Introduction added 3/8/2020:
Sensationalism sells newspapers and keeps the teeming masses tuned to the most exciting cable TV news channels, whether or not the news contains any useful or factual information.  Hysteria sells even more newspapers; so at every opportunity, the cable TV news channels go with hysteria.  Especially if the so-called news coverage can be used for political leverage or weaponry.  As we have seen over and over, the claims of impending doom are false alarms, yet the public falls for it every time.  How many contagious diseases were supposed to have killed us all, or at least resulted in massive upheaval?  The bird flu was going to affect everybody, they said, as was AIDS, Ebola, Zika, West Nile virus, SARS, MERS, swine flu, acid rain, mad cow disease, stratospheric ozone depletion, second-hand smoke, fire ants, and so on.  Heres' how to eliminate TV news hysteria completely:  Take all of the television sets out of your house and leave them at the curb for the scavengers.  You will be surprised how much spare time you have, and very soon you'll quit worrying about contagious diseases in Africa and China.

Appended 3/12/2020:
In a way this coronavirus scare is a lot like the Y2K scare at the end of 1999.  At that time, the news media was full of baseless speculation about the worst-case possibilities, as if those were the most likely possibilities.  The endless sensationalism was somewhat tiresome, and, as it turned out, entirely unfounded.  But it served a purpose, and that was to keep the viewers agitated and glued to the TV.  The same thing is going on now.  The news media is having a field day with this virus outbreak, because it keeps the TV viewers hooked, and it might be a useful weapon to use against the President of the United States, whom the so-called journalists detest.

Appended 3/20/2020:
In my opinion, the government's response to the coronavirus is far more dangerous than the virus itself.  If the virus spreads all over town, it might affect everybody.  Shutting down restaurants and small businesses does affect everybody.  The severity of the government's response varies by state, as many things should, but state-wide curfews, shelter-in-place orders, and restrictions on worship services and peaceful assembly are ingredients for tyranny.  (And this won't be the last previously-unknown virus to emerge.)  The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the freedom of peaceful assembly.  The word emergency is not in the Constitution.  If the government is asking churches to close for a few weeks, that's one thing; but if it's a demand, that's something else.  In addition to all that, the crisis of the decade occupies the news media's full attention.  If there is anything else happening — that is, if the federal government is up to something else — you might not hear about it for weeks.

Appended 3/21/2020:
About 75 percent of the panic buying and sudden shortages is due to sensationalism in the news media; in particular, the cable TV news channels.  The other 25 percent is due to social media, and the fact that nearly every adult in America has a cell phone at hand 24 hours a day.  As I've said before, hysteria keeps you tuned in, hour after hour, and the cable TV news people are spreading fear in order to retain viewers and make money from advertising.  The poorly-educated and narcissistic hoarders (triggered by the news coverage) are a problem even worse than the government's heavy-handed control of the masses.  There are ways to deter selfish customers and small-time speculators from buying up all the toilet paper and hand cleaner.  Here's what I mean:  At Costco and Sam's, there are no anonymous purchases.  Every customer's purchases are in a database, along with that customer's address, phone number, and photograph.  In my opinion, anyone who has bought more than a few cases of bathroom tissue (or paper towels, or hand sanitizer) in the last 90 days is a hoarder, and that person's card should be permanently revoked.  Today.  Yes, even the speculators and resellers.  This action should be taken immediately, and the wholesalers should make a big publicity splash about it, because the rest of their customers want to see something done about the hoarders.  This technique could be used world-wide.  Moreover, hoarding could be detected and thwarted as soon as it develops.  The big-box wholesale stores have computerized inventory, and they should be able to see immediately when there is an unusual spike in the consumption of specific disaster-related supplies, and apply strict limits at once.  Ordinary grocery stores could do this, too.  There is a bar code on everything.  The computers know when there's a sudden demand for canned vegetables, or bottled water, or what have you, and with a little extra software, the stores could apply limits within a few minutes.

Remember, the higher an "Alert Level" goes, the more power the issuing agency gets; and once a tyrant tastes power, he is reluctant to give it back.  The longer this virus panic persists, the more likely the police state is to become a permanent fixture.

Appended 3/26/2020:
In this nation-wide madness, there are some silver linings and some (much larger) dark clouds:

Silver linings:  [#1] No school zones, much lighter freeway traffic, much cleaner air.  [#1A]  Much lower gasoline prices, partly because of reduced demand.  [#2] Playboy magazine is dead.  [#3] There is now a much greater awareness of the importance of hand-washing and cleanliness.  [#4] There is now a much greater awareness of just how low the power-hungry, baby-killing Democrats will stoop, in an effort to overthrow President Donald Trump.  [#5] After this, the mother of all news media false alarms, the general public will finally share my skepticism of the news media, the U.S. government, and the Chinese Communists.

Dark Clouds: [#1] Ben Franklin was right:  "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."  The poorly-educated public has shown itself to be much too willing to quickly forfeit the Bill of Rights in order to obtain a little temporary protection from a virus that nobody would have ever noticed without the alarmist news media screaming about it 24/7.  If you're sick, the virus is definitely more than nothing, but if you're not, and you don't generally congregate with those who visit China or Italy, then it is almost nothing.  Certainly nothing worth killing the United States' economy and political system to fix.  [#2] H.L. Mencken was also right:  "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."  The general public has lost its mind over the latest hobgoblin, thanks to the Trump-hating sensationalist news media, which is fully staffed with Democratic Party activists instead of journalists.

Appended 3/29/2020:
Mrs. Editor was quick to point out that H. L. Mencken was no hero, and is hardly worth quoting.  Mencken was very hostile to Christianity. [1] [2] [3]

Appended 3/31/2020:
I think there will be a number of beneficial after-effects of this world-wide virus panic.  [#1] A lot of people who live from one paycheck to the next are learning the value of thrift and savings.  [#2] A lot of people who never turn off their TV will finally learn that the television is a liar.  [#3] The New York Stock Exchange has "circuit breakers" that kick in whenever investors and speculators go nuts.  The state legislatures should have such protections, too, so that the state government can't suspend the Bill of Rights, just because CNN told them to, without holding public hearings.  [#4] Nobody is snickering and scoffing at the doomsday preppers any more.  [#4A] Perhaps this experience will revive an interest in fallout shelters, because such a thing is ridiculous until it is needed, and by then it's too late to prepare.  [#5] Many tree-hugging hippies will now understand that there are more important issues than global warming or the mean sea level rising two millimeters per year.  [#6] Many people may adopt irrational mysophobia, but many more will finally realize the importance of keeping their hands [#1] clean and [#2] away from their faces.  This is the sort of thing that was once taught in elementary school (during the cold war), but is no longer mentioned in school.

Related topics on other nearby pages:

News media sensationalism

Banning plastic bags

Homeschooling

Lies about President Trump

News media bias against President Trump

Airline inconvenience and health hazards

Mass transit health hazards

Immigration-related health hazards

Other environmental false alarms

The road to tyranny

Voter fraud, mail-in ballots, and postponed elections

Any good news is suppressed

What's the rush?

Timely news and commentary:

People Start to Agree with Me:  An Economic Shutdown Isn't Sustainable.  We cannot be in the midst of this economy being shut down with no end in sight.  It's not gonna work.  Now, they can tell us, "Well, we think in two weeks we'll be able to relax things," and then those two weeks go by and they can't.  They'll say, "Oh, give us another two weeks," because they think that we can live with waiting an additional two weeks every two weeks.  If they tell us six months, that won't work.  But there's an overriding problem with this, and it is the uncertainty combined with nobody talking about it.  Right now all of the talk is about medical.  All the talk is about the horrible medical statistics, predictions, models, all the talk is apocalyptic when we're discussing the virus.  It's all apocalyptic.  It's all end of the world.  It's all end of this.  It's all death.

HUD Secretary Carson:  Quickly Evolving Coronavirus Treatments Could Change Landscape 'In the Next Week or Two'.  Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said Tuesday the Trump administration and the coronavirus task force are together working every day to stop the pandemic.  He is confident they are making good progress to that end, including the development of medication to treat the virus that could change the trajectory of its spread in the coming weeks.Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said Tuesday the Trump administration and the coronavirus task force are together working every day to stop the pandemic.  He is confident they are making good progress to that end, including the development of medication to treat the virus that could change the trajectory of its spread in the coming weeks.

Time for a Second Opinion.  Given what is being recommended, we think we need some second or third opinions.  This pandemic, now that it has reached America, has taken 3,173 lives here.  This, from a tested population of 164,359 cases.  That's a mortality rate of 1.9%.  But immediately, questions must be asked.  We record every case of death from the coronavirus, but we have no idea how many people have had the coronavirus.  Clearly, there are more than 164,359 cases because not everyone has been tested.  That would put the mortality rate at less than 1.9%.  That rate could be far, far less.  As Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, professors of medicine at Stanford, have written, based on their model of over 6 million cases they believe exist:  "That's a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two-week lag between infection and death.  This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%."

How Obama's failure to resupply respirators in federal stockpile created a 2020 crisis.  The Strategic National Stockpile, America's giant medical storage closet for a terrorist or biological crisis, once boasted more than 100 million respirator masks to protect doctors, nurses and other frontline health care workers in case of a contagion.  But when the COVID-19 pandemic started a few months ago, the supply had dwindled down to just 12 million fitted masks, known as N95 respirators, and 30 million surgical masks, a supply deemed to be less than 2 percent of what the nation would need for full-blown pandemic.  The tale of how such a critical supply lapsed, leading the Trump administration to scramble for 500 million new masks in the midst of pandemic, is one of government neglect and competing priorities that began in 2009.

Dr. Birx Finally Goes Right at the U.S. Media and China for Lying.  This has been a long time coming.  I understand the notion that figures like Dr. Deborah Birx should remain apolitical, and they should, but it's not "political" to tell the truth about China lying and the U.S. media choosing to play useful idiots in response.  During yesterday's [3/31/2020] presser, Dr. Birx finally took the gloves off and said what we've all been thinking.  These ridiculous graphs relying on Chinese data that media members are sharing are garbage and dangerous.

There were 83,780 Flu-Pneumonia Deaths in US this Season — So far Only 4,059 Coronavirus Deaths in US this Year.  The international community is currently experiencing the worst global panic in modern history.  Entire economies, including the US economy, are in complete free-fall over the coronavirus pandemic and panic.  It is always good to pause and look at the actual data and not the ever-changing "models" the "experts" continue to throw at us. [...] These so-called "experts" owe the American public an explanation and not just ever-changing models to terrify the masses.

China Is Preparing to Start a War with America.  [T]here are always signs.  We, for whatever reason, miss them, or we ignore them for political purposes, or we refuse to believe them because they contradict the core tenets of our belief system.  I believe that China's actions today may be telegraphing an intent we are choosing to ignore.  They show all the signs of a nation preparing to attack America.  China seeks a bespoke world run by China with "Chinese characteristics" — a dream that under Trump was drifting away.  China appears to be laying the groundwork for a "justified" attack on the United States, perhaps in the South China Sea or perhaps elsewhere.  It will be a military attack, not an act of terrorism, and the excuse will be America's deliberate transmission of COVID-19 in Wuhan.  When the Chinese became accusatory, it's telling that they didn't blame the CIA, always the usual suspect.  No, they blamed it on American soldiers.

Using COVID-19 to Kill Vote Security.  Probably the worst part of the coronavirus lockdown is the realization that Americans will put up with virtually any edict, no matter how draconian, and any subsidy, no matter how ridiculous, if they are scared about their health and worried about the economy.  Our system will eventually return to normal, but we now know that it doesn't take much to jettison the country's various checks and balances and constitutional protections, at least temporarily.  We've got to be particularly careful, though, about activists and politicians who are using the coronavirus situation to push for far-reaching and permanent changes to our system.  One of the worst ideas now getting a serious hearing involves internet and app-based voting. [...] Yes, some reformers want Americans to vote using laptops and cellphones.  If such ideas get traction, however, it could mean the end of the integrity of our elections.

Does America need Journalists?  Here's a free tip for the media:  If you don't want to be accused of bursting with glee over America's misfortune, it is generally helpful to not cheer America's misery while doing all in your power to amplify and extend it. [...] Here are a few obvious suggestions.  For one, a journalist's reporting on the current crisis would show some sense of proportion and would weigh tradeoffs between protecting America's physical and economic health, since they can't be uncoupled.  In the long run, economic destruction if allowed to proceed unabated will do far more damage than the virus can ever achieve. [...] What we have are the media that cried wolf, completely incapable of informing when an actual crisis shows up since their faux outrage is always cranked to max power, even if indeed they wanted to inform.

Trump was right all along about medical equipment 'going out the back door'.  A couple days ago, Democrats and their media allies had a full-blown Victorian gentleman-style cow when President Trump merely raised the question of whether New York hospitals, which are short on personal protective equipment, might be victims of medical equipment "going out the back door."  Perfectly legitimate question, and doubly so in light of the anecdote he spoke of from a hospital executive.  [Video clip]  They all harrumphed umbrage, in unison.

Florida sheriff who arrested pastor now releasing 163 actual criminals (while you're locked in at home).  In case you still think every unilateral action taken by local officials is driven by science and intrepid concern for public safety and health, I present to you the case of Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister.  On Monday [3/30/2020], after holding a virtue-signaling press conference lecturing the public on the Bible, Chronister arrested Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne for holding services on Sunday, even though his lawyer says he was following CDC guidelines for sanitation and social distancing.  "His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people in his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week in danger," the sheriff said.  The sheriff really cares about human life and public safety, right?  Well, now channel 10 news in Tampa is reporting that Chronister has released 163 prisoners as a "precautionary" measure to avoid spreading the virus in jail, as if somehow taking them out of the ultimate quarantine into the general population will stop the spread, and as if criminals will actually abide by the home confinement Chronister so zealously wants to impose on all citizens.

Trump Acts While Democrats Act Out.  [Scroll down]  A common myth promulgated by Pelosi and other Democrats involves the alleged failure of the Trump administration to replenish the Strategic National Stockpile, America's reserve of medical equipment for use during emergencies.  Connecticut's Democratic governor, Ned Lamont, repeated this canard Tuesday [3/31/2020]: "It was disturbing today to find out that the national strategic stockpile is now empty."  According to the Washington Post, however, the Obama administration depleted the stockpile: [...] One would think, considering his contribution to the shortages that now bedevil the system in a time of real crisis, erstwhile President Obama would keep his head down and be quiet.  But that fails to account for the man's hubris.

Dr. Stephen Smith Announces Hydroxy-Choloroquine Study that is "Game Changer" in Battle Against Coronavirus.  Dr. Smith has been treating coronavirus patients at the Smith Center fr Infectious Diseases and Urban Health in East Orange, New Jersey.  Dr. Smith revealed that in his treatment of coronavirus victims he has not seen a single patient under the age of 70 was not diabetic, pre-diabetic or obese.  Dr. Steven Smith then pointed out that not a single coronavirus patient under his care who was on the hydroxychloroquine regimen needed to be intibated.  This is outstanding news.

America Still a Global Leader Even in a Time of Crisis.  A current global myth alleges that America under the Trump administration is not leading the world fight against the coronavirus in its accustomed role as the postwar global leader.  Yet the U.S. was the first major nation to issue a travel ban on flights from China, with Donald Trump making that announcement on Jan. 31.  That was a bold act.  It likely saved thousands endangered by Chinese perfidy and soon became a global model.  None of the ban's loud critics are today demanding it be rescinded.  In typically American fashion, as we have seen in crises from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, after initial shock and unpreparedness, the U.S. economic and scientific juggernaut is kicking into action.  Already the U.S. is transitioning from a long, disastrous reliance on Chinese medical supplies and pharmaceuticals.

Our Super Smart Elite Shines During This Pandemic!.  We Americans are truly blessed by having a mainstream media full of brilliant renaissance men, women, and gender non-specific entities who are masters of so many varied and intermittently useful skills and who are eager to share their knowledge with us benighted souls.  The pandemic has revealed that every urban Twitter blue check scribbler, MSNBCNN panelist, NYT/WaPo doofus, and barely legal "senior editor" of a website you never heard of, is a Nobel Prize-winning epidemiologist, a master logistician, and a diversity consultant to boot. [...] Each of them is an Official Junior Epidemiologist now, weighing-in on curve flattening and RO rates like they have any idea what any of it means.  What's really funny is how they now want to decide what we should hear by censoring the president and his team's press conferences and then reporting to us only what they consider to be things we should know.  Yes, the media presumes to decide what we need to know, not Dr. Fauci, not Dr. Brix, no, the media.

U.S. Funds World Health Organization That Boot-Licks China, With Deadly Results.  The coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread throughout the world, having infected more than 100,000 people and causing the deaths of more than 4,000. Officials in charge of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have rightly received plenty of criticism about how they've managed the outbreak, with nearly half a million people calling on WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to resign.  The reason for the WHO's failure to properly act to contain the outbreak, and its repeated issuing of inaccurate and bad advice, is not merely the result of incompetence.  Rather, the malfeasance is the direct result of the CCP deliberately buying out WHO's leadership, with tragic consequences.

Who Believes WHO?  [Scroll down]  The astute reader is probably wondering, what do the IPCC and WHO have in common?  That's an excellent question.  The correct answer is not both organizations are part of that behemoth known as the United Nations.  WHO is a specialized agency of the U.N. allegedly responsible for international public health, part of the U.N. Sustainable Development Group.  This means in reality, the WHO is a political organization, not a medical one.  What the IPCC is to climate science, WHO is to medicine.  In other words, put a stethoscope on Bozo the Clown, and he could be the WHO media relations specialist.

Accusing eyes turn on China as America plunges into pandemic hell week.  China's role in spreading the coronavirus is drawing increasing scrutiny as America slides into what may prove the worst phase of the pandemic.  A classified intelligence report given to the White House last week showed that China concealed the extent of the outbreak, according to Bloomberg.  Now, the United States has overtaken China as the epicenter of the global contagion, with 206,200 confirmed cases and 4,633 deaths.  China has confirmed some 82,300 cases and 3,316 deaths, according to a case tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

Lockdown: Federal prisoners to be confined to cells for 14 days to slow virus spread.  Federal prisons have been ordered to confine inmates to their cells for the next 14 days in a dramatic effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.  The order from the Bureau of Prisons took effect Wednesday and will be re-evaluated at the end of the two-week quarantine, officials said.  "For a 14-day period, inmates in every institution will be secured in their assigned cells/quarters to decrease the spread of the virus.  This modification to our action plan is based on health concerns, not disruptive inmate behavior," the prison agency said.

One organization doesn't want to share lifesaving medical equipment:  Planned Parenthood.  The image of courageous and self-sacrificing healthcare workers draped in garbage bags at Mount Sinai West hospital in midtown Manhattan because of a shortage of personal protective equipment is a horrifying picture for the coronavirus crisis.  Despite Gov. Andrew Cuomo's assurances that all is well, nurses report that a dire shortage puts their lives at risk, and a national call to action has been sent out, asking for donations of lifesaving gear.  One organization not answering the call is Planned Parenthood, which seems to insist that keeping its personal protective equipment to end lives without interruption is more important than contributing to those trying to save lives at the risk of their own.

Coronavirus: America's March of Madness.  Every year, tens of thousands of Americans die of "flu-related" illnesses — mostly those in their '80s and '90s whose immune systems can no longer fight off pathogens.  People age and eventually weaken.  This is reality.  We have never shut down our entire productive economy or hijacked people's freedom over it. [...] Should Californians passively stand by and follow the draconian, business-killing, joy-killing, life-killing lockdown measures that Governor Newsom and our local officials suddenly feel emboldened to thrust upon us?  Should citizens across the nation meekly accede to the bizarre, out-of-proportion measures being mandated by out-of-control state officials, who seem to be unaware of burgeoning unintended consequences, or else may actually want to feed the fires of destruction?  Isn't it time to call out our city councils, county supervisors, all the way up to our governors?

When Can Life Return to Normal? 4 Signs to Monitor.  Social distancing is a major disruption to our lives in so many ways.  It affects the economy and well-being of the American people, hurts the education of our children, and separates us from loved ones, including those who may be vulnerable.  While social distancing may be painful now, it offers the possibility of reducing the overall level of pain we may have to endure during this crisis.  Ultimately, we are social distancing to save lives.  Social distancing won't last forever — and there are signs that we can watch for to see that it might be coming to an end.

Governor cites five-week delay for unemployment checks.  Connecticut residents suddenly out of work as a result of the coronavirus pandemic might not see their first unemployment payment until the first week of May, Gov. Ned Lamont said Tuesday.  Lamont reported no fresh new surge in claims for unemployment benefits, after the state saw roughly 100,000 file after his March 10 declaration of a public health emergency in response to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

China hid extent of coronavirus outbreak, US intelligence reportedly says.  The Chinese government has deliberately underreported the total number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the country, the U.S. intelligence community told the White House, a new report says.  Bloomberg, citing three U.S. officials, reported Wednesday that the intelligence community said in a classified report that China's public tally of COVID-19 infections and deaths is purposefully incomplete.  The secret report concludes that China's numbers are fake, two of the officials told Bloomberg.  The White House received the report last week, according to the news outlet.

Hospital worker, 33, is arrested for 'stealing a box of masks from work and shipping them to other people'.  A New York woman has been arrested for allegedly stealing a box of face masks from an upstate medical center.  Otsego County Sheriff Richard Devlin, Jr said in a statement that Josie Wright, 33, was taken into custody for stealing the masks and other medical supplies from Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown.  Authorities said Wright, who works as a contracted employee at the center, had taken the masks and alcohol prep pads and shipped the items to other people.

Trump Destroys Connecticut Governor's Claim the Strategic National Stockpile Has Been Emptied.  Ned Lamont, the Democrat governor of Connecticut, claimed on Tuesday that the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies is now empty and alleged that the state is now on its own in securing ventilators and masks to fight the coronavirus pandemic without the help of the federal government.  "It was disturbing today to find out that the national strategic stockpile is now empty.  We did get 50 ventilators, for which I am very thankful," Governor Lamont said.  "For now we are on our own.  For now, we are doing the best to scour the globe for PPE (personal protective equipment) as best we can."  This, it turns out, was not true.  President Trump was asked about Lamont's claim during the Coronavirus Task Force press briefing, and he explained what's really happening.

Coronavirus strains nation's largest police force; 1,000-plus NYPD cops test positive.  The novel coronavirus outbreak in New York City has taken a major toll on workers in health care, mass transit, and public safety, including the New York City Police Department.  The department reported on Tuesday [3/31/2020] that 1,048 uniformed members and 145 civilian employees have tested positive for the coronavirus.  More than 5,600 officers (about 15.6% of its uniformed workforce) were out sick on Tuesday — more cops than serve in the entire Houston Police Department.

Third World Immigrant Medical Workers Exploited by NYC Democrats.  Less than a month ago, at the now infamous Elmhurst Hospital in Queens where patients with the Chinese virus are reportedly dropping like flies, the same recruiters were only willing to pay nursing assistants and patient care techs the federally mandated minimum wage with zero medical benefits, zero paid time off, and zero opportunities for a pay raise or professional advancement.  To put this into perspective, just a month ago, a person pouring hot beverages at an upscale coffee house or bagging groceries at a high-end food emporium in New York City made more money than a healthcare worker who was exposed to some of the same chaos and life threatening illnesses as is being reported on the news today.

Most Wisconsin voters don't want the Democratic convention in Milwaukee anymore because of coronavirus: poll.  A new poll indicates Wisconsin voters — by a nearly three-to-one margin — don't think the Democratic National Convention should be held this July in Milwaukee anymore because of the coronavirus pandemic.  Sixty-two percent of registered voters questioned in a Marquette Law School survey released Wednesday [4/1/2020] said that given the outbreak, the convention should not be held as an in-person event, with 22 percent saying the massive gathering should be held as scheduled July 13-16.

Remember the Young Woman Who Died While Waiting for a Coronavirus Test in New Orleans? Yeah, Well Now the Truth Is Out.  Last week the liberal media ran screaming headlines after 39-year-old Natasha Ott was found dead on her kitchen floor while awaiting her coronavirus test results.  Rest in peace, Natasha.  Of course, the left ran with the story as a way to whip up panic and attack the Trump administration. [...] But it was not true.  A second coron[a]virus test came back negative on Natasha Ott.  The media reported incorrectly that she died of COVID-19 while waiting for her test results.  Furthermore, it was not revealed that she was in fact suffering for the last TWO years from an undiagnosed intestinal condition but her boyfriend lied and said she was perfectly healthy.

How national testing failures contributed to Maryland's deadliest coronavirus cluster.  Some of Rebecca Travels' staff worked second jobs at other nursing homes, she said, and she wanted to hedge against an outbreak.  Nursing care facilities in other states had been hit hard, and she feared for her older residents — who live four to a room.  At first, state officials told her that her facility didn't qualify for testing under the stringent criteria set out by the federal government amid a nationwide shortage of testing kits, she said.  Later, after the first case of the virus had been confirmed within her facility March 26, she said state officials told her that using tests on staff would be a "waste of resources," and that staff with symptoms should just self-isolate.  Less than a week later, five of her 95 residents are dead.  More than 70 others have tested positive for the virus and many are hospitalized.  And according to Gov. Larry Hogan, it was an employee without symptoms — not one Travels would have known to isolate without a test — who likely brought the virus in.

Tempers fray as coronavirus lockdown fatigue hits Italy and Spain.  Italians have begun to chafe against the restrictions as the social and economic consequences begin to bite.  How long Italian society will be able to endure will be a litmus test for other Western, democratic countries who locked down later.  Tensions have been most evident in Italy's poorer south.  Over the weekend armed police were deployed to supermarkets in Palermo, Sicily, over fears that some customers would not pay for food.  Leoluca Orlando, the city's mayor, warned in an interview with newspaper La Stampa that anger in the city risked spilling over into violence.

Sweden Decides to Let Coronavirus to Run Its Course in Country Without Destroying Its Economy or Future.  Sweden is taking a different approach in battling the coronavirus pandemic.  The country remains open for business and life goes on as usual with few restrictions.  The political leaders are placing responsibility on the individual.  [Video clip]

'Like an elephant being attacked by a house cat'
Stanford epidemiologist warns that coronavirus crackdown is based on bad data.  "If we had not known about a new virus out there, and had not checked individuals with PCR [virus] tests, the number of total deaths due to 'influenza-like illness' would not seem unusual this year.  At most, we might have casually noted that flu this season seems to be a bit worse than average."  This was not written by some right-wing crank claiming coronavirus is a conspiracy to deny President Trump a second term, or an excuse to bring down capitalism.  It's from a sobering and illuminating essay by Stanford University epidemiologist John Ioannidis, co-director of its Meta-Research Innovation Center, published in the life sciences news site STAT.  The coronavirus-driven crackdowns on public life by state and local political leaders are being made in a data vacuum, Ioannidis warns, and extreme government measures to prevent infections may actually lead to more deaths.

How a Police State is Born.  The general public has been stampeded by the fearmongering in the media into demanding action from the politicians at both the state and federal level.  The politicians respond and do not pause to ask whether these actions will work — just do something!  They do not ask if the financial and societal cost to the nation is worth the unknown and perhaps nebulous return.  Any student of history and human nature would recognize that these are the classic symptoms of collective hysteria.  Hysteria is contagious.  This nation is turning itself inside out as we, thanks to the media, are exaggerating the threat and not stopping to ask if the cure is worse than the disease.  In times like these, it is to be expected that the citizenry will look to the government for guidance and assistance.  When that happens in an environment of mass hysteria, then it is unsurprising that the state will take on or assume new power, as that is what has been demanded of it.  This historically has been the process which leads to the rise of authoritarianism.

Governor Northam Closes Virginia Until Day After GOP Primary.  We had a call in the previous hour from woman in Cincinnati very, very worried that elections will never be the same because they're arbitrarily being canceled, delayed, shut down, and, in many cases, they're arbitrarily being delayed, shut down for the benefit of a particular political party. [...] Now, why did Governor Northam in Virginia choose Wednesday, June 10th, as the date that people can finally leave?  Well, guess what?  The Republican primary in Virginia is June the 9th.

Floridians Feel The Brunt Of Big Brother.  The "new normal" in Florida hints at startling government encroachment against private property rights and individual human autonomy.  On March 30, Sunshine State Governor Ron DeSantis (R) issued a "Safer-at-Home" order for residents of three heavily populated southeast coast counties and Monroe County in the Florida Keys amid the Coronavirus health pandemic.  The move encourages millions of Floridians to stay inside and be aware of social-distancing protocol. [...] There is no evidence that individuals partaking of these isolated outdoor activities — private beach use, golfing at a private club, or boating — would be violating "social-distancing" directives issued by health officials, which restrict groupings of ten or more people.  Yet all these private pursuits are targeted, and residents are expected to comply, no questions asked. [...] As I stood on a railing by a Florida public beach the very same day this interview was posted on the CBS News website, a dark-painted helicopter swooped in and hovered low over the stretch of sand right near me for a full minute or two.  I gazed around.  Nobody was on the beach below the copter, although a couple of people sat on a section of private beach a bit further up.  Just as abruptly as it came, the helicopter sped off.  There weren't 100 people on the beach.  There weren't even four.  There were two.  And apparently they were on their own private property.

Mob violence plunges Italy into chaos - looting turns rampant.  Italy is at risk of total social collapse according to experts, following a surge in supermarket raids and robberies in the country's southern region.  Police have been deployed to patrol supermarkets in Sicily after plots organising raids and thefts were discovered online.  There is mounting concern that violence could soon break out due to food shortages after the Italian government extended its strict lockdown until Easter.

Why Are the Airlines Still Flying Out of New York?  I am baffled by the continuation of air travel between New York City and the rest of the country.  At the moment, the greater New York area is at the center of the coronavirus crisis in the United States, and yet Kayak confirms that, even today, anyone from the city and its environs can get on a plane and travel almost anywhere within the United States.  Why?  As I write, direct flights from Newark to Miami are going for $19 on Frontier and $29 on American Airlines.  Given the seriousness of the pandemic — and the number of businesses that have been shuttered as a precaution — this seems downright bizarre.

Chicagoans among first to test promising treatment for COVID-19.  A drug doctors have mentioned repeatedly as a possible therapy for COVID-19 holds out hope for reducing severity and duration of symptoms.  And now Chicagoans will be first in line to test it.  Inside the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, an IV drip and a drug are a step toward a treatment for COVID-19.  Northwestern Medicine Infectious Disease Physician Dr Babafemi Taiwo called it "a watershed moment."  It is one patients and their families around the world have been hoping for since the start of the global pandemic.

Sen Rick Scott Wants Probe Of WHO-China 'Cover Up'.  Florida Sen. Rick Scott on Tuesday [3/31/2020] called for a congressional investigation into whether the World Health Organization pushed Chinese government misinformation to help the communist regime "cover up" the extent of the coronavirus pandemic.  Scott, a Republican, also called for congressional hearings to consider whether the United States should continue funding WHO. The United States contributes nearly 15% of WHO's annual budget, far greater than any other nation.

Nancy Pelosi Dismissed Coronavirus Threat in February Chinatown Visit: 'Everything Is Fine Here'.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to investigate President Trump for his actions in the lead-up to the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., but in February, she dismissed the threat with a visit to San Francisco's Chinatown.  KPIX documented Pelosi's February 24 visit to a fortune cookie factory and retailers:  [Video clip]

Fauci offers more conservative death rate in academic article than in public virus briefings.  You've probably heard that COVID-19 is far deadlier than the flu.  But it could turn out to be more akin to a severe flu season.  Surprisingly, both of those assessments come from the same authority at the same time:  Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's chief infectious disease specialist.  Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has repeatedly cited more jarring figures in public.  For instance, Fauci declared in March 11 congressional testimony that the current coronavirus "is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu," which would be about 1 percent.  His testimony generated news headlines that blared across the internet and television news, and it remains frequently cited today.  But among his learned colleagues in academia, he has provided the more conservative analysis.

Mayor deBlasio Releases 900 Inmates To Reduce Coronavirus Risk — Makes Room To Arrest Priests, Ministers, Pastors.  New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio has released 900 inmates from city jails in an effort to reduce the risk of coronavirus.  Days earlier he announced the intent to permanently close houses of worship that defy the 'stay-at-home' dictates.

Watch Out for Long-Term Effects of Government's Coronavirus Remedies.  As the number of identified coronavirus cases increases across the country even as much of the nation is under significant levels of government-ordered lockdowns, it's important to bear in mind the full relationship between the economy and public health.  Put simply: economic contraction can be bad for your health.  It is likely that President Donald Trump has had this in mind when he advocates getting the nation back to business as soon as is reasonable.

'Coronavirus is treatable': First Kenyan patient Brenda speaks out.  This disease is manageable and treatable, Kenya's first coronavirus patient has said.  The lady identified as Brenda spoke on Wednesday as she, along with another patient Brian, held a live video chat with President Uhuru Kenyatta.  The two recovered patients were accompanied by Health CS Mutahi Kagwe at Afya House.

NJ Governor Will Still Ban Self-Serve Gas Pumps Despite Virus Threat.  New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy may have caved on closing all the gun stores during the pandemic, but there's one place where he's drawing a bright red line in the sand.  You people simply can not be trusted to pump your own gas.  This has been a bone of contention in New Jersey for ages, and some proponents of doing things the way that virtually the entire rest of the country does it hoped that the current, dire conditions might move the Governor to reconsider.  One such group is the New Jersey Gasoline, Convenience, Automotive Association (NJGCA). [...] Everyone arguing in favor of lifting the ban is citing the state of Oregon.  Half of the state has a similar ban in place but on Friday they temporarily suspended the rule, allowing gas stations to offer self serve if they wished to do so.

Donald Trump Warns of 'Very Very Tough Two Weeks' During Coronavirus Crisis.  The president shared his reaction to the news of outbreaks in New York City and New Jersey and watching the number of cases and deaths from the virus.  The White House shared a new document urging Americans to continue working to slow the spread of the virus by following the federal guidelines to isolate themselves at home.  But the president predicted that there would be "light at the end of the tunnel" that would encourage Americans to remain strong.  Despite his seriousness during the briefing, Trump's indefatigable optimism remained, looking forward to the end.

California to release 3,500 inmates early as coronavirus spreads inside prisons.  California is granting early release to 3,500 inmates in an effort to reduce crowding as coronavirus infections begin spreading through the state prison system.  Lawyers for Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday told a panel of federal judges the state is taking "extraordinary and unprecedented protective measures" to slow the spread of the virus and protect those who live and work within California's 35 prisons.  The accelerated parole policy — affecting inmates due to be released over the next 60 days — comes in the face of pressure to do much more.

28 UT students test positive for coronavirus after returning from spring break trip to Mexico, officials say.  Twenty-eight University of Texas students who returned to Austin from a spring break trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, have tested positive for the coronavirus, UT officials say.  Dozens more are being monitored.  Austin Public Health officials said Tuesday a group of about 70 people in their 20s took a chartered plane to and from Mexico about 10 days ago.  Some flew back on commercial flights.  Four of those who tested positive showed no symptoms.  In addition to the 28 who tested positive, a university spokesman said it is believed many in the larger group were UT students.

The Senator Who Saw the Coronavirus Coming.  While others slept, Tom Cotton was warning anyone who would listen that the coronavirus was coming for America.  On January 22, one day before the Chinese government began a quarantine of Wuhan to contain the spread of the virus, the Arkansas senator sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar encouraging the Trump administration to consider banning travel between China and the United States and warning that the Communist regime could be covering up how dangerous the disease really was.  That same day, he amplified his warnings on Twitter and in an appearance on the radio program of Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade.

What Roe v.  Wade and Pro-Choice Abortion Remind Us About Coronavirus.  It could not be more clear that fewer people would be infected, fewer would be endangered, fewer people would be quarantined, fewer hospitals would be watching their supply of ventilators and N95 respiratory masks — if only more people would practice social distancing of six feet, cough into their bent elbows or into a tissue that they promptly would throw away, wash their hands for 20 seconds, and practice simple common sense.  True, there are no guarantees.  Even the most vigilant can be felled unsuspectingly, though quite atypically, by an exchange of cash or touching a doorknob at the wrong moment and then not racing promptly to disinfect with hand sanitizer or to wash their hands.  But can there be any doubt at this moment in the disease's trajectory that a responsible populace would register better results in country after country if only the common people practiced the common wisdom of common sense?

Michigan [is] Now 3rd In [the] Country For Coronavirus Deaths.  Michigan now ranks third in the country for coronavirus-related deaths, trailing only New York and New Jersey, after the Midwest state on Tuesday [3/31/2020] reported a new surge of cases.  State officials confirmed another 1,117 cases, bringing the coronavirus tally in Michigan to 7,615.  Officials on Tuesday said the virus claimed the lives of 75 more people, pushing up the number of COVID-19 fatalities to 259.

If it bleeds, it leads:  Media omits US fatality rates in reports.  The mainstream media's headlines border on sensational and incomplete, thus drumming up fears of massive amounts of deaths without pointing out how the fatality rate is not as high as the media portrays it.  Both CNN and NBC News are to blame for the incomplete headlines that focus on death counts, but not the percentage of people who have since recovered from the virus.

What's Really Happening in China With Coronavirus? 4 Things to Know.  The Chinese government says it has lifted the lockdown for the province of Hubei, where the coronavirus first emerged, and has reported no new results for several days.  However, much anecdotal information has arisen to call the official line from the Chinese Communist Party into question. [...] The official Communist Party line is that there were more than 82,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 3,300 had died from the disease.  "It's difficult to get real numbers.  They expelled U.S. journalists, so we have to rely on social media, but the Chinese Communist Party censors everything," former Army intelligence officer Greg Barbaccia told The Daily Signal in an interview.  Residents of Wuhan — the capital of Hubei province and where the virus originated — say the number of deaths is closer to 42,000 in that one city, Radio Free Asia reported.

Congress eyes avoiding Washington for at least a month.  After passing the largest economic relief bill in history, Congress is now considering staying away from Washington for a month or more as the coronavirus makes even the routine act of legislating a dangerous risk for new transmissions.  Officially, Congress is scheduled to come back on April 20 as lawmakers try to avoid traveling and congregating amid the raging crisis and as they plot a potential fourth phase of economic relief.  Unofficially, it could take even longer for Congress to physically come back into session.  And longer still for things to return to anywhere near normal on Capitol Hill, where members of both chambers, staffers and U.S. Capitol Police officers have now tested positive for the deadly respiratory virus.

Unmoored Amid the Coronavirus.  What's the safe way during the pandemic to tell the neighbors you're moving after 25 years in your home?  You can't hug them.  Email is so infuriatingly sterile.  Handwritten notes on fine stationery would be nice, but doesn't coronavirus linger on surfaces?  And bleach wipes would ruin the penmanship.  You could put out black flags.  But I didn't have any just then.  And besides, black flags may have led some into thinking we had the medieval plague.  No need to stoke more panic when politicians and media types are doing such a fine job of it.

Barack Obama Suggests Donald Trump 'Denied' Coronavirus Warnings.  Former President Barack Obama suggested on Twitter on Tuesday [3/31/2020] 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."

5 rabbis from Lakewood have died from coronavirus, joining growing toll of N.J. victims, reports say.  At least five rabbis from Lakewood have died after contracting coronavirus, with Rabbi Michoel Tzvi Fettman, 39, and the father of nine, the most recent to succumb to the viral epidemic that has so far killed nearly 200 people in New Jersey.  Fettman died on Monday [3/30/2020], according to the Lakewood Scoop.

Officers Disperse Birthday Party Crowd Amid COVID-19 Pandemic.  A birthday party for a little girl was dispersed by police amid the state's 'stay at home' order enacted to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, Saturday evening.  Officers responded to reports of a gathering involving 30 to 40 people at a home in the 5500 block of 4th Avenue in the Hyde Park area around 6:00 PM.  [Video clip]

Italy Finally Starts Mass Treatment with Hydroxycholorquine.  Doctors in Italy have finally began widely prescribing hydroxychloroquine in certain combinations in Rome and the wider region of Lazio with a population of around six million.  According to Corriere della Sera, a well known Italian daily newspaper, Dr. Pier Luigi Bartoletti, Deputy National Secretary of the Italian Federation of General Practitioners, explains that every single person with Covid-19 that has early signs, like a cough or a fever for example, is now being treated with the anti-malaria drug.  The drug "is already giving good results," Bartoletti says while Malaysia reveals they have been using it since the very beginning.

Sheriff Villanueva ousted as as [sic] head of emergency operations in midst of coronavirus pandemic.  In the middle of the global coronavirus outbreak, The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday voted on an ordinance that puts the county CEO in charge of coordinating emergency operations, and replaces Sheriff Alex Villanueva in that role.  The board's original vote to make the change — as part of updating its plan for emergency preparedness and following lessons learned from the 2018 Woolsey Fire — came back in November.

Trump's Best Bet In Corona Crisis Is Market Freedom.  President Trump has an opportunity both to defeat the novel coronavirus and to gain advantage for the United States in the competition with China for global influence, which predates both the coronavirus crisis and the Trump administration.  It flared earlier in this presidency during trade negotiations.  It resurfaced with Mr. Trump describing Covid-19 as the "Chinese virus."  Now, China appears to have the upper hand.  It has stopped reporting virus-related deaths, with official Chinese government numbers for Wuhan at 2,500, only a small fraction of the more than 40,000 that U.S. government-sponsored Radio Free Asia says is closer to the truth.  China is also allowing medical supplies to be airlifted to New York from Shanghai.  These supplies are so far being received without any questions about whether the Chinese had previously been deliberately holding them back.

California Pandemic Scientist Says His Team Has Found Potential Cure for COVID-19 Virus.  California scientist Dr. Jacob Glanville says his team has found a cure to the COVID-19 virus.  He believes April could be very rough for the United States.  Glanville's team took antibodies used to neutralize SARS and used technology in their lab to adapt them to recognize COVID-19.  Dr. Glanville says he has very potent antibodies to combat the virus and has sent samples out to the military.

COVID-19 Deaths in Europe:  Excess Mortality is — DOWN?  Given the global hysteria over the spread COVID-19, you might be excused if you are very surprised to learn that the most recent week of mortality data in the EU shows an actual decline from what is expected for this time of year.  In the coming months there will be an increasing debate over whether the virtual shutdown of our economy was warranted given the threat of the latest form of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.  While there are still large uncertainties about how fast it spreads and how lethal it is (statistically, those are inversely related), I suspect we will ultimately realize that our response might well have done more harm than good to society as a whole.  This is mainly because poverty is the leading cause of premature death in the world, and shutting down the economy leads to premature death for a multitude of reasons related to poverty.

Brooklyn man allegedly price-gouged doctors, intentionally coughed on arresting agents.  A Brooklyn man accused of selling medical supplies to doctors at massive markups allegedly intentionally coughed on FBI agents and told them he had COVID-19, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said Monday [3/30/2020].  Baruch Feldheim, 43, was arrested on charges of assaulting a federal officer and with making false statements to law enforcement.

Thanks, China:  Wet Markets Gave Us the Coronavirus and They're Back In Business.  The start of the coronavirus has been traced back to a wet market in Wuhan, China, where patient zero purchased bat soup.  Exotic mammals in unsanitary conditions flood the streets.  And, despite what we know about the start of this virus, China has allowed wet markets to reopen, The Daily Mail reported.  Even worse, there are no apparent attempts to raise hygiene standards to prevent another virus from emerging.

Chinese Markets Reopen — And They Still Sell Bats, Dogs And Cats.  Live animals are still for sale in Chinese food markets that reopened after the country recently declared victory over coronavirus.  Cages full of cats and dogs waiting for slaughter and the unsanitary preparation of animals is again reportedly a common sight in Chinese food markets, often called wet-markets, according to in-country correspondents with the Daily Mail.  China ordered that its wet-markets be shut down in January, after facts emerged suggesting that coronavirus was first transmitted to humans via bats and other live animals sold in the often filthy places of commerce, according to Business Insider.  However, now that China says it's beaten the virus, the markets seem to have resumed business as usual.

Wuhan residents say coronavirus figures released by China don't add up.  Chinese officials, desperate to recast the country as a global leader that has conquered the coronavirus, have been saying that its death rates are decreasing in the city of Wuhan.  The problem, residents say, is that the numbers don't add up.  Wuhan, the first epicenter of the global outbreak, began lifting its two-month lockdown over the weekend.  The city in Central China restarted some subway service, reopened its borders and allowed families to reunite.

Of course we must stop coronavirus, but not at the cost of becoming a police state.  I was delighted when the Government performed its dramatic U-turn a few weeks ago and moved away from a herd immunity strategy to outright prevention of the rapid spread of Covid-19.  To have allowed 500,000 people to die while watching the NHS being overwhelmed would have been immoral.  But is this new plan being enforced too drastically?  We have stringent rules affecting the most basic routines of daily life and a police force with full discretionary powers.  Are the Government and police trying to prevent the spread of coronavirus or put the nation under house arrest?  Over the past two weeks I have been particularly careful about human contact.  As a smoker of over 40 years' standing, I know I am at risk of contracting pneumonia.  The concept of social distancing at this time makes perfect sense to me and I will do my utmost to adhere to it for everybody's sake.  I will not, however, live under home detention and be told — regardless of whether I come into contact with another human being — that I can leave my property only once per day.

Trump's not scaring people about the coronavirus:  The media are.  I understand critical reporting, but if anyone is guilty of scaring the public, it's the national media.  They have reported on this pandemic and the administration's response to it as though it were something out of the Book of Revelations.  Every single death is characterized as an avoidable tragedy — something that we should have been able to stop if not for an inept president.  In fact, the experiences of many countries not led by Trump has been strikingly similar.  The truth is that no one, not the president, not scientists, and certainly not the media, has a firm grasp on what will happen with the coronavirus.  So far, we've identified trends in how it affects people, and we have some projections about how bad things will get, but that's about it.

Johnson & Johnson:  We Have Lead Vaccine Candidate For Coronavirus, Hope For One Billion Vaccines Worldwide.  On Monday, Johnson & Johnson announced they had selected a lead COVID-19 vaccine candidate to help fight the virus.  The company stated they had been working on various candidates for a vaccine since January; the goal is to provide a global supply of more than one billion doses.  The company expects to conduct human clinical studies of its lead vaccine candidate at the latest by September 2020 and estimates it could start delivering the vaccine by early 2021, which it notes is "a substantially accelerated timeframe in comparison to the typical vaccine development process."

Sen. Cotton takes on China regarding origins of the coronavirus.  One of the first to advocate for drastic measures to combat coronavirus was Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.  Almost two weeks ago, he remarked "what seems extreme today, will seem obvious tomorrow," as he called for most businesses to close up and Americans to stay home.  He also had tough words for the country he sees as the real culprit, and told me what he thinks should be done now to help.  Senator Tom Cotton:  We want to make sure that we take care of people as we get through this national challenge because it's no American's fault.  It is solely the fault of China and we need to pull together as one people to come through it as one people.

The Coincidental Chinese Virus.  Here is where the coincidences begin.  Wuhan, where the virus originated, just happens to be the location of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, China's only level 4 biosafety lab.  Could the virus have originated in that lab?  The "consensus of scientists" say no, that this is just a conspiracy theory.  Perhaps, but other consensuses of scientists tell us President Trump is mentally ill and that man-made global warming is melting the polar icecaps.  The virus may have developed naturally in a Wuhan wet market, according to experts who are adamant, "Humans could have never dreamed this up."  Could those same wet market conditions be replicated in a laboratory, producing similar results?  The Chinese keep their secrets so we may never know.  Also curious is how quickly Wuhan purportedly became virus free.  And how other major Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Beijing weren't affected.  While the Chinese government quarantined Wuhan, the virus had already been around for months, potentially spread by Chinese New Year travel before the quarantine was placed.  Yet the outbreak was quite limited and short-lived in China, unlike elsewhere, almost as if they were prepared.  What a coincidence.

Nancy Pelosi urged people to congregate in Chinatown in late February.  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi critiqued President Trump for his failure to imagine the disastrous effect of the COVID-19 coronavirus on the American public and infrastructure, when in fact she failed to imagine the same thing.  On February 24th, Pelosi walked through San Francisco's Chinatown with a large entourage, encouraging locals to come down and join her.  Pelosi said:  "Come to Chinatown.  Here we are.  We're careful, safe, and come join us."  She was more concerned with virtue signalling and combating "racism" than she was with securing the safety of Americans.

'Proud teacher' from Rhode Island offers to pay anyone with COVID-19 to cough on Trump.  You've probably heard the expression those who can, do, and those who can't, teach.  A Rhode Island public school teacher perhaps gave that chestnut a new meaning by allegedly taking to Twitter with an offer to pay someone infected with COVID-19 to cough on President Trump.  The educator in question, who has subsequently deactivated her Twitter account that purportedly operated anonymously under the handle "Proud Teacher," is said to teach English as a Second Language to middle schoolers.  She previously taught in neighboring Massachusetts.

Study raises hope that blood plasma can treat coronavirus patients.  A preliminary study released Friday [3/27/2020] found that blood serum from people who recovered from coronavirus was effective at treating critically ill patients, raising hope that the technique will curtail a pandemic that has already killed more than 30,000 people around the globe.  The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at only five patients, and the authors of the report acknowledged the need for more extensive research.  But it showed promising results, and health officials have already expressed optimism that blood transfers can be used to fight the new coronavirus strain.

CNN Abruptly Cuts Away as 'My Pillow' CEO Mike Lindell Announces His Factories Will Crank Out 50,000 Masks by Friday.  My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell announced his factories will be cranking out 50,000 face masks by Friday in an effort to help Americans during a time of crisis.  President Trump called Mr. Lindell up to the lectern to speak for a few minutes on Monday [3/30/2020] at his Rose Garden press conference and the media went crazy.

Mainstream media mocks White House appearance of 'My Pillow Guy' Mike Lindell despite contribution to virus fight.  Several members of the media were quick to dismiss the presence of "My Pillow" founder Mike Lindell at the White House coronavirus press briefing despite his company's ongoing contribution to combating the outbreak.  Lindell, who was among several business leaders who spoke at Monday's presser, announced that his company is aiming to increase its production of cotton face masks from 10,000 to 50,000 per day.

Virginia Governor Orders State Residents to Stay at Home Until June 10 Amid Coronavirus Pandemic.  Virginia Governor Ralph Northam joined a growing number of states in issuing a stringent "stay at home" order on Monday, telling residents to remain in their homes except for essential purposes until June 10.  Many states and municipalities across the country have already issued stay at home or "shelter in place" orders as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread rapidly.  Announcing the executive order on Monday, Northam said:  "I want to be clear:  Do not go out unless you need to go out.  This is very different than wanting to go out."

Nevada Governor Sisolak's Chief Medical Officer Who Banned Hydroxychloroquine for Treating Coronavirus DOES NOT Have License to Practice Medicine.  As reported last week — Nevada's Governor Steve Sisolak (D) on Tuesday issued an emergency order barring the use of anti-malaria drugs such as chloroquine for Coronavirus patients.  In addition to barring the use of chloroquine for Coronavirus patients on Tuesday, Nevada's governor also banned social gatherings of more than 10 people.  According to the governor's order anyone who violates the order will be charged with at least a misdemeanor crime and it remains in place until April 16 (after Easter).  But there's more:  If you read the governor's order he also prevented seniors from using chloroquine as a prophylactic to ward off the disease.

Crowds gather to watch 1,000-bed Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort arrive in Manhattan to assist with coronavirus outbreak.  Crowds gathered to watch the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds for patients, arriving in New York City to alleviate the strain on the city's hospitals as it continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, despite being warned to stay at home.  The ship arrived at New York Harbor on Monday morning [3/30/2020].  It will welcome patients who do not have coronavirus but who still need care in order to clear out the city's other hospitals for those who have tested positive for COVID-19.  It came as the death toll in New York City hit 790 and more than 36,000 cases were recorded.  New York City is the epicenter of the virus in the US.

Trump, Cuomo and the mystery of the missing masks.  President Trump on Sunday speculated that New York state hospitals are running short of respirator masks to protect doctors and nurses from the coronavirus because supplies are being stolen.  "How do you go from 10 to 20 [thousand masks per week] to 300,000?  Ten [thousand] to 20,000 masks, to 300,000," Trump said at a briefing by the coronavirus task force in the Rose Garden.  "Something is going on, and you ought to look into it as reporters.  Are they going out the back door?"  Trump did not elaborate on what gave rise to his suspicion.

Chinese researchers isolated deadly bat coronaviruses near Wuhan animal market.  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.

Top NY Hospital Exec Fired For Suggesting Trump Supporters Should Infect Each Other with Coronavirus.  Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center fired a top executive for suggesting in Facebook comments that Trump supporters should infect each other with the Coronavirus.  Laura Krolczyk, the VP for external affairs at the cancer facility was fired after GOP operative and former Trump campaign official Michael Caputo posted her exchange with Lisa LaTrovato, the center's director of development to his Twitter account and called for his followers to call the cancer center and report the two.

Some Much-Needed Coronavirus Perspective.  There are almost 140,000 active cases of COVID-19 in the United States.  Nearly 20,000 new cases were reported on Sunday alone.  The death toll in the U.S. is now close to 3,000 — with more than 2,000 of them occurring in just the past week. [...] It's unprecedented, to be sure.  But the problem with all the numbers being bandied about is that they lack any context.  On its own, 3,000 fatalities might seem like a tremendously large number.  But that's before you learn that an average of 7,700 people die in the U.S. every single day.  Which means that over the past week, when the coronavirus took 2,000 lives, nearly 54,000 people died from other causes.

Winning the War Against the Chinese Communists.  [Scroll down]  We know how the CCP lied over its claim in December 2019 that the coronavirus was under control, simultaneously refusing to allow access to Western medical officials, failing to instigate an effective quarantine and deflecting responsibility during that period.  It was not, however until late January that President Trump started regularly talking about the outbreak in relatively concerned terms.  That shift suggests the issue had, by January, become a significant element of Trump's daily intelligence report.  It is likely that Trump was then warned that the risk of a global pandemic was growing.  While we are at war with the "invisible enemy" (the coronavirus), we are also at war with China and most of us are not even aware of it.  The CCP is ultimately responsible for the deceptions that allowed the coronavirus to become a global pandemic as it daily destroys lives and economies.  And yet, much of the mainstream media through the world has been sympathetic to General Secretary Xi Jinping [...]

Viral Prerequisites and Nationalist Lessons in Time of Plague.  When Trump issued the key January 31 travel ban that suddenly stopped the arrival of 15,000 visitors per day to the United States from China, the Left was as outraged as it had been with the ban against Libya, North Korea, and Iran.  Candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders saw an opening against their presumed 2020 opponent, and quickly sought to demagogue voters with "here-we-go-again" rhetoric that racist Trump is banning free travel of a marginalized people in his habitual "xenophobic" and "racist" fits.  That Trump shortly extended the ban to all of Europe — and eventually was followed by almost all nations of the world — did not mean he was not simultaneously caricatured as a nationalist rube.  How odd that no prior critical major newspaper, network, or politician has now called for the end of such unnecessary and hurtful bans and the resumption of travel from China without further interruption — especially now that we are told by CNN and MSNBC that the Communist Party apparat has all but ended the virus or at least is far more competent than the Trump Administration.

Despite all the warnings, UK Police allow large groups of Muslims to pray together.  While UK Police stalk citizens with drones and then shame them on social media for walking their dogs in remote areas, Muslims in Birmingham gather in large groups outside (even on tennis courts) to "pray'.  Notice how Police have nothing to say.

Trump Predicts Coronavirus Deaths to Peak in 2 Weeks, Extends Distancing Guidelines to End of April.  President Donald Trump announced fatalities from coronavirus are likely to reach the highest point in two weeks, then begin to decline.  He also said he's extending the guidelines to slow the spread — that were set to lapse on Monday — to the end of April.  "The modeling estimates that the peak in death rate is likely to hit in two weeks.  I'll say it again, the peak — the highest point — of death rates is likely to hit in two weeks," Trump said Sunday [3/29/2020] during a Rose Garden press conference.  But he added, "Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won."  He noted that everyone should continue to follow the guidelines that Vice President Mike Pence has regularly held up at press conferences for the last two weeks.

WHO Expert Mysteriously Disappears From Website After Carrying Water for China.  We're supposed to trust the World Health Organization's advice and counsel about COVID-19, even though WHO is the source of misinformation like this:  [Tweet]

Woman Who Ingested Fish Tank Cleaner Is Prolific Donor to Democratic Causes.  The Arizona woman who said that she and her 68-year-old husband ingested a substance used to clean fish tanks after hearing President Donald Trump tout chloroquine as a cure for the coronavirus has given thousands of dollars to Democratic groups and candidates over the last two years.  The woman's most recent donations, in late February, were to a Democratic PAC, the 314 Action Fund, that bills itself as the "pro-science resistance" and has vocally criticized the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic and held up her case to slam the White House.

Woman Who Blamed Trump for Husband's Death Is Prolific Donor to Democrats.  The Arizona woman who blamed President Trump for her 68-year-old husband's death after he ingested a substance used to clean fish tanks, is a Democrat who has donated thousand of dollars to Democratic groups and candidates, the Washington Free Beacon has found.

China Factory Worker Laughs As He Rubs Face Masks On Shoe.  A sickening video has appeared on social media showing a chuckling factory worker in China deliberately contaminate face masks.  The laughing factory worker — who isn't properly wearing his own face mask — appears to take pleasure in rubbing the face masks against his shoe at a time much of the world struggles to cope with the extra pressure brought about by the deadly Covid-19, which originated in China.

Burn Down The Regulatory House.  The Wuhan epidemic is bringing to light many regulations and processes that have needlessly impeded efforts to fight the virus by private industry, as well as by government.  Quite a few such regulations are now being suspended, causing many to ask, why did we have them in the first place?  At Center of the American Experiment's web site, economist John Phelan offers a textbook example from our state of Minnesota.  Minnesota's governor has ordered a draconian shutdown that is devastating the state's economy and will bankrupt thousands of small businesses.  Why?  As elsewhere, to "flatten the curve."  The concern is that Minnesota doesn't have enough hospital beds and, especially, enough ICU beds to accommodate COVID-19 patients who will need them during the height of the epidemic.  That is the fundamental reason why millions of Minnesotans have been ordered to stay home, at great cost.  But why is the state so short of hospital beds?

De Blasio threatens to permanently close places of worship that resist shutdown order.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned religious leaders that their places of worship could be shut down permanently if they did not follow the city's order to pause services during the coronavirus pandemic.  "A small number of religious communities, specific churches and specific synagogues, are unfortunately not paying attention to this guidance even though it's so widespread," the New York Democrat said Friday [3/27/2020] at his daily press briefing.  "I want to say to all those who are preparing for the potential of religious services this weekend:  If you go to your synagogue, if you go to your church and attempt to hold services after having been told so often not to, our enforcement agents will have no choice but to shut down those services," he added.

Medicare for All Scares Me More Than Coronavirus.  The world today is dealing with an unknown — a virus currently without a treatment or vaccine, and, like most Americans, I'm praying one will be found.  But what scares me most in this moment of crisis isn't the coronavirus; it's the push for "Medicare for All" as a solution that can harm millions, including my children.  The Democratic debate between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders earlier this month illustrates the current campaign to capitalize on the COVID-19 crisis to establish government-run health care. [...] Right now, patients in China, Iran, Italy, South Korea and the United Kingdom are dealing with rationed care, some being turned away.  The "wonders" of government-run health care aren't being offered to everyone.  And that's not even a new trend.  "Free" and "available" are not the same things, and it's not truly free, as taxpayers will get the bill, though not necessarily any health care.  Just as important, you can't make a cure available that doesn't yet exist.  But with government-run health care, nations do decide who they won't bother saving.

Dr. David Price on how to prevent COVID-19 from spreading:  Clean hands and do 'not touch your face, period'.  Jesse Watters featured Dr. David Price of Weill Cornell Medical Center on "Watters' World" Saturday [3/28/2020], where the New York City doctor gave advice on how people can prevent spreading the coronavirus.  "You may hear a little inflection in my voice like I'm emotional.  It's not because I'm scared.  It's actually the opposite.  For the first time in a while, I'm actually not scared," Price said via video.  "I work at probably the premier hospital in New York City.  Our hospital is almost exclusively a COVID-19 hospital, but we're learning and we know a lot.  And what I want you guys to know is that every single day we're getting better, we know more.  And I am confident that the stuff I can tell you today should make you guys feel like when this comes to your community that you don't have to be scared and that you can protect your family."

LAPD helicopter orders people to leave skate park or FACE ARREST as city bids to slow spread of coronavirus.  An LAPD helicopter circles over a skate park in the city and orders people leave or face arrest on Saturday [3/28/2020].  Video shows the helicopter circling and a voice over the tannoy saying:  "The park is closed.  If do not leave, will be arrested for trespassing."  [Video clip]

Wars Visible and Invisible.  Dealing with a viral epidemic is a complex matter for any leader.  It requires a balancing act between reassurance and caution.  Avoiding panic is one priority; sounding sufficient alarm so that potential targets will take precautions is another; and the two can obviously be in conflict.  That's why in wartime if the nation's leader mis-speaks, or makes mistakes in assessing the battlefield, his countrymen who are dependent for their survival on his leadership normally rally around him, and hope he will do better.  The last thing they do is exaggerate his errors, and do everything in their power to undermine his effectiveness as their leader.  Not so with Trump.  The visible war to destroy his presidency by destroying the man has continued unabated throughout this crisis.  Trump's first action against the invisible enemy was his decision in January to ban all travel from China, the epicenter of the contagion.  This life-saving move was immediately denounced by his chief political rival, former vice-president Joe Biden: [...]

Trump Administration Rules Gun Shops Are 'Essential' Businesses During Coronavirus Closures.  The Trump administration has ruled that gun shops are considered "essential" businesses that should remain open as other businesses are closed to try to stop the spread of coronavirus.  Gun control groups are balking, calling it a policy that puts profits over public health after intense lobbying by the firearms industry.  In the past several weeks, various states and municipalities have offered different interpretations of whether gun stores should be allowed to remain open as Americans stay at home to avoid spreading the virus.  In Los Angeles, for example, County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has twice ordered gun shops in his territory to close, leading to legal challenges from gun rights advocates.  After days of lobbying by the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and other gun groups, the Department of Homeland Security this past weekend issued an advisory declaring that firearms dealers should be considered essential services — just like grocery stores, pharmacies and hospitals — and allowed to remain open.  The agency said its ruling was not a mandate but merely guidance for cities, towns and states as they weigh how to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Couple charged with violating N.J. coronavirus lockdown, endangering kids after cops break up big lawn party.  A Lakewood couple who hosted a gathering Sunday [3/29/2020] of 40 to 50 people on the lawn and street in front of the home have been charged with five counts of child endangerment and the husband was charged with violating the ban on gatherings due to the coronavirus outbreak, authorities said.

Wuhan's virus ground-zero market hides in plain sight.  In the Chinese city of Wuhan, the wet market that spawned the pandemic which has brought the world to its knees now slumbers quietly behind a tidy-looking blue-and-white partition.  But there are ample clues that something toxic once lurked inside the Huanan Seafood Market — police tape, chest-high red barriers, and staff in head-to-toe white hazmat suits lugging equipment.  Chinese disease control officials have previously identified wild animals sold in the market as the source of the coronavirus pandemic that has taken more than 33,000 lives worldwide so far and rocked the global economy.

How Bad Regulation, Bureaucracy Slowed The Fight Against Deadly Wuhan Coronavirus.  mid all the political name-calling and finger-pointing over who's to blame and how to attack the Wuhan coronavirus, one thing surprisingly gets little mention at all:  regulation.  But bad regulation not only slowed our response, it likely added to our death count.  We're happy to note that in recent days and weeks, President Trump has helped ease the regulatory burden of our response to the coronavirus, pushing Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control, our main health agencies, to bend, suspend and in some cases upend useless rules.

FDA lifts restrictions on Ohio-based Battelle's mask-sterilizing technology amid coronavirus shortages.  After a day of pressure from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration late Sunday rewrote rules to allow full application of a potentially game-changing Battelle technology to sterilize protective masks worn by those treating coronavirus victims.  The agency ruled that upgrading its emergency use authorization from partial to full "is appropriate to protect the public health or safety."

Iranians Die By The Thousands Of COVID-19 Amidst Ayatollah's Greed.  Within days of requesting $5 billion from the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF), Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei turned down and mocked America's offer to send medical assistance to fight the spiraling coronavirus crisis.  At present, restricted information coming from the Iranian government places the coronavirus death toll at 2,234.  Meanwhile, the government's primary political opposition organization, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK), is reporting the number of deaths in Iran as having passed 11,500.  It was the MeK which exposed the Iranian government's covert nuclear weapons program.  This organization's ability to extract accurate intelligence out of Iran is always impressive.  Furthermore, the 11,500 number is supported by satellite images which reveal extensive expansions of multiple cemeteries throughout Iran.

