2.5 Million Guns Sold In March, SMASHING Previous US Record For Gun Buys

Americans want their guns.

By Richard Moorhead – Apr 2, 2020

Federal firearms licensees sold more than 2.5 million guns to the American public in March 2020, easily smashing the previously held record for the most gun sales in an individual month by more than a million transactions.

The gun sale data has been gauged by Small Arms Analytics, and the estimation of a total of 2,583,238 sales has been pulled from raw FBI National Instant Criminal Background Checks System data. It’s actually possible that the total figure of guns sales is a bit higher, considering gun sales between private individuals are not subject to the NICS system.

Not only does the figure of 2.5 million gun sales surpass the previous monthly record holder from March 2019, but it does so in a resounding fashion. 1.4 million guns were sold in that month, meaning that March 2020 surpassed the record by approximately 1.1 million sales.

A breakdown of the sales between long guns and handguns was provided by Small Arms Analytics. Handgun sales in particular spiked exponentially, easily surpassing previous quarterly highs in gun sales that preceded major American elections.

An alternate system of quantifying gun purchases utilized by the National Shooting Sports Foundation verified that March was in fact a record-setting month for gun sales.

The surge in gun and ammunition sales in the wake of the nascent Chinese coronavirus epidemic is well documented at this point, with gun and ammunition retailers reporting selling out their entire inventories and still not coming close to meeting demand.

As Americans arm themselves in unprecedented record-setting numbers, some major American municipalities and states have taken it upon themselves to wholly shut down the lawful firearms commerce and manufacturing industries. However, several of them have been stopped cold in their tracks, in light of federal guidelines from the Trump administration that recognizes businesses serving the Second Amendment community as “essential.”

New Jersey and Los Angeles County are among the two biggest governmental entities forced to walk back arbitrary commands that gun stores close in light of the guidelines.

Dubious state of emergency declarations that try to implement backdoor gun control in a hour where more Americans are seeking to lawfully arm themselves than ever before simply aren’t going to work, judging from historical amounts of armaments freedom-loving patriots have secured in the last month alone.

April 2, 2020 0

‘Nothing Left For the Americans’: Chinese Woman Brags About Buying Up Supply of N95 Masks

Disgusting behavior.

By Paul Joseph Watson – 2 April, 2020

A Chinese woman filmed herself traveling around Florida buying up N95 face masks while bragging, “I didn’t leave a single mask for the Americans.”

The woman shared video clips of her callous stunt on Chinese social media site Weibo. The video was captioned, “So much fun shopping. Bought them all. Left nothing for the Americans.”

“It feels so awesome to buy all the masks!” she states.

The clip shows her filling a pick up truck with boxes full of the masks.

English subtitles added for everyone who would like to understand what she was saying in the video.

The line –
"It feels so awesome to buy all the masks! I didn't leave a single mask for the Americans!" is the title of this video she posted. pic.twitter.com/Pe7qmlz70i

— W. B. Yeats (@WBYeats1865) March 31, 2020

“They still don’t know about the purchase limit on masks,” the she says while laughing. “I bought all the masks, the shelves are empty, you can see my sweat … I feel like a thief.”

The woman continues to cackle while bragging, “A full shopping cart!”

The end of the video shows the pick up truck fully loaded with the masks, which the woman claims to be a “historical moment.”

Apparently, the woman buys products in bulk and then sells them on to Chinese people at a massive profit.

“She can be seen in the above video being aided by her white husband. Neither stand accused of any criminal wrongdoing,” writes Chris Menahan.

The woman’s behavior is clearly disgusting given that there has been a shortage of masks across the western world, leaving front line health care workers exposed.

Be careful though. If you criticize her, the media might call you racist.

Remember, despite the fact that the virus originated in China, despite China lying about its spread, and despite China silencing whistleblowers who tried to warn the world – it’s “xenophobic” to claim COVID-19 had anything to do with China.

April 2, 2020 0

Barack Obama Suggests Donald Trump ‘Denied’ Coronavirus Warnings

By Charlie Spiering – 31 Mar 2020

**Former President Barack Obama suggested on Twitter on Tuesday that President Donald Trump “denied” warnings of the coronavirus pandemic.**

“We’ve seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic,” Obama wrote.

