Tag: CNN

FIRST POINT OF JOE BIDEN’S CORONAVIRUS ACTION PLAN IS TO STOP “RACISM”

First Point of Joe Biden's Coronavirus Action Plan is to Stop "Racism"

Because preventing hurt feelings is a really important priority when dealing with a global pandemic.

 MARCH 13, 2020

The very first point of Joe Biden’s plan to stop the spread of coronavirus in the United States highlights the need to stop “acts of racism.”

Because when dealing with a global pandemic, preventing people’s feelings from being hurt is surely of the utmost importance.

In the first section of Biden’s plan, “Restoring trust, credibility, and common purpose,” curbing misinformation and stopping xenophobia are listed as key goals.

“Stop the political theater and willful misinformation that has heightened confusion and discrimination,” states the plan, adding that “This communication is essential to combating the dangerous epidemic of fear, chaos, and stigmatization that can overtake communities faster than the virus.”

“Acts of racism and xenophobia against the Asian American and Pacific Islander community must not be tolerated,” according to the plan.

In prioritizing the prevention of “racism,” Biden is taking his lead from the World Health Organization, which has repeatedly issued statements attempting policing the language used to describe coronavirus in order to prevent “stigmatization.”

Mainstream media networks and pundits like CNN’s Jim Acosta have also suggested that saying COVID-19 originated in China is xenophobic, even though it’s a fact.

Meanwhile, countries like Singapore and Russia who ignored the WHO’s demand not to profile potential coronavirus victims and closed their borders early have comparatively few coronavirus cases and zero deaths.

As Breitbart highlights, much of the rest of Biden’s coronavirus plan is merely copied from the Trump’s administration’s version.

CAP

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Tucker: The Media Has Sided With Communist China to Blame America For the Coronavirus

Their highest priority is approval from Beijing.

 

Tucker Carlson savaged the mainstream media during his show last night for siding with Communist China to blame America for the coronavirus.

“This pandemic came out of China and it came out of China for a reason,” said the Fox News host. “It’s a country where government officials deliberately covered up the early stages of the virus when it could have been stopped before it spread out of control.”

Noting that China controls 96 per cent of antibiotics and is threatening to cut off drug exports to the U.S., Carlson charged that Beijing “is now trying to hide the reality of where coronavirus came from” and worse, blaming the virus on America.

Carlson then referenced tweets yesterday by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who claimed, “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”

When asked to distanced itself from Lijian, Beijing refused to do so.

Lijian also slammed people for linking the virus to China, a narrative which has now been picked up by the mainstream media as people like CNN’s Jim Acosta insist it’s “xenophobic” to say the virus came from China (despite the fact that it did).

“Amazingly though, it was just two months ago…that Acosta himself was sending tweets about the “Wuhan coronavirus,” he hadn’t yet received his orders from Jeff Zucker who receives his orders from China,” pointed out Carlson.

“Keep in mind, these are the people, the Chinese leadership, that our media class has allied with, has sucked up to for years, made every excuse for endlessly even when China blamed the United States for a plague they unleashed, even when the Chinese government threatened to murder our citizens by cutting off drugs, our media continued to take their side,” said the Fox News host.

Tucker then played a clip of Joe Biden claiming it was “misinformation” and “xenophobia” to label COVID-19 a “foreign virus” and blaming the Trump administration for its outbreak in the U.S.

“So it’s our fault,” said Carlson. “Just to be clear, describing a virus from Wuhan as the ‘Wuhan virus’ is not xenophobia, it’s accuracy and anyone who says otherwise is lying and probably for a reason.”

“For our ruling class the highest priority of all is now and always ‘wokeness’ – that and approval from Beijing – tells you everything about them,” concluded Carlson.

Tucker also pointed out that according to a report by scientists at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan” as a result of a researcher being infected by an animal and then spreading the virus outside the facility.

One of the laboratories named in the report which was conducting research on bat coronavirus was located just 280 meters from the site of the Wuhan meat market.

