Dr. Fauci Warns “Worst Is Yet To Come”: Coronavirus Is “10x More Lethal Than The Flu,” Could Infect “Millions” Of Americans

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Summary:

  • First death in Indonesia

  • Washington State to ban events over 200

  • ‘Waffle House’ employee in Atlanta confirmed

  • Chicago cancels St. Paddy’s Day parade

  • NY sends in National Guard

  • IADB cancels meeting in Colombia as virus spreads across Latin America

  • Mnuchin says first part of virus stimulus plan will be ready in 2 days

  • Dr. Fauci warns virus 10x more deadly than flu and could infect millions if not handled early

  • FEMA evacuates Atlanta office over coronavirus scare

  • 3 Boeing workers test positie

  • Washington DC advises cancellation or postponement of all gatherings with more than 1,000 people

  • Harvard to prorate room and board for students

  • US cases surpass 1,000

  • UK Health Minister catches virus

  • Ireland, Bulgaria, Sweden report first deaths

  • UK total hits 456 following largest daily jump on record (83 new cases)

  • Global cases pass 120,000

  • South Korea reports new outbreak in call center

  • Japan reportedly planning to declare state of emergency

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Update (1220ET): Three Boeing workers have tested positive for the virus, the company said. Though Boeing offered few details, we suspect the employees are probably based in Washington State, where Boeing builds its planes.

In Washington DC, authorities are recommending the cancellation or postponement of all “non-essential” gatherings over 1,000.

As students leave campuses around the country either heading back home or hunkering down finish their classes on line, Harvard just announced that it would “pro-rate” students’ room and board.

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Update (1220ET): With the committee in charge of the Tokyo Olympic Games reportedly planning to suggest that the games be delayed, more images of the coronavirus fears’ impact on international travel are circulating online. Check out this.

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Update (1200ET): The CDC has released its latest batch of “confirmed” US figures: 29 deaths, 987 cases and cases confirmed in 39 states as of 10 pm last night.

  • U.S. CDC – 39 STATES HAVE REPORTED CASES AS OF MARCH 10 AT 4 PM ET VS PREVIOUS REPORT OF 36 STATES

  • U.S. CDC – 29 TOTAL DEATHS DUE TO NEW CORONAVIRUS AS OF MARCH 10 AT 4 PM ET VS 25 DEATHS AS OF PREVIOUS REPORT

  • U.S. CDC REPORTS ITS COUNT OF 987 CASES OF NEW CORONAVIRUS AS OF MARCH 10 AT 4 PM ET, VS PREVIOUS REPORT OF 696 CASES

Around the world, the virus has produced many “isn’t it ironic?” moments, and we just got another in the US when FEMA announced that it would close its Atlanta office after an employee was exposed to the virus.

  • FEMA ATLANTA OFFICE CLOSED AFTER EMPLOYEE EXPOSED TO VIRUS

Over in the UK, a total of 456 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 9am on Wednesday, up from 373 at the same point on Tuesday, the Department of Health said. The jump of 83 new cases is the largest daily jump yet, following the previous ‘largest daily increase’ by only a few days.

Six have died in the UK and tested positive for the virus. Over in Ireland, authorities reported their first death on Wednesday. A 66-year-old Bulgarian woman also succumbed to the virus in the Balkan state, marking the first death there as well.

After the UK Health Minister Nadine Dorries tested positive for the virus, and started showing symptoms on Thursday, the same day she attended an event with the prime minister. Though the UK has elected to keep parliament open, Dorries and a Labour lawmaker who may have been exposed via a meeting with Dorries have decided to self-quarantine.

UK Chief Medical Officer Catherine Calderwood stressed that “we are still in the containment phase” despite an increased number of Covid-19 cases.

She said: “We have identified the first case of community transmission in Scotland which is unrelated to contact or travel. This was identified through our enhanced surveillance scheme.

