COVID-19
Canadian Broadway star & actor Nick Cordero loses leg, fights for life in LA hospital

The corona virus pandemic has been a beast and nightmare for millions of people, family members, health workers and more around the world.
For Hamilton-raised Broadway star Nick Cordero, his wife theatre stage dancer, personal fitness trainer Amanda Kloots and their 10-month-old son, Elvis, this deadly virus has been especially cruel for weeks now.
Cordero has been on life supported ventilation since early April. He has now had his right leg amputated on Saturday night after developing an infection in intensive care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Cordero has had many complications during his weeks long fight with the coronavirus.
Cordero was being treated with blood thinners to help with clotting and blood circulation in his right leg. His doctors had to stop that part of his treatment because the blood thinner started causing internal bleeding.
“We took him off blood thinners but that again was going to cause some clotting in the right leg, so the right leg will be amputated today,” Amanda Kloots’ Instagram post Saturday afternoon
Cordero has been a very active, healthy actor, performer, father and husband before he was struck down with Covid- 19. He was first admitted with what the doctors thought was pneumonia, he was tested twice for the virus and both were negative. As his condition worsened the doctors ordered a third test and it came back positive for Covid- 19. There is currently no known cure for this pandemic virus that has killed over 166,000 people world-wide.

Nick Cordero with the national tour of Rock of Ages. Photo Courtesy/Production Still/Cordero Family
Aside from being on life support, his doctors have also had him on dialysis treatments to support his kidneys, while also battling other complications for almost 3-weeks now.
Since his positive test, Kloots has not been allowed to visit her now fragile husband in hospital. Being isolated at home she has kept her family, friends and Nick’s fans up-to-date on social media through her Instagram account, www.instagram.com/amandakloots
- “I know Nick is surrounded by angels right now.”
- “I got a phone call from the hospital saying that Nick made it out of surgery alive and he is headed to his room to rest and recover! AMEN!”
- “He is hearing us!!! He is hearing the support, the love and your voices every day. I just know it.”
Nick Cordero in Rock of Ages.
- “I really needed to move today, to scream, to head bang, to spin, to jump, to sing and dance! I was a nervous wreck the whole day as Nick was in surgery just waiting by the phone to hear he got through it. HE DID!”
- “Thank you God for watching over him and for the incredible doctors and nurses @cedarssinai hospital!”
- “Nick and I met while performing in the Broadway show, Bullets Over Broadway. Let me tell you something about the Broadway community: They are thick as thieves. They are relentless. They are believers!! You can’t stop an artist from creating or wanting to help.”
- “We came out to LA so that Nick could perform in Rock Of Ages, a Broadway show that was making its Hollywood Blvd debut. His cast, including this man @frankiejgrande, have embraced us and Nick the whole way through. They are angels that have proven to me that “Don’t Stop Believing”
- Posted Sunday April 19th; Part of our wedding dance ❤️ that our friends @swaywithmeny choreographed for us. I love dancing with you @nickcordero1 and we WILL dance again. Link to video of the wedding dance.
First published on April 18th and updated on April 19th.
COVID-19
Freedom Convoy leader slams Canadian gov’t agency for praising its treatment of protesters

