By Dr. John Campbell – 3/4/2020
COVID-19 Immunity and social distancing
WHO officials make urgent plea for medical gear: ‘Supplies are rapidly depleting’
By Noah Higgins-Dunn
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The WHO estimates that each month 89 million medical masks, 76 million examination gloves and 1.6 million goggles will be required for the COVID-19 response.
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It said manufacturers need to increase personal protective gear supplies by 40% to meet the needs of the medical community.
World Health Organization officials called on medical supply manufacturers to “urgently increase production” to meet the global demand that is needed to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak rapidly spreading across the world.
“Supplies are rapidly depleting. WHO estimates that each month 89 million medical masks will be required for the COVID-19 response, 76 million examination gloves and 1.6 million goggles,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at the organization’s Geneva headquarters.
Tedros said manufacturers need to increase personal protective gear supplies by 40% to meet the needs of the medical community.
On Capitol Hill in Washington, Health and Human Services’ assistant secretary for preparedness and response, Dr. Robert Kadlec, said the U.S. has about 35 million N95 respirator masks. That’s about 10% of the 3.5 billion he estimates the U.S. will need if COVID-19 erupts into a full-blown pandemic.
World health officials have said that N95 face masks are effective in protecting health-care workers from the infection, prompting global demand for them to surge. In China, demand for face masks has depleted the country’s stockpile where doctors and nurses face shortages, according to the South China Morning Post.
WHO officials announced on Monday that the number of new coronavrius cases outside China was almost nine times higher than that inside the country in the previous 24 hours. They also increased the risk assessment of the coronavirus Friday to “very high” at the global level. In January, it declared the virus a global health emergency, while urging the public against overreacting to the virus.
“As one epidemic looks like ending, one front of the fight closing, another is becoming increasingly complex” Tedros said Tuesday. China reported 120 new cases in the last 24 hours, compared with 1,848 new infections in 48 countries, with most of those cases coming from Italy, Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran, he said. Emerging from Wuhan, China, more than two months ago, COVID-19 has already spread to more than 91,300 people across at least 73 countries, killing at least 3,110 — including at least six in the U.S.
“Iranian medical doctors and nurses have concerns that they don’t necessarily have enough equipment, supplies, ventilators, respirators, oxygen and all the things you’ve heard spoken about in many of the press conferences,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, who runs WHO’s emergency program. “Those needs are more acute for the Iranian health system than they are most any other health system.”
The organization has yet to classify the virus as a pandemic and has maintained that its attention is on containing the spread, although the virus has substantially moved beyond China and has now been found in nearly 60 countries.
Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Senate lawmakers Tuesday that the current outbreak already meets two of the three main criteria under the technical designation of a pandemic.
“It is a new virus, and it is capable of person-to-person spread,” she said in prepared testimony at a hearing. “If sustained person-to-person spread in the community takes hold outside China, this will increase the likelihood that the WHO will deem it a global pandemic.”
Epidemics have emerged in Iran, Italy, and South Korea, where the number of cases is rapidly increasing. The U.S. recorded its first six deaths from the virus since this weekend, while New York state confirmed a second case earlier Tuesday. Every country should prepare for its first case and no one should assume it won’t get any cases, Tedros said last month.
“This is a unique virus, with unique features. This virus is not influenza,” Tedros said. “We are in uncharted territory.”
Tedros shed more light on the virus Tuesday, saying it spreads similar to influenza, by small droplets of fluid from the nose and mouth of someone who’s sick.
“However, there are some important differences,” he said. “First COVID-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza from the data we’ve seen so far. With influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers of transmission, which doesn’t appear to be the case with COVID-19.”
Tedros said last week that health officials would not “hesitate” to declare the outbreak a pandemic if “that’s what the evidence suggests.” On Friday at a press briefing, he said that most cases of COVID-19 can still be traced to known contacts or clusters of cases and there isn’t any “evidence as yet that the virus is spreading freely in communities.” That’s one reason why WHO hasn’t declared the outbreak a pandemic, Tedros said Friday.
Ryan said Monday scientists still don’t know exactly how COVID-19 “behaves,” saying it’s not like influenza. “We know it’s not transmitting in exactly the same way that influenza was, and that offers us a glimmer, a chink of light, that this virus can be suppressed and pushed and contained,” he said.
Ryan also said health officials think countries are being transparent, but “it’s very easy to be caught unaware in an epidemic situation.”
WHO officials on Friday increased the risk assessment of the coronavirus to “high” to “very high” at a global level. The world can still avoid “the worst of it,” but the increased risk assessment means the WHO’s “level of concern is at its highest,” Ryan said at the time.