“Anyone who raises that theory on American television is attacked as a conspiracy monger,” said Carlson, despite the fact that the claim comes from “Chinese researchers making an evidence-based argument about the origin of this virus.”

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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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Profile picture for user Tyler Durden
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/11/2020 – 11:16

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

*  *  *

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.

*  *  *

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.

*  *  *

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

*  *  *

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

*  *  *

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.

CAP

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

CAP

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.

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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

Nicholas Fondacaro , 

‘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.

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New Study Finds FBI Dropped Investigations on Terrorists Behind: Ft. Hood, Pulse Nightclub, Garland and Boston Marathon Islamist Attacks

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by Jim Hoft March 5, 2020

A new study released this week by the DOJ Inspector General found that the FBI dropped investigations on the Islamic terrorists behind several deadly terrorist attacks.

** Ft. Hood – Nidal Hasan
** Boston Marathon – Tamerlan Tsarnaev
** Garland, TX – Elton Simpson
** Orlando Pulse Nightclub – Omar Mateen
** NY Attacks – Ahmad Rahami
** Ft. Lauderdale Airport – Esteban Santiago

Pulse Nightclub terrorists Omar Mateen murdered 49 gays on a dance floor before shooting himself.

The Boston Marathon bombers killed three and injured 264 people.
And then it took the FBI days to figure out the identity of the killers.

The FBI was looking at these individuals but dropped the investigations before these Islamists went on their deadly killing sprees.

CAP

This is really bad news for America’s premier law enforcement agency.

CAP

The full report is here.

Of course, the FBI had plenty of resources available to spy on Donald Trump and his family and to send 25 agents and a CNN camera crew to Florida to arrest Roger Stone and his wife at 6 AM in the morning.

 

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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.

CAP

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.

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PROJECT VERITAS: ABC NEWS’ DAVID WRIGHT IDENTIFIES AS ‘A SOCIALIST’

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

Joshua Caplan | Breitbart – 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.”
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Americans “Should Prepare For Community Spread,” CDC Warns As HHS’ Azar Admits US Lacks Mask Stockpile: Live Updates

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Profile picture for user Tyler Durden
by Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/25/2020 – 09:55

Summary:

  • WHO warns the rest of the world “is not ready for the virus to spread…”

  • CDC warns Americans “should prepare for possible community spread” of virus.

  • HHS Sec. Azar warns US lacks stockpiles of masks

  • Italy Hotel in Lockdown After First Coronavirus Case in Liguria

  • First case in Switzerland

  • First case in Austria

  • First case in Spain

  • Iran Deputy Health Minister infected with Covid-19

*  *  *

Update (1145ET): US CDC says COVID-19 epidemic is rapidly evolving and expanding, warning that a vaccine could be ready in a year, and Americans should prepare for possible spreads in communities.

“Now is the time for businesses, hospitals, communities, and schools to begin preparing to respond to coronavirus.”

Additionally, HHS Secretary Alex Azar says at Senate panel hearing that the U.S. doesn’t have enough stockpiles of masks and ventilators to fight the coronavirus and that’s one reason the Trump administration is seeking $2.5b in funding.

About 30m so-called N95 respirator masks are stockpiled but as many as 300m are needed for healthcare workers, Azar says, adding that his department doesn’t yet know how much they would cost.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, who questioned the administration’s readiness to battle the spread of the virus:

“I’m deeply concerned we’re way behind the eight ball on this,” Murray said while questioning Azar at the Appropriations subcmte hearing.

Azar also says the money would be used to help develop vaccines and treatments for the virus and that a vaccine could be ready in a year.

*  *  *

Update (1100ET): WHO’s Bruce Aylward told journalists that China’s actions “prevented hundreds of thousands of cases” and warned that the rest of the world “is not ready for the virus to spread,” adding that “countries should instruct citizens now on hygeine.”

*  *  *

Update (1001ET): A case of the novel corona virus has been confirmed for the first time in Switzerland. The federal government announced on Tuesday. One person was tested positive for the virus, said those responsible.