The former president shared an article on Twitter about Trump rolling back fuel economy standards, and also accused the president of “climate denial.”

“We can’t afford any more consequences of climate denial,” he wrote. “All of us, especially young people, have to demand better of our government at every level and vote this fall.”

Last week, the former president shared an article of “likely scenarios” of how to manage the virus.

“So much depends on our ability to make good decisions going forward along with our ability to remain resilient,” he wrote on Twitter after Trump said he was hopeful that he could loosen restrictions by Easter Sunday.

Obama continues speaking up to criticize or challenge Trump’s response to the coronavirus, despite the president’s best efforts to fight and contain it.

He also said that attacks on Obamacare were taking place “right when we need care the most.”

Ten years ago today, I signed the Affordable Care Act into law. It protected preexisting conditions, cut the uninsured rate in half, and lots more. But it's still under political attack right when we need care the most. We have to protect it, build on it, until we cover everyone. pic.twitter.com/zz2v3DzMgq

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 23, 2020

March 31, 2020 0

O’Keefe Investigation: Army National Guardsman Says Coronavirus Media Coverage Overblown (VIDEO)

By Cristina Laila – March 31, 2020

James O’Keefe spoke to an army national guardsman in Glen Island Park, New Rochelle, New York about the media’s coverage on the Coronavirus.

The soldier told Project Veritas that the media coverage on the Coronavirus pandemic is way overblown.

“Is it as bad as everyone, the media is saying — the whole pandemic?” O’Keefe asked the guardsman.

The guardsman responded, “Oh, no. It’s just, it’s the flu. It’s the flu. It’s the flu.”

“Is the media accurately reporting accurately?” O’Keefe asked. “The media is making it out bigger? And it’s not as bad as the media is saying?”

“No, I’m in the tents with them,” the soldier said.

BREAKING VIDEO: Army National Guardsman tells @Project_Veritas #COVID19 Media Coverage Overblown: “It’s the flu! It’s the flu!… I’m in the tents with them!

Insiders send tips: veritastips@protonmail.com#BeBrave pic.twitter.com/mASpv5sgqw

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) March 31, 2020

New York is currently the US epicenter for Coronavirus cases and deaths.

As of Tuesday it was reported New York has 67,384 confirmed cases of Coronavirus and 1,342 deaths.

Democrat lawmakers however are using the virus to shut down businesses.

On Monday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti shut down farmer’s markets after 44 Coronavirus deaths were confirmed in the city, or 0.000011% of LA’s population of 4 million.

KKK-Blackface Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced a shelter-in-place for his state until June.

President Trump extended his Coronavirus social distancing guidelines through the end of April.

If lockdowns continue, the cure will be far worse than the virus and the economy will be destroyed.

March 31, 2020 0

Chinese researchers isolated deadly bat coronaviruses near Wuhan animal market

Police stand guard outside Wuhan Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, where a number of people related to the market fell ill with a virus in Wuhan, China, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020. Heightened precautions were being taken in China and elsewhere Tuesday … more >

By Bill Gertz – March 31,2020

Chinese government researchers isolated more than 2,000 animal viruses, including deadly bat coronaviruses, and carried out scientific work on them just three miles from a wild animal market identified as the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several Chinese state media outlets in recent months touted the virus research and lionized in particular a key researcher in Wuhan, Tian Junhua, as a leader in bat virus work.

The coronavirus strain now infecting hundreds of thousands of people globally mutated from bats believed to have infected animals and people at a wild animal market in Wuhan. The exact origin of the virus, however, remains a mystery.

Reports of the extensive Chinese research on bat viruses likely will fuel more calls for Beijing to make public what it knows about such work.

“This is one of the worst cover-ups in human history, and now the world is facing a global pandemic,” Rep. Michael T. McCaul, Texas Republican and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said last week. Mr. McCaul has said China should be held accountable for the pandemic.

A video posted online in December and funded by the Chinese government shows Mr. Tian inside caves in Hubei province taking samples from captured bats and storing them in vials.

“I am not a doctor, but I work to cure and save people,” Mr. Tian says in the video. “I am not a soldier, but I work to safeguard an invisible national defense line.”

Chinese officials have said the virus likely spread from wild animals to people at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, not far from the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the national center for China’s bat virus research.