Health officials have said the respiratory disease is capable of spreading through human-to-human contact, droplets carried through sneezing and coughing and germs left on inanimate objects. The virus appears to be particularly troublesome for older people and those with underlying health conditions. Symptoms can include a sore throat, runny nose, fever or pneumonia and can progress all the way to multiple organ failure or death in some severe cases.
Covid-19 – Only Tough Choices Remain
By Peak Prosperity 3/3/2020
The world is seeing in real-time how incompetent and dumb most governments are. I am more concerned with the potential breakdown of law and order as people lose faith in governments and institutions.
Coronavirus Containment Has Failed
The WHO and the CDC here in the states keep saying 80% of the cases will be light and ONLY 20% will develop complications, especially to those over 70 and 80. Well, to them 20% might not seem like a lot, but I am 73 and my wife is 81, so that ONLY 20% seems like a pretty big deal. Thanks to your heads up on this virus, and Dr. John Campbell’s YouTube vlogs, I have been preparing for our self quarantine to keep us from contacting the virus. Seems like the WHO and CDC think people like us are expendable and inconsequential! Thanks for giving us the real information our government is keeping from us.
WHO: “Please be aware, but not too aware, that a not-pandemic is definitely not going to happen, but is happening maybe. If not now, then soon. You should prepare a bit, but not too aggressively and don’t tell your friends and family, but tell your friends and family. Quietly, calmly. Don’t worry about masks, they won’t help much, but get some. A few. A lot. Get some. Also, stay away from people, but go about your business as usual, but definitely not as usual. And as always, please take great pains to respect the feelings of the people of China. Carry on. Or don’t. Or do. Or don’t.”
BREAKING: Trump Campaign Files Libel Lawsuit Against New York Times for Russia Conspiracies
Fake news has consequences.
By
2/26/2020
The Donald J. Trump For President campaign filed a new defamation lawsuit against the New York Times in the New York Supreme Court on Wednesday, seeking to the hold the legacy media publication accountable for its false claims of a conspiracy between Trump and the government of Russia to assist in Trump’s 2016 election as President.
The development could represent the first step towards holding fake news accountable for wide-ranging conspiracies alleging Russian interference in American politics on behalf of Trump, a recurring theme in the New York Times’ editorial and news coverage since the President’s election.
The Trump campaign is pointing to an op-ed in 2019 as an incident in which the Times “knowingly published false and defamatory statements,” most notably claiming that President Trump was willfully working with the Russia to ensure his election. The Times claimed Russia was boosting Trump’s political prospects with the hopes of a pro-Russian foreign policy to come during the Trump administration.
Jenna Ellis, senior legal counsel to the campaign, released a statement on the matter upon the lawsuit’s filing.
Pervasive claims of Russian interference in American politics were largely shut down by the conclusion of Robert Mueller’s much-hyped probe into the matter, the Special Counsel having failed to find evidence of any plot between the President and Russia to benefit his election.
Fake news has consequences. The New York Times could follow in the footsteps of CNN in facing an expensive settlement with someone it’s defamed, the latter recently being forced to settle with Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann for its slanted editorial coverage of the high school student.
PROJECT VERITAS: ABC NEWS’ DAVID WRIGHT IDENTIFIES AS ‘A SOCIALIST’
Says he not only sees himself as a Democrat-socialist, but a full-blown socialist
FEBRUARY 26, 2020
Senior ABC News correspondent David Wright accused his own network of denying President Donald Trump “credit” for his administration’s accomplishments and revealed that he’s a “socialist,” according to an undercover video captured by Project Veritas.
“I feel terrible about it,” Wright says of ABC’s coverage of the presidential election. “I feel that the truth suffers, the voters are poorly informed and people have the opportunity to tune into whatever they want to hear.”
“It’s like there’s no upside in, or our bosses, don’t see an upside in doing the job we’re supposed to do; which is to speak truth to power and hold people accountable,” he adds.
In another part of the video, Wright claims that the media doesn’t hold President Donald Trump to account, and then admits that reporters don’t give the president “credit” where it’s due. “I think, some of that at least in the place that I work and places like it, is that with Trump, we’re interested in three things: we’re interested in the outrage of the day, the investigation, and of the palace intrigue of who’s backstabbing who,” he says.
Later in the footage, Wright is asked about his political ideology, to which he says that he not only sees himself as a Democrat-socialist, but a full-blown socialist. “I think there should be national health insurance,” Wright argues. “I’m totally fine with reining in corporations, I think there are too many billionaires, and I think that there’s a wealth gap. That’s a problem.”