FDA OKs emergency authorization of drugs touted by Trump to fight coronavirus.  Pharmaceutical companies throughout the world are working around the clock to develop effective coronavirus treatments or a vaccine with no clear breakthroughs.  President Trump has spoken out about the importance of trying new treatments in hopes that we can learn where there's room for optimism and where there is not.  He has touted drugs used in malaria cases as a possible response to the coronavirus and now the Food and Drug Administration put in place an emergency use authorization to try these drugs despite clear evidence of their effectiveness.  Politico reported late Sunday [3/29/2020] that the drugs included hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine.

President Trump Extends Coronavirus 'Social Distancing' Guidelines and Economic Lockdown to April 30th.  President Trump gave another Coronavirus press briefing on Sunday [3/29/2020].  The President extending his Coronavirus 'social distancing' guidelines to April 30th to slow the spread of the Coronavirus.  Trump previously hoped to have the country back to work by Easter.  New York is the US epicenter for the Coronavirus with over 59,000 cases and 965 deaths.

Hydroxychloroquine: Help Is On The Way!  The willingness by anyone of either political party to weaponize an actual solution or series of solutions to COVID-19 is utterly inhuman.  And as the good news is coming in there is a greater reason for hope!  Here are just a handful of new developments from the last few days and hours. [...] The clinical results showed the patient going from symptomatic to negative testing on average in 5-6 days.  Tuesday will mark one week since the trials began.  So watch the "recovery" numbers in New York closely, as there may be a bit of a pop.

Soros and the Coronavirus pandemic.  Billionaire George Soros uses his political-philanthropic private foundations' global network to induce chaos to change the capitalistic democratic systems that prevailed since the end of WWII.  Soros aims to reshape the world according to his purported wily Open Society philosophy, which evolved after the collapse of the Soviet Communist system.  He tested his ideas in Eastern Europe before moving to the rest of the world, and on to his major target, the United States of America.  Soros's open-borders agenda and his efforts to create a global 'open society' have suffered a setback due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, but his ambition of changing America from within, and meddling in the domestic affairs of nation-states where his OSF operates did not ebb.  Rest assured that Soros, who thrives on chaos, takes advantage of the distraction caused by the pandemic to advance his political goals in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Locals in Wuhan believe 42,000 people may have died in the coronavirus outbreak there.  Wuhan locals claim coronavirus has killed 42,000 people in the city alone, more than ten times the national figure claimed by Chinese authorities.  The killer bug, which originated in Wuhan in China's Hubei Province has claimed the lives of 3,300 people and infected more than 81,000.  Of those, 3,182 deaths were reported in Hubei Province.

Interactive: This Map Shows How Many Have Died From COVID-19 In Each State.  There have been 85,381 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 1,271 deaths in the United States as of Friday, March 27, at 8:04 a.m., according to The New York Times's roundup of state and local health agencies, hospitals and CDC data.

Brooklyn woman, 86, dies after she's knocked to the ground by stranger for violating coronavirus social distancing: police sources.  The NYPD is investigating what might be the city's first coronavirus-related homicide — after a woman hit an elderly Brooklyn hospital patient in the head for violating social distancing, sources said Sunday [3/29/2020].  Victim Janie Marshall, 86, died less than four hours after the tense confrontation with 32-year-old Cassandra Lundy in Bedford-Stuyvesant's Woodhull Hospital, cops said.

We're All Germophobes Now.  No matter what happens at this point, some things will never be the same.  For one, we are all transforming into germophobes.  This will result in numerous cascading effects in our lives.  Our collective consciousness on personal hygiene and cleanliness has been permanently raised.  Most of us are experiencing a heightened awareness and an altered kinetic feedback effect toward shaking hands, touching our face, licking our fingers, and "social distancing".  Hand sanitizers will likely be standard accessories in homes and automobiles from this point on into the future.

Coronavirus:  We Should Follow Sweden's Example.  Unlike most of their EU counterparts, Sweden's government officials have refused to overreact.  Other than closing high schools and colleges, they haven't imposed the kind of Draconian measures that most European countries have adopted.  Sweden's borders remain open, as do its preschools, grade schools and restaurants.  Even its ski slopes are still open.  In other words, life in Sweden continues essentially unchanged.  Why hasn't [Bernie] Sanders recommended that the United States emulate Sweden's approach to the pandemic?  There is a small but growing cadre of serious epidemiologists that might endorse that position.  They aren't in denial about the seriousness of the COVID-19 epidemic.  Yet they are dubious about the assumptions upon which government officials, particularly at the state and local level, have based their extreme countermeasures.  Our officials have, according to these "pandemic skeptics," shut down schools, restaurants and businesses based on woefully incomplete data.

The Kung Flu Hockey Stick.  Right now, there are over 100,000 cases of coronavirus infection in the United States, almost half of them in New York City.  People — and state governments — are trying to stem the spread of the disease through social distancing, hand washing, and quasi-quarantines.  Most of the U.S. economy is shut down.  People are still hoarding toilet paper and other essential supplies.  Panic — hyped by the media — is the common thread in these actions.  There is so much information being thrown at people that it's hard to filter real scientific advice from the guesswork and pseudo-science that dominate other crises both real and imagined.

Florida begins coronavirus checkpoints, threatens jail time for out-of-state travelers who don't self-quarantine.  Florida, falling short of statewide lockdown, is now screening travelers from the New York City area and Louisiana "hotspots" both at highway roadblocks and at airports, threatening them with 60 days in jail if they don't self-quarantine as the number of confirmed cases in the state peaks to over 4,200.  Gov. Ron DeSantis has so far refused to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, similar to those enforced in at least 22 other states, including California, New York and Illinois.  More than 4,200 confirmed cases, with at least 56 deaths were recorded in Florida on Sunday [3/29/2020].

How deadly is the coronavirus?  It's still far from clear.  I'd like to raise some perspectives that have hardly been aired in the past weeks, and which point to an interpretation of the figures rather different from that which the government is acting on. I'm a recently-retired Professor of Pathology and National Health Service consultant pathologist, and have spent most of my adult life in healthcare and science — fields which, all too often, are characterized by doubt rather than certainty.  There is room for different interpretations of the current data.  If some of these other interpretations are correct, or at least nearer to the truth, then conclusions about the actions required will change correspondingly.  The simplest way to judge whether we have an exceptionally lethal disease is to look at the death rates.  Are more people dying than we would expect to die anyway in a given week or month?  Statistically, we would expect about 51,000 to die in Britain this month.  At the time of writing, 422 deaths are linked to COVID-19 — so 0.8 percent of that expected total.  On a global basis, we'd expect 14 million to die over the first three months of the year.  The world's 18,944 coronavirus deaths represent 0.14 percent of that total.  These figures might shoot up but they are, right now, lower than other infectious diseases that we live with (such as flu).  Not figures that would, in and of themselves, cause drastic global reactions.

Visualization: How spring breakers (probably) spread coronavirus throughout America.  The eastern half of America, anyway.  Which is where the hot spots are, coincidentally.  This is a few days old but worth watching as a demonstration of why reopening parts of the country while outbreaks are raging in other parts is an invitation to disaster.  Unless states are going to start closing their borders to each other, infected people will keep bringing the virus in from outside.

New Jersey police arrest man for hosting a party.  As we've discussed here previously, state governors and mayors of large cities across the country have been busy issuing executive orders restricting the movement of their citizens and banning large gatherings of crowds in an attempt to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.  But not everyone has been paying attention to those orders.  This leaves us with the question of what the government plans to do when people continue to violate the instructions.  At least in New Jersey, we now have the answer.  After Governor Phil Murphy banned any gatherings of ten or more people, police were summoned to a house party in Ewing Township where 47 people were dancing the night away with a DJ providing the music.  The partygoers were dispersed and the host of the party was arrested and taken to jail.

There's powerful evidence this Great Panic is foolish, yet our freedom is still broken and our economy crippled.  As I watched the Prime Minister order mass house arrest on Monday night, I felt revulsion, anger and grief — as anyone brought up when this was a free and well-governed country would.  I also felt terribly alone.  You could not have known, from anything broadcast that night or printed the following day, that anyone was unhappy with these events.  But they were.  So, above all things this week, I would like to thank all the kind, perplexed people who have got in touch with me by so many means, to say they share my doubts about the Government's handling of Covid-19.

COVID-19 is NOT going to overwhelm our healthcare system.  As part of the panic that has been overwhelming the world because of COVID-19, one of the typical lies that is being spread is that the epidemic is going to overwhelm the world's healthcare systems. [...] To dispell these mainstream media lies, I am going to give my readers an example of what a real journalist does, in comparison to the brainless non-researchers at CNN (and elsewhere) who make believe they are journalists but instead play them, on television and cable each day, in order to push an anti-American and leftist agenda that is downright evil and destructive.  I'm going to do some real research, and provide it to my readers so that they can get some context and a deeper understanding of the fake Wuhan flu "pandemic."

It's Not a Choice Between Lives or the Economy.  If you have traveled somewhere in which the disease is prevalent, you should self-quarantine for a couple of weeks and be especially careful to avoid being around the elderly or infirm.  Infection is most common in situations where there is prolonged contact with someone who is infected and "shedding" the virus (which is why Governor Andrew Cuomo has had second thoughts about closing all New York's schools and colleges and sending all those students home to mama, papa, the grandparents, and poor old Uncle Joe who has been unwell for years).  That said, I continue to believe that shutting down the U.S. economy was insane. [...] In earlier columns, I have contrasted the annual toll in hospitalizations and fatalities from the seasonal flu with the known numbers form COVID-19.  The former dwarf the latter — so far.  We've had plenty of "doomsday scenarios" predicting millions of deaths in the United States alone, but cooler heads are beginning to prevail.  You don't hear this from the megaphones of the media, but the fatality rate in the United States remains among the lowest in the world, barely above Germany and Norway, the lowest in Europe.  Sweden, which is only slightly higher, has bucked the trend.  Its borders remain open, as do its schools, restaurants, museums, etc.  As of this writing, it's not at all clear that they were wrong to do so.

Stop the COVID-19 Insanity Now.  It is the gross overreaction of certain government and business leaders to the Wuhan coronavirus of 2020, otherwise known as COVID-19, that is the danger to the United States, not the virus itself.  The abundance of data show that the virus is far less dangerous than the seasonal flu, and if the overreaction is not stopped and reversed immediately, it will severely damage the economy and the lives that depend on it. [...] So we should be asking questions that the hysteria promoting media are apparently avoiding:
  •   Why haven't states or the federal government ever taken these kinds of measures before for any other illness in history?
  •   If the country is not shut down because of the flu, and wasn't for the H1N1 swine flu of 2009, why shut it down for COVID-19?
  •   How do the confirmed case rates of growth and fatality rates of growth in states with business closures compare with states without business closures? [...]
  •   If shopping at grocery stores is allowed, why is shopping at any other store different?
  •   How is it moral to have the government prevent small businessmen and their employees from earning a living and then demand of them the tax money to pay government employees who are not working during that same period?
  •   Where can people find the constitutional authority for the federal or state governments to shut down businesses, and restrict gatherings and internal travel?

Governor Cuomo Threatens Rhode Island With Lawsuit Over NY Quarantine Policy.  Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) threatened Governor Gina Raimondo (D-RI) with a lawsuit over a new state quarantine policy, which would involve using the police and National Guard to track down people fleeing to Rhode Island from New York and forcing them to self-quarantine.  "We're talking to Rhode Island now.  If they don't roll back that policy, I'm going to sue Rhode Island," Cuomo said on CNN Saturday evening, reports the radio station 101Wins.  "No state should be using police to limit interstate travel."

Florida coronavirus cases pass 4000: state border checkpoints begin, vacation rentals halted.  When the number of coronavirus deaths reached 54 in Florida on Saturday, Gov. Ron DeSantis told the state's surgeon general, Dr. Scott Rivkees, to get on the phone and send a public health alert to every Florida resident.  The message Rivkees texted Saturday afternoon was a repeat of the advisory he issued Wednesday, that people 65 and older, and those with underlying medical conditions, should stay home and avoid crowds, and everyone should practice "social distancing."  By Saturday evening [3/29/2020], the number of coronavirus cases in Florida stood at 4,038, more than a fivefold increase from a week ago, when the state reported 706 infections.

British Scientific Advisors:  China Covering Up Full Extent Of Coronavirus; Could Be 40 Times Worse Than Reported.  Scientific advisors to the British government have reportedly told the Prime Minister Boris Johnson that China is covering up the full extent of the coronavirus pandemic, and that things could be 40 times worse there than the communist state admits.  The Daily Mail reports that "Mr Johnson has been warned by scientific advisers that China's officially declared statistics on the number of cases of coronavirus could be 'downplayed by a factor of 15 to 40 times.'"

1984 Comes to Britain.  In Great Britain, extraordinary measures are being taken to ensure compliance with a nationwide shutdown order.  From Breitbart:  ["]Humberside Police in northern England has built a website for citizens to inform on their neighbours for violating the government's rules on daily exercise and social distancing.["]  You can only go for one walk a day.  If you go out twice, you can be reported to the police.  People's worst instincts are coming to the fore.  This is what amazed me:  the Derbyshire police have sent drones out, to catch citizens going for unauthorized walks:  [Video clip]  When the current madness is behind us, we will need to reflect on how easily governments, via orders that may or may not have any legal basis, have done away with our basic liberties, and on how few have objected.

Why Are Republicans and Democrats So Divided Over the Coronavirus?  Many conservatives such as myself have also pointed out that the mortality rates of the coronavirus have been greatly exaggerated.  On Thursday [3/26/2020], Dr. Deborah Birx, "America's Doctor," said the same thing in a press conference:  There will not be millions dead in the USA.  The math doesn't add up.  She reported how computer models predicting 500,000 dead in the U.K. have been downgraded to 20,000.  She reported how the terrible death count in Italy just doesn't add up to millions of Americans dead, not even close.

Coronavirus Apocalypse Now.  False reports abound in a time of national and international panic.  As Dr. Deborah Birx pointed out in her recent report on the coronavirus, it turns out that British scientist Dr. Neil Ferguson's initial model for the death rate from coronavirus was severely exaggerated.  He has since walked back his dire predictions.  His retraction comes after many governments adopted draconian measures to protect the public from his scenarios of death and destruction. [...] All pseudo-science models have one thing in common:  They are essentially deeply religious, accompanied as they are by apocalyptic end times scenarios that goad the public into actions fomented by panic and despair.

The Great Madness.  Has the world gone mad?  It certainly seems that way to some of us.  Even the most cynical never imagined the government shutting down the country for fear of a virus, but it has suddenly become the new normal. [...] The trouble is, the great plague is not exactly lighting up the scoreboard.  America has tested over 600,000 people suspected of having the virus.  Over 500,000 tested negative.  Of the positives, 12,000 needed hospital care.  In a country of over 320 million people with 200,000 empty hospital beds at any one time, that's not much of a crisis.  Yet, despite the numbers, formerly sober-minded people continue to carry on as if there are bodies in the streets.

What if Obama were president now?  Experts agree that one reason America has been hit relatively lightly is that America banned flights from China early and then also banned foreign visitors from Europe early.  Those early bans didn't just delay the arrival of the virus to American shores, but could be decisive in beating it.  They bought us time to develop treatments, formulate plans and manufacture equipment like respirators and face masks that the Obama administration had depleted and never restocked.  And perhaps critically, the travel bans bought us time for warm weather to arrive. [...] The open borders of the EU were left wide open — to the virus.  At one point, the French scoffed at the idea of cancelling the Paris Fashion Show.  That was thousands of deaths ago, and they ultimately did cancel the show.  Simply put, the Europeans didn't take the virus seriously early on, and then they let their fashion consciousness, sports obsessions and moral vanity dictate their medical response.  Which is exactly what Obama would have done.  It's inconceivable that Obama would have banned foreign flights into the U.S.

Chinese Company that Makes Forehead Thermometers 'Jokes' About Making Faulty Product for Sale in US in Order to Spread Disease.  The owner of a Chinese factory in an online group chat suggested intentionally calibrating forehead thermometers shipped to the United States a few degrees cooler than what the actual temperature is.  That way Americans who are sick will not register as having a fever and will then spread the coronavirus.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Expands Quarantine to Louisiana Travelers, Installing Checkpoints on Roads.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is requiring travelers from Louisiana to self-isolate for 14 days and said the Florida Highway Patrol will install checkpoints on major roads to screen travelers from that area, he announced on Friday [3/27/2020].  DeSantis is imposing restrictions on travelers fleeing to Florida from Louisiana — particularly New Orleans, which is emerging as one of the hotspots of the coronavirus outbreak.

NOLA Mayor:  Who Knew Mardi Gras Should Have Been Canceled?  Louisiana is developing into a hot spot for the coronavirus pandemic, in particular, the city of New Orleans.  As the Crescent City's numbers grow and panic sets in, Mayor LaToya Cantrell finds herself under fire.  Friday [3/27/2020] she was pushing back on accusations that she should have acted to cancel Mardi Gras.  John wrote about the mayor's response to criticism and pointed out that at the time Mardi Gras kicked off, most cancellations of big events across the country had not begun.  We didn't know what we didn't know, and that includes elected officials in charge of cities across America.

Borders Matter to Dems, When the Border is Between NY and Rhode Island!  I can't help chuckling about the Open Borders Dems who all of a sudden are becoming tribal about their people in their states.

The Wuhan Virus is Turning into a Wimp.  As we learn more about the COVID-19 Wuhan virus each day, it is becoming increasingly obvious that it isn't the great threat to our health and survival we were initially led to believe. [...] What may surprise you is the biggest contributor to our suffering and dying from disease is our medical care system, because it is focused on treating illness instead of teaching us how to live to prevent illness.  Our first thought when we get sick is to go to the doctor and ask for a pill to help us feel better without giving a thought to why we got sick.

Rising to the Challenge:  Can This Be a Great Generation?  If the shutdown goes on much longer the result will be a severe economic depression followed by fiscal breakdown and the unavoidable societal upheaval.  Please make no mistake:  the federal government cannot legitimately finance this country's closure.  The fact is that it simply does not have the money to bankroll the gargantuan stimulus it has just approved.  In fact, our government is broke and it only lives on further borrowing.  If we keep going on like this, it is only a question of time before the buyers of US treasuries completely lose their faith and the dollar collapses in an inflationary spiral.

Counties without coronavirus are mostly rural, poor.  As the coronavirus rages across the United States, mainly in large urban areas, more than a third of U.S. counties have yet to report a single positive test result for COVID-19 infections, an analysis by The Associated Press shows.

Michigan's governor is fighting a losing battle with President Trump.  Before President Trump's State of the Union address in February, most Americans outside of Michigan had never heard of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.  When she gave the Democrat response to Trump's tour de force, she impinged ever so slightly on the popular consciousness before lapsing back into obscurity.  Now, perhaps because she's hoping to be the token woman Groping Joe Biden names as his Vice President, Whitmer is back in the media.  It's doubtful, though, that Americans will be impressed with a woman who has such a vendetta against the President that she's willing to withhold life-saving medicine and to lie.  Ever since Trump stated his hope that hydroxychloroquine (and a similar drug, chloroquine), when prescribed with azithromycin, could treat coronavirus, the Democrat establishment has been hostile to the drug.  Although chloroquine is an old and well-known drug, Nevada's governor limited its use to the hospital setting only.  Whitmer has gone further than that.

CA Dismantled Its Mobile Hospital System, Ventilator, Respirator Stockpiles in 2011.  As Jeff Charles reported, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti predicts that the City of Angels is less than a week away from reaching New York City levels of Wuhan coronavirus cases.  Such a major increase (nearly doubling every two days) would overwhelm the city's healthcare capacity. [...] If Garcetti had access to three mobile 200-bed hospitals with ICU units and surgical suites, "50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators, and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed," he would probably feel a bit more prepared to handle the predicted onslaught.  California had such a system, implemented by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.

WHO accused of 'carrying China's water' after official refuses to acknowledge Taiwan during bizarre interview.  The World Health Organization (WHO) is being accused of "carrying China's water" after a senior adviser refused to acknowledge Taiwan during a bizarre interview with a Hong Kong news outlet.  Canadian physician Dr. Bruce Aylward, an aide to WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom, sat down for a video interview with RTHK about the coronavirus outbreak where he was asked whether the organization would "consider Taiwan's membership."

NY coronavirus death toll jumps as Cuomo delays presidential primary.  New York's coronavirus death toll jumped by 209 Saturday, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who announced the state's presidential primary election will be moved to June 23 amid the worsening crisis.

Ethiopian WHO chief was part of China's debt trap diplomacy.  The WHO waited until the 2019-nCoV virus had spread to 18 nations before declaring an emergency.  Wasn't it an emergency with the first foreign case or the first case of symptomless transmission?  The WHO Director General is Tedros Adhanom of Ethiopia.  From 2012 [to] 2016 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the one party government that rules Ethiopia.  This is the same party that borrowed billions from China to build a railway line, then struggles to pay it back.

Numerators and Denominators in the Coronavirus Saga.  To ascertain how fatal a virus is, we need an accurate picture of how many people have it (the denominator) and how many have died as a result (the numerator), we have neither, but the data is improving and with it some substantial shifts away from the original model, which predicted far more deaths as a result of the Wuhan virus than we are seeing. [...] Early models also could not accurately predict how quickly the virus would spread and what tools could be brought in to limit mortality.  As the data comes in, we have reason to be more optimistic that the death rate will be lower, the extreme efforts to control its spread should soon be relaxed, and that efficacious treatments are already underway. [...] I firmly believe we need to get back to more normal commercial activity in most of the country as soon as possible, and no later than Easter, or the consequences to the nation's health and well-being will be worse than that of the virus.

Eating the Elephant.  There is no legal means by which to quarantine HEALTHY people, other than communist-level restrictions of liberty.  If we were a better educated people, it would be sufficient to request that we do the intelligent things to avoid any spread of the disease, but since the public school system has been utilized to convert logical intelligent people into obedient slaves of governmental dictates, these quarantines are the only means by which to ensure compliance.  Proceeding on the principle that no government has ever returned power once obtained from the people through deception, threat or overreaction we might as well recognize that these levels of restrictions will find a home within government power from now on.  Imagine how many "health issues" can be used to demand papers to allow travel.  How soon will "health" dictate that all travel is inherently dangerous and can be mitigated with permanent travel restrictions. [...] In one fell swoop of a minor pandemic the United States as a nation has abandoned both the republic and capitalism.  Individual rights are destroyed, never again to be seen as rational arguments against the power of the state.  Capitalism has lost out to the political and economic ideology of Soviet Russia allowing for such things as "travel permits" and sequestration of healthy individuals.

We've been had and Trump knows it.  While President Trump closed the U.S. border against entry from China at the end of January, his overall instinct was right.  The CCP virus was nasty, but no worse than a supercharged flu.  Health professionals overwhelmed Trump and his inner circle with doomsday scenarios, bullied by panic-obsessed virologists and epidemiologists — begging for attention and copying the alarmist playbook from the climate/global warming extremists, allied with the MSM Trump-haters.  And now the government has completely suffocated economic demand, creating a depression, an unnecessary calamity that is destroying lives, livelihoods, families, and fortunes for a generation.  It is becoming apparent that the end-of-the-world predictions, computer models warning of an apocalyptic black plague worldwide, are all wrong.

'This is really quite important': Deborah Birx says administration looking into plummeting UK death toll.  White House coronavirus task force member Deborah Birx said the Trump administration is looking with "great detail" into a report from the United Kingdom that reduces the expected death toll from 500,000 people to 20,000 or less.  A widely regarded U.K. study that inspired strict coronavirus crackdowns in the United States was revised to show that it is now expected to be at about 20,000, it was reported Thursday [3/26/2020].  "I am sure many of you saw the recent report out of the U.K. about them adjusting completely their needs," Birx said Thursday evening during a press conference updating the nation on the coronavirus.  "This is really quite important."

We Must Establish Principles for Dealing with Crises.  As a society, we must create some agreed-upon principles for dealing with a pandemic or analogous crisis.  One of the most astounding aspects of the response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic has been the willingness of our leaders to call for societal shutdown based on shoddy data and flawed source models.  Those leaders have definitively damaged our economy, stretched the limits of constitutional governmental power, and threatened to inflame and endanger civil society by forcing people to comply with draconian lockdowns while releasing criminals into the streets and ceasing policing — all on the basis of hypotheticals.  One need not be a medical doctor to understand the "garbage in, garbage out" issues inherent to projections in which the underlying data sets are incomplete, inconsistent, suffer from selection bias and correlation-versus-causation issues, or are just plain dubious — as in the case of data from China.  It is not surprising that politicians would err to the extreme side in seeking to avoid a public health catastrophe.  But can a society long function by cutting off its nose to spite its face?

It's Fine to Talk About How This Crisis Ends.  Human beings have never been as risk-averse as experts want them to be.  We instinctively calculate the costs and benefits of engaging in activities that put our health at risk every day.  The coronavirus crisis, in fact, has been one of the few times in my life I've allowed medical experts to completely dictate my actions. [...] I'm one of the lucky ones:  I have a job and can work from home.  Millions of others don't share that luxury.  Many of them are calculating the costs of self-quarantining as it relates to their livelihood, businesses, and futures — and those are completely sane, unimpeachable considerations.  Yet, I've noticed pundits and politicians trying to shut down difficult discussions of the trade-offs associated with managing the coronavirus crisis and its economic fallout by demanding that everyone shut up and listen to "doctors" and "scientists," as if no one else's opinion was useful.

Trump signs order authorizing Pentagon to call up former troops to help with coronavirus fight.  President Trump on Friday signed an executive order authorizing the Pentagon to bring back former troops, including members of the National Guard and Ready Reserve eserve members, to active duty as part of the ongoing response to the coronavirus crisis.  "Today the President signed an Executive Order authorizing Secretary Esper to order units and individual members in the National Guard and Reserves and certain Individual Ready Reserve members, to active duty to augment forces for the effective response to the coronavirus outbreak," Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement.

China's Totally Got the Wuhan Flu Beaten and the Transmission Rate is Only 0.055 Per Million.  The media could ask whistleblowers and activists about the real numbers — except they can't, because the Chinese government murdered them. [...] Let me tell you how "beaten" the Wuhan Flu is in China:  It's so beaten that when Hubei province — where Wuhan is located — was taken off lockdown and Hubei residents tried to cross a river into neighboring Jiangxi province, Jiangxi cops blocked the bridge.  (Don't bother with that propaganda report from UPI — they substantially underplay the story, probably to appease the Chinese. [...])  Blocked from leaving their province, then Hubei citizens began getting violent, overturning the Jiangxi police's cars.  And then the Hubei police started battling the Jiangxi police.  So definitely trust the Chinese Propaganda Media — both the one actually in China, and the one here in NYC, DC, and Atlanta.

Here's Another Sign China May be Lying About True Death Toll.  On Friday, the U.S. media gleefully reported that the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. had surpassed the number of confirmed cases in China.  In addition, the number of people who have died from the virus in both Italy and Spain has exceeded the total in China.  As of Thursday [3/26/2020], according to the Chinese Government, there have been 81,340 cases and a total of 3,292 people people have died.  On Friday, the government claimed only one new person had been infected through local transmission, but that there had been 54 new imported cases.  Remarkably, the country reported that there had been zero new locally transmitted cases in the previous two days, though there had been imported cases.  Many people have been somewhat reluctant to believe those figures.  The "staggering" number of urns containing the ashes of loved ones which have been delivered to local funeral homes for distribution to family members appears to contradict those claims.

Democrats fear a cure.  The biggest fear for Democrats today are chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.  Democrat governors in Michigan and Nevada have banned their use to fight COVID-19, not because the drugs may harm people but because the drugs may work.  The party's flying monkeys in the press are casting shade on this possible cure. [...] Thus it isn't crazy old Orange Man with a hare-brained idea.  This is science.  Elsewhere in the world, they are giving the treatment a chance.  Indo-Asian News Service reported, "The health experts in India staunchly believe that hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, is currently the only remedy against the novel corona virus, while also pointing towards its underlying side effects.

The crowded Metro Train in Cairo City during Coronavirus outbreak.  Cairo, Egypt.  [Video clip]

Coronavirus panic makes no sense so I've got a few theories.  [#2] Just as with climate change, all these predictions are based upon computer modeling which is subject to the usual Garbage In, Garbage Out principle.  We won't know until after the fact which models were accurate, but everyone wants to be cautious about the disease's rapid spread and high mortality rate, so they're erring on the side of hysterical caution.

Rhode Island police "hunting down" New Yorkers fleeing the city.  With New York City in the grip of the novel coronavirus and looking more and more like a movie featuring Snake Plissken, many of the wealthier denizens of Gotham have been fleeing to vacation homes in nearby states with less viral activity.  As John recently noted, this has been getting on the nerves of many of the locals who aren't used to an influx of tourists over the winter months.  But now, the state of Rhode Island is taking things to another level.  The Governor has dispatched the police to "hunt down" any cars with New York license plates and they're looking to enforce a quarantine on any New Yorkers fleeing to her state.

China Is Legally Responsible for COVID-19 Damage and Claims Could Be in the Trillions.  As the novel coronavirus incubated in Wuhan from mid-December to mid-January, the Chinese state made evidently intentional misrepresentations to its people concerning the outbreak, providing false assurances to the population preceding the approach of the Lunar New Year celebrations on Jan. 25.  In mid-December, an outbreak of a novel influenza-like illness was traced to workers and customers of the city's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which contained exotic and wild animal species.  On Dec. 26, multiple Chinese news outlets released reports of an anonymous laboratory technician who made a startling discovery:  The sickness was caused by a new coronavirus that was 87 percent similar to SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.  Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, sounded the alarm in an online chatroom on Dec. 30.  That night, Wuhan public health authorities solicited information on the emergence of a "pneumonia of unclear cause," but omitted Li's discussion about SARS or a novel coronavirus.

Staying the Course.  China has now made the eating of wild animals illegal, which may prove hard to enforce.  It's unclear exactly from which animal the COVID virus originated: bats, civets, snakes, pangolins.  Horrific as it is to most other peoples around the globe, dogs are on the menu in China and Korea.  Which raises profound moral questions beyond the obvious health issues.  In the 14th century, one-third of Europe was wiped out by plague.  In 1917-18 more than a hundred million worldwide died from the Spanish Flu.  What's going on now is as old as time.  As old as the plagues in Egypt at the time of Moses.  It's worse now, it accelerates even faster, because global human population has exploded to seven billion rapidly growing to nine.  Carrying capacity, which used to be of only regional concerns, is now global.  Everyone is now interconnected by jet travel.  Humans can now carry a microscopic virus around the earth in mere hours.

Death as a Political Tool.  If you've been paying attention for the last ten years or so in particular, you may have noticed in how many ways political leftists in this country love death.  Not their own, but the deaths of otherwise anonymous American citizens whom they've never met, care nothing about, and clearly consider deserving of sacrifice for their policy objectives. [...] The more people who die from coronavirus, the better the progressives think their chances will be in November.  They can rationalize that they aren't actually killing the victims; the illness is.  But as they seek to create discord and strife between the president and his experts, thereby making his efforts less effective and immediate, they obviously know that time is of the essence.  The longer it takes to get this under complete control, the more people will die, and they will blame Trump.

Woke stupidity is spreading as fast as the coronavirus pandemic.  The coronavirus has already caused far more disruption than 9/11, and figures to take far more lives, albeit in slo-mo rather than on one fireball-strewn morning.  You may ask, "Is there anything good about the pandemic?  Will it make us more serious?  Will it rejuvenate common sense?"  Since Britney Spears is now a Marxist, I'd say probably not. [...] Far from being killed off by the Wuhan virus, the woke virus is spreading faster than ever.  Fran Drescher said on Twitter, "The heart of the problem, all problems with the world at its core is power & greed fueled by Capitalism."  On the contrary, I'm hoping greedy industrial companies can make a couple million ventilators for profit, because otherwise these things aren't going to get made.

New Yorkers irked to feel unwelcome in states fearing coronavirus spread.  Many New Yorkers say they are miffed at being treated as the poster children of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, unwelcome in some states even if they are symptom-free.  This week, Rhode Island, Florida and West Virginia appeared to roll up the welcome mats to residents of the Empire State.  Rhode Island went as far as to post state troopers at its border to stop cars with New York license plates, requiring occupants to go into quarantine if they intend to stay.

So much for E Pluribus Unum.
Rhode Island sending cops, National Guard to find New Yorkers seeking coronavirus refuge.  Rhode Island plans to send the National Guard out to knock door-to-door in an attempt to hunt down anyone who has arrived in the tiny state from New York City during the coronavirus pandemic.  State police, meanwhile, have begun pulling over cars with New York state plates.  Gov. Gina Raimondo said anyone traveling there from New York will be ordered to undergo a 14-day quarantine and could face fines or even jail time if they're found to not comply.  "Right now we have a pinpointed risk," Raimondo said at a news conference Friday.  "That risk is called New York City."  Rhode Island, which had some 162 confirmed cases by late Friday compared to New York State's total of more than 44,000, joined a host of other municipalities and states trying bar entry to New Yorkers living in the epicenter of the US' coronavirus outbreak.

Media Peddle Bogus Wuhan Virus Stats To Bash America.  When Donald Trump tweeted this week that the United States had performed more coronavirus tests than any other country, the media were upset.  Trump being Trump, he'd also said the United States had done more tests in eight days than South Korea had done in eight weeks.  PolitiFact calculated the United States had done 17,582 fewer tests than South Korea during that time period.  LiveScience said the United States had done 43,790 fewer tests than South Korea during that time period.  Their own disparity notwithstanding, other media outlets pointed out merely that South Korea is a much smaller country than the United States.  That meant they had done more tests per capita than the United States had.

Dictatorship of the immunocompromised?  As America teeters on the brink of a planned catastrophic economic collapse, it is time to rethink our response to the deadly coronavirus that is afflicting us.  There has to be an exit strategy out of this national suicide attempt that is being accomplished through lockdowns and the imposition of quasi-martial law.  Responsible, enlightened governance requires tradeoffs that don't look like one-size-fits-all collective punishment imposed from above.  We got to this place because wildly overstated projections by monomaniacally focused experts stampeded policymakers into ordering draconian crackdowns on the general population, instead of focusing on the most vulnerable members of the population.  These politicians have been tripping over each other as they race to see who can be the most severe and despotic.  Is all of this justified?  The Chinese virus may be scary, but, so far at least, the doomsday scenarios forecasted by so many so-called experts are not playing out.

Chloroquine And The Unforgivable Lies Of Big Pharma, Media, And Democrats.  Where's the drug that showed such promise?  Backed by a peer-reviewed study, the one touted by President Trump, the one the FDA was supposed to fast track?  From an earlier CDMedia article:  The study [Trump] was referring to is from France.  A group of doctors from Marseille and Nice, led by Dr. Didier Raoult, published the study on March 17th.  Using hydroxychloroquine, and in some cases, azithromycin, all 20 patients treated in the study showed a significant decrease in "viral load," and in some cases the virus disappeared entirely. [...] Other anecdotal evidence has shown the dramatic efficacy of the drug.  Daniel Dae Kim, known for his work on the television show Lost, tested positive for the virus earlier this month.  He credited chloroquine for his quick recovery.

Colorado Governor Polis (D) issues stay-at-home decree.  Not one to let a good crisis go to waste, last night Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) issued a decree ordering all Coloradans to stay at home "due to the presence of COVID-19 in the state."  He made this order claiming authority under the Colorado Constitution and the Colorado Disaster Emergency Act.  Polis originally declared a state of emergency on March 10th.  The order, which took effect at 6 am this morning, was broadcast to cell phones at about 8 pm last night using the weather alert system and again this morning at 8 am.

Covid-19 Is An All-Out Attack Upon America By China.  My premise is that China may have plans to destroy most of America's citizens and repopulate our cities with loyal Chinese nationals.  That may appear to be irresponsible, impossible, and inaccurate, but there is too much at stake to dismiss, denigrate, or deny any possibility out of hand.  These facts are not disputed:  China has been working on biological weapons for decades and has the "largest Level 4 Biohazard Lab in Asia, which studies directly into the world's deadliest pathogens including SARS and coronavirus."  In 2017, experts warned that a virus could escape the labs in Wuhan "because of lax containment standards."  Did the deadly virus escape or was it released as the following information seems to indicate?  Be careful, future events may prove you jumped too quickly — in the wrong direction.  We need to keep in mind that the Martians did not invade New Jersey in 1938, but Orson Welles did laugh all the way to the bank.

The Editor says...
Yes, but if the current virus was intended to be a weapon, the Chinese communists turned it loose in a really awkward manner:  amongst their own people!  The Chinese are at fault, but the whole national shutdown was the fault of the Democrat-controlled sensationalist news media, eager to oust President Trump.  Unfortunately for the political left, the "crisis" got started a little too early in the year.  By the time Election Day arrives, some other scandal will have overtaken the headlines, especially if Trump beats the coronavirus, the quarantine restrictions are removed, and the economy recovers.

Democrats Criticize Border Closure Meant To Protect US From Coronavirus.  Numerous House Democrats criticized the Trump administration Friday for closing the U.S.-Mexico border amid the coronavirus pandemic and demanded a number of answers regarding the order.  The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which is comprised entirely of Democrats, sent the letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), criticized the administration's decision to seal off the southern border to non-essential traffic.  The members took particular umbrage with the fact that the order forbids the entrance of any illegal aliens.

China Is Pushing a 'Zero' Myth on COVID-19.  Chinese president Xi Jinping has a new slogan:  "Zero" — the goal of reducing to zero the number of cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, aka COVID-19.  Reaching zero is crucial to achieving his broader goal of global leadership and domination.  Xi must show the world that the totalitarian Chinese political system is vindicated by the defeat of the virus.  The truth about COVID-19 inside China is the greatest obstacle to his ambition.

More Thoughts on Computing the COVID-19 Fatality Rate.  Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine in late February, Dr. Fauci hypothesized that the fatality rate may be "considerably less than 1%" because many people who are infected experience either no symptoms or very mild symptoms and therefore do not report.  The fatality-rate statistics are skewed toward the people who do report.  The question naturally arises:  How much less than 1 percent could the fatality rate be?  More specifically, could the fatality rate for the coronavirus disease that sprang from China late last year (as our Jim Geraghty has comprehensively documented) approach a figure as low as the fatality rate for influenza?  The question is important.  President Trump frequently touts a comparison of the new coronavirus to flu.  Americans longing to return to a semblance of normalcy — understandably so, given the gargantuan ruin the lockdown is causing — complain that closing the country due to coronavirus is overkill, since we don't do it for flu.

Second French Study by Dr. Raoult finds Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin Helped Almost Every Patient in Study Group.  This time Dr. Raoult administered hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to 80 patients and observed improvement in EVERY CASE except for a very sick 86-year-old with an advanced form of coronavirus infection.  This is very promising news once again from Dr. Didier Raoult.  This is wonderful news.  Unfortunately, this doctor's work helps the the global community and Trump so the the liberal media has either igored, attacked or mocked his research.

MI Gov. Bans Hydroxychloroquine; Constituent Who Credits the Drug for Saving His Life Wants to Talk.  The Detroit News' Kathy Hoekstra reports that Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) has sent a letter to all physicians and pharmacists in the state warning of "professional consequences" if they prescribe or dispense hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine to treat coronavirus patients.  Hoekstra writes that "beyond the rational recommendation against hoarding as production of this medication needs to be ramped up, the letter deviates into open threats of "administrative action" against the licenses of doctors that prescribe hydroxychloroquine."  It also orders pharmacists to "ignore physician orders for this medication."  The letter is couched in terms of wanting to protect the state's supply of these drugs for those suffering with conditions for which the drug has always been prescribed such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.  But there is an unmistakably threatening tone to the letter.

Trump's Kiplingesque Coronavirus Leadership.  [Scroll down]  The yellow journalism storm hit hurricane strength when Fox's Tucker Carlson told the Trump base that America would end unless the president came forward with a comprehensive national plan.  Even then, President Trump's next proposals were moderate.  They mostly loosened government rules restricting private medical responses and still emphasized federalism and decentralization.  But in the face of the media blizzard and Congress' belief that spending trillions was the only way to "do something," all Washington agreed on the need to throw trillions of their borrowed money at the crisis and exert drastic new controls.  The executive finally accommodated to this panic.  Even then, he expressed hope that extreme controls would last only for a limited time, setting the restrictions for 15 days.

What the Media Isn't Telling You About the United States' Coronavirus Case Numbers.  On Thursday [3/26/2020], the New York Times made a big fuss over the fact that more than 81,321 Americans have been infected with the coronavirus, which is "more cases than China, Italy or any other country has seen."  According to their report, the United States, following "a series of missteps," is now "the epicenter of the pandemic."  But, is it really?  China's confirmed cases topped out at around 80,000, but, as PJM's Victoria Taft noted, China reportedly stopped conducting tests in order to show the world they've contained the spread of the virus.  So, comparing any country to China at this point is useless.

California once had mobile hospitals and a ventilator stockpile, but it dismantled them.  They were ready to roll whenever disaster struck California: three 200-bed mobile hospitals that could be deployed to the scene of a crisis on flatbed trucks and provide advanced medical care to the injured and sick within 72 hours.  Each hospital would be the size of a football field, with a surgery ward, intensive care unit and X-ray equipment.  Medical response teams would also have access to a massive stockpile of emergency supplies:  50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed.

CNN Analyst Joe Lockhart Rips Dr. Birx For Shredding Alarmist Theories.  Dr. Deborah Birx is about to learn what happens to people when they go against the media's narrative.  On Thursday, Dr. Birx instilled hope in the American people when she shredded some of the alarmist models being cited in the media, particularly, the Imperial College London Model that dramatically decreased its predicted number of COVID-19 cases from 500,000 to 20,000.  "I am sure many ever you saw the recent report out of the U.K. about them adjusting completely their needs," she said.  "This is really quite important.  If you remember that was the report that said there would be 500,000 deaths in the U.K. and 2.2 million deaths in the United States.  They've adjusted that number in the U.K. to 20,000.  So, half a million to 20,000.  We are looking into this in great details to understand that adjustment."

China Supplied Faulty Coronavirus Test Kits to Spain, Czech Republic.  The majority of rapid test coronavirus test kits supplied by China to Spain and the Czech Republic are faulty, local news outlets reported.  Up to 80 percent of the 150,000 portable, quick coronavirus test kits China delivered to the Czech Republic earlier this month were faulty, according to local Czech news site Expats.cz.  The tests can produce a result in 10 or 15 minutes but are usually less accurate than other tests.  Because of the high error rate, the country will continue to rely on conventional laboratory tests, of which they perform about 900 a day.  The country's Health Ministry paid $546,000 for 100,000 of the test kits, while the Interior Ministry paid for the other 50,000.

Coronavirus likely to kill 81K in US over next four months, study warns.  Deaths from the contagion are largely expected to peak in the second week of April — later in states where the spread is off to a slower start — and will likely still cause deaths until July, an analysis by the University of Washington School of Medicine forecasts.  The final death toll is unlikely to be less than 38,000 nationally and could be as high as 162,000 — with the team predicting the most likely number to be 81,114 deaths.

Bus passenger viciously attacked for coughing.  A man was attacked for coughing on a bus in Lvov, Ukraine.  In this violent video, passengers were filmed kicking the victim and forcefully removing him from public transportation — presumably because they feared the spread of coronavirus.

Coronavirus Causing a Right Turn.  [Scroll down]  My buddy alerted me to this good news that you will not hear reported by fake news media.  Dennis Prager reported that a few weeks ago, Neil Ferguson of the UK's Imperial College said that half a million would die of coronavirus in the UK and two to three million in the U.S.  These scary numbers empowered leftists to demand that everything close down.  Now, the scientist is saying 20,000 will die in the UK, not 500,000.

Widely-Cited US Coronavirus Projection Drops from 2M Deaths to 84,000.  Imperial College London made headlines on March 17 for their apocalyptic projection of Coronavirus deaths worldwide.  Their lead researcher, Neil Ferguson, claimed that 250,000 citizens of the UK would die from COVID-19.  On Thursday [3/26/2020], he dramatically reduced it to less than a tenth that number.  Ferguson now claims that UK deaths "could be substantially lower" than 20,000.  He adds that two-thirds of these victims would have died in the next six months anyway due to underlying health conditions.  The original study has been repeated endlessly on cable news, adding to the sense of panic among hosts and many in their audience.  Nine days ago, Imperial College London claimed that the US would lose up to 2 million Americans.  Their new numbers?  Just 84,000, again with two-thirds predicted to die within the next six months without Coronavirus.

COVID-19 Is Killing The Case For Socialized Medicine.  If you follow the mainstream media/Democratic narrative, the pandemic has laid bare the weaknesses of the U.S. health care system. [...] But we actually have a way to compare how various countries have been dealing with the coronavirus.  We can compare death rates from the virus, and deaths as a share of total population and contagion rates.  What do we find?  Nothing that those "experts" claim is true.

Here's Dr. Birx With a Few Minutes of Calm Reality, Rebutting a Lot of Virus Myths Out There.  [Dr. Deborah] Birx called out and destroyed some of the bad information being thrown out there.  First, she tackled the claim that "50-60% of the population" were going to get the virus.  She said that would only be possible if there was nothing being done to mitigate the virus and if the virus was constantly being recycled through this cycle and the next (the fall) and into 2021. Birx said those claims being put out there were very frightening to people, but if you actually looked at what had happened in Wuhan and Hubei, and other Chinese provinces, that wasn't the reality.  This is the most important point — it's important to do what we can to blunt it, but it's also irresponsible to claim millions are going to die when that's disconnected from the reality that we've already seen in the places where we can examine the data on the ground.

The man who spooked the world with coronavirus model walks back his prediction.  Before we cause irreparable harm to our lives, liberty, and economy, shouldn't we first study the nature of the virus, how many people really have it, when it started, and what really works in containing it?  These are the questions some of us have already been asking, but our voices were silenced because of the Imperial College of London's study that said this would kill 2.2 million people in the U.S. and 500,000 in the U.K. Now, the author of that study himself has essentially recanted his projection, whether he admits it or not. [...] What has changed?  As we've noted, Ferguson now believes that many more people have already gotten the virus over the past few months, meaning it is much less deadly than previously thought.  In order to save face, Ferguson told members of Parliament that part of his calculous is that the lockdown measures are helping.  But the problem is, as former NYT reporter Alex Berenson observed, those measures were not implemented until two days ago.

Dictatorship of the immunocompromised?  There has to be an exit strategy out of this national suicide attempt that is being accomplished through lockdowns and the imposition of quasi-martial law.  Responsible, enlightened governance requires tradeoffs that don't look like one-size-fits-all collective punishment imposed from above.  We got to this place because wildly overstated projections by monomaniacally focused experts stampeded policymakers into ordering draconian crackdowns on the general population, instead of focusing on the most vulnerable members of the population.  These politicians have been tripping over each other as they race to see who can be the most severe and despotic.  Is all of this justified?  The Chinese virus may be scary but, so far at least, the doomsday scenarios forecasted by so many so-called experts are not playing out.  Shutting down the economy to protect those vulnerable to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is not a winning strategy, as some officeholders — even New York's Maximum Leader, Andrew Cuomo — are beginning to admit.  It's a profoundly dumb idea and terrible public policy.

Fear and Panic for A Purpose — The Coronavirus Evolves Into "The Blue Plague".  The "Blue Plague" is an intentional effort by various interests to create fear-porn amid the American population by intentionally hyping a mass hysteria about the coronavirus.  In many ways the Blue Plague is exponentially more dangerous than COVID-19 itself.  Earlier today [3/26/2020], The New York Times became the epicenter of the Blue Plague by stating people in hospitals throughout the city were dying, as desperately under-prepared and under-equipped doctors and nurses could not find ventilators for thousands of arriving patients in a state of panic.  This was/is incitement at its worst.

Coronavirus In RI: Anyone Coming From NY Ordered to Quarantine.  The number of cases of the new coronavirus spiked by 33 cases on Thursday, Governor Gina Raimondo announced.  Starting immediately, anyone coming into the state from New York state will be mandated to self-quarantine for 14 days, the governor said.  Nearly half of the nation's cases of COVID-19 are from New York, particularly the New York City metro area, Raimondo said, and the number of cases is rising every day.  Because of its geographical proximity to Rhode Island, this measure is necessary to keep the infection rate down, she said.  "No matter how you come to Rhode Island -- bus, car, train, plane -- you are ordered to quarantine for 14 days," Raimondo said.

Michigan Democrat Governor Threatens Licenses of Doctors and Pharmacists Who Prescribe Hydroxychloroquine to Treat Coronavirus.  Governor Gretchen Whitmer from the Michigan Directorate has threatened to turn the eye of the state upon any doctor or pharmacist who would attempt to prescribe chloroquine to treat their patients suffering from coronavirus.  Medical licenses may need to be revoked.  The agency's March 24 letter warns physicians and pharmacists of professional consequences for the prescribing of hydroxychloroquine (and chloroquine).  Beyond the rational recommendation against hoarding, the letter includes threats of "administrative action" against the licenses of doctors that prescribe hydroxychloroquine.

Delaware Governor Changes Shutdown Order:  Gun Stores Can Remain Open.  Delaware Governor John Carney (D) changed his statewide shutdown order Thursday, recognizing gun stores as "essential" and allowing them to remain open.  WBOC reports that Carney's original order, released Sunday, had gun stores listed as "non-essential," and therefore under instruction to remain closed until May 15.  Some gun stores throughout the state defied Carney, remaining open Monday thru Thursday of this week.  As a result, three gun stores in New Castle alone had been served with "cease and desist letters and closed down."  Delaware State Sportsmen's Association's Jeff Hague reacted to the determination of gun store owners, saying, "If people believe that you have the right to keep and bear arms, if you closed all the gun stores and not allow anybody to purchase a firearm you're infringing on that constitutional right."

Orleans Parish has highest per-capita coronavirus death rate of American counties — by far.  Orleans Parish has the highest per-capita death rate for the coronavirus among all American counties to date, a new analysis by The Times-Picayune | The Advocate shows.  More disturbingly, perhaps, it's not even a close call.  The county with the No. 2 rate — Richmond County, N.Y., better known as Staten Island — has a rate half that of New Orleans.

Explosion of leftist hate aimed at Dr Birx after she demolishes media's panic narrative.  Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, has proven to be a voice of reason in a time of crisis — much to the angst of the hostile, anti-Trump media.  The hair-on-fire media is pushing a panic-inducing worst-case narrative in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak, focusing on predictions of alarming increases in those who contract the Chinese virus while reporting on dwindling hospital supplies and do-not-resuscitate orders allegedly being discussed to free up more beds.  Yet, Birx stands calmly before the American people at the nightly press briefings and reminds agenda-driven journalists of a little thing called facts, beseeching them to be more responsible in their reporting.  "There is no situation in the United States right now that warrants that kind of discussion," she implored.

$5 trillion down the drain.  In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, everyone should read Robert Higgs' economic classic "Crisis and Leviathan."  The critical warning of this masterpiece is that government always uses a crisis — from the Civil War to the Great Depression to World War II — to expand power, not only during the emergency but also afterward.  Emergencies tend to ratchet up the cost and power of government permanently.  That expansion of government authority is especially unwise now, given that when this coronavirus fiasco is finally over, it may go down in history as one of the greatest government screwups in American history.  That's saying a lot.

Other examples of money down the drain.

The Battle Over Best Intentions.  In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has pointed to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to avoid groups of 10 or more but has not issued a statewide order to stay at home.  Many big cities in Texas, including Dallas, Houston, Austin, El Paso, San Antonio and Fort Worth, are under stay-at-home orders that allow residents to leave home only for crucial work and errands.  State House Democrats followed with a letter to Abbott urging him to have a statewide policy with consistent rules for urban and rural areas alike.  "The ranchers in West Texas deserve the same protections as doctors in Houston," the letter reads.  "The farmers in Laredo are every bit as deserving of protection from COVID-19 as the bartenders in Austin."

Government Ordered Quarantine Violates Fifth Amendment, Says Judge Napolitano.  Mass hysteria has engulfed the United States over the Wuhan virus with millions of citizens ordered to remain isolated in their homes even if they are not sick.  California Governor Gavin Newsom said his state is prepared for martial law if needed.  Does government have the authority to quarantine persons without proof of contagion?  According to Judge Andrew Napolitano, the short answer is no.  Under the Fifth Amendment both federal and state governments must follow due process if they intend to impair the life, liberty, or property of any person.

Trump understands what his critics don't:  The current lockdown is unsustainable.  President Trump enjoys 60 percent approval for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but that has not stopped his critics from trying to stoke public outrage at his expense.  After the president expressed hope that the anti-malaria drug chloroquine was showing signs of success as a treatment for the coronavirus, news organizations tried to blame him for the death of an Arizona man who self-medicated with fish tank solvent that contained a different form of the substance.  "Man dies after taking drug touted as coronavirus treatment by Trump," CBS News declared.  No, he didn't.  Trump never suggested anyone self-medicate with aquarium cleaner.  Now the latest source of outrage is the president's announcement that wants to begin lifting the current economic lockdown by Easter.  In a press briefing Tuesday [3/24/2020], Trump said his "goal is to ease the guidelines and open things up to very large sections of our country" and that "I hope we can do this by Easter," but added that "our decision will be based on hard facts and data."  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.

South Africans ignore stay-at-home order imposed to tackle coronavirus.  Thousands of South Africans have been ignoring the stay-at-home lockdown instructions imposed overnight by the government designed to stop the spread of coronavirus.  The country's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, donned full combat fatigues and cap to address some of the 2,800 troops he deployed at midnight to help police keep the streets quiet, saying the troops must "wage war against an invisible enemy."  He added this is "the most important mission in the history of our country".  On Friday, however, Johannesburg has been a tale of two cities.  In the downtown and traditional suburban areas, there is strong enforcement of the lockdown.  Police used tear gas to disperse crowds in the rundown downtown Hillbrow area.

Cuomo Deserves No Plaudits for His Handling of Crisis.  It was a stunning confession.  During a press briefing on Tuesday [3/24/2020], New York Governor Andrew Cuomo admitted that closing schools and colleges in his state was a spur-of-the-moment decision based on a health crisis for which he was not prepared.  "What we said at a moment of crisis is 'isolate everyone,'" Cuomo told reporters while seated in front of boxes of medical supplies.  "Close the schools, close the colleges, send everyone home, isolate everyone in their home.  [It] wasn't even smart, frankly, to isolate younger people with older people."

Trump Sends Letter To America's Governors Announcing Changes In Coronavirus Response.  President Donald Trump sent a letter to America's governors on Thursday announcing that the administration would be releasing new guidelines for state and local officials that would allow them to be flexible in responding to the outbreak of the coronavirus, which came from China.  "There is still a long battle ahead, but our efforts are already paying dividends.  As we enhance protections against the virus, Americans across the country are hoping the day will soon arrive when they can resume their normal economic, social, and religious lives," the letter stated.  "In furtherance of this shared goal, my Administration is working to publish new guidelines for State and local policymakers to use in making decisions about maintaining, increasing, or relaxing social distancing and other mitigation measures they have put in place."

Gallup Poll:  Majority Of Americans Disapprove Of News Media Handling Of Wuhan Coronavirus.  Of nine leaders and institutions rated by Americans in a new poll on their response to the novel Wuhan Coronavirus, the media fared the worst, and it's not even close.  According to a new Gallup poll released Wednesday, the media was the only institution that scored a negative approval rating among the public with only 44 percent of Americans approving of the way the media has covered the virus.  Fifty-five percent disapprove making for a -11 percent rating.  Gallup also gathered approval ratings for U.S. hospitals, schools and daycares, state governments, employers, government health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump, and Congress.

Hundreds dead in Iran after consuming methanol thinking it was coronavirus protection.  More than 300 people have died and a further 1,000 have fallen ill in Iran after consuming methanol in the belief that it will protect them against the coronavirus, according to local media.  Fake remedies have spread across Iranian social media, with methanol simply the latest supposed cure.  As an Islamic nation, the consumption of alcohol is banned, but bootleggers have distributed industrial alcohol.

Watch LA Mayor Announce Spy Program to Threaten Open Businesses During COVID-19 Scare.  California is bracing for its turn as the nation's hotspot for the COVID-19 outbreak and the state's leaders are flexing their statist muscles with all manner of edicts, spy programs, and threats of prosecution.  The state is currently in shut-down mode, with only "essential businesses" open and people ordered to socially distance from other possible germ carriers.  Restaurants can serve only take-out orders, grocery stores require people to line up outside until the crowds thin out inside.  In the beach communities, "outsiders" are being told to stay out.  Hiking trails, parks and even the beaches — the open-air beaches — are closed.  In the City of Laguna Beach, where drones are forbidden for you to use in public, cops are using drones to monitor whether scofflaws have hit the beaches and if people are keeping a socially acceptable distances from others.  So ingrained are these admonitions that if you're seen walking in a group, citizens will think nothing of calling the cops.

Dr. Fauci Concedes the Coronavirus Mortality Rate May Be Much Closer to a Very Bad Flu.  Last week morning Governor's Gavin Newsom from California and Andrew Cuomo from New York announced complete lockdown on state residents due to the coronavirus pandemic.  There had been 16,067 cases of the coronavirus reported in the US at the time.  There had been 219 deaths in the US due to coronavirus at that time.  The following morning NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters during the daily White House press conference, "I strongly agree" with the New York and California governors for shutting down their state economies.  This was based on the highly flawed models on the coronavirus that were being peddled at that time.  But what a difference a week makes!  On Thursday Dr. Fauci co-authored a report on the coronavirus in the New England Journal of Medicine.  In the report Dr. Fauci now argues that the mortality rate of the coronavirus may be much closer to a very bad flu.

Dr. Deborah Birx Steers Away from Doomsday Coronavirus Predictions.  [Scroll down]  She noted that in major countries, there was never an attack rate of over one in over 1,000 people.  "The predictions of the models don't match the reality on the ground on either China, South Korea, or Italy," she said.  Birx also addressed reports that raised the alarm of New York City hospitals running out of ICU beds, ventilators, and creating "Do Not Resuscitate" (DNR) policies for patients.  She revealed that she spoke with health officials in New York, that there were still ICU beds and 1000-2000 ventilators available, and that there were no DNR policies enacted.  "We don't have evidence of that right now," she said.

Dr. Deborah Birx:  Coronavirus data not matching extreme predictions.  The White House response coordinator for the coronavirus task force said Thursday [3/26/2020] that extreme predictions about the pandemic don't line up with the incoming data, while also pushing back against unfounded rumors that could alarm the public.  Dr. Deborah Birx said 19 of all 50 states with confirmed cases have low levels of the outbreak.  "When people start talking about 20 percent of a population being infected, it's very scary," she said during Thursday's White House briefing.  "But we don't have data that matches that based on the [actual] experience."

COVID-19 Deaths So Far:  Where Is the Crisis?  I have updated this chart a number of times, based on data from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control, and will continue to do so.  It shows, for one thing, how far COVID-19 has to go before it equals the average seasonal flu mortality, worldwide.  If I had to predict, I would guess that it will eventually reach the average level.  Will it get to 2x the average number of flu deaths, worldwide?  Looking at current trends, I don't see how that will happen.

The Left is Loving This.  Consider, for a moment, what ideas Americans seem to have generally accepted in the last few weeks.  First, there seems to no longer be a question as to whether or not the government has a responsibility to ensure health care for American citizens.  The prospect of some hospitals, in some specific locales, exceeding health care capacity has caused the bulk of the American economy, at the behest of government, to simply stop functioning in order to avoid it.  In other words, the health of a comparative few is of far greater importance than the personal, financial, and social interests of the many.  If we accept that as gospel and the creed of our governance, as it seems we have, then how is Medicare-for-All anything less than a moral imperative?  Secondly, there no longer seems to be any question as to whether our government needs to act swiftly and decisively to defend against an invisible threat which presents an unknown, and unknowable, future impact, even if that means destroying American free enterprise, and the lives and livelihoods of countless millions.  Green New Deal, anyone?

Now the shoe is on the other foot.  Let them build the wall.
Coronavirus:  Mexicans demand crackdown on Americans crossing the border.  Mexican protesters have shut a US southern border crossing amid fears that untested American travellers will spread coronavirus.  Residents in Sonora, south of the US state of Arizona, have promised to block traffic into Mexico for a second day after closing a checkpoint for hours on Wednesday.  They wore face masks and held signs telling Americans to "stay at home".  Mexico has fewer than 500 confirmed Covid-19 cases and the US over 65,000.  The border is supposed to be closed to all except "essential" business, but protesters said there has been little enforcement and no testing by authorities.

SEIU Union in California Suddenly Finds Mysterious Stash of 39 Million Face Masks.  [President] Trump signed a second executive order to providing authority to address hoarding and price gouging that threatens the supply of medical supplies.  Attorney General Bill Barr put hoarders on notice and said they will get a knock on the door if they are sitting on a large amount of supplies.  "We have started to see some evidence of potential hoarding and price gouging," said Barr.  "So, earlier today the president signed a second executive order providing the authority to address... hoarding that threatens the supply of those necessary health and medical resources."  "If you have a big supply of toilet paper in your house, this is not something you have to worry about.  But if you are sitting on a warehouse with masks, surgical masks, you will be hearing a knock on your door," Barr said.

Inaccurate Virus Models Are Panicking Officials Into Ill-Advised Lockdowns.  As U.S. state and local officials halt the economy and quarantine their communities over the Wuhan virus crisis, one would hope our leaders were making such major decisions based on well-sourced data and statistical analysis.  That is not the case.  A scan of statements made by media, state governors, local leaders, county judges, and more show many relying on the same source, an online mapping tool called COVID Act Now.  The website says it is "built to enable political leaders to quickly make decisions in their Coronavirus response informed by best available data and modeling."  An interactive map provides users a catastrophic forecast for each state, should they wait to implement COVID Act Now's suggested strict measures to "flatten the curve."  But a closer look at how many of COVID Act Now's predictions have already fallen short, and how they became a ubiquitous resource across the country overnight, suggests something more sinister.

Internal emails reveal how the CDC bungled initial response to coronavirus.  On Feb. 13, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent out an email with what the author described as an 'URGENT' call for help.  The agency was struggling with one of its most important duties: keeping track of Americans suspected of having the novel coronavirus.  It had 'an ongoing issue' with organizing — and sometimes flat-out losing — forms sent by local agencies about people thought to be infected.  The email listed job postings for people who could track or retrieve this paperwork.  'Help needed urgently,' the CDC wrote.

How the Partisan Media Are Harming America's Pandemic Response.  The Founding Fathers had hoped a free and unfettered press would remedy the toxic "factionalism" endemic to democracy.  Unfortunately, today, a monolithic mainstream media establishment has exacerbated rather than remedied this factionalism.  This crisis shows how harmful our dishonest partisan media can be.  A postmortem on the pandemic will show that the mainstream media were our country's most shameful crisis actors.

Cuomo wonders if coronavirus quarantine may have backfired in some cases.  Sweeping statewide quarantine orders may not have been the most effective strategy to combat the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded on Thursday, as he weighed plans to restart the economy.  "We closed everything down.  That was our public health strategy," said Cuomo during an Albany press briefing.  "If you re-thought that or had time to analyze that public health strategy, I don't know that you would say 'Quarantine everyone.'"  It's the third day in a row that Cuomo has publicly mused about quarantines and how best to eventually restart the Empire State's shattered economy.

Stockpile of expired masks likely to be given to TSA workers.  A stockpile of 1.5 million expired N95 respirator masks belonging to the US Customs and Border Protection agency is expected to be deployed to the Transportation Security Administration to aid its underequipped workforce, a report said.  Officials with the Department of Homeland Security decided to deliver the supply of protective masks to the TSA on a Wednesday conference call, sources told The Washington Post.  The masks have been sitting inside an Indiana warehouse, the report said.  While they are past their expiration date, a White House official told the paper that they still function properly.

Pelosi says $2 trillion bill isn't 'the end' of coronavirus stimulus.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that chamber members are "eager" to return to Capitol Hill to vote on the Senate's $2 trillion economic stimulus bill and predicted another congressional spending package is on the horizon.  Pelosi, the leader of the Democrat-controlled House, said the chamber will vote Friday on the Senate bill.  Pelosi said earlier this week she would try to pass the Senate bill through "unanimous consent" without most members present for the vote, but changed course on Thursday [3/26/2020].

It's time to loosen the blindfolds: transparency needed in virus figures.  "In the last week I've been concerned at the lack of information provided by government and the advisers," says Tony Blakely, a professorial fellow in epidemiology at the University of Melbourne.  Blakely can guess why politicians do not release their modelling.  While the federal government has a team working on the likely infections and deaths from the virus, the forecasts would be alarming.  Scott Morrison and other leaders might think Australians have enough to worry about with the coronavirus already.  "But that's not what I read at the moment," Blakely says.  "I see a population that actually wants to be told it straight, that wants to know what those numbers are, that wants to understand how those decisions are being made."  Other countries are being more open.  In the United Kingdom, for instance, the government's approach was guided by an Imperial College study that warned of an "unmitigated epidemic" that would cost 510,000 lives.  That conclusion changed policy almost overnight.