Italian officials stated that the first patient was “obviously infected in Italy,” and will consider further measures if they think “uncontrolled transmission” of the virus is occurring.

See the source image

Update (0950ET): Spanish authorities have confirmed the fourth case of coronavirus in Catalonia, according to La Vanguardia.

Jordan has banned flights arriving from Italy, becoming the first country in the region to guard against travelers from Europe’s third-largest economy.

* * *

Update (0900ET): Iran’s MP Mahmoud Sadeghi said he had tested positive for the coronavirius, telling supporters: “I don’t have a lot of hope of continuing life in this world”.

CBS has confirmed that it was an Italian doctor visiting the Spanish isle of Tenerife who prompted all guests at his hotel to be confined to their rooms on Tuesday. The country has now confirmed nearly 60 cases on Tuesday.

In the UAE, home to long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad, airlines have suspended flights to and from Iran for at least a week, cutting the country’s 80 million people off from thousands of flights.

Unsurprisingly, the Dems were quick to slam the White House’s $2.5 billion spending plan that was sent lawmakers on Monday to address the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Democrats said the request fell far short of what’s needed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the president’s request “long overdue and completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency” in a statement released Monday. She added that the House would propose a “strong, strategic” funding package of its own to address the public health crisis.

Because nothing solves a public health crisis like a political stalemate.

“We have a crisis of coronavirus and President Trump has no plan, no urgency, no understanding of the facts or how to coordinate a response,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Trump joked in public remarks Tuesday that if he had authorized more, Chuck Schumer and the rest would be criticizing him, saying “it should be less.”

CAP

For those who have been watching, CNBC has been talking up a storm about the drugmaker Moderna, which delivered its first experimental coronavirus vaccine for testing, with the clinical trial slated to start in April. The WSJ is supposedly one reason why market’s are clinging to optimism on Tuesday.

The CDC’s Dr. Fauci praised the development, said “nothing has ever gone that fast.”

“Going into a Phase One trial within three months of getting the sequence is unquestionably the world indoor record. Nothing has ever gone that fast,” Dr. Fauci said.

As Jim Cramer won’t stop repeating Tuesday morning, the advances are “really remarkable.”

Finally, Austrian health officials have confirmed that at least one of the likely coronavirus patients isolated Tuesday was an Italian living in the country.

This comes after Italian authorities reported the first coronavirus case in the country’s south: a tourist visiting Sicily who had traveled from Bergamo, an Italian city in the Lombardy region.

* * *

Update (0825ET): Bahrain has banned its citizens from traveling to Iran as it reports 9 new cases of coronavirus, raising the total cases in the tiny island kingdom to 17 in the span of 24 hours.

* * *

Update (0800ET): With his reputation under fire and his popularity slipping, PM Giuseppe Conte said Tuesday that he’s confident that the measures his government has put in place will contain the contagion in the coming days.

See the source image

This comes after the PM admitted that a hospital in Lombardy inadvertently helped spread the virus by not adhering to certain health-care protocols. The PM has blamed the hospital for the outbreak in the north, raising questions about whether “the European nation is capable of containing the outbreak,” according to CNN. To put things in perspective, Italy now has 3x the number of cases in Hong Kong.

“That certainly contributed to the spread,” Conte said, without naming the institution concerned. The infection has been centered around the town of Codogno, around 35 miles south of Milan.

“Obviously we cannot predict the progress of the virus. It is clear that there has been an outbreak and it has spread from there,” Conte told reporters, referring to the hospital.

A team of health experts from the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control arrived in Italy on Monday to assist local authorities while some 100,000 remain under an effective quarantine.

Over in India, Trump added to his earlier comments by saying a vaccine is “very close”, even though the most generous estimates claim we need another year.

Market experts cited a WSJ report on a possible vaccine as helping market sentiment, though even that report made clear that human tests of the drug are not due until the end of April and results not until July or August.

* * *

Update (0650ET): It’s not even 7 am in the US, and it looks like a new outbreak is beginning in Central Europe.