Wuhan is finally stirring back to life after a harsh crackdown on travel and street activity was imposed in late January. The city’s bus, subway and train systems started to run again over the weekend. Shops downtown were operating with some restrictions Monday, although customers were scarce.

But British news accounts also reported over the weekend that some of the stalls at China’s so-called “wet” wild animal markets, as they reopen, have begun once again selling bats and scorpions and resumed questionable practices such as slaughtering small animals right at the site.

Chinese officials refused to provide samples of its coronavirus strains to U.S. researchers shortly after the outbreak became public and did not allow international disease specialists to visit Wuhan for weeks.

Handling bats

The Chinese video “Youth in the Wild — Invisible Defender” records researchers engaged in casual handling of bats containing deadly viruses.

The seven-minute film boasts that China has “taken the lead” in global virus research and uncovered over 2,000 viruses in the past 12 years, the time since the outbreak of the bat-origin virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The deadly virus behind the current pandemic is called SARS Coronavirus-2 and also has been traced to bats.

Prior to China’s discoveries, an estimated 2,284 types of viruses had been found in the previous 200 years, the video says.

Chinese state media outlets revealed that Mr. Tian once failed to wear protective gear in a cave and as a result came into contact with bat urine. To avoid contracting a disease, he self-quarantined for 14 days — the same recommended period for people exposed to the new COVID-19 strain.

Mr. Tian works for the office of decontamination and biological disease vector prevention and control within the Wuhan CDC. According to a May 2017 report by the Wuhan Evening News, Mr. Tian has gathered thousands of bats for research work on bat viruses since 2012.

“Bats have a large number of unknown viruses on their bodies,” he said. “The more thorough our research on bats is, the better it will be for human health.”

The researcher also has gathered viruses from ticks, mice and wasps.

After the incident exposing him to bat urine, Mr. Tian said, he kept a safe distance from his wife. “As long as I am not getting sick during the incubation period of 14 days, I can be lucky to get away with it,” he said.

The Wuhan report said the collection of research samples was difficult, dangerous and hard to fund.

Shenzhen News, a publication of the Guangdong Communist Youth League, described in December how Mr. Tian shuttled through caves and jungles looking for viruses in bats and ticks, called “vector organisms,” in the quest to develop vaccines. The report said the nearly 2,000 viruses discovered in China over the past 12 years nearly doubled the total number of known viruses.

A search of the Wuhan CDC website since the novel coronavirus outbreak contains no reference to Mr. Tian or his work. He has co-authored at least two scientific studies on the Wuhan virus and its impact.

Efforts to reach Mr. Tian were not successful.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not return an email seeking comment.

U.S. concerns

A State Department official said the reports about Mr. Tian and his role in working with bat viruses are concerning.

“He lives and works at Wuhan’s CDC, a few hundred yards away from the Huanan wet market,” the official said. “He is among the small team in Wuhan that has contributed to China’s obsession in recent years with virus hunting and research.”

Some U.S. and international scientists have dismissed reports linking the new virus to one of China’s research labs. They insist the virus jumped naturally to humans and then began spreading from person to person.

But others say a growing body of evidence indicates the virus may have been under study in a Chinese laboratory and escaped, either through an infection of a worker or through an infected lab animal.

Biosecurity researcher Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University professor at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, said the coronavirus behind the pandemic is 96.2% similar to a bat virus discovered by the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2013 and studied at the Wuhan CDC. The virus could have jumped naturally from animal to human but also could have escaped from the lab, he said.

“Bat coronaviruses are collected and studied by laboratories in multiple parts of China — including Wuhan Municipal CDC and Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he told The Washington Times. “Therefore, the first human infection also could have occurred as a laboratory accident.”

Until the recent outbreak, all but two coronaviruses in China were studied at biosafety level-2 (BSL-2) facilities — not the high-security BSL-4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology — “which provides only minimal protections against infection of lab workers,” he said.

“Virus collection, culture, isolation or animal infection at BSL-2 with a virus having the transmission characteristics of the outbreak virus would pose high risk of accidental infection of a lab worker, and from the lab worker, the public,” he said.