Coronavirus Is Communist China's Chernobyl.  Start with the fact that the Chinese Communist Party was clearly warned of the dangers of continually operating its "wet markets," believed to be the virus's zoonotic provenance.  In these wet markets, exotic animals, to which some in China ascribe superstitious belief, are bartered like routine commodities.  But these wet markets also previously brought onto the world SARS, bird flu, Asian flu and swine fever.  Chinese scientists had warned the Beijing politburo that continuing to operate the wet markets could easily lead to another epidemiological outbreak — quite possibly a novel strain of coronavirus.  Beijing paid no heed.  Failing to shut down the wet markets is bad enough.  But even more disastrous was the Chinese Communist Party's initial handling of the metastasizing situation in and around Wuhan.

In Virgina, Go to Church, Go to Jail.  The Governor of Virginia has decided to ban churches from gathering in groups of ten or more.  The executive order applies to all gatherings, not just churches, so it is arguable constitutional.  But it also directly infringes on the First Amendment right to assemble and to freely exercise one's religion.  It actually makes it a crime to meet for church. [...] Churches should use common sense and avoid gathering right now.  But it is a fundamental right under the Bill of Rights and the Governor should have used the moral power of his office to work with churches instead of the hard power of state demands.

What about the Coronavirus excess death rate?  [Scroll down]  For example, to know the all-important case fatality rate of this disease, we have to know the numbers of people infected.  As we test more and more of the population we learn more about that, but not nearly as much as we need to know.  And unless we test the entire population, including those with no symptoms, and do it at intervals, we can't know for sure.  But we do know another important number:  how many people have died so far of COVID-19.  Or do we?  Is everyone who dies of respiratory disease being tested for the presence of the virus?  And if they are all being tested, do we know that those with a positive COVID-19 test actually died from the virus and not from some other condition they might have?

Coronavirus Panic is a Trojan Horse for Socialism.  Finally we're blinking our eyes with dawning realization that maybe this pandemic isn't as sickly serious as was once hyped by the same media which pees itself in anticipation for hurricane season.  That's because, in my opinion, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats got greedy, thus exposing their hand.  Instead of providing relief to Americans who've stayed at home all because their state and local governments told them to, Pelosi and her band of ugly men stuffed a relief bill with socialism fan fiction. [...] It's almost like Democrats aren't taking this virus as seriously as they sold it.  It's almost as if they ginned up panic, with the full cooperation of the media, to push big government socialism when American fears were spiked.  It's almost as if Democrats and the media ripped a few pages from global warming alarmism and just doused it with gas, since not enough people were panicking and ceding their freedoms to government in order to save the planet.

Is coronavirus less fatal than early predictions suggested?  [Scroll down]  Accepting as true China's claim that only 3,287 people died, the real mortality rate would be 1.85% — which is still a high mortality rate, but less than the original 4% claimed.  Considering that, in December and January, there was substantial and steady traffic between Wuhan and the U.S., the doctors believe that coronavirus's high infection rate means that some six million Americans may have been infected by March 9.  As of March 23, though, only 499 Americans had died from coronavirus.  The professors point out that this is a mortality rate of only 0.01%, which is one-tenth of the annual flu mortality rate of 0.1%.  If more people are infected than with the flu, but only 1/10 the number of people die ... well, it's not Armageddon.

Hospitals consider universal do-not-resuscitate orders for coronavirus patients.  Hospitals on the front lines of the pandemic are engaged in a heated private debate over a calculation few have encountered in their lifetimes — how to weigh the "save at all costs" approach to resuscitating a dying patient against the real danger of exposing doctors and nurses to the contagion of coronavirus.  The conversations are driven by the realization that the risk to staff amid dwindling stores of protective equipment — such as masks, gowns and gloves — may be too great to justify the conventional response when a patient "codes," and their heart or breathing stops.

Epidemiologist Behind Highly-Cited Coronavirus Model Admits He Was Wrong, Drastically Revises Model.  Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who created the highly-cited Imperial College London coronavirus model, which has been cited by organizations like The New York Times and has been instrumental in governmental policy decision-making, offered a massive revision to his model on Wednesday.  Ferguson's model projected 2.2 million dead people in the United States and 500,000 in the U.K. from COVID-19 if no action were taken to slow the virus and blunt its curve.  However, after just one day of ordered lockdowns in the U.K., Ferguson is presenting drastically downgraded estimates, revealing that far more people likely have the virus than his team figured.  Now, the epidemiologist predicts, hospitals will be just fine taking on COVID-19 patients and estimates 20,000 or far fewer people will die from the virus itself or from its agitation of other ailments, as reported by New Scientist Wednesday [3/25/2020].

Coronavirus:  Why some countries wear face masks and others don't.  Step outside your door without a face mask in Hong Kong, Seoul or Tokyo these days, and you may well get a disapproving look.  Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak some places have fully embraced wearing face masks, and anyone caught without one risks becoming a social pariah.  But in many other parts of the world, from the UK and the US to Sydney and Singapore, it's still perfectly acceptable to walk around bare-faced.

Italian scientists investigate possible earlier emergence of coronavirus.  Italian researchers are looking at whether a higher than usual number of cases of severe pneumonia and flu in Lombardy in the last quarter of 2019 may be a signal that the new coronavirus might have spread beyond China earlier than previously thought.

Let's not Swat the Mosquito but get Hit by the Train.  The medical challenge is only one factor in this crisis.  We no longer have just a medical crisis.  Our reaction to the virus is causing second and third order effects that are rapidly growing larger than the initial health problem.  The first step in solving a problem is identifying the problem, so we need to start considering all the factors.  If we don't get off the path we're on (quarantining everyone), the next few years will not be a bear market or a recession.  This is full-scale depression behavior we are currently in the process of kicking off.  We're swatting a mosquito while sitting on railroad tracks facing an oncoming train.  We're focusing all our concern on the mosquito, paying no attention to a more catastrophic problem coming right at us.

Government Force and Poisoned Beans.  [Scroll down]  We could save hundreds of people from drowning each year by closing all pools and beaches.  We could save thousands of people from dying in traffic accidents by banning the automobile.  And if gun control actually kept guns out of the hands of criminals, lunatics, and terrorists, we could save some small number of lives by means of gun control measures (while, to repeat, losing many more).  We haven't done these things, although the Democratic left wants to do at least two of them, because we recognize that the great harm these actions would cause outweighs any possible good — and, perhaps, if we think about it more deeply, because we realize that it isn't the job of government to weigh such matters at all.  "If it saves lives" is not a serious standard for judging the morality of an action because it ignores the negative consequences of that action.

Newt Gingrich trapped with wife in Italy during coronavirus lockdown.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife, Calista, the US ambassador to the Vatican, have been trapped in Italy while under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report.  "Italy is a very sobering experience," Gingrich told Fox 5 New York.  "Everything is closed down.  The only thing that is open are grocery stores, pharmacies and gas stations."  About 70,000 people have been infected by COVID-19 in Italy, which has been under a nationwide lockdown for two weeks.  On Wednesday, the country reported 5,210 new cases and 683 deaths.

The Editor says...
How did they get five thousand new cases of infection yesterday, when the whole country has been locked down for two weeks?

Risk, Uncertainty and Coronavirus.  The government response to the coronavirus pandemic has seemed chaotic — underreaction one minute, piling on restrictions the next.  It has left many wondering whether anyone is weighing the trade-offs.  Do heavy-handed measures carry the benefits to justify the considerable costs?  The uncomfortable answer:  We don't know.  The novel coronavirus appears at first to be a problem of risk management.  It is a dangerous disease that threatens the lives of our neighbors and loved ones.  Our response — increased social distancing, shutting down businesses — is aimed at reducing that risk.  But the problem isn't risk so much as uncertainty.

The Wisdom of Trump's 15 Days to Slow Spread of COVID-19.  On March 16, President Donald Trump announced a new initiative, "15 Days to Slow the Spread," to halt or hinder the rapid spread of COVID-19. [...] On Day Nine of 15, are we near an end to the widespread lockdown orders in place in almost all 50 states?  The president's promise is narrow: that his administration will reevaluate the situation and make an informed decision based on the available evidence.  Unfortunately, the current available data does not suggest that global ordeal is near an end for Americans.  According to Worldometer, in the past 24 hours, the United States added 9,909 new confirmed cases and lost 130 patients to the virus.  The rate of new cases is increasing at an extreme rate, but this could be confounded by the vast expansion of testing capacity in America over the past two weeks.

A Public Health Crisis Is No Time for Private Pension Bailouts.  Now is the time to address the COVID-19 crisis, not throw money at decades-long problems.  House Democrats' inclusion of a massive taxpayer bailout for a select group of multiemployer or union pension plans in their most recent 1400-page pork-filled COVID-19 legislative package flies in the face of 60% of U.S. households that have suffered significant retirement account losses of their own with the stock market's roughly 25% COVID-19 tumble.  A private pension bailout as a "solution" for the current situation is both ironic and disturbing.

Fear Makes It Easy for Governments to Expand Power.  The coronavirus epidemic has for the past couple of weeks compelled panicked households to flood grocery stores in search of basic goods.  Until this past weekend, however, US governments had refrained from using special powers to order forced business closures and curfews.  Autocratic responses to the health crisis, it seemed, were being put in place exclusively by authoritarian governments such as China's Communist Party, which managed to allegedly contain the spread of the virus through martial law — barricading people in their homes, arresting those who wouldn't comply with quarantine mandates, and issuing passports to households so that authorities could verify whether individuals leaving their homes had already used up their weekly stroll quotas.  Following an announcement from President Trump, however, things changed.  After several states declared a state of emergency, some states took further steps by ordering forced business closures.  Ohio, California, Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Indiana ordered owners of bars, restaurants, and wineries to shut down.

'Economist' Runs Chinese Coronavirus Propaganda Disguised as News.  The Economist is running Chinese propaganda from an outlet that is violating U.S. law to spread the message that Chinese president Xi Jinping has done a masterful job handling the coronavirus pandemic.  The propaganda advertorials, which are ads designed to look like news stories, come from the Beijing Review, an entity backed by the Chinese Communist Party.  The outlet has never registered with the Department of Justice as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and does not include a legally required disclaimer that the ad is being pushed by a foreign nation.

When did coronavirus begin in the US? And why it matters.  Given that the virus was discovered in Wuhan on November 17 (at the latest), when did coronavirus really begin in this country?  Roughly how many cases do we think occurred before we began testing during the first week in March, and how many fatalities occurred?  How many of the presumed flu deaths, and particularly the presumed pneumonia deaths during what was thought of as a bad flu season, were really due to coronavirus?  These are not mere academic questions.  They should determine our public policy response.  Knowing when the virus began and what we think occurred in January and February (and perhaps even December) will help determine not only how severe this virus is, but how far along we are into the epidemic.  If we really had hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of cases, along with several thousand more fatalities prior to testing, that would mean that the mortality rate is even lower than the 1.2% post-testing average so far.

State legislatures must convene to control governors' growing tyranny.  We all went along with the severe social distancing and the termination of all public gatherings to help safety during this epidemic.  Even this is no picnic, because it includes the cancellation of all religious services as well as school.  We must recognize the danger of unilateral executive actions halting the most sacred constitutional rights.  Nonetheless, it was clear that these first actions were called for and passed the rational basis test of using the policies least restrictive of liberty to achieve a vital state interest.  Now, however, that states are moving to indefinite lockdowns without presenting any evidence that this is needed, over and above the severe distancing, it's past time for us to ask questions.  Placing Americans indefinitely under house arrest without any due process, transparency, time limit, guidelines, or checks and balances on a single executive is something that should shake us to our core.  That is true even if we were dealing with Ebola and a 60 percent death rate.

California Police to Use Chinese-Made Patrol Drones Equipped with Night Vision Cameras to Patrol Streets for Quarantine Busters.  California is really ramping up its efforts to control the population after a couple dozen people died from the Coronavirus.  Governor Gavin Newsom recently said he was considering martial law after 12 people died from the Coronavirus.  Now a California police department is planning on using drones with night vision cameras and loudspeakers to monitor the population amid the Coronavirus shutdown after approximately 28 confirmed deaths in the state.

Drones with bullhorns.  Sounds like 1984 is being used as a how-to manual.
California police consider new uses for drones during coronavirus pan(dem)ic.  A police department in southern California is looking into different ways its drones can help during the coronavirus pandemic.  The Chula Vista Police Department recently doubled its fleet with the purchase of two machines.  The police department told the Financial Times that they would be outfitted with cameras.  "We have not traditionally mounted speakers to our drones, but ... if we need to cover a large area to get an announcement out, or if there were a crowd somewhere that we needed to disperse, we could do it without getting police officers involved," said Capt. Vern Sallee.

Pa. grocery store pitches $35,000 worth of food after woman coughs on it.  According to Gerrity's Supermarkets co-owner Joe Fasula, one woman's attempt at a prank will cost the store over $35,000 worth of produce.  In a post uploaded to the Gerrity's Facebook page on Wednesday, Fasula says that a woman known in the Hanover Township area as a "chronic problem in the community" entered the Luzerne County store around 2:20 p.m. and proceeded to cough all over the produce section, as well as parts of the bakery, meat case and grocery.  The woman was removed from the store as quickly as possible by Gerrity's employees, and Fasula says that he's been in contact with the district attorney's office, which will be "aggressively pursuing numerous charges" against the woman.  "We had no choice but to throw out all product she came in contact with," Fasula said. "

Chinese Man Tests Positive For Hantavirus From Rats After Dying On Bus Full of Passengers.  The Year of the Rat is upon us.  "A person from Yunnan Province died while on his way back to Shandong Province for work on a chartered bus on Monday," Chinese state media outlet Global Times reported Monday on Twitter.  "He was tested positive for #hantavirus.  Other 32 people on bus were tested."

Man who died on bus in China tests positive for 'hantavirus'.  A passenger who died on a bus in China has tested positive for a completely different virus than COVID-19 — one more fatal that often produces very similar symptoms, according to state-run media.  The unidentified victim from Yunnan province died while on a chartered bus heading to his workplace in Shandong province, the state-run Global Times announced in a tweet Monday [3/23/2020].  "He was tested positive for #hantavirus.  Other 32 people on bus were tested," the outlet stated, offering no further details.

Today COVID-19 made my doctor and I [sic] criminals.  Because I have in my later years developed a minor case of chronic asthma, I make quarterly visits to a lung specialist to take a basic lung function test to monitor the progress of my workout regimen plus medicines.  This began two years ago when the asthma was first diagnosed, forcing me to take puffs of an inhaler twice each day, in the morning and evening.  My long term goal is to get off these meds, but to do so I need to improve the numbers in this quarterly check-up.  Today was my appointment for the first checkup in 2020. I get to the doctor's office and, not surprisingly, cannot enter without letting them take my temperature and confirm that I have no cough or cold.  I expected this, since a doctor's office is one of the most likely places to catch a disease from others, and with the COVID-19 panic dominating society, they need to be sure everyone is uninfected before allowing them in.  I don't object to these precautions.  I just wonder why they didn't do such testing last year, when we were having the worst flu season in decades, killing far more people than the Wuhan virus.  This contradiction once again illustrates the irrationality of the COVID-19 response.

China cashes in off coronavirus, selling Spain $467 million in supplies, some of them substandard.  As the novel coronavirus sweeps across the world, some countries are finding themselves in a difficult situation.  Low on supplies or money, traditional American allies like Spain, Italy, France and Japan have had to turn to China for help.  "China creates the poison and sells the solution to it," foreign affairs expert Gordon Chang told Fox News.  China has used its money, medical equipment and teams of doctors and nurses in a high-stakes campaign to show the world that while the United States scrambles to contain the novel coronavirus within its borders, China is busy moving in on some of America's closest allies.

The media are engaged in a shameful sustained attack against Trump.  Horrified at the thought that Trump is proving to be a good president whom Americans have come to respect, the media have decided upon a two-pronged approach.  The first prong is to get Trump off the air. [...] The other media tactic to destroy Trump, even if it means terrifying Americans and killing hope, is to oppose him reflexively.  This is no more obvious than with chloroquine as a potential life-saver.  Trump expressed the hope that it would work, so the media are piling on to say that it can't possibly work.

A stupid little political stunt to Get Trump goes awry in Nevada.  Steve Sisolak, the leftist governor of Nevada, decided to play doctor by banning the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, two drugs that are being used elsewhere to treat COVID-19.  Unneccessary hoarding?  The hoarding thing is a smokescreen, his real reason was to slap at President Trump who touted these medications as showing promise, and even mistakenly said they had been approved for use by the FDA. That's his real reason for the limit on the unproven drug, which goes against the 'right to try' and the current national mobilization effort to get everyone well by suspending burdensome regulations in the medical community to encourage experimentation and swift solutions.  What Nevada needs, see, is more administrative-state regulation, which is is showing all signs of going badly for him.

Lessons from the Burst Zika Bubble.  Sometimes phenomena flare into public consciousness, crowd out other concerns, then disappear.  Only later we realize that judicious assessment of the evidence might have saved a great deal of distress.  There are disturbing clues that the Brazilian Zika scare might have been one such phenomenon, fueled by fear, haste, and fallacious conclusions instead of scientific rigor.

A Plague of Democratic Partisanship.  An overwhelming majority of Americans are worried about the financial effects of state and local measures imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19, yet the Democrats continue to dither over an economic stimulus bill.  A new Harris poll reveals that 91 percent of Americans are "increasingly concerned" about the economy.  Late Wednesday, the Senate finally passed an emergency relief package but only after overcoming a threat by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to put a hold on the bill.  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) says the lower chamber won't take up the measure until Friday, and the Democratic governor of New York has demanded additional allocations for his state before they pass it.  Despite the prominent role played by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in hammering out the Senate bill, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday that it would be terrible for his state:  "I spoke to our House congressional delegation this morning, I said to them 'this doesn't do it.'  I understand the Senate theory and the Republican theory but we need the House to make adjustments."

COVID-19 Probably Won't Destroy Society, but the Government's Reaction Might.  [Scroll down]  Let's momentarily not raise a fuss about having no reason to trust the model's underlying algorithm or whatever unknown assumptions about the virus generated its scary predictions. [...] Finally, we'll need to ignore that there's no evidence that social distancing is even effective against the spread of COVID-19.  Studies have shown that it can work only against the flu, which itself isn't even certain.  And the whole point of the extreme measures being pushed on us is that COVID-19 is orders of magnitude more dangerous, hence we can't depend on even surefire strategies effective against the flu. [...] We're now in a position to observe a remarkable fact.  The restrictions and spur-of-the-moment peremptory government abridgment of our most basic rights to which we've acquiesced are still completely unjustified.  The idea that we're considering extending them indicates that we've completely lost our collective mind. [...] All this casual talk of shutting down our economy and isolating everyone in America without considering the awful uncharted waters we'd be entering indicates we've become mad enough to destroy ourselves.

Senate Passes Coronavirus Bill, Proving Pelosi Gambled With Americans' Lives and Lost.  In the wee hours of Wednesday evening [3/25/2020], the U.S. Senate finally passed the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill after a great deal of Democrat stalling and a futile effort by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to put forward a separate bill jam-packed with liberal Christmas wish-list items.  The bill provides crucial relief to businesses struggling with the social distancing strategy of stopping the spread of the coronavirus.  It now heads to the House.  The stimulus bill is far from perfect, but its passage unmasked Pelosi's tactics as a disgraceful waste of time during this crisis.  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) slammed the speaker for her attempt to jam her liberal pipe dreams down Americans' throats in the midst of a crisis.

The Editor says...
"The wee hours" are the first few hours after midnight.  There are no "wee hours" in the evening.

Kinsa "health map" shows fever rates decreasing virtually everywhere in the United States.  Last week, when their "health weather" map debuted, I noted that it was nifty but that it'd be nice to be able to see at a glance on the map whether fevers are becoming more or less common.  Kinsa added that feature ("Trends") yesterday [3/24/2020].

Do you qualify for a stimulus check in Senate's coronavirus response bill?  One of the cornerstones of the Senate coronavirus stimulus package is the direct payment of money from the federal government to American individuals and families.  In the middle of the bill's hundreds of pages are details regarding exactly who can expect to receive money and how much they can expect.

Senate Releases $2 Trillion Coronavirus Package.  The Senate will likely vote on the $2 trillion coronavirus package on Wednesday night [3/25/2020] after the chamber votes on an amendment offered by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE).  The amendment would bar Americans from getting more from unemployment than they would while they are employed.  The measure is supported by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Tim Scott (R-SC), and Rick Scott (R-FL) and will require 60 votes to attach the amendment to the bill.  Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin rebuffed the Republican senators' concerns over the bill, contending this will help those who involuntarily lost their jobs.

NYC to release more than 1,000 prison inmates due to coronavirus concerns.  New York City will release more than 1,000 prison inmates due to coronavirus concerns, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday [3/24/2020].  According to the New York Post, approximately 300 prisoners in the Rikers Island prison complex and other city facilities will be released this week to limit the spread of COVID-19 through NYC's jail system.  De Blasio said inmates chosen are serving less than a year in prison for misdemeanors or non-violent felonies.

New Orleans emerges as next coronavirus epicenter, threatening rest of South.  New Orleans is on track to become the next coronavirus epicenter in the United States, dimming hopes that less densely populated and warmer-climate cities would escape the worst of the pandemic, and that summer months could see it wane.

The Red Tape Pandemic.  [Scroll down]  Coronavirus deaths leveled off in South Korea.  That's because people in Korea could easily find out if they had the disease.  There are hundreds of testing locations — even pop-up drive-thru testing centers.  Because Koreans got tested, Korean doctors knew who needed to be isolated and who didn't.  As a result, Korea limited the disease without mass quarantines and shortages.  Not in America.  In America, a shortage of COVID-19 tests has made it hard for people to get tested.  Even those who show all the symptoms have a difficult time.  Why weren't there enough tests?  Because our government insists on control of medical innovation.

Watch out for the Chicken Littles gleefully pushing panic and doom.  [Scroll down]  Unfortunately, the explosive growth over the past decade of social media has given rise to a kind of panic loop, a second-by-second retailing of the worst possible scenarios raised by the outbreak.  There is something peculiar going on in the way certain people are discussing the coronavirus — journalists, pundits and the armies of "influencers" endowed with a blue checkmark for no obvious reason.  It's almost as though they are taking a salacious pleasure in the grimmest and most haunting possibilities.  It's like Chicken Little is secretly thrilled the sky is falling.  Social media is full of those who are gripped by a perverse hunger to convey their unshakable belief in the transcendent seriousness of the present crisis by slathering any and every horrendous possibility it raises on our daily bread — and then sating their hunger by gobbling it up with salacious zest.  This is an obscenely effective way to make precisely the impression social media is designed to make — which is just that, to make an impression.

Here's What Is Reportedly In The $2 Trillion Emergency Relief Package For Coronavirus.  [Scroll down]  The nearly $2 trillion package also reportedly includes a provision to allow the government to take an equity state in some of the airlines.  The Senate package also reportedly includes a $17 billion federal loan program intended for Boeing aircraft, two sources said according to The Washington Post.  The bill notes that this $17 billion is for businesses "critical to maintaining national security," but the two sources said it was largely developed for Boeing.  This is separate from the $58 billion allocated to giving loans for cargo and passengers airlines, WaPo reported.

Press Bears Blame For Propagating Panic In Corona Crisis.  The political aspect of the coronavirus crisis is developing in a familiar way.  The president's enemies in the press have led the propagation of panic in the country, and have been given enough encouragement to do that from the scientific community, some of whose members are enjoying their 15 minutes of world fame a little more than is seemly.  President Trump's opponents are thus able to swaddle themselves in the legitimacy of science as they hurl their brickbats at the president. [...] As is also the well-established custom, his enemies cannot resist embellishing and fabricating.  The claim he had disbanded the pandemic response section of the National Security Council is false, as are suggestions that he has ignored or overruled scientific opinion.  The assault on the president's credibility as an enunciator of facts has had some success, partly because there is some reason to question his attention to facts and partly because he is routinely smeared by his press enemies.  Meantime, the dishonesty of the press is reaffirmed almost daily.

Brit Hume Has A Theory About Why Some People Don't Want The Economy Restarted.  Fox News contributor Brit Hume speculated that some of the resistance to bringing some portions of the economy back online could be a result of animosity toward President Donald Trump.  On Monday night [3/23/2020], Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick expressed his desire to get America working again despite the risks posed to himself as an older American. [...] While Hume called it a "reasonable viewpoint," he also contrasted it with others who believe that risking any life is "intolerable."  Yet, Hume contended, society risks lives every year when "thousands upon thousands die" from the seasonal flu.  "But we do not, as has been pointed out, shut down the economy to combat it," Hume said.  "Now look, the mortality rate is high enough that it makes it alarming.  It's obviously a special kind of case.  But there we are.  You know, we don't shut down the economy to save every single life that's threatened by a wide-spread disease.  We just don't."

Don't exempt the press.  While restaurants, hotels, factories, and movie theaters close across California, it is business as usual at the Sacramento Bee.  A worldwide pandemic [notwithstanding].  If California really wanted to flatten the curve instead of flattening the economy, McClatchy would be ordered to shutter its virus magnet presses and take a month off.  Small businesses across America have shut down.  Why not the Sacramento Bee?  What makes it so special? [...] We should not exempt them.  Newspapers have not been essential since the 1950s.  The public largely ignores them.  500 newspapers and magazines endorsed Hillary.  28 endorsed Donald John Trump.  Who became president?  Local TV stations can provide the news faster, more accurately, and without making a person break the quarantine to fetch the paper.

Diseases Are Bad.  Government-Forced Shutdowns Are Often Worse.  However high the death rate of the COVID-19 coronavirus becomes, the governmental response to the threat will be even more dangerous.  If the current blockade of economic life continues, more people will die from the countermeasures than from the virus itself.  In a short time, the basic supply of everyday goods will be at risk.  By interrupting the global transport and supply chains, important medicines will be missing and food supplies will be insufficient.  This is how a containment strategy works:  operation successful, patient dead.  The main concern for those responsible for healthcare is not the absolute number of deaths, but "flattening the curve," i.e., stretching out the frequency of cases of infection.  The model may be correct, all else remaining equal, but it ignores the extent of the damage that the control measures entail. [...] If government agencies continue to act as they are doing, people soon will be confronted with the problem that they can no longer buy necessary things — first, because the shelves will be empty, and second, because they will have no more income later, when the shelves are slowly restocked again.

LA County Sheriff halts efforts to close gun stores after county counsel intervention.  The Los Angeles County Sheriff told FOX 11 on Tuesday night that enforcement efforts to close down local gun stores have been suspended after intervention from the county's legal counsel.  Sheriff Alex Villanueva told FOX 11 reporter Bill Melugin that county counsel Mary Wickham issued an opinion that gun stores can be classified as essential businesses under the Governor's statewide executive order.  Sheriff Villanueva everything is now in "limbo", and added he reached out to the Governor's office to get clarification on how gun stores should be classified, but never got a response.

GOP senators warn they will oppose coronavirus bill unless 'massive drafting error' fixed.  Four Republican senators are warning that they will oppose fast-tracking the $2 trillion coronavirus response package unless a "massive drafting error" in the legislation, which they say would create an incentive for employers to lay off employees, is fixed.  "You want to destroy what's left of the economy?  Pass it the way it's written," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a press conference.  "If you want to help people, pay them their wages, but don't pay them more not to work."

New Totalitarian Pandemic Power-Grab Idea:  Permanently Close Some City Streets to Cars.  These past few weeks have been far too filled with various attempts at crisis-induced power grabs by politicians, which isn't historically unusual.  A pandemic is the kind of thing that calls for extraordinary measures but politicians almost (I'm being generous there) always try to get a little too extraordinary with their responses.  It is almost as if they are genetically coded to try and take a mile every time a frightened public offers them an inch.  This is a truly bipartisan problem.  The September 11th attacks did prompt a Republican president to create the Dept. of Homeland Security after all, a fact that still makes conservatives cringe to this day.  Very little time was wasted before a host of overreactions were suggested during this crisis.  Over the weekend, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo really let his totalitarian lust slip out for public display: [...]

Researchers say supercomputer identified 77 drugs that could potentially combat the coronavirus.  A supercomputer used by scientists to determine ways to combat the coronavirus outbreak has reportedly identified 77 drugs that could potentially help stop the spread.  Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory published results this week from a project that enlisted the help of an IBM supercomputer named Summit, which helped identify the most effective existing drugs that could potentially combat the coronavirus.  The research focuses on the method the coronavirus uses to cling to cells via a spike protein.  Summit used an algorithm to determine which drugs could bind to the protein and prevent the virus from doing what it wants.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: 'Of Course' I Would Prescribe Chloroquine to Coronavirus Patients.  Appearing Tuesday [3/24/2020] on Philadelphia's AM 990 The Answer Radio, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he would certainly prescribe Chloroquine to coronavirus-stricken patients in the wake of testimonies stating it could treat the deadly disease.

Lightfoot threatens to shut down parks, lakefront, Riverwalk.  Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday made an extraordinary threat — to shut down Chicago parks, Millennium Park, the downtown Riverwalk and the entire lakefront — if residents and visitors continue to thumb their noses at the statewide stay-at-home order aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.  Lightfoot instructed Chicago Police officers to shut down large gatherings and threatened to use what she called "every lever at my disposal" to compel compliance.

Cuomo says Senate's $2 trillion coronavirus bill would be 'terrible' for New York.  The Senate's $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill may be the largest rescue package in U.S. history, but it doesn't provide nearly enough for New York state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday [3/25/2020].  The bill, tentatively approved early Wednesday, "would really be terrible for the state of New York," Cuomo said at his daily briefing in Albany.

The Virus is Not Invisible, But It's Exposing Who's Irreplaceable.  In all the gloom and doom, and media-driven nihilism, there is actually an array of good news.  As many predicted, as testing spreads, and we get a better idea of the actual number and nature of cases, the death rate from coronavirus slowly but also seems to steadily decline.  Early estimates from the World Health Organization and the modeling of pessimists of a constant 4 percent death rate for those infected with the virus are for now proving exaggerated for the United States.  More likely, as testing spreads, our fatality rates could descend to near 1 percent.  There is some evidence from Germany and to a lesser extent South Korea, that it may be possible to see the fatality rate dip below 1 percent.  And with the breathing space from the lockdown, better hygiene (the degree of constant and near-obsessive cleaning at businesses that are still open is quite amazing), more knowledge and data, better medical protocols, the use of some efficacious drugs, warmer weather, and experience with the disease will, in perfect-storm fashion, begin to mitigate the effects of the virus.

Are Americans, and Trump, being Manipulated With Chicken Little, Coronavirus Fears?  [Scroll down]  So the issue, of course, isn't whether the Wuhan flu can be deadly; it certainly can.  We also should take the oft-mentioned common-sense precautions, such as embracing better hygiene, practicing "social distancing" when a pandemic is afoot, and staying home when sick if possible.  The question is:  Does this flu warrant infringing upon civil liberties, closing schools, creating a panic, and shutting down much of the economy?  The last thing is, as I reported Sunday, a "cure" possibly worse than the disease.  This reality has prompted some to suggest that we're being manipulated.  Former congressman Ron Paul, a medical doctor himself, wrote an op-ed entitled "The Coronavirus Hoax"; his assertion is that the current panic is being used by authoritarians to stifle freedom.  Then, American Thinker writer Eric Georgatos asks, "If this [overreaction] isn't a deliberate plot to take down America and every safeguard of American freedom, how would it look different if it were?"  Good question.

The Coronavirus Hoax.  Governments love crises because when the people are fearful they are more willing to give up freedoms for promises that the government will take care of them.  After 9/11, for example, Americans accepted the near-total destruction of their civil liberties in the PATRIOT Act's hollow promises of security.  It is ironic to see the same Democrats who tried to impeach President Trump last month for abuse of power demanding that the Administration grab more power and authority in the name of fighting a virus that thus far has killed less than 100 Americans. [...] State and local authoritarians love panic as well.  The mayor of Champaign, Illinois, signed an executive order declaring the power to ban the sale of guns and alcohol and cut off gas, water, or electricity to any citizen.  The governor of Ohio just essentially closed his entire state.  The chief fearmonger of the Trump Administration is without a doubt Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.  Fauci is all over the media, serving up outright falsehoods to stir up even more panic.

On 'The Cure Is Worse Than the Disease'.  If you were just being forced to undergo chemotherapy with no context, you would believe that you were being tortured by evil men, not treated by men who wish you well.  If you were subjected to the rigors of military training and military life with no explanation, you would think you were being abused — not that your apparent tormentors were trying to save your life.  What we know is that there is economic pain in the present, and that this is associated with what is at best an imperfect prophylactic strategy against the coronavirus.  What we do not know makes for a longer list: [...]

The Comprehensive Timeline of China's COVID-19 Lies.  The story of the coronavirus pandemic is still being written.  But at this early date, we can see all kinds of moments where different decisions could have lessened the severity of the outbreak we are currently enduring.  You have probably heard variations of:  "Chinese authorities denied that the virus could be transferred from human to human until it was too late."  What you have probably not heard is how emphatically, loudly, and repeatedly the Chinese government insisted human transmission was impossible, long after doctors in Wuhan had concluded human transmission was ongoing — and how the World Health Organization assented to that conclusion, despite the suspicions of other outside health experts.

Abolish the World Health Organization.  Way back on January 10, the official Twitter account of the World Health Organization declared that 'WHO does not recommend any specific health measures for travelers to and from Wuhan, #China.'  The tweet went on to say that 'It is generally considered that entry screening offers little benefit, while requiring considerable resources.'  A follow-up tweet described how 'WHO advises against the application of any travel or trade restrictions on #China based on the information currently available.' [...] Two wrong tweets shouldn't call into the question the creditability of the World Health Organization, but the direction in which its director-general, Tedros Adhanom, has steered the WHO, and his unwillingness to diverge from Beijing's public pronouncements, should trouble the world.

Top Chinese official disowns U.S. military lab coronavirus conspiracy.  In a rare interview, China's ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, told "Axios on HBO" that he stands by his belief that it's "crazy" to spread rumors about the coronavirus originating from a military laboratory in the United States. [...] Cui called this exact conspiracy theory "crazy" more than a month ago on CBS' "Face the Nation."  But that was before the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian, began publicly promoting the conspiracy.

Political Correctness Kills:  Fearing 'Racism' Allegations, Italy Failed to Isolate Wuhan Travelers Early.  The former President of the European and Italian Society for Virology attributed Italy's unmatched surge in novel Coronavirus deaths — even allegedly surpassing China — to the government's fear of being labeled "racist" for barring Chinese entry.  Dr. Giorgio Palù, also a Professor of Virology and Microbiology at the University of Padova, expressed concern over the Italian government's inadequate response to the virus, a grave flaw that has continued since the onset of the outbreak, in a CNN interview.  Currently, Italy is leading globally with over 6,000 deaths and is likely to stop treatment for individuals over 80 and in poor health.

Coronavirus: The Open Borders Policy Killer.  COVID-19 has dominated national (and international) news cycle over the past month, and in the past week, all major sports leagues have cancelled or postponed their seasons, events such as E3 and the Houston Rodeo have been shut down, and even Disneyland is closing its doors.  Leftist pundits, the hammers for whom every crisis is a socialist nail, have responded by attacking the President for either too much action or inaction, depending on the day, and also by doubling down on their demand for open borders.  The Democratic Party has effectively campaigned for open borders for years now.  President Obama famously used executive orders to deprioritize prosecution of certain illegal immigrants.  Every Democratic candidate who began the presidential primary agreed that illegal immigrants should be allowed access to free healthcare.

Democrats Began Politicizing Trump's Coronavirus Response Well Before Senate Gridlock.  As cynical as it sounds, the politicization of the coronavirus response began a week before the Senate stimulus gridlock, even as people were entering ICU units across the country, and even as hospitals and health-care professionals were facing shortages of supplies.  And the politicization effort had a clear vision of its own, unrelated to anyone's health: stopping Donald Trump from winning a second term and electing Democrats to the House.  Analysis of this frightening time and how the administration reacted to it will dominate political discourse for the rest of the year.  And if Democrat-led "dark money" groups have their way, Americans will see a biased take on the issue on every device they own from now until November.

US was more prepared for pandemic than any other country, Johns Hopkins study found.  The United States was ranked the best-prepared country in the world to handle a pandemic in late 2019 by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHCHS) — an assessment seemingly at odds with claims by Democrats that the Trump administration left the country vulnerable to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.  The Global Health Security Index was was "developed with guidance from an international panel of experts from 13 countries, with research by the Economist Intelligence Unit" from 2018 to 2019, The Washington Post reported last year.  "More than 100 researchers spent a year collecting and validating publicly available data."

Smart Move — Texas Governor Greg Abbott Signs Waiver Allowing Restaurants to Sell Food Retail.  Thank you Greg Abbott.  This is the first smart move by a state leader recognizing the realities of the system at hand.  Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed a waiver allowing restaurants to sell their bulk food directly to retail customers.  Amid all of the reactionary decisions by elected officials, this is a smart, and temporary move that can take pressure off the retail supply chain.  Hopefully others will follow.

Stop Freaking Out:  We're Not Going to Re-Open the Country All at Once.  On Tuesday, Donald Trump said he would like to see the country opened back up by Easter.  Many people freaked out, waving their arms and running around screaming that the President is going to kill us all (again).  He didn't establish a hard date here.  He simply said that is what he would like to see.  It is not his policy to just return the country to normal on a whim.  Clearly, there is a goal and the government is looking into how to meet that goal.  There is, contrary to what many in the media and on the Left might tell you, an actual plan here.  Those whose hatred of the President is so great that they would blame him for someone drinking fish tank cleaner are not going to let you know that the White House has actually announced its plan.  Instead, they'll continue to question whether or not the country will be ready to be open for business at a hard date the President never actually set.

White House, Senate strike deal on historic $2T coronavirus relief bill, but House support remains uncertain.  White House and Senate leaders reached a historic deal shortly after midnight Wednesday on a massive $2 trillion coronavirus relief package for workers and businesses, although support in the House of Representatives remained uncertain as one member openly criticized the plan.  The bipartisan breakthrough in the Senate capped days of heated negotiations that had nearly been derailed by last-minute demands from House Democrats.

New York hospitals treating coronavirus patients with vitamin C.  Seriously sick coronavirus patients in New York state's largest hospital system are being given massive doses of vitamin C — based on promising reports that it's helped people in hard-hit China, The [New York] Post has learned.  Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island, said his intensive-care patients with the coronavirus immediately receive 1,500 milligrams of intravenous vitamin C.  Identical amounts of the powerful antioxidant are then re-administered three or four times a day, he said.

Nevada Governor Bars Malaria Drugs for Coronavirus Patients.  Nevada's governor has signed an emergency order barring the use of anti-malaria drugs for someone who has the coronavirus.  Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak's order Tuesday restricting chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine comes after President Donald Trump touted the medication as a treatment for the virus.

Trump, White House tell Wall Street execs lockdown may last beyond Easter: sources.  President Trump appears to be revising his plans to end the lockdowns that have crippled the US economy, while promising that the federal government could actually spend much more than the $2 trillion in economic stimulus to prevent a virus-related economic catastrophe, FOX Business has learned.  The president's relaxed timetable for restarting the economy and the total estimates for a government stimulus were made Tuesday during a private conference call between top White House officials, the president and a handful of major Wall Street investors, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Some random thoughts about the rush to shutdown so many businesses in this country.  There's risk and reward for living a life of freedom and I'm wondering if the risk of shutting down our economy is worth more than the anticipated reward ("flattening the curve"). In America, you are free to pursue the job of your dreams or start your own business.  Imagine the government comes in and demands to shut down your employer or business for public safety.  You are now forcibly being robbed of your economic freedoms.  Does that not make you some form of an economic slave of the government?  You can't shut down businesses and expect them to re-open with their regular customers.  Those customers have now lost their jobs and will not have any disposable income to spend once the economy is back open for business.  That "social distancing" will be long gone when unemployment has reached massive levels.

Americans Growing More Concerned over Economy Than Personal Heath.  The survey, fielded March 21-22 among 2,023 U.S. adults, found that a majority of Americans, 61 percent, now consider the amount of fear in society as "sensible given how serious the [coronavirus] pandemic has become."  That reflects a 15-point jump from the 46 percent of Americans who viewed the fear as warranted last week.  The survey also reviewed the issues people are "increasingly concerned about" and found that concerns over the economy surpass all other worries, including personal health.

Wash Your Hands — but Beware the Electric Hand Dryer.  The spread of Covid-19 has turned us into a nation of hand-washing obsessives, citizens who vigorously interlace our fingers and circle-scrub our thumbs with an exacting, anxiety-fueled intensity.  But it's not over when you flip off the faucet:  Drying your hands matters too, because damp skin provides a hospitable environment for microorganisms and, as a result, might increase the likelihood that you'll pass on pathogens.  So now, as we confront what could be a society-altering disease outbreak, it seems worth taking a hard look at the widely reviled yet seemingly ubiquitous electric hand dryer.  Are they as hygienic as paper towels, as their manufacturers claim?

Doctor: I treated 350 coronavirus patients with 100% success.  A physician in New York state claims he has used the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and zinc to treat 350 patients for COVID-19 with 100 percent success.  In a video posted on YouTube, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko said he saw the symptom of shortness of breath resolved within four to six hours, the Gateway Pundit blog reported.  Zelenko, addressing his message to President Trump, said he's a board-certified family practioner in the community of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York, in the Hudson Valley, about 50 miles north of New York City.

25 TSA officers in 7 different states have tested positive for coronavirus.  As the coronavirus continues to spread throughout the country, 30 Transportation Safety Administration airport employees have now tested positive for the virus.  TSA employees, most of them working directly with the public as security screeners, have tested positive for COVID-19 in at least seven states and one U.S. territory as of Monday [3/23/2020].

New Yorkers Flood Florida — Governor DeSantis Writes Executive Order Requiring 14 Day Self-Quarantine.  Approximately 20,000 to 40,000 New Yorkers are currently arriving in Florida daily as they flee from the epicenter of the most explosive coronavirus outbreak.  However, if the elderly are the most vulnerable; and if isolating the most vulnerable population is the best course of action; and with the largest population of older residents living in Florida; then why are New Yorkers allowed to travel to Florida?  According to data released by Governor DeSantis:  Monday saw 190 direct flights from the New York City area into various Florida airports.  If 150-200 people average per flight, that's 28,500 to 38,000 New York metropolitan area residents arriving in Florida today.

Good news:  Higher-than-normal temperatures that cut down the spread of COVID-19 are imminent.  AccuWeather is forecasting 'higher-than-normal temperatures' for the next 3 months after historically higher than normal temperatures this past winter.  It was also reported that High Temperature and High Humidity Reduce the Transmission of COVID-19 in a paper posted on March 10, 2020 and revised on March 19, 2020.  This conclusion seems to be bolstered by the map of the COVID-19 Global Cases from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center that shows decidedly fewer cases in the Southern Hemisphere than the Northern Hemisphere.  This conclusion is bolstered by another study that interpreted the data that:  The distribution of significant community outbreaks along restricted latitude, temperature, and humidity are consistent with the behavior of a seasonal respiratory virus.

The man who may stop COVID-19.  Lara Marlowe of the Irish Times had a terrific lead, "We could know within two weeks whether Professor Didier Raoult, the French virologist who heads the Mediterranean infectious and tropical disease institute in Marseille, will go down in history as the man who saved the world from COVID-19, or will be dismissed as an arrogant, misguided scientist who raised false hopes."  Doctor Raoult was the one who took hydroxycloroquine off the shelf, mixed it with azithromycin (another available drug) and used it to treat 24 French COVID-19 patients.  It worked.  18 of them tested negative after 6 days.

FDA shuts down at-home tests for COVID-19.  Proving again that they are part of the problem, not part of the solution, the FDA on March 21 shut down the at-home tests for COVID-19 that had been developed by several companies. [...] It is apparent to everyone, but the bureaucrats at the FDA, that the safest place for people to get tested during an epidemic is in the home where they don't have to expose themselves to the disease.  The private sector was solving the problem, so the injelitants in charge of the FDA had to stop them.

President Trump Signs Executive Order Targeting:  Hoarding, Price Gouging and Supply Chain.  To understand the purpose and specific need of the latest Executive Order CTH can share a familiar analogy to help better conceptualize the issues.  There are several supply chains that are being affected by the coronavirus mitigation effort; two specific sectors involve healthcare products and food distribution.  Today's executive order targets both.

Italy:  Police helicopter stalks people who violate the stay-at-home order.  Going outside is allowed only for buying groceries and medicines, or for commuting to jobs deemed essential.

White House Blasts CNN, MSNBC For Cutting Away From Daily COVID-19 Briefing.  The White House blasted two liberal news networks for repeatedly cutting away from President Trump's daily coronavirus task force briefing, calling their actions "disgraceful." [...] A CNN spokesman responded to [Judd] Deere's tweet with a statement saying, "If the White House wants to ask for time on the network, they should make an official request.  Otherwise we will make our own editorial decisions," The Hill reported.  But it's easy to imagine if Barack Obama — The Chosen One — were president, the mainstream media would cover every second of his briefings.

Donald Trump goes to political war on Andrew Cuomo accusing him of turning down 16,000 ventilators five years ago.  President Trump waged a full-scale political attack on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, complete with opposition research, as he pointed out that Cuomo could have bought more ventilators five years ago to protect his state against a pandemic.  Trump appeared on Fox News Channel Tuesday from the White House Rose Garden and handed anchor Bill Hemmer an article, 'It says New York Gov. Cuomo rejected buying recommended 16,000 ventilators in 2015 for the pandemic, for a pandemic, establish death panels and lotteries instead,' Trump said.

ICE detainee tests positive for coronavirus in New Jersey.  An illegal immigrant being detained by ICE in New Jersey tested positive for COVID-19, the agency announced Tuesday, forcing a suspension of new detainees at the Bergen County Jail.  Officials did not say how the 31-year-old Mexican was infected, nor did it reveal any other details of the particular case, other than to say the person has been quarantined and is receiving medical care.  "Consistent with CDC guidelines, those who have come in contact with the individual have been cohorted and are being monitored for symptoms.  ICE is suspending intake at the facility until further information is available," the agency said.

Ohio AG orders two abortion facilities closed amid coronavirus epidemic.  Attorney General David Yost has ordered the closure of two Ohio abortion facilities, including the one health director Dr. Amy Acton helped get licensed.  Yost received complaints after they remained open after being ordered to close.  Yost ordered Women's Med Center in Dayton and Planned Parenthood of Cincinnati Surgery Center to stop non-essential services, after neither complied with orders from Acton.

Inslee orders Washingtonians to stay at home to slow spread of coronavirus.  To combat the novel coronavirus, Gov. Jay Inslee is ordering Washington residents to stay at home, except for crucial activities.  Residents can still leave to buy groceries, seek medical care and go to work at essential businesses, Inslee said in a live televised address Monday evening [3/23/2020], and they can still engage in outdoor activities that can be done 6 feet away from others, such as walking and biking.  But the new order requires the closure of nonessential business places and, the governor said, "is enforceable by law," though broad crackdowns by officers aren't expected.

It took Chinese coronavirus to finally make illegal immigration ILLEGAL.  Over 21,000 were flooding small-town American hospitals and stretching their resources to the limit.  Agents were getting sick.  They were also coming for surgeries, and we were paying for it.  No, I'm not talking about Chinese coronavirus.  I'm describing the public health crisis at our border thanks to what was essentially a court-driven invasion exactly this time last year.  Yet our government refused to simply enforce our sovereignty, no matter how bad it got.  It's only now due to coronavirus that the DHS is finally enforcing our sovereignty.  Let's face it:  Most of our public policy is not directed by the rule of law but by the signaling of the media's lack of virtue.  The media, with their excessive panic-driven narrative, have driven governors to near-martial-law actions restricting movement of citizens.  Thus, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) finally feels it has the ability to at least enforce our border laws against people who have no right to be here.

'Over My Dead Body': DOJ's request for new 'emergency powers' over coronavirus met with swift condemnation.  The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for new "emergency powers" amid the coronavirus outbreak, including the power to ask chief judges to indefinitely detain people without trial.  The DOJ has proposed numerous emergency measures, according to Politico, which obtained and reviewed documents the DOJ sent to lawmakers.

Destroying America:  It's Not A Game.  The GOP Senate leaders could not pass a "shell" bill to enable a stimulus package aimed at mitigating the economic damage caused by the Chinavirus (COVID-19).  The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, will be submitting a separate piece of legislation tomorrow.  "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" and, at this point, the Democrats have nothing left to lose.  At a press conference earlier in the day the president was optimistic about the way the deal was proceeding.  "They are very close to getting a deal done," Trump said.  "So I'd be surprised if they didn't and if they don't, I think frankly the American people will be very upset with the Democrats because the Republicans are ready to approve a deal.  The only reason a deal couldn't get done is pure politics."

Is The Media Ignoring Good News On Coronavirus?  here has been some tantalizingly good news about the coronavirus in the past few days, not that you'd know it from the end-of-the-world treatment it gets in the press.  Of the 10 countries with the most COVID-19 cases, five showed declines in new reported cases over the past few days.  In France, the number has been flat for days. [...] The Hong Kong researchers also found that the risk of dying was heavily concentrated among older people.  For those over 64, the fatality rate was 2.4%.  For those under 64, it dropped to 0.5%.  For those younger than 15, the researchers found the fatality rate was zero.  These findings were actually available a week ago, when the draft paper started to circulate.  But few noted the findings.  Even when the study was officially published late last week, only a few major news outlets bothered to cover it.

Tom Cotton Outlines Nancy Pelosi Emergency Relief Scheme.  There are many people, many voters, simply stunned at how the Democrats are trying to use the COVID-19 economic emergency to add unrelated ideological elements to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.  Senator Tom Cotton walks through some of the items the Democrats are demanding before they will allow economic relief to U.S. companies and workers.  [Video clip]

Trump's end game on COVID-19.  [Scroll down]  The end game is coming and it will be swift.  The chloroquine cure — a readily available and effective treatment — was the medical development he needed.  With widespread use, the virus will become less deadly.  An off-the-shelf drug likely is just a temporary way to treat this disease until researchers come up with something new that works better.  FDA approval is not needed under the the Right To Try law that President Trump signed in May 2018.  To put this virus in perspective, let us look at what happened with the flu last winter.  The CDC reported, "CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018-2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza."  Three-quarters of the deaths were people 65 and older.  The panic on Wall Street will end with the end of this quarter on March 31.  Big investors will search for bargains.  Greed is good because it will change the mood on the economy.

Trump, China Virus 19, and Biden.  If we end our public speeches and invocations with the words "...and may G-d bless the United States of America," pause a moment and realize that indeed He has.  Trump, warts and all, is exactly the president for this moment, regardless of whether hydroxychloroquine in tandem with azithromycin proves effective.  Trump always will be blamed by half this country and by 95 percent of the media for everything.  That is his destiny, and it is his fate.  Reagan had to live with it.  Lincoln had to live with it.  That is how it goes when you have a strong leader on one hand, and freedom to express opinions on the other. [...] At this moment in time, Trump is precisely the person we need to lead America through the present mess and to recharge the economy as a societal "new normal" unfolds.

COVID-19 and the Unintended Consequences of Economic Shutdown.  Instead of directly confronting the cause of the pandemic spread of COVID-19, we are inflicting vast damage on great swaths of the economy, likely bankrupting millions of small businesses, which we then seek to fix with massive fiscal and monetary stimulus.  Stimulus can only bolster economic activity when slack resources — including the newly unemployed — can be put back to work in a timely way, to produce goods and services.  The unintended consequences of current policies are vast, in both human and economic terms.  The governments of Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea seem to have shown that even a democracy can manage a health crisis directly, by seeking to minimize spread of the disease, in ways that won't cripple the economy.

Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News:  Federal stockpile of N95 masks was depleted under Obama and never restocked.  The national shortage of N95 respirator masks can be traced back to 2009 after the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, when the Obama administration was advised to replenish a national stockpile but did not, according to reports from Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times.  The Trump administration is scrambling to replenish a stockpile of protective medical gear for healthcare workers and patients, as the coronavirus sweeps across the nation.  N95 respirator masks are one of the most needed medical supplies amid the outbreak.

How Does COVID-19 Compare With Regular Flu?  I prepared the chart [left] to put the current hysteria over the Wuhan virus in perspective.  It presents simple data in a simple fashion.  The first column shows average global influenza deaths per season, according to the Centers for Disease Control.  CDC offered a range of 291,000 to 646,000; the column represents the midpoint of that range.  The second column is flu deaths suffered in the U.S. in the 2017-2018 season, i.e. two years ago.  CNN reported that number, citing CDC, as 80,000, but the current CDC site shows a lower figure of 61,000 deaths, which I have used here.  The third column shows deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19.  It is there, but you can't see it yet.  The fourth column shows worldwide deaths from COVID-19, as reported by the World Health Organization.

Democrats block coronavirus lifeline stimulus in despicable partisan maneuver.  It should have been 100%.  Every Senator on Capitol Hill should have been able to recognize the dire straits America finds itself in with the Wuhan Coronavirus causing economic havoc and putting millions of Americans at great risk.  Unfortunately, it's 2020 and partisanship supersedes the needs of the American people, at least in the eyes of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party she controls.

Time To Step Back from Economic Suicide.  [T]he marketplace realities of a locked-down nonfunctioning economy are inexorable, absolutely deadly and unsustainable:  [#1] No matter how much money consumers have in their pockets, they cannot purchase what the economy does not produce; [#2] The economy cannot produce anything when people do not work; [#3] People either do not work or work less productively when the government has instructed them to stay home and paid them to do so, when they spend much of each day caring for their children because frightened politicians have closed the schools and when they must spend the rest of the day searching for ever-scarcer food and essentials as sellers' inventories are drawn down near to exhaustion.  What sense does it make to isolate people at home away from their jobs and to thereby create shortages that force them to stand in line at stores in close proximity to hundreds of untested strangers?

Is a Once in a Century Fiasco Befalling the United States?  The first pandemic of the 21st Century took place in 2009.  It was commonly referred to as the "Swine Flu" or H1N1.  It was notable for its rapid global spread which was facilitated by an unusually high degree of viral contagiousness and was most lethal in individuals affected by chronic disease or other underlying conditions.  The Centers for Disease Control has estimated that in the United States there were 60.8 million cases, 274,300 hospitalizations and up to 18,300 deaths due to the virus.  Additionally, CDC estimated that 360,000 people worldwide died of the virus infection.  The previous global pandemic took place in 1968-69.  It was a flu virus (H3N2) often referred to as Hong Kong Flu although it originated in China.  Like Chinese Coronavirus it too took an unusual toll on the elderly with underlying health Issues.  The CDC estimates that over 1 million people throughout the world and over 100,000 in the United States died from the virus.  During the entirety of these two pandemics there was no overwrought national panic, no massive government spending and bailouts or state-wide shutdowns.  Nor was the mainstream media fanning the flames of panic by breathlessly reporting any and all worse case theoretical scenarios as well as maliciously fabricating headlines.

A simple question nobody wants to answer: what percentage of coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths are accounted for by the homeless?  Almost everyone acknowledges that the homeless population is at great risk of coronavirus, but so far as I have been able to determine, nobody is telling us the percentage of the hospitalized cases and the deaths are accounted for by that same population — nationally or in specific locales.  California's Governor Gavin Newsom authorized funding for housing homeless in trailers and hotel rooms, but so far, few of them have taken advantage of the offer.  I know we are supposed to have nothing but compassion for the homeless, and my heart breaks for those of them who are not drug-addicted and irresponsible.  But the evidence of my eyes is that many I have encountered in the Bay Area are drug addicts who prefer to shun all responsibilities.

Reflections on a Century of Junk Science.  During the last few weeks, I had made a point of not watching or following the news.  I trusted none of it.  A TV at the pizza place, however, was tuned to CNN.  It showed the Coronavirus death toll: 12,000-plus worldwide and 285 in the United States.  The numbers stunned me.  Not following the news closely, I presumed, based on the hysteria in the air, that the numbers had to be at least ten times that high both nationally and internationally.  285?  According to the Centers for Disease Control 185 Americans died of drug overdoses every day in 2018.  According to the CDC, 315 people died of the flu every day during the six-month 2018-2019 flu season.  And if protecting life is the goal, we could save about 400 young lives every work hour by shutting down America's abortion clinics.  That is not about to happen.

Democrats block coronavirus lifeline stimulus in despicable partisan maneuver.  Democrats are using their favorite boogeyman to justify blocking the bill, claiming "corporations" are being given too much of the $2 trillion bill.  What they pretend to not see is that this particular corporate bailout, which is very similar to past bailouts supported by both parties, is a much-needed infusion that will help regular Americans protect their jobs as well as their 401Ks.  But Pelosi is banking on her mainstream media puppets to spin it as if the rich are being made richer by the plan.  This is a bald-faced lie.

NYC is short of medical supplies because somebody forgot to order them.  The current topic raising concerns in the city is the lack of medical supplies, including surgical masks, gloves and hand sanitizer.  There aren't enough to cover the anticipated patient load when the spread of the virus in Gotham finally peaks.  So that must be President Trump's fault, right?  It didn't take long for the New York Post to poke a few holes in that trial balloon.  A bit of digging through city records revealed that, despite knowing about the spread of the virus back in January, City Hall in New York didn't put in their first order for additional masks and hand sanitizer until two weeks ago.

The insanity of the Democrats' pandemic relief bill.  This is the old rule about never letting a perfectly good crisis go to waste.  And when you know that virtually the entire mainstream media will provide cover for you, what have you got to lose?  But at least the Speaker is attempting to be a little bit low key about it.  Others have been blunter.  The best example would be James Clyburn, who, as we recently learned, came right out and described the coronavirus pandemic as, "a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision."  The gall of these people defies description.

Cynical Power Play On Coronavirus Bill Shows Dems' Far-Left Stripes.  As Congress seeks to move an economic relief bill, Democrats once again exploit a crisis to pursue an alternative, far-left agenda that has nothing whatsoever to do with the coronavirus pandemic.  It underscores why faith in big government is often misplaced.  Playing hardball over the weekend, Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blocked a proposed vote on the $1 trillion-plus bill, which would have let negotiations proceed to decide what would go into it.  Now, there might be many good reasons to oppose this bill, or parts of it.  After all, removing the bad stuff and ironing out differences in proposed legislation is Congress' job.  But during a time of grave emergency, Americans look for a bipartisan sense of urgency and goodwill.  Sadly, with their sharp leftward tilt and near-pathological hatred of President Donald Trump, Democrats are entirely lacking that now.

"In God We Trust" - Up for Renewal.  It's America's motto, and it's time to dust it off and put it back to use.  Let's start with Albert Einstein:  "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." Computer models projecting COVID-19 doomsday scenarios are accurate science in the sense of real software integrating assumptions and math and probabilities to predict outcomes.  But devoid of God and hope, they are lame, and they leave us lame.

On Coronavirus and Money Changers.  If the Wuhan coronavirus is considered the reason for the world's recent massive loss of wealth, then it is difficult to explain just how China, the actual source of the Wuhan coronavirus, can have its financial markets faring significantly better than everybody else's.

Panic Time:  Finally for Good Reason.  We are planning to bet the entire economy on the fight against the coronavirus, apparently without an exit plan.  Humanity is throwing more at this problem in a shorter period of time than it has focused on any crisis in history. [...] Just consider a relatively simple business:  a mid-sized restaurant.  For the minimum 3-4 weeks of shutdown, nothing.  Then the better part of a week to prep and stock.  Will the vendors still be there and able to deliver on time?  Many vendors cater to restaurants mainly or exclusively.  Once the doors open, a fragment of the population will be broke, another fragment paranoid, another harrowed and exhausted — the idea that we'll all hit the town to celebrate our freedom is a stretch.  The restaurant then faces spoilage, overpayment of wages, and for how long?  No one knows.  Small and medium-sized business-owners should be worried; if they somehow get some money from the government, it won't solve the problems created by an extended shutdown.

Moving Past the Quarantine.  Public-health experts largely agree that a period of nationwide slowdown — including school closings, remote work, social distancing, and shelter-in-place orders for 80 million Americans — is necessary to curb the spread of Covid-19.  As cases have escalated and threaten to overload the health system, these suppression methods are essential to "flatten the curve" of rising hospitalizations to ensure that they do not exceed our hospital capacity.  Yet these efforts come at a frightening economic cost.  As in-person contact becomes prohibitively difficult, entire industries — hospitality, restaurants, tourism, and more — have shut down almost completely.  Millions of workers are set to lose their jobs.  The stock market is in freefall, and bankruptcies loom for both households and corporations.  Steep as they are, it's worth paying these costs to avoid even greater human tragedy.  But eventually, we must consider ways to lift quarantines safely and get Americans back to work.  It's essential to use these weeks to prepare for how to do that.

The Democrats just made a huge mistake.  'Never let a good crisis go to waste.' When Rahm Emanuel said that during the economic meltdown of 2008-2009, his Machiavellian cynicism was instantly recognized as the calling card of the new breed of Democrat that he and his boss, Barack 'Bring-a-gun-to-the fight' Obama, embodied.  We saw it then, when the gargantuan pseudo-stimulus package stimulated little apart from the federal debt, and we are seeing it again now as Democrats hold up an emergency spending bill (also gargantuan) in order to fill it with profligate and politically tendentious provisions.  As Rep. Jim Clyburn put it, 'This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.'  Rahm Emanuel could not have put it any better.  Nor could Barack Obama, who came to office promising to 'fundamentally transform the United States of America', and came perilously close to doing so.

Coronavirus:  A Glimmer of Hope.  [Scroll down]  Let's be clear about this:  More than two-thirds (69.8 percent) of our country's reported cases of Wuhan coronavirus (41,259 as of Monday, according to CNN) are in five states:  New York, New Jersey, Washington State, California, and Michigan.  These states also account for 65 percent of U.S. deaths in this pandemic.  So far, at least, the risk of contracting this virus is very unevenly distributed across the country.  There are widespread concerns about the economic damage from government-mandated closure of so many businesses (see Monday's American Spectator columns by Bob Luddy and Scott McKay), and we can expect increasing political pressure to get America back to work.  The pressure to end the shutdowns will be greatest from those who are not in one of the coronavirus "red zones."

President Trump Announces a General Timeframe for Re-Opening American Businesses.  Speaking from the White House Monday evening [3/23/2020], President Donald Trump announced America will be "open for business very soon" as the country continues to battle the Wuhan coronavirus.  "America will again and soon be open for business.  Very soon, a lot sooner than three or four months as someone was suggesting.  We're not going to let the cure be worse than the problem itself.  We're not going to let the cure be worse than the problem," Trump said.  "This was a medical problem, we are not going to let it turn into a long lasting financial problem."

How an Upscale Connecticut Party Became a Coronavirus 'Super Spreader'.  About 50 guests gathered on March 5 at a home in the stately suburb of Westport, Conn., to toast the hostess on her 40th birthday and greet old friends, including one visiting from South Africa.  They shared reminiscences, a lavish buffet and, unknown to anyone, the coronavirus.  Then they scattered.  The Westport soirée — Party Zero in southwestern Connecticut and beyond — is a story of how, in the Gilded Age of money, social connectedness and air travel, a pandemic has spread at lightning speed.  The partygoers — more than half of whom are now infected — left that evening for Johannesburg, New York City and other parts of Connecticut and the United States, all seeding infections on the way.

Former HHS Official:  CDC Lied to Trump, HHS Secretary About Ability to Make Wuhan Coronavirus Test.  Former assistant secretary of Human and Health Services (HHS) Chris Meekins told James Rosen, a Sinclair investigative reporter, that the CDC lied to President Trump and HHS Secretary Alex Azar about its ability to produce a Wuhan coronavirus test.  Trump and his administration have received a lot of criticism over tests.  Now it looks like the anger should go to the CDC.

61% of voters say Trump IS taking strong enough measures to fight coronavirus despite widespread alarm from medical experts.  President Donald Trump's efforts to combat the coronavirus have been strong enough, say 61 percent of American registered voters, according to a new poll.  The Hill-HarrisX survey also found that 39 percent of voters somewhat or strongly disagree with how Trump is tackling the deadly outbreak of the infection, also known as COVID-19.  The poll results come as Trump says he may decide to scale back some of the government mandates made to slow and contain the spread of the deadly flu-like virus due to concerns of how much they have had negative impacts on the economy.