Sweden has reported its first death from the coronavirus today, with a hospital in Stockholm saying an elderly patient had died in intensive care. Belgium has reported its first three deaths, with 314 cases of coronavirus. Ivory Coast has confirmed its first case of coronavirus, a 45-year-old Ivorian man who had recently travelled to Italy, the health ministry said in a statement. Denmark confirmed a batch of new cases, raising its total to 442.

While Washington State is apparently planning to ban all events with over 250 people, Washington DC has advised citizens to avoid such gatherings.

While

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Update (1150ET): Rencap’s Charlie Robertson points out that it took 5 days since the first indication of human-to-human transmission happening at a wide scale in the US, and if our numbers track Germany’s, we should have 3,000 cases confirmed by Friday, and 6,000 by Monday.

Though that rate could double if many new clusters are discovered.

CAP

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Update (1100ET): With another day of non-stop breaking news headlines about the outbreak as it spreads across the US, Europe and Latin America, we’ve been having troubled keeping up.

Switzerland reported 148 new cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, with 645 cases in total, 58 cases in Zürich and 78 cases in Geneva.

Indonesia, an Asian nation that didn’t report its first case until more than a month after the global outbreak began reported its first death linked to the virus on Wednesday as well.

National Guard troops have been deployed to a Health Department command post in New Rochelle. Chicago has followed San Francisco and cancelled its St. Patrick’s Day Parade. In NYC, schools will not close, but parent-teacher conferences will be held via phone.

An employee at a ‘Waffle House’ in Metro Atlanta (Cherokee County) has tested positive for the virus, raising fears about a mass outbreak in Georgia. The store has been closed and 12 employees are quarantining and will continue for a few more days.

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The Inter-American Development Bank postponed its annual meeting in Colombia, which had been scheduled for next week, over coronavirus fears as the virus spreads across Latin America. The Washington-based bank, the top development institution dedicated to Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the decision with Colombian President Ivan Duque on Tuesday evening.

With transports and financials leading equities lower on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who testified to Congress on Wednesday tried to offer some reassuring details about the White House plan, which remains very much in the ‘brainstorm’ phase. Still, Mnuchin insisted that Trump is standing by the payroll tax holiday to put more money in the hands of workers. The Treasury is also hoping to delay tax payments and leave $200 billion of “temporary liquidity” in the hands of Americans.

Mnuchin said the White House hopes to strike a deal on the first part of the virus stimulus plan within the next 48 hours. His testimony follows rumors about the administration offering a potential ‘bailout’ to the American shale energy industry. Other stimulus actions will take “a week or two” he added.

Importantly, the Treasury Secretary also insisted that no market interventions are being planned (so no PPT?).

In remarks on Tuesday, CDC Director Robert Redfield said that America had lost valuable time tracking the virus; some regions now can merely try to cope with its spread rather than stop it. And during testimony on Wednesday, Dr. Fauci said that when it comes to the outbreak in the US, “the worst is yet to come” because the virus is “10x more lethal than the seasonal flu”.

If the US doesn’t handle the virus outbreak correctly, “many, many millions of people” will get the virus, he said.

The global coronavirus outbreak has hit a new milestone: It surpassed 120,000 cases overnight. For anybody who’s still bothering to keep track, that’s 15x the number of cases from the SARS outbreak, which continued for nearly a year before it finally petered out.

In the US, the coronavirus outbreak has reached a grim new milestone. Thanks to the administration’s scramble to bring dozens of private and public labs on-line for testing across the country, the CDC has managed to confirm more than 1,000 cases of the virus. In the Westchester County town of New Rochelle, the epicenter of the outbreak in New York State, and the largest on the east coast, woke up to a 1-mile exclusion zone and national guard soldiers in the streets.

The town now looks like a “ghost town” according to several reports.

As the number of cases topped 1,000, the number of deaths has also climbed: Officially, there are 31 deaths and 1,039 confirmed cases, according to the Washington Post, which is significantly more than the number confirmed by Dr. Anthony Fauci during last night’s press conference.