Mr. Ebright said the Chinese video shows Wuhan CDC workers under Mr. Tian’s direction with inadequate personal protective equipment and unsafe practices, including exposed faces and wrists and a lack of goggles or face shields.

Such practices “would pose substantial risk of infection with a virus having transmission properties similar to those of the outbreak virus,” he said.

Mr. Ebright said the 2017 news report and 2019 video suggest several possibilities of accidental infection. They include accidental exposure in caves or field laboratories by those without proper protection, accidental infection during transit from caves or field laboratories, accidental infection inside the Wuhan CDC lab because of poor security, and accidental infection during shared work between the Wuhan CDC and the Wuhan Institute of Virology because of inadequate security at the CDC.

Kenneth Plante, associate director at the World Reference Center for Emerging Viruses and Arboviruses at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, said he doubted the new virus came from a laboratory.

“There’s a lot of conspiracy theories that this came out of a biocontainment facility and things of that sort,” he said last week. “But these viruses are closely related to bats. The actual mechanism of the reemergence of this virus was actually hypothesized back during the original SARS coronavirus,” he said.

But Steven W. Mosher, a China specialist with the Population Research Institute, said China for years has been doing research, detailed in scientific journals, on horseshoe bat coronaviruses that could be harmful to humans.

“They write about collecting SARS-like coronaviruses from horseshoe bats and proving that, like the SARS virus itself, some of these other naturally occurring coronaviruses could infect human beings directly,” Mr. Mosher said. “They write about genetically engineering new and deadly viruses capable of infecting human lung tissue — just like the Wuhan flu does.”

Mr. Mosher called the Chinese government to disclose the research to help health officials cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

“China claims that the deadly virus did not escape from its biolab,” Mr. Mosher said. “Fine. Prove it by releasing the research records of the Wuhan lab.”

March 31, 2020 0

RETAILERS PREPARE FOR CIVIL UNREST; BOARDED-UP STORES SEEN FROM SOHO TO BEVERLY HILLS

In Beverly Hills, the Pottery Barn and West Elm stores near Rodeo Drive were spotted with boards across the windows

By Tyler Durden – 03/31/2020

High-end stores across the country have been boarding up their stores in anticipation of civil unrest due to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

In Beverly Hills, the Pottery Barn and West Elm stores near Rodeo Drive were spotted with boards across the windows according to TMZ.

Meanwhile, stores in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Paris, Vancouver and elsewhere were similarly boarded up.

Pausing Luxury | NY SoHo boutiques boarded up as #COVID19 cases surge

MORE: https://t.co/IxojbpzbvY pic.twitter.com/8YzStWFzyQ

— RT (@RT_com) March 29, 2020

Thanks, China.

March 31, 2020 0

Hosptital Exec Fired After Discussing Ways Of Ensuring Trump Supporters Get Coronavirus

“Trump supporters need to pledge to give up their ventilators for someone else … and not go to the hospital.”

By Steve Watson – 31 March, 2020

A New York hospital executive has been fired after she posted public comments on social media fantasising about how supporters of President Trump would get the coronavirus and not be allowed to get treatment.

The executive also happens to be, unsurprisingly, a former Hillary Clinton advisor.

Laura Krolczyk, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s vice president for external affairs, made the incendiary posts on Facebook, first sharing an article about The White House being reluctant to foot the $1 billion cost associated with producing ventilators.

Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute Director of Development Lisa LaTrovato responded to Krolczyk’s post, writing “But will waste more than that on a wall and space force.”

Krolczyk, who worked as Western New York Regional Director for Hillary Clinton’s Senate office for 7 years, wrote back that “Trump supporters need to pledge to give up their ventilators for someone else … and not go to the hospital.”

“Also don’t cash your stimulus check,” she later added, writing “It’s all a hoax. Chew some ibuprofen and be on with your day.”

LaTrovato further responded “I think they should be the only ones in packed churches on Sunday,” to which Krolczyk replied, “They should barricade themselves in there and ride this out.”

Another Facebook user saw the exchange, wrote “Wow, just wow, so your saying we decide who lives and dies based on political views? Great plan (thumbs up emoji).”

Krolczyk then responded “That’s literally what he’s saying. Take your ‘wow’ and comprehend what your hero is saying. Your hero is saying YOU don’t need a ventilator. So don’t take one.”