The video concluded with Wright saying that the establishment media is more interested in covering the election as a “horse race” than a contest about issues important to voters. “I don’t think we’re terribly interested in voters,” he concedes.
“In addition to the candidate of the week, we need the story to move on,” Wright explains. “We’re happy to have Buttigieg be the story last week and we’re happy to have Klobuchar as a new subject this week, and then when we’re tired of her we’ll be delighted if Elizabeth Warren kicks ass in Nevada because then we have something new to talk about.”
“We’re all guilty of the same thing,” Wright continues.” I think that all of the big news organizations… ABC, CBS, NBC.”
“We recognize that we’re dinosaurs and we’re in danger of dying,” he adds.
The Washinton Post reported that ABC News has suspended correspondent Wright “for unguarded remarks he made in a video by operatives of Project Veritas.”
In a statement to Project Veritas, ABC News said of the decision: “Any action that damages our reputation for fairness and impartiality or gives the appearance of compromising it harms ABC News and the individuals involved. David Wright has been suspended, and to avoid any possible appearance of bias, he will be reassigned away from political coverage when he returns.”
DESPERATE PATIENTS SWARM WUHAN HOSPITAL AS HONG KONG CLOSES BORDER
Medical facilities overwhelmed at virus outbreak’s epicenter
FEBRUARY 3, 2020
Late last night, we reported that the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak had surpassed 360 as more suspected cases popped up in New York.
Though no deaths have been reported overnight, Chinese officials warned yesterday that many more cases and deaths would be confirmed on Sunday/Monday.
In the meantime, Chinese markets finally faced their inevitable reckoning. Despite the best efforts of the PBOC and the government, the Chinese market bloodbath was about as bad as expected.
Matt Bracken joins The Alex Jones Show to analyze the state of the world amid a potential pandemic.
But over in the US, investors ignored the latest news out of China and have seemingly bought into the WHO’s optimistic message and China’s accusations about an ‘alarmist’ Washington.
This is surprising, since anybody who has been paying close attention to the situation in China should know that this is far from the truth.
Late last night, while most of America was watching the Superbowl, the New York Times published a scathing story recounting what it’s like on the ground in Wuhan right now. The truth is that all of the warnings of alleged ‘conspiracy theorist’ have more or less turned out to be correct. Supply shortages are still making it impossible for China to diagnose every case of the virus.
Ms. An, 67, needed an official diagnosis from a hospital to qualify for treatment, but the one she and her son raced to last week had no space, even to test her. The next hospital they were referred to here in Wuhan, the city of 11 million people at the center of the outbreak, was full, too, they said. They finally got an intravenous drip for Ms. An’s fever, but that was all.
Since then, Ms. An has quarantined herself at home. She and her son eat separately, wear masks at home and are constantly disinfecting their apartment. Ms. An’s health is declining rapidly, and even keeping water down is a struggle.
“I can’t let my mom die at home,” said her son, He Jun. “Every day I want to cry, but when I cry there are no tears. There is no hope.”
Chilling stuff. And once again, doctors and health-care workers are leveraging their newfound immunity to shed a light on the government’s brutality.
Last month, the government put Wuhan in a virtual lockdown, sealing off the city and banning most public transportation and private cars from its streets in a desperate effort to contain the outbreak. Now, many residents say it is nearly impossible to get the health care they need to treat – or even diagnose – the coronavirus.
Expressing exasperation, doctors say there is a shortage of testing kits and other medical supplies, and it is not clear why more are not available. The ban on transportation means some residents have to walk for hours to get to hospitals – if they are well enough to make the journey. Layers of bureaucracy stand between residents and help. And the long lines outside hospitals for testing and treatment suggest that the outbreak is spreading far beyond the official count of cases.
For many sickened residents, their best hope is the new coronavirus hospital that has just been finished (a second hospital is also being built).
Those who do make it to the hospital say they are squeezed together for hours in waiting rooms, where infections are easily spread. But the shortages have meant that many are ultimately turned away and sent home to self-quarantine, potentially compounding the outbreak by exposing their families.
Many doctors and residents are putting their hopes on the two new coronavirus hospitals that China has been racing to build in Wuhan in just a matter of days. One of them spans about eight acres, has 1,000 beds and is scheduled to open on Monday. The government says 1,400 military medical workers will be deployed to work there, potentially helping with the shortage of health professionals on hand to combat the outbreak.
Ironically, the hospital, which was supposed to open on Monday, is still undergoing ‘finishing touches’, and when masses of sick patients showed up at the gates on Monday morning, construction workers were forced to turn them away.
More than a week into the quarantine/lockdown, millions of residents fear the virus has spread much further than the government realizes.