Across the US, Washington State’s King County remains the epicenter of America’s worst outbreak, with 273 cases . New York is No. 2 with 176 (13 additional cases have just been announced). After hinting about ‘mandatory measures’ last night that set tongues wagging about the possibility of Italy-style travel restrictions, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is reportedly planning to announce a plan to…ban all events with more than 250 people, according to MyNorthwest.

At a press conference scheduled for Wednesday at 10:15 a.m., it is expected that Gov. Jay Inslee along with regional leaders and city mayors could announce a ban on large gatherings and events of 250 people or more in at least three counties. Any ban would affect upcoming sporting events in the area, including a home game for the XFL’s Seattle Dragons on Sunday.

Inslee has been hinting at this for the past week as a possible preemptive move to curb the spread of coronavirus. Over the weekend, he stated that his office was considering enacting “mandatory measures” in the days ahead.

Monday night on MSBNC, the Washington governor spoke to Rachel Maddow, admitting that soon, the state was “going to have to make some hard decisions.”

He further elaborated on that point during a Tuesday press conference, when he cited the need to “look forward ahead of the curve in Washington state.”

“We need to look at what is coming, not just what is here today,” he detailed, estimating that given limits on testing capacity, experts have told him there could be at least 1,000 untested coronavirus cases across the state.

So much for ‘hard decisions’….

This immense build up, only to announce restrictions that are only ‘slightly’ more comprehensive than the milquetoast event bans embraced by Germany, France, Switzerland and others, brings to mind a tweet we noticed earlier highlighting the sometimes unintended consequences that half-measures can create.

CAP

On the east coast, the State of New York is asking businesses to voluntarily consider having employees work two shifts as well as allowing telework, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with CNN, the network that employs his brother, where he has been making near-daily appearances in addition to his daily press conferences.

Gov. Inslee

“This is about reducing the density,” Cuomo said. “The spread is not going to stop on its own.”

He also announced 20 new cases of virus, bringing total in state to about 193, with most of the new cases diagnosed in New Rochelle, where the virus has clearly been circulating for weeks.

There have been reports that Democrats are pushing for a national emergency declaration which would trigger  tens of billions of dollars in funding from FEMA to help with the containment effort, and possibly to help grappled with the economic fallout from the outbreak.

Despite a few notable screwups lately (including a collapsed ad hoc quarantine that left roughly one dozen dead and many trapped in the rubble for days, Beijing continues to insist that it is winning the war against the virus, and while the true scope of China’s outbreak might never be known for sure (some have estimated 1 million cases throughout China), officials did report a slight rise in cases on Wednesday which they blamed on ‘imports from abroad.’

Officials reported 24 additional cases of coronavirus and 22 additional deaths on March 10, compared with 19 additional cases and 17 additional deaths on March 9, bringing the total number of cases in mainland China to 80,778 and death toll at 3,158. China’s Hubei province said it will mandate a return to work according to different levels of risk in an orderly manner, adding that key areas of the Wuhan economy will be allowed to return.

After 11 days of falling case numbers, South Korea reported 242 additional coronavirus cases early Wednesday, bringing its total to 7,555, and 6 additional deaths, increasing the death toll to 60, reversing a streak of declines that had convinced many that Korea’s outbreak had ended.

The South has made remarkable progress in fighting the outbreak, however, a new mass infection incident has popped up that is jeopardizing the government’s widely praised response. Earlier, South Korean authorities told Reuters that they had tested hundreds of staff at a Seoul call center where the disease broke out this week. 13 of the infected workers at the Seoul call center used public transportation to commute, leading to at least 90 other people who had close contact with them being infected. Of the 90 cases mentioned earlier, 62 were in Seoul, and all were located near a public transportation hub connecting Seoul with Incheon and other major cities, via which the virus spread.

The spread has even made it into the armed forces, raising new fears about an outbreak in tightly packed barracks

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Elsewhere, Japan is reportedly planning to declare a state of emergency due to the coronavirus outbreak after the number of domestic cases rose by the largest daily number yet, with 59 new cases bringing the total to 1,278, while the total death toll has climbed to 19 and there were 427 discharged from hospital on Tuesday.