List: 74 actions taken by Trump to fight virus and bolster economy.  In less than a week, the Trump administration has greatly expanded the actions it's taken to fight the coronavirus and boost the economy, according to its latest tally of "response efforts."  Last week, when [the Washington Examiner] first ran the list, it totaled 43.  By Monday, it was at 74, with many more planned this week as the White House effort shifts to focus more on the economy and treatment of those infected.  While he continues to receive fire from some governors who want more, President Trump said he hopes for a win in the battle soon.

New Jersey Attorney General Announces That People Who Violate Stay-At-Home Order Could Face Six Months in Jail or Fines.  New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced on Monday that those who break the state's stay at home order could face jail or up to $1,000 in fines.  Gov. Phil Murphy signed executive orders over the weekend bar unapproved social gatherings and shut down all "non-essential" businesses.  The orders closed all retail "storefront and/or brick-and-mortar premises" and ordered that "all recreational and entertainment businesses must close to the public."

H-E-B announces purchasing limits on food and non-food groceries.  These limitations are aimed at protecting the supply chain so everyone is still able to get essentials.  We just went for a walk inside of the H-E-B on I-10 at Wurzbach and it looks like these new limitations are actually working.  People are able to get a couple of items now where before there have been bare shelves.  The one exception is paper towels and toilet paper.

New York Imam Finds the Key:  Coronavirus Comes from Women Showing Too Much Ankle.  Amid all the controversy over where the coronavirus comes from (don't you dare call it the "Chinese Virus," a la "Spanish Flu," that would be racist, and to be racist is worse than the virus itself) and what should be done about it, a Muslim cleric in Syracuse, NY., has found the key; thousands of people are being infected, many are dying, and America is teetering on the edge of economic collapse because American women are showing too much ankle.  Don't laugh.  Laughing would be "Islamophobic," and Khadar Bin Muhammad, the imam of the Masjid Bilal Ibn Rabah in Syracuse, is not making a joke.  In a video posted on YouTube last week and reposted by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the learned imam explains it all for us.

Why Schumer Blocked Collins From Speaking on Wuhan Coronavirus Bailout Bill Today.  Folks, this was done to tank the markets.  This was done to resist President Trump.  This was done to screw over the American worker.  The Senate has a $1.6 trillion Wuhan coronavirus bailout package that Democrats co-wrote.  They filibustered it on Sunday night.  We all know why they're doing this.  This isn't a secret.  The Dow Jones is down some 600 points as we speak and now, they're trying to logroll stuff that is unrelated to this pandemic.

Pelosi and Schumer Making Non-Coronavirus-Related Demands While Holding Up Relief Bill.  On Sunday evening, Senate Democrats filibustered a bill designed to provide immediate relief to American workers and businesses, in the midst of a global pandemic and its resulting economic stoppage.  The upper chamber worked through the weekend to hammer out a legislative outline, on a bipartisan basis.  Ideas from both parties were put into the plan, leading to an agreement in principle on a broad framework.  Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived back in town and announced that she would torpedo the bill, then her Senate counterparts abandoned it.  They blamed a "slush fund" for corporations.  Republicans dispute this claim — but even setting it aside, the bulk of the bill was bipartisan (Schumer himself hailed the bipartisanship over the weekend) and contained:  (1) Direct checks to American workers, (2) hundreds of billions in loans to small businesses, and (3) aid to hospitals.

Pelosi's coronavirus stimulus includes return of 'Obamaphones,' other unrelated items, GOP says.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced her own emergency coronavirus stimulus bill on Monday, leading furious Republicans to argue that much of the proposal contained a progressive wishlist seemingly unrelated to the crisis — including several provisions that amount to a resurrection of the notorious "Obamaphone" program, GOP officials said.  The bill proposed by Pelosi, D-Calif., additionally seeks to eliminate debt held by the U.S. Postal Service, require same-day voter registration, pay off $10,000 in student debt per person, mandate that airlines reduce their overall carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2050, and force federal agencies to explain to Congress how they are increasing their usage of "minority banks."

Did someone mention Obamaphones?

Nancy Pelosi Proposes 1,400-Page Coronavirus Bill Stuffed with Special Interest Goodies.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi debuted a 1,120-page coronavirus rescue bill after Democrats tanked the Senate proposal on Sunday night.  The bill includes a wish list of Democrats' pet issues including:  [#1] Increased fuel emission standards for airlines receiving funds and carbon offsets [...] [#2] Payment for up to $10,000 in student loans [...] [#3] Same-day voter registration, early voting, voting by mail, ballot harvesting [...] [#4] Preserving collective bargaining powers for unions [...] [#5] The expansion of wind and solar tax credits [...] [#6] Requirements for federal and corporate gender and racial diversity data [...] [#7] Post Office Bailout [...] [#8] Automatic extension of nonimmigrant visas [...] [#9] Restricting colleges from providing information about citizenship status [...] [#10] Money for Planned Parenthood

Pelosi Democrats:  No Money to Fight #WuhanVirus Unless We Get Voting Rights for Illegal Aliens.  As workers around the country lose their jobs, please remember that Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Invisible Joe Biden want illegal aliens to vote.  Because that will fix the Wuhan Virus.

Democrats' Coronavirus Bill Includes $35 Million for John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center.  Senate Democrats are trying to use a national emergency to force taxpayers to fund some of their most controversial and radical policies.  They have recommended hundreds of millions of dollars in pork barrel funding — including $35 million in funding for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  It's on page 76 of the massive document.

Senate Democrats block mammoth coronavirus stimulus package.  Senate Democrats on Sunday [3/22/2020] blocked a coronavirus stimulus package from moving forward as talks on several key provisions remain stalled.  Senators voted 47-47 on advancing a "shell" bill, a placeholder that the text of the stimulus legislation would have been swapped into, falling short of the three-fifths threshold needed to advance the proposal.  Hopes of a quick stimulus deal quickly unraveled on Sunday as the four congressional leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin failed to break the impasse.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also delayed the procedural vote for three hours as they tried to get a deal.

Pelosi's Coronavirus Stimulus Bill Mentions 'Diversity' 32 Times.  The word "diversity" appears 32 times in the coronavirus relief bill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) unveiled on Monday [3/23/2020].  Pelosi released her plan as critics questioned the priorities of Democratic lawmakers facing the China-caused pandemic.  Senate Democrats voted Sunday to block a coronavirus stimulus package worth up to $1.8 trillion, and continued voting down procedural motions on the bill Monday.  Democrats in the upper chamber were reportedly upset that the legislation does not do enough to increase fuel-emissions standards for the airline industry or to provide additional tax credits to promote wind and solar energy.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said Senate negotiations over the relief package were going well until Pelosi imposed herself on the process.  Democratic obstruction gave the House speaker time to introduce her own coronavirus relief package in the House.

Schumer and Pelosi Try to Add Fuel Emission Standards For Airlines, More Wind and Solar Tax Credits to Coronavirus Stimulus Package.  Pelosi and Schumer continued to play politics on Monday [3/23/2020] amid the Coronavirus shutdown and demanded a wish list of Socialist policies that have nothing to do with the global pandemic.  Pelosi and Schumer are now pushing these demands:
  [#1]   Unprecedented collective bargaining powers for unions
  [#2]   Increased fuel emissions standards for airlines
  [#3]   Expansion of wind and solar tax credits
Even worse, not only are these demands totally unrelated to the Coronavirus pandemic, they could prevent companies from participating in the loan programs — directly causing unnecessary layoffs, according to a senior GOP aide.

Rand Paul on COVID-19 Test: 'I Am At a Higher Risk ... Due to Having Part of My Lung Removed Seven Months Ago'.  Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.), who — although asymptomatic — has tested positive for the coronavirus, put out a statement this afternoon explaining that he had taken the test because he is at higher risk of complications from the disease because his lung was damaged a few years ago when he was attacked by a neighbor.  Paul later had to have part of that lung surgically removed.  "It was my extra precaution, out of concern for my damaged lung, that led me to get tested," Paul said in the statement.

Sen. Doug Jones Becomes Only Democrat To Vote For Cloture On Coronavirus Relief Package.  Alabama Sen. Doug Jones was the only Democrat to vote to advance a $1.6 trillion coronavirus relief bill Monday, as the motion to proceed on the bill failed for the second day in a row.  The motion failed by a vote of 49-46, having needed 60 to break a Democratic filibuster.  The legislation also failed to advance Sunday evening, when all Democrats, including Jones voted against the motion to proceed.

Obama Went Golfing as H1N1 Swept Across USA — 60 Million Cases and 12,000 Dead!  Back in 2009 when the Swine Flu — H1N1 influenza was sweeping across the country Obama went golfing.  Funny how the media never brings this up.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that that during the outbreak there were 60.8 million cases in the US, 274,000 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths.  There's video of one reporter asking the White House press secretary about the optics of Obama golfing while Americans were dying.

NBC Actually Calls Out Dems for Playing Politics With Virus Relief.  On Monday [3/23/2020], NBC's Today show was surprisingly direct in blaming Democrats for the failure of a massive coronavirus relief package in Congress.  The network morning show repeatedly made it clear that the "aid package was blocked by Senate Democrats" and even wondered if "this the time to have these kinds of arguments," while Americans are "desperate" for help. [...] Credit to NBC for holding Democrats accountable for placing ideology above expediency during a crisis.  If only CBS and ABC could have made the same effort.

The Novel Coronavirus Can Kill Colleges as Well as People.  I am no public health expert, but if the novel coronavirus is pretty severe, as many experts are saying, like other institutions in society America's colleges and universities will suffer.  Classes may have to be cancelled, public lectures scrubbed, athletic contests (March Madness itself!) compromised (the latter a potentially huge loss to the NCAA).  But besides these obvious effects, there are several less obvious effects.  Universities depend heavily on outsiders — taxpayers and private donors — for financial sustenance.  If the coronavirus's disruptive force triggers a significant economic downturn, certainly highly plausible, tax receipts will fall, leading, after some lag, to reduced state subsidies for public universities.

When You're a Carpenter, Everything Looks Like Wood.  [Scroll down]  Governments are causing massive harm in the name of saving us from a small threat.  They are lying to help their case.  We've seen that the actual mortality rate from the Wuhan flu is less than 1%.  The Spanish flu of 1918 had a mortality of around 2%.  Seasonal flu is reported to be about 0.1% fatal, but that's based on estimates, not data.  H1N1 mortality may actually be as high as 4%, and during the swine flu epidemic, the government did nothing.  President Obama didn't even talk about it until a thousand people had died.  But since upwards of thirty thousand die every year from influenza, that's not a big deal.  Our panic is completely misplaced. [...] When a virus is in the wild, closing down whole industries and putting people out of work is stupid.  It will do little or nothing to slow down the disease, since two-thirds of all new cases come from asymptomatic carriers that will not be identified.  Such quarantines are fools' errands.  They prevent people from buying food, paying rent, or keeping the lights on.

The Final Steps to Defeating COVID-19.  [Scroll down]  Most importantly, an on-the-shelf cure for COVID-19 has finally been authorized.  It has a 99.75 percent effectiveness in controlled studies.  I interviewed the co-author, Gregory Rigano of Johns Hopkins and Stanford, about the reliability of the studies.  But what good is it to know that a cure exists that stops the virus and dismantled it in 99.75 percent of the cases it is studied in if the Surgeon General is still claiming day and night on every news channel that its effectiveness is not yet proven?  Multiple controlled studies, the most significant one authored by Dr. Didier Rauolt in southern France, have seen that 99.75 percent cure rate be matched over and over.  Lennox Hill Hospital in New York has even adopted the HydroxyChloroquine formula, and they have yet to lose even a single victim to COVID-19 of their more than 100 cases that they are treating.

Is The Media Ignoring Good News On Coronavirus?  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that — when measured by date of onset rather than the day officially reported — the number of new COVID-19 cases peaked on March 9 at 194, then dropped to 172 on March 10.  It was 174 on March 11.  It plunged to 122 on March 12, although the CDC cautions that there may be onsets that day that haven't been reported yet.  In any case, all this was before the most draconian restrictions were put in place.  It's far too early to draw any conclusions, but it certainly doesn't look like an out-of-control plague, as commonly depicted by the press.  Meanwhile, two studies have come out showing that fatality rates form the disease are far lower than earlier warnings — which prompted those restrictions — claimed.

WHO Initially Echoed False Chinese Propaganda:  No Clear Evidence Coronavirus Transmitted Among Humans.  The World Health Organization (WHO) echoed Beijing's response to the novel coronavirus in line with Chinese propagandists, at one point promoting a Chinese claim that there was "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel."  Meanwhile, the highly contagious disease spiraled out of control inside the communist country."  WHO Twitter messages from January and February show that the United Nations body was spreading Chinese propaganda.  Health officials detected the first case of the coronavirus (COVID-19) on November 17 in Wuhan, China.

If this is true, what's the lockdown and quarantine all about?
Top New Jersey health official Judith Persichilli says everyone will get coronavirus.  New Jersey's top public health official says everyone, including her, will eventually contract the coronavirus.  "I'm definitely going to get it.  We all are," Judith Persichilli told NJ.com.  "I'm just waiting."  Persichilli, 71, is a member of the age demographic for which the virus is most deadly.  Nevertheless, she said she believed the odds were still on her side and she would most likely have a mild form of the illness.  Persichilli has become a near-household name in the Garden State in recent weeks with regular press conferences where she reads the latest figures of coronavirus infections and deaths.

Eight States Now — Ohio, Delaware and Louisiana Become Latest States With Mandatory "Stay At Home" Orders.  Today [3/22/2020] Ohio, Delaware and Louisiana joined California, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Illinois by issuing mandatory stay at home orders for their citizens.  A total of eight states now have total coronavirus compliance orders restricting movement.

One Belt, One Road, One Virus.  As the entire world has struggled to cope with the fallout from the CCP virus, all eyes have remained fixed on Italy, where the virus is reaping its most awful toll.  Deaths in Italy from the virus have now surpassed the official count claimed by the Communist authorities of China. [...] There has been much recent speculation and commentary about this development, mostly centering around Italy's aging population or the quality of the available health care.  In fact, the chief reason that Italy now finds itself at the center of the worst of this current pandemic isn't due to a larger elderly population or substandard medical care.  It can be summed up in one word: globalism.  Italy's political elite class made two key mistakes.  The first mistake was to allow a huge migration of ethnic Chinese into the country.  There are now an estimated 320,000 Chinese living in Italy, many of them in the northern part of the country where the virus has been especially bad.

Ted Cruz slaps down NBC reporter pushing obvious Chinese anti-US propaganda.  In a bizarre report from NBC, reporter Keir Simmons finishes their video by literally saying that China did a great job containing the definitely-not-Chinese-Wuhan-Chinese-coronavirus, and that the U.S. is now threatening the world with re-infection. [...] It's amazing just how eager the media is to ape the propaganda coming out of a communist government, but we see more and more examples every day.

The Rebirth of Our Nation and the End of Globalism.  [Scroll down]  The re-election of President Trump was promising and looked imminent, but it came to a screeching halt when the Chinese either intentionally or negligently unleashed the Wuhan virus upon the world in December of last year.  Instead of focusing their energy upon a menacing totalitarian communist state on the world stage, House Democrats obsessed with Trump Derangement Syndrome, along with their sidekicks in the complicit mainstream media, spent all of December and January razor-focused upon a bogus impeachment trial.  The use of biological warfare is illegal and criminal.  When threatened with exposure, China retaliated with the threat of withholding much needed pharmaceuticals now needed more than ever.

Stop slow-walking synthetic vaccines!  Our bureaucracy is killing us!  The now legendary failure of the CDC to manage the task of developing an effective test for the virus is being compounded by the efforts of state and federal government bureaucrats to block Americans who developed their own tests, including the heroes at the Seattle Flu Study.  U.S. public health officials have advised Americans not to wear face masks that work and can be made at home, and even though some countries are requiring masks to slow virus transmission.  Many millions of Americans now on lock down are paying with their liberty for the freedom accorded to a few hundred thousand travelers from China and Europe over the last two months by incompetent government agencies like Homeland Security, despite President Trump's clear intention to close the border to the disease.  And now health bureaucrats are slow-walking their testing of possible vaccines.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the lethargic actions of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Coronavirus:  Why Two Weeks Matters.  [Scroll down]  After two weeks of isolation, then it's time to decide who to trust to be around.  We all have friends who are risk-takers or who travel all over or who ignore their sniffles and will press on anyway.  Might want to let those friendships go.  In a world where a virus can land one in the hospital with lung crushing pain, steering clear of the risk-takers might be worth it.  One acquaintance said to me, "This is going to go on forever.  Why should I stop now?  This is stupid."  First, no, it is most certainly not going to go on forever.  In some places, where there's an overwhelming outbreak, people won't have to be told to stay inside.  They'll have family or friends at the hospital, and they'll be scared straight and won't want to interact with people.  In most other places, testing will be available everywhere and so if people practice immaculate hygiene, get tested when feeling ill, and act reasonably, life will get to some semblance of normal rather quickly.

If Americans Can't Work, They'll Need Government.  How quickly the soft tyranny of good intentions by the government becomes crushingly oppressive.  For those who weren't paying attention, there was a buildup to state governors' issuing orders that American citizens are to remain in their homes, leaving only for "essential" purposes, as Gavin Newsom just ordered all Californians to do.  It began with a simple travel ban, of which even progressives questioned the necessity.  Rosie Spinks, on February 5, argued at the New York Times that Trump's travel ban with China was "unjust and doesn't work anyway." [...] The disease hasn't become deadlier since then.  Quite the contrary, it's become apparent that it is far less deadly than originally thought.  As more information becomes available, it seems that at least 80% of people who are infected with COVID-19 have mild symptoms and will recover without any treatment at all.  And there appears to be a tremendous amount of deceit in other numbers offered for public consumption.

We Now Know Truckers and Stock Boys Are Vital, Hollywood Is Not.  Away from their families, risking illness, America's farm workers, truck drivers, grocery store workers, sanitation workers, and delivery people, are holding together the slender thread that keeps our supply chains moving, and those supply chains are the literal difference between civilization and anarchy.

Mnuchin: $3,000 in cash payments for average family to cope with coronavirus.  Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said a major economic relief package would provide families an average direct cash payment of $3,000 and would give the healthcare industry a massive infusion of $110 billion to cope with the spread of the coronavirus.  Mnuchin told Fox News Sunday the relief package that is set for a procedural vote later Sunday will include enhanced unemployment insurance and $4 trillion in liquidity the federal government can use to help businesses survive a drastic economic slowdown for up to 120 days.  The measure also includes $350 billion in aid to small businesses to help them retain workers instead of closing and firing them.

Chinese Authorities Underreporting New Infections in Epicenter of Wuhan:  Leaked Documents.  The Chinese regime has maintained that there have been no new domestic infections of the CCP virus in the entire country since March 18.  Local authorities say that the epidemic has leveled off, as they ease travel restrictions and tell people to return to work.  But the situation in the ground zero of China's epidemic, the city of Wuhan, is much worse than what has been officially reported, according to a series of internal government documents obtained by The Epoch Times.  The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party's coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.

NYC restaurants stop offering takeout due to coronavirus crisis.  New York's once-thriving restaurant scene is fast becoming a graveyard.  Less than a week after being ordered to close all dining room service and focus solely on takeout, eateries are pulling the plug on that business, too.  Takeout and delivery orders in the face of crescendoing coronavirus contamination fears just aren't pulling in enough dough to keep the lights on.  Plus, it's not safe, restaurateurs say.  Cristina Castaneda on Saturday shuttered her last two remaining restaurants, including Mexican restaurant El Mitote and Mediterranean eatery Ella Social, after deciding she couldn't continue to sell food without endangering her and her staff's health.

How the Coronavirus Changed President Trump and America.  [Scroll down]  Jocularity receded from Trump's rhetoric.  On Tuesday, March 17, the only time he smiled was at a warm, humorous comment by Dr. Fauci.  His campaign reliance on spontaneous, impulsive commentary, based on self-assured "instinct," has given way to respectful glances to experts to expand on press questions:  "Let's hear from the experts."  Unusual windows into his sadness appeared, especially when he spoke of America facing potential deaths like the tragic pandemic of 1918.  Certainly, he had in mind his grandfather's influenza death and its impact on his then-twelve-year-old father and grandmother.  The president was one of us.  A private Trump melded into a public Trump.  The "wall of family," his ultimate in trust, opened its gates to others.  And, interestingly, it is what he promised on the campaign trail in 2016:  his expertise in choosing experts.

Why is Italy In So Much Trouble? — It's More Than ICU Beds.  Watching cable news these days, it is difficult to know which is greater, the rise in Chinese Coronavirus cases worldwide or the panic and sense of doom for those unable to work, travel, or freely associate with others.  The media is in overdrive, under the journalistic principle of, "If it bleeds, it leads."  Predictions of an exponential rise in illnesses and hospitalizations are a cable news staple this week, with many reports suggesting America is just a few weeks behind Italy. [...] What is left out of the story is why Italy has so many cases of a Chinese virus.  If calling the virus "Chinese Coronavirus" or the "Wuhan virus" is deemed racist, despite a long tradition of naming infectious diseases based on their origin, we can call it the "Belt and Road virus".  A Chinese newspaper headline from last year makes the connection, "Italy aims to develop closer trade ties with China through Belt and Road."  Business ties between Italy and China provided not just a road, but a superhighway for the Coronavirus to travel from Wuhan to Milan.

Israeli doctor in Italy:  We no longer help those over 60.  Italy suffered more coronavirus-related victims than China with 4,825 confirmed deaths and 5,000 confirmed patients in the last 24 hours, Channel 12 reported on Sunday [3/22/2020].  Israeli doctor Gai Peleg, who is currently working to save lives in Parma, Italy, told Channel 12 that things are only getting worse as the number of patients keeps growing.  As his department receives coronavirus patients who are terminally ill the focus is to allow patients to meet loved ones and communicate with them during their last moments despite the quarantine regulations.  Other reports claim that, as the numbers of dead increases, some families find themselves unable to secure a proper burial for their loved ones.

Coronavirus: L.A. to Move Homeless into Neighborhood Recreation Centers.  Mayor Eric Garcetti is going ahead with a plan to move thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles into recreation centers in residential neighborhoods as part of the city's response to the coronavirus pandemic.  Rumors have been circulating among residents, and were confirmed on Saturday by the L.A. Times.

The Editor says...
During the current lockdown, you and I can't go to church, to a baseball game, or to a wedding or a funeral, but the homeless bums are being moved into "recreation centers" where they will presumably all live in one room.

Sen. Lindsey Graham Says Government Could Underwrite '70 Percent' of U.S. Payroll if Coronavirus Containment Continues.  Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) on Friday warned that federal and state governments could be forced to support a large segment of the American workforce if measures designed to contain the Wuhan coronavirus remain in place.  "I talked with [Treasury Secretary Steve] Mnuchin this morning.  Here's the challenge, and we've just got to tell the public the truth:  we're going to be floating probably 70 percent of the nation's payroll," Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill.  "The federal government in some form, working with the states and the private sector, but mostly the federal government is going to underwrite 70 percent of the payroll in this country if the containment policies continue to be this aggressive."

Back to Work by March 30: A Coronavirus Imperative.  Our leaders are creating an economic crisis and a major national security risk with limited data.  The cure is far worse than any perceived impact by COVID-19.  Our economy is both fragile and interdependent, an economic reality not understood by our leaders as they order mass closings of many states business and industry. [...] This season the flu has killed 22,000 Americans vs. 388 dead from COVID-19.  This the hard data available.  There has been no national discussion about the flu but complete panic on the Coronavirus.  The restaurant industry, which is the largest employer in America, is closed in most states.  Now we will begin to witness the industries that support restaurants and hotels begin to shutter. [...] The Federal government has no money and is $23 trillion in debt.  Now Congress contemplates a $2 trillion economic bailout, which is pushing the limits of how much Congress can borrow and will eventually create a major financial meltdown.

Americans Drop Kale and Quinoa to Lock Down With Chips and Oreos.  Out with the Tuscan kale and acai berries, in with the Spam and popcorn.  In a stark reversal, American shoppers who were taking up healthier eating are gravitating back to old ways as they hunker down to weather the coronavirus pandemic.  They are loading up on shelf-stable items from canned meat and soup to pretzels and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese as they comply with orders to stay home.

Lone Star response to COVID-19 strikes a balance:  "Stay home if you can".  Here in Texas, the state has not been placed under lockdown.  There is a real struggle going on between those who prefer to leave questions of restrictions to local authorities and those who want the heavy hand of the centralized state government to rule.  Texas is America's largest red state.  Governor Greg Abbott is known for being a calm leader during times of crisis in the state.  Abbott received mostly good grades for his handling of Hurricane Harvey, for example.  He sends the Texas National Guard to the southern border when it is warranted to assist in handling large numbers of migrants arriving who seek asylum or try to enter the state illegally.  In other words, he is not afraid to make big decisions but he acts with a cool head.  He's doing the same during the coronavirus pandemic.

Ohio governor and health director announce a 'stay at home' order for at least 2 weeks.  Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine at a press conference on Sunday announced the state would enter a period of "stay at home" as ordered by state Heath Department Director Amy Acton. [...] DeWine said Ohio's "stay at home" order effectively mirrors "shelter in place" orders instated by cities and states nationwide.  California Gov. Gavin Newsom similarly ordered resident s to "stay at home."  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered non-essential residents to stay home beginning 8 p.m.  Sunday [3/22/2020] as part of a plan he called "PAUSE."  Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a similar "stay at home" order for residents of his state that began Saturday.

Understanding what works:  How some countries are beating back the coronavirus.  With Europe and the United States locked in deadly battle with the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, a number of countries that were hit early by the virus are doing a far better job of beating it back.  China, which is now diagnosing more cases in returning travelers than in people infected at home, reported no new domestically acquired cases on Wednesday, for the first time in more than two months.  South Korea, which had an explosive outbreak that began in February, is aggressively battering down its epidemic curve.  Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have together reported only about 600 cases.  Those successes have been bought by a layering of what are known as non-pharmaceutical initiatives — including social distancing and travel restrictions — aimed at severing chains of transmission to keep the virus from going into an exponential growth cycle.

We'll Be Alright, and Then We Must Reckon with Communist China.  We have hundreds of thousands of churches and businesses and schools across America that are closed now.  Many of them will not re-open.  They didn't fail because of some flaw within them or because their model didn't work.  They failed, or will fail, because of a tyrannical system beyond our shores that lied to the whole world.  America's churches and businesses and schools are closed because, on the other side of the world, China's amoral dictators failed to be a normal nation and do the right thing.  They lied out of their paranoid obsession with power.  In America, we can make fun of Trump, call him names and mock whoever we want and find others who will laugh with us.

Kansas and Missouri Officials Dictate "Stay Home" Order for 30 Days.  CTH analyzes data to assemble unemotional models that reflect/predict outcomes.  If this type of government mandate expands much further, there WILL be rationing — it is an inescapable conclusion.  It's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of when, where, and how.  Perhaps that explains all the National Guard deployments and pre-staging.

It's Time We Stand Together.  We are in uncharted waters as there are only a handful of people alive who experienced the last time a pandemic shut down the world. [...] We need to dig our selves out of the echo chambers we've retreated to and start coming together as a country.  We need to seek out inspiration in those around us, and not be content to be bombarded by like-minded people who fuel disdain and feed whatever fears we have.  That mentality no longer will serve us.  It has affected our families, relationships and social circles to the point that they are unrecognizable and in some cases barely intact.  It's time to take a stand against the divisiveness and angst that has consumed us for the last few years.  I'm not expecting this from our news media or pundits, and certainly not our politicians or the President.  They're the very reason this country is so divided and honestly part of the problem.

Illinois Governor Lists Gun Stores as 'Essential,' Exempts Them from Forced Shutdown.  When Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) issued an executive order Friday [3/20/2020] to put a statewide shutdown in place, he exempted gun and ammunition stores by labeling them "essential."  The order, titled "Executive Order in Response to COVID-19 (COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8)," contains various headings, under which are listings of businesses considered "essential" for day-to-day life.  Under the heading, "Supplies for Essential Businesses and Operations," the order makes clear that "firearm and ammunition suppliers and retailers" can remain open, noting that they serve the purposes of "safety and security."

We didn't have to have ventilator shortage — leaders chose not to prep for pandemic.  [Scroll down]  They could have chosen to buy more ventilators to back up the supplies hospitals maintain.  Instead, the health commissioner, Howard Zucker, assembled a task force for rationing the ventilators they already had.  In 2015, that task force came up with rules that will be imposed when ventilators run short.  Patients assigned a red code will have highest access, and other patients will be assigned green, yellow or blue (the worst), depending on a "triage officer's" decision.  In truth, a death officer.  Let's not sugar-coat it.  It won't be up to your own doctor.  In 2015, the state could have purchased the additional 16,000 needed ventilators for $36,000 apiece, or a total of $576 million.  It's a lot of money, but in hindsight, spending half a percent of the budget to prepare for pandemic was the right thing to do.  To be fair, governments everywhere stockpiled too little.  Washington didn't do much better:  The federal Strategic National Stockpile is undersupplied to meet the coronavirus emergency.  Now the pandemic is actually here.  New York's grim-reaper rules will be applied.

New York Wouldn't Spend $500 Mil on Ventilators, Willing to Spend $500 Mil On Illegals.  Priorities.  Illegal aliens get health care.  Americans die.

Economic Armageddon:  How Many Lives is $10 Trillion Worth?  I heard or read somewhere this week someone ask what would someone think if they had fallen asleep in December 2019 and awoke today to discover that the United States and the world had willingly shut down almost its entire economic engine and "encouraged" or demanded that their citizens stay in their houses except for buying groceries or going to the hospital.  No gatherings of 500 or 200 or 50 or 10 people were allowed.  Apple had closed all of its stores outside of China, movie theaters were vacant, Disney World was closed and air travel had fallen off a cliff.  The stock markets had collapsed by 1/3, Catholic churches around the world were cancelling masses during Lent, the Olympics, the NBA, NCAA, MLB, Nascar and the PGA all cancelled or postponed their seasons.  All in less than a month, in some cases just a couple of weeks. [...] Now of course, the goal of all of that activity — or lack thereof as the case might be — is to keep that number of deaths down.  But the question is, if the world hadn't imposed such draconian measures on itself, how bad would it get?

Indiana postpones primary due to coronavirus fears.  Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) announced Friday that his state will postpone its May 5 primary to June 2, making the Hoosier State the seventh to delay its nominating contest over the coronavirus.  "The right of citizens to elect their leaders in a free and open election is one of the cornerstones of America.  In order to balance that right with the safety of county employees, poll workers and voters, delaying Indiana's primary election is the right move as we continue to do all we can to protect Hoosiers' health," Holcomb said in a statement.

The Editor says...
I'd rather take my chances with the virus than risk what might happen to this country without elections.  The government is not supposed to guarantee our continued good health.  The government is supposed to protect our freedom.

Why COVID-19 Is a Product of the Left.  The elitist ruling class and self-appointed gatekeepers of our society and culture — academia, Big Tech, the entertainment industry, and the mainstream media — have finally found a way to make themselves relevant again, have finally found a mechanism to gain back some of the direct control over the lives of average Americans they'd so frustratingly lost under President Trump.  That mechanism is COVID-19, an exotic-sounding flu-like virus that as of now has a bark that is much, much stronger than its bite.  Relatively speaking (and with all due respect to those who've been infected or have lost a loved one), its bite is still underwhelming, which is why the media have been able to scare the pants off everybody and create an irrational level of panic and hysteria:  because in reality, it's not what they're making it out to be. [...] It's the irresponsible, tasteless, and voyeuristic coverage of the coronavirus by the media that proves they're manipulating it for their own gain.

PA Turnpike Authority Reopens Closed Service Stations To Support Truckers.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math, understand the logistics of the current extreme demand, recognize that fixed assets are limited, and realize if you shut down essential services for truckers the total supply-chain will suffer.  On March 17th Pennsylvania officially shuttered all Turnpike service plazas in response to coronavirus concerns.  However, the decision was ridiculously short-sighted as long-haul and regional Truckers depend on fuel stations, bathrooms and restaurants along the route.  Thankfully PA officials realized their error and reopened the service stations yesterday.

California's Stay-at-Home Order Is a Legal Mess.  California Governor Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home order may well be necessary as a matter of public health in the face of the new coronavirus — I will leave that to epidemiologists to determine.  But viewed as a legal declaration, it's a total mess. [...] The order is also drafted so badly that it creates contradictions with the state's own website explaining it, with the governor's own speech rolling it out, and with common sense.  As written, the order does not say clearly that Californians can leave their homes to buy food or medicine or other necessities.  It doesn't say whether they can go out to help family members or friends who are themselves vulnerable or otherwise in need.  It is silent on going out for exercise.  Although context suggests all these may be permitted, the formal legal implication of the text would be that all are prohibited.

Why does Russia, population 144 million, have fewer coronavirus cases than Luxembourg?  Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week his country managed to stop the mass spread of coronavirus — and that the situation was "under control," thanks to early and aggressive measures to keep more people from getting the disease.  Does Russia have coronavirus under control?  According to information released by Russian officials, Putin's strategy seems to have worked.  The number of confirmed Russian coronavirus cases is surprisingly low, despite Russia sharing a lengthy border with China and recording its first case back in January.  The numbers are picking up, but Russia — a country of 146 million people — has fewer confirmed cases than Luxembourg, with just 253 people infected.  Luxembourg, has a population of just 628,000, according to the CIA World Factbook, and by Saturday had reported 670 coronavirus cases, with eight deaths.

'A Storm Is Coming': Fears of an Inmate Epidemic as the Virus Spreads in the Jails.  It started with a jails investigator in an office three miles from Rikers Island.  Then, a correction officer at a security checkpoint near the entrance to the jail complex got it.  Hours later, it was an inmate in a crowded housing unit.  Within days, the investigator had died and three more correction officers and two other staff members had tested positive for the coronavirus, confirming fears that the highly contagious disease had arrived in the nation's second-largest jail system, endangering 5,300 inmates and twice as many guards.On Thursday, the jail system's chief physician, Ross MacDonald, took to Twitter with a warning:  "A storm is coming."

FDA Must Approve Hydroxychloroquine Now.  [Scroll down]  It is not true that the evidence supporting these two drugs is anecdotal.  These two drugs have been shown in scientific studies and peer-reviewed publications to have strong positive effects against COVID19. [...] In one month's time, there will be hundreds of thousands of cases of COVID19.  There will be many thousands of deaths.  And Fauci is taking the position that he and the US government should not approve Hydroxychloroquine because it might not be safe and might not be effective, based on his smear of high-quality science as mere anecdote.  Fauci said these fantastically vague, wrong, and misleading things from the podium at the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing with the Vice President standing behind him.

Rapid Coronavirus Test Approved by FDA, Results in 45 Minutes.  The Food and Drug Administration approved a rapid coronavirus test on Saturday that will deliver results in about 45 minutes.  The test will be available in the next few weeks and no training will be necessary to administer the tests.  Cepheid, a California-based diagnostic testing company, announced on Saturday that the FDA approved the use of its XpertXpress Sars-CoV-2 rapid molecular diagnostic test for the detection of the Chinese coronavirus that causes COVID-19.  The test is designed to work on any of the company's more than 23,000 automated worldwide testing systems.  The test provides results in about 45 minutes, company officials said in a written statement.

FDA approves new coronavirus test that can have 'results within hours' instead of days.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency authorization Saturday for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test kit made by Cepheid Inc. that can yield results in a matter of hours instead of days.  The new tool is called the "Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 test" and will be made available to the public by the end of the month.  "The test we're authorizing today will be able to provide Americans with results within hours, rather than days like the existing tests, and the company plans to roll it out by March 30," the FDA said in a press release.

Few homeless off California's streets as virus spreads.  Homeless people in California congregated in parks, popped into each other's tents on sidewalks and packed closely together to get food Friday, routine scenes that took on different and dangerous significance as state officials try to contain spread of the coronavirus.

Ex-CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Demands New York Times Correct 'False And Defamatory' Article.  Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson had her lawyers send a letter to the New York Times demanding they correct the "false and defamatory" article titled "From Jerry Falwell Jr to Dr. Drew: 5 Coronavirus Doubters," which painted Attkisson as one of those doubters.  Attkisson published the legal threat to her personal website, saying her attorney would "pursue legal redress" if changes were not made.  Attkisson's attorney, G. Taylor Wilson of Wade, Grunberg & Wilson, LLC, says in the letter that she had attempted to get the article corrected previously, but was provided a "cavalier response" from the Times.

Columnist Thinks Virus Will Be More Deadly Due To Gun Buying.  We've written a lot of stories about people buying guns over the last week.  That's really unsurprising since it's been such a significant amount.  There doesn't seem to be a gun store in the country — nay, North America — isn't being hammered with customers during this terrifying time.  However, as our sister site Red State reported earlier this week, some seem to believe that the gun buying is going to somehow make the virus more deadly.

Harvard Students Demand Automatic Passing Grades Due to Wuhan Coronavirus.  Students at Harvard University are demanding that administrators adopt a temporary grading system that would automatically pass all students.  They proposed the drastic change to the grading system in response to the Wuhan coronavirus crisis.  According to a report from the Crimson, students at Harvard University are fighting for a new grading system to protect students from difficult situations they may be encountering as a result of the Wuhan coronavirus crisis.

U.S. Truckers Appeal for Government to Keep Rest Stops and Gas Stations Open.  As the United States gradually shuts down in a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the trucking and tire industry is appealing to the government to allow gas stations, rest stops, and repair facilities to remain open to keep deliveries rolling.  Pennsylvania's Department of Transportation, for example, shut down all of its rest areas and welcome centers to the public on Tuesday.  On Wednesday, it agreed to reopen the parking lots at nearly half of them at the request of truckers and the Trump administration.  Other states are considering similar closures, officials said, to try to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus and discourage people from traveling.

We Should Start Mocking The Media More; Two Suggestions They'd Hate.  The corporate political news media in America is an absolute disgrace that deserves something far less respectful than criticism.  They deserve mockery.  If you're paying attention and I don't blame you one bit if you're not, then you know that our nation just watched the corporate media in America 1) create a national panic meant to inflict economic and social destruction that they could weaponize and use against President Trump, and 2) further bolster that attempted domestic terrorism by siding with the Chinese Communist Party's every lie and attack on our nation and the Trump administration.  As if the last four years of being useful idiots for Russia and doing everything they can to stoke division, distrust and discord in America weren't bad enough — the corporate media in America, aka the swamp's marketing arm, are now actively trying to create economic and social carnage in America while literally cheering on the Chinese Communist Party's attacks on our President and nation.

Greedy People.  [Video clip]

What did Dr. Fauci have to say in 2009 about the deadly H1N1 pandemic?  It seems some viral infection pandemics are more equal than others.  At least when it comes to burning a vibrant Trump economy to the ground.  In September 2009, after millions had become infected with the H1N1 influenza and thousands had died, some of whom were young people and children, a relaxed and unalarmed Dr. Anthony Fauci told an interviewer that people just need "to use good judgment."  "Parents should not send their kids to school if they're sick, if you're sick don't go to work ... avoid places where there are people who are sick and coughing, now that's a difficult thing to do," he said. "...You can't isolate yourself from the rest of the world for the whole flu season." That's quite a change from the esteemed expert's views on the current virus from China sweeping the world.  [Video clip]

Texas Governor Abbott Caves — Orders Statewide Bans and Closures.  Texas Governor Greg Abbott walked back his previous decentralized approach of letting localities determine their own coronavirus responses, announcing an executive order on Thursday prohibiting social gatherings of more than 10 people and closing a number of public-facing businesses.  The Republican governor's order bans eating and drinking at restaurants (although takeout is still allowed), closes gyms and schools, and prohibits visits to nursing homes except for critical care.  The measures are currently scheduled to continue through April 3.

COVID-19 Situation Demonstrates The Potential For Harm To Society Caused By Politicians.  Putting aside the discussion of whether or not actions taken by various elected officials were reasonable, the hurried effects suffered by the public during the COVID-19 virus pandemic at the behest of politicians should if anything prove the potential for damage caused by unscrupulousness or incompetence in government.  Today's events should be by now a self-evident reminder of the great importance of putting the right people in office and the folly of settling for very fallable politicians.  The next coming weeks will make that point likely more for you, with less consideration to your rights or interests. [...] The rubric of a "threat" or "enemy" is so often utilized by those at worse intending the seizure of power or at least the imposition of a policy.  But there is a definite hubris that can tempt some to use their fear invoked powers and punish those who do not agree there is a perceived threat and do not behave accordingly.

James Rosen Drops Bombshell Report That the CDC 'Lied' to the White House About Wuhan Virus Testing.  I'll preface this by saying that it's possible "lie" is too strong of a word here.  Nonetheless, James Rosen dropped a bombshell report today that could explain the early slow distribution of Wuhan virus tests.  It involves a former official speaking on the record about what he saw at the time.

National Guard chief knocks down rumors of martial law response to virus.  he National Guard has deployed a few thousand troops to help states hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, but it wants Americans to know that rumors of impending martial law are blatantly false.  One of the Guard's top generals tweeted out that assurance Friday [3/20/2020] as officials blamed misinformation and propaganda campaigns for the false rumor.  "I hear unfounded rumors about #NationalGuard troops supporting a nationwide quarantine," wrote Gen. Joseph Lengyel, chief of the National Guard Bureau.  "Let me be clear:  There has been no such discussion."

Dangerous Curves.  The CDC tracks a category called "influenza-like illness," or ILI.  Since symptoms of the flu and coronavirus are very similar, it's instructive to look at this data, which is based on visits to health care providers in all 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. [...] During the week of January 18, 2020, the number of people complaining of ILI started to spike dramatically.  That week, nearly 90,000 Americans visited a health care provider with ILI symptoms; by the following week, that figure jumped to more than 107,000.  For the next two weeks, into mid-February, the number stayed about the same.  And that doesn't include people with symptoms who didn't see a doctor.  During the same period, testing for influenza A and B also spiked.  Positive tests for both flu strains began to climb during late January and plateaued in mid-February before declining.  At its peak, about 20,000 people per week were diagnosed with influenza — but it also represented a positive rate of around 30 percent.  That means lots of people were tested for the flu, had flu-like symptoms, but did not have the flu.

Can We Prepare America for the Next Pandemic?  With every passing moment, nations are establishing precedents for how to contain and ultimately stop a global pandemic.  Because the novel coronavirus apparently originated in Wuhan and was immediately covered up by the Chinese Communist Party, the health and welfare of the Chinese people and all other affected populations have suffered from this lethal malfeasance.  But one of the less reported consequences of the Beijing regime's cover-up (and subsequent propaganda blaming the United States for the virus) is that nations are being forced to establish pandemic precedents on an ad hoc basis, largely upon what we do not know rather than the little we do know about the coronavirus. [...] At any time during a pandemic, should our constitutional rights be suspended?  The answer is no.  But the question comes up because in a time of crisis some would be tempted to answer in the affirmative.

Students to get free meals from 400 NYC schools; several locations turning into childcare centers.  Beginning Monday [3/23/2020], free meal services for students will be distributed at certain schools while other locations will turn into childcare centers for essential workers' children.  Students can get three free meals a day at 400 sites across the city, according to the Department of Education.  No ID is necessary.

The Editor says...
The school can't be used as a school, but it can be used as a day care center.  Same kids, same food, same building.

While other states order residents to stay at home to stem coronavirus, Washington resists; here's why.  By Friday morning, the governors of New York and California had ordered — with significant exceptions — all their residents to stay home, to try to limit, as much as possible, the spread of the novel coronavirus.  Other states soon followed:  New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois.  At least 1 in 5 Americans have been ordered to stay home.  Residents of Western Washington, where the outbreak hit first and, initially, hardest, have not.

'Trump Is Right About the Coronavirus.  The WHO Is Wrong,' Says Israeli Expert.  "We do not move about in space like particles," says Dan Yamin, of Tel Aviv University's industrial engineering department.  "Try to remember what you did yesterday.  Even without all the social distancing measures, you probably would have met the same people you met today.  We move across networks of social contact.  So, from a certain stage, it will be difficult to infect even those who bear a potential for becoming infected, because the carriers don't wander around looking for new people to infect."  Dr. Yamin is an engineer, not a physician.  But in 2008, when he was a graduate student at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva, a certain research study caught his eye.  "It was an analysis of a dynamic model for the spread of smallpox," Yamin, 38, says.  "The researchers used tools from game theory.  It was so interesting that I decided to conduct a similar study on influenza — which turned into a doctoral thesis on disease-spread models.

The Chinese Regime's Silencing Of Whistleblowers Turned A Local Outbreak Into A Global Epidemic.  It's mind-boggling for people like us, the citizens in the free world, to imagine a government so capable of intentional evil.  And yet, that is exactly how the Chinese Communist government of China operates.  It's an authoritarian regime that has historically caused the death of countless millions.  Once you understand that, you will understand why we are dealing with this unprecedented global health crisis of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic today.

Politics and Fears of 'Racism' Helped Coronavirus Spread in Italy, Virus Expert Warns.  While leftists in the U.S. echoed the Chinese Communist Party in branding President Trump racist for calling the coronavirus Chinese, a virus expert in Italy warned that the Italian government stalled in its response to the virus due to politics and fears of racism — and that stalling cost lives. [...] Italy's death toll overtook China's on Thursday [3/19/2020], with more than 41,000 confirmed cases and 3,405 deaths.  Dr. Giorgio Palù, the former president of the European and Italian Society for Virology and a professor of virology and microbiology at the University of Padova, told CNN that politics and fears of racism hamstrung the Italian government's response.  The government was "lazy in the beginning... too much politics in Italy," Palù said.  "There was a proposal to isolate people coming from the epicenter, coming from China.  Then it became seen as racist, but they were people coming from the outbreak." This unwillingness to contain people who posed the greatest risk contributed to the devastating situation, he argued.

This is how the Chinese contract never-before seen diseases.  [Graphic video clip]

New York must stay home, Cuomo mandates as coronavirus cases spike.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday [3/20/2020] that he will sign an executive order mandating 100 percent of New York's workforce must stay home, excluding essential services, as the number of coronavirus cases in the state has spiked.  In a tweet Friday [3/20/2020], he said the order would exclude pharmacies, grocery stores, and others.  The announcement came after new figures showed New York state now accounts for 40 percent of coronavirus cases in the U.S, with New York City itself responsible for approximately 30 percent.

The Editor says...
When the governor demands that we all stay home, you should wonder what they're doing while you're unable to watch.  Will you venture out a week from now and find a toll booth or a surveillance camera at the end of your street?

A Few Notes on a 'Soft' Police State.  We in California have had roughly (and I emphasize roughly) 20 fatalities from this disease.  That's twenty too many I assure you.  BUT, this is a state of roughly 40 million souls.  So we have had roughly far less than 1/100th of a percent fatalities rate and yet we are being turned into a police state, albeit a "soft" police state as one might say.  And there were no public hearings about this, not even one day's worth of hearings.  The governor presumably consulted someone but we do not know who.  This is a serious state of affairs.  Yes, the virus is serious, too, but while it's highly catching, its fatalities rate is mercifully small.  Even in China, even if we discount for their dishonesty by a lot, the fatalities rate is small compared with swine flu, when the fatalities rate was immense — roughly 600 times the rate so far for COVID-19.  Does this merit a police state, even a "soft" police state? [...] And are we really forbidding freedom of assembly even for worship?  I have a super close friend who is a Christian pastor.  His Sunday services are canceled.  The LA police department have just told my pastor friend that ANY worship of more than one person is a CRIME!  Doesn't this violate the Constitution?

Are America, and Trump, being played?  [Scroll down]  America has never been brought to her knees to the level happening right now, on Trump's watch.  Not in the Civil War.  Not in WWI or WWII, and certainly not at any time during the Cold War.  Forty million Californians sheltered in place — by order of an American government official?  Schools closed from coast to coast; and restaurants closed in every major state, by order of American government officials?  And movements toward gun control and limited rights to gather — by order of American government officials?  And nationalized healthcare achieved in important practical respects without the inconvenience of having to pass laws?  And all of this to fight a pandemic of still unclear comparative seriousness that originated in anti-American communist China, and is being cheered on, magnified and roiled relentlessly by the anti-American left, including especially the MSM.  If this isn't a deliberate plot to take down America and every safeguard of American freedom, how would it look different if it was?

The 'Kung Flu' panic.  When Trump shut off travel from China at the end of January, the Left as usual leapt to slash his throat.  Then it turned out he had done the best possible thing at the best possible time. [...] From all I've read — and that's been a great deal in the last week or so — the Chinese (both in China and in northern Italy) are especially vulnerable to the virus because their personal hygiene is just awful.  Human feces pretty much everywhere, unsanitary food preparation in restaurants, sneezing and coughing on others, etc.  These practices aren't the norm in America and that alone will go far in arresting the spread of the coronavirus in the United States.

Biased Press Does China's Bidding on COVID-19.  On Wednesday, President Trump held another grim press conference to inform the public he was deploying wartime powers to fight the impending coronavirus threat.  Several members of the White House press corps responded by squandering what little time available to them by lecturing the president about what they deem to be appropriate names for the virus.  "If we must have an absurd debate on whether it's racist to refer to the 'Chinese virus,' fine, but is it too much to ask that purportedly objective reporters not take a side in that debate?" asked National Review editor Rich Lowry.  "Judging from today's press conference the answer is, 'Yes, of course it's too much to ask.'"

Socialists Look to Take Advantage of Coronavirus Emergency.  Don't Let Them.  A millennial single mom I know happened to be in a supermarket located in a North Shore suburb of Chicago Sunday [3/15/2020] when Governor J.B. Pritzker announced he had decided to close all of the restaurants and bars in Illinois.  As shoppers began getting news updates on their smartphones, she said there was a dramatic increase in the "intensity" of their shopping.  People were moving quickly and scooping large quantities of anything they could get their hands on into their shopping carts.  Within minutes, the shelves were nearly bare.  Welcome to scarcity.  Welcome to panic.  Welcome to everyday socialism.

Every Year an Epidemic:  Say Goodbye to Normal Winters.  We all remember the horrible fall and winter of 2017-2018, when a terrible epidemic ravaged America.  Schools closed, restaurants shut down, and sporting events were canceled to control the monster, but it still killed 90,000 men and women.  You don't remember the closings and cancellations because they never happened.  But the epidemic did occur.  According to CDC statistics, during the 2017-2018 flu season influenza killed 46,000 to 95,000 people.  (The CDC estimates deaths in a range because a definitive diagnosis of the cause of death via respiratory failure is often impossible.)  Ninety thousand deaths is the high end of the estimate, but it is still a quite possible death toll.  CDC suggests that the most likely death toll was 61,000.  An average year statistic for influenza deaths in the U.S. over the past decade is about 40,000.  No one panicked in 2017-2018.  Yet in 2020 we shut down America because of an epidemic that had killed less than fifty people.

Limbaugh: Remember The Swine Flu Panic? 60 Million Americans Infected, 300,000 Hospitalized.  [During the] swine flu outbreak in this country in 2009 and 2010, 60 million Americans were infected.  Do you remember that?  Sixty million were infected.  Dr. Siegel, one of the Fox doctors was on TV explaining this last night.  He was not my primary source for it, but he ended up confirming it.  Sixty million people were infected.  Do you know how many people were hospitalized in 2009-2010 with the swine flu?  Three hundred thousand were hospitalized.  So 60 million people infected, 300,000 hospitalized.  And nobody even remembers it.  And why?  Well, because we had a different president.  We had a Democrat president by the name of Barack Obama, and the news then was how wonderfully well Obama was handling it, how expertly well Obama was dealing with it.  There wasn't any media panic.  The Republican Party did not politicize it at all.  They made not one single effort that anybody can find or remember to try to make political hay out of it.  It was treated as a health issue from top to bottom.

You, Xi.  I hold Xi Jinping guilty of starting the coronavirus pandemic, which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan and has now caused thousands of deaths around the world and an economic recession that will ravage all of us for years.  My accusation is well-founded and well-documented.  Early last December, a young doctor at a Wuhan hospital discovered the first case of illness caused by a heretofore unknown virus.  He immediately established the link with an earlier epidemic that had begun in the same place and under the same circumstances, in 2002-2003:  SARS, a viral pneumonia.  The doctor, Li Wenliang, 37 years old, who died in February from exposure to the patients whom he cared for, had immediately posted his diagnosis on the hospital's internal website in order to inform his colleagues.  He was called before a disciplinary council of the local Communist Party and forced to repent and confess, in writing, that he had spread rumors harmful to the glory of the Party.

Trump peddles hope, media peddles hype.  The media's normal bashing of Trump has been ratcheted up during the coronavirus pandemic to new levels.  But it's getting old.  Trump is right — the public wants answers.  Hope, not hype.  Trump is actually right about the anti-malaria drug, chloroquine.  As the Herald's Rick Sobey reported, Boston Medical Center is already using it on suspected coronavirus cases, with some success.  "It seems to stem some of the inflammation," said Lee Wetzler, an infectious disease specialist at BMC.  That's called reporting.  It's not false hope.

A Real-Life Story of How Coronavirus Hysteria Oppresses People.  Commentators have noted the dishonest reporting of statistics to buttress the false claim that deaths from the coronavirus (hereafter, COVID-19) are far in excess of mortality from the common flu when in fact the opposite is likely the case. [...] I was indeed shocked when Nathan called me on March 17 to report that the wedding and reception, for which all the invitations had gone out and for which they had planned for over a year, were being canceled on the "Order of the Health Officer of the County of Riverside."  I obtained a copy of the so-called "order" that "prohibits" gatherings of ten or more individuals in the County of Riverside.  According to the text of the decree, "Violation of ... this Order is a crime punishable by fine, imprisonment or both."  The edict exempts gatherings of government officials, including those at the Health Department and their colleagues who drafted the order.  Another curious exemption from the order is those involved in "congregate living settings."  I suppose that's to cover Riverside County, California's resident population of homeless bums, who are stuck living in "congregate living settings" in their feces- and needle-infested encampments.

Hospitals in Mass. told to limit 'nonessential surgeries' due to COVID-19, but abortions still a go.  Hospitals in Massachusetts are being forced to cancel many nonessential surgeries as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.  Yet, while colonoscopies and hip replacement surgeries are not happening, abortions are still taking place in the state, Mass Live reported.  In a memo mandating that doctors cancel certain procedures to preserve resources and equipment amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Elizabeth Kelley, director of the state's Bureau of Health Care Safety and Quality, stated that "terminating a pregnancy is not considered a nonessential, elective invasive procedure for the purpose of this guidance."

Interpol arrests 121 criminals in 90 countries cashing in on coronavirus.  Interpol has announced a huge takedown in 90 countries targeting crooks cashing in on the coronavirus endemic.  Items seized as part of Operation Pangea XIII included 34,000 bogus surgical masks, Interpol said Thursday [3/19/2020].  The outbreak of the coronavirus disease has offered an opportunity for fast cash, as criminals take advantage of the high market demand for personal protection and hygiene products, officials said.

Flashback: Let's Take A Look At How The Press Covered Trump's China Travel Ban.  Media outlets bashed President Donald Trump back in January after he implemented a travel ban from China because of the novel coronavirus — a move that many other countries have now followed.  The Trump administration first made the announcement Jan. 31, 2020, announcing they would restrict foreign nationals recently in China from entering the U.S.  They also announced that some Americans who recently traveled to the country would be put into quarantine for a time upon their arrival back to the U.S. The novel coronavirus first originated in Wuhan, China.

Anthony Fauci, the NIH's face of the coronavirus, is a deep-state Hillary Clinton-loving stooge.  Anthony Fauci, M.D., the 79-year old head of the National Institute of Allegy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has become the #1 point man on the government's role in the coronavirus crisis.  Fauci has worked for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) his entire professional life.  In the past, for more than two decades starting in the mid-1980s, he was the medical establishment's face of HIV-AIDS — omnipresent on television when AIDS was hot and ever present at international AIDS conferences well into the 21st century.  Always, he was an enthusiastic advocate of throwing more federal money at the problem of AIDS. [...] One of the first things I found about Dr. Fauci, at the Wikileaks Clinton Email trove, was a gushing 2013 email that Fauci had sent to Cheryl Mills, one of Hillary Clinton's top aides, praising the then-Secretary of State for her congressional testimony on Benghazi.

Reducing Covid-19 Fever.  In the end, this flu season will be of greater interest to social psychologists and social and political historians than to virologists and epidemiologists.  Among an innumerate and paranoid population obsessed with its health, and which believes that the role of the government is to solve all problems, it was easy for the media to trigger a panic that would take down the markets and capsize the economy.  No public official or CEO can risk being viewed as irresponsible, and the decisions they've felt obliged to take have had devastating economic consequences for the majority of Americans.

Are Muslims Immune to Coronavirus?  The Islamic world is not suffering from COVID-19 the way non-Muslim nations are, because Islam naturally makes Muslims "cleaner" than infidels.  Such is the contention Muslims around the world are triumphantly making. [...] Then there's this:  "Sneezing is from Allah, but yawning from Satan" (Sunan al-Tirmidhi), and "Allah loves sneezing but hates yawning."  The reason?  Because "Satan laughs at whoever yawns" (Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Adab).  Thus, and despite the fact that sneezing is a known germ-spreader, whereas yawning is innocuous — what comes out of, not goes in, a man more often leads to ill — here is Muhammad decreeing the opposite:  that sneezing, which explodes germs in all directions, is a splendid thing — literally loved by Allah — and therefore certainly not something to avoid, whereas yawning, which has zero effects on health, is to be zealously guarded against.

The Coronavirus Killed the Progressive Left.  Covid-19 and the Democratic presidential primaries, the two biggest stories of the year so far, reflect a common theme: the death of the progressive left.  Looking back, historians may well see late 2019 and very early 2020 as a kind of high-water mark for American progressivism.  It wasn't so long ago that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were commanding most of the attention in the presidential campaign, especially among intellectuals.  Right before Super Tuesday, Sanders was a clear favorite in the prediction markets.  Yet the actual voting showed the strength of Joe Biden, a (relative) centrist; Warren attracted very little support, and Sanders failed to reach the same vote totals he achieved four years ago.

Because there's so much extra cash on hand...
California plans to house homeless in hotels during coronavirus pandemic.  Gov. Gavin Newsom estimates 60,000 homeless people will be infected with COVID-19 in the coming months and those people will need a place to recover in isolation.  On Wednesday [3/18/2020] Newsom allocated $150 million in emergency funding to deal with the crisis and announced a plan to house the homeless in hotels and motels across the state.  The state would lease the property and local counties would control the operations.  According to the governor's office, 950 sites have been identified across 53 counties.

Also posted under homeless people in California.

Coronavirus:  The Price of Luxury.  In the world of fashion, the "Made in Italy" tag has a distinct value associated with luxury and status.  Merchants can charge higher prices for clothing, shoes, handbags, and other fashion goods manufactured in Italy, and that value was coveted by certain Chinese entrepreneurs.  During the past three decades, more and more Chinese investors bought into textile and leather-good factories in northern Italy, and they brought over Chinese laborers to work in those factories.  By 2010, there were reportedly 60,000 Chinese in Prato, an industrial suburb of Florence.  To accommodate Italy's new foreign labor force, nonstop flights were established between China and Rome.  None of this was a secret.

Bayer Donates 3 Million Chloroquine Tablets in Fight Against Coronavirus.  German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG announced Thursday [3/19/2020] that it donated 3 million tablets of the malaria drug Resochin to the United States amid testimonies that it could potentially treat individuals with the deadly Chinese coronavirus.  Resochin, which is made of chloroquine phosphate, is presently not approved for consumption in the U.S., though the company is working with federal public health agencies to secure authorization for its use nationwide.

Poll: 55% Approve of How Trump's Handling Chinese Coronavirus Crisi.  A poll released Friday shows President Donald Trump's approval for his handling of the Chinese coronavirus outbreak is on the rise.  In the figures reported by ABC, a full 55 percent of Americans approve of the president's management of the crisis, against 43 percent who disapprove.  Trump's approval on this issue is up from last week, when the numbers were nearly reversed.  Only 43 percent approved of Trump's handling of the pandemic and 54 percent disapproved in last week's poll.

Hospital CEO says face mask supplier charging $7 for 58-cent masks amid coronavirus crisis.  A face mask supplier began charging $7 for the medical gear that typically costs just 58-cents, according to one hospital CEO, as hospitals throughout the US began seeing an influx of Covid-19 patients this week.  Scott Steiner, CEO of Phoebe Putney Health System, said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that his staff has been forced to create additional masks made of cloth to place over their N95 masks — which are typically discarded after each use — to extend their usability amid a severe shortage in medical supplies.  The CEO said at least one supplier for the N95 masks "want $7 per mask" and added that "they've got a million of them in-hand."

A Summary of Suggestions for Preventing and Treating COVID-19, plus Political Commentary.  I'm not a medical professional, but rather a physicist who has extensive scientific training (e.g. in being skeptical).  Additionally I've always had an interest in health issues.  It's imperative that you should discuss any medical actions you are considering, with a competent physician.  That said, just as physicists don't know everything about physics, medical practitioners don't know everything about human health.  You are the final decision maker.  Here are a collection of studies, reports and articles on the COVID-19 matter.  [PDF containing numerous links.]

Coronavirus Is America's Chinese Wake Up Call.  The worldwide panic over coronavirus has forced us all to think about how we live, work, do business, and interact.  It might also give us a chance to rectify some serious lapses of judgment that we, as a country, have made.  For instance, with China's economy still reeling from the economic impact of the disease, maybe it's time for America to rethink our insane over-dependence on China for everything from clothes, to computers, to smart-phones, to even the medicines we need to combat corona — which, despite politically correct howls to remain mute about it, started in China!

Visualizing the History of Pandemics.  [Infographic]

It's No Coincidence that Italy and Iran Have Been So Hard-Hit by the Wuhan Virus.  Bucking the advice of the EU and the US, Italy's prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, signed onto China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).  This strategy was adopted by China in 2013 for the purpose of increasing their geopolitical power.  It involved partnering with a particular country to develop an infrastructure project within their borders.  The participating countries are forced to finance the work through Chinese banks, use Chinese construction companies who send Chinese workers and materials to complete the project. [...] The last 20 years have been dismal for the Italian economy, leaving the country with the second highest debt burden in the EU, second only to Greece.  According to Forbes' Marco Annunziata, "living standards in Italy today are roughly the same as they were in 2000, because economic growth has been stagnant.  So, believing that BRI was the answer to Italy's economic woes, Prime Minister Conte hopped on board.

Results from Breaking Chloroquine Study Show 100% Cure Rate for Patients Infected with the Coronavirus.  On Monday Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, announced that the first trial vaccine for the coronavirus is now being tested.  The trial taking place in Seattle, which has been a hotbed for COVID-19.  The test includes 45 people age 18-55 and they are receiving two injections, one at zero days, one at 28 days.  The individuals will then be followed for one year.

Scientist with 4 Degrees from MIT Warns 'Deep State' Using Coronavirus Fear-Mongering To Suppress Dissent.  A decorated scientist with four degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believes the coronavirus pandemic is being used by the "Deep State" for its own purposes.  Shiva Ayyadurai said on Twitter that "fear-mongering" over the outbreak is being used to push an agenda. [...] Think about what has transpired in less than a week's time.  We have handed control of nearly everything in our lives to the government.  In many places, they are telling us when we can leave our homes and when we must return to them.  They have decided what events or religious services we can attend, how many people are allowed to be there and which businesses are allowed to stay open.  In the process, the global economy has crashed with the assistance of the media stirring everyone into a mass panic.  People are hoarding and fighting over toilet paper as if it is the cure for COVID-19 and grabbing every canned and dry food they can find.

Look Closely at Italy's Health Care and You'll See the Chilling Future Dems Want for America.  Italy's health care system is collapsing from the COVID-19 outbreak.  There are a number of reasons for this, but the root cause is simple:  Socialized medicine has led to a dreadful outcome.  At the moment, triage of the country's sickest and rationing of limited resources, like beds and ventilators, are sadly leaving the elderly — basically anyone over 70 — to fend for themselves.  With the death toll mounting, some folks can't even get their loved ones' bodies picked up from home.

The Media Are Embarrassing Themselves Over Trump's Use Of 'Chinese Virus'.  Yesterday [3/18/2020], amid the ongoing economic and social disruptions caused by the coronavirus, rising numbers of infections and deaths globally, and widespread closures of schools and other extreme measures imposed across the country, the mainstream media decided we should have a national debate about whether it's racist for President Trump to call it the "Chinese virus."  In what can only be described as a moment of unconscious self-parody, the media pretended not to understand why Trump would refer to the virus in geographic terms — as if they'd never heard of the Spanish Flu, West Nile Virus, Ebola, Zika, Lyme Disease, or the many other diseases named for their places of origin.  As if they haven't been doing the same thing for months.  Why?  Because the mainstream media's ranks are populated by biased hacks who don't care half as much about reporting accurately on the Wuhan coronavirus as they care about making Trump seem like a racist.