Local news agencies report that Croatia has confirmed its first case, while the Austrian Province of Tyrol has confirmed two cases.

In South Korea, meanwhile, officials have just confirmed the 11th coronavirus-linked death, a Mongolian man in his mid-30s who had a preexisting liver condition.

Over in India, where President Trump is in the middle of an important state visit with the newly reelected Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the president struck an optimistic tone once again claiming that the virus will be a “short-term” problem that won’t have a lasting impact on the global economy.

“I think it’s a problem that’s going to go away,” he said.

Trump also reportedly told a group of executives gathered in India that the US has “essentially closed the borders” (well, not really) and that “we’re fortunate so far and we think it’s going to remain that way,” according to CNN.

Meanwhile, SK officials announced they’re aiming to test more than 200,000 members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the “cult-like” church at the center of the outbreak in SK.

* * *

Last night, a post written by Paul Joseph Watson highlighted commentary from a Harvard epidemiology professor (we realize we’ve heard from pretty much the whole department at this point in the crisis, but bear with us for a moment) who believes that, at some point, ‘we will all get the coronavirus’.

Well, up to 70% of us, but you get the idea: The notion that this outbreak is far from over is finally starting to sink in. Stocks are struggling to erase yesterday’s losses, with US futures pointing to an open in the green after the biggest drop in two years. More corporations trashing their guidance, and more research offering a glimpse of the faltering Chinese economy (offering a hint that all the crematoriums are keeping air pollution levels elevated even as coal consumption and travel plunge) have seemingly trampled all over the market’s Fed-ensured optimism.

And across Europe, the Middle East and the Far East, headlines tied to the outbreak hit at a similarly non-stop pace on Tuesday.

With so much news, where to start?

In China, data out of the Transport Ministry revealed that barely one-third of China’s workforce has returned to work, despite state-inspired threats. CNN reported Tuesday that only 30% of small businesses in China have returned to work. The problem? Travel disruption has left millions of migrant workers stranded. There’s also the question of schools: Some cities, including Shanghai, are offering students the option of completing their studies online after March 2.

China’s rapidly advancing tech sector has responded to the crisis by unleashing a wide range of technologies outfitted for specific tasks, including ferrying supplies to medical workers, fitting drones with thermal cameras and leveraging computer-processing power to aid the search for a vaccine.

In a televised interview, one health official said it might take 28 days to safely say an area is free of coronavirus, while another official insisted that “low risk” areas should “resume normal activity” on Tuesday. The government is dividing the country outside Hubei and Beijing into three ‘risk’ tranches, and will mandate that those in the lowest tranche get back to work, school or whatever they were doing before the virus hit.

Investors are clearly concerned that, instead of the ‘v’-shaped recovery promised by the IMF, the economic bounce-back from the coronavirus might be closer to a “u”-shape. On top of that, as cases proliferate in South Korea, Italy and the US, pundits are beginning to worry that the rest of the world is where China was two months ago – in other words

Throughout the day, South Korea confirmed 144 more cases, bringing the country-wide total to 977, the highest number outside China.

As the Korean government warns that foreigners shouldn’t travel there, Korean Air Lines and Asiana Airlines, to South Korean airlines, said they would halt flights to Daegu until next month, leaving the door open to a longer shutdown.

On Tuesday afternoon, South Korean President Moon Jae-in traveled to Daegu, the city where more than half of the country’s cases have been detected, and advised its residents to stay indoors but pledged to avoid the draconian restrictions Chinese authorities implemented in Wuhan.

Outbreak-related news in Seoul took on a more morbid tone Tuesday following reports in the local press that a civil servant from the Ministry of Justice’s Emergency Safety Planning Office jumped off a bridge in Seoul at around 5 am local time Tuesday.

The official was one of several individuals charged with overseeing the government’s response to the virus. As cases soar and hysteria mounts, we suspect this news won’t exactly help quiet the public’s nerves.

A Singaporean government minister warned that the city-state could impose sweeping travel restrictions targeting South Korea if the outbreak gets worse.