The whole sorry conversation was then picked up by Republican strategist Michael Caputo, and the hospital was alerted.

While LaTrovato is still on administrative leave from Hauptman Woodward pending further action, Krolczyk has been terminated by Roswell Park.

In a statement to Buffalo News, spokeswoman Annie Deck-Miller confirmed Krolczyk had been fired.

CEO Candace S. Johnson added that “This behavior is not tolerated at Roswell Park. If any team members act in a way that does not accord with that commitment, we will take swift and appropriate action, just as we did in this instance.”

Someone ought to tell Ms. Krolczyk that when engaging in her daily two minutes of Trump derangement hate, try to do it in private, rather than on her publicly available Facebook page.

Meanwhile, she should definitely make sure she does cash her stimulus check, as it’ll be her only income for a while.

This isn’t a one off. These people are everywhere, and need to be publicly shamed.

March 31, 2020 0

In Late February, Nancy Pelosi Encouraged Large Groups to Congregate in Chinatown

Yet blamed Trump’s early “denial” for spread of coronavirus.

By Paul Joseph Watson -30 March, 2020

A video clip from late February shows Nancy Pelosi encouraging large groups of people to congregate in San Francisco’s Chinatown before she would later go on to blame President Trump’s early “denial” for the spread of coronavirus.

The footage, which was taken on February 24th, is introduced by a reporter noting how Pelosi wanted residents to understand how it’s “perfectly safe to be here” in Chinatown.

“We do want to say to people, come to Chinatown, here we are…come join us,” said Pelosi.

Pelosi, touring San Fran’s Chinatown Feb. 24: “We do want to say to people, come to Chinatown, here we are … come join us” pic.twitter.com/0FEOq9t4VM

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 29, 2020

The reporter then explains how the stunt was a response to San Francisco’s Chinatown experiencing a drop in business since the outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan, China.

San Francisco has since recorded 340 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 5 people have died.

The video is particularly eye opening since yesterday on CNN, Pelosi blamed President Trump’s “denial at the beginning” for the spread of coronavirus throughout the United States.

.@SpeakerPelosi blames Trump for Coronavirus deaths: "The president, his denial at the beginning, was deadly. His delaying of getting equipment to where it — his continued delay in getting equipment to where it’s needed is deadly … as the president fiddles, people are dying." pic.twitter.com/xZoaCz8PEP

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 29, 2020

The video underscores how many officials flouted the very social distancing measures they now amplify because at the time stopping bigotry towards Chinese people was seen as being of greater importance than preventing the spread of coronavirus.

As we previously highlighted, health officials in New York gave identical advice, urging residents to gather in crowds to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year.

“Today our city is celebrating the #LunarNewYear parade in Chinatown, a beautiful cultural tradition with a rich history in our city,” wrote New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot. “I want to remind everyone to enjoy the parade and not change any plans due to misinformation spreading about #coronavirus.”

Her message was echoed by Mark D. Levine, Chair of New York City Council health committee, who lauded how “huge crowds gathering in NYC’s Chinatown” was a “powerful show of defiance of #coronavirus scare,” tweeting four images of large groups of people gathered to celebrate the occasion.

Mayor Bill de Blasio also urged New Yorkers to “get out on the town despite coronavirus” and visit the cinema as late as March 2nd.

As we highlight in the video below, back in February, leftist officials in Italy were also urging citizens to go outside and hug Chinese people in order to fight racism.

March 30, 2020 0

Leaked Draft Letter Reveals Michigan Hospital’s Policy to Ration Ventilators for Coronavirus Patients

By Rebecca Mansour – 27 Mar 2020

A draft letter by one of southeast Michigan’s major hospital systems was leaked online Thursday revealing the hospital’s policy to prioritize care for “patients who have the best chance of getting better” in the event of a shortage due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The letter was drafted by officials at the Henry Ford Health System and is addressed to “our patients, families and community.” It outlines the criteria for which patients will be eligible for care if the hospital reaches capacity and is forced to ration limited resources. “Patients who have the best chance of getting better are our first priority. Patients will be evaluated for the best plan of care and dying patients will be provided comfort care.”