Super Flu or a Mild Cold?  With symptoms ranging from a gasping death to nothing at all, one has to wonder whether COVID-19 is a super flu or a mild cold.  Have we ruined our economy over nothing or saved millions of people from death?  If COVID-19 is a mild cold, how did we mistake it for a super flu? [...] This is the important part:  the bulk of the damage and symptoms are caused by the immune response, not the virus.  This is why all of those vastly different respiratory viruses have similar symptoms, and even airborne irritants cause cold-like symptoms (e.g. allergies).  It is highly unlikely that any respiratory virus will ever be a super flu, because the severity of the illness is limited to the body's ability to damage itself.

Coronavirus Reveals the Downsides of Urbanization.  Crises have a way of shocking us out of complacency to consider how fragile and vulnerable civilization still is, and always will be.  In the short run, that means retreating to humanity's basic survival impulses and taking a triage approach to our priorities.  In the long run, however, COVID-19 should prompt some reflection on our vulnerabilities and how to limit them in the future.  One in particular bears rethinking: our ever-growing urban concentration and dependence on high-density, centrally managed mass transit.

The Chinese Wild-Animal Industry and Wet Markets Must Go.  Wet markets are found the world over, typically open-air sites selling fresh meat, seafood, and produce.  The meats often are butchered and trimmed on-site.  Markets in China have come in for justifiable condemnation because of the way they've evolved, commingling traditional livestock with a wide variety of wild animals, including exotic and endangered species.  Many are quite unsanitary, with blood, entrails, excrement, and other waste creating the conditions for disease that migrates from animals to people through virus, bacteria, and other forms of transmission.  Such "zoonotic diseases" that have emerged from China and other regions of the world include Ebola, HIV, bird flu, swine flu, and SARS.  The wild animals that mix with more common livestock — poultry, swine, and seafood — form a deadly combination.  And, as has been well reported by Vox and others, wild-animal farming has a long history in China, emerging after disastrous decades of state control of rural production under Mao Zedong.

Texas announces shutdown amid coronavirus crisis.  Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday [3/19/2020] issued an executive order that will close schools, restaurants, bars and gyms in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus.  Speaking to reporters from the state Capitol, Abbott said the order prohibits dining or eating at restaurants and bars, but "to go" orders are still permitted.  He said that Texans must limit social gatherings to 10 people and may not visit nursing homes except for critical care.

Police in North Carolina find stolen trailer full of toilet paper.  With the American population fighting over a single precious roll of toilet paper amid the coronavirus outbreak, police in North Carolina uncovered nearly 18,000 pounds of commercial bathroom paper products inside a stolen tractor-trailer on Wednesday [3/18/2020].  Police said they aren't releasing the name of the driver because the topic of toilet paper is "fairly sensitive right now."  "After further investigation, it was determined the 53-foot Hyundai dry-van trailer was reported stolen locally and was being utilized to transport nearly 18,000 pounds of commercial bathroom paper products," the Guilford County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

Easter and Passover canceled:  Coronavirus pandemic upends ancient traditions.  Coronavirus shutdowns are forcing historically unprecedented changes to celebrations of Easter and Passover, with many religious institutions canceling or moving their services online.  Easter, the most important feast in Christianity, falls on April 12 this year.  In the Catholic Church, where the day is preceded by Holy Week, which includes a series of special masses and other services, several dioceses are already canceling the public celebration of those events.

California Gov. Newsom issues order for entire state to stay at home due to coronavirus.  California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) issued an order for all 40 million Californians to stay at home Thursday night due to the coronavirus outbreak.  The order issued by the governor is the first statewide restriction placed on all Californians to stem the spread of the disease.  "This is not a permanent state, this is a moment in time," Newsom said in a news conference.  "We will look back at these decisions as pivotal."

Coronavirus Pandemic Infected by a Spirit of Generosity.  While many of us turn to the government for answers to the COVID-19 pandemic, others rightfully seek solutions from the private sector.  Last week, the Hoover Institution's Russ Roberts asked his many Twitter followers to help "create a list of voluntary (non-coercive) actions taking place right now to reduce COVID-19 spread or impact."  The answers are too inspiring not to share.  First, many of Roberts' followers shared a list the benefits offered by their employers that help to alleviate workers' financial hardships or ensure their health is protected.  For instance, Walmart, Target, Gap and many other firms announced that they will provide up to two weeks of paid leave to every worker who is sick or taking care of sick family members.

Bolduc says China's actions made COVID-19 spread worse.  Republican U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc said China's secrecy led to the worldwide spread of COVID-19 that could have more devastating consequences than the Ebola virus he dealt with as a brigadier general working in Africa.  Bolduc, a Stratham resident, was the head of U.S. Special Operations Command in Africa during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.  During a telephone conference call with reporters, Bolduc said those fighting Ebola dealt with many of the same challenges, including a shortage of protective personal equipment and a need to dramatically expand hospital bed capacity.

Fear Makes Power.  Our 21st-century "developed" world, which so touts its own rationality, is now engaged in the historically unprecedented attempt to shut down most social and economic intercourse for the sake of mitigating the effects of a virus the lethality of which is far more like recent strands of the flu than that of the plague.  One reason we do not know how many persons have been infected by this virus is that most infections in most people are so mild as to be unnoticed.  That is also why we do not know the virus's true lethality.  Of course it is especially lethal to the old and otherwise infirm.  What isn't?  Hence, we really have no basis for believing that, left unchecked or dealt with as just another round of seasonal respiratory diseases, the Coronavirus would devastate modern life. [...] Big businesses, like big government, will be largely unaffected.  But for much of the rest of Americans, the shutdown is sure to be a disaster that no one has begun to think about undoing.

Coronavirus Sanitation: 'No Wipes In The Pipes,' Influx Of Non-Toilet Paper Items Being Flushed.  Long lines and empty shelves caused by the coronavirus have led to a toilet paper shortage, which has caused a ripple effect — going all the way to city sewer systems.  With the insufficient supply of bathroom paper products, more Californians are buying flushable wipes, baby wipes, and other self-care paper products.  The problem is the so-called flushable wipes and other products can cause problems in sanitary sewer systems.

The Diamond Princess, a floating Chinese Virus palace, provides suggestive data.  [Scroll down]  Fortunately, there is one almost "pure" location for coronavirus data, and that is Princess Cruise's Diamond Princess cruise ship.  This was the ship moored along Japan's coast while the government tried to determine the best way to deal with a floating virus bomb. [...] Why did 83% of the ship's passengers walk away unscathed?  It's an especially good question because the majority of passengers were in the 60-79 age group, weighted slightly more heavily toward the 70-79 cohort.  In other words, by the time the ship docked, it should have been a floating morgue, but somehow it wasn't.

China Is Avoiding Blame by Trolling the World.  The evidence of China's deliberate cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan is a matter of public record.  In suppressing information about the virus, doing little to contain it, and allowing it to spread unchecked in the crucial early days and weeks, the regime imperiled not only its own country and its own citizens but also the more than 100 nations now facing their own potentially devastating outbreaks.  More perniciously, the Chinese government censored and detained those brave doctors and whistleblowers who attempted to sound the alarm and warn their fellow citizens when they understood the gravity of what was to come.

Trump announces FDA making anti-malaria drug available 'almost immediately' to tackle coronavirus.  President Trump announced Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is making experimental drugs — including those used for treating malaria — available as part of the ongoing effort to tackle the spread of the coronavirus.  Trump announced at a White House press briefing that chloroquine, a drug designed for use in malaria, will be made available to test whether it helps patients recover from coronavirus.  He said it was one of a number of antiviral therapies to limit the symptoms of the virus that the administration is trying to get to Americans as quickly as possible.

Have the Japanese come up with a coronavirus cure?  I'll start by reminding everyone that I'm not a doctor and have no professional experience in the field of medicine.  With that out of the way, I'll confess that I've always been under the impression that diseases caused by a virus can't be "cured" the way we are able to treat bacterial infections.  The most you can generally do is develop a vaccine and try to prevent people from getting sick in the first place.  But maybe that isn't always true.  Doctors in Japan have reportedly used a drug developed to treat the flu to eliminate the coronavirus in patients within four days.  If this is true, it's huge.  And somebody needs to get that drug into mass production immediately.

How is the 'shelter in place' order working in San Francisco?  Monday [3/16/2020] six Bay Area counties announced a "shelter in place" order, the most restrictive measure announced anywhere in the United States, in response to the coronavirus.  The idea was to completely shut down transmission of the virus by having everyone stay home for a period of three weeks.  How is that working out so far?  For the most part, people have been going along with it: [...] The only people who seem to be pushing the limits of the shelter in place and social distancing orders are people looking to exercise.

Grocery store workers in Minnesota classified as emergency workers.  Grocery store workers in Minnesota will now have access to free child care after the state classified them as emergency workers during the coronavirus outbreak, NBC News reported.  An executive order signed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Sunday stated that emergency workers deemed "critical" to the state's response to the outbreak would be provided child care.  The workers affected include "providers of healthcare, emergency medical services, long-term and post-acute care; law enforcement personnel; personnel providing correctional services; public health employees; firefighters and other first responders; and court personnel."

In the Face of Pandemic, the U.S. Senate Sells Stocks and Plays Politics With Our Lives.  On Thursday night [3/19/2020], news broke of two Republican Senators, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, dropping some serious stock after an all-Senators meeting where they received a briefing on the Wuhan coronavirus.  We're talking stock sales in the millions.  It's an egregious abuse of power, if this is a case of insider trading, and there are calls from all over for both of them to resign.  Tucker Carlson even lit Burr up on his show and demanded he resign.  It's a bi-partisan thing right now, because we're in the middle of a pandemic and American citizens are terrified.  What do these two do when they catch wind of how bad it's going to be?  They get rich off of the crisis.  For Loeffler's part, she says the transactions were made by a third party broker, and she was not aware of the sale until weeks after.

Global Warming May Be Our Only Hope of Containing Wuhan Virus.  "Global warming" is a threat to humanity, according to libs.  But, assuming it's real, it might be our only hope of containing the greater threat posed by the Wuhan bat virus.  This isn't some right-wing conspiracy — it's basic science.  A recent scientific study of the Wuhan virus found that high temperature and high humidity "significantly reduce the transmission of [the Wuhan virus]," much in the same way that warmer, wetter weather reduces the transmission of the flu.  According to the authors, their findings indicate that "the arrival of summer and rainy season in the northern hemisphere can effectively reduce the transmission of the [Wuhan bat virus]."  That's great news for humanity, but bad news for the libs, who have been celebrating the widespread adoption of "social distancing" and other measures to reduce the spread of the Wuhan virus.

Failures of the Administrative State in the Pandemic Crisis.  Democrats like David Axelrod and members of the Obama national security team attempted to claim that the Trump Administration had "gutted" or "eliminated" the National Security Council's "pandemic" desk.  That turned out to be a lie.  In fact, the Trump White House had reorganized that team to better coordinate with other parts of the federal government. [...] The fact is that the same challenges the Trump Administration has faced over the past month — lack of testing, lack of coordination at the federal level — were endemic a decade ago.  This is the most important point:  over the past decade — and actually going back far longer — our federal government has become bloated with bureaucrats and do-nothing Washington desk jockeys who in spite of alleged responsibilities, have done nothing to ensure our society is protected from things like pandemics.  Our emergency response apparatus is no better today than it was a decade ago when these same careerists promised to fix the problem.

Ohio Jail Releases Hundreds To Protect Them from Coronavirus Despite No Known Cases.  Do you know what we need during a national emergency?  More alleged criminals out on the streets.  This is apparently the lesson we're supposed to take away from officials in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the jurisdiction in which the city of Cleveland is located.  Ohio's second-most populous county has decided to release hundreds of inmates from the Cuyahoga County jail over COVID-19 fears.  Here's the thing — not a single person in the jail was known to be infected.

Malaria drug sees promising signs as future coronavirus treatment.  A drug originally developed to treat malaria is showing signs that it may also cure infections of the coronavirus, though much more testing is needed.  Researchers and virologists in France have completed a clinical trial studying the effects of hydroxychloroquine, used to treat arthritis, malaria, and other ailments, on patients with COVID-19.  Researchers treated a total of 26 coronavirus patients with the drug, including six that were given the antibiotic azithromycin, as well.

CCP knew about the Wuhan Coronavirus for 36 days before allowing media to mention it.  The good news for the Chinese Communist Party is that their iron grip over their media allows them to control the narrative at home.  The bad news for the people of China is that the CCP's iron grip over their media prevents them from knowing the truth.  Now, that media control has resulted in a growing death toll and a worldwide economic downturn, all for the sake of saving face for Xi Jinping and his totalitarian regime.  Meanwhile, mainstream media in the United States is acting like they're on the CCP's payroll.  After exhaustive searches, NOQ Report was only able to find 14 unique reports from left-leaning mainstream media outlets explicitly citing the CCP's delays in reporting the coronavirus as the reason it is now a pandemic.

Gov. Tom Wolf orders all non-life-sustaining businesses in Pennsylvania to close physical locations to slow coronavirus spread.  Gov. Tom Wolf has ordered all non-life-sustaining businesses in Pennsylvania to close their physical locations to slow the spread of the coronavirus.  The deadline to shut down is 8 p.m. Thursday [3/19/2020].  Among the businesses not included in the order to shut down:
  •   Grocery stores
  •   Gas stations
  •   Auto part stores
  •   Banks
  •   Health care
  •   Social assistance services
Restaurants can still offer take-out, delivery and drive through services.

More businesses, 181 BMV locations ordered to close by Gov. DeWine.  Governor Mike DeWine gave the order for more businesses, including 181 BMV locations, to close at the end of the business day on Wednesday [3/18/2020] to slow the spread of the coronavirus.  The governor says he's taking further action to help control how fast the virus spreads.

Washington scrambles to prevent massive unemployment spike.  The coronavirus is quickly taking a sledgehammer to the historically low unemployment rates that have defined much of President Trump's time in office.  The pandemic's toll on the economy is now a key focus of Washington's response to the growing public health crisis, with Congress and the White House scrambling to provide relief for struggling workers and businesses.  "It's going to be a big problem," said Jay Shambaugh, director of the Hamilton Project and a senior economics fellow at the Brookings Institution.  "Unemployment is going to be where we see the economic damage, and is rising, frankly, faster than we expected just a week or two ago."

Coronavirus death rate drops:  Better math, better treatment or more testing?  Since the start of the coronavirus crisis, frightening death rates have been publicized.  China's death rate was said to be approaching a scary 4 percent.  That's substantially higher than the death rate for seasonal flu, which is something less than 0.1 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control.  Even worse, a February study by the World Health Organization (WHO) found the mortality rate for people over age 80 was one in five of those infected, or 21.9 percent.  But lately, the 4 percent death figure has drifted downward.  For instance, the fatality rate in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak is believed to have begun, is now estimated at 1.4 percent, according to a study cited in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Mass Transit, The Pandemic Petri Dish The Left Loves.  For decades and decades, politicians who propose and promote big government have done all they could to wean Americans off the convenience and freedom of cars and pack them like sardines into subways and buses, so they may travel to and from work in communal harmony.  As George Will has written, "the real reason for progressives' passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."  Will added, "Automobiles encourage people to think they — unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted — are masters of their fates.  The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make."

States Making Life Impossibly Hard for Truckers, Who Can't Find Food and Bathrooms.  In this unprecedented crisis brought to us by the lying Communists in China, the COVID-19 pandemic panic has gone too far.  America's truckers, the people we rely on to restock our empty grocery shelves, are being treated like disease vectors and worse, they've been forgotten.  The state of Pennsylvania thought it was a good idea to shut down all the rest stops where truckers sleep, including closing the bathrooms — until the trucking lobby caught the ear of the president.  Thirteen rest stops have been reopened in Pennsylvania, but our truckers are being forced to use porta-Johns that are far dirtier than the public bathrooms.  How is this helping?

'Governments are really scared': Virus builds back borders that European Union demolished.  A worsening coronavirus pandemic has driven European leaders to revive border controls within the European Union after three decades of efforts to abolish internal borders within the continent.  "The governments are really scared that the virus does not spread, so they are afraid of allowing any kind of freedom of movement," Kinga Brudzinska, a foreign policy analyst at GLOBSEC in Slovakia, told the Washington Examiner.  Italy's stunning struggle to cope with the new contagion spurred Hungary and Austria to close borders with their southern neighbor on March 11. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hoped that a ban on entry into the EU would undercut the push for border controls, but 21 countries in the bloc already have banned foreign entry into their nations.

Flashback Jan. 14: WHO Tells Everyone Don't Worry Because China Says Coronavirus Isn't Contagious.  The World Health Organization (WHO) tried to cam [sic] fears of a pandemic on Jan. 14 by repeating China's claim that coronavirus was not contagious among humans. [...] Just 60 days later, the global death toll from coronavirus had topped 8000 and continued to climb.  Over 200,000 cases had been documented in 145 countries.

What all the countries that contained coronavirus have in common.  It's far too soon to claim victory against the novel coronavirus.  As travelers have started to return to Hong Kong and other countries that appeared to have contained the virus, including Singapore and Taiwan, a new wave of Covid-19 cases has surged.  This serves to reinforce one important point:  Strict and centralized enforcement of lockdowns, quarantines, and closures are the most effective way to contain the virus.  What's emerged from the coronavirus crisis is the fact that some states are equipped to handle this type of action, and some are not — and it has little to do with development status.  In Europe, citizens are having to get used to more authoritarian measures; some are even starting to appreciate them.

Donald Trump:  Calling Coronavirus 'Chinese Virus' Is 'Not Racist at All'.  President Donald Trump continued backing his description of the coronavirus as the "Chinese virus" on Tuesday [3/17/2020] saying it was not racist.  The establishment media predictably reacted strongly against Trump's use of the term "Chinese virus" on Twitter and in his news conference on Wednesday.

China Boomeranging.  Sometime in late November the Chinese Communist Party apparat was aware that the ingredients of some sort of an epidemic were brewing in Wuhan.  Soon after, it was also clear to them that a new type of coronavirus was on the loose, a threat they might have taken more seriously given the similar Chinese origins of the prior toxic SARS coronavirus and the resources of a Level 4 virology lab nearby.  Yet the government initially hid all that knowledge from its own people in particular and in general from the world at large.  Translated into American terms, that disingenuousness ensured that over 10,000 Chinese nationals and foreigners living in China flew every day on direct flights into the United States (Washington and California especially) from late November to the beginning of February, until the Trump travel ban of January 31.

COVID-19 Is the Chinese Government's Curse upon the World.  [N]aming viral diseases after places — Guinea Worm, West Nile Virus, Ebola, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, etc. — is probably just intuitive.  Viruses "come" from someplace, after all, and thus people gravitate to those names.  I doubt we came up with "Lyme disease" because of some deep enmity towards Connecticut.  Anyway, "COVID-19" or "H1N1" don't exactly roll off the tongue.  The latter was, until very recently, widely referred to as the "Spanish flu," a virus that killed around 675,000 Americans and tens of millions of others around the world in the early 1900s.  "Spanish flu" has now retroactively fallen into disfavor as well.  And to be fair, there is some historical evidence that the virus may actually have originated in China or France, so if we must call it the French flu moving forward, so be it.

A whole lot of things are going to be very, very different.  The list of losers as a result of the spread of the Wuhan virus are many and mighty:  The European Union [...] Open borders [...] China [...] Climate Change [...] Globalism and "free trade" [...] And there are more including income taxes, sports, public transportation (the private automobile turns out to be the perfect social-distancing vehicle), animal rights, judicial rule, Democrats (!) and — ta da! — the media.

It's China's Fault.  Enough with the spin and lies out of the People's Republic of China.  It's the only nation in the world that bears primary responsibility for spreading the Wuhan coronavirus. [...] China could have told the truth an nipped the problem in the bud.  But China didn't because truth is not a concept valued by communist regimes.  In fact, Chinese scientists destroyed Wuhan coronavirus evidence in December.

Germany closing its borders to travelers from EU.  German officials announced Wednesday [3/18/2020] that the country will ban travel from European Union (EU) countries as part of the country's efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus.  A statement from Germany's Transportation Ministry obtained by Politico indicated that several countries would be affected by the ban, but it was reportedly unclear whether all 26 other members of the EU would be affected.

After this, we should never let our relationship with China go back to normal.  [Thread reader] ... especially now that they're aggressively spreading the conspiracy theory that the virus was manufactured by the US. This is, to put it mildly, a nefarious regime[.] And then we let the Chinese regime troll us with their complaints over calling it Wuhan Virus.  Yes, that's where it originated so it's perfectly fine to point that out. [...] The evidence of China's deliberate cover up of the outbreak in Wuhan is a matter of public record.  It's been widely reported and documented:  China suppressed information about the virus, punished whistleblowers, allowed it to spread undetected in the critical early days[.]

Some Coronavirus Humility.  In the United States, the collapse of the stock market and banks in 1893 and 1929 altered American life for generations, in part driven by panicked selling. [...] All sorts of scary statistics about the coronavirus infection and lethality rates are being publicized, often to show contrasts with annual influenza strains and other viral epidemics.  Some make the legitimate point that if the coronavirus has a lethality rate of over 1 percent to 3 percent in the United States, then perhaps 97 percent to 99 percent of those infected will survive the illness, albeit with varying degrees of seriousness.  And for the vast majority of Americans under 50, it may be that 99 percent will recover from infection, in contrast with almost every known "pandemic" in history.

Will The Costs Of A Great Depression Outweigh The Risks Of Coronavirus?  [Scroll down]  Most Americans and businesses likely can sustain a suspension of their lives for two weeks, the usual annual vacation time.  But start extending these bans to one and two months, and then to four and six months, and people are going to revolt as they sit chained to their houses, watching their jobs, businesses, and retirement accounts disappear, replaced with funny money taken from yet-unborn generations and no end in sight.  Numerous people are already skeptical and fed up with the lockdowns, and we're not a week in.  Plus, these are just estimates, not a crystal ball.  We can't know the future, and different countries have already shown highly different disease spreads based on different population characteristics, health care capacity, and government response.

Chinese scientists destroyed proof of virus in December.  Chinese laboratories identified a mystery virus as a highly infectious new pathogen by late December last year, but they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples and suppress the news, a Chinese media outlet has revealed.  A regional health official in Wuhan, centre of the outbreak, demanded the destruction of the lab samples that established the cause of unexplained viral pneumonia on January 1.  China did not acknowledge there was human-to-human transmission until more than three weeks later.

The early days of China's coronavirus outbreak and cover-up.  A study published in March indicated that if Chinese authorities had acted three weeks earlier than they did, the number of coronavirus cases could have been reduced by 95% and its geographic spread limited.

China Did This, and Saying So Isn't Racist.  As the entire world grapples with the effects of the COVID-19 virus, now that Americans are beginning to panic, they want someone to blame.  Maybe it's Trump, maybe it's the Democrats, whoever.  But only one entity is responsible for what's happening right now: the Chinese government.

WHO Claimed In January Wuhan Virus Couldn't Be Transmitted to Humans, Because China Said It Wasn't Contagious, Destroyed Evidence.  Media has been all atwitter over President Donald Trump calling the Wuhan coronavirus the "Chinese virus" and/or suggesting that doing so is somehow racist.  The ridiculousness of that as he and the United States are trying to address a pandemic can't be overstated.  Recognizing that it originated in China isn't racist.  But it's amazing how the media is also completely skipping over and avoiding why it's very important to recognize the origin of the virus.  China has been lying since at least December about the nature of the virus and that's in part why it has been able to spread.

No bailout, no stimulus — give us reparations for government-mandated shutdowns.  Governments are forcing businesses to shut down and telling customers and employees to stay away from the ones that are open.  Governments are cutting off trade and tourism.  The U.S. government and state and local governments are directly harming businesses in pursuit of a higher good.  So, Washington ought to be talking about making it up to the businesses.  This isn't like past bailouts, which rescued failed or failing businesses.  It's not simply that businesses are taking a huge hit despite having "done nothing wrong," as President Trump puts it.  Businesses fail without wrongdoing or serious errors all the time — that's the free market, and it should be allowed to happen.  We don't and shouldn't bail out businesses that fail just because market conditions fail.  Likewise, a coronavirus rescue package shouldn't be a heavy-handed TARP-like effort to ward off systemic collapse.  Again, it should be saying to businessmen, consumers, and employees:  "Hey, sorry we had to shut you down and lay you off.  Let us make it up to you."

Inspiring: Samaritan's Purse Airlifts Field Hospital to Coronavirus-Striken Italy.  On Tuesday [3/17/2020], the North Carolina-based global Christian charity Samaritan's Purse airlifted an emergency field hospital to the Italian city of Milan to help a health care system overwhelmed by the coronavirus.  As of Wednesday, Italy experienced 35,317 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 2,978 deaths.  Amid this crisis, Samaritan's Purse airlifted a 68-bed emergency field hospital to Milan.  The DC-8 aircraft carried approximately 20 tons of medical equipment, a respiratory care unit designed for this specific mission, and 32 disaster relief personnel, including doctors, nurses, and respiratory specialists.  That medical team will stay in Italy for a month.

Silver lining:
Playboy kills iconic magazine, citing coronavirus woes.  The latest victim of the coronavirus:  Playboy.  The nudie mag founded by Hugh Hefner 66 years ago will no longer publish a printed edition, it said on Wednesday [3/18/2020], citing coronavirus supply chain woes that have only served to exacerbate its already sagging newsstand sales.

"Most of Those Infected Won't Even Know It" — Israeli Virologist Tells World Leaders to Calm Unnecessary Panic over 'Exaggerated' Coronavirus.  The cases of the coronavirus jumped to 9,225 in the US on Wednesday [3/18/2020].  The number of deaths blamed on the virus is 150 in the US.  The number of estimated deaths from the flu this year, based on numbers from the CDC is 22,000.  Top Israeli virologist Prof. Jihad Bishara, the director of the Infectious Disease Unit at Petah Tikva's Beilinson Hospital, said this week most people will recover from the coronavirus without even knowing they were sick.  Dr. Bishara said global leaders and the media need to quit pushing panic and calm people down.

House Democrats Propose Lifting Tariffs On Chinese Imports, Rewarding China for Downplaying Wuhan Virus.  A leading House Democrat is suggesting that we end tariffs on Chinese imports amid the spread of Wuhan Virus, essentially rewarding the Chinese for their secretive and problematic handling of the virus that is quickly spreading to all corners of the globe.  Florida Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy, whose husband manufactures sportswear in Chinese factories according to an article by The Hill, could potentially benefit from such a move.  The proposed legislation is co-sponsored by Democrat Joe Cunningham of South Carolina.  Murphy also owns a patent on one of the products manufactured by her husband.

Italian Health Ministry Confirms Only Three Percent of Coronavirus Fatalities in Study Did Not Have Other Serious Health Complications.  Since early March Italy became the epicenter of of the coronavirus epidemic.  As of Wednesday morning there have been 31,506 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Italy and 2,503 deaths.  But new data from the Italian government shows that the people dying from the coronavirus are either the elderly or have other complications. [...] Only 12 coronavirus fatalities had NO previous health concerns before coming down with the coronavirus.

US Coronavirus Numbers Including Asymtomatic Patients Shows Mortality Rate Much Lower than Reported by WHO.  The controversial Ethiopian politician and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, claimed in a press conference in early March that the fatality rate for the coronavirus was many multiples that of the fatality rate of the common flu.  This egregiously false premise has led to the greatest economic panic in world history.

Chic Hamptons food stores ransacked by the wealthy amid coronavirus pandemic.  Wealthy people who have flocked to the Hamptons to escape the coronavirus are ransacking grocery stores in epic shopping sprees that are costing thousands of dollars a pop.  Since COVID-19 hit Long Island's tony beach towns last week, its residents have been lining up for groceries and other essentials as they prepare to hunker down at home.  But unlike in other parts of the country, Hamptonites are dropping massive amounts of money as they clean up on high-end goods, like salmon, steaks and rare bottles of wine, sources said.  "I had one customer spend $8,000," said Joe Gurrera, founder of upscale supermarket chain Citarella.  "You know when you see someone with a full shopping cart?  Now they have five."

Dark Money Progressive Groups Spending Millions to Politicize Coronavirus, Spread Fear.  Millions of Americans across the country are, day by day, adjusting their lives to better cope with the economic, social, and political impacts caused by the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, as a dark money network simultaneously works overtime to further politicize the festering crisis.  A Democrat-aligned Super PAC announced on Tuesday that it will spend $5 million on negative ads targeting President Trump's response to the coronavirus.

The Virus is Yet Another Reason to Rethink the West's Relationship With China.  Coronavirus is the third major public health scare this century that I can think of which can be traced back to China.  First we had SARS, then we had swine flu, now we have Coronavirus.  There is nothing to suggest that the COVID-19 virus is a deliberately created virus.  This isn't the same as saying that its emergence is free of all human involvement.  Experts have warned of appalling hygiene conditions in Chinese wildlife markets for years, with living, dead or dying creatures as diverse as bats, pangolins and other are held in close proximity, their body fluids and all the bacteria, viruses and parasites they carry mixing and mutating in direct contact with human shoppers.  It seems to have taken this crisis for it to dawn on China's government that something was amiss.  Vietnam also got the memo and announced it will be closing down all such markets with immediate effect.

Government and Media Responses to Pandemics, Then and Now.  The H1N1 virus (colloquially known as swine flu) was "first detected in April of 2009 in the United States, and spread quickly around the world," despite the virus being of Mexican origin, as we later discovered.  The Obama administration had declared it a "public health emergency" in late April, and by June, the World Health Organization declared it the "first flu pandemic in 40 years."  It wasn't until October of 2009, though, that Obama personally recognized it as a national emergency with the "potential to overburden health care resources in some localities."  By that time, over one thousand Americans had died from it.  The CDC estimates that between 151,700 and 575,400 people died worldwide from H1N1 virus infection in the first year that it circulated. [...] In the end, over 60 million Americans were infected by H1N1.  It led to 273,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths in the U.S. alone.  Yet Americans generally just went about their lives, with no holistic directives from President Obama or any of the state governors that schools, restaurants, or businesses be closed, or that private gatherings should be limited to a particular size.

What if Hillary had won in 2016?  [Scroll down]  And now there is this Wuhan virus.  Like all flu viruses, it is deadly for some, the oldest among us with other exacerbating medical conditions, far less fatal than some types of flu but more easily transmitted; most who get it will survive.  If HRC were president, chances are our media would barely mention it but for the deaths in the rest of the world since the deaths here have been far, far less than any typical flu season.  That could change but Trump on Jan. 31 banned planes from China landing here; he bought some time to get up to speed, to assemble a team of experts that are managing this crisis very well.  As everyone surely knows by now, when the H1N1 flu struck in 2009, Obama ignored it for six months, until a thousand Americans had died and 300k were hospitalized.  In the end, eighteen thousand Americans died!  There was no panic, no hoarding, no quarantine, no banning restaurants from serving customers, etc.  There was certainly no blaming Obama for not paying attention to what was a very lethal flu epidemic.  If HRC were president today, the media would not be blaming her for its spread nor would they be fanning the flames of panic.

How Long Will Americans Tolerate Corona-Madness?  Fake news media has successfully infected many with irrational fear.  Hearing Gov. Larry Hogan on my car radio announcing his executive order to close bars, restaurants, gyms, and theaters sounded like the script of a 1950s horror movie.  "We will stop the spread of this deadly disease!" dramatically proclaimed Hogan.  Litle more than 100 have died in the U.S. and under 9,000 worldwide.  According to the CDC, during the 2018-2019 flu season, an estimated 16.5 million people got sick and 34,000 died in the U.S.  When Hogan mentioned plans to restrict church gatherings, a chill went up my spine.  In the United States of America, government is mandating that people not attend church.  Wow!  CDC data confirms that the martial-law-light mandates steamrolling across America are disproportionate to the threat of the virus.  Some governors and most corporations are responding to media-mob pressure to halt life in America.  Others see an opportunity to land a death-blow to the Trump administration.  Insidiously ignoring the CDC's no-need-to-panic-data, fake news media created and is gleefully fueling corona-madness.

Washington teen creates website to track coronavirus.  A teenager from Seattle, Washington is helping millions of people around the world stay up to date on the latest developments of the coronavirus pandemic.  17-year-old Avi Schiffman used his self-taught coding skills to create a website, which brings people the cold hard, unbiased facts on the global outbreak.  "The main goal of it was to provide just an easy way to see the straight facts and the data, you know, without having to make a website that was biased or, you know, full of ads or anything like that," he explained.

The Editor says...
Hmmm...  A web site that isn't full of ads.  Great idea!  I've been doing that for 20 years.

A fiasco in the making?  As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data.  The current coronavirus disease, Covid-19, has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic.  But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco.  At a time when everyone needs better information, from disease modelers and governments to people quarantined or just social distancing, we lack reliable evidence on how many people have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 or who continue to become infected.  Better information is needed to guide decisions and actions of monumental significance and to monitor their impact.  Draconian countermeasures have been adopted in many countries.  If the pandemic dissipates — either on its own or because of these measures — short-term extreme social distancing and lockdowns may be bearable.  How long, though, should measures like these be continued if the pandemic churns across the globe unabated?  How can policymakers tell if they are doing more good than harm?

The coronavirus paradox - our lowest point and finest hour.  The paradox of the novel coronavirus response is that it only works if we take aggressive steps before they seem necessary and, if they work, will not have seemed necessary.  Success will look like we overreacted.  This is a unique emergency, but the basics still apply.  For public officials in a crisis, you tell people everything you know and everything you do not know.  Acknowledge uncertainty.  Don't over-promise or over-reassure.  Share the burden of complex problems and give people something to do.  Don't make fun of them for how they feel, whether fearful or skeptical, and tell people how you made your decisions.  Admit when you could have done better, and most importantly for leaders, explain to people what the future will hold.

People with blood type A might be more susceptible to coronavirus, study finds.  People with blood type A might be more vulnerable to the coronavirus, while those with type O blood could be more resistant, according to a new preliminary study from China.  Researchers studying COVID-19 in its outbreak epicenter, Wuhan, and the city of Shenzhen found the proportion of type A patients both infected and killed by the disease to be "significantly" higher than those with the same blood type in the general public.  Type O patients, meanwhile, made up a smaller proportion of both those infected and killed by the virus.

Per Capita Death Rates In One Chart.  Earlier today, I posted several charts showing coronavirus fatalities in various countries in several formats.  Many think that per capita mortality rates are the most relevant metric; our friend Brian Sullivan, who runs a highly sophisticated biomedical company, emailed us today with these comments:  ["]Another worthwhile analysis would consider the common sense observation that the US, South Korea, and Europe had their first cases at roughly the same time.  Therefore, I think it is informative to compare the per capita number of cases and deaths in Europe and South Korea to those in the US.  I created the table below to calculate the per capita case and death rate in each country as of March 17th as reported by the Worldometers website.["]  I converted Brian's table, as it relates to mortality, into a simple bar chart that shows deaths per million of population[.]

Experts Skeptical CCP Virus Epidemic Is Under Control.  She wakes up every other hour as she tries to sleep.  Diarrhea keeps her up all night.  There's a persistent bitter taste in her mouth.  For Wei, a millennial in the epidemic ground zero of Wuhan, the burning question of whether she has the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus has lingered since Jan. 18, when she went to a bar and came back home feeling sick.  But three CT scans and two nucleic acid tests later — which came back negative — she remains only a "suspected" case.  The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party's coverup and mishandling allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.  Several of Wei's friends are in the same boat. [...] Wei has a friend whose lungs' CT scan looked like "frosted glass" (ground-glass opacity, a common clinical trait of patients), but tested negative for COVID-19 eight times.  "Wuhan is controlled.  There's no way you can get diagnosed.  They [authorities] have made up the data and your tests will turn out negative, no matter what," Wei said.

Can we rope-a-dope the virus?  [Scroll down]  America today is assaulted by a young, strong, hard-punching assailant of a different type.  It's a virus.  It has tanked the stock market, killed several hundred Americans and thousands worldwide, and induced panicky hoarding of things wholly irrelevant to the threat it poses, such as toilet paper.  Why toilet paper?  This isn't an intestinal ailment. [...] Our fathers and grandfathers went off to war while our mothers and grandmothers worked in airplane factories.  We're now asked only to stay home on the couch watching TV in a self-imposed quarantine.  People seem unable to do that without the satisfaction of denying toilet paper to their fellow Americans.  The stupidity and selfishness of these hysterical toilet paper hoarders makes me sicker than Coronavirus ever will.  Coronavirus is highly unlikely get me at all.

Chinese control of U.S. pharmaceutical supplies sparks growing concern.  While India and several European nations play critical roles in the global medical supply chain, China is among the top providers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) — the basic components for antibiotics and other prescription drugs consumed by Americans.  With the coronavirus crisis threatening to strain the U.S. government's large stockpiles of such drugs, health experts warn that China's own outbreak and related societal shutdown could mean major shortages ahead as Chinese factories struggle to keep up production of the APIs.

Philadelphia Police to Stop Arresting Criminals Over Coronavirus Concerns.  The Philadelphia Police Department will be delaying arrests for an array of crimes including narcotics offenses, thefts, burglary, vandalism, prostitution, stolen cars, and economic crimes over coronavirus concerns.  The city will also be releasing criminals from jail in an effort to continue "social distancing."  A leaked internal memo said that "if an officer believes that releasing the offender would pose a threat to public safety, the officer will notify a supervisor," who would ultimately make the decision about whether the suspect should be detained.

Philadelphia Police Will Not Arrest for Burglary or Theft Due to Coronavirus.  As an outcome of short-sighted coronavirus issues, the Philadelphia police department has announced they will no longer be arresting suspects for retail theft, auto theft, burglary, narcotics or other "non violent" offenses.  Instead they will write tickets, release the suspects and address the criminality later on.  Now watch what happens.  CTH saw the instructions earlier today [3/17/2020] but we did not want to immediately distribute the information.  It should be remembered the current Philadelphia police commissioner, Danielle Outlaw (pictured left), is a social justice activist from Portland, Oregon.  Unfortunately, there is a predictive element to this.  Perhaps some are familiar with the post Hurricane Andrew experience in Homestead and Miami-Dade.  The only thing standing between law-abiding citizens and those who would take their possessions is an ability to defend your own property.  This is now the Philadelphia reality.

Dems Hide Easter Eggs in Coronavirus Relief Basket.  One might think passing the Coronavirus relief and stimulus package would be a bipartisan effort.  But, no, the process has become a political sledgehammer used by Democrats to browbeat the U.S. Senate into accepting a few additional hidden gifts for the radical left. [...] It is entirely impossible for Republicans and Democrats to leave party agendas in a box on the shelf for the duration of the Coronavirus.  Instead, using a national scare as cover, there is pandering to special interests.  Just days ago, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) made a grand attempt to hide the proverbial sausage while crossing fingers that the Senate would not catch her add-on.  And what a tricky old gal the Speaker has again proven to be.  She managed to squeeze in a loophole to get around the Hyde Amendment — also an add-on in 1977 — which banned the use of Medicaid funds for abortion.

Californians Calling Cops on Their Neighbors if They Hear Them Coughing.  Some Californians are calling 911 if they hear their neighbors loudly coughing or sneezing, with paramedics being dispatched to homes in some cases.  Yes, really.  "Coachella Valley police departments say they've started fielding 911 reports from concerned callers convinced a neighbor's overly loud sneeze or hacking cough is proof the person has the virus," reports the Desert Sun.

Also posted under Snitch on your neighbor.

The Manchurian Media.  Last Thursday [3/12/2020], the Media Research Center assembled a video clip of the media melting down over Republicans correctly noting the origin region of the coronavirus, screaming that it's rrrraaaaaccccccism and/or xenophobia to refer to it as either "the Chinese Coronavirus" or "the Wuhan Virus" — along with 35 times the media referred to the virus as "the Chinese Coronavirus" or "the Wuhan Virus." [...] I'm pretty sure that John Frankenheimer didn't intend for The Manchurian Candidate to be a how-to guide.  But if the media were paid Chinese agents, could they do more to harm this country than they're already doing now?

Apocalypse No.  I'm neither a doctor nor an epidemiologist.  But as a prosecutor and trial lawyer, I have spent decades in courtrooms cross-examining highly credentialed and well-compensated expert witnesses and deconstructing their statistical analyses and scientific theories.  Moreover, having litigated numerous medical malpractice cases, not only have I interrogated and worked with medical experts, but I have also become friends with a number of intelligent and thoughtful health-care professionals, some of whom have kindly shared with me their insights regarding the current pandemic.  Their insights and my basic arithmetic skills and historical analysis form the basis of what you are about to read. [...]

Is This Backstory The Truth About COVID-19's Origin?  The outbreak erupted in Wuhan over in Commie China.  As far as I can tell from my research it was known to their dictator and government as far back as October.  From the beginning I've contemplated several scenarios.  That particular coronavirus was possibly leaked to their population for testing purposes and it got out of hand.  Would the Reds do such a thing to their own people?  Was the virus accidently let loose by one or more employees at The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory?  Could one or more have become infected and since some infected are asymptomatic, may not have even known they were infected?  Accidental.  Why would Communist China deliberately unleash a virus they know is highly contagious and that if their plan backfired it would be catastrophic to their economy?  Forget their people.  Communists are God-less and could care less about human life.  This terrible, terrible outbreak is costing the Communist Chinese government trillions of dollars.  If their intention was to experiment on their own people it has blown up in their faces big time.

The Press Loves a Panic.  Let's face it, the world is in the grip of a full-fledge virus induced panic.  It's all virus, all the time.  Whether its called Wuhan, Corona, Covid-19, Chinese, or xenophobic, the world's latest killer virus has gone viral and is terrorizing populations into believing the deadliest plague in history is knocking on their front door with a battering ram. [...] Governments are banning large public gatherings.  Travel to infected areas of the world is shut down.  Schools are closed.  Restaurants and bars closed or limited to takeout only[.]  Popular TV shows are recorded without studio audiences.  Retail outlets are running out of toilet paper, sanitizers, and masks as soon as they get them, and shelves are bare as the supply chain struggles with the strain of the crisis.  Even the great distractors, professional sports, have been suspended but it feels as if our entire lives are under suspension.  Social gatherings and norms, such as handshakes, are being obliterated virtually overnight.  Our behaviour is being thoroughly driven, though some might say conditioned, through fear fueled panic, and it is occurring at a rapid pace.

If you want to help people weather the coronavirus crisis, save their jobs.  We haven't faced a medical crisis like this in living memory.  We know that coronavirus constitutes a major threat to the country — of course, it does.  What we really don't have a clear picture of right now is what's coming next.  So we spent the weekend talking to some of the smartest people we know in medicine, in business and in politics.  Everyone had strong opinions, needless to say, but what was striking was that there was no clear consensus on how the country should respond to this.  All decent, informed people, but completely different points of view.  That should not surprise you.  People of good faith are working toward a couple of different goals which, at times, collide with one another.

One result of coronavirus pandemic is a healthy dose of bipartisanship.  It doesn't amount to a silver lining, but one result of the pandemic is that Americans are witnessing what it's like when governments work together to protect and serve the public.  From the White House to state houses, officials are spending incredibly long hours to mobilize resources, treat the sick and plan and implement containment policies — all while keeping people well informed.  Most important, the message up and down the government food chain has become remarkably consistent as the scope of the threat becomes more clear:  This is a war and we're all in it together.

Amid coronavirus chaos, here are 4 essential truths we should remember.  In a world in which we're too often positioned to focus on, exploit and trump our differences and divides, this illness puts everyone on an equal playing field.  We're all at risk, with the elderly and infirm among us the most susceptible to serious complications.  Very few struggles in life are equalizers, yet this one most certainly is, with people of all stripes falling ill.

The argument against curfews and shelter orders.  I should point out up front that this isn't my argument against curfews and related government mandates involving forced social distancing.  It's coming from Matt Welch at Reason.  But by the time I finished reading it, I was once again experiencing this teeter-totter of emotions and reactions that's become all too familiar lately. [...] Imposing curfews, as many cities have, or even shelter in place orders such as the one currently attempting to lock down the San Francisco Bay area, is a bridge too far for Matt.  And since I've long had a fairly wide libertarian streak myself when it comes to small-government issues, I can definitely sympathize with what he's saying here.  But on top of that, he argues that many of these prohibitions aren't even practical in achieving the desired goals.

Stop It With the Coronavirus Curfews Already.  [#1] Shutting most everything down creates real shortages, not just the no-toilet-paper-at-Whole-Foods kind.  The more people and industries you order locked down, the more supply chains get broken, the more stores shutter, the fewer goods are available.  We all still need stuff, even if we're sitting indoors all day. [...] [#2] Compressing the commercial day will mean more people shopping together in close quarters. [...] [#3] Law enforcement has more urgent priorities than policing the free movement of citizens. [...] [#4] Human beings do not have a limitless capacity for self-imprisonment.  We are about to see a lot of resentment from the healthy Youngs about how they no longer have jobs or the ability to make student loan payments because of draconian governmental measures to combat a disease disproportionately affecting the Olds.  But even setting that aside, in the absence of V-1 bombs flying overhead, people are eventually going to bust out of their containment.

Laura Ingraham:  Six things we still don't know about the coronavirus pandemic.  [#3] Why do some suffer only mild symptoms?  "We don't know why some of those [infected] have only mild coldlike symptoms that resolve on their own, while a significant minority of those affected may have serious symptoms that lead to pneumonia and even death," Ingraham said.  "One theory is that the severity of symptoms is linked to the strength of a person's general immune system ... but that's just one possible explanation."  [#4] Who is Patient Zero?  "We still don't know who the first patient was who contracted the virus in China," Ingraham pointed out.  "That's a key fact that a lot of researchers say is essential to the analysis of this disease," she added.  "The coronavirus started spreading for weeks before the first cases were officially reported by China."

A possible COVID-19 treatment.  Gilead Sciences, a biotech company, developed Remdesivir to treat Ebolae and the Marburg virus infection.  It had some success against MERS and SARS. The company hopes this can work against COVID-19. Josh Bloom at the American Council on Science and Health reviewed it and said keep your fingers crossed.  He wrote, "Remdesivir is a fairly potent inhibitor of corona virus replication with no obvious toxicity.  It may or may not work as a pill but this is irrelevant at this time since it will probably be given IV.  In another study in rhesus monkeys, data indicated that a significant concentration of the drug will be found in the blood and that an adequate quantity of the drug should be delivered to the sites where it is needed.  "Given the properties of Remdesivir as well as the desperate need for a corona virus therapy, I would estimate that the drug has at least a 50% chance of becoming the first drug to treat the virus."

Now Hiring:  Grocers Respond To Increased Demands.  In order to keep up with increased demands for food and household supplies grocery store chains are ramping up hiring.  This is a bit of a silver lining for many who are temporarily unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Radical steps are being taken across the country in response to the coronavirus, especially during the next fifteen days, a period of time the public health professionals view as critical.  If you saw the Trump administration's press briefing with the COVID-19 task force, you know that the next 15 days will likely determine the severity of the spread of the virus across the United States.

4-year-old's coronavirus symptoms worsen after taking ibuprofen.  A 4-year-old British girl suffering from coronavirus-like symptoms grew worse after taking ibuprofen, her family said.  As health experts hotly debate whether the anti-inflammatory medicine should be taken to combat the contagion, Dan Collins of Bristol posted a dire warning on Facebook about his stepdaughter Amelia.  "To those of you that have children please read.  If your child has symptoms of corona virus, DO NOT give them ibuprofen," Collins wrote.

Yes, Mom, the CDC Is Part of the Deep State, Too.  While all of our attention over the past three-and-a-half years has been focused on Washington, DC, the Centers for Disease Control, headquartered in Atlanta, GA, has been flying under the radar screen.  Now that the CDC (and the National Institute of Health) are in our cross-hairs, we are learning that those organizations were infected by the same Obama-corruption virus, too.  And why wouldn't they be susceptible, as the preponderance of federal civil servants are after all Democrats?  For example, in the 2016 election cycle, federal civil servants gave 95% of their campaign contributions to Hillary Clinton, as reported [elsew]here.  Makes me wonder how many of the CDC/NIH experts interviewed on TV are actually Democrats.  As an aside, it is quite amazing that the Democrats and their media sycophants are essentially blaming the CDC and NIH for a "chaotic response" and the "lack of a coherent plan" in responding to the Wuhan virus.  When they blame President Trump, in reality, they're blaming Democrat-infested federal agencies that have been turned into politically-correct hell-holes, as opposed to executing their mission by focusing on investigating, handling, and controlling new infectious diseases and preparing responses for pandemics.

Reporter Asks Trump About His Use of Term 'Chinese Virus,' Then Trump Drops the Boom.  It's really been something watching media and some on the left flip out at referring to the virus as the Wuhan virus or Chinese Virus. [...] Everyone was calling it "Chinese coronavirus" or "Wuhan coronavirus" until the Chinese started pushing back and spreading propaganda.  Here's the thing.  If the media is concerned about the Chinese people, how about supporting efforts to find out the truth of what happened to the whistleblowers who told the world what was going on, including Chen Quishi and Fang Bin?  Why don't you show you really care by agitating with the Chinese for answers?

Joe Biden, the Manchurian Virus Candidate.  If one didn't know better, he could think that China unleashed the Wuhan virus upon the world purposely to get their man, Joe Biden, elected president.  Jumblin' Joe is their man, too.  It's not just that the disease will assuredly cause economic distress as people's lives and commerce are disrupted; it's not just that no matter what President Trump does, the EneMedia will portray his response to the disease as lacking.  (Never mind that Barack Obama apparently spread disease throughout our nation by shipping sick illegal-alien minors throughout the country.  Enterovirus D68, anyone?)  It's also that the Wuhan virus has now become a handy excuse to limit debates and Jumblin Joe's personal appearances.  Health is the concern, you see (Biden's mental health, that is).

Can America's Public Health Elite Survive the 'Boomer Flu'?  We depend on experts for advice.  We always have.  This is understandable given our inability to effectively process and disseminate all the information that bombards us.  Our minds are not supercomputers with software that sift and rank information in nanoseconds.  We cannot psychically communicate our discoveries with the rest of the hive.  Instead, we develop a system of experts that focus their efforts on different topics and tell us what they learn through various institutions, such as the media, the church, or the office water cooler.  But what happens when our experts fail?  The public health community's response to COVID-19, aka the "Boomer Flu," provides a cautionary example.  Many have noted COVID's terrible effectiveness in killing the elderly and infirm.  However, what are the responses of our public policy experts?  Quarantines, testing, and other proscriptions of minimal effectiveness and mass inconvenience[.]

Coronavirus Response:  Anxiety or Insanity?  [Scroll down]  We owe gratitude to the delivery system, which is resupplying stores despite the panic-buying.  Restaurants have reorganized to allow take-out.  Unfortunately, the need for waitresses has diminished.  American ingenuity will reassign labor and capital to new uses.  The cost of this virus will be great, but our spirit remains strong.  The wake-up call must involve moving away from national health care control.  Obamacare necessitated cost savings by hospitals and clinics.  The public health care system was unable to move quickly enough to provide enough COVID-19 testing kits.  Now the private-public partnership will solve this issue.  Other arrangements with private companies will guarantee better services for those infected.  Entrepreneurial skills lead to creativity and improved approaches.  Bureaucratic lethargy and red tape will always limit innovation.  Medicare for All would undoubtedly give the same results that Italy, Spain, and France are experiencing.  Americans deserve and expect better.

Viral Soul-Searching:  Left and Right Politics after a Plague.  The left's identity politics look offensively trivial when everyone has to fear the same virus, regardless of one's class, race, or sex.  The USA has spent untold billions on the pursuit of "equality," even though we can't measure it.  It used to mean equal protection under the law, then it came to mean equal financial means, then it came to mean equal "dignity" as perceived by the attitudes of others.  Rolling back Jim Crow was never enough.  Electing a black president twice was not enough.  Nor even did capitulating to the alphabet mafia of LGBTQIA+ ever seem to placate the need for equality.  The coronavirus forces us to see that we already have equality.  It came from nature.  Rich and poor, male and female, black and white — all can catch a virus and lose everything that they have tried to horde, including their lives.

5 Big Government, America-Destroying Schemes Democrats are Proposing During COVID-19 Crisis.  [Scroll down]  So, let's add up all of these initiatives so we can properly evaluate what Democrats would do if they had complete control over our country during this crisis.  They'd release prisoners, ignore crime, ban private ownership of guns, seize control of private industries and take over the medical industry.  In other words, they'd pretty much enact all of Sen. Bernie Sanders' proposals.  Let's face it though, despite Sanders' robust socialist inclinations, the Democrats' platform has inched closer toward these proposals every year over the past several decades.  This crisis just allows them to show their true colors under the guise of "emergency."  This is who they are and this is what they truly want to do... COVID-19 is just the latest crisis that these Democrats don't want to waste.

Trump angers Beijing with 'Chinese virus' tweet.  China has reacted angrily after US President Donald Trump referred to the coronavirus as "Chinese".  A foreign ministry spokesman warned the US should "take care of its own business" before stigmatising China.  The first cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.  However, last week a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman shared a conspiracy theory, alleging the US Army had brought it to the region.

Trump called it the 'Wuhan coronavirus' for a legal — and commonsensical — reason.  Amid the truly weighty concerns attendant to the COVID-19 pandemic, the silly season, of course, broke out in Washington:  A debate over whether the infectious disease in question should be referred to as the "Wuhan coronavirus" or whether doing so is, as the anti-Trump left and its media megaphone allege, emblematic of racism.  The manufactured controversy is as transparently political as it is ill-conceived.  The question of the pathogen's source is being framed to imply Trumpist xenophobia.  To the contrary, it is a relevant consideration in the federal government's legal authority to respond.  Early this year, as the outbreak became manifest in China and began its relentless march through Southeast Asia and into Europe, the American press itself alluded incessantly to the Wuhan coronavirus.  The sudden case of talking-head amnesia over this is being greeted in conservative media by hilarious video montages featuring the same scolds, who now decry the term, matter-of-factly invoking it back then.

Truckers Are Keeping American Supply Chains — and Americans — Alive.  Groceries began reappearing on American store shelves this week, thanks to the strength of a supply chain that includes farmers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers — all of whom are literally risking their lives to stay on duty.  A crucial part of that supply chain is the American trucker, who makes sure that goods are delivered in a timely fashion.  That is always the case, but it is especially true in the sudden global emergency we face today.

The Democrats are trying to create another "fine people" hoax against Trump.  We all know that Democrats, in the media and politics, lie about Trump.  The most famous is the assertion that President Trump called white supremacists "fine people."  That hoax's reach perfectly exemplifies the old American saying that "falsehood will fly from Maine to Georgia, while truth is pulling her boots on."  Even though it's been repeatedly, and definitively, debunked, myriad people will state with fervor that Trump is a racist who loves Neo-Nazis.  With coronavirus in the air and an election looming, the same culprits behind the "fine people" hoax are now trying to tar Trump with a different hoax.  This one is the claim that he and John Bolton, while the latter was his national security adviser, dissolved the department in charge of dealing with possible pandemics.

A little perspective helps.  What's worse?  The rapid spread of a novel virus which originated in China or the media hysteria created and broadcast around the world?  If it was the intent of the American media to create a state of fear and panic, they've succeeded brilliantly.  The dissemination of information pertinent to the virus has morphed into a murky river of rumors, innuendo, outright lies and blather proffered by pundits who are neither doctors nor experts on much of anything other than opinionating.  Despite the media hype, COVID-19 is not the first world pandemic and it won't be the last.  As long as humans have walked the earth, deadly contagions have existed.  During some of the most virulent periods in history, entire populations were wiped out.  A sense of perspective is now warranted.

Coronavirus doctor says lung scans for young patients were 'nothing short of terrifying'.  A Belgian doctor working to battle the coronavirus says he's treated several seriously ill young patients — and their lung scans were "nothing short of terrifying," according to reports.  Dr. Ignace Demeyer, who works at a hospital in Aalst, said an increasing number of people between the ages of 30 and 50 have presented with severe symptoms, despite having "blank medical records" that show no underlying conditions that would make them high-risk, the Brussels Times reported.  "They just walk in, but they are terribly affected by the virus," Demeyer told the Belgian broadcaster VRT.

'Whatever it takes': EU leaders agree to 30-day entry ban to fight coronavirus spread.  All 27 European Union nations agreed to shut down entry into EU borders in an effort to fight the spread of the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed tens of thousands of lives across the continent.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the plan, set to last 30 days, on Tuesday during a teleconference meeting with other EU leaders.  She said there would be "very, very limited exceptions."  "The union and its member states will do whatever it takes," said European Council President Charles Michel, who also noted the EU will arrange for the repatriation of citizens who live within the union.

The Impeachment That Killed Americans.  The lethal price tag for the months of the Impeach Trump obsession by Democrats is now in — and rising.  Over there at Breitbart, Joel Pollak, one of the serious journalists of the day, has put together this telling timeline that shows exactly what Democrats were doing as the coronavirus loomed.

Hollywood Scrambles As It Loses Millions (Billions?) to Coronavirus.  With theaters closing, Universal will make its movies available on-demand on the same time they're (theoretically) available to be seen in theaters.  People have been predicting the death of the physical movie theater — except for huge events movies where IMAX, 3D, and other format gimmicks are a selling point — for a long time now.  Universal is now releasing movies on-demand while they're in theaters in reaction to coronavirus.  If some of these dogs wind up making money on-demand, this might be an eariler-than-expected death knell for theatrical exhibition.

Detect, Deter and Annihilate:  How the Police State Will Deal with a Coronavirus Outbreak.  [Scroll down]  Fear the Walking Dead — AMC's spinoff of its popular Walking Dead series — drove this point home by dialing back the clock to when the zombie outbreak first appears and setting viewers down in the midst of societal unrest not unlike our own experiences of recent years ("a bunch of weird incidents, police protests, riots, and ... rapid social entropy").  Then, as Forbes reports, "the military showed up and we fast-forwarded into an ad hoc police state with no glimpse at what was happening in the world around our main cast of hapless survivors."  Forbes found Fear's quick shift into a police state to be far-fetched, but anyone who has been paying attention in recent years knows that the groundwork was laid long ago for the government — i.e., the military — to intervene and lock down the nation in the event of a national disaster.  We're seeing this play out now as the coronavirus contagion spreads.  What we have yet to experience (although it may only be a matter of time) is that the government through the imposition of martial law could pose a greater threat to our safety (and our freedoms) than any virus.

Grocery Stores Will Restock, Amid Challenges; Opportunity in Food Delivery.  Local grocery store shelves sat bare at the end of a weekend of aggressive buying by consumers stocking up for long stays at home during the coronavirus outbreak.  Sources in the food industry told Breitbart News that the supply chain should respond well, though there may be a few bottlenecks, and delays in individual products.

Stanford prof:  Coronavirus may be less deadly than we think — and too mild to justify these aggressive countermeasures.  I offer this not to encourage complacency, of which there's already been far too much, but as a purgative after feeding you a horse-sized dose of hopelessness this morning.  John Ioannidis is a respected epidemiologist at Stanford.  His specialty is "metascience," i.e. calling BS on shoddy medical research.  The point of this new piece isn't to declare that the data on coronavirus is shoddy; the point is to declare that we just don't have enough of it yet to feel confident about how dangerous the disease is.  And that matters a lot when you're implementing policies with massive social repercussions like shutting down the global economy and passing trillion-dollar stimuluses.

Coronavirus Is Not Chinese Germ Warfare (Not Exactly).  Communist China's state media propaganda organ Xinhua just boasted that Beijing could choose to "impose pharmaceutical export controls which would plunge America into the mighty sea of coronavirus."  This, because almost all the chemicals used to make generic drugs in the U.S. are manufactured in mainland China.  Before you laugh off the threat, consider that the Food and Drug Administration just announced there is already one coronavirus-related drug shortage within the country, without identifying which drug.  This is the language of an enemy.  There can be no more pretending that China is anything less than exactly that.

Coronavirus Is the 'Chinese Virus'.  This week, President Donald Trump came under fire for his use of the phrase "Chinese virus" to describe the coronavirus, the source of the new pandemic that has led to a global economic shutdown as well as lockdowns of citizens in every major Western country.  That media have somehow found time to hone in on the one issue that matters least — the labeling of a Chinese virus as such — in the middle of an unprecedented planetwide freeze demonstrates the utter unseriousness of those objecting.  That the term should be controversial at all is nearly beyond belief.  The virus did indeed originate in China.  Most of all, that the Chinese government should be shielded in any way from the results of its own pathological and tyrannical misgovernment is perverse beyond measure.

Delayed Weekly Flu Report:  Death Toll 22,000, Including 144 Children.  For the first time since the week ending February 29, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released its Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report, which shows that the death toll from the seasonal flu has reached 22,000, including 144 children.  The CDC website notes the tardiness of the report.

China to revoke credentials of American journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.  Political skirmishing between Washington and Beijing escalated Tuesday when China announced it was expelling a large number of U.S. journalists working for three American news outlets in response to Trump administration restrictions on Chinese media here.  U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo condemned China's action and accused the Chinese of imperiling world health by cracking down on independent journalism during the widening coronavirus pandemic.

Tennessee Nurse Delivers Hilarious Coronavirus Rant.  President Trump spoke yesterday about social distancing and has given common-sense solutions to Americans to help everyone stay safe and well.  The mass media-driven hysteria has caused people to become frantic when it doesn't help anyone.

With coronavirus closures looming, Pennsylvanians run to the liquor stores.  Pennsylvania's 600 state-owned liquor stores are heading for a 9 p.m., systemwide closure tonight [3/17/2020] as part of Gov. Tom Wolf's broadening efforts to impose "social distancing" across the state to interrupt the spread of coronavirus.  But the decision appeared to have the reverse effect in the short term this week as buyers of all shapes, sizes and interests rushed to the state stores to make sure they had enough of whatever they like to ride out the storm.

I could face six months in jail for walking to the beach.  If you want to kill someone legally, hire them a personal doctor.  Extremely rich and powerful people from Garfield to Michael Jackson have made the mistake of thinking a personal doctor will keep them healthy.  But a doctor's whole job is to intervene.  Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains this in his book Antifragile.  With medicine, the successes are prominently displayed, while the failures are hidden.  That leads people to believe that medical intervention is almost always beneficial.  In reality, medical intervention is often not worth the risk if the potential payoff is small.  Only in severe cases, when doing nothing would cause great harm, does medical intervention outweigh the risks.  The doctor however, has a couple of incentives to intervene.  One is profit — they make more money.  But even the most honest doctor will err on the side of intervention.  Otherwise, if something happens to the patient, he could be blamed or even sued for negligence.  Unfortunately, politicians see themselves as society's doctors.

IRS to delay the April 15 tax payment deadline by 90 days.  Most Americans can get a three-month reprieve to pay their income taxes for 2019, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday [3/17/2020] in a press conference.  The IRS will postpone the April 15 tax deadline by 90 days for millions of individuals who owe $1 million or less and corporations that owe $10 million or less, he said.  To be sure, Americans still have to meet the April 15 deadline if they are expecting a refund or are requesting a six-month extension, but they can defer payment for up to 90 days beyond that.

Mid-crisis, Democrat Super PAC to Spend $5 Million Attacking Trump over Coronavirus.  A Democratic Party-aligned super PAC plans to spend $5 million on digital advertising to attack President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak — even as the nation struggles with the growing public health threat.

Illinois Primary Election:  Chicago election officials wanted polls closed due to COVID-19, IL Governor Pritzker said no.  As turnout tanked in Tuesday's [3/17/2020] Illinois primary, election officials in Chicago said they tried to get in-person voting called off by state officials and were turned down.  Predicting fear among voters and pollworkers, the chief spokesman for Chicago's Board of Election Commissioners Tuesday morning unleashed a critical attack on Illinois governor JB Pritzker and the state's decision to plow ahead with presidential primary voting in the face of a coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly all Cinemas close nationwide to contain coronavirus spread.  US movie theaters have closed nationwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, turning dark nearly all of the country's 40,000-plus screens in an unprecedented shutdown. [...] The largest chains had tried to remain open even as Hollywood postponed its upcoming release plans and guidelines for social distancing steadily diminished the recommended size of crowds.  But after President Trump on Monday urged against gatherings of more than 10 people, AMC Theaters, the nation's largest chain, said Tuesday its theaters would close altogether.

The Editor says...
Alternatively, instead of closing the theaters, they could limit attendance to 10 people per showing.  That way, the most completely addicted cineasts could get their fix, and the theater operators might break even, if everyone is required to buy Milk Duds, too.