Minutes ago, Italian authorities confirmed another 8 coronavirus cases, 54 of which have been confirmed on Tuesday, bringing the total to 283. 

More than 100,000 Italians in 10 villages are under lockdown in the ‘red zone’ in northern Italy, where the military has been deployed and people have been told to stay inside. Fears about the virus spreading throughout the region were validated yesterday when Spain reported a third case, an Italian traveler. On Tuesday, Reuters reports that Spanish authorities have closed the Tenerife Hotel on the Canary Islands and are testing all of its occupants.

Most of the cases have been recorded in Lombardy (200+), while Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont, Bolzano, Trentino and Rome have all confirmed at least one case. The UK government warned that any British travelers in northern Italy should self-isolate, according to the Washington Post.

In Japan, the “J League”, Japan’s professional soccer league, has announced that it will postpone all games until at least March 15, saying in a statement that it’s “fully committed” to stopping the spread of the coronavirus. The decision followed a government recommendation to cancel all public events and gatherings.

Embracing a markedly different approach from Beijing, Japan has announced a new policy on Tuesday designed to focus medical care on the most serious cases, while urging people with mild symptoms to treat themselves at home.

According to the FT, the new strategy of containment announced by a panel overseeing the virus response acknowledged that simply testing everyone potentially exposed to the more than 100 cases outside the ‘Diamond Princess’ would overwhelm its health-care system.

It is radically different approach from that adopted by China,

Though it hasn’t announced new cases in a day or so, Japan has confirmed 840 cases of novel coronavirus so far, with nearly 700 of them linked to the ‘Diamond Princess’ cruise ship.

Iran’s ‘official’ death toll climbed to 14 on Tuesday, with 61 cases confirmed so far. Despite a wave of border closures that left Iran virtually isolated by its neighbors, more cases have started to bleed across the border: Iraqi health ministry officials have confirmed four coronavirus cases in Kirkuk, all of whom are members of a family. He previously looked unwell during a press conference.

Even more embarrassing for the Iranians than having a local lawmaker expose the horrifyingly real death toll: on Tuesday, the government confirmed that a Deputy Health Minister had been sickened by the virus.

We suspect we’ll be hearing more bad news from the Middle East as the full scope of the Iranian outbreak becomes more clear.

 

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Pollak: Bernie Sanders Supporters Get a Taste of How Media Abuse Trump

Bernie Sanders (Joel Pollak / Breitbart News)

By JOEL B. POLLAK

Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are beginning to understand how badly the mainstream media has abused President Donald Trump — now that the abuse is being turned against them.

In the past several days, Sanders has been the target of withering, over-the-top attacks from journalists, sometimes backed by the Democrat establishment, which is terrified of him winning the nomination.

Some of Sanders’s positions are, in fact, extreme, such as his support for the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, or his opposition to Israel, fueled perhaps by the antisemitic leftists who back his campaign.

But some of the criticism has been fraudulent, below-the-belt, unfair and plainly offensive.

On Saturday, for example, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews compared Sanders’s looming takeover of the Democratic Party to the Nazi invasion and occupation of France in 1940. The comparison was doubly offensive because Sanders, who is Jewish, lost relatives in the Holocaust. And it was also surprising because the attack came from left-wing MSNBC, the go-to network for many Sanders supporters.

Last week, prior to Sanders’s victory in the Nevada caucuses, the media reported that U.S. intelligence officials had given him a defensive briefing about Russian effotts to intervene in the Democratic Party primary on his behalf.

That, at least, was an improvement over how the Obama administration dealt with such reports: rather than warning the Trump campaign, the FBI obtained warrants to spy on it.

But the Sanders camp believed that the story had been leaked to damage him politically, especially since the briefing had actually taken place a month before, not during the week of the Nevada caucus.

Another example is the media obsession with “Bernie bros,” the name given to Sanders supporters who are particularly aggressive in support of their candidate, and hostile to rivals’ supporters.

The phenomenon is real, but it is also not unique to the Sanders campaign.