On Sunday, city officials announced plans to set up quarantine stations around Wuhan for people with symptoms of pneumonia and close contacts among coronavirus patients. But just over a week into the lockdown, many residents believe the virus has already spread much further than the official numbers suggest.
“The situation that we’ve seen is much worse than what has been officially reported,” Long Jian, 32, said outside a hospital where his elderly father was being treated. Mr. Long said his father had to go to six hospitals and wait seven days before he could even be tested for the coronavirus.
But after Monday’s market shellacking, we suspect Beijing will be diverting more resources away from meeting critical shortages of medical supplies to focus instead on arresting shortsellers and locking up ‘fearmongers’, like the doctors who were arrested by local authorities in December for trying to warn the public about the outbreak.
Notice the bars on the hospital-room windows…this hospital is a prison with beds, as we’ve pointed out.
Following reports OPEC is weighing another supply cut to ‘rebalance’ the global oil market and warnings from economists that the outbreak could wipe more than a percentage point off Chinese GDP growth, officials in Beijing have reportedly changed their economic growth forecasts for 2020 to below 5%, what would be the lowest rate of growth since the beginning of China’s modern era of state-directed capitalism.
To help the economy cope, Beijing is reportedly considering more stimulus measures to try and bolster growth.
Of course, the fallout won’t be limited to China, and in a report published Monday, WSJ explores how the outbreak is already disrupting global supply chains and placing “additional strain” on an increasingly fragile economic expansion.
As we’ve pointed out, the outbreak has stoked racism against Chinese around the world.
If you’re looking for a quick refresher on the outbreak, here’s a short video from SCMP.
On a slightly more positive tip, Chinese state media posted this video about an infected woman who gave birth to a healthy baby in the middle of the crisis.
And here’s a video of a drone being used to take the temperature of a terrified civilian trapped by decree inside their apartment.
Finally, RT points out that the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak has already eclipsed the death toll from SARS, as the virus has spread to nearly two dozen countries and territories. The pandemic will eventually “circle the globe,” according to scientists from the NYT.
Given the fear of the virus ravaging densely populated areas, the people of Hong Kong have succeeded in pressing the city’s government to tighten travel restrictions, joining the US, Vietnam, Japan, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and many others.
Hong Kong has shut crossings to the mainland. But even this is likely too little, too late, as the first cases have already been diagnosed in the city.
Members of the G-7 will hold an emergency call on Monday to discuss strategies for containing the outbreak.
Get ready for another week of virus-induced craziness as this doesn’t look ready to disappear from the headlines any time soon.
Republicans are ‘actual demons,’ ‘zombies,’ says New York Times Nobel Prize-winning columnist
New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has doubled down on denouncing the Republican Party as “bad people,” insisting that there’s nothing wrong with “demonizing” opponents who “actually are demons.”
Krugman refused to budge from his declaration that “Republicans are bad people” during an interview with PBS’ Firing Line on Thursday. When interviewer Margaret Hoover pressed the Nobel Prize-winning economist on the risks inherent in “demonizing” political opponents, he only doubled down, taking his ad hominems into the mythical realm.
Is it demonizing if they already actually are demons?
While Krugman stressed he was referring to “professional Republicans,” and not “someone I might meet over lunch who declares herself a Republican [who] can perfectly well be a perfectly nice person,” he stood firm in his attacks on a party he described as “irredeemable, devoid of principle or shame” in a Times opinion column last month.
Nor were demons the only horror-movie monster Krugman saw in the GOP. He likened debating Republicans to “arguing with zombies,” declaring that “zombie ideas about fiscal policy, about climate change, about a whole range of ideas – healthcare policy – have completely taken over official Republican discourse.”
While he admitted the party’s calcified platform “doesn’t mean that every Republican in America is like that,” he maintained that “to be a serving Republican member of Congress right now” supporting the Trump administration “makes you a bad person.”
Krugman has been wearing his hatred for Republicans on his sleeve for years. Regular readers of his column will recall that he has blamed Republicans for everything from climate change to antisemitism, and has insisted that “good people can’t be good Republicans” since at least 2018.
NYT columnist ‘finds’ child porn on his computer – and rushes to the Times to save him
Eventually, however, even an Ivy League intellectual runs out of names to call one’s enemy, which is perhaps why Krugman called for the party to be “dismantled and replaced with something better” in last month’s ‘Republicans have no shame’ oped.
For someone so passionate about Republicans, Krugman had little interest in who would win the Democratic presidential nomination, telling Hoover it made “almost no difference” who ended up running against Trump. At the same time, he praised candidate Elizabeth Warren, his personal friend, as a “progressive.” Warren was a Republican until two decades ago. Hoover neglected to ask the Princeton economist if he makes the sign of the cross before meeting Warren for lunch.