Italy’s total coronavirus cases rose to 10,149, from 9172, and the death toll increased to 631 yesterday from 463 in its largest daily jump yet.

Twisted Strategy: CNN Fantasizes How Virus Can Help Dems Win 2020

https://www.mrctv.org/embed/548118

https://www.mrctv.org/videos/twisted-strategy-cnn-fantasizes-how-virus-can-help-dems-win-2020

https://www.mrctv.org/node/548118

‘When Joe Biden becomes President, there will be a return to moral normalcy and competance’

 

Steve Watson

While many leftists are accusing President Trump of politicising the coronavirus, CNN devoted a whole segment to daydreaming about how the potential pandemic could help Democrats win the election.

As part of its primary night broadcast Tuesday, CNN’s anchors and guests discussed how the panic over the spread of the virus will hinder Trump’s relection.

Democrat dropout Andrew Yang suggested there will be a growing “real hunger for” an administration like former President Obama’s among “many, many Americans if the coronavirus crisis continues to grow.”

Yang suggested that “when” Joe Biden becomes President, there would be “a return to moral normalcy, but it’s also going to begin to look like a return to competence because Trump and the Republicans have been running the government in sort of an anti-government frame, which is not what you want when you’re dealing with a health crisis.”

“And we all know when Joe becomes our president, he’s going to bring back many of the Obama alums who are really, really competent and technocratic,” Yang further claimed.

Anderson Cooper chimed in, suggesting “We’ve also never seen a situation like this, certainly in modern times, in terms of a potential pandemic influencing the next couple of months in a way that’s kind of hard to even imagine.”

“I mean, obviously there is the difference on health care between Sanders and Biden, but if — You know, if hospitals are overwhelmed, if, you know, the military is called in, if people are being triaged in school gymnasiums on respirators or whatever, however bad it may get..” Cooper continued.

“Nothing makes you appreciate a functional government like a global pandemic.” Yang interjected.

“There are very few people who have seen what happens when a society, you know, has the potential to really burst at the seams,” Cooper added.

This is how desperate Democrats have become. Acknowledging that the only way they can defeat Trump is if society completely collapses.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot cancels St. Patrick’s Day parades because of coronavirus, says they’ll be rescheduled

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By John Byrne – 3/11/2020

The coronavirus claimed its first major events in Chicago’s civic life Wednesday, as Mayor Lori Lightfoot canceled the city’s massive St. Patrick’s Day parades for this weekend because of fears the disease would spread through the dense crowds.

The mayor made her decision after days of speculation as other cities from Boston to Dublin dropped their festivities for the holiday. Lightfoot called off Saturday’s downtown parade and Sunday’s South Side Irish parade just days before they were set to step off. She also canceled a smaller Northwest Side parade.

“This was not an easy decision and we don’t take it lightly,” Lightfoot said at a morning news conference with Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other officials announcing the decision.

The mayor’s last minute move to shut down the parades reflects the difficulty of the call. The St. Patrick’s Day revelry — which features the famous dyeing of the Chicago River green on the morning of the downtown parade — is a huge boon to Chicago hotels, restaurants and bars as people stream into the city from throughout the Midwest.

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Lightfoot said officials would work to reschedule the parades at a later date.

The local tourism industry is already reeling from the recent cancellations of several big trade shows at McCormick Place, and the St. Patrick’s Day events draw tens of thousands of spectators.

 

But in the end, Lightfoot had to know she would be judged more harshly if Chicago got hit especially hard by the COVID-19 virus and the outbreak was traced back to the decision to go ahead with the parades. Health officials have been warning for weeks that the best way to avoid contracting the respiratory ailment is to avoid close contact with people who are infected.

 

“Like cities across the nation, we concluded that having a parade at this time posed an unnecessary risk to the public’s health,” she said.

Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, noted how hard it was to scrap the events.