Panic Never Helped Any Pandemic And Won't Start Now.  CNN Business calls it "a pandemic unprecedented in modern times."  That would probably include the so-called "Spanish Flu" pandemic of 1918-19 that killed more than 500,000 Americans, and perhaps 20 million to 50 million worldwide.  Coronavirus so far has killed fewer than 75 Americans, fewer than 7,000 people worldwide, and its growth internationally already is clearly slowing. [...] COVID-19 is just the latest, albeit the most extreme, in a long series of epidemic hysterias I have covered going back to the "heterosexual AIDS explosion" ("Now No One is Safe from AIDS") of the 1980s, avian flu, Ebola I and Ebola II, the Zika virus and others.  They are known scientifically as "mass psychogenic illness," and even more specifically as "moral panic" — the same type of hysteria that led to centuries of witch hunts.  Thus I was writing such articles as "Hysteria, Thy Name Is SARS" in 2003 while highly respected journals such as the New Scientist were screaming "SARS Could Eventually Kill Millions."  It ultimately killed only 774, and zero Americans, before simply disappearing in a hot July.

Donald Trump:  Americans Should Keep Gatherings Under Ten People to Defeat Coronavirus.  President Donald Trump urged Americans on Monday to keep their social gatherings under ten people as the country continues to face the coronavirus epidemic.  The president took the podium on Monday to announce the new government guidelines, including a requirement for young Americans to school at home and to avoid discretionary travel and eating and drinking in public and in restaurants.

Will the Real Victim of the Wuhan Flu 'Crisis' Be Your Rights?  Problems in Iran and Italy, where the coronavirus has wreaked havoc, have been repeatedly highlighted by the media, but they aren't parallels for the U.S.  Iran's health care system is, by most accounts, substandard and ramshackle, to be kind.  As for Italy, its population is far older, on average, than most other countries and thus more susceptible to the virus, which hits the elderly hardest.  As the New York Times recently noted, Italy has the oldest population in Europe.  Roughly 23%, about one in four, is over 65.  The average age is 47.3, compared to 38.3 in the U.S.  Moreover, the Italian health care system is less modern and less efficient than ours.  As a single-payer system, it suffers from underinvestment and rationing.  That means, letting people die as it is overwhelmed.

Is this panic over coronavirus justified, or not?  We'll soon know, but as of Monday, 69 people had died from the disease in the United States, 27 of them at a senior facility in Seattle, Washington.  Here's a piece of news that has been buried by major media.  An Associated Press headline read, "Most coronavirus patients recover, still anxiety, fear loom." [...] I wonder why fear and anxiety are looming?  Could the major media, which love promoting fear when it comes to hurricanes, also be promoting fear while mostly ignoring those who recover from the virus?  Last Friday, CBS reported on the number of people infected, but waited until the last sentence to say this:  "The vast majority of cases are mild, and almost half of those infected have recovered." [...] If the weather is difficult to accurately predict, why would anyone think forecasts related to a virus might be accurate and trustworthy?  I am no prophet, but just as other challenges have confronted America, we will recover from this one.

We Are in This Crisis because of the Decisions of the Chinese Government.  As a country, we've got our hands full right now.  But while we're sitting in various forms of self-quarantine, we — and a lot of other people around the world — will have a lot of time to read about the Chinese government destroying samples and suppressing information about the coronavirus in December:  ["]Chinese laboratories identified a mystery virus as a highly infectious new pathogen by late December last year, but they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples and suppress the news, a Chinese media outlet has revealed.["] [...] And the Chinese authorities spending January "denying it could spread between humans — something doctors had known was happening since late December — and went ahead with a Chinese Lunar New Year banquet involving tens of thousands of families in Wuhan."

10 Ways the Left Has Politicized the Coronavirus Pandemic.  [#7] Absurdly high mortality rate guesstimates:  Is there a better way to instill panic in the population than to make wildly absurd mortality predictions when you have no idea what you're talking about?  Probably not, but it's happened.  Recent estimates suggest the coronavirus has a mortality rate of 3.4 percent.  Yet last week, MSNBC contributor Dr. Joseph Fair told a panel that up to 20 percent of the U.S. population might die from the disease.  But, it's not just MSNBC pundits making absurd predictions that only serve to scare the public.  Last week, Amy Acton, the director of Ohio's Department of Health said in a press conference that she believed 100,000 Ohioans had already contracted coronavirus.  Because of her position, Acton, a registered Democrat who worked on Obama's presidential campaign, was believed to be speaking as an expert, but later admitted she was only "guesstimating," after other experts had significantly smaller estimates.

Thoughts and Ruminations on the Coronavirus.  [Scroll down]  Our government must respond to the dangers of the massive homeless situation in certain urban population centers, where the potential for another pestilence is evident.  We need to take care of those who will be heavily affected in their workplace by COVID-19, like those arena workers who will not be hosting the March Madness or sports activities.  We need our government to diversify our supply chains so that we are not so dependent upon any one country, such as China, for basic materials, and needs such as medicine.  And we can all look to how we can leverage more information technology to reduce our travel and close-quarters personal interactions.  But most importantly, we need to take individual responsibility for our healthcare.  If anything, COVID-19 has taught us that state- or government-controlled healthcare is not a viable solution.  It is lethargic and irresponsive to the ever-changing dynamic of medicine and healthcare.

San Francisco Initiates Forced Quarantine of all Residents, All Hours.  San Francisco has skipped the interim mitigation efforts and has announced a forced quarantine of all residents inside their homes 24-hours-a-day for the next three weeks.  A totalitarian dream.  All residents must remain confined inside their homes or residences and no-one will be permitted outside except for emergency services or monitored visits to the grocery stores.  The order remains in effect until April 7, 2020, and may be extended.

Is It Time To Panic Yet?  We'll all be eating at home for awhile it seems. [...] Like it or not it looks like we're headed for a full lockdown as a nation.  Every bureaucrat has the potential of becoming a despot.  Empowered by "a public health emergency" they are free to issue diktats at will with impunity.  Businesses and other venues are facing forced closures in an effort to stem the spread of Wuhan Flu.  Maybe this abundance of caution is the wisest course of action, but to us older, independent types enforced actions like this are abhorrent.  Especially when our overlords use our right of self-determination against us.

Left's Pet Issues Like Mass Transit, Reusable Bags Prove Deadly During Coronavirus Crisis.  With some experts predicting, at a minimum, anywhere from 480,000 to 1.6 million American deaths from the coronavirus over the next three to 18 months, how smart does urban living, mass transit, open borders, reusable straws, reusable grocery bags, reusable water bottles, gun restrictions, over-regulated housing, using the Centers for Disease Control to fight gun violence, and outsourcing to China look now?  Hey, we don't know what's going to happen with the coronavirus.  What we do know, though, is that between last Sunday and this Sunday, things went from Zero to Crazy in one week:  We shut down our economy, store shelves are empty or emptying, the president's on television every day, and there's serious talk of a national quarantine.

What's the COVID-19 end game?  Pretty much nobody's going to school on Monday [3/16/2020], thousands are working from home, stores are struggling to stock their shelves and health officials are scrambling to respond to an unknown number of patients who will be taken ill with COVID-19.  Unprecedented actions taken since Wednesday to halt the spread of the coronavirus, from the total shutdown of K-12 school districts to significant curtailment of public gatherings, will surely have significant social and economic costs. [...] The question is, what does all of this swift action buy?  How does it change the end game for the COVID-19 epidemic?  How long will it take for the highly contagious virus to run its course?  There are several factors at play.

The day the U.S. beat the virus.  Last Thursday [3/12/2020] probably 63 million Americans knew the President was going to ask us to slow down over the weekend, to stock up a little, stay home if possible, and maybe say a prayer for those afflicted.  The smart 63 million amongst us knew what he was going to say because it makes so much sense for so many reasons.  Then he said it.  And that's just what we did.  We took a breath when one was needed.  Those who could stay home did stay home.  We composed ourselves and went to work on the real problem.  We decided to deprive the disease of an easy shot at us.  I'm not a big fan of Trump rallies or Trump tweets, but I know when he is speaking right at me.  And I'm not alone.

The Atlantic Must Stop Covering For The Chinese Communist Party.  The Chinese Communist Party does not want to be held responsible as the source or for the spread of COVID-19, also rightfully known as the Wuhan virus.  This is entirely unsurprising for an authoritarian regime that has long deployed propaganda and manipulation.  What is surprising, and alarming for Americans, is that the U.S. publication The Atlantic would adopt China's anti-American disinformation efforts.  Since the outbreak began in Wuhan in early January, Chinese officials have concealed information about the spread of the virus, silenced and punished Chinese doctors who tried to warn others, ordered the destruction of lab evidence, and claimed the virus originated in the United States.  Instead of investigating or writing about China's propaganda machine working in real time as we watch the virus rapidly spread across the globe, journalists at The Atlantic are more interested in writing their own pro-China, anti-American virus hot takes.

Coronavirus vs. the Flu:  The Difference Between a 1% and 0.1% Fatality Rate Is Huge.  In congressional testimony this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the top medical experts in the Trump administration, said that the new coronavirus "is ten times more lethal than the seasonal flu."  On his radio show Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh was outraged that media reports focused on Fauci's comparison between the coronavirus's 1 percent fatality rate and the seasonal flu's 0.1 percent fatality rate.  Fauci also noted that the coronavirus's fatality rate is much lower than what has been reported by the World Health Organization.  The 3 percent fatality rate cited by WHO, said Fauci, does not account for many minimally symptomatic and asymptomatic cases.

Study: High temperature and humidity reduce transmission of coronavirus.  A paper by four Chinese professors concludes that high temperature and high relative humidity significantly reduce the transmission of the Wuhan coronavirus.  This conclusion is based on a study of all 100 Chinese cities with more than 40 cases of the virus.  The professors found that a one degree Celsius increase in temperature and a one percent increase in relative humidity lower "R" by 0.0383 and 0.0224, respectively.  "R" is the effective reproductive number of the virus.  As I understand it, if that number drops below 1.0, it means the virus is dying off faster than it is reproducing.  The authors note that their findings are "consistent with the fact that the high temperature and high humidity significantly reduce the transmission of influenza."

The Coronavirus Numbers Are Not Quite What They Seem.  Dr. Anthony Fauci, the articulate, veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, described at the presser how the efforts to prevent the spread — or "contain" the virus — would continue, but warned that we should expect the number of coronavirus cases in the United States to increase.  Fauci emphasized that the chance of becoming infected remains low and that the majority of those who contract the virus — 75 to 80 percent — will experience it like a "bad flu or a cold."  The other 15 to 20 percent, he said, may need "advanced medical care."  "For the most part, the people who get in trouble and ultimately tragically would die from this are people who are elderly and or have underlying conditions ... heart disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes, obesity," Fauci said.  Some of the "if it bleeds, it leads" media immediately jumped on the 15 to 20 percent figure, multiplied it by the entire U.S. population of about 330 million, and concluded that we might need 50-60 million hospital beds, for which we are unprepared.

Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE.  Dynamic graphic showing all Coronavirus cases, worldwide.

Every election year has a disease:

SARS   :  2004
AVIAN  :  2008
SWINE  :  2010
MERS   :  2012
EBOLA  :  2014
ZIKA   :  2016
EBOLA  :  2018
CORONA :  2020

Ohio jail to release hundreds of inmates amid coronavirus concerns: reports.  An Ohio county jail is evaluating the release of hundreds of inmates amid concerns about the spread of the coronavirus within the facility.  Judges in Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, held special hearings Saturday morning to settle pending cases with plea deals, release inmates into the public, place them on house arrest or send them back to prison, Fox 8 Cleveland reported.

What does the shelter in place order in the California Bay Area mean?  On Monday, several counties in the California Bay Area announced shelter in place order that will begin to be enforced at midnight Tuesday and affect about seven million residents.  Officials in the area hope that the order helps prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the area, which the Los Angeles Times pointed out is the state's hardest-hit area with 290 cases.  It is the first of its kind in the U.S., according to reports and lasts until April 7.

Dr. Ronny Jackson says Trump prevented American coronavirus pandemic on level of Italy, Iran.  Former White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson praised President Trump Monday night after he announced a list of guidelines that he and the White House coronavirus task force hoped will slow the spread of the pandemic within 15 days.  "The president has done everything he needed to do in this case," Jackson told "Hannity".  "He's acted quickly and decisively.  He did what he always has done ... he went with his instincts."  "He put together a top-notch team and he was criticized.... despite that, he carried on and did what he needed to do for our country.  He put the [China] travel ban in place," he added.

How Coronavirus Will Strengthen Trump's 2020 Campaign.  While the mainstream media have been running around yelling thtat the sky is falling and the left is criticizing Trump for not acting fast enough in curtailing the spread of the coronavirus, here's how it will end up helping Trump during his re-election campaign.  It will validate the need to continue with his two biggest campaign issues from 2016:  building a wall on the Mexican border and getting the United States off its dependency with China by re-balancing trade.  He's already succeeded more than anyone would have thought possible with both of these issues.  When the presidential campaign begins in earnest this coming fall, the Coronavirus "crisis" will be long over with, so Trump will be able to raise it as an example of why the United States needs secure borders and to reduce our dependency on China, especially when it comes to prescription drugs that have been outsourced to China.

Wuhan Flu Reminder:  Political Correctness Kills.  Political correctness is not just harmless virtue-signaling navel-gazing by a bored "elite" first-world populace.  It is both a weapon and a disease that kills.  On January 31, on a day when the entire national press corps was fully focused on unserious impeachment theater, President Trump declared a national health emergency and implemented a travel ban to and from China.  Apparently unhappy that Trump wasn't curled up in the fetal position, all the usual suspects on the left screamed bloody murder, convinced he was trying to distract from their important issue. [...] Quite simply, putting American lives first while shrugging off political correctness saved many lives, the number of which we will never truly know.

San Francisco Bay Area counties issue shelter-in-place order.  Officials in six San Francisco Bay Area counties issued a sweeping shelter-in-place mandate Monday [3/16/2020] affecting nearly 7 million people, ordering residents to stay at home and go outside only for food, medicine and outings that are absolutely essential.

Coronavirus and the Sun: a Lesson from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.  When new, virulent diseases emerge, such SARS and Covid-19, the race begins to find new vaccines and treatments for those affected.  As the current crisis unfolds, governments are enforcing quarantine and isolation, and public gatherings are being discouraged.  Health officials took the same approach 100 years ago, when influenza was spreading around the world.  The results were mixed.  But records from the 1918 pandemic suggest one technique for dealing with influenza — little-known today — was effective.  Some hard-won experience from the greatest pandemic in recorded history could help us in the weeks and months ahead.  Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors.  A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff.

America In a New Upside-Down World.  The world is changing at a pace not seen in years, and it is no time to become captives of fear despite the real and immediate dangers we face.  The coronavirus and the ensuing panic, at least for a few more weeks, have stagnated the economy and scared global financial markets, accompanied by both collateral, and independent and simultaneous, bad news.  Rumor- and panic-mongers predominate; the rational and reasonable are written-off as naïve and out of it. [...] he coronavirus helped remind the world that the Hong Kong democracy protests, the creepy 1-million-person reeducation camps for Uyghur Muslims, and internal Chinese Orwellian surveillance were characteristic not aberrant.  In a reductionist sense, it is not surprising that a China, systematically lying to and cheating its trading partners, cannot be trusted to tell the world how a virus was born on its own soil, spread among its population, and hopped oceans into other nations.

These NYC businesses are actually thriving during coronavirus outbreak.  The coronavirus is proving healthy for some city businesses.  While fears over the epidemic have shut down everything from Big Apple schools to nightclubs amid mass self-quarantining, there are still a few enterprises that have not only survived, but thrived.  Online booze delivery services, car rental firms and local bodegas are among the lucky ones, workers said Monday [3/16/2020].  "Friday, March 13, was Drizly's largest day ever in sales, beating out New Year's Eve and Halloween, which are usually our most popular days," a rep for the alcohol delivery service told The [New York] Post.

Sen. Rick Scott on coronavirus response: 'The federal government cannot solve every problem'.  Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told Fox News Monday the federal government cannot solve every problem presented by the coronavirus pandemic, which has affected people in 49 states and the District of Columbia.  Scott, who said he is self-quarantining after coming in contact with an infected member of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's entourage earlier this month, told "The Story" that state governments and private institutions can and have taken the lead on many aspects of fighting the contagion.

Mexico Is Dangerously Unprepared For The Inevitable Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak.  As much of the world goes into various stages of lockdown because of the Wuhan coronavirus, Mexico is in denial.  The government's response thus far has been to downplay the risks and carry on with life as normal.  Mexican officialdom has taken almost no steps to contain the virus or prepare for an outbreak, despite a warning last week from the deputy health minister that a widespread outbreak is inevitable and that community transmission could begin there in a matter of weeks.  When that happens — not if, when — things are going to deteriorate very quickly in Mexico.  The outbreak will almost certainly affect the entire country, cripple the economy, and threaten to bring down an already weak and corrupt government.

Feds consider coronavirus bailout for airlines.  White House economist Larry Kudlow confirmed Monday [3/16/2020] that authorities are looking closely at a bailout of the airline industry — though Kudlow said he prefers the term "liquidity fix."  Kudlow said that Trump administration officials are in touch with House and Senate leaders about options as the coronavirus outbreak tanks demand for flights.  The administration does not believe airlines will fail, Kudlow said.  But he added they are critical "channels" that cannot be allowed to close.

Trump Admin Dresses Down Chinese Ambassador About Wuhan Virus Lies.  While the media continues parroting Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda in the face of the Wuhan virus, the Trump administration is firing back.  In response to the outrageous charge from a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson that the U.S. Army might have been behind the transmission of the Chinese coronavirus to Wuhan, the State Department Friday summoned the Chinese ambassador to the United States.  CBS News reports that Ambassador Cui Tiankai met with Deputy Secretary for East Asia David Stillwell, wherein Stillwell corrected the record with what CBS's sources described as "a very stern representation of the facts." According to the report, State Department officials said the purpose of the diplomatic dressing down was "to put the government on notice we won't tolerate it for the good of the Chinese people and the world."

Red China gave Italy money and a virus.  Italy is second only to Red China in corona virus deaths, despite Rome being 5,382 miles from Wuhan.  Follow the money.  The virus did.  One year ago, BBC reported, "Italy joins China's New Silk Road project."  The project was Red China bailing out Italy financially when the European Union would not.  German bankers could not.  Red China with a billion-dollar-a-day trade surplus from the USA could.  Uganda and Tanzania are among the other nations that have become clients of Red China. [...] Red China helped create Italy's crisis, and Communists never let a crisis go to waste.

Coronavirus in Canada:  Trudeau closes borders to non-citizens, non-permanent residents.  Canada is shutting its borders to all travelers who are not citizens or permanent residents to help stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday [3/16/2020].  Exceptions will be made for flight crews, diplomats and immediate family members of Canadians — as well as, "at this time," American citizens, Trudeau said outside his residence, where he is self-isolating after his wife, Sophie, tested positive for the virus.  "All Canadians as much as possible should stay home," Trudeau added.

All nonessential stores to be shut down across Pennsylvania due to coronavirus.  Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is strongly recommending the closing of all nonessential stores in the state due to the coronavirus pandemic.  The governor's directive went into effect at midnight.  Wolf made the announcement at a Monday afternoon [3/16/2020] news conference.  The closures will be in effect for two weeks.

Kentucky police guard coronavirus patient who wouldn't self-quarantine.  A Kentucky coronavirus patient has been placed under police guard after refusing to stay under quarantine, the state's governor has revealed.  The unidentified 53-year-old man from Nelson County recently tested positive at the University of Louisville, but left against medical advice — and also refused to self-isolate at home, Gov. Andy Beshear said at a press conference.  A local judge declared a state of emergency in order to invoke a little-known statute that allows him to force a "self-isolation or quarantine," the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

Sen. Romney proposes $1,000 handout for U.S. adults in coronavirus stimulus.  Republican Sen. Mitt Romney proposed Monday giving a $1,000 handout to every American adult in an attempt to help the U.S. economy weather the coronavirus which is devastating markets.  The money is intended to "help fill the gaps" for Americans who are starting to have issues with their paychecks and bills.  The senator sees it as an additional step to the House-passed coronavirus bill that includes free testing, paid sick leave and solidifies unemployment benefits.

Coronavirus aid bill delayed for up to one week by Texas lawmaker.  An urgent bipartisan coronavirus relief package is being held up in the House by a single Republican congressman, who threatens to delay it for another week.  The billion-dollar package, which includes sick leave and free testing for affected Americans, was due to move to the Senate as soon as Monday night, but has since been met with objection from GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas.  The House passed the bill in the early hours of Saturday [3/14/2020] before the chamber took a one-week break amid the escalating pandemic, but it later emerged that the legislation had technical issues that needed to be corrected.

The Wuhan Virus Escaped from a Chinese Lab.  First of all, Wuhan is a place and not a race, and to identify the coronavirus by its place of origin, like naming the Ebola Virus for a river in Zaire, is not racist or xenophobic — it's merely accurate.  There is no racism or xenophobia in labeling an infection "Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever" or calling something "Lyme Disease" after a nearby town in Connecticut.  What calling this latest virus the Wuhan Virus is is a reminder of the multiple contagions China has spawned and released on an unsuspecting world.  Nor is connecting some very big, ugly, and obvious dots just another conspiracy theory to be dismissed out of hand.  From the beginning China has been less than forthcoming about this virus and resisted sharing critical data and access to WHO and CDC specialists.

Gun Sales Surging as Citizens React to Possibility of Civil Unrest over Coronavirus.  The Los Angeles Times reports that gun stores are one aspect of the economy seeing a surge in business as Californians react to coronavirus news.  According to the LA Times, the line of customers at the Martin B. Retting Gun Shop in Culver City stretched out the front door and around the block on Saturday.  Many of those in line waited five hours for their opportunity to buy a gun.

It's not just toilet paper:  People line up to buy guns, ammo over coronavirus concerns.  Ralph Charette, 71, said he bought a rifle and ammunition on Saturday to protect himself and his family as a wave of coronavirus panic sweeps across the country.  Charette, a military veteran, spent $1,500 at a gun shop in Germantown, Wisconsin, after encountering aggressive shoppers and empty shelves at local grocery stores.  Now, if looters come knocking, he'll be ready, he said.  "There's so much uncertainty and paranoia but you've got to protect your own," Charette said.

Optimism grows that drugs from past viral outbreaks may treat coronavirus.  Antiviral medicines created for past outbreaks like malaria, AIDS, amd Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) are being tested and showing early signs of success in treating the new coronavirus, experts say.  If the progress continues, medical experts in the United States could have a new regimen from drugs that are readily available and generally cheap to treat the most seriously infected patients and provide prophylactic protection for healthcare workers.

Did China Panic the World and Steal Our Wealth with a Common Cold?  If COVID-19 (scientifically known as SARS-CoV-2) had started in Singapore or Taiwan, it would have traveled the world, infected billions of people, killed millions, and there wouldn't have been a single peep about it.  "But it kills people," you cry.  That is what cold and flu do, especially to the elderly and those lacking basic medicines.  The world is panicking over a virus that causes mild colds in the vast majority of cases.  Amid the panic, China is profiting as it buys up stocks at bargain-basement prices.  Instead of engineering a pandemic, did China engineer pandemonium? [...] There are over 200 viruses that cause the common cold.  Among those are several strains of coronavirus, with a new strain discovered every few years.  Discovery occurs when a lab technician sequences a virus (a rather rare event) and submits to GenBank a previously unpublished sequence.  The newly discovered virus could have been endemic for millennia.

Here's Why the Deep State and Wuhan Virus Are Like White on Rice.  The Democrat-media complex and their Deep States allies have elevated the Wuhan virus crisis to virtually a mass hysteria over the past couple of weeks.  Their goal is transparent, of course:  to instill fear, to tank the economy, and to ascribe blame for everything on President Trump as a means of setting the table to take him out in the November election since their impeachment farce (and other gambits) have failed to get the job done beforehand. [...] This is precisely the reason why the Democrats and their lickspittle media are weaponizing the Wuhan virus crisis.  It is yet another overt attempt on their part to take out the president.  Compare their hysterical actions over the past few weeks to the virtual silence during the 2009 H1N1 swine flu epidemic.  Obama didn't even declare a national emergency until over 1,000 Americans had died of the disease, yet President Trump has been repeatedly castigated for his supposedly "chaotic response" to the Wuhan virus.

Dr. Oz: 'A Lot of People Had This and Didn't Realize It. 80% Had Very Subtle Symptoms'.  Dr. Oz appeared on Fox & Friends on Sunday morning [3/15/2020] and said something I hadn't thought about before.  He told the panel that many people have already had the coronavirus and didn't know it because 80% of patients experience very subtle symptoms. [...] Just shaking someone's hand, he said, doesn't mean you're going to contract the virus, especially if both of you washed your hands.  Though we're tired of hearing it, according to Dr. Oz, washing your hands alone reduces your chances of infection by 50%.  He calls it a do-it-yourself vaccine.  "It's that powerful."

Coronavirus by the Numbers; It's Not Nearly as Bad as the Press Wants You to Believe.  As I wrote in a previous piece, sometimes what might appear to be a huge medical challenge, such as the Coronavirus, when analyzed more closely, is really a logistical fight.  This will be especially true in the development, manufacture, and distribution of test materials and equipment.  This is a fight more suited to the private sector than the Center for Disease Control, as has already been most ably demonstrated by our allies, the Republic of (South) Korea.  These United States will ultimately and most assuredly win this fight.  Once fully ramped up, our ability to put large amounts of just about anything, where it is most needed is second to none.  Which brings us to a point made by my good friend and colleague, Nick Arama, who notes that once we flood the zone with test kits, the number of confirmed cases of Coronavirus will take a significant jump.  However, that might not portend bad news.

A Day at the Coronavirus Supermarket That Communist Bernie Would Have Loved.  As is evident by the composition of the freely elected House of Representatives, a slight majority of Americans are idiots.  Here, in the Sanctuary Homeless State — even more so. [...] I went to the supermarket today to pick up some food, a real supermarket like the one you go to: [...] And I could not believe my eyes:  The shelves were empty!  There was no food in the supermarket!  It was like Stalin's Ukraine, Communist Bernie Sanders's Moscow.  It was like Elizabeth Warren's fridge, sans the beer. [...] And the guy explained that there had been a run on the supermarkets because of the Coronavirus Scare.  People were hoarding, buying fifty of everything.  Toilet paper that will last them three years.  Canned peas, canned carrots, canned beans, canned sauerkraut. [...] All the soda was gone.  All the juices.  The paper towels, in case people run out of their toilet paper in 2023.

Gov. Newsom asks California bars to close, tells older residents to isolate due to coronavirus.  Faced with mounting coronavirus infections, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday [3/15/2020] issued sweeping new restrictions in California, calling for home isolation of everyone in the state age 65 and older, and people with chronic disease, both high-risk populations.  He also asked for closure of bars, wineries, night clubs and brew pubs, and called for restaurants to reduce their occupancy by half.  He called that "deep social distancing" and a "pragmatic response to the moment."

Starbucks to close some stores, eliminate seating in all others to slow spread of coronavirus.  In a bid to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Starbucks will temporarily close some of its North American locations and will shift to a "to-go" model at the rest of its more than 10,000 North American stores.  The closures, which were announced and implemented Sunday afternoon, will last at least two weeks and will affect company-operated stores in high-risk areas such as Seattle and New York, with a high number of cases of COVID-19, the highly contagious illness caused by the coronavirus, the company said in a statement Sunday afternoon [3/15/2020].

The Coronavirus Will Save America.  Imagine what the world will be like when 2022 arrives.  The coronavirus's effects will become so small that they will be lost in the noise of the day, but what will remain of its lessons?  First and foremost is that many lives will have been saved.  The hand-washing and sanitation precautions that will be permanently incorporated into American culture will diminish flu deaths in 2020, in 2021, in 2022, and perpetually.  Rather than 25,000 [to] 70,000 flu deaths annually, the numbers may drop by tens of thousands, even in 2020.  The spreading of America's sanitation obsession will impact not only its own population, but that of many nations, in a way that educators and health professional could never accomplish.  This saves lives — lots of lives.  Stubborn resistance to the onerous habits of sanitation will be broken down by this one virus's actions on the psyche of people.

Remember the H1N1 Pandemic?  I Don't Either.  Wuhan virus is not the first viral pandemic America has had to contend with.  The last one was the H1N1 virus from 2009.  How did America react to that last pandemic 10 years ago?  Does anyone have more than a vague recollection of H1N1, also known as swine flu?  No one will forget this current panic, but most have forgotten H1N1.  During the swine flu pandemic, were there mass cancellations of events including conferences, concerts, sporting events, and entire professional sports leagues?  Did colleges cancel classes, finishing the remainder of their semesters online?  Were travel restrictions imposed between America and Europe?  Were panicked Americans hoarding everything from toilet paper to pasta? [...] In 2009, congressional Democrat leaders weren't criticizing the president, instead they were trying to force through a government takeover of healthcare, known as ObamaCare.  Criticizing its namesake wasn't in the media's playbook and they all but ignored the swine flu.

Coronavirus 'emergency'? Oregon police ask people to stop calling 911 because they ran out of toilet paper.  A police department in Oregon is urging people that if they've run out of toilet paper, it's not worth calling 911.  The Newport Police Department posted the surprising message on its Facebook page as shoppers across the country have flocked to supermarkets to stock up on supplies amid the coronavirus pandemic that has put much of the world on edge.  "It's hard to believe that we even have to post this.  Do not call 9-1-1 just because you ran out of toilet paper.  You will survive without our assistance," NPD wrote.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine Orders All Bars And Restaurants To Close.  Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced that he will be issuing an order to close all restaurants and bars beginning at 9:00 p.m.  Sunday night [3/15/2020].  "I'm aware that this will impact many, many good workers," he said in a tweet.  "I can't tell you how sorry I am, but we will work to mitigate the suffering.  It is our goal to get everyone through this.  The order will shut down in-person dining.  Restaurants and bars will still offer carryout and delivery.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to order bars, restaurants to close dine-in services over coronavirus concerns.  Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will order all bars and restaurants in the state of Michigan to shut down their dine-in services in response to the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak.  A spokesperson confirmed the information Monday [3/16/2020] after Whitmer spoke with a TV station about it.  Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II tweeted the temporary shut-down would go into effect starting at 3 p.m.

No, the Trump administration didn't weaken US biodefenses.  Befitting their absurd deference to China's lies about the coronavirus (yes, they are lies), too many in the media are lapping up the Democratic Party talking point that the Trump administration gutted the National Security Council counter-pandemics effort.  It did not.  While the Trump administration has rightly reorganized the NSC away from the bureaucratic behemoth it became under the Obama administration, NSC bio-defense efforts have continued.  And as pointed out by the former NSC lead on the issue, Tim Morrison, these efforts were wide-ranging.  The key here is that the NSC's bureaucratic reorganization is being presented as a gutting of the nation's bio-defenses.  And that's plainly unfair.

As Coronavirus Spreads, Democrats Respond By Trying to End Trump's Travel Ban.  In the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, House Democrats are actively pushing to end the President's authority to implement new travel bans. coronavirus travel ban The No Ban Act is set to hit the House Floor Thursday [3/19/2020].  "Muslim bans are not who we are as Americans," Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) said, falsely defining it as Muslim in nature.

COVID-19 Panic Buying Reminds Us 'Price Gouging' Is Good.  New York Attorney General Letitia James told National Public Radio Friday that her office had "issued a total of six letters to merchants for price gouging of hand sanitizers and disinfectant sprays."  These are just a couple of a number of states in which anti-price gouging laws are in effect or where the attorney general is making threats against sellers who would charge market prices for goods.  We can expect others, whipped into a frenzy by ignorant and irresponsible media reports, as well as the usual "public interest" agitators, to do the same.

Coronavirus:  Biden's Scary Advisors.  The frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden, insists that President Trump has mismanaged the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak.  Yet the former vice president's hastily assembled "Public Health Advisory Committee" is made up of scary ideologues whose opinions on public health will comfort few voters during a pandemic.  They include a "medical ethicist" who advocates health care rationing to seniors, a "disaster preparedness expert" who shamelessly whitewashed erstwhile president Obama's bumbling response to the H1N1 pandemic, an Obama administration retread with no health care credentials at all, and a "global health expert" who makes wild projections without reliable statistical data.

In emergency pandemic move, Fed cuts rates to zero and will purchase $700B in bonds.  The Federal Reserve lowered its interest rate target to zero and announced large purchases of goverment bonds Sunday to protect the economy against the coronavirus pandemic.  "The effects of the coronavirus will weigh on economic activity in the near term and pose risks to the economic outlook," the central bank's monetary policy committee said in an unscheduled statement.  The Fed will also purchase $700 billion in goverment-backed bonds in the "coming months," a move it said was meant to ensure the functioning of financial markets.

White House: 'Unnecessary for Americans to Hoard Daily Essentials'.  The White House on Sunday reassured Americans that it was "unnecessary" to hoard grocery items in the wake of the coronavirus.  "Supply chains in the United States are strong, and it is unnecessary for the American public to hoard daily essentials," the White House said in a statement announcing that President Donald Trump spoke with over two dozen grocery store and supply chain executives.

America Must Act Now, and Act Big.  There are some significant lessons from Italy for Americans who want to get through this pandemic with minimum loss of life and economic damage.  President Donald Trump was right to cut off travel from China as soon as it was clear how big the pandemic was going to be.  He saved American lives and bought time for America to be more prepared as the pandemic developed.  When you realize that the current 1,016 deaths in Italy with a population of 60 million would be the equivalent of 5,400 deaths in the United States instead of the 41 deaths we have had so far, you can see what milder, slower and less aggressive responses might have cost in lives.  Then we would have needed to move to truly draconian measures of isolation and shutdowns.  By the same standard, Trump was exactly right to ban travel from Europe.  In fact, he was following the advice of his best medical experts.

Ohio, Ill.  Governors Order All 'Non-Essential' Businesses To Close.  The governors of Ohio and Illinois have ordered the closure of bars and restaurants in their states to keep people safe from the coronavirus.  Earlier on Sunday [3/15/2020], Governors J.B. Pritzker (D-Ill.) and Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) revealed they were considering the closure of non-essential businesses during an interview on "Meet the Press."  "If we do not act and get some distance between people, our healthcare system in Ohio will not hold up," stated Governor DeWine.  "The loss won't only be those impacted by COVID-19, but the danger is also to everyone else who needs hospital care for other issues."

Canceling Catholicism Until Further Notice.  "The Archdiocese of Seattle has been joined by numerous other dioceses, including those of Little Rock, Salt Lake City and Santa Fe, in canceling public Masses.  Major archdioceses, such as in Chicago and Newark, have undertaken similar precautions.  In Philadelphia, newly appointed Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez relieved Catholics of their Sunday Mass obligations," reports America.  In so doing, the Church is making Mass seem as nonessential as a rock concert.  It is hard to imagine the pre-Vatican II Church behaving so skittishly.  Churches are as vital to the soul as supermarkets are to the body.  If the latter remain open, why not the former?  It is not as if the coronavirus is the black plague.  For most people, it is a non-fatal flu that resolves itself.  Just as the church of Pope Francis pants after the trends of the moment, so it follows the world's panics too.

Who Has Passed Away, and Where, and Other Realities From the Coronavirus Front Lines.  Living right next to New Rochelle, I was certainly struck when I heard it was the epicenter of Wuhan-virus infection in the United States.  More than 100 of our nation's at least 1,663 cases are in the small city of almost 80,000 people, the result of a congregant inadvertently infecting others at the Young Israel of New Rochelle synagogue earlier this month.  That man, a lawyer who works near Grand Central Station in Manhattan, is currently hospitalized.  The outbreak prompted officials to create the nation's first "containment area," in New Rochelle, a suburb approximately eight miles from the New York City border.  What this means is that since Thursday (yesterday), houses of worship, schools, and other places used for large gatherings have been closed, in accordance with an announcement Governor Andrew Cuomo made earlier this week.

We didn't need an office of pandemics.  Beth Cameron, an expert in global health security and biodefense, complained in the Washington Post, "I ran the White House pandemic office.  Trump closed it."  Given President Donald John Trump's swift action to restrict travel to Red China and other infested places, the CDC's swift action to develop tests, and the reaction at the state and local level, what exactly would an Office of Pandemics do?  I mean besides get in the way.  Created in 2015, the office never handled a pandemic.  A pandemic is an emergency situation that falls on the shoulders of one man: the president.  Obama appointed Biden to head in reaction in the H1N1 pandemic in 2009.  President Donald John Trump appointed Vice President Mike Pence to head reaction to this one.  This is how it should work.  We should hold someone accountable.  Presidents who do not handle an emergency well wind up ex-presidents.

The Left Has America Shut Down.  For How Long?  And When is Next?  The most interesting phenomenon of this whole Coronavirus panic is the virtual certainty with which it tracks people's political leanings.  You may have noticed your liberal friends on social media are panicky and demanding society grind to a halt until... well, until some undetermined time in the future.  The same major media outlets that have been bashing President Trump around-the-clock for over three years have switched gears to stoking panic about how we're all going to die from Coronavirus (and bashing President Trump for it).  Democrat politicians are demanding draconian measures be taken to control the population (but not close the borders or re-think their free-for-all immigration policies).  You've likely had a number of events or routine gatherings canceled in your town.  If you follow your local social media pages, it's hard to miss that the same whiny liberals bashing and blaming President Trump for everything or going on feminist rants or calling everyone racist are the same people demanding that absolutely everything be canceled.

It's ridiculous that everyone's buying up all the toilet paper.  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, in search of T.P., I walked around a couple of Walmart stores.  There's plenty of fresh produce, though the coffee has been decimated and the breakfast cereal even more so, but only toilet paper is utterly absent, as far as I could tell.  There are still a few boxes of facial tissues and rolls of paper towels.  I spoke to a worker who said they get a new shipment of toilet paper every day, and it's gone within ten minutes of the pallet being put on the floor.  Even placing a grocery order for pickup won't get you that item, because they fill the orders by pulling from the shelves, and the shelf is empty.  I think about analogies for the situation:  the angel stirring the pool at Bethesda, and only the first one in benefits.  Hoarders being the top 1% in toilet paper wealth, and no Occupy group calling them on it or calling for redistribution.

The Democrats' Project Fear Will Fail.  Project Fear is ramping up, and it's only going to get worse.  The Democrats and the global establishment class do not care how many lives are lost or how much financial damage results.  They have only one concern: removing President Trump from power, silencing us, and bending the arc of history back toward the plutocratic governing elite.

Judge Cites Coronavirus as Reason for Blocking Trump Admin Food Stamp Work Requirements.  An Obama-appointed federal judge blocked a Trump administration rule that would have tightened work requirements for food stamps, citing the coronavirus pandemic as the reason she made her decision.  D.C. District Court Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell granted a preliminary injunction blocking the recent Trump administration rule on food stamps, which the USDA estimates would have reduced federal spending by $7.9 billion over five years and gradually weaned 755,000 people off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the government program in charge of food stamps.

San Francisco rolls out RVs for homeless amid coronavirus concerns.  The city of San Francisco preemptively rolled out 30 recreational vehicles on Tuesday (March 19) it said would be used to house individuals who do not have their own home and have tested positive for COVID-19, the highly contagious and sometimes fatal respiratory illness caused by coronavirus.  The 30 vehicles, which cost just above $440,000, were rented through June and were paid for by funds gained through Mayor London Breed's emergency declaration, will be available to individuals identified through the Department of Public Health or through health care providers, Francis Zamora, director of external affairs for the city's emergency management department, told reporters on Tuesday [3/10/2020].  Zamora said the main purpose was to have the vehicles ready in the event that the virus spreads further, affecting the city's most vulnerable, including some 8,000 people estimated to be living in shelters, on the streets, or with family and friends.

The Editor says...
[#1]  If they're living "with family or friends," they're not exactly homeless.  They're just mooching.  [#2] The homeless bums in the streets provide an ideal breeding ground for all sorts of diseases, not just the one that everybody seems to be worried about this year.  [#3] Renting some RVs through June solves nothing.  Where are the RVs going to be parked?  What happens in July, when the bums refuse to vacate the RVs?  Who's going to rent or buy an RV that was once used by a smelly homeless vagrant?  With no money of their own at stake, why would any of them maintain an RV in good condition?

Compared to what?  [Scroll down]  An example:  there were 34,200 deaths in the United States during the 2018-19 influenza season, estimates the cdc.  We did not shut down public events and institutions to try to slow the spread of the flu.  Yet we have already destroyed $5 trillion in stock market wealth over the last few weeks in the growing coronavirus panic, reports The New York Times, wiping out retirement savings for many.  The number of cases in most afflicted countries is paltry.  As of today, 127 countries had reported some cases, but forty-eight of those countries had fewer than ten cases, according to Worldometer.

Who Really Thinks Covid-19 Isn't A Weaponized Virus?  What kind of a virus born in nature tries to kill its host like that rather than reproduce and spread?  We'll talk much more later about where this came from, who designed it, and from where it was stolen, including ongoing police investigations.  But for now, this is what the virus does to inflict its damage.

Can Science Lead to Dumb Panic?  There is no question the coronavirus is a health threat to millions of Americans, especially the elderly and people with chronic illnesses.  We have to protect them.  What's disconcerting, though, is how many enterprises with no reported cases in towns with no community spreading were so fearful that they shut everything down.  Even when nothing really happens, it's a huge story — which is why many Americans hate the news media.

Devin Nunes: 'Media And The Left' Are Putting The Country Into A Panic' For 'No Reason'.  Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes accused the "media and the left" of "putting the country into a panic" over the coronavirus pandemic.  Appearing on Saturday night's "Watters World," Nunes drew from his own experience coming down with H1N1 to urge Americans to "remain calm."  [Video clip]

Johns Hopkins and Gates Foundation Hosted Coronavirus Pandemic Simulation Last October.  Just a few months before the Covid-19 outbreak, an exercise was held by world elites called Event 201, where they simulated a global pandemic of a coronavirus that transmitted from bats to humans.  Taking place in October, the event was hosted by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Bloomberg School Of Public Health, World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  The simulation analyzed the health impacts, as well as the economic, lifestyle, and trade fallout from the virus.

Bernie Sanders Calls for Construction of 'Emergency Housing' over Coronavirus.  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Saturday called for the construction of "emergency housing" as a means to address the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.  "We need to construct emergency housing to make sure that the homeless, survivors of domestic violence, and college students quarantined off campus are able to receive the shelter, health care, and nutrition they need," Sanders said on Saturday [3/14/2020].

Three Maryland Coronavirus Patients Make Full Recovery.  Three people have made a full recovery after testing positive for the Chinese coronavirus in Montgomery County, Maryland, recently.  Friday [3/13/2020], Montgomery County's Chief Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles said the first three individuals in the state who tested positive for the virus have been able to resume their everyday lives, according to Fox 5.

White House:  Donald Trump Tests Negative for Coronavirus.  President Donald Trump has tested negative for the coronavirus, the White House announced on Saturday evening [3/14/2020].

We're Paying The Price For The Death Of Journalism.  Coronavirus is a serious threat, but only to a very small segment of the population.  Hyping or downplaying it is profoundly unhelpful when honesty is needed.  But there isn't anyone trusted across the board in media to convey truthful information.  So you get manufactured panic and runs on toilet paper; supermarkets have empty shelves and fights break out over a lack of basics.  Media Democrats hype death totals without providing important perspective, perpetuating panic because it's good for ratings and their party.  More people are in danger from the panic being incited by pundits, politicians, and journalists than they are from coronavirus.  You'd never know that if you turned on your TV.

Trump's Ultrasonic Whistle Exposes Vermin Infestation.  Porous national borders aid the spread of infectious disease and given China's mendacious two-month secrecy about the Wuhan virus outbreak, the President's shutting down travel from China gave us a bit more time to cope with its spread despite the Chinese-created lag.  Europe's EU mandated open borders policy, in contrast, has made the continent the new epicenter of the pandemic.  Banning all flights of non-U.S. citizens and permanent residents from Europe as the President has done also gives us more time to respond.  Today all of Spain shut down.  Poland, defying the EU, has closed its borders.  Italy with hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers is a sad case where the medical facilities are so overwhelmed that doctors, suffering great emotional pain in the process, must remove life-saving equipment from the old and infirm to save younger patients.

America's Democracy Will Not Be Put into Quarantine.  Let me be crystal clear on this point:  we must know the truth, and only the truth, about the Chinese authority's inertia in reacting to the first manifestations of the virus, as well as the motivations behind Chinese communist party authority's (there is absolutely no difference between Chinese State and the Chinese communist party) deliberate misinformation and overt lies.  What is the Chinese end game here?  Why did they refuse to host American scientists, medical doctors, and health experts to assess the virus at a very early stage?  Why did they decide, at first, not to cooperate with the World Health Organization?  These are the kind of questions that law enforcement and military agencies should ask (and efficiently investigate).

American life in practical standstill amid coronavirus pandemic.  The surge of coronavirus cases throughout the United States and around the world has brought countries to a practical standstill.  While countries like Italy, Spain and China have declared complete lockdowns in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, life in the United States also has dramatically changed in just a week.  From work to entertainment to even worship, several aspects of American life have been reordered as health officials encourage the public to carry out "social distancing" to prevent the spread of the infection.

Germ warfare from a China press pool denizen?  China's CGTN, or China Global Television Network, is pretty much the RT News of China.  It's the state propaganda and disinformation operation most aggressively active, and watched, by spies, of any nation that pays attention to China.  Last February 2019, it was forced to register as a foreign agent.  So what weird stuff it is to read that one of its reporters has been caught at the White House gate with a high fever, which is a symptom of the highly contagious coronavirus.  The fever was in the 100-degree range.  You'd know if you had such a fever.  Yet the person was clamoring to get into a closed-quarters press briefing with other reporters and President Trump, which, if it were coronavirus he had, would be sure to spread that, (or else another illness) to Trump, his staff, and the press that follows him around.

COVID-19 and masks.  [Scroll down]  Masks won't keep you from getting COVID-19, or any other droplet bourne virus.  (At least, they don't reduce your risk very much.)  The paper face masks provide next to no protection in this regard, and the N95 masks aren't much better.  Droplet bourne viruses will still get on your skin, on your face, and into your eyes, and simple daily activities make you touch your skin and face and mouth and eyes and provide the viruses a path inside.  You don't need to inhale the virus to get it, and, if you do get COVID-19, it probably will be from some other pathway than inhaling it.  This is why frequent (*very* frequent) handwashing is important.  (Hand sanitizer is good, too.  If you use it frequently.)  Masks are useful, if *you* have the virus, in preventing you giving it to other people.  (Not a complete prevention, mind, but useful.)  So, if you are wearing a face mask in public during this epidemic, you are making one of two statements:  1) I AM INFECTED WITH THE COVID-19 VIRUS!!  or 2) I AM STUPID AND IGNORANT!!  This advice, by the way, applies to influenza as well.

Battling online coronavirus scams with facts.  Panic and confusion about the recent coronavirus outbreak spurred threat actors to launch several malware campaigns across the world, relying on a tried-and-true method to infect people's machines:  fear.  Cybercriminals targeted users in Japan with an Emotet campaign that included malicious Word documents that allegedly contained information about coronavirus prevention.  Malware embedded into PDFs, MP4s, and Docx files circulated online, bearing titles that alluded to protection tips.  Phishing emails that allegedly came from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were spotted, too.  Malwarebytes also found a novel scam purporting to direct users to a donation page to help support government and medical research.

Reporter Who Works For Chinese Gov't-Controlled Media Denied Access to WH Briefing Because He Had Fever.  The White House was taking the temperatures of reporters entering the press briefing today by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.  That's probably a smart idea to limit any possible exposure to them.  In the process, they picked up one person who they didn't recognize who had a fever.  The man was tested three times over a period of fifteen minutes and was over 100 each time.

President Xi Tries to Peddle his Propaganda on the World Stage and Discovers that Power has Limits.  Chinese officials are learning the hard way that propaganda and the heavy handed tactics they use on their own citizens won't fly on the world stage. [...] An article in The Scientist says that "Lijian has also retweeted a link to a known conspiracy site that claims the virus may have originated at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick in Maryland, which was shut down in August after biosafety lapses with a number of pathogens.  The website goes on to speculate that the virus went from Ft. Detrick to e-cigarettes to Hawaii to Wuhan.  There is no evidence the pathogens in Maryland ever left the lab and there's an equal lack of evidence supporting any of the other claims."  These wild allegations have been circulating on Weibo, which is a popular Chinese social media platform.  It's likely that some Chinese people believe them.  The smarter ones, who know what their government is capable of, probably don't.  But, they go along with it because those who speak the truth in China have a funny way of disappearing.

Derp: AOC Advises People to Eat at Home Just Days After Calling People 'Racists' for Eating at Home.  Earlier this week, I wrote about how Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) conducted an Instagram Live chat on Tuesday night in which she accused people who were avoiding Chinese restaurants during the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak of "straight-up racism."  To recap, here's what she said in full:  "Honestly, it sounds almost so silly to say, but there's a lot of restaurants that are feeling the pain of racism, where people are literally not patroning Chinese restaurants, they're not patroning Asian restaurants because of just straight-up racism around the coronavirus." [...] But fast forward a few days and we see that Ocasio-Cortez is singing a different tune.  Now it's ok to "eat your meals at home" and engage in social distancing because she says so.

'Nothing wrong with godly principles': Ben Carson lauds Trump for National Day of Prayer declaration.  Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson praised President Trump's call for a National Day of Prayer as the coronavirus outbreak grips the nation.  As Vice President Mike Pence and officials of the White House Coronavirus Task Force provided updates to the public on the growing COVID-19 pandemic, Carson spoke on the upcoming National Day of Prayer tailored to boosting morale among the public.  "I hope that we as a nation can use this as an opportunity to pull together for good.  You know, President Trump is going to be recommending a National Day of Prayer.  And you know, we've gotten away from prayer and faith a lot in this country," Carson said during the Saturday press conference.

Canada Restricts Travel, Considers Closing Borders Citing COVID-19 Concerns.  Friday, Prime Minister Trudeau announced Canada would be restricting inbound flights, recommending everyone stay in the country, and is considering closing borders to mitigate spread of COVID-19.  Trudeau's wife Sophie recently tested positive for the Wuhan Coronavirus.

Media members react to 'straight talk' from surgeon general: 'Quite a prescription'.  Members of the media ripped Surgeon General Jerome Adams after he reprimanded journalists for their coverage of the White House response to the coronavirus.  Many journalists suggested Adams was imposing a double standard with his criticism of "partisanship" in the media's reports of the coronavirus because he did not mention remarks from President Trump that have blamed Democrats for their alleged role in the pandemic's spread.  "Quite a prescription from the surgeon general.  Reporters are reporting after a series of mess ups by the government in their response to the coronavirus," said New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman.

Will the 2020 Election Be Postponed Because of the Coronavirus?  In 2016, many people (liberal ones anyway) asked what would happen if Trump wouldn't concede the election to Hillary Clinton.  In 2019, the same people asked what would happen if Trump doesn't concede the 2020 election if he loses.  Again, a silly question, because the transfer of power isn't dependent on the concession of the candidate, regardless of whether he or she is an incumbent.  After Louisiana postponed its primary on Friday, the big question of 2020 is whether the coronavirus outbreak might cause the 2020 election to be postponed.  In fact, unhinged liberals on social media have been "predicting" this will happen for weeks.

Trump Just Added More Countries to Coronavirus Temporary Travel Ban.  It's been a big week on the coronavirus front.  In an Oval Office address on Wednesday, President Trump announced a ban on European continental travel to and from the U.S. Now the president has added more countries to that ban.  Saturday [3/14/2020] the president added Britain and Ireland to the list — a mere two days after meeting with Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.

Hindu group hosts cow urine drinking party to ward off COVID19 — what could go wrong?  "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," the old saying goes.  But what do you have to consume to protect yourself from coronavirus?  According to one Hindu group in India, the answer is simple — a tall glass of cow urine.  Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (All India Hindu Union) will be hosting a cow urine drinking party to test their belief that the golden substance will help protect their bodies against the pandemic known as COVID-19.  Because their religion says that cows are sacred, their urine is alleged to have medicinal properties.

The Editor says...
Once in a while, a story like the one above appears in the news, and one must wonder what century these people think they're living in.

'No more bickering': Surgeon general slams media for 'finger-pointing' at Trump administration over coronavirus response.  Surgeon General Jerome Adams ripped into reporters during a White House press conference, telling them they should stop blaming the Trump administration for their response to the coronavirus outbreak.  "We really need you all to lean into and prioritize the health and safety of the American people," Adams said at the Saturday press conference.  "No more bickering.  No more partisanship.  No more criticism or finger-pointing."  The comment comes as the United States remains far behind many other countries in testing response.

School closures of 8 weeks or more may better mitigate coronavirus spread, CDC says.  Closing schools for eight weeks or more may have a greater impact on mitigating the spread of the novel coronavirus than two- to four-week closures, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.  Shorter-term closures will likely make little difference in the spread of the disease, new CDC guidance states, even as K-12 school districts across the country began announcing school closures within the shorter time frame.  Further, short-term closures may actually have detrimental effects, negatively impacting older caregivers at home, the CDC said.

Trump Physician:  Coronavirus Test and Quarantine Not Warranted for the President.  President Donald Trump's physician on Friday issued a letter explaining why it was not necessary for the president to get tested for the Chinese coronavirus. "[G]iven the president himself remains without symptoms, testing for COVID-19 is not currently indicated," Sean Conley, Navy physician to the president, wrote late Friday night in a letter released by the White House press office.

Ohio Official Who Claimed 100,000 Covid-19 Cases in the State Says She Was 'Guesstimating'.  The director of Ohio's Department of Health, Amy Acton, shocked a lot of people on Thursday when she said in a press conference that she believed 100,000 Ohioans had already contracted Covid-19. [...] The Columbus Dispatch offered effusive praise of Acton for being a "voice of knowledge." [...] But Director Acton forgot to mention a small detail about her Apocalypse Now statement; it wasn't true.

Forget About Coronavirus- There's a New Pandemic in Town.  Coronavirusmania has overtaken America.  Although there are no reported cases anywhere near some school districts, their doors have been closed thus forcing children to go to school until August.  Others are considering remote learning assuming every student has a computer at home.  Every night, the lead story on the news is about coronavirus, the latest statistics, the latest cancellation. [...] The CDC's latest statistics show that there are 1,629 confirmed cases in the United States.  Although there is at least one case in 47 states now, the vast majority of them (792 of the total) are in Washington and New York.  There have been a reported 41 American deaths attributed to the virus.  Put in perspective, during the 2017-18 flu season, 80,000 Americans died from the flu and just this past winter flu season, 350,000 Americans were hospitalized with the flu.  Translation:  coronavirus has some catching up to do.

Coronavirus: Facts vs. Panic.  Coronavirus is nothing to sneeze at.  But so far, widespread panic may not be justified.  You should know:
  •   Almost all of the reported coronavirus deaths in the U.S. happened in long-term care facilities in Washington State.  And almost all of those occurred at the same facility.
  •   Most people who get coronavirus have mild or no symptoms.
  •   No young or middle-age people have died of coronavirus in the U.S.
  •   Most around the world diagnosed from January [to] March 1 have already recovered.

Greening Our Way to Infection.  The COVID-19 outbreak is giving new meaning to those "sustainable" shopping bags that politicians and environmentalists have been so eager to impose on the public.  These reusable tote bags can sustain the COVID-19 and flu viruses — and spread the viruses throughout the store.  Researchers have been warning for years about the risks of these bags spreading deadly viral and bacterial diseases, but public officials have ignored their concerns, determined to eliminate single-use bags and other plastic products despite their obvious advantages in reducing the spread of pathogens.  In New York State, a new law took effect this month banning single-use plastic bags in most retail businesses, and this week Democratic state legislators advanced a bill that would force coffee shops to accept consumers' reusable cups — a practice that Starbucks and other chains have wisely suspended to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus.

Also posted under Banning plastic bags.

Using tote bags instead of plastic could help spread the coronavirus.  The COVID-19 outbreak is giving new meaning to those "sustainable" shopping bags that politicians and environmentalists have been so eager to impose on the public.  These reusable tote bags can sustain the COVID-19 and flu viruses — and spread the viruses throughout the store.  Researchers have been warning for years about the risks of these bags spreading deadly viral and bacterial diseases, but public officials have ignored their concerns, determined to eliminate single-use bags and other plastic products despite their obvious advantages in reducing the spread of pathogens.  In New York state, a new law took effect this month banning single-use plastic bags in most retail businesses, and this week Democratic state legislators advanced a bill that would force coffee shops to accept consumers' reusable cups — a practice that Starbucks and other chains have wisely suspended to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus.

Older or Unhealthy:  The first 48 U.S. coronavirus deaths in detail.  As Americans spend their first full day under a presidentially declared national state of emergency, many are wondering about the profile of those who have succumbed to the coronavirus so far.  The number of U.S. deaths has been growing since the first one reported in Washington state on Feb. 29.  The victim's name was not released, nor were details of his circumstances.  But officials said he lived in King County, was in his 50s, and had "underlying health conditions."  As of Friday, the total number of U.S. deaths attributed to coronavirus stood at 48.  All but 11 of the deaths were in Washington state.  Of the total deaths reported through March 13, more than half (25) were from the Life Care Center nursing facility in Kirkland, Wash., where a serious outbreak occurred.

U.S. Gen. Robert Abrams on Coronavirus:  South Korea Is 'Trending Downward and Looking Good'.  U.S. Army Gen. Robert Abrams, commander of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) in South Korea, said Friday that trends in South Korea, where there are more than 20,000 U.S. troops stationed, "are trending downward and looking good" in terms of the spread of the Chinese coronavirus.  "Currently, South Korea trends are trending downward and looking good," he said at a Pentagon video-conference briefing on Friday.

Executive order in Champaign could include banning sale of firearms, ammunition and alcohol.  Champaign Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen has issued an executive order declaring an emergency in the city.  City officials said the emergency is related to the COVID-19, which is anticipated to cause an impact on the health of community members.  Champaign Municipal Code allows the mayor to declare an emergency for a limited time.  Included in the executive order are ordinances that would give the city extraordinary powers to the Mayor.
  •   Violating parts of the Open Meetings Act
  •   Ban sale of firearms and ammunition
  •   Ban sale of any alcohol
  •   Closing of all bars, taverns, liquor stores, etc
  •   Ban sale or giving away of gasoline or other liquid flammable or combustible products in any container other than a gasoline tank permanently fixed to a motor vehicle
  •   Direct the shutoff of power, water, gas, etc
  •   Take possession of private property and obtain full title to same
  •   Prohibit or restrict ingress and egress to and from the City
There are no confirmed COVID-19 cases in central Illinois as of Thursday evening [3/12/2020].

The Editor says...
This is tyranny, whether it is for a limited time or not.

Donald Trump Declares National Day of Prayer Amid Coronavirus Battle.  President Donald Trump announced Friday on Twitter a National Day of Prayer on Sunday as the country combats the spread of the coronavirus.  The National Day of Prayer will take place on Sunday, March 15.

Quantifying How Well the Trump Administration Is Doing on Coronavirus.  The debate over the Trump administration's handling of the coronavirus (COVID-19) is remarkably devoid of hard data comparisons.  With President Trump's decision on Wednesday to expand travel restrictions to the European Union, it is time to evaluate the very different approaches to travel restrictions that the U.S. and the E.U. have taken.  The end of January seems long ago.  Until January 30th, the World Health Organization (WHO) explicitly declined to classify the coronavirus (COVID-19) as a global emergency.  It urged countries not to restrict travel or trade.  The WHO announcement on travel was partially in response to the U.S. government's January 27th recommendation that Americans "avoid all non-essential travel to China."  But the U.S. went still further.  On January 30th, the State Department warned Americans to completely avoid traveling to China.  On January 31st, President Trump suspended the entry of all non-U.S. citizens coming from China.

The Real Threat to Our Democracy During Coronavirus.  If there ever was a real threat to our democracy in today's rancid political climate, it emanates from Pelosi, Schumer, and the Democrats who follow them like lemmings.  This coronavirus first appeared in November 2019.  By December 31, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan knew about it and were on alert.  Singapore knew on January 4.  South Korea on January 8.  By January 9 the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control were onto it.  And what was Congress doing during this time?  We all recall that December was consumed with impeachment, and that the House rushed at double-time speed to impeach before Christmas, then held up the Senate and sat on the articles.  As late as January 9, while the WHO and Europeans were latching onto the new disease, Pelosi still was focused on her cat-and-mouse game.  On January 15 she was handing out souvenir pens and finally delivered the impeachment papers. [...] The Democrats now blame Trump for coronavirus, for any shortages of hand sanitizer, for financial ramifications.  It all is cynical and dishonest, pure lies and garbage.

Delta Air Lines suspends all travel to Europe amid travel ban.  Delta Air Lines is suspending all flights to continental Europe and sidelining 300 of its planes as the coronavirus continues to spread and upend the travel industry.  In an internal memo to the airline's 90,000 employees, Delta CEO Ed Bastian said "demand for travel is declining at an accelerated pace daily, driving an unprecedented revenue impact."  He said the move is the largest "capacity reduction" since the 9/11 attacks.

Fights, Thefts, Arguments as Toilet Paper Mania Wipes Across Globe.  Society is seemingly melting down all around us, and there's a run on toilet paper.  Seriously.  Why?  Has toilet paper production been cut?  No.  Are we running out of trees?  Nope.  Coronavirus is largely a respiratory ailment.  But that hasn't stopped a collective freakout over the bare necessity of having clean bottoms.

Ben Rhodes slapped with reality check when he longs for Obama leadership under coronavirus outbreak.  Repeatedly disgraced former Obama administration national security adviser Ben Rhodes stepped in it mightily Wednesday by daring to suggest without evidence that the coronavirus outbreak would have been handled better under his former boss.  [Tweet]  While the tweet doesn't boast a ratio, in large part because of Obama sycophants who falsely view former President Barack Hussein Obama as an infallible, majestic figure outnumbering those who view him realistically, it did attract some jarring criticism.  Why?  Because during the former president's eight year veritable reign of terror, millions of Americans were infected by and at least 12,500 died from the swine flu.

Coronavirus crisis a major test for America — So why are Biden, DSCC raising money off it?  The country faces an enormous challenge — the possibility of a pandemic that could result in the death of thousands, force the quarantine of hundreds of thousands, cause millions to work from home or lose their paychecks, perhaps crater permanently a large number of small enterprises and force the country into a recession.  So what is Biden's response?  Raise money off the crisis as it heats up.  And cleverly, get your fundraising pitch more widely distributed at no cost by asking recipients to share the speech with family and friends, hoping they'll "read all the way through" and see the appeal for campaign cash.  He wasn't the only Democrat raising money off the American people's fears and suffering.

Trump Finds His Footing On Coronavirus, Despite the Democrats.  [Scroll down]  What was called for was a plan of action, not placatory assurances apparently based on the president's doubtless sincere belief in his scientific intuition.  Over the next few days, the White House pulled itself together and the president gave a purposeful address from the Oval Office on Wednesday [3/11/2020], only the second of his term.  It was clear from watching opposition television coverage and listening to Democratic spokespeople that they are trying to worry the issue to death, frighten the country out of its wits, escalate partisanship, blame it on Trump, and incidentally spare Vice President Biden the danger of going more than seven minutes unscripted opposite Senator Sanders.  CNN and MSNBC commentators mocked the president's delivery, but the country will wish to follow him.  The Democrats will claim that Mr. Trump is blaming China and Europe, but almost 80% of the reported coronavirus cases in the world are in China, Iran, South Korea, and Italy.

Banning the Sale of Firearms and Ammunition Because of Wuhan Virus.  The mayor of Champaign, Illinois has declared a town emergency over the Wuhan coronavirus that includes a potential ban on the sale of firearms and ammunition.  According to a local report from WAND 17, Champaign Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen has issued an executive order that would give her office "extraordinary powers."  She has issued the order despite the town and surrounding area not having a single case of the disease.

Toilet Paper:  The Chinese Giveth And The Chinese Taketh Away!.  There has never before come a time when I felt the need to ponder the fate of toilet paper.  But here we are: the year is 2020 and the wealthy United States is running out of toilet paper.  As it turns out, toilet paper was invented by the Chinese in the 1st Century.  By the 6th Century, it was in widespread use.  The toilet paper roll with easily detachable squares was patented in 1891.  But in March of 2020, American retailers ran out of toilet paper because the Chinese coronavirus fear seized the sanity of our people.

Is Anyone Asking Questions During Coronavirus?  It gets very hard to ask questions when nearly all of the media and government and many of those you live near and work with are all wringing their hands in unison.  COVID-19 or coronavirus has many scared and scrambling. [...] Stores weren't having runs on hand sanitizer and toilet paper in January.  Or February.  Or even the first week of March.  Why?  Because the media was talking about the Democrat's horse race.  Biden was nearly done politically.  Super Tuesday was just around the corner.  But coronavirus was already here and spreading fast.  Likely as early as the second half of last year.  I'm prepared to suggest thousands of Americans have already contracted coronavirus, blew it off as the flu or a cold, and moved on.  As they should.