In 2016, conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe uncovered how Democrats linked to the Hillary Clinton campaign were instigating fights at Trump campaign events in an effort to associate the candidate with anarchy.

This reporter has been accosted by Sanders fans — but also by others’, and inexplicably booted from an event by former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), something the Sanders campaign has never done.

Even if Sanders supporters could be said to worse than other candidates’ supporters, the media lens appears to be focused on Sanders alone among his Democratic rivals.

In some respects, Sanders supporters are merely getting a taste of their own medicine.

Many fully supported the media’s anti-Trump conspiracy theories, from the Russia collusion hoax to the false claim that the president referred to neo-Nazis as “very fine people.” (Breitbart News challenged Sanders’s campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, last week about the fact that Sanders continues to make provably false claims about what Trump said.)

However, their candidate is also undoubtedly the target of unfair attacks. It’s the “Democrat-media complex” at work, taking out one of their own — not just because some disagree with him, but because they are afraid he will lose.

Perhaps it is finally be dawning on Sanders supporters, and others, that much of what they have been fed about Trump over the past four years by the mainstream media has been hackneyed partisan garbage — and for the same reasons, and by many of the same people.

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Socialist Sanders Finds A Brand New Way To Give Away Another Trillion Dollars Of U.S. Taxpayer Money

by Eric A. Blair February 24, 2020

Call him Karl Marx Jr.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic socialist from Vermont who is now the frontrunner for the 2020 presidential nomination, released a new plan Monday to give away $1.5 trillion in taxpayer cash.

Under the plan, Sanders plans to provide universal child care and pre-K, spending $1.5 trillion over a decade for the “free” program. All Americans would guaranteed child care through age 3 followed by free pre-kindergarten education.

“As president, we will guarantee free, universal childcare and pre-kindergarten to every child in America to help level the playing field, create new and good jobs, and enable parents to more easily balance the demands of work and home,” Sanders said in a statement.

Sanders says he would fund the program through his “tax on extreme wealth” over $32 million. His campaign claims that tax would bring in some $4.3 trillion over 10 years.

The socialist has a slew of “free” programs that cost trillions. He supports a single-payer “Medicare for All” system, wants to cancel all student debt and make public college free, and raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. And Sanders advocates providing free breakfast, lunch and dinner to all students, regardless of income level.

“Exact cost projections on all of Sanders’ proposals aren’t available, in part because he hasn’t fully fleshed out some of the ideas he’s embraced (such as universal pre-K and child care),” CNN reported in January.

See the source image

But a wide variety of estimates put the likely cost of the single-payer health care plan he has endorsed around $30 trillion or more over the next decade. Depending on the estimates used, including projections from his own campaign, the other elements of the Sanders agenda — ranging from his “Green New Deal” to the cancellation of all student debt to a guaranteed federal jobs program that has received almost no scrutiny — could cost about as much, or even more than, the single-payer plan. That would potentially bring his 10-year total for new spending to around $60 trillion, or more. …

“I think if the price tag for the Sanders agenda was [better] known … voters would blanch — even Democratic primary voters would blanch,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group. “The truth of the matter is in primary elections both in 2016 and so far in this one, he’s allowed to skate. He gets graded on a curve. But if he were the nominee, the curve is over. The Republicans will spend a billion dollars picking apart every one of his plans.” …

The sheer size of Sanders’ spending agenda dwarfs the proposed tax increases he has offered to pay for it, economists across the ideological spectrum agree. Brian Riedl, a former Senate Republican budget aide who’s now a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, has calculated that at most Sanders’ existing proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy, Wall Street and corporations would raise about $23 trillion over the next decade.

“There is nowhere near enough resources that you can credibly collect to pay for spending of this size [from the rich],” agrees MacGuineas. “When you are talking about a doubling in the size of the government, you are talking about significant tax increases on the middle class.”

In addition, Sanders supports a plan offered by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez she has dubbed the “Green New Deal.” The cost for that program: $93 trillion.

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