Desantis spokesman sticks foot in mouth by stating facts, Mental Health on the decline, Zhang Zahn

#RonDesantis #FredPiccolo #CDC #KungFlu #WuhanVirus #WinniethePooh #NHS #MentalHealth #ZhangZhan

The spokesman for Florida governor Ron DeSantis has left Twitter after he posted an insensitive message in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

A search for the account of Fred Piccolo Jr. currently comes up empty on the social media site.

The deactivation of his account comes after he tweeted, 'I'm wondering since 99%. Of Covid patients survive shouldn't you have 99 photos of survivors for every one fatality? Otherwise you're just trying to create a narrative that is not reality.'

The tweet was deleted prior to the account disappearing from the website.

Before it was deleted, however, it was captured in a screenshot by WLRN reporter Danny Rivero.

'I’ve made people far angrier with other things in the past, this is just an observation that I think was worthy of consternation,' Piccolo said to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel before deleting his account.

'But I said this was going to be my Christmas gift to myself to get off of the medium, so I said let’s do it.'

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The Covid-19 pandemic could be the biggest hit to mental health since the Second World War, a leading psychiatrist has warned.

Dr Adrian James, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has said even when the virus is under control, there will be 'profound' long-term consequences.

He told the Guardian: 'It is probably the biggest hit to mental health since the Second World War.

'It doesn't stop when the virus is under control and there are few people in hospital. You've got to fund the long-term consequences.'

The deaths of loved ones from coronavirus, along with mass unemployment and the social effects of draconian lockdown are well documented.

Mental health charity Mind described the situation by Christmas as a 'mental health emergency', adding that '2020 has been a year of anxiety and uncertainty and more people need us than ever before'.

The charity said in November more people have experienced a mental health crisis during the coronavirus pandemic than ever previously recorded.

There was a 15 per cent increase in urgent referrals of people suffering mental health crises from March until July this year, and 2,276 more urgent referrals made in July 2020 than the same month last year, according to Mind.

Dr James' comments come as Britain's Covid crisis continues to swell, with millions more people in England facing Tier Four restrictions to control rapidly growing outbreaks.

Doctors fear that the NHS could be overwhelmed within days as hospital admissions surge due to the highly infectious Covid strain raging across the country.

The total number of patients in hospital with the virus is likely to exceed the peak from the first wave, with 21,286 coronavirus patients being treated on December 22 - the most recent day data is available for. In comparison, the figure on April 12 was 21,683.

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A Chinese citizen journalist who was arrested after 'reporting the truth' about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan was today jailed for four years.

Zhang Zhan, 37, has been found guilty of 'picking quarrels and provoking trouble' for her criticism of the Wuhan government's handling of the crisis at the peak of the outbreak.

Ms Zhang - the first citizen journalist known to have been tried - was among a handful of people whose firsthand accounts from crowded hospitals and empty streets painted a more dire picture of the pandemic epicentre than the official narrative.

Her lawyer Ren Quanniu said they will likely appeal her four-year sentence handed down at a court in Pudong, Shanghai.

Before the trial - which ended at 12.30pm local time - he said: 'Ms Zhang believes she is being persecuted for exercising her freedom of speech.'

Criticism of China's early handling of the crisis has been censored, and whistle-blowers, such as doctors, have been warned off speaking out.

State media have credited success in reining in the virus to the leadership of President Xi Jinping.

A New York-based human rights organisation earlier told MailOnline that Ms Zhang was being punished 'for doing exactly what the world desperately needed: reporting on the coronavirus from Wuhan'.

Home to some 11million people, the Chinese provincial capital caught international attention last December when coronavirus first broke out there before spreading around the globe, with at least 1.7 million reported deaths so far.

In Shanghai, police enforced tight security outside the court where the trial opened seven months after Ms Zhang's detention, although some supporters were undeterred.