone Gold is a co-founder of A Doctor a Day, an organization dedicated to elevating the voices of doctors who disagree with the coronavirus shutdowns. (Courtesy/Simone Gold)

Dr. Scott Barbour, an orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta, reflected the comments the other doctors made about how the medical system has been able to handle the coronavirus without being overwhelmed, but also noted that the reported mortality rates from the coronavirus might be off.
"The vast majority of the people that contract this disease are asymptomatic or so minimally symptomatic that they're not even aware that they're sick. And so the denominator in our calculation of mortality rate is far greater than we think," he said. "The risk of dying from COVID is relatively small when we consider these facts."
Gold, an emergency medicine specialist based in Los Angeles, led the letter on behalf of a new organization called A Doctor a Day.
A Doctor a Day has not yet formally launched but sent the letter, with hundreds of signatures from physicians nationwide, to the White House on Tuesday. Gold and the group's co-founder, Barke, said they began the organization to advocate for patients against the government-imposed coronavirus shutdowns by elevating the voices of doctors who felt that the negative externalities of the shutdowns outweigh the potential downside of letting people resume their normal business.
To gather signatures for the letter, Gold and Barke partnered with the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a doctors' group that advocates for less government interference in the relationship between doctors and patients, and notably has taken part in legal challenges against the Affordable Care Act and advocated to allow doctors to use hydroxychloroquine on themselves and their patients.
Gold, in a conversation with Fox News, lamented that the debate around hydroxychloroquine has become politicized, noting that it is taken as a preventative measure for other diseases and that the potentially harmful effects of the drug mainly affect people with heart issues.
The drug is approved to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, but the Food and Drug Administration has said that "[h]ydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have not been shown to be safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID-19."
The FDA has also warned health professionals that the drug should not be used to treat COVID-19 outside of hospital or research settings.
Gold said she has direct knowledge of physicians who are taking hydroxychloroquine and said that although "we will see" about its efficacy as it is studied more, there have been some indicators that it could be effective at preventing or mitigating COVID-19 and she could therefore understand why doctors might take the drug themselves or prescribe it to their patients.
There is also other research that appears to indicate hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for the coronavirus, which has largely informed the consensus that the risks of the drug outweigh the potential benefits.
Gold, who is a member of the national leadership council for the Save Our Country Coalition -- an assortment of conservative groups that aim "to bring about a quick, safe and responsible reopening of US society" -- also said she was concerned that her message about the harms of shutdowns is becoming politicized. She said that she agreed with the general principles of the coalition and decided to sign on when asked, but hasn't done much work with it and is considering asking to have her name removed because people are largely associating her message on reopening the country with a conservative political point of view.
"I haven't done anything other than that," she said. "It's causing a big misunderstanding about what I'm doing so I actually think I'm just going to take my name off because it's not really supposed to be political."
Gold also said she is not associated with the Trump reelection campaign in any way, referring to her inclusion in an Associated Press story about the Trump campaign's efforts to recruit doctors to support the president's message on lifting coronavirus restrictions. The AP story details a call organized CNP Action, also part of the Save Our Country Coalition, which involved a senior Trump campaign staffer and was aimed at recruiting "extremely pro-Trump" doctors to make television appearances calling for the reopening of the economy as quickly as possible.
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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