“It was a very difficult call for the Mayor,” Reilly said Wednesday. “Nobody is more sensitive to the concerns of the downtown business community than I am, so this is very disappointing. But, as the son of a public health doctor who ran County Hospital, I can say this is 100% the right call.”

 

Pritzker said he supported the decision as officials were trying to minimize the rampant spread of COVID-19.

 

“This is not a decision that she took lightly, and we all know what the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations mean to the city of Chicago,” Pritzker said. “Because of what we’ve seen nationally, and across the world, of the increased risk of large gatherings, this was the right call.”

 

With the mayor out of town on vacation, Pritzker on Tuesday questioned whether Chicago’s parades should happen this weekend, even as event organizers and city officials said the celebrations would go on as planned.

 

There’s a precedent for a public spectacle causing serious public fallout during an outbreak.

 

In 1918, Philadelphia went ahead with a parade meant to drum up support for the sale of bonds to fund the U.S. effort in World War I, despite concerns about the burgeoning Spanish flu. Philadelphia then saw particularly high flu rates, and the decision to hold the parade has been blamed by historians.

 

Nancy Pelosi Shuts Down Nadler’s Request to Flee DC over Coronavirus: ‘We’re the Captains of This Ship’

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 18: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) delivers remarks alongside Chairman Jerry Nadler, House Committee on the Judiciary (D-NY) and Chairman Eliot Engel, House Foreign Affairs Committee (D-NY), following the House of Representatives vote to impeach President Donald Trump on December 18, 2019 in Washington, …

By Joshua Caplan – 3/10/2020

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on Tuesday said Democrats should flee Washington, D.C. as coronavirus continues to spread across the United States — A suggestion which was immediately shut down by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), according to a report.

Nadler made the remark in a closed-door caucus meeting on the deadly illness.

“We are the captains of the ship. We are the last to leave,” Pelosi responded, echoing a comment by Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) moments earlier, The Hill reports.

Concerns about a possible coronavirus outbreak in the Capitol have grown as several lawmakers have self-quarantined after coming into contact with infected individuals.

Five Republicans, including President Donald Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), have quarantined themselves are coming into contact with someone with the virus at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

“While he’s experiencing zero symptoms, under doctors’ standard precautionary recommendations, he’ll remain at home until the 14-day period expires this Wednesday,” Ben Williamson, Meadows’ chief of staff, said in a statement.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who flew with President Trump aboard Air Force One on Monday, announced he would be taking two weeks of self-imposed isolation after coming into contact at CPAC with the person diagnosed with the virus.

News of the CPAC infection came days after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) announced attendees to its policy conference last week may have come into contact with a person infected with the virus.

Since the coronavirus outbreak began in China in December, there have been more than 4,000 deaths and 113,000 cases worldwide, including 21 fatalities in the United States and more than 500 cases of the disease.

In a statement on Sunday, ACU said the Maryland Department of Health has screened thousands of employees at the resort, conference center and hotel where the conference was held and “not a single person has reported any unusual illness.”

“The Dept. of Health is not restricting the movement or interactions with others of those hotel employees,” it said in a statement, adding it is encouraging them to take their temperature twice daily and pay attention for symptoms.

The ACU said the infected attendee was receiving medical care in New Jersey and was quarantined.

In a separate situation, Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA) said she has self-isolated herself after having come into contact last week in Washington, D.C., with a person who has tested positive for the virus.

The UPI contributed to this report. 

New York Deploys National Guard to Set Up Coronavirus Containment Area

New York Army National Guard, B Company, 1st Battalion 69th Infantry, Soldiers, practices taking out enemy targets during training at the 106th Rescue Wing, F.S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., on January, 11, 2020. Soldiers of the 69th Infantry conducted ground combat-focused field exercises at the …

By Joshua Caplan – 3/10/2020

New York National Guard troops were deployed Tuesday to assemble a containment area as part of the state’s effort to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

The deployment to a New Rochelle command post comes after Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced an additional 25 cases of the deadly illness were confirmed overnight. Though Cuomo did not comment on the development in New Rochelle, the Westchester County town where a bulk of the state’s 165 cases are located, he did tell CNN that officials are “taking more dramatic actions in that cluster.” The “panic that you see is unwarranted,” the governor added. “We have dealt with worse viruses.”