Ayanna Pressley:  I Have Proof My Constituents Are Succumbing to Racism During Outbreak.  Again, statements like these aren't helping.  We already have CNN calling President Trump a racist and xenophobe for using accurate terms like "foreign virus" to describe the COVID-19 outbreak.  But Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) is now accusing her constituents of more of the same.  "Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, we have seen not only the spreading of the virus but also a rapid spreading of racism and xenophobia," Pressley said at a recent hearing.

Biden goes all in on corona virus.  Joe Biden made it official that he hopes to ride corona virus into the White House.  Never let a crisis go to waste, as Rahm Emanuel said.  Seizing on this issue is ghoulish, which is bad form, but also foolish, which is bad politics.

Wall Street Elites Made Us Dependent On China.  As America faces possible shortages of antibiotics, face masks, iPhones and various other items now produced in China, it's time to consider how we got here.  Although it looks like the blame lies with thousands of businesses in different industries, in this case, we'd do well to round up the usual suspects, a smaller number of players operating in one particular industry:  big finance.

Brazilian president who shook Donald Trump's hand 'tests POSITIVE' for coronavirus.  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who dined with President Donald Trump on Saturday at Mar-a-Lago, tested positive for coronavirus, according to local reports.  Trump, who shook hands with his Brazilian counterpart at that meal, has not gone into voluntary self-quarantine, despite CDC guidelines describing someone in his situation as 'medium risk' for infection.  Instead, the president announced he would hold a press conference at 3 p.m. on Friday at the White House on the coronavirus.  There he will declare a national emergency, Bloomberg News reported, which would open the door to more federal aid for states and cities.

Monkeys fight for food in Thailand after coronavirus slows tourism.  The coronavirus could be behind a vicious gang war — between rival groups of monkeys in the streets of Thailand.  Hundreds of macaques reportedly from two rival gangs were filmed swarming the streets of Lopburi then savagely battling each other for a single banana.  The monkeys are usually well-fed thanks to the tourists who flood the city in central Thailand — but are going hungry because of the drastic drop in visitors to the Asian nation because of COVID-19 fears.  "I think the monkeys were very, very hungry," onlooker Sasaluk Rattanachai, who filmed the fight, told DailyMail.com.

For Italy, multilateral globalism, plus socialism, equals death.  Italy's in dire need of help.  Its health care system is collapsing.  The coronavirus has put the whole country in quarantine.  There are now 15,000 cases, along with 1,018 deaths, the last 24 hours bringing in 188 more.  The casualty count is the highest outside China.  And it's spreading fast.  Until a few days ago, the problem as concentrated in the north.  Now, it has spread throughout the whole country.

The Masters and other major golf tournaments are postponed due to coronavirus.  The 2020 Masters golf tournament has been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, Augusta National Golf Club chairman Fred Ridley announced on Friday [3/13/2020].

Trump's Approval Rating Goes Up Despite Media Onslaught over Coronavirus Panic.  President Trump's Rasmussen approval rating increased on Thursday to 48% up a point since Wednesday.  This is despite the continued media onslaught over the coronavirus panic.  Barack Obama had a 47% approval at the same point in his presidency.

COVID-19 is terrifying — as a weapon of political propaganda.  The president delivered an address last night about the Wuhan flu, aka novel coronavirus, aka (if you want to sound scary/scientific 'COVID-19').  The speech was brief, but to the point.  It outlined a number of practical steps that the administration has taken, and would be taking, to slow the spread of the disease, help those who contract it, and — just as important — rescue the market from the panic that has surrounded this malady.  The wretched Jim Acosta, court jester on CNN, complained about Trump calling the virus 'foreign' and his identifying the source of the virus as China.  That was 'smacking of xenophobia' said the babbling head.  I wonder if he feels the same about calling German measles 'German measles', worries that Ebola is named after a river in Africa, its source, or that Zika is named after some other God-forsaken place in the dark continent.  How about Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever:  is that racist about the Rocky Mountains, Jim?

Justice Dem Fundraises Off Wuhan Virus, Says School Closures Constitute Voter Suppression.  A Justice Democrats-backed candidate is trying to cash in on fears of the Wuhan virus, claiming in a fundraising email that Ohio State University's decision to cancel classes is a form of voter suppression.  On Monday, the public university canceled all in-person classes and told its nearly 45,000 undergraduate students to stay home through March to contain the coronavirus.  Morgan Harper, a far-left Democrat, took to Twitter to criticize the decision.

Woman who survived coronavirus shares her early symptoms.  At last comes a measure of reassurance about the effects of the global pandemic:  A woman who has fully recovered from coronavirus is a living, breathing beacon of hope.  Elizabeth Schneider, 37, had a relatively mild experience with the sometimes-deadly virus, for which she treated herself at her home in Seattle, Washington.  So far, the Northwestern state has suffered the highest number of deaths — at least 30 — in the US from the disease.  Schneider, who has a doctorate in bioengineering, told the Agence France-Press she was sharing her story "to give people a little bit of hope."  Her story is more common than one might think:  US health authorities say 80% of cases have been mild.

Coronavirus Achieves a Longtime Democratic Goal.  It was inevitable, after the coronavirus outbreak spread to the United States, that the Democrats would call on President Trump to cancel his public campaign rallies.  Putting an end to them has been a longtime goal of their party.  Knowing that these events increase GOP enthusiasm, while drawing large numbers of Independents and even rank-and-file Democrats, party leaders have produced countless pretexts for demanding that Trump put a halt to them.

The silver lining in the Wuhan Virus.  The Wuhan Virus is causing major disruptions in the U.S., from the stock market to the economy to social gatherings of all sorts. [...] I see three upshots to this Wuhan epidemic in the U.S. There are probably more, but these three stand out in my mind.  [#1] Businesses now see that their precious supply chains and just-in-time inventory models are laden with risk.  Also, the American public and even our brain-dead political class are now aware of the folly of being dependent on China for so much of our essential goods, especially prescription medicines and health care products.  Both these factors will accelerate the relocation of U.S. businesses out of communist China.

Coronavirus Spread Echoes Iran's Destructive Influence.  According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) — a coalition leading the push for a democratic alternative to the clerical regime — more than 3,000 deaths can already be attributed to an outbreak that has encompassed 139 cities across every Iranian province. [...] The NCRI issued a full report on the scale of Iran's COVID-19 outbreak on March 10.  As well as contradicting Tehran's lowball estimates for the numbers of infections and deaths, the report details the ways in which authorities bungled their response to early reports of the illness spreading from China to Iran.  It also notes that the epidemic is rapidly spreading within a number of Iranian prisons, facilitated in large part by the regime's chronic disregard for the well-being of prisoners, especially political prisoners.

Joe Biden Blasts Trump's Coronavirus Response, Then Plagiarizes Trump's Plan.  On Thursday [3/12/2020], Joe Biden slammed President Trump's response to the coronavirus outbreak while speaking in Wilmington, Del., on Thursday afternoon.  "The administration's failure on testing is colossal and it's a failure of leadership, planning, and execution," Biden said.  "This virus laid bare the severe shortcomings of the current administration."  Biden went on to suggest things that should have been done.  And if you thought they sounded familiar, you're right, because immediately after blaming Trump for not doing enough, Biden suggested things that have, in fact, already been done.

Newsom executive order allows California to commandeer hotels, motels to house coronavirus patients.  Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California Democrat, released an executive order on Thursday [3/12/2020] that includes the authority for Sacramento to take over hotels and motels for medical use for coronavirus patients, in a move he said will help the state of 40 million prepare for any widespread outbreak.  Some patients in the state have already been moved to hotels.  The Desert Sun reported that a 120-room hotel in San Carlos, which is near San Francisco, has been already tapped to house passengers from the Grand Princess cruise ship.  The first-term governor told reporters that besides hotels and motels, state officials are also scouting for potential lodging in "mothballed" facilities and state parks.  The executive order, according to the report, has been designed to allow the state's Health and Human Services Agency and the Office of Emergency Services to commandeer private property for coronavirus treatment.

Also posted under Property rights and property seizures.

Democrats Pushed Impeachment While Coronavirus Spread.  We now know the cost of impeachment.  While Democrats were diverting the attention and energy of the entire country into a pointless trial that could not possibly have ended in anything other than President Donald Trump's acquittal, the coronavirus pandemic was beginning in China and arriving in the United States.

Trump's Been Right About Trade With China This Whole Time, and the Coronavirus Pandemic Proves It.  When Trump came into office making big and bold statements about challenging China's trade supremacy and negotiating better terms with them, the Jim Acosta set on the left began wringing their hands about his "dangerous" rhetoric.  They said he was going to start a trade war that would decimate the American economy.  They said he would start World War III.  They said he would lose against China.  Trump just kept on Trump-ing.  He told us he didn't think the trade deals were fair — they weren't.  But he told us something else that few people were really paying attention to in all the media-driven hysteria.  Trump told us even from the beginning of his 2016 run that our dependence on China was reaching dangerous levels and we needed to return to a time when we didn't depend on them for so much.

U.S. weekly jobless claims drop, but coronavirus layoffs loom.  The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week as employers continued to hold on to their workers, but the coronavirus pandemic is expected to lead to an increase in layoffs as companies battle supply chain disruptions and sagging demand for some goods and services.

Pelosi Plays Politics Puts "Forced Permanent Paid Sick Leave" Into Coronavirus Bill.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to exploit the coronavirus issue to pass a litany of permanent laws inside what was supposed to be a temporary legislative bill to assist those economically impacted by the coronavirus mitigation efforts.

The Democrat's Wuhan Coronavirus Bill Is Disgraceful, Partisan Trash.  In the face of a declared pandemic, you'd hope that Democrats in the House could put together a decent, clean bill that addresses only immediate issues dealing with the response to the Wuhan coronavirus.  That seems like a perfectly reasonable expectation for people who are trusted to do what's best for the country.  But nope, instead of looking to pass something with bi-partisan support that doesn't contain contentious provisions, Nancy Pelosi decided to do what she always does.  Namely, load the bill up with unrelated pork and abortion funding.

Republicans oppose Pelosi's coronavirus legislation, flagging 'major' problems.  The White House and congressional Republicans have poured cold water on the House Democrats' coronavirus legislation to provide economic relief to Americans, signaling there won't be immediate broad bipartisan support for the pending bill unless it undergoes changes.  One senior administration official said the White House has "serious concerns" with the measure put forth by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., late Wednesday [3/11/2020] to help families deal with the economic hardships of the pandemic.  And House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the legislation "comes up short."  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., panned the bill as an "ideological wish list," putting the legislation in limbo.

Leftists celebrate when recent photo shows Trump with Brazilian aide just diagnosed with coronavirus.  Based on whom he met with just days ago, President Donald Trump may very well be the next notable American to be diagnosed with coronavirus.  Over the weekend, the president met with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his top staffers, including press secretary Fabio Wajngarten, [...] Five days later on Thursday [3/12/2020], the Brazilian daily newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo revealed that Wajngarten has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Trump 'Not Concerned' About Contact with Brazilian Aide Who Tested Positive for Coronavirus.  A Brazilian official who met with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida last weekend tested positive for the coronavirus.  Fabio Wajngarten, who serves as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's press aide, was part of a Brazilian delegation who dined with the president over the weekend.  He's suspected of contracting the virus while in the United States.

Globalization May Be the Greatest Victim of the Coronavirus.  Should it ever settle down, the lasting impact of Covid-19 will probably be cultural.  Physically the pandemic has seemingly left the world's infrastructure untouched.  The accumulated deaths, while tragic, appear thankfully few compared to war.  What obviously died was the confidence of the End of History.  What Covid-19 ended was the illusion of control.  Before the virus, world leaders had big plans for the future.  Now they will be happy to survive the present.  As with every crisis, there will probably be some winners.  Telecommuting, online learning, delivery services, cleaning gangs, failover suppliers, etc. may see an uptick.

Hillary Clinton Tells President Trump How to Deal With Wuhan Virus Crisis, It Doesn't Go Well.  Rather than directing their anger at the Chinese government, the left has chosen President Trump as their punching bag.  I think his administration has been handling it just fine.  He's not a magician.  He couldn't have prevented this.  No matter what actions he takes to address the Wuhan virus crisis, the left will criticize him.  Even those who don't really know what he has or hasn't done.

Joe Biden's 'Plan' for Dealing With Wuhan Virus Was Mostly Plagiarized.  [Scroll down]  The 'social distancing' guidance has been circulating for nearly two weeks.  Actions to prevent spreading are already being done at various places across the country based on the call of local officials.  In New York, Governor Cuomo let his inner fascist loose and called out the National Guard.  Other, more civilized, places have relied upon school closings and voluntary curtailment of travel and gatherings. [...] Wuhan virus is a foreign virus.  Period.  Labeling diseases based on their origin is traditional, no 'xenophobic.'  If the administration is to be criticized anywhere, it is in messaging.  President Trump acted early, and was blasted by Democrats who are subservient to China, in banning travel to and from China as it remains the epicenter of the infection.

The Left Needs to be Inoculated from Bias with the Facts.  The complaints about Trump's response are uniform but the criticisms are completely infantile.  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy recently sent out a notice that instructed people where they could go for updated information on the outbreak that has dominated the news.  "Everything you need to know about the Chinese coronavirus can be found on one, regularly updated website."  It was both a vital contact point to what the government is doing, as well as a sound rebuttal to the constant bleating we are served about how the administration is doing little in response.

Senior citizens more defiant despite coronavirus vulnerability, poll finds.  Senior citizens seem to be the least concerned about the coronavirus pandemic despite being the most vulnerable to contracting serious complications from the illness, a new poll found.  A Harris Poll taken from March 5 to 9 found that seniors are more likely to exhibit more defiant behavior than millennials as the illness continues to spread.

Schumer says New York will receive $750M a month from coronavirus bill.  New York is set to get $750 million a month in coronavirus economic stimulus legislation that's currently being finalized, Sen. Chuck Schumer tells The [New York] Post.  The Democratic Senate minority leader said Thursday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signed off on the Empire State funding and that he hasn't heard of objections from the White House or Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is negotiating with Pelosi.  New York has at least 328 cases of COVID-19 — one of the nation's worst outbreaks, with 95 cases now inside city limits.

Chinese Foreign Ministry suggests U.S. Army sent coronavirus to Wuhan.  A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Thursday accused the U.S. Army of sending the coronavirus to China, a charge expected to be countered by the Trump administration as disinformation.  Zhao Lijan, spokesperson and deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry information department, made the claim on Twitter, a social media platform banned in China.  Mr. Zhao asked in a tweet when the first patient to contract the disease caused by the virus was detected and how many people were infected.

Any economic stimulus must be focused on slowing spread of the coronavirus.  From an economic perspective, the dilemma is this:  The more aggressive a country is in limiting interactions, the better for slowing down the virus and thus the better for helping the economy in the long run.  The problem is, those actions will cause pain in the short term.

Dr. Fauci:  Coronavirus in U.S. Would Be 'Worse' Without Trump's Travel Bans.  Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says the outbreak of the Wuhan, China-originated coronavirus would be "worse" if not for President Trump's implementation of travel bans on China and Iran.  During a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing, Fauci told lawmakers that without Trump's travel bans on China and Iran to halt all travel and migration from those two countries, the spread of the coronavirus would have been worse in the U.S.

Trump tries to tame the pandemic panic.  I wrote and scrapped a post about how the panic is worse than the pandemic.  The post was true but useless, because in the 21st century feelings matter more than facts. [...] We are not as familiar with death as our ancestors were, and we fear what is not familiar to us.  This explains why the governor of Maryland declared a statewide health emergency after 3 people contracted this virus.  More than 300 people are murdered in Baltimore each year.  No health emergency.  3 people catch a virus and Governor Hogan goes in full alert panic.

President Trump Suspends Entry From EU Schengen Area — Outline of Travel Restrictions.  President Trump previously took executive action under sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, to restrict entry from China, Hong Kong, Iran and South Korea.  Today President Trump is extending entry restrictions to the EU "Schengen Area".  The EU nations impacted include:  Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.  This is a prudent step because these are EU nations, under their collective assembly, who permit unrestricted travel without border enforcement or containment measures.

The Editor says...
I read the news every day of the year, and I've never heard of the Schengen Area.

Trump: Pelosi's Coronavirus Bill Stuffed with Unrelated 'Goodies' for Democrats.  President Donald Trump said he did not support the proposed emergency funding bill by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released on Wednesday night [3/11/2020] to fight the coronavirus.  When asked by reporters if he supported the bill, Trump replied, "No, because there are things that are in there that have nothing to do with what we are talking about."

Expert: Excessive Authority Held by FDA Delays US Coronavirus Response.  Overregulation of diagnostic testing has played a major role in delaying the U.S. response to the coronavirus outbreak.  The existing rules have created a bottleneck in delivery of testing kits, slowing the process of detection of cases in Washington state for weeks, said a health policy expert.  "The problem is a holdover from the Obama administration," Roger Klein, a physician, attorney, and health policy expert, told The Epoch Times.  "It's not a rule.  It's not written down anywhere," he said.  "I don't know if anybody in the Obama administration was even aware of it.  This is a pretty obscure area."  However, the Food and Drug Administration "got more assertive during the Obama administration and tried to get control over clinical laboratory testing" said Klein, who is also a former advisor to the FDA and former director of molecular pathology at Cleveland Clinic.

A Tale Of Two Pandemics:  Media Downplayed Swine Flu Outbreak Under Obama.  [Scroll down]  The day before the WHO's declaration of a pandemic, for example, CNN posted a story calling the coronavirus outbreak "unprecedented in modern times."  Unprecedented?  Really?  Do CNN's reporters and editors not know about the flu pandemic of 1918?  Or even the swine flu pandemic of 2009?  Although everyone seems to have forgotten the swine flu was even a thing, it infected nearly 61 million people in the U.S. from spring 2009 through early 2010.  And it claimed more than 12,000 and as many as 18,000 lives, according to a Centers for Disease Control study published in 2011.  In total, the disease is now believed to have caused more than 200,000 deaths worldwide.  (As of this writing, confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. are a little over 1,700, with 40 deaths attributed to the virus. [...])

House pulls bill that would rescind prior Trump travel ban amid coronavirus outbreak.  Republicans say the No Ban Act, which would rescind the controversial travel ban of several majority-Muslim-countries, would hinder the president's ability to mitigate the spread of the virus in the U.S.  "Democrats could not have picked a worse week to try to undermine American travel restrictions," Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on the House floor Wednesday.  "President Trump's quick decision to restrict travel to countries like Iran and China was a smart response and it is helping keep America safe."

Bernie Sanders Calls for Trump to Be Replaced on Coronavirus by Congress and 'Experts'.  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called for authority over the coronavirus outbreak to be handed to an emergency bipartisan group of experts and to Congress rather than President Donald Trump.  Sanders called on President Trump to declare an "emergency" — something Trump already did on Jan. 31 — and then added that the president should essentially, be replaced: [...] Sanders did not explain what constitutional mechanism he would use to transfer the president's authority.  The democratic socialist from Vermont also blamed America's health care system for the crisis, saying the U.S. was at a disadvantage "because we do not guarantee health care to all people as a right."

The Editor says...
It is not the function of the federal government to keep everyone healthy, to pay for everyone's doctors, or to spread money around after a natural disaster.  The government is to provide for the common defense, and guarantee our freedom, not our safety.  Neither health care nor health itself has ever been a right.

Biden Calls Trump Racist For Stating The Fact That Wuhan Virus Began In China.  In Wednesday night's primetime White House address announcing new travel restrictions to Europe, Trump pointed out that the novel coronavirus wreaking havoc on global public health and stock markets around the world began in China, accurately referring to it as a "foreign virus."  Many on the left, however, have been quick to decry the label as "racist" and "xenophobic," although it's common practice to identify a new disease with the site of its first outbreak, such as the West Nile virus and Spanish Flu.  In this case, however, it is even more important to identify the new coronavirus with where it originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, as the Chinese government attempted to cover up warnings and brushed off the threat of its severity, giving rise to what the World Health Organization has now declared a global pandemic.

Chinese Official Blames US For Introducing Coronavirus To Wuhan, Says US 'Owes Us An Explanation'.  A Chinese official suggested Thursday [3/12/2020] that U.S. officials introduced coronavirus into China's Wuhan region as the virus makes its way to the West from the communist nation.  "The director of the US Centers for Disease Control was arrested," Lijian Zhao, deputy director of China's Foreign Ministry Information Department, said in a tweet suggesting Centers For Disease Control Robert Redfield was apprehended by authorities.  Redfield was not arrested.

GOP Chair Explains, In Terrific Thread, What Dems Were Doing While Admin Has Been Working to Address Wuhan Virus.  Many Democrats have been focused on how to attack Trump over the virus, how to politicize it, not how to actually help with the situation.

Trump on Coronavirus: 'Put Politics Aside, Stop the Partisanship, and Unify as One Nation and One Family'.  President Donald Trump delivered an address from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening on the coronavirus outbreak, asking Americans to put "politics aside, stop the partisanship, and unify as one nation and one family."  Trump spoke calmly and in measured tones from a prepared text as he recounted the administration's steps thus far to fight the spread of the illness, which the World Health Organization declared a "pandemic" earlier Wednesday.

Coronavirus Fears Fed by Soviet-Style Agitprop From Russia, China, and Iran.  Never letting a crisis go to waste, propagandists are using the coronavirus to spread disinformation and conspiracy theories about the United States.  In China, Russia, and Iran, conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus are swirling through government-run media outlets, pointing fingers at the U.S. military's biological-warfare labs or the CIA.  Not only do these falsehoods distract from identifying the real source of the problem (the Chinese government's delayed public acknowledgement of the epidemic), they also slander the image of the United States globally.  The Chinese military news website Xilu.com recently wrote that the coronavirus virus is "a biochemical weapon produced by the U.S. to target China."

Xi Jinping's coronavirus body of lies.  As with Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward," Xi Jinping's coronavirus legacy is built on a mountain of bodies and lies.  I note this because Xi Jinping has just taken a victory tour in Wuhan, where the coronavirus first spread.  Believing China has turned the corner with this pandemic, China's leader is looking for positive global recognition.  He deserves global recognition of the exact opposite kind.  This crisis captured the Chinese Communist Party's most basic essence:  its opacity and evil.  And Chinese, Americans, Iranians, and people everywhere else are suffering for it.

CDC Official: 'We Do Not Expect Most People to Develop Serious Illness'.  Nancy Messonnier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday that health experts "do not expect most people to develop serious illness."  In her opening remarks, Messonnier explained that there are two different risk pools for contracting coronavirus.  "Risk can be looked at in two ways," Messonnier said."There is risk of being exposed and getting sick from this virus, and there is risk of getting very sick or dying from illness with this virus."

Two Asians assaulted in coronavirus-fear-fueled hate crimes: cops.  An unhinged hypochondriac punched an Asian woman in Midtown over coronavirus fears — one of two anti-Asian attacks to in the city in less than 12 hours, police said Wednesday.  The back-to-back unprovoked attacks are being investigated as possible hate crimes, cops said.  A 23-year-old woman was the first to be ambushed on 34th St. near Fifth Ave. when a stranger, described as a black woman in her 20s, began screaming at her at 10:30 a.m.  Tuesday [3/10/2020], authorities said.  "Where's your coronavirus mask, you Asian b----!" the woman screamed before socking the victim in the face and running off, cops said.

The Great Coronavirus War Is Upon Us.  To win its war against Americans, COVID-19 must infect and sicken lots of Americans each day.  If it cannot infect enough victims to multiply and sustain a hungry army of viruses, COVID-19 will soon sputter and die.  It will get trapped in just a few hosts among an otherwise victorious and healthy nation of about 330 million.  Nature has given COVID-19 some weapons that its defeated cousins — the H1N1 swine flu and the MERS and SARS viruses — lacked.  It is more clever by being less lethal — and a little tougher in its ability to live outside a host.  Viral resiliency ensures that it rarely turns into a suicide bomber by dying with a terminally sick host, and that it does not perish so quickly when orphaned in the air and on surfaces.

Coronavirus Was Just Labeled a 'Pandemic,' But Don't Panic.  Here's Why.  The World Health Organization just announced that there are enough cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus) to declare a global pandemic.  The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says he's never before heard of a coronavirus becoming a pandemic.  This is a first.  And he also added that it's the first time a pandemic could be controlled. [...] At the same time the UN organization made the announcement in a series of tweets, it downplayed the coronavirus effects:  "Of the 118,000 #COVID19 cases reported globally in 114 countries, more than 90 percent of cases are in just four countries, and two of those — and [China and South Korea] — have significantly declining epidemics — 81 countries have not reported any #COVID19 cases, and 57 countries have reported 10 cases or less.

The Editor says...
If 90 percent of the coses are in just four countries, that's not a pandemic.  A pandemic is when a disease is prevalent over a whole country or the whole world.  That is not the case at this moment.

Inside China's high-stakes campaign to smear the United States over coronavirus.  If you listened to Chinese state-run media, you'd think President Trump went to China and released vials of COVID-19 on groups of unsuspecting men, women and children.  Beijing has been bending over backward trying to convince the world that the United States is the real culprit behind the quickly spreading virus that's already claimed more than 4,600 lives across the globe.  It's a high-stakes strategy for the Asian nation fighting to keep its superpower status amid a national lockdown and palpable anger over claims that Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus, at first covered it up, triggering a worldwide health and economic crisis.

14-day COVID-19 quarantine no longer necessary in Sacramento County, officials say.  People worried they may have been exposed to the coronavirus no longer need to endure a 14-day quarantine in Sacramento County, according to health officials.  The Sacramento County Department of Public Health announced Monday it has moved past trying to contain the virus and is now hoping to mitigate its impact as new cases are reported.  Placer and Yolo counties also announced they are shifting strategies in stopping the spread of COVID-19.

Chaos After Colleges Tell Students to Stay Away.  The day after colleges across the country suspended classes over fears of the coronavirus, Abigail Lockhart-Calpito, a freshman from San Antonio, ran across the Harvard campus trying to get answers. [...] The abrupt disruption of the semester caused widespread concern and a feeling of chaos on campuses across the country.  Administrators saw spring break as a chance to reset the clock in the battle against the coronavirus.  One after the other, like dominoes, they announced they were suspending classes and asking students to pack up and go.  Low-income students wondered whether they could afford to go home.  International students had questions about their visas, which usually did not permit online learning.  Graduate students worried about the effects on research projects years in the making.

NBA suspends season after player tests positive for coronavirus.  The NBA officially suspended the 2019-2020 season after a Utah Jazz player tested positive for the coronavirus.  Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the virus on Wednesday evening, and the decision to pause the season was made shortly thereafter, according to ESPN.  After he tested positive, players on both his team and the Oklahoma City Thunder, their Wednesday night opponent, were quarantined in the arena, and the game was canceled.  The Jazz revealed in a statement that Gobert was tested for influenza, strep throat, and an upper respiratory infection on Wednesday [3/11/2020], according to ESPN.  Then, after his symptoms diminished throughout the day, he was tested for the coronavirus, and it came back positive.

Trump's strategy to contain coronavirus is extreme but necessary.  President Trump's strategy to contain the coronavirus and prevent its continued spread is exactly what the country needs.  Trump announced Wednesday night in an Oval Office address that the federal government will be restricting travel from Europe, with the exception of the United Kingdom, for the next 30 days.  Insurance companies will waive all co-pays on coronavirus tests.  Trump also called on Congress to take legislative action to aid small businesses, workers, and all those who might be financially affected by this pandemic.  He added that the Small Business Administration would aid companies harmed by the pandemic through low-interest loans.  Make no mistake:  These are extreme steps.  But they are also serious and necessary steps.

Trump says he will ban all travel from Europe for 30 days.  President Trump announced a 30-day travel ban from European countries Wednesday night [3/11/2020] to arrest the spread of the coronavirus, a significant escalation in the administration's efforts to address the pandemic.  "The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots," Trump said.  "As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe."  The restrictions, which will go into effect Friday at midnight, will not apply to the United Kingdom, and U.S. citizens and residents will not be denied entry.

Democrat Response to Coronavirus:  End Trump's Travel Bans on China, Iran.  House and Senate Democrats are responding to the coronavirus outbreak in the United States by supporting measures to effectively strip President Trump of his authority to impose travel bans to protect American citizens.  While Trump has implemented travel bans on China and Iran — two of the most coronavirus-affected nations in the world — House Democrats are looking to roll back the president's authority to enact travel bans from regions of the world.

Trump to Media:  If I Were Sick, You Would Tell Me About It.  President Donald Trump said his doctor sees no need for him to get tested for the coronavirus after having had contact with Republican congressmen who decided to self-quarantine after having contact with someone with COVID-19.  Reps.  Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Doug Collins (R-Ga.) are among several members of Congress who have self-quarantined for 14 days after learning they had contact with someone diagnosed with the coronavirus who attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Here's an example of unnecessary panic being spread in a left-wing publication:
Close the Theaters.  Close the Opera.  Close the Concert Halls.  It's time to close.  Opera, theater, movies, clubs, bars — these places of leisure are vectors for accelerating the spread of a disease that takes advantage of the human instinct to get on with life no matter what.  Going out for the evening often means jamming bodies together at rush-hour levels of intimacy.  We jostle for a drink at the bar, wait on packed lines, dance in wriggling masses, navigate claustrophobic lobbies, and sit for hours with strangers breathing down our necks.  (And don't even think about the bathrooms.)  A visiting Martian might conclude that the whole point of live entertainment was group physical contact.  As a critic, I make my living as a consumer of cultural events.  Even so, it's easy for me to call for a shutdown.  I'm not the one who'll be hemorrhaging millions every night or facing months of unemployment.  Nobody should underestimate the trauma that even a relatively brief period of darkness will inflict.

The Editor says...
I haven't been to the State of New York since 1969, but one could easily presume that every public attraction in a major city is sure to be crowded, e.g., a shopping mall on a weekend, or public transportation at rush hour.  On a congested freeway, at least everyone is in his own vehicle.  Anyone who lives in an area of high population density is there voluntarily, and has most likely adapted to the ambient conditions long ago.  If you don't like crowds, and you're afraid of germs, stay out of the theater!

Biden schedules 'virtual' events in place of in-person campaigning because of coronavirus.  Joe Biden is taking his campaign events virtual in response to growing concerns about crowded public events helping to spread coronavirus.  Instead of in-person events in Chicago, Illinois, and Miami, Florida, on Friday and Monday, the campaign will hold "virtual" events in those places.  Additional details on the virtual format have not been announced. [...] The change in campaign style comes as large events across the country are being canceled and discouraged while public officials scramble to manage COVID-19 outbreaks and prevent worsening a global pandemic.

Stunned Mark Cuban emphasizes 'This isn't about basketball' as NBA halts season.  Mark Cuban's jaw dropped when Dallas Mavericks vice president of basketball communications Scott Tomlin sat next to him early in Wednesday's third quarter and showed him the email from the NBA league office announcing that the rest of the season had been suspended.  "This is crazy.  This can't be true," the Mavs owner told ESPN's Tom Rinaldi during an in-game interview, summing up his initial reaction.  "I mean, it's not within the realm of possibility.  It seemed more like out of a movie than reality."

US has restricted travel to and from these countries amid coronavirus pandemic.  The Trump administration will suspend travel between European countries and the United States for 30 days as the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic continues to grow.  The measure will go into effect at midnight Friday, Trump said during a nationally televised message from the White House on Wednesday.  He said the "strong but necessary" restrictions would not apply to the United Kingdom.  After his address, Trump also stressed the travel restriction applies to people and will not impact trade.  "The restriction stops people not goods," he tweeted.

House Democrats unveil coronavirus package to expand food stamps and sick pay.  House Democrats late Wednesday [3/11/2020] unveiled a 124-page spending measure to address the coronavirus pandemic meant to aid workers and families set to have their lives disrupted. [...] The House measure includes provisions that would entitle workers to paid sick leave and added time off for coronavirus patients and and establish a federal funding for "emergency leave" for people quarantined by the illness or caring for others affected.

Limbaugh: Media, Dem Leaders Have 'Gleeful' Attitudes About Coronavirus.  Conservative talker Rush Limbaugh said during his nationally syndicated radio show on Wednesday that Democratic Party leaders and the media had "gleeful attitudes" about the coronavirus outbreak.  Limbaugh said, "I'm telling you, folks, I'm I that there's so many red flags about things happening out there.  This coronavirus, all of this panic is just not warranted.  I'm telling you.  When I tell you what I've told you that this virus is the common cold when I said that it was based on the number of cases.  That's also based on the kind of virus this is.  Why do you think this is called COVID-19 is the 19th coronavirus.  They're not uncommon.  Coronavirus are respiratory cold and flu viruses."

A Pep Talk for America.  [Scroll down]  The task before us is daunting but achievable.  The United States has 52 million citizens above age 65, and according to the CDC, 21.7 percent of those people are in "fair or poor health."  We've got anywhere between 10 million and, say, 15 million Americans who are immunocompromised.  There is some overlap between those groups.  Let's say we have 25 to 27 million Americans who are particularly at risk from serious health problems from coronavirus.  As Brian Williams and Mara Gay recently illuminated for us, America has 327 million people.  That means that the 300 million of us who at lower risk for serious health problems from coronavirus have to figure out a way to protect the other 25 million or so.  This isn't just a crisis, it's a mission.

Since When Are Viruses Racist?  In the identity politics world of the progressive left, everything is racist. [...] Cold weather, air, dogs, solar eclipses, and farmers markets are also considered racist to the woke progressives.  So, it's no surprise that something so small that it cannot be seen with an ordinary microscope is also said to be racist.  I speak of a virus, the "Wuhan virus," to be specific.  Or the "Chinese Coronavirus" to use another term.  This virus is busy causing not a mass epidemic, but mass hysteria, leading people to empty store shelves of toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  Also known as COVID-19, the Wuhan virus, like so many of its predecessors, is named based on where it was first identified, in this case, Wuhan, China.  In an intellectually functional society, claiming a virus name is racist would be nonsensical.  But in America, where thoughtful discussion is replaced by cliched outrage and common sense has been relegated to history books, the name "Wuhan virus" has become the latest trigger for the left.

Next Democratic debate to be held without an audience, DNC and CNN announce.  The next Democratic debate set to take place in Phoenix, Arizona will be held without a live audience due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, the Democratic National Committee and CNN announced Tuesday [3/10/2020].  "At the request of both campaigns and out of an abundance of caution, there will be no live audience at the Arizona debate taking place on Sunday, March 15th," said DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa in a statement.  "The DNC has been in regular communication with local health officials and the mayor's office, which advised that we could proceed as planned."  Hinojosa added that the party's top priority "has and will continue to be the safety of our staff, campaigns, Arizonans and all those involved in the debate."

'Trump's Chernobyl': Media Wuhan Virus Hysteria Stokes Public Panic.  Since the coronavirus came on the horizon, media figures have been stoking panic, leading to mass shortages of basic health supplies, business travel cancellations, and market drops, all while the confirmed disease number hiked yesterday [3/10/2020] to around 0.000002 percent of the U.S. population.  So far, U.S. cases of the basic seasonal flu outnumber coronavirus cases by a factor of 45,000 (using federal stats for this year's flu and real-time tracking of coronavirus confirmations).  The flu season has even been especially bad this year, with between 20,000 and 52,000 deaths, compared to 29 so far from coronavirus.  According to infectious disease expert Dr. Paul Carson, who works for the North Dakota public health department, the flu appears to be about five times more contagious than coronavirus, which means containment is possible, although especially for the elderly coronavirus appears to have higher death rates.

Also posted under news media sensationalism.

Gov. Inslee to restrict gatherings of more than 250 people, a move aimed at sports and concerts.  In the most drastic move yet to try to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Gov. Jay Inslee is expected Wednesday [3/11/2020] to restrict gatherings of more than 250 people in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties, a move aimed at sports, concerts and other cultural events.  The measure will be announced during a Seattle news conference, according to a source involved in conversations with the governor's office but who has not been cleared to discuss the issue.  The measure would not affect retail stores, according to the source.

The Editor says...
The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the freedom of peaceful assembly.  There is no mention in the Constitution of exceptions due to a public health crisis, real or imaginary.  If the governor can outlaw gatherings of 250 or more people, he can change the limit to 100 people, then to 20.  What if your church has 500 members?  That's not likely in Washington, I suppose, but what if?

Coronavirus and the election:  Washington state primary voters urged not to lick mail-in ballots.  Primary Election Day could have been a lot worse for officials in Washington state, epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak:  The state votes entirely by mail.  Elsewhere, large events, such as elections, have been cause for alarm.

Nancy Pelosi Shuts Down Nadler's Request to Flee DC over Coronavirus: 'We're the Captains of This Ship'.  House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on Tuesday said Democrats should flee Washington, D.C. as coronavirus continues to spread across the United States — A suggestion which was immediately shut down by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), according to a report.  Nadler made the remark in a closed-door caucus meeting on the deadly illness.

Schumer on Coronavirus: 'We Are Very Worried About the President's Incompetence'.  Tuesday [3/10/2020] during remarks carried live on CSPAN, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the Democrats were worried about President Donald Trump's "incompetence and lack of focus" regarding the fight against the spread of coronavirus.  Now, I'm going to be blunt.  We are very worried about the president's incompetence and lack of focus on fighting the spread of coronavirus.  We believe that his lack of focus, his hamstringing efforts to address this public crisis, and inflicting pain on the stock market.  One word could describe thus far the administration's response, incompetence."

The Editor says...
For an example of presidential incompetence, look no further that Barack H. Obama.

Most Infected People Will Recover, As Have More Than 70% of Chinese Patients.  More than 70 percent of the cumulative number of people infected with the novel coronavirus in China have recovered, the World Health Organization stressed on Monday [3/9/2020], saying that although the threat of a global pandemic looms large, most infections will end in recovery.  The disease spread in Europe in particular continues to raise alarm, and in Italy, the worst-affected country outside of China, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced late Monday that lockdown conditions earlier imposed in the hard-hit north will now be extended to the entire country.  Italy now reports more than 9,000 cases of COVID-19, out of a total 113,582 worldwide.

Coronavirus By the Numbers — 83% of Affected Countries Have Mortality Rates of Infected Persons Less than 1%.  According to the most recent data at Worldometer tracking website, the coronavirus mortality rates for individuals catching the virus are declining at a rate closer to the numbers we expect to see in a typical flu virus as the denominator continues to increase on a global scale.  According to the most recent data the mortality rate for those infected with the coronavirus is getting closer to what you would expect from a normal flu virus and in many cases is less.  The elderly are hit the hardest by the coronavirus and this is similar to the flu where 90% of the deaths come from individuals age 65 and over.

Math is hard, even for an MSNBC panic-spreading virology expert.  It was just a few days ago that Brian Williams and Mara Gay mindlessly repeated a meme saying that, instead of spending $500 million on advertising, Bloomberg should just have given all 327 million Americans a million dollars each.  The correct answer is that Bloomberg spent $1.52 per American.  On Monday [3/9/2020], a guest again went stupid about math, this time while trying to explain how many Americans will die from coronavirus.  According to Dr. Joseph Fair, only 80% of the population will survive: [...] Mediaite, from which the above quotation comes, doesn't question Fair's math.  Instead, it takes the numbers at face value and then attacks Trump. [...] Fair made a foolish mistake (presumably he knows better), but both MSNBC and Mediaite ran with the error to undermine Trump's presidency.  These people are both evil and stupid.  Here's the deal with the media:  they don't know what they're talking about, so analyze everything they say before you start to worry.

Military Surgeon: 'Trump Is Right' on the Seasonal Flu Being More Dangerous than Coronavirus.  Air Force Brig.  Gen. Paul A. Friedrichs, Joint Staff Surgeon, said Tuesday at a Pentagon briefing that President Trump is "right" that the seasonal flu is more dangerous than the coronavirus.  "So, the president is right.  I know you're shocked that I said that, but the president is right," Friedrichs said to a reporter.  "There are more people ill with the seasonal flu than there are ill with coronavirus worldwide and in the United States and in the military."

Patient One:  First U.S. Coronavirus Case Suffered Pneumonia, Recovered.  The New England Journal of Medicine has published a paper about the first patient known in the U.S. to have contracted coronavirus.  He suffered nausea, stomach problems, and pneumonia, but recovered almost completely.  The March 5 paper notes that the patient is a 35-year-old male near Seattle, Washington, who had traveled to visit relatives in Wuhan, China, and took himself to an urgent care clinic on Jan. 19 after suffering a fever and cough.

Health Insurance Companies Agree to Waive Coronavirus Test Costs in White House Meeting.  President Donald Trump spoke about the ongoing fight against the spread of coronavirus and the economic effect it was having on the United States during a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence and the leaders of health insurance companies at the White House.  Company officials from Anthem, UnitedHealth Group, Humana, Centene Corporation, Americas Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Express Scripts and Cigna Services, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, CVS Health, and the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. attended the meeting with the president.

Dozens in Iran die from drinking bootleg alcohol to prevent coronavirus infection: reports.  Dozens of people in Iran died after drinking industrial-strength alcohol amid rumors it would prevent them from contracting the coronavirus, according to reports Tuesday [3/10/2020].  The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, or IRNA, reported Tuesday [3/10/2020] that 44 people had died from alcohol poisoning in the country after they "drank bootleg alcohol over rumors that it would be effective in treating coronavirus."  But the semi-independent Mehr News Agency reported a lower figure — at least 27 people dying in Iran from alcohol poisoning amid the coronavirus scare.

4 Things to Know About Chinese Origins of Coronavirus.  Before MSNBC personalities were calling it "racist" and "astoundingly gross" to note the origin of the new coronavirus, NBC News reported in January on what it called the "Wuhan coronavirus."  In recent days, the Chinese government has sought to cast doubt on whether the virus in fact originated in the city of Wuhan after initially acknowledging that the disease emerged from Wuhan, known as "South China Seafood City."  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., prompted outrage from China's communist government and the mainstream media in the U.S. for using the phrase "Wuhan virus."

Democrats Considering Legislative Response to Coronavirus — Expanded "Assistance" Spending.  Never let a crisis go to waste.  And right on cue the Democrats in Washington DC see an opportunity to use the Coronavirus as a tool to spend and expand dependency initiatives.

Coronavirus can be mild, say patients, but fear of passing it on weighs heavy.  Coronavirus did not compare with 45-year-old Dane Jakob Tage Ramlyng's worst bouts of flu.  It was mild.  His greatest concern was not passing it on.  The journalist, who was isolated in Copenhagen away from his family until he was declared virus free by doctors, was the first person in Denmark to test positive for coronavirus after returning home from a holiday in northern Italy.

Coronavirus outbreak fears can be put into perspective with this rational line of thinking.  I've been engaged with the issue of pandemic preparation for over 10 years.  Former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and I headed up a nonprofit, early in the last decade, which sponsored a stem-to-stern study of how well America's public health infrastructure would respond to a pandemic.  We found a number of areas where the national chain or resilience was lacking.  I was concerned that COVID-19 might be the perfect storm that the public health establishment has been fearing.  The disease is certainly a handful.  It has caused and will cause tragic deaths, economic damage, and social disruption and uncertainty that always attend a serious pandemic.  Its R -ø rate (the rate at which the virus spreads) seems to be high, close to seasonal flu.

Politicizing Coronavirus Will Cost Dems the House.  It's clear that the Democrats see the coronavirus outbreak as an opportunity rather than an epidemic.  Having failed to bring down President Trump with ridiculous conspiracy theories involving Russia and Ukraine, they are desperately attempting to convince the public he is somehow exacerbating the COVID-19 crisis.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, for example, issued a joint press release Sunday [3/8/2020] that included the following fiction:  "President Trump continues to manufacture needless chaos within his administration and it is hampering the government's response to the coronavirus outbreak."  Predictably, Pelosi and Schumer fail to provide any objective facts to support this claim.  This is just the latest in a series of irresponsible assertions by the Democrats.

Dan Crenshaw Torches Open Borders Proponents in Response to Fears Wuhan Virus Will Spread to Border Cities.  For some odd reason, as the number of cases of the Wuhan virus in America has grown, some Democratic politicians including failed presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren have bizarrely suggested the United States completely divert funding from the border wall to combat the virus.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why this is not just a bad idea.  It's a really, really stupid idea, too.  Nevertheless, Democrats are so obsessed over border wall funding that emergency funding to fight the Wuhan virus was initially stalled as House Speaker Pelosi Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other House Democratic leaders worked last month to make sure President Trump couldn't transfer funds from the emergency funding bill to the border wall.

Self-Created Disaster — Austin Mayor Begs People to Go Out in Public After Canceling SXSW Festival.  Hysteria leads to idiocy, and now the mayor of a Texas city is scrambling.  To say that the overreaction to the Wuhan virus in the press and with politicians has been overblown is to traffic in the obvious.  As the media hysterics become louder more and more people are altering their social plans.  This has been felt directly in the airlines and cruise line industries already, and there is a growing paranoia felt in local areas as well.  The mayor of Austin Texas has sent out a plea for residents of his town to go on out and physically endorse area merchants, businesses and artists in order to help alleviate some of the economic strain to be felt in the city.  The issue?  He is attempting to mitigate the economic losses set to be felt, which he imparted on the local economy himself.

Trump Administration Aims to Calm Coronavirus Fears on Economic, Health Fronts.  President Donald Trump announced Monday evening [3/9/2020] that he will push Congress for a payroll tax cut to stem concerns about the coronavirus that sent the stock market into a spiral earlier in the day.  Trump also pledged he would push for hourly wage earners to be able to take off work without fear of losing their jobs, as the number of related U.S. deaths rose to 26, all but four in Washington state.

Dr. Drew Pinsky slams media for inciting coronavirus 'panic'.  Celebrity physician Dr. Drew Pinsky said the media is stoking the flames of coronavirus "panic" in the United States, and the industry should "be held accountable."  "What I have a problem with is the panic and the fact that businesses are getting destroyed, that people's lives are being upended, not by the virus, but by the panic," Pinsky said in an interview with CBS last week.  "The panic must stop.  And the press, they really somehow need to be held accountable because they are hurting people."

Coronavirus By The Numbers.  Influenza and pneumonia caused 55,672 deaths in the U.S. in 2017, or 153 persons per day.  As a reminder, only 15 have died from coronavirus to date, the number dying in in any four-hour period from the flu.  Over the past decade, influenza flu has affected between 9.3 and 45 million persons each year, depending on the flu severity.  Hospitalizations for the flu have ranged from 140,000 to 800,000 persons per year and deaths varied between 12,000 and 61,000 each year.  These numbers, in America only, far eclipse the number of coronavirus fatalities worldwide, about 3,600 thus far.  This could and will likely change, but are the numbers worthy of the hair-on-fire reaction from cable news anchors and Democrat politicians?

An infectious disease doctor has a message about the real epidemic out there.  You know that someone has struck a nerve when his Facebook post about coronavirus has well over 632,000 shares.  That's the case with a post that Abdu Sharkawy, an infectious diseases specialist, wrote about coronavirus.

Statement on Facebook by Dr. Abdu Sharkawy.  I'm a doctor and an Infectious Diseases Specialist.  I've been at this for more than 20 years seeing sick patients on a daily basis. [...] I am not scared of Covid-19. [...] What I am scared about is the loss of reason and wave of fear that has induced the masses of society into a spellbinding spiral of panic, stockpiling obscene quantities of anything that could fill a bomb shelter adequately in a post-apocalyptic world.  I am scared of the N95 masks that are stolen from hospitals and urgent care clinics where they are actually needed for front line healthcare providers and instead are being donned in airports, malls, and coffee lounges, perpetuating even more fear and suspicion of others.  I am scared that our hospitals will be overwhelmed with anyone who thinks they "probably don't have it but may as well get checked out no matter what because you just never know..." and those with heart failure, emphysema, pneumonia and strokes will pay the price for overfilled ER waiting rooms with only so many doctors and nurses to assess. [...] But mostly, I'm scared about what message we are telling our kids when faced with a threat.  Instead of reason, rationality, openmindedness and altruism, we are telling them to panic, be fearful, suspicious, reactionary and self-interested. [...] The fact is the virus itself will not likely do much harm when it arrives.  But our own behaviors and "fight for yourself above all else" attitude could prove disastrous.

Coronavirus going to hit its peak and start falling sooner than you think.  Nations are closing borders, stocks are plummeting and a New York Times headline reads:  "The Coronavirus Has Put the World's Economy in Survival Mode." Both political parties have realized the crisis could severely impact the November elections — House, Senate, presidency.  And sacré bleu, they've even shuttered the Louvre!  Some of these reactions are understandable, much of it pure hysteria.  Meanwhile, the spread of the virus continues to slow.  More than 18,000 Americans have died from this season's generic flu so far, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  In 2018, the CDC estimated, there were 80,000 flu deaths.  That's against 19 coronavirus deaths so far, from about 470 cases.

Coronavirus Patient Zero in Italy [is] Reportedly a Pakistani Immigrant.  According to recent reports from Italy the coronavirus patient zero in the Pavia area is a Pakistani immigrant who refused to self-isolate after testing positive for the virus.  The EU Times reported that the Pakistani man continued to cook and deliver Chinese food and infected an entire region of Italy.  Mainstream Italian news outlets, such as Il Giornale and ADNKronos are reporting the news.  According to Il Giornale the police intervened following an anonymous tip.

Coronavirus outbreak means Costco shoppers can say goodbye to free samples.  The coronavirus outbreak that's spread to at least 25 states now means that Costco customers can say goodbye to free food samples while shopping, according to media reports.  "Due to the outbreak of coronavirus, there are no food product samples," a Costco representative in Nashville, Tennessee, told NBC's Today.

Ted Cruz self-quarantining after meeting coronavirus-stricken CPAC attendee.  Sen. Ted Cruz is quarantining himself after coming into contact 10 days ago with an attendee of the Conservative Political Action Committee conference who was later diagnosed with the coronavirus.  Cruz said in a Sunday statement he learned of the interaction with the since-infected man last night, but emphasized that he's not experiencing symptoms and feels "fine and healthy."  The Republican senator said his contact with the CPAC attendee was limited to "brief conversation and a handshake" at the Maryland event last month.

Asian-Americans stock up on guns over fears of coronavirus backlash.  While panicked Americans have been purchasing bundles of toilet paper, water and other supplies because of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, Asian Americans have instead been reportedly stocking up on guns out of a fear of backlash — and justifiably so.  The panic is especially prominent along the liberal coasts. "[T]here's an acute fear among Asian-Americans that the virus's origins in China will spark a violent xenophobic backlash.  Along the West Coast, where the worst outbreaks of coronavirus in the United States have occurred, those fears seem to be spurring a surge in gun sales," The Trace, a far-left outlet, reported Friday [3/6/2020].

Cruise Ship Carrying 3,500 Passengers Headed to Georgia Military Base for Coronavirus Testing, Quarantine.  A Grand Princess cruise ship is headed to California, where several dozen of the craft's 3,000+ passengers will be transferred to Dobbin Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia, for coronavirus testing and quarantine as required.

WHO Orders Countries Not to Engage in "Stigma" or Discrimination" in Response to Coronavirus Outbreak.  Despite declaring a global health emergency, the World Health Organization has ordered countries not to engage in "stigma" or "discrimination" in their handling of the coronavirus outbreak.  In their official statement declaring the emergency, the WHO stressed that they are not recommending "any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available."  This despite the fact that numerous countries have closed their borders with China and pilots and flight attendants in America are demanding an immediate halt to all flights out of China.

CNN is Angry That White People Are Trying to Stop the Coronavirus Spreading.  According to CNN, the real concern about the coronavirus is not the potential for a global pandemic, it's the fact there are too many white people trying to stop it.  That was the message sent by an article posted on the news network's website entitled 'Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity'.

EPA Releases List of Best Disinfectants to Use Against Coronavirus.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a list Tuesday [3/3/2020] of qualified disinfectants to use for protection against the coronavirus.  "The EPA-registered disinfectant products on our Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2 list have qualified under EPA's emerging viral pathogen program for use against SARS-CoV-2, a coronavirus that causes COVID-19," the website stated.

Leftists mock Ted Cruz for protecting them from coronavirus.  [Scroll down]  Now we have leftists mocking Sen. Ted Cruz for self-quarantining, after being exposed to a coronavirus patient at the CPAC conference, in order to prevent any spread of the disease to others, including political opponents.  That includes leftists in Congress and anyone else.  Given that coronavirus exposure sometimes turns well people into "superspreaders," it was a highly responsible and empathetic thing to do.  Cruz put others before himself in this selfless act, protecting even leftists.

Steve Hilton:  Stop this 'wild, reckless overreaction' to coronavirus.  Steve Hilton spent much of his opening monologue Sunday slamming Democrats and the media, saying they've been stoking the flames of coronavirus panic with the country at risk of a "catastrophic overreaction." "Of course, no one should minimize it, and we must do all we can to stop preventable deaths — but it seems to me that we've got a bunch of people in leadership positions in the media and business and Congress who are running around maximizing coronavirus without a thought for the harm they may be causing," Hilton said on "The Next Revolution." Hilton pointed to a recent statement from a U.S. health official who asserted that over 85 percent of those infected will experience mild to no symptoms.

Here's Just How Ridiculously Biased the Media Have Been Covering Coronavirus.  The current narrative is that Trump has "bungled" the response (there's no real evidence of that), thereby threatening his re-election, because that's all this is really about to them.  But that wasn't always the narrative.  In fact, it wasn't too long ago that the media were chastising Trump for doing too much to battle coronavirus in the United States. [...] Trump took very early steps, before the first infection stateside, to stop the flow of the virus into the country.  What did he get for his trouble?  A myriad of op-eds proclaiming that containing the virus was actually hurting the containment of the virus.  None of it made sense, but it wasn't meant to make sense.  It was simply a way to start an orange man bad narrative.  Now that we have infections in the United States, they've flipped the narrative and claim Trump hasn't done enough.  There was never any winning for him in this situation.  The media were simply not going to allow it.

Joy Reid Warns Children of Trump Supporters May Put Your Kids At Risk For Coronavirus.  Some people on the left have been pushing the false claim that Trump called the Coronavirus a hoax.  MSNBC's Joy Reid just took that concept to a new level by suggesting the children of Trump supporters are a threat to other people's kids.  Obviously, if Trump thinks Coronavirus is a hoax (he doesn't) and his supporters follow his every word (they don't) then it follows in Joy's mind that the children of these people are dangerous.

Family of Missouri's First Coronavirus Patient Breaks Curfew to Attend Father-Daughter Dance.  On Saturday night news broke of the first confirmed coronavirus case in St. Louis and Missouri.  A 20-year-old woman who was studying in Italy tested positive at Mercy Hospital in St. Louis.  The woman in her 20's was released from the hospital and told to self-quarantine along with her parents at their home in Ladue.  But the family did not quarantine.  The family of Missouri's first coronavirus patient broke curfew hours later to attend the father-daughter dance at Villa Duchesne on Saturday night [3/7/2020].  The father and daughter also attended a pre-party at the home of a fellow student.

Maybe it's time to dial back the coronavirus drama.  After a week of covering the Wuhan coronavirus as both as a pundit and a biosafety professional, I have come to the conclusion that maybe it is time to dial back the drama associated with the pathogen.  Let's begin by starting with some perspective.  The current flu season has hit 32 million Americans, resulting in 18,000 deaths, and the vaccine that was selected for the flu season was limited in its effectiveness.  Yet, we are not doing a daily flu death countdown.  Understandably, COVID-19 is a new pathogen.  However, American bioscientists and medical professionals have focused on it with impressive intensity.  It is from a family of viruses that have been well-researched.

Trump says campaign rallies won't stop over coronavirus fears.  President Trump said he had no plans to scale back his campaign rallies and was not concerned about the new coronavirus reaching Washington, D.C.  Speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, ahead of a working dinner with Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro, he was asked whether the emergence of a case at last month's Conservative Political Action Conference would force him to change his mind on holding big campaign events.

Dan Crenshaw Calls Out Democrats For Their Blatant Lies About the Coronavirus.  The Coronavirus has panicked Americans across the country.  Places like Costco and Walmart and being wiped out of disinfectant wipes, paper towels and toilet paper.  As the hysteria continues to grow, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) decided to debunk a number of claims that are being perpetrated by both Democrats and the mainstream media.

We Can Thank Trump for the United States Having Such a Low Per Capita Infection Rate of Coronavirus.  Taking population into account, the United States has a per capita infection rate of 0.0000388 percent.  The next highest per capita infection rate is Japan's, which, at 0.0002526 percent, is eight times higher than the United States' rate.  South Korea and China have the highest per capita infection rates at 0.0111237 percent and 0.0057763 percent respectively.

Coronavirus starts wreaking havoc on plans across US.  With conferences getting canceled and mass public transportation getting disrupted, the COVID-19 virus is not only a threat to people around the country, but is also putting their plans into disarray.  As of early Saturday evening, there were 437 coronavirus cases across more than half of the 50 states, and 19 people have died.

SXSW is canceled over coronavirus concerns.  South by Southwest, the annual tech, film and music conference in Austin, has officially been canceled because of the coronavirus.  The decision, announced by city authorities on Friday, came just two days after Austin public health officials said the event could proceed as planned despite a string of high-profile dropouts and widespread calls to cancel.

SXSW festival in Austin is canceled due to coronavirus fears.  In what represents the first major civic casualty over fears of the spreading coronavirus, Austin officials announced Friday that they are forced to cancel the annual South by Southwest festival, which last year alone delivered to the Texas capital an estimated $356 million in economic impact.  City leaders said they were being forced to take such a drastic action despite the fact that neither Austin nor Travis County has a single case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
[Emphasis added.]

Costco temporarily suspends free food samples over coronavirus.  If your shopping trip to Costco includes stopping by all the free sample stations to fill up on goodies, it won't be happening for awhile.  Costco stores, including those in Central Florida, are suspending free samples over safety concerns surrounding the coronavirus.  It was not immediately known if all stores in the U.S. have pulled samples.  No timeline was given as to when the suspension would end.  An employee told FOX 35 that the ban is in effect "until further notice."

Can the Coronavirus-Panic-Creating Media be Sued for Closed Businesses and Lost Jobs?  The deliberate panic created over the coronavirus is not victimless.  Far from it.  When the radioactive dust settles from this orchestrated panic-strategy, potentially hundreds of billions will have been lost, thousands of businesses closed, and millions of employees fired.  When the coronavirus first reared its ugly head, many in the media instantly saw it as a cheap and easy way to increase clicks, newspaper sales, viewers, listeners, and most especially Ad revenue.  In the guise of "informing the public," they intended to run scare headlines and stories to spike attention to their sites.

Washington state coronavirus cases top 100, including 16 deaths.  The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Washington state topped 100 on Saturday [3/7/2020], including 16 deaths.  The Washington State Department of Health announced more than 20 new cases Saturday, saying a total of 102 people in the state have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.  That figure did not include the first case in Kittitas County, which was also reported Saturday.

Not helpful:
MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace Excited About Prospect Of Coronavirus Becoming Trump's Katrina.  The people who work at MSNBC seem to obsess about how to bring down Trump's presidency 24 hours a day.  Every single issue that comes up is framed through a lens of how it can be used to damage Trump.  Coronavirus is no exception.  Nicolle Wallace and her panel of 'experts' recently talked about how the disease could be Trump's Katrina.

China's War on the Truth.  The laboratory of the Shanghai Health Center was closed on January 12, one day after Professor Zhang Yongzhen's team revealed the sequence of the coronavirus genome on open platforms.  The Chinese regime prevented its scientists from finding ways to contain the epidemic.  Their "crime"?  Releasing the sequence to the world before the Chinese authorities did.  "The epidemic has exposed this country completely in its corruption, bureaucracy, information control and censorship," said Phillip Wu, a freelance writer in Beijing.  And if you think the Chinese regime is meddling only in its own country, read a recent British report revealing how China is also curbing academic freedom in the UK.

WHO officials warn that coronavirus can spread through handling money.  The World Health Organization has issued a warning that handling money may spread coronavirus and is urging people to stop using cash when they can.  In a warning this week, WHO reminded people that money picks up the disease which can stay on surfaces for hours if not days.  'We know that money changes hands frequently and can pick up all sorts of bacteria and viruses and things like that.  'We would advise people to wash their hands after handling banknotes, and avoid touching their face.

'It's pandemonium': virus panic-buying hits Los Angeles.  Sprinting shoppers, rationed mineral water and not a roll of toilet paper to be seen:  panic-buying sparked by the new coronavirus soared in Los Angeles this week.  Two days after California declared a statewide emergency, wholesale stores visited by AFP on Friday were unable to keep up with soaring demand for a range of staple items, as citizens prepare for the worst.

We're Accumulating More Critical Information About The Coronavirus Every Day.  There are several factors that determine how damaging and worrisome outbreaks will be.  The first is the degree of infectiousness, or ability to spread.  Examples of the extremes are noroviruses, which can sweep rapidly through an institution or cruise ship, and the rabies virus, which is almost always transmitted to humans through the bite of a warm-blooded animal.  The second is virulence — the severity or degree of pathogenicity of the infection.  Using the same two examples as above, norovirus infections cause severe nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, but the symptoms are short-lived and almost never cause significant morbidity if treated symptomatically.

China coronavirus quarantine hotel collapses with 70 people trapped under rubble.  A five-storey hotel reportedly housing quarantined coronavirus patients has collapsed in southeastern China leaving up to 70 people trapped under the rubble.  The Xinjia Hotel in the city Quanzhou collapsed just after 7pm local time on Saturday, according to local media reports.  At least 34 people have been pulled from the rubble by 10pm, with around 36 more feared to be still trapped underneath.  Video from the scene shows emergency workers combing through the wreckage in a bid to save victims of the accident.

Hotel used for coronavirus quarantine collapses in China, trapping 70 people.  A hotel being used to quarantine people exposed to coronavirus has collapsed in southeast China, trapping about 70, according to reports.  The Xinjia Hotel, in Quanzhou City in Fujian province, collapsed around 7:30 p.m. local time Saturday, the Daily Mail reported.  At least 34 people have so far been rescued, the South China Morning Post said, citing the Ministry of Emergency Management.  The exact number of people in the 80-room hotel at the time was unknown.

Influenza Deaths Now Total 20,000, Including Elevated Number of 136 Children.  The number of people who have died from seasonal influenza so far has now reached 20,000, including 136 influenza-associated deaths in children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported as of February 29.  This is up from 18,000 just a week ago.

Can coronavirus spread through your Amazon packages?  Surgeon General Jerome Adams, a member of the Trump administration's coronavirus task force, reacted on Thursday to the fact that an Amazon employee in Seattle contracted the novel coronavirus, saying:  "There is no evidence right now that the coronavirus can be spread through mail."  Amazon said the employee is the first among its U.S. workforce to fall ill with COVID-19, which has infected thousands of people around the world.  It was not immediately clear how the employee contracted the virus.  The news comes after at least two Amazon employees in Italy — which has seen a surge of coronavirus cases in recent weeks — were confirmed to have the virus as well, according to Bloomberg.

Is the Coronavirus China's Revenge on Trump?  In his 1968 non-fiction blockbuster, The Biological Time Bomb, Gordon Rattray Taylor wrote about the prospect of germ warfare in the context of "undeclared war."  He explained, "In current thinking the best way to wage war is to wage it without your enemy even being aware that it is happening."  He was predicting the use of infectious diseases to cripple a nation.  The current war, however, is out in the open.  Looking at the economic damage being inflicted on the United States and the world, one cannot dismiss the possibility that the rapidly-spreading coronavirus is China's revenge on America for President Trump's trade war.  The virus has the potential impact to cause a major economic recession and sabotage President Trump's reelection effort.  Health emergencies are being declared around the country as the number of coronavirus cases increase.  The interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve is an indication of desperation.

The Editor says...
If China intended to use this virus as a weapon, the majority of the casualties wouldn't be in China.

Kevin McCarthy:  Pelosi Delayed Coronavirus Funding Bill So Dems Could Run Anti-GOP Ads.  The coronavirus has infected some 100,000 people and killed 3,000.  In the U.S., around a dozen people have died.  Is it tragic?  Yes.  Is it worth the hysteria that has ensued?  No.  Not by a long shot.  As Democrats try to make corona Trump's Katrina and paint the administration as incompetent, they disregard simple facts.  One is that 40-70 percent of those infected are asymptomatic.  Some of us have the virus right now and don't even know it.  Second, and more importantly, this isn't some superbug here, folks.  The U.S. sees 32-45 million cases of the seasonal flu every year.  Anywhere from 12-45,000 people die from the seasonal flu every year.  Over 500,000 people are hospitalized with the flu every year.