The letter explains the policy in the event of a shortage of ICU beds and ventilators: “If you (or a family member) becomes ill and your medical doctor believes that you need extra care in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or Mechanical Ventilation (breathing machine) you will be assessed for eligibility based only on your specific condition.”

Some of the conditions that may make a person ineligible are listed as “severe heart, lung, kidney or liver failure; Terminal cancers; Severe trauma or burns.”

A statement issued Thursday night by Dr. Adnan Munkarah, executive vice president and chief clinical officer of Henry Ford Health System, confirmed the authenticity of the draft letter, but stressed that it reflects a “worst case scenario.”

“With a pandemic of this nature, health systems must be prepared for a worst case scenario,” Munkarah said. “Gathering the collective wisdom from across our industry, we carefully crafted our policy to provide critical guidance to healthcare workers for making difficult patient care decisions during an unprecedented emergency.”

He added, “These guidelines are deeply patient focused, intended to be honoring to patients and families. We shared our policy with our colleagues across Michigan to help others develop similar, compassionate approaches. It is our hope we never have to apply them and we will always do everything we can to care for our patients, utilizing every resource we have to make that happen.”

The draft letter was leaked online Thursday when Nicholas Bagley, a University of Michigan law professor, tweeted out an image of the letter on what appeared to be official hospital letterhead.

The full contents of the letter was printed by the Detroit Free Press (emphasis in original):

To our patients, families and community:

Please know that we care deeply about you and your family’s health and are doing our best to protect and serve you and our community. We currently have a public health emergency that is making our supply of some medical resources hard to find. Because of shortages, we will need to be careful with resources. Patients who have the best chance of getting better are our first priority. Patients will be evaluated for the best plan of care and dying patients will be provided comfort care.

What this means for you and your family:

1. Alert staff during triage of any current medical conditions or if you have a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR)/Do Not Attempt Resuscitation (DNAR) or other important medical information.

2. If you (or a family member) becomes ill and your medical doctor believes that you need extra care in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or Mechanical Ventilation (breathing machine) you will be assessed for eligibility based only on your specific condition.

3. Some patients will be extremely sick and very unlikely to survive their illness even with critical treatment. Treating these patients would take away resources for patients who might survive.

4. Patients who are not eligible for ICU or ventilator care will receive treatment for pain control and comfort measures. Some conditions that are likely to may [sic] make you not eligible include:

severe heart, lung, kidney or liver failure

Terminal cancers

Severe trauma or burns

5. Patients who have ventilator or ICU care withdrawn will receive pain control and comfort measures.

6. Patients who are treated with a ventilator or ICU care may have these treatments stopped if they do not improve over time. If they do not improve this means that the patient has a poor chance of surviving the illness — even if the care was continued. This decision will be based on medical condition and likelihood of getting better. It will not be based on other reasons such as race, gender, health insurance status, ability to pay for care, sexual orientation, employment status or immigration status. All patients are evaluated for survival using the same measures.

7. If the treatment team has determined that you or your family members does not meet criteria to receive critical care or that ICU treatments will be stopped, talk to your doctor. Your doctor can ask for a review by a team of medical experts (a Clinical Review Committee evaluation.)

Michigan has become an emerging hot spot for the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. The state’s top health official, Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, said hospitals in southeast Michigan are “at or near capacity.”

The Henry Ford Health System is one of the major hospital providers in the Metro Detroit area, along with the William Beaumont Health System. Both providers have said they were caring for more than 1,000 COVID-19 patients at their 13 hospitals. Due to the sudden surge, operating rooms were being converted into intensive care units, and clinics had been turned into rooms for patients needing other medical care.

On Wednesday, Beaumont Health said its hospitals were swamped with 650 patients who had tested positive for the COVID-19 virus and more than 200 with tests pending. It said it would transfer more people to its hospital in Wayne County and get help from other health care providers.

“The number of patients coming to our emergency rooms continues to grow rapidly,” Beaumont CEO John Fox said.

Fox told the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday that the pandemic is proving to be healthcare providers’ “worst nightmare,” noting that Beaumont is admitting 100 new coronavirus patients per day, at that time.

“What we all need to remember is that we got our first patient two weeks ago. So this is coming on hard and fast. This is definitely a biological tsunami,” he said.