Cuomo warned that New York has not conducted enough tests and that the ones in China and South Korea appear to be more accurate. “What you will see is the number will continue to increase because they have increased,” he stated. “We’re not testing enough people to know where it is.”

Cuomo also confirmed that officials are considering New York City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade over the virus that originated from Wuhan, China.

“You calibrate your response to the time and the facts and the circumstances in that place at that time,” said the governor. “So parades, etc. we look at that on a daily basis.”

Cuomo’s comments come after he announced New York is using prison labor to produce its own hand sanitizer product in an effort to offset price gougers selling the product at sky-high prices.

“We are introducing New York State clean hand sanitizer, made conveniently by the state of New York,” he said. “To Purell, and Mr. Amazon and Mr. eBay, if you continue the price gouging, we will introduce our product, which is superior to your product. And you don’t even have the floral bouquet, so stop price gouging.”

As of Tuesday, over 500 cases and 22 deaths due to the virus were reported from 34 states and Washington, D.C.

(FROM CHICAGO) – Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, synagogue in Lakeview closed after parent tests positive for coronavirus

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By 

A Lakeview synagogue and attached day school will be closed Tuesday because a member of the synagogue who has children in the school has tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, a rabbi with Anshe Emet said.

Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School and Anshe Emet Synagogue sent out email notices Monday to families who have kids in the primary school or who attend the synagogue. Rabbi Michael Siegel said a parent was tested Monday and later made Siegel aware the result was positive.

Siegel, along with Gary Weisserman, head of the school, said the decision to close the school and synagogue were made “out of an abundance of caution” while the children whose parent tested positive also are tested.

“Late this evening we received confirmation that the parent has tested positive for COVID-19. While the Department of Public Health advised that closure is not required, out of an abundance of caution we are canceling school (and all after-school activities) … while we continue to consult with public health officials,” Weisserman wrote in an email.

Siegel said the person who tested positive has not been on campus within the last month and is self-quarantined at home along with the entire family.

“To be very clear, no Bernard Zell student or staff member has been diagnosed with COVID-19, and based on conversations with medical experts, we believe the risk to our students and faculty is low. This individual’s spouse and children remain asymptomatic but will undergo testing first thing in the morning,” Weisserman said.

Since the school and synagogue share the same space, the building will be closed and office staff was told to stay home Tuesday. The building is to undergo a deep cleaning of all surfaces, officials said.

The announcement comes in the wake of other school closures.

Loyola Academy, a private Jesuit high school at 1100 Laramie Ave. in Wilmette, was closed Monday and Tuesday because a student at the school had contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID-19. School officials said the day would be spent coordinating with public health officials and doing an “enhanced cleaning” of the school.

Classes were canceled at Vaughn Occupational High School for the week beginning Monday, March 9, after a Chicago woman in her 50s who works there as a special education classroom assistant tested positive for coronavirus, marking the sixth case in Illinois.

There have been 11 cases of coronavirus in Illinois as of Monday night. Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a statewide disaster proclamation, making Illinois the 14th state to declare an emergency in response to the outbreak of the respiratory virus. The proclamation will allow Illinois to tap additional state and federal resources to combat the spread of the new virus and better coordinate its response.

 

Check back for updates.

CORONAVIRUS – Monday 9th March

By Dr. John Campbell – 3/9/2020

This is getting serious. I think Dr. Campbell’s alert level has jumped up to “a bit cross.” There is no higher alert level in Britain. On a less humorous note, a sign of the serious decay of a civilization is when the people no longer have faith in their government. I think this situation is going to be the straw that breaks a lot of people’s backs in that regard; I think a lot of people are going to end up feeling betrayed. Not that I had a lot of faith in the government to start with, but the sheer incompetence (and possible corruption) of the WHO and the CDC and the Feds in general has really put me into a mindset of I’m on my own with this. The government is to be ignored or outright distrusted.