From LifeSiteNews
Tamara Lich begs to differ with the Department of Public Safety’s claim that it acted with high ‘moral’ standards during the Freedom Convoy protests.
Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich is calling out Canada’s Department of Public Safety for “lies” after it boasted via an internal audit that it acted with a high “moral” standard in dealing with the 2022 protest against COVID mandates.
Lich made the comments on X earlier this week regarding a recent Department of Public Safety internal audit that heaped praise on itself for having “ethics” as well as a “moral compass” in dealing with the 2022 protesters.
The reality is that the self-boasting report comes after it was made known the Department of Public Safety had a role in spreading false claims that the Freedom Convoy was violent and was somehow funded by Russia.
As reported by Blacklock’s Reporter, the audit did not mention the false claims it made against the Freedom Convoy, which were used to allow then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to impose the Emergencies Act (EA) to clear out the protesters.
Indeed, in 2023, as reported by LifeSiteNews, disclosed records showed that Canada’s Department of Public Safety fabricated a security bulletin that claimed the Freedom Convoy protesters had plundered federal office buildings in an apparent attempt to discredit the movement.
The fake bulletin was sent out on January 28, 2022, at 3:54 p.m. and read: “We have received confirmation that protesters have started to enter office buildings in the Ottawa downtown core and are allegedly causing damage.”
The department’s recent boasting about itself, however, claimed that “(v)alues and ethics serve as a moral compass, guiding and establishing benchmarks for behaviour, decisions, actions and culture within organizations, including the public sector.”
“Federal public servants have a duty to preserve public trust and uphold a professional, non-partisan public service,” the internal audit noted.
Lich: Trudeau officials spread ‘lies, misinformation, disinformation, and division nationwide’
Regarding the recent audit, Lich noted that the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) hearing, which was tasked with investigating Trudeau’s use of the EA to crush the Freedom Convoy in mid-February 2022, “showed no violence or threats to national security during the 2022 Freedom Convoy.”
“It revealed a cycle between media and law enforcement, each repeating unverified talking points from the other. Despite widespread support along highways, overpasses, and communities, the CBC and other taxpayer-funded media missed an opportunity to unite Canadians,” she wrote.
Lich believes that Trudeau’s governmental departments “instead” spread “lies, misinformation, disinformation, and division nationwide.”
“Consequently, some of us face regular death threats, hate mail, threats of violence, and public harassment,” she wrote.
“Thankfully, we receive much more love and support, but the damage is done, which is exactly what they were aiming for.”
The sentencing trial for Lich and fellow Freedom Convoy leader Chris Barber took place in July at a hearing. Earlier this year, they were found guilty of mischief in their roles in the 2022 convoy.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, Lich revealed that the Canadian federal government is looking to put her in jail for no less than seven years and Barber for eight years.
A sentencing hearing has been scheduled in their case for October 7 in Ottawa.
The Freedom Convoy protest took place in early 2022 in Ottawa and featured thousands of Canadians calling for an end to COVID mandates.
In response, Trudeau’s federal government enacted the Emergencies Act on February 14, 2022, to shut down the popular movement.
Trudeau had disparaged unvaccinated Canadians, saying those opposing his measures were of a “small, fringe minority” who hold “unacceptable views” and do not “represent the views of Canadians who have been there for each other.”
Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23 after the protesters had been cleared out.
COVID-19
Why FDA Was Right To Say No To COVID-19 Vaccines For Healthy Kids

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The FDA’s decision not to authorize COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children has drawn criticism. Some argue: If parents want the shot, why not let them get it for their kids? That argument misunderstands what FDA authorization means — and why it exists.
The FDA often approves drugs that carry risks or have imperfect evidence of effectiveness. This is a tradeoff we sometimes accept for people who are ill: when someone is already sick, the alternative is untreated disease. Vaccines are different. They are given to millions of healthy children. This requires a higher standard, not just evidence for safety and immune response, but clear, durable clinical effectiveness. Approval for optional use isn’t neutral; once the FDA authorizes a vaccine, it carries the full weight of institutional endorsement.
Measles provides an example for how the FDA approaches vaccine approvals. Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, the U.S. saw 3 to 4 million infections, ~48,000 hospitalizations, ~1,000 cases of encephalitis, and 400-500 deaths each year. Infants bore the brunt of the most severe outcomes.
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That created a natural instinct: why not vaccinate the youngest and most vulnerable? The initial measles rollout was to 9-month-olds, but within two years that timing was changed to children who were at least 1 year of age. This was not because younger babies were not at risk or that the vaccine was riskier for them, but because it just didn’t work well enough to justify a universal campaign.
The knowledge of the particular risk younger infants face has led to continued research on the effectiveness of measles vaccination in that group. A 2023 trial of the combined measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine in infants aged 5-7 months, and subsequent safety and immune studies in 2024 and 2025, produced consistent results—safety and the ability to generate antibodies were demonstrated, but a durable response and protection against hospitalization were not.
That is why the FDA does not approve MMR for routine use in healthy children younger than 12 months of age. It is also precisely why getting back to herd immunity for measles is so essential: the youngest infants can only be protected if the rest of us are immunized.
What’s the evidence for COVID-19 vaccination in infants and children? It generates robust antibodies, often higher than in adults. But clinical benefits are modest, short-lived, and inconsistent. It is nowhere near the level of proof U.S. regulators require before making a vaccine universally available to healthy kids.
Some argue that even if benefits are modest, parents and pediatricians should be free to choose. But FDA authorization is not about personal preference; it is a stamp of approval for more than 70 million healthy children. Statistical safety is not enough. At that scale, even rare risks mean real harm to real children. COVID-19 vaccines were originally authorized in the hope that immune responses would translate into population-level benefits. For healthy children, the initial optimism sparked by early encouraging signals has steadily given way to three years of disappointing clinical results.
The lessons from measles are clear: safe but minimally effective isn’t enough. We don’t authorize MMR for 5-month-olds, even to parents who might want their children to get it. COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children should be judged similarly. This is not because there is a lack of any benefit, but because it doesn’t rise to the level we use for other vaccines. Only if and when proof of clinical effectiveness becomes available should authorization be reconsidered. At this time, the FDA is right to say no.
Monique Yohanan, MD, MPH, is a senior fellow at Independent Women, a physician executive and healthcare innovation leader, and Chief Medical Officer at Adia Health.
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