TRUMP SUPPORTERS ERUPT AT DEMOCRATIC REP. SLOTKIN TOWN HALL AFTER COMING OUT IN FAVOR OF IMPEACHMENT
12/17/2019
Democrats in the House of Representatives are poised to impeach President Trump but not all members are on board, as there are lawmakers in question
A group of President Donald Trump supporters on Monday showed up to Michigan Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s town hall to protest her decision to vote in favor of impeachment.
Slotkin, who was undecided on impeachment until Monday, after taking the weekend to make up her mind on how she would vote, said she has came to the conclusion that she will vote to impeach Trump after reviewing the two articles of impeachment passed by the House Judiciary Committee.
Democrats in the House of Representatives are poised to impeach President Trump but not all members are on board, as there are lawmakers in question.
The Daily Caller contacted the offices of all 31 House Democrats from districts that Trump won in 2016 to ask them if they would vote to impeach President Trump, as many have not publicly stated where they stand on impeachment.
Each office was contacted at least three times and all offices were given ample time to respond. Slotkin’s office was one of many who did not respond to multiple inquires.
This comes as a group of House Democrats are reportedly considering censuring the president instead of impeaching him.
A group of about 10 Democratic members of Congress, including New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader, New York Rep. Anthony Brindisi, and Utah Rep. Ben McAdams, are all reportedly open to a censure resolution of Trump instead of moving forward with impeachment, according to Politico.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that Democrats won’t be asking how others plan to vote, and that she is not trying to convince anyone to vote a certain way.
“We’re not whipping this legislation, nor do we ever whip something like this. People have to come to their own conclusions,” she said. “They’ve seen the facts as presented from the Intelligence Committee. They’ve seen the Constitution as they know it. They took an oath to protect and defend it.”
Despite Pelosi’s early reluctance to push for impeachment, there are currently 228 Democrats who have voiced support for impeachment or an impeachment inquiry. Pelosi has said she believes Trump is “goading” Democrats to impeach him because he thinks it will help him fire up his base.
Democrats have continued to send congressional subpoenas to those close to Trump for documents related to the ongoing scandal regarding the president’s phone call with the president of Ukraine — specifically whether Trump asked him to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden in exchange for U.S. military aid. The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees are all investigating Trump, his cabinet members and closest allies.
The House will vote on the articles of impeachment for Trump on Wednesday.
ILLEGAL ALIENS PACK NEW YORK DMVS AFTER STATE ALLOWS DRIVER’S LICENSES FOR ALL
‘This is all a power grab for the ballot box in New York, trying to give illegals the right to vote,’ says NY clerk
DECEMBER 16, 2019
Massive droves of illegal aliens are lining up at DMVs across New York to obtain newly-minted driver’s licenses after the state passed a law allowing illegals to obtain them.
Photos across social media show long lines of illegals streaming to various Department of Motor Vehicle buildings across New York trying to acquire driver’s licenses.
The so-called Green Light Law, signed by Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this year, allows anyone to apply for a driver’s license regardless of immigration status and does not require a Social Security number.
The law also prohibits employees at auto bureaus from reporting illegal aliens attempting to obtain driver licenses to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Erie County Clerk Michael Kearns argued that the new law allowing illegals to obtain driver’s licenses was an unconstitutional “power grab” that Democrats will leverage to commit voter fraud.
“This is all a power grab for the ballot box in New York, trying to give illegals the right to vote,” Kearns told Fox News on Saturday.
“So we are going to have voter fraud in New York state, and now New York state has given the clerks an edict to stands down. I’m not standing down. I will do whatever I can to stop voter fraud.”
Kearns also added that the new law is unconstitutional and will only make New Yorkers less safe.
“My concern is that, after 9/11, New York state put a prohibition on illegals having driving licenses and now with REAL ID in 2005 after we were attacked there will be a gap from today to Oct. 1 that anyone who is here illegally can get into a federal building and can fly on our airplanes and cross our border.”
“I am now going to have to accept a report card from a foreign country and…a foreign passport as authenticated documents. I myself as the clerk am going to have to do that,” he continued.
“We used to have to rely on a third party, the fed government, to do that so they have diminished a New York driver’s license, and we are very concerned for our safety and security because western New York is a border to Canada.”
As we’ve reported, Democrats have been exploiting illegal immigrants for political gain at least since 2016, which is why the left is so hell-bent on granting amnesty to all illegal aliens in the U.S., including the ones still illegally entering the country.
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