DC PRIEST WHO SHOOK 500 HANDS AT COMMUNION HAS CORONAVIRUS

DC Priest Who Shook 500 Hands at Communion Has Coronavirus

Church cancelled for first time since 1800’s.

  – MARCH 9, 2020

A DC priest who shook the hands of 500 worshippers during communion has announced he’s contracted coronavirus.

“BREAKING: A D.C. priest has Coronavirus. He offered communion and shook hands with more than 500 worshippers last week and on February 24th,” tweeted ABC7’s Sam Sweeney.

“All worshippers who visited the Christ Church in Georgetown must self-quarantine. Church is cancelled for the first time since the 1800’s.”

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The hand shaking took place despite many other Catholic churches changing their worshipping practices in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.

USA Today reports that at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, “Priests have started asking worshippers not to shake hands at the sign of peace, which occurs around midway through the Catholic service. Most Masses here normally don’t offer wine during communion, but those that do are suspending the use of the shared chalices for now.”

Such precautions are not being followed at other religious sites in regions impacted by the coronavirus.

Videos of two men licking holy shrines in Iran went viral last week, with one individual seen licking the Masumeh shrine in Qom, while saying, “I’m not scared of coronavirus.”

In another video, a man states he plans to lick the shrine “so the disease can go inside my body and others can visit it with no anxiety.”

The men face up to two years in jail in addition to 74 lashes.

Liberal Groups Fight for Release of Chinese Illegal Immigrants Into US Amidst Coronavirus Epidemic

Far-left groups are once again undermining the security and safety of the US.

By Shane Trejo – 3/9/2020

328 Chinese Nationals have been caught trying to enter the United States illegally this year, and left-wing groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are fighting to have them released into the country.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf noted that legal challenges to the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) policy could result in potentially dangerous migrants, such as these 328 Chinese Nationals, being released into the U.S. Many of these migrants are being kept on the Mexican side of the border because of the MPP.

“MPP has an uncertain future. We know from experience that the journey to the U.S. border puts migrants in poor conditions — and they often arrive with no passports, medical histories, or travel manifests. The administration will continue to closely monitor the virus globally, as well as in our hemisphere, and will adjust our proactive measures as necessary,” Wolf said.

DHS acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli echoed similar concerns as Wolf when he spoke to the Washington Examiner.

“The department’s top priority is the safety of the American people, and President Trump has directed an aggressive, coordinated interagency response to fulfill that mission,” Cuccinelli said.

“The American people can be assured that we’re doing everything we can to protect our homeland. While the general risk to the American public remains low, DHS has mobilized a departmentwide response to keep Americans safe, secure, and informed. Fortunately, we were able to engage DHS assistance early to prevent the spread of this virus in the U.S. We remain locked arm-in-arm with our interagency partners, HHS and CDC health professionals, and state and local officials acting as one to safeguard the health and safety of the American people,” he added.

“We have a unique public health threat posed by individuals arriving unlawfully at the border. Any halting of MPP would exacerbate that threat,” another senior official in the administration said.

The primary organization that is suing to stop the MPP is the ACLU, the notorious far-left outlet is using their signature lawfare to prevent the Trump administration from enforcing the law.

“If the administration had any respect for the law or any sense of decency, it would end this program immediately,” said Judy Rabinovitz, who works as special counsel for the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, which has challenged the program, said in a statement released after a recent court order limited the MPP.

“We will continue working to permanently end this illegal and inhumane policy,” she added.

The ACLU has also noted that they will be watching the Trump’s administration response to the coronavirus intently, waiting in the weeds to issue legal challenges against anything that they determine to be improper.

“The ACLU will be watching closely to make sure the government heeds these experts’ recommendations, and that its response is​scientifically justified and no more intrusive on civil liberties than absolutely necessary,” they wrote.

Subversive left-wing special interest groups like the ACLU do everything they can to prevent America from being great again.

 

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