“In my lifetime, we’ve never had a pandemic like this,” Fox said.

“Across our system, we are facing limitations and nearing capacity with our staffing, personal protective equipment, and mechanical ventilators,” said Beaumont’s chief operating officer Carolyn Wilson.

“The numbers are changing and increasing even in two-hour intervals,” said Bob Riney, the chief operating officer at Henry Ford, whose flagship hospital is in the city of Detroit.

Dr. Betty Chu, the chief clinical officer and chief quality officer at Henry Ford, predicted an “upcoming surge.” Chu noted that the hospital was already reallocating resources because the Henry Ford hospitals in West Bloomfield and Detroit have reached capacity due to COVID-19 patients.

“Today our capacity is quite full at those two hospitals — West Bloomfield and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit,” Chu said Wednesday. “We fortunately have the luxury right now of having additional capacity at some of our other campuses.”

On Wednesday, Mary Macdonald, an Oakland County ER nurse, posted a viral video on Instagram detailing the harrowing conditions at southeast Michigan hospitals where medical staff are combating shortages of essential supplies and equipment to care for this surge of coronavirus patients.

“It’s getting to the point now that it’s going to be just like Italy,” Macdonald said. “From 10:00 PM last night to this morning, we intubated two of my patients within a half-hour. And upwards of 10 patients were put on ventilators. My patient took the last ventilator available in the hospital,” she said.

“Normally, if a patient was to pass away, it would be because we tried everything that we could, we did everything that we could, we had all the resources and all the people that we needed to help save this patient’s life, and it was just their time. And now we aren’t giving the patient the time to choose whether it’s their time or not. We’re choosing for them,” she said.

Macdonald also noted that the hospital is short of even basic supplies.

“Resources are very slim. We have no medications to keep these patients even ventilated, let alone ventilators,” she said, adding that they are out of medications like propofol to keep people sedated when they are intubated. She said they are even running out of Tylenol.

“There are no masks. There are no gowns. They’re running low on gloves because everyone has panicked and stockpiled this, so that medical staff doesn’t have it,” she said and then showed the disposable N95 mask she was required to stow in a brown paper bag after every workday to be reused for the rest of the year.

Macdonald urged her fellow Michiganders to take the social distancing instructions seriously in order to protect themselves and their neighbors from spreading the virus, otherwise the overwhelmed hospital system won’t be able to care for all the sick.

“We don’t have any ventilators to put these patients on,” Macdonald stressed. “So, we’re going to start making life or death decisions in regards to people’s care. So you’re going to come in and you’re going to get tagged whether you [are] deem[ed] necessary to even get intubated or are you being sent home to die. This is truly scary, and nobody is taking it seriously.”

Khaldun, the chief medical office for Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services, said the state is “probably a few weeks out” from hitting a peak in coronavirus cases. Michigan reported nearly 2,900 cases by Thursday and 60 deaths, both an increase of Wednesday’s statewide numbers.

Wayne County, home to Detroit, accounted for nearly half of the cases. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, called Wayne a “hot spot” nationally and said she was concerned the county was “having a more rapid increase.”

Southeast Michigan, like New York City, is a hub for international travel. As the capital of the world’s auto industry, Metro Detroit has daily direct flights to and from major cities in Europe and Asia.

Although the virus is hitting the entire metro area hard, the city of Detroit is uniquely vulnerable to the pandemic. Despite its dramatic economic rebound in recent years after its municipal bankruptcy in 2013, the city is still one of the poorest in the nation, with a poverty rate three times higher than the national average, and the city’s population suffers in greater numbers from underlining conditions like diabetes and heart disease.

“Part of what we’re seeing in Detroit is that there’s such a high number of individuals who have those underlying conditions, who have diabetes and the heart disease, who may have obesity,” Khaldun explained.

On Tuesday, Marlowe Stoudamire, 43, one of the young entrepreneurs involved in rebuilding the city, died from complications from COVID-19. According to health officials at Henry Ford Health System, Stoudamire had “no known underlying health conditions or recent travel.”

The city of Detroit’s police force has also been hit especially hard by the coronavirus pandemic, as 331 Detroit officers and 70 civilian police employees have been quarantined since the outbreak, and two members of the force have died this week due to COVID-19.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

March 27, 2020 0