COVID-19 Isn't As Deadly As We Think.  There are many compelling reasons to conclude that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is not nearly as deadly as is currently feared.  But COVID-19 panic has set in nonetheless.  You can't find hand sanitizer in stores, and N95 face masks are being sold online for exorbitant prices, never mind that neither is the best way to protect against the virus (yes, just wash your hands). The public is behaving as if this epidemic is the next Spanish flu, which is frankly understandable given that initial reports have staked COVID-19 mortality at about 2-3 percent, quite similar to the 1918 pandemic that killed tens of millions of people.  Allow me to be the bearer of good news.  These frightening numbers are unlikely to hold.  The true case fatality rate, known as CFR, of this virus is likely to be far lower than current reports suggest.  Even some lower estimates, such as the 1 percent death rate recently mentioned by the directors of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, likely substantially overstate the case.

Trump Admin.  Reverses Obama-Era Regulation Blocking Coronavirus Testing.  The Trump Administration has rolled back an Obama FDA rule that required "state-run laboratories to only run medical tests pre-approved by the F.D.A."  "The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we're doing, and we undid that decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place at a much more accurate and rapid fashion," Trump stated.  "That was a decision we disagreed with.  I don't think we would have made it, but for some reason it was made.  But we've undone that decision."  Keep calm, wash your hands and don't panic.  People are freaking out that they can't get tested for the virus, but does it matter if you aren't showing life threatening symptoms in this time of crisis?  If you go to the ER, and you aren't sick you will be when you leave because that is where the sick people are.

Bodies 'pile up' in morgue as Iran feels strain of coronavirus.  Dozens of bodies sheathed in black bags line the floor of an Iranian morgue, while workers in protective suits and masks busily walk among them.  It's unclear which, if any, of the people whose bodies lie in the morgue were infected with the coronavirus gripping the country, in this footage from inside Qom's Behesht-e Masoumeh morgue.  And here lies a huge problem for Iran, which is one of the worst-hit countries outside China, with more than 3,500 people infected and at least 107 dead from the virus, according to officials.  Under Islamic tradition in Iran, corpses are typically washed with soap and water before burial.  But two medical workers in Qom told CNN that in some cases precautions related to the outbreak are preventing staff from observing traditional Islamic guidelines for burial.

Amid coronavirus panic, Australian newspaper prints extra pages because of toilet paper shortage.  Toilet paper has been disappearing from shelves around the world as coronavirus-wary consumers stockpile emergency and household supplies.  A newspaper in Australia wants to help the #ToiletPaperCrisis or #ToiletPaperEmergency — as it's been dubbed on social media — and decided to print some extra pages in its editions.  "Yes, we actually did print it!" NT News, a Darwin-based newspaper, said in a tweet Thursday with a video showing a special eight-page insert that can be cut into toilet paper.

That Which Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Dumber.  Symptoms of the coronavirus abroad include sneezing, coughing, fever, and breathing difficulties.  Here in the United States, the disease, apparently mutating, displays different symptoms.  They include exaggeration, panic, and overreaction.  San Francisco declared a coronavirus state of emergency despite not a single confirmed case among the city's residents.  Why not include yellow fever and polio in the state of emergency just to stay on the safe side?  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an infographic depicting 36 styles of facial hairdos and hairdonts.  It gave its medical imprimatur to the Soul Patch and Hitler Mustache, which it called the Toothbrush Mustache.  The Fu Manchu, Van Dyke, and Mutton Chops did not win the CDC's seal of approval because they might break the seal of a respirator or mask offering coronavirus protection.

Coronavirus Kills an Airline:  UK's Flybe Collapses as Bookings Fall.  British airline Flybe went into administration in the early hours of Thursday morning [3/5/2020], after the fall of airline bookings caused by the coronavirus scare impacted its revenue.  Flybe, a budget airline which focussed on connecting regional British cities with otherwise long journey times by sea, road, or rail, as well as flying to a limited number of European destinations, was already suffering from a precarious financial position but appears to have been pushed over the edge by coronavirus suppressing bookings.

Sometimes the Honor System doesn't work.
Coronavirus Patient Ignores Quarantine.  New Hampshire's first confirmed coronavirus patient was discovered recently and as has been happening in many places around the country, the hospital worker was told to stay home and remain isolated for 14 days.  Seems like a solid plan, right?  Perhaps not so much.  We've now learned that there was some sort of "invitation only" event on Friday that the patient really wanted to attend.  So they did.  Without telling anyone.  Now the original patient is supposedly back home and in self-quarantine, but so are all of the event attendees who came in "close contact" with them.  How many people each of them came in close contact with before being quarantined remains unknown.

What We Don't Know About the Coronavirus Is What Scares Us.  Experts at least agree that the virus originated in China.  But Beijing's authoritarian government hid information about its origins, spread and severity for weeks. [...] Wild speculation followed that the coronavirus was a virulent or mutated superbug.  Had it arisen naturally or escaped from a nearby military lab?  Did it originate from a sick lab animal?  A conspiracy theory arose that it was a manufactured virus that had escaped from scientists' botched efforts to create either a vaccine or a biological weapon.  Is the outbreak an indication that China's scientists are well behind their Western peers, at least in the areas of virology and bacteriology?  Or is the problem that Chinese culture still features outdated traditions such as open-air "wet markets"? Unfounded rumors spread that the virus may have originated in one of these markets, where exotic mammals such as bats and pangolins are still sold for human consumption.  For all China's gleaming high-speed-rail lines and new airports, hundreds of millions of Chinese still live in places with suspect food safety and waste disposal — the historic incubators of epidemics.

COVID-19 quarantine of cruise ship may have led to more infections.  [Scroll down]  When the ship reached Yokohama, Japan, local authorities placed it under quarantine.  Those who tested positive for COVID-19 were isolated in a hospital.  The remaining crew members and passengers were not able to disembark until February 19.  By the time the authorities lifted the quarantine, 17% of the people aboard the ship had contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus.  Could the number of people infected have been lower if those aboard had been allowed to disembark earlier?  New research suggests so.

President Trump's Approval Ratings Remain Strong Despite Progressives' Coronavirus Smear Campaign.  The progressive corporate media has been engaged in a years-long smear campaign against President Donald Trump since he took office.  Their attacks could be described as various forms of "Orange Man Bad."  They have run the gamut, from pretending he is a secret Russian agent, to blaming him for a hurricane and even trying to remove him from office through impeachment.  But lately, the Coronavirus has served as their political weapon against that mean guy in the Oval Office.  When the news broke about the outbreak of the illness, progressive leaders and their allies in the establishment media pounced on the opportunity to use the disease against the president.  Unfortunately for them, a recent Gallup poll shows that their plans have failed once again.

Democrat Monday Morning Quarterbacks on Coronavirus.  [Scroll down]  Yes, it's so odd to have an accomplished neurosurgeon on a medical task force.  Trump instead should have found an "aspiring novelist" to be his Coronavirus guru, as Obama did with Ben Rhodes, making him a foreign policy expert.  And giving us the catastrophic Iran nuke deal.  Or a scientist like Rep. Hank Johnson who worried Guam could tip over and capsize due to a Marine buildup on the island.  Joe, Bernie, and MSNBC all believe they know better.  Remember that Joe Biden is a serial plagiarist who graduated law school 76th in a class of 85. [...] Who actually is on the task force?  Anthony Fauci, MD has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.  Robert Redfield, MD is the head of the CDC with over 30 years' experience with HIV/AIDS, another viral illness.  The Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, MD, MPH, has a public health degree, ideal for this current task force.

Progressive Big Lies.  These days, the masters of the "big lie" are the Leftists and those progressives who, addled by Trumpophobia, regularly promulgate whoppers that today's internet can easily discredit.  Of course, from the Russian collusion fabrication to the Ukraine "quid pro quo," the Dems have publicized numerous lies and distortions of facts.  Now they're at it again with hysterical attacks on Trump's response to the coronavirus outbreak.  During the last debate, Mike Bloomberg charge that Trump "defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don't have the organization we need," a lie seconded by Joe Biden who added, "He cut the funding for the entire effort."  As the New York Post, commented, "It's a lie that can only sow fear:  The CDC budget is higher than when Trump took office.  Same for the National Institutes of Health.  And top career officials from both have been working with the White House for weeks to direct the US response."

The flu is a bigger health risk than novel coronavirus in the U.S., expert says.  With all the fear and panic over COVID 19, some basic questions remain: how likely are you to get sick, should you be worried and how can you protect yourself?  Currently, there is no treatment for COVID 19 and there is no vaccine.  But how does it compare to a major health problem we're all familiar with, like the flu?  "People should not worry any more about this than the flu," said Dr. Ernest Wang, Chief of Emergency Medicine at NorthShore University HealthSystem.

DHS links coronavirus to border; 328 Chinese illegals caught so far this year.  Some 328 illegal immigrants from China have been nabbed jumping the U.S.-Mexico border so far this year, according to Homeland Security data that raises the prospect a coronavirus carrier could sneak into the country via the border.  Three other people from South Korea — another country with rapidly spreading cases — have also been arrested at the border, as have 122 people from the Dominican Republican, where the coronavirus has now been detected.  All told, more than 1,000 illegal immigrants a day are caught attempting to sneak in from Mexico, which detected its first case last week, and since has identified five others.

Also posted under Illegal immigration puts a strain on the public health system.

Coronavirus patient ignored self-isolation order to go to business event.  A hospital worker who became New Hampshire's first coronavirus patient had been ordered to self-isolate — but went to a college's business event instead, health officials have revealed.  The selfish Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center staffer showed symptoms after returning from a trip to Italy, and was told to stay home while awaiting the test result, which came back positive Monday, health officials said.  "The first patient, despite having been directed to self-isolate, attended an invitation-only private event on Friday," the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) warned in a release.  Having defied the first directive, the hospital worker was "issued an official order of isolation" after officially testing positive on Monday, officials said.

As Trump wins praise for effective coronavirus response, blue cities do opposite, threatening its spread it through homelessness.  President Trump has rightly won praise from medical professionals and public health officials for taking tough action, even against leftist criticism, for effectively protecting the U.S. from the ravages of the coronavirus. [...] As the left continues to heap criticism on Trump, with various claims of "chaos," along with howls about a prayer before a task force meeting, it's pretty obvious they aren't the guys you'd want running anything in a time of crisis.  Exhibit A is President Obama's response to the swine flu crisis of 2009, letting 1,000 people die before any action was taken, and downplaying the matter for political purposes even when it did.  Never let a crisis go to waste?  Exhibit B is coming today from the blue cities, where officials are worried that the homeless are going to serve as a massive disease vector for the spread of the virus throughout those cities.

Numbers show Coronavirus appears far less deadly than flu, but Gov't, Media keep promoting panic.  The city-state of Singapore, population 5.6 million, has a face-mask problem.  Namely, there aren't enough of them to go around.  Thanks to the COVID-19 virus — better known as coronavirus — the tiny island right off the southern coast of the Malay Peninsula has had an issue keeping the masks in stock, along with hand sanitizer and other assorted items.  The government ended up subsidizing masks so that every family could have them after people decided to hoard them like they were bottled water in a storm.  Pharmacies reported massive shortages of both the masks and sanitizer.  Never mind that these masks don't particularly work that well.  Singapore had, as of this past weekend, 89 confirmed coronavirus cases.  That means 0.002 percent of the population is infected.

Two Coronavirus Cases Confirmed in Georgia.  The state of Georgia confirmed Monday that two people have tested positive for the deadly coronavirus on returning from Italy.  The pair live together in Fulton County, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Forgotten issues in the coronavirus debate:  Mass migration and offshoring to China.  This week, Congress will debate its reaction to the coronavirus.  One hundred percent of the discussion will revolve around how much money to throw at HHS agencies already flush with record budgets, but nobody is discussing the biggest policy problem implicated during critical public health crises — mass migration and outsourcing to and from the very source countries of these outbreaks.  Immigration, when managed properly, at the right levels, from the right places, with prudent vetting and fostering of Americanization among the new arrivals, can enrich a country.  But when done with no regard for American sovereignty and security, and through irresponsible and unchecked mass migration, it can be the biggest conduit for whatever global concerns we seek to avoid — whether drugs, cultural problems, espionage, terrorism, trade theft, or communicable diseases.

'Exactly how coronavirus gets spread': Michael Bloomberg's finger-licking pizza clip goes viral.  Michael Bloomberg's closing argument to Democrats before Super Tuesday highlighted his managerial record, pitching his crisis management experience amid fears about the coronavirus, but a last-minute food faux pas is proving to be a distraction.

President Trump and Coronavirus.  The attempt to hang coronavirus around the neck of the president is a movement that has gone from a standing start to neck-snapping speed, as opportunities to discredit Donald Trump in the American media generally do.  He was criticized for acting early in restricting access from potentially vulnerable countries, and after for having short-changing the relevant government agencies, even though that didn't happen.  Even the brickbat-wielding Washington Post has had to make the point that, in fact, Trump increased the allocations to public health and disease control authorities.

New England Journal of Medicine:  No cases of coronavirus in humans under age 15 found in study.  A new report from The New England Journal of Medicine shared the assessment of experts on the lack of cases of Covid-19, or the coronavirus, in those under the age of 15 years old.  The report, published Friday [2/28/2020] and authored by Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., H. Clifford Lane, M.D., and Robert R. Redfield, M.D., notes that there are no known cases of children younger than 15 being infected with the respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus.

Denver Communist Official Says She Will Use Deadly Virus as Bio Weapon Against Trump Supporters.  Denver Communist Councilwoman Candi Cdebaca is back in the news again.  Back in April 2019 Candi promised to push communism "by any means necessary." [...] Now this:  Cdebaca is getting blowback after she retweeted a call to send coronavirus victims to Trump rallies.  Cdebaca reposted a tweet that said, "For the record, if I do get the coronavirus I'm attending every MAGA rally I can."

Leftist Denver councilwoman cheers idea of infecting Trump rallies with coronavirus.  Denver city councilwoman Candi CdeBaca was hit with calls to resign Tuesday after she showed support for a tweet floating the idea of attending Make America Great Again rallies to infect Trump supporters with the coronavirus.  Ms. CdeBaca tweeted "#solidarity Yaaas!!" in her Feb. 28 response to a Feb. 26 post from Susan Daniel, who tweeted, "For the record, if I do get the coronavirus I'm attending every MAGA rally I can."  The councilwoman's office issued a statement saying her reply was "sarcastic" after she drew thousands of outraged responses on social media, as well as a call from the Colorado Republican Party to resign.

Also posted under Low-level environmental terrorism.

McCormick Place show canceled amid coronavirus fears.  An annual trade show that brings close to 60,000 visitors to McCormick Place each year has canceled its event there this month, citing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.  The International Housewares Association today announced it will not hold its four-day Inspired Home Show, which was scheduled for March 14-17 at the Near South Side convention center.

The Only Thing Dems Have to Offer Is Fear Itself.  [T]he American Left is pushing fear as hard as they have ever pushed anything.  We have had plenty of scares since the days of FDR, including the overpopulation, acid rain, and Y2K.  Some scares have changed names, from global cooling in the 1970s, only to be replaced by global warming, climate change, and now extreme weather.  Infectious diseases invoke fear as they are a frequent movie theme, from Andromeda Strain to Contagion.  We were told to fear the bird flu, SARS, MERS, and Ebola.  Now we are to fear Coronavirus.  Every election year seems to have a disease outbreak [...] Academic researchers study how these disease outbreaks influence federal elections.  Is the Coronavirus outbreak on the eve of an election just a random coincidence?

How novel coronavirus compares to SARS, MERS and other recent viral outbreaks.  The novel coronavirus has understandably caused a lot of people to worry.  Others, however, nonchalantly report a feeling of déjà vu.  It seems like we've been down this road before with SARS, MERS and the swine flu.  So how does COVID-19 actually stack up against these recent viral epidemics?  SARS, MERS and COVID-19 are all respiratory illnesses that are caused by the same large family of viruses called coronavirus.  Coronaviruses are actually quite common.  They are the source of many of the common colds that people get and recover from every day.  Coronaviruses are also common in many different animal species.  Occasionally, the virus from an animal can infect humans and then rapidly spread among people.  This was the case for MERS, SARS, and COVID-19, which are all thought to have originated in bats.

RNC cites 14 times Democrats and media politicized virus.  When Meet the Press host Chuck Todd today [3/1/2020] repeatedly challenged Vice President Mike Pence to "name some names" of Democrats or media figures politicizing the coronavirus to damage President Trump, Pence gave just one example before he was cut off. [...] Under fire all day in the media for its handling of the coronavirus, a plan put in place six weeks ago that has included flight bans from infected areas, the Republican National Committee late today fired back with a list of at least 14 examples of prominent media and Democrats using the virus to hit the president.

Wow!  What courage!
Bloomberg vows to eat at a Chinese restaurant to push back against coronavirus fears.  During a Fox News Town Hall in Manassas, Va., on Monday evening [3/2/2020], former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said he plans to eat at a Chinese restaurant very soon to show solidarity against overblown domestic fears of a coronavirus pandemic.

9 Times The Media Weaponized Coronavirus Coverage To Attack Trump.  With the first U.S. coronavirus fatality confirmed in Washington state this weekend, one would expect media coverage to provide American people crucial, but measured information about the oncoming pandemic.  Yet many members of our corporate press only see the public health crisis as another opportunity to attack the president.  Last week, The Federalist's Political Editor John Davidson pointed out how the deadly global epidemic became a political talking point overnight, and predicted "we should expect the media to start stoking hysteria, the politicians to pile on the recriminations, and for everything — the disease itself and its aftereffects on public life — to get much worse."

Coronavirus Has a Silver Lining.  Disease is bad, but coronavirus has some positive aspects.  It has exposed the frailty of the Communist Chinese regime, which reportedly is now sending some of the one million Uyghurs they have been holding in concentration camps to factories that have been vacated on account of the virus.  No doubt Tom Friedman and other Democratic advocates for the Communist regime will hail this as one more sign of the superiority of autocratic states.  Most Americans, happily, don't see it that way.

Obama Holdover Made the Call to Fly Coronavirus Patients Back to the US from Japan — Then Boasted About It.  President Trump was reportedly furious after a State Department doctor ignored the President's orders and allowed Americans, sick with the coronavirus, to return to the US from Japan.  Dr. William Walters, Executive Director and Managing Director for Operational Medicine for the Bureau of Medical Services at the U.S. Department of State, made the decision to bring the patients back to the US. Dr. William Walters is a holdover from the Obama administration.  The good doctor made the call despite the president's wishes and then went out and bragged about it.

Democrats escalate the lies they're throwing at Trump about coronavirus.  With the rise of coronavirus, the Democrats are so desperate to destroy Trump that they're lying about everything possible, celebrating damage to the American economy, and working hard to drive ordinary Americans into a blind panic.  This is an unusually sordid display of partisanship over country, although none of them have the grace to be ashamed.  A look at Obama's presidency reveals that the Democrats' standards were quite different back then.

Videos show Iranians licking holy shrines in religious tradition as country's clerical hardliners refuse to close sites despite coronavirus outbreak.  Iran has been accused of failing to clamp down on coronavirus contamination after alarming videos of worshippers licking a shrine emerged online.  Clips shared on social media show people licking the doors and burial mound inside the Fatima Masumeh shrine in Qom, defying token advice by the health ministry.  Worshippers in the videos brazenly state they 'don't care what happens', even if they catch or spread the infection which has killed at least 54 in the country.

The Editor says...
If the coronavirus was as dangerous and as contagious as the news media would have you believe, these Iranians would all be dead in a week.

That Went Well.  IMHO Trump was looking at this the wrong way.  He approached this as if the stock market was an ongoing referendum on his Presidency.  It's not - the underlying economy is what counts.  As to this coronavirus, its real, the danger is hard to quantify, and there are no obvious comparisons.  SARS was a million years ago before China became the world's manufacturer and a key part of so many supply chains.  So yes, if it gets bad enough the global economy could slide into recession and take the US with it.  But unlike in the 2008 collapse, where slack regulatory oversight of the mortgage market was a real problem, it would be hard to blame a coronavirus recession on Trump.  After all, he's the guy who wanted to cut back our dependence on China and bring manufacturing back to this country.

China's ruling elite stumbles into a 'disaster'.  Deserted factories, businesses struggling to survive and the economy on life-support.  For China, the start of 2020 has been an unmitigated disaster after the Covid-19 outbreak swept across the country before spreading to more than 50 other nations.  Even the official statistics fail to convey the magnitude of the catastrophe as the death toll climbs past 3,000 with close to 89,000 people worldwide infected.  Politically, this has been a public relations calamity for President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party.  Accusations of incompetence have been leveled against Beijing for its early response to the crisis, as well as claims of a "cover-up" by officials in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic in Hubei province.

Just a gentle reminder about Democrats and viruses.  Within days of China's announcement of a deadly, novel Coronavirus, President Trump closed the U.S. to travel from those who had visited mainland China. [...] While the virus grew in January, the President took quick, decisive actions to protect Americans.  Democrats, on the other hand, were still focused on "impeachment."  Democrat Congressional leaders Pelosi and Schumer have harshly critiqued the federal response to this novel threat.  Yet, 90 to 95 percent of all federal health care workers — HHS, NIH, CDC, etc. — are registered Democrats.  Somehow, their own party's leaders are slamming Democrats' ability to respond to a crisis.

Coronavirus in Washington state: 6 dead, 12 others infected.  Six people have now died from the coronavirus in the Puget Sound area and at least 12 others have been infected, health officials said Monday, as Washington state and King County's top elected officials issued an emergency declaration in response to the outbreak. [...] In addition, 231 people in Washington state are under public health supervision, and several of them are suspected of being infected with coronavirus.

Coronavirus Election Puts the Democrats In a Difficult Spot.  What will the coronavirus outbreak mean for the presidential race?  It could go at least two ways.  The best-case scenario for President Trump is that the virus doesn't spread widely within America.  Mr. Trump could then claim credit for stopping it.  The stock market would bounce back.  The episode could then draw public attention to the fact that for all of his critics' efforts to depict him as somehow abnormal, Mr. Trump's team is hardly a bunch of amateurs.  Vice President Pence is leading efforts against the virus.

Surgeon general says masks won't protect from coronavirus.  The surgeon general has a message for people who want to run out and stockpile masks to combat the coronavirus — don't.  "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS!" Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted.  "They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can't get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"  The upper-case emphasis is all his, and shows how adamant he is that people stick to the script for prevention offered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Democrat/Media Weaponization of Coronavirus is Working.  The Democrat/media campaign to weaponize the Coronavirus against President Trump is now predictably causing all sorts of needless panic among the population.  Thanks to the very despicable, very false narrative being spread by the corrupt hacks at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the rest of the fake news media, ordinary citizens are now hoarding things like anti-viral surgical masks and various food items.  Sellers of the surgical masks on Amazon are attempting to hide their price-gouging activities by charging upwards of $200 or more for shipping and handling.  Even more damaging to the economy overall, though, we are now seeing an irrational rush to cancel major conferences that create hundreds of millions in economic activity in their host cities.

Joe Biden Promotes 3 Debunked Claims Regarding The Coronavirus.  During an interview on Sunday [3/1/2020], Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden promoted a debunked claim about Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, falsely claiming that the Trump administration was silencing him.  "And, look, right now you have this president, hasn't allowed his scientists to speak, number one," Biden falsely claimed during an interview on ABC News's "This Week."  "He has the vice president speaking, not the scientists who know what they're talking about, like Fauci."

Dr. Marc Siegel on Coronavirus:  I've Never Seen an Emerging Contagion Handled Better.  The Trump administration is handling the coronavirus outbreak better than previous administrations addressed earlier emerging contagions, said Dr. Marc Siegel, professor of medicine at New York University, Fox News medical correspondent, and author of False Alarm:  The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear. [...] "I've been handling these emerging contagions for about 20 years now, and I have to tell you, I've never seen one handled better," said Siegel of President Donald Trump's approach to the coronavirus outbreak.  The Center for Disease Control (CDC) erred in its messaging with a "doom and gloom comment" framing the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. as inevitable without quantifying caveats, Siegel stated.

Calls Grow to Quarantine Senator Chris Murphy after Secret Meeting with Coronavirus Carriers from Iranian Regime.  In early January the United States killed General Qassim Soleimani, a top commander of Iran's al-Quds Force, in an airstrike at Baghdad's International Airport. [...] It soon became apparent why [Senator Chris] Murphy was sooo upset with Soleimani's death.  Senator Murphy has a history of supporting Iran's mullahs.  Murphy is a routine speaker at the NIAC Council, the regime's lobby house in the US.

Officials admit it:  Trump saved lives and spared America from worst of coronavirus.  President Trump has been outrageously lied about by Democrats, who invented a claim that he called the illness a 'hoax,' and he's also been subject to assorted howls of 'chaos' and unreadiness and doing nothing-ness from other quarters of the pious left.  Turns out none of this was true. [...] Trump's fast, decisive, and serious action, taken in the smog of the Democrats' impeachment stunt, has saved America from Italy's, Iran's and South Korea's high casualty and big shutdown fate, saving America lives.

U.S. President Trump Expands Coronavirus Entry Restrictions — Sec 212(f) Travel Entry Ban From Iran.  On January 31st President Trump initiated an entry ban against non-U.S. persons traveling from China.  Today [2/29/2020] President Trump is expanding the restrictions to include Iran.

China's Wuhan closes coronavirus hospital as officials hail drop in new cases.  The Chinese city at the center of the coronavirus epidemic has closed the first of 16 specially built hospitals, hurriedly put up to treat people with the virus, after it discharged its last recovered patients, state broadcaster CCTV said on Monday [3/2/2020].

Birth Of A Virus.  [Scroll down]  We visited a Hutong (inner city - where the locals live) and saw raw chickens, skinned and bleeding, just laying on the floor, waiting to be thrown on a restaurant grill, for public consumption.  No FDA or USDA or food inspectors or "codes" to comply with, here.  But why?  This is the last purely communist country on earth.  You'd think there would be red tape everywhere.  What was happening here?  Then, my wife and I had to rush our newly adopted, 8-month-old daughter to the public hospital... and suddenly it all started making sense.  As we stepped in more urine, took our number from the print-out machine, walked past the line of children whining and crying from the scalp IVs in their heads, then rushed to clean up blood and mucus (left by the last patient) on the plastic table they were now laying our baby on, then waited on the ONE overworked doctor (attending to no less than three hundred people) try to round up a basic anti-biotic to administer to my daughter (right there on site - no refills) it dawned on me what I was seeing and what I had been seeing this whole time.  I wasn't watching a "backward" culture or a third-world society.  These people weren't genetically inferior to first-worlders.  They weren't "less-evolved" than I was.  I was witnessing the kind of maximum, almost brutal efficiency a society must develop when the state is the master and the individual is merely a subject.

Authorities report 2nd coronavirus death in U.S..  The coronavirus global death toll has reached nearly 3,000 as countries around the world continue to report their findings to the World Health Organization.  At least 74 cases and two deaths have been confirmed in the U.S., according to authorities.

Coronavirus:  Let's Talk About Quarantine.  Coronavirus, the mysterious illness blanketing the world courtesy China, continues to spread.  The United States has been, until this past weekend, spared breakout flares.  They are occurring now.  Soon, and with better and more ubiquitous testing, America's COVID-19 numbers will spike.  That will scare a lot of people.  It shouldn't.  It's what happens when the government broadens testing criteria and has more effective tests.  When local COVID-19 hot spots happen, some communities, school systems, hospital systems, etc. will be under quarantine.  Many of those tangentially related to the outbreak will be asked to quarantine at home.  It's time to think ahead about this possibility.  It's time to plan for how to handle this possibility.

Trump's Decisive Actions Helped Save Lives During Coronavirus Epidemic, Experts Admit.  Democrats and the media may be trying to pile the bogus attacks on Trump over the United States' response to the coronavirus epidemic, but Trump should be getting credit for acting decisively and taking action that likely saved lives, even though it was a politically unpopular move to make.  New York Times science reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. noted that the Trump administration took "aggressive measures like barring entry to non-Americans who were recently in China and advising Americans not to go to China or South Korea," and that this strategy worked, despite the fact that the World Health Organization officially opposes travel and trade restrictions, and "reiterated that even as it declared the epidemic a global emergency on Jan. 30."  Republican Senator Tom Cotton said on Friday [2/28/2020] that "The single most consequential and valuable thing done to stop this virus from already spreading throughout the United States was when President Trump decided to shut down travel to China last month."

Ted Cruz Responds Accordingly After Liz Warren Suggests 'Diverting' Border Wall Funding to Combat Coronavirus.  For some odd reason, instead of pulling together as a team and pledging to join bipartisan efforts to help research and combat the coronavirus outbreak, Democrats have instead chosen relentlessly attack and lie about the Trump administration and other Republican responses to the emerging threat as insufficient, poorly planned, and poorly funded.  I'm sure playing politics in an election year and trying to generate panic among potential voters has nothing to do with their reactions, of course.  Nothing at all.  Sure.  In any event, as my RedState colleague Nick Arama wrote yesterday, one of the more curious suggestions about how to fight coronavirus came from struggling Democratic presidential candidate and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Wednesday.  Her solution?  To completely remove funding for the border wall and put it towards anti-coronavirus efforts.

The most dangerous thing about coronavirus is the hysteria.  If you have just cancelled your trip to Venice and ordered your £19.99 surgical face mask from Amazon, how about this for a terrifying vision: by the time we get to April, 50,000 Britons will have succumbed to a combination of infectious disease and adverse weather.  Frightened?  If you are, don't worry:  you survived.  It was two years ago.  In 2017-18 the Office for National Statistics recorded 50,100 'excess winter deaths'.  The explanation, according to the ONS, was probably 'the predominant strain of flu, the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine, and below average winter temperatures'.  Coronavirus (Covid-19) is a pretty virulent virus all right, but not in the way you might imagine.  It is less our respiratory tracts it has infected than our inner sense of angst.  By last Monday there were 79,331 confirmed cases worldwide, all but 2,069 of which were in China.

In April 2009, H1N1 Became a Pandemic; 6 Months Later, After 1,000 U.S. Deaths, Obama Finally Declared it a Public Health Emergency.  In April 2009, H1N1 (the swine flu) was first detected in the U.S. According to the CDC, this "virus was a unique combination of influenza virus genes never previously identified in either animals or people."  Sounds almost like the descriptions we've been hearing of the coronavirus.  It began to spread immediately and President Obama addressed Americans briefly at the end of April.  He said that U.S. health officials were monitoring the situation.  He recommended that if a student becomes infected, his or her school should consider closing down temporarily to contain the disease.  Obama said he had requested $1.5 billion from Congress to support the government's efforts.  Finally, he called on Americans to take the same precautions they would to prevent any other flu. [...] I don't think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused him of not asking for enough money.  And I'd be willing to bet no one accused him of not doing enough to keep Americans safe.  They had far more important things on their mind at the time.  They were preoccupied with passing The Affordable Care Act in the spring of 2009 and the swine flu was an unwanted distraction.

NBC's Chuck Todd Pretends The Left Isn't Politicizing Coronavirus.  Either NBC's Chuck Todd isn't very bright, or he thinks his audience isn't very bright.  On his Sunday broadcast, the journalist interview Vice President Mike Pence on his recent comments condemning people on the left for using "irresponsible rhetoric" when discussing the coronavirus issue.  The host then played a series of clips from conservative pundits lambasting progressives for politicizing the spread of the coronavirus.  One of these commentators was Rush Limbaugh, who excoriated Democrats for having "weaponized" the virus.  Donald Trump Jr. argued that the president's opponents were attempting to "take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump's streak of winning."  Todd then attempted to put the vice president on the spot, intimating that Democrats are not engaging in this behavior.  "None of this seems to match the facts.  What facts are there that Democrats are doing this? ... Seems like people are asking questions, and they're concerned about the virus.  This, this implies some sort of political motivation, which is kind of gross," he claimed.

The Shipping Container Industry Has Gamed Out What the Coronavirus May Do.  With the Left and their buddies in the media hoping for a crash in the market to douse President Trump's unrivaled economic prosperity leading up to the election, you can't really trust the mainstream media to tell you the truth.  They almost always over-inflate the importance of everything — especially if it could be twisted to make Trump look bad.  With Jim Acosta telling you the story, could you hope to get a fair treatment of the president and the coronavirus? [...] Assuming the coronavirus is around awhile, one industry, the crucial shipping container industry, gamed out what is likely to happen.  It ain't pretty.  We get an extraordinary amount of products in shipping containers.

Coronavirus context:  You'll be fine, probably.  OK, folks, Let's get a grip.  Contrary to hysterical impressions in current media, most of us are not threatened by death from coronavirus.  Perhaps as soon as Thursday.  Buy masks or perish.  You can't hide.  Say goodbye to loved ones while you still can. [...] Do you know how many Americans actually die from the seasonal flu every year, with hardly any notice?  In 2018, some 80,000 died in the United States, up from the usual range of 12,000 to 56,000.

Whistleblower Says HHS Officials Sent Workers to Handle Wuhan Evacuees Without Protective Gear or Training.  A whistleblower has filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel alleging that Health and Human Services Department officials sent workers to process evacuees from Wuhan, China, without proper training or protective gear.  Wuhan is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.  The whistleblower also alleges that HHS dismissed her concerns and she was threatened with the loss of her job if she didn't accept reassignment.

Coronavirus: When All Else Fails, Try Reason.  Looking at the best information available to me, I find it beyond question that the President has taken the right steps to deal with this variant flu; that few people in this country will perish from it; that while there may be some economic consequences of the supply disruption from China, the fact that we've been decoupling ourselves from China under this administration means they are likely to be smaller and more short-lived than the market manipulators would have us believe.

First coronavirus death in the U.S. happens in Washington state.  Health officials in Washington state said on Saturday a coronavirus patient has died, marking the first death in the U.S. from COVID-19, the illness associated with the virus.  The person who died was a man in his 50s who had underlying health conditions, and there was no evidence he contracted the virus through travel, health officials said.

Person dies from coronavirus in Washington state, first in the US, health officials say.  Health officials in Washington confirmed Saturday that one person has died from coronavirus, marking the first disease-related death in the U.S.  Seattle and King County Public Health officials issued a vague media advisory announcing the first COVID-19 death in the U.S., adding that there was an undisclosed number of new cases as well.  News of the death comes on the heels of three new cases in California, Oregon and Washington in which the patients were infected by unknown means.  They had not recently traveled overseas or had come into contact with anyone who had.

First US coronavirus death reported in Washington state.  A Washington State woman in her 50s is the first person in the United States to die from coronavirus, officials confirmed Saturday [2/29/2020]. President Trump identified the victim as a "high risk" patient and said during a news conference she had died overnight.  The American fatality was a resident of King County, which includes Seattle, according to the Washington Department of Health, KIRO 7 reported.  She died at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland.  Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said the death marked "a sad day in our state."

As Coronavirus Spreads, Elites More Concerned About "Racism" Than Keeping You Alive.  As the coronavirus spreads, our pseudo-elites are very concerned — that the crisis could harm the "diversity" agenda.  That blame for the virus could be put on some country or group.  And that too many of those trying to keep us safe are white.  Taking an old rhyme and adding a new twist, "Better red and dead," such worries actually have been expressed by leftists.  Coronavirus, whose precise origin is still unknown, is causing widespread disruption.  It has infected upwards of 80,000 and killed more than 2,800 worldwide.  It has led to economic seizure in China, where it first arose, and is roiling stock markets.  Japan is closing all schools nationwide for the month of March to combat it, and South Korea reported 505 new coronavirus cases in just one day.  Our country has at least 60 cases and the first case of unknown transmission in California, and a former top health official warns us to prepare for a pandemic.  Given this, you might expect our pseudo-elites to prioritize keeping Americans safe above all else.  But think again.  Never letting a crisis go to waste, leftists called President Trump a bigot for prudently putting travel restrictions on China last month.

Trump Slams Media For Coronavirus 'Hoax' Disinfo.  The MSM (and its many tentacles) has been lying about President Trump calling the new coronavirus a hoax - when it's obvious from his comments that he was referring to media criticism of his administration's response to the disease.  "They tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia," Trump told a Charleston, SC crowd as he relayed a discussion with an adviser.  "They tried the impeachment hoax.  They tried anything, they tried it over and over since he got in.... and this is their new hoax," Trump said.

Is Coronavirus A Hoax?  Democratic Party media are claiming that last night in South Carolina, President Trump said that the coronavirus epidemic is a hoax. [...] Did Trump actually say the corona virus is a hoax?  Of course not.  The claim is idiotic.  If the president thought the virus is a hoax, why did he do a press conference on it last week, along with various medical personnel?  And why did he ban travel to China at the beginning of the outbreak?  This is what Trump actually said in South Carolina, according to the New York Post: [...]

Obviously this is all about open borders, and not about public health:
Warren bill would divert $10B in Trump border wall funds to fight coronavirus.  Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposed diverting billions of dollars of funding for President Trump's border wall to government efforts to respond to the coronavirus.  Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced the Prioritizing Pandemic Prevention Act on Thursday to require that approximately $10 billion be redirected from fence projects along the U.S.-Mexico border to the Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Agency for International Development to make up for the money Congress will spend preparing for and responding to the virus.

Fact-Check: Obama Waited Until 'Millions' [were] Infected and 1000 Dead in U.S. Before Declaring H1N1 Emergency.  In April of 2009, the H1N1 became a pandemic.  But it wasn't until six months later, October, that then-President Obama declared a public health emergency on what was already a pandemic.  By that time, the disease had infected millions of Americans and more than 1,000 people had died in the U.S. [...] But wait, there's more.  According to Virology Journal, the 2009 H1N1 came into the U.S. from Mexico:  The swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus that appeared in 2009 and was first found in human beings in Mexico, is a reassortant with at least three parents.  Six of the genes are closest in sequence to those of H1N2 'triple-reassortant' influenza viruses isolated from pigs in North America around 1999-2000.  Now, about that "racist" wall ...

Democrats Lie About Coronavirus To Attack Trump.  Their Policies Could Make Fighting Pandemics More Difficult.  Members of the Democratic Party have repeatedly made false or misleading claims this week over the coronavirus outbreak in an apparent attempt to damage President Donald Trump.  Even worse, many of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have proposed policies that would likely put the U.S. at greater risk of having an outbreak.  The Associated Press fact-checked Democratic presidential candidates Michael Bloomberg and Joe Biden over attacks they made on Trump this week.

Five Reasons to Stop Freaking Out About Coronavirus.  [#1] Coronavirus is a familiar illness, and not as bad as others.  It is from the SARS family — and less deadly. [...] [#2] The U.S. response has been exceptionally good.  There have only been 16 cases thus far, none deadly.  President Donald Trump bought precious time by stopping travel to China last month — a step critics said was overly drastic.  Democrats are screaming about funding and staff cuts that never actually happened. [...] [#5] The same people who want you to panic about coronavirus want you to panic about everything.  The news business thrives on chaos.  In addition, the media want to destroy Trump, which is why they spread the Russia collusion hoax.

Beware:  The higher an "Alert Level" goes, the more power the issuing agency gets.
Marc Seigel slams 'bunch of alarmists' at World Health Organization: 'They always overstate the problem'.  Fox News medical correspondent Dr. Marc Seigel criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) as "a bunch of alarmists" Friday for raising their assessment of the global coronavirus risk from "high" to "very high."  A "very high" global risk assessment is the most serious assessment in the WHO's new four-stage alert system.  The head of the organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, cited the "continued increase in the number of cases and the number of affected countries" in raising the risk level.  "They always overstate the problem and they always make it seem like the world is going to end," Seigel told "The Five," noting that the WHO is part of the United Nations.

New England Journal of Medicine:  Coronavirus Could Be No Worse than Flu.  An editorial published Friday [2/28/2020] in the New England Journal of Medicine speculated that the coronavirus currently causing panic in world markets could turn out no worse than "a severe seasonal influenza" in terms of mortality.  Citing an analysis of the available data from the outbreak in China, the authors note that there have been zero cases among children younger than 15; and that the fatality rate is 2% at most, and could be "considerably less than 1%."

Larry Kudlow at CPAC: Socialism, Not Coronavirus Will Sink the American Economy.  White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said Friday [2/28/2020] that socialism worried him more than the coronavirus when it came to the economy.  "The virus is not going to sink the American economy," he said.  "What is, or could, sink the American economy is the socialism coming from our friends on the other side of the aisle."  Kudlow spoke about the economy with Ivanka Trump at CPAC as the stock market continued to lose value — down ten percent from its previous high.

CNNers Fume at Fox, Don Jr.'s 'Appalling' 'Dangerous' Claims They Are Politicizing Coronavirus.  Just like their cable news peers at MSNBC did this morning [2/28/2020], CNN went after Fox News on Friday for daring to call out their politicized reporting on the coronavirus.  Despite a NewsBusters study showing Trump-bashing takes center stage on CNN's coronavirus reporting, CNN Newsroom host Brooke Baldwin and media reporter Oliver Darcy raged that Fox was putting the public in danger by sowing skepticism over their anti-Trump reporting on the coronavirus.  Baldwin opened the segment by hyping President Trump's "media allies" in "full attack mode," before playing a clip of just three people on Fox calling out the media and Democrats fear mongering over the Trump administration being responsible for the virus becoming a pandemic in this country.

The Editor says...
The virus is not "becoming a pandemic in this country."  The number of people affected in the U.S. is less than one in a million.  The number of fatalities so far is one, as of this writing, and that was a person with "underlying health conditions."  That's not a pandemic or an epidemic.  If you'll turn off your television, everything will be just fine.

Bottomless money pit:  Agencies dealing with coronavirus already have record funding.  Rule number one in government:  Never get into a bidding war with Democrats on how much money you want to spend.  They have no limit to how much they will spend and will mortgage the future of our children to do so.  Trump should heed this lesson as he fights with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over the level of funding to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.  Trump's mistake was even offering another $2.5 billion in emergency funding to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  Everyone is forgetting that HHS already has a record high discretionary spending budget — over and beyond the high levels of the Obama years.  If that is not enough to deal with the coronavirus, then there's something else wrong here.  Yet now that Trump promised more funding, Schumer is demanding $8.5 billion in spending.  Why not make it $50 billion?

Three Pieces of Good News on Coronavirus.  Amid the partisanship, fear-mongering, and political jousting, what do Americans really need to know about Coronavirus — which appears to be spreading significantly beyond its initial containment inside the United States?  There are relatively few active steps people can take in preparation, though basic steps like frequent hand-washing are sensible.

Oregon coronavirus patient is grade-school employee; school closed for deep cleaning, officials say.  An elementary school in Oregon will remain closed through Wednesday after an employee became the first presumptive case of coronavirus in the state, the Lake Oswego School District confirmed on its website.  The district said its 430-student Forest Hills Elementary School in Lake Oswego, just south of Portland, will be closed so it can be deep-cleaned and so students and staff, who the Oregon Health Authority said may have been exposed to the virus, can be contacted by school officials, FOX 12 of Oregon reported.

Anti-Vaxxers Are Terrified the Government Will 'Enforce'a Vaccine for Coronavirus.  The rapid spread of coronavirus is beginning to look a lot like a pandemic, and besides its often deadly effects on human health, it's also having a serious effect on the global economy, raising the prospect that everyday life could be disrupted all over the world.  But anti-vaccine corners of the internet are worried about something else: that the government might develop — or even "enforce" — a coronavirus vaccine.

Mick Mulvaney:  Media Trying to Bring Down Trump with Coronavirus Doom.  Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney criticized the establishment media on Friday [2/28/2020] for crashing the stock market and panicking the American people with their coverage of the coronavirus.  "The reason you're seeing so much attention to it today, they think that this is what's going to bring down the president," he said.  Since the president appointed Vice President Mike Pence to lead the response to the coronavirus, Democrats and the establishment media criticized the administration for politicizing the response.

Democrats Demand Open Borders for the Coronavirus.  Over 90 Chinese migrants were caught by the Border Patrol trying to enter the United States this year.  According to Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), on February 10, three Chinese nationals were apprehended illegally entering Texas with flu-like symptoms, and had to be quarantined.  "Luckily they did not have the coronavirus," he said.  "But this is a wake-up call."  Border Patrol personnel have been handed respirators and told to isolate the large number of Chinese migrants who are continuing to illegally enter the United States.

Now They're the Disastercrats.  This week has been a nonstop orgy of doomsaying and freakouts in the mainstream media about the coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19 for short, which really ought to be known by its more descriptive name, the Kung Flu.  It's a deadly disease, to be sure, but not so much more so that it has the potential to wipe out civilization than the ordinary flu, which people catch all the time and every so often die from.  It's a big deal in China, where it started, but mostly due to its rather dubious origins there.  Anybody who's been paying attention at least suspects this thing was cooked up in a lab there, and probably a bioweapons lab at that — though when Tom Cotton connected those dots he was called "fringe" and a "conspiracy theorist" by the same people screaming that Trump is going to kill us all with inaction on COVID-19.

The Editor does not necessarily agree with this opinion:
The US should tackle coronavirus fears with massive fiscal stimulus.  With major US equity indices down more than 10% from last week's record highs, equity markets in the West are sending an economic danger signal.  Equity market sectors most exposed to the consequences of the epidemic are the worst performers.  Energy and basic industries lead the declines, with 20% declines in airlines, hospitality, oil and gas, and basic materials.  The German business daily Handelsblatt today reported that the German government is preparing a package of tax cuts and emergency assistance to small and medium enterprises to allay the economic damage from Covid-19.

The virus that challenged the world.  The coronavirus crisis is testing political systems all over the world.  In China it is challenging Xi Jin Ping because he 'owns' the system, Melinda Liu writes in Foreign Policy.  "The party has something to do with everything in China, especially under Xi Jinping — and suddenly, for Xi, that has become a double-edged sword.  As president, party head, and top military commander, Xi has consolidated his authority, centralized decision-making, abolished presidential term limits, and promoted his loyalists.  People expect Xi, China's 'chairman of everything,' to fix everything when it goes wrong."  And there's a lot wrong.  The virus is devouring the entire Chinese medical system.  NPR reports that patients requiring urgent surgery, even cancer treatment are simply turned away because the epidemic has used up all available Chinese resources.  If you arrive in the hospital with a heart problem, too bad.

Flashback: Joe Biden Spread Panic About Swine Flu in 2009.  Former Vice President Joe Biden claims that he was responsible for the Obama administration's handling of the Ebola outbreak in 2014.  But Biden caused panic in 2009 during the swine flu outbreak, telling Americans not to take flights or subways.  Biden had to walk back his remarks and the Obama White House had to issue an apology.

The Democrats and the virus:  Truth is hard, propaganda is cheap!.  The Democrats have truly lost their minds.  For years they have wailed about how our borders should all be open, there should be no walls.  When President Trump six weeks ago banned travelers from China, they called him a racist, of course.  Now that the virus has spread, they are blaming him, accusing him of an anemic response.  Wrong.  The country has a pandemic plan in place, no matter who is president, but Trump has been on the case since China informed the world of the virus breakout.  A task force to address this virus has been in place for at least a month.  They've accused Trump of cutting the budget of the CDC and NIH.  Even AP shows that he did not.

Highlights of the News.  ITEM 1:  The Loadstar reported, "Carriers have pulled 1.67 million TEU of capacity out of China, costing $1.5 billion."  TEU is an acronym for twenty-foot equivalent unit, which measures the cargo capacity.  The Loadstar is a trade publication covering the freight and logistics industry.  The story said, "And with a significant link in the supply chain broken, manufacturers worldwide face lengthy shutdowns due to a lack of vital components.  "Planned blank sailings post-Chinese new year and a mass of last-minute cancellations, as production and container transport came to a near standstill in the Corona Virus outbreak, has resulted in an 'unprecedented' level of tonnage being withdrawn, said the consultant."  This disruption is worse than shutting down factories because once the factories re-open, there will be no one willing to haul it across the ocean.

With zero confirmed cases in San Francisco...
San Francisco mayor declares coronavirus emergency.  San Francisco Mayor London Breed has declared a local emergency amid coronavirus fears.  "Although there are still zero confirmed cases in San Francisco residents, the global picture is changing rapidly, and we need to step up preparedness," Breed said in a statement Tuesday.  "We see the virus spreading in new parts of the world every day, and we are taking the necessary steps to protect San Franciscans from harm." While three people have been treated for COVID-19 at San Francisco hospitals, there have been no confirmed cases of the illness in the city.

Trump to detail US coronavirus efforts, Schumer seeks $8.5B.  President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that a widespread U.S. outbreak of the new respiratory virus sweeping the globe isn't inevitable even as top health authorities at his side warned Americans that more infections are coming.

Perspective:
U.S. Flu Season 2017-18: 45 Million Flu Cases, 61,000 Deaths.  As health care experts and world leaders struggle with the spread of the new corona virus (COVID-19) — an infectious respiratory illness like influenza (flu) but caused by a different virus — it merits noting how widespread influenza is in the United States and globally, and how many people die from the flu each year.  As explained by Johns Hopkins Medicine, COVID-19 is "caused by one virus, the novel 2019 coronavirus, now called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2."  The flu is "caused by any of several different types and strains of influenza viruses."

How to Prepare for a Coronavirus Quarantine.  All over the world, people are in quarantine at their homes due to Covid19, a coronavirus that has infected tens of thousands.  Some are in quarantine voluntarily — either they've recently returned from a place where the virus is widespread or they feel that social distancing is a good idea for them.  Others are in mandatory quarantines enforced by local governments.  Either way, the basics are the same.

Corona Virus proves Trump is correct.  On January 31, as the Corona Virus began making the news, Joe Biden said, "We have, right now, a crisis with the Corona Virus.  This is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fear mongering to lead the way instead of science."  President Donald John Trump had just imposed travel restrictions on Red China, including the quarantining of travelers returning home.  Closing the border made sense, which of course is why Biden and the rest of his party oppose it.  Their hatred of the president has made them dumber than a kid eating a bag of lead chips.  The stock market has had a few bad days because of the Corona Virus.  If so many of our top companies did not rely on Red China for parts and components, this strain of flu would be Red China's problem, not ours.  But globalism means we no longer control our economic destiny.

Chinese City Orders Cats, Dogs off the Menu After Coronavirus Outbreak.  The southern Chinese city of Shenzhen wants local restaurants to take dogs and cats off their menus as the country clamps down on the wildlife trade scientists suspect led to the deadly coronavirus outbreak.  Reuters reports a new city regulation states only nine meats that are permitted for consumption, including pork, chicken, beef and rabbit, as well as fish and seafood.

Trump Resistance Desperate to Turn Coronavirus into an American Tragedy.  The Coronavirus, like everything these days, has turned into a political football.  It's so predictable but very unfortunate because pandemics are serious business. [...] Why aren't our elected officials working together for the public interest?  Those politicians who would use this potential crisis for political advantage are disgusting, hateful human beings.  The Democrats don't want Trump to handle the virus problem successfully or smoothly because they don't want the president to look good.  But that also means they don't care if you or your family get sick and die.

Are the Dems rooting for the virus?  The Democrat leaders and candidates blasted President Trump's response to the Coronavirus outbreak, just as they blast everything else that he does.  Note that the Dems' criticism of Trump's response to the virus is unaccompanied by any specific suggestions.  They do suggest spending more money on the problem, though they don't say how.

Tokyo Olympics Facing Cancellation if Coronavirus Not Contained by Late May.  Dick Pound, the longest-serving member of the IOC, estimates there's a three-month window to decide the fate of the Tokyo Olympics, which are being threatened by the fast-spreading virus from China.  Pound, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, did not sound alarmist.  But he did speak frankly about the risks facing the Olympics, which open July 24.

Coronavirus For All:  Dems' Plans Would Make Us Sick.  As we're being told to prepare for a coronavirus pandemic, it's time to ask how Medicare for All would handle a global breakout of an infectious deadly disease.  An honest answer won't inspire confidence in the socialist health care systems Democrats want to force on America.  Health officials say a Wuhan coronavirus spread in the U.S. is inevitable, and are telling us to prepare.  They are encouraging schools and businesses to conduct their activities over the Internet and through conference calls when possible, and want Americans to practice "social distancing."  At the same time, markets are hurting, and trade has been disrupted, as has travel.  The potential damage is enormous.

Why the Greens Love the Coronavirus.  Wall Street's two-day panic which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop 1,911 points (6.8 percent) was sparked by the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic. [...] Because lax policy in the U.S. and elsewhere has allowed China to become the hub of multilateral supply-chains in so many sectors, often on a single-source basis, the disruption is threatening a global slowdown that will affect far more people than the virus.  There is one faction in the U.S. which hails the chaos and welcomes the economic decline: the Green movement.  It holds that human activity is bad for the planet and thus anything that reduces human activity is a blessing.  And this is not just the braying of a fringe group on the far Left.  Its argument recently appeared in the New Republic, long the flagship of mainstream liberalism.

How Do You Price a Pandemic?  With the Wuhan coronavirus declared a global health emergency, drug companies are racing to find treatments for the infected and a vaccine for everyone else.  The pandemic unfolding in China makes a compelling context for the drug-pricing debate in Washington, in which one side insists that we don't need innovation if patients can't afford it, implying that we have better things to spend our money on than supposedly overpriced medicines.  Do Americans really believe that, though — especially under current circumstances?

Limbaugh: Coronavirus Being 'Weaponized' to Bring Down Trump.  Syndicated conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on his Monday broadcast warned coronavirus was being hyped by "the drive-by media" to bring down President Donald Trump.  Limbaugh said, "It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump.  I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus."  He continued, "The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.  The drive-by media hype of this thing as a pandemic, as the Andromeda strain, as, '[...] if you get it, you're dead,' do you know what the — I think the survival rate is Ninety-eight percent.  Ninety-eight percent of people who get the coronavirus survive.  It's a respiratory system virus.  It probably is a ChiCom laboratory experiment that is in the process of being weaponized.  All superpower nations weaponize bioweapons.  They experiment with them.

B.C.'s 6th presumptive COVID-19 case flew from Montreal to Vancouver on Feb. 14.  The B.C. Centre for Disease Control says the province's 6th presumptive case of COVID-19, a woman in her 30s, flew on an Air Canada flight from Montreal to Vancouver on Valentine's Day, eight days before she tested positive.  Officials say they have contacted those sitting close to her on the plane and flight staff as a precautionary measure.  Air Canada confirmed on Sunday that a passenger aboard one of its flights from Montreal to Vancouver on February 14 has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.  The BCCDC later confirmed it was indeed the case announced on Thursday [2/20/2020].

World is approaching coronavirus tipping point, say experts.  The world is fast approaching a tipping point in the spread of the coronavirus, according to experts, who warn that the disease is outpacing efforts to contain it, after major outbreaks forced Italy and Iran to introduce stringent internal travel restrictions and South Korea's president placed the country on red alert.  Some of the countries most affected by the virus are scrambling to halt its progress two days after Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said the international community needed to act quickly before the narrowing "window of opportunity" closed completely.  With almost 78,000 cases of Covid-19 now confirmed across the globe, experts say the situation will soon reach a critical threshold.

Don't buy China's story:  The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab.  At an emergency meeting in Beijing held last Friday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke about the need to contain the coronavirus and set up a system to prevent similar epidemics in the future.  A national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place "to protect the people's health," Xi said, because lab safety is a "national security" issue.  Xi didn't actually admit that the coronavirus now devastating large swathes of China had escaped from one of the country's bioresearch labs.  But the very next day, evidence emerged suggesting that this is exactly what happened, as the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new directive entitled:  "Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus."

Beijing Admits Coronavirus Didn't Start in Wuhan Food Market.  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) now admits to an internal report showing the Coronavirus did not originate from the Huanan food market as they initially stated.  Senator Tom Cotton has previously questioned the origination claim because there is a level-4 biological weapons lab in Wuhan, China, where the Huanan market is located.

Republican senator:  China 'lying to the world' about coronavirus outbreak.  As the coronavirus death toll surpasses 2,000 people worldwide, one senator is warning about the lack of transparency from Chinese officials regarding the mystery illness.  Sen. Tom Cotton, who has repeatedly chastised the Chinese Communist Party for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, said, "I have very low confidence in the state of Chinese politics because their government is still lying to the world about this deadly matter," during an interview Friday on Fox News.  As the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus grows around the world, the Chinese government has been criticized for its failure to act quickly and openly about the magnitude of the disease, which the World Health Organization labeled a "global emergency" two weeks ago.

China's Wuhan to build 19 more makeshift hospitals.  Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, plans to build another 19 makeshift hospitals to receive more infected patients, local authorities said Friday [2/21/2020].  Upon their completion, all the makeshift hospitals in Wuhan are expected to offer 30,000 beds on Feb. 25, said Hu Yabo, deputy mayor of Wuhan at a press briefing on epidemic prevention and control.  To date, Wuhan has converted 13 existing venues into temporary hospitals, with a total of 13,348 beds, and about 9,313 beds have been put into use to treat patients with mild symptoms, said Hu.

The Editor says...
It doesn't sound like the situation is under control at all.

Brave Chinese Woman Risks Her Life to Denounce 'Evil' Regime's Handling of Coronavirus.  An anonymous Chinese woman courageously posted a video message to her fellow citizens on Sunday in which she called for resistance to the Communist Party, accusing it of destroying countless lives by bungling its response to the Wuhan coronavirus and warning that even now, the Party is primarily interested in suppressing dissent and maintaining power than fighting the disease.  [Video clip]  Taiwan News was impressed by the woman's willingness to say just about everything that can get you arrested in China, at a moment when swarms of censors have been unleashed to quash public anger over the coronavirus.

Coronavirus spreads in Chinese prisons, over 500 infected.  A spike in the number of coronavirus cases reported in China on Friday includes hundreds of prisoners who have been infected with the COVID-19 virus.  As a result, prison and security officials, as well as others in Hubei, have been fired over failing to disclose information and for allowing the virus to spread.  Justice Ministry official He Ping said more than 500 cases of the novel coronavirus had been confirmed within the country's prisons.  A majority of the 271 cases involving prisoners in the Hubei Province occurred at the Wuhan Women's Prison, He told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse.  Another 200 prisoners tested positive for the virus in Shandong Province, and dozens more were confirmed in Shilifen prisoners in Zhejiang Province.

China's Government Is Like Something out of '1984'.  The Chinese communist government increasingly poses an existential threat not just to its own 1.4 billion citizens but to the world at large.  China is currently in a dangerously chaotic state.  And why not, when a premodern authoritarian society leaps wildly into the brave new world of high-tech science in a single generation?  The Chinese technological revolution is overseen by an Orwellian dictatorship.  Predictably, the Chinese Communist Party has not developed the social, political or cultural infrastructure to ensure that its sophisticated industrial and biological research does not go rogue and become destructive to itself and to the billions of people who are on the importing end of Chinese products and protocols.

Americans with coronavirus were flown home over CDC objections: report.  More than a dozen Americans who had tested positive for coronavirus and were flown home alongside others without the virus were transported despite objections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), The Washington Post reported on Thursday [2/20/2020].  The 14 Americans who tested positive were among more than 300 who arrived back in the United States earlier this week after being evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, which has been the center of scrutiny over a coronavirus outbreak on board.

Coronavirus Wuhan diary: 'He got a hospital bed three hours before he died'.  Weeks after reports of a mysterious new virus began to emerge in the central Chinese province of Hubei, the authorities there suddenly changed how they determined who was infected.  It led to a significant spike in numbers — only because doctors are now counting patients who are diagnosed in a clinic and not just those who have taken the test.  But in those early days, the rapid spread of the virus through the city of Wuhan, combined with a shortage of hospital beds, meant some didn't get the treatment they needed.  Two Wuhan residents told the BBC about the harrowing experience of trying to get care for their loved-ones in a city overwhelmed by sickness.

What Really Inflamed the Coronavirus Epidemic.  Last year, in late December, Li Wenliang, a young ophthalmologist, wrote 150 of his friends from medical circles.  He said he had seen a number of cases of viral pneumonia come into the Wuhan Central Hospital, where he worked, and that they all seemed linked to the Huanan Seafood Market, the main source for restaurants in Wuhan, a metropolis of 11 million people, and the most important city of the central regions of China.  Five weeks later, Li was dead, at 34, killed by the same virus about which he warned his friends in the same hospital that had warned him not to tell people what was happening.  An online tidal wave of reflection and grief that I've never seen before resulted. [...] The rage was directed largely at Wuhan city officials.  After Li had written to his friends, he had been called into a police station, where he was forced to sign an unusual document designed to coerce him into silence.

Houston Company:  We've Created Coronavirus Vaccine.  John Price, president and CEO of Houston-based Greffex Inc., told the Houston Business Journal that his company finished creating a coronavirus vaccine this week.  Greffex eschewed using a living or killed virus in the development of the vaccine, as the Corona virus is still a mystery and highly contagious, and thus using such a virus might endanger people.  The Business Journal writes, "Greffex's treatments use adenovirus-based vector vaccines, which are used to target various kinds of infectious diseases and cancers, according to research published in the peer reviewed journal Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics."

UT Austin announces coronavirus 'breakthrough' could help yield vaccine.  Researchers at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the University of Texas at Austin claimed to have made a breakthrough in their coronavirus research on Wednesday and said their data could help develop a vaccine.  Scientists were able to create a 3D atomic-scale map of the part of the virus that attaches itself to human cells and causes infection, according to UT News.  Mapping what researchers call the "spike protein" is a vital step toward developing vaccines and antiviral drugs.  Jason McLellan, an associate professor at UT Austin, spoke with Fox News on Thursday about the virus and said researchers hope to study the 3D map, in an effort to develop antibodies that can help fight the disease.

Hong Kongers fear coronavirus could spread through pipes, just like SARS.  Another doctor in China has died after contracting the new coronavirus in Wuhan, which is the epicenter of the outbreak.  The doctor's death comes as health officials in China publish details of a study into 70-thousand cases of the virus.  The report suggests that the number of new infections is falling.  So far the virus has killed just over two percent of those infected, with older people and those with existing conditions more likely to die.  But Beijing warns that could change when people start returning to daily life.  The death rate is lower than for previous coronaviruses such as SARS.

Coronavirus could be knockout blow for Hong Kong's once-thriving tourism, retail sectors.  Tom Bennell's olive oil distribution business took a heavy beating during months of pro-democracy protests that emptied Hong Kong hotels and restaurants, his major customers.  Now he fears a knockout blow as the city fights the coronavirus.

Hospital director dies in China's Wuhan, epicenter of coronavirus outbreak.  The head of a leading hospital in China's central city of Wuhan, the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak, died of the disease on Tuesday, state television said, becoming the second prominent Chinese doctor to have succumbed to the pathogen.

Did coronavirus originate in Chinese government laboratory?  Chinese scientists believe the deadly coronavirus may have started life in a research facility just 300 yards from the Wuhan fish market.  A new bombshell paper from the Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology says that the Wuhan Center for Disease Control (WHCDC) could have spawned the contagion in Hubei province.  'The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus,' penned by scholars Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao claims the WHCDC kept disease-ridden animals in laboratories, including 605 bats.  It also mentions that bats — which are linked to coronavirus — once attacked a researcher and 'blood of bat was on his skin.'

The Wuhan Coronavirus — Some Real Truth.  As we move into the second phase of this outbreak, we are starting to understand more and more about this virus.  We know who is at greatest risk.  We know what to do to avoid it.  We are also beginning to understand that our fears about this virus are unnecessary.  Being cautious is wise, being fearful is not.  Unfortunately, the hysterical media continue to pump out hysteria and deception.  And, we'll be seeing their clickbait headlines for a while longer, so remember who is engaging in these lies.  As we move further into these Last Days, the fearmongers will only drag you down.  So, ignore them.

Coronavirus Update:  China's Economy Burns.  Some interesting news on the coronavirus front.  First the official infection figures everyone believes are understated:  Total confirmed cases: 67,097.  Total deaths: 1,527.  Total recovered: 8,578.  Behind the official figures, how badly is coronavirus and the resulting quarantine hurting China's economy?  By some measures, it's all but ground to a halt.

The White House doesn't trust China's coronavirus numbers — here's why.  The coronavirus that emerged from China's Hubei province over a month ago and has spread to two dozen countries is already fueling mistrust from the U.S. government on whether China can provide accurate information about the epidemic.  The White House said this week it does "not have high confidence in the information coming out of China" regarding the count of coronavirus cases, a senior administration official told CNBC.  Meanwhile, China has reportedly been reluctant to accept help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and has reportedly suppressed information about the outbreak from scientists that it deems alarming. [...] Mishaps with the 2003 outbreak of SARS, which sickened 8,098 people and killed about 800 over nine months, and discrepancies in reporting of economic data over the past two decades has only hardened the U.S. government's belief that China cannot be trusted, experts say.

The Four Coronavirus Scenarios:  The Bad; The Worse; The Ugly; And The Unthinkable.  The Covid-19 coronavirus could be more disruptive than markets are currently pricing in.  Not in the least because the 'true' number of infected people remains uncertain, as the recent surge in cases exemplifies.

How a World Without Borders Became a Ward With No Exit.  Even if the 2019 coronavirus ends immediately — and it is still growing — it will have already altered the way our interconnected civilization works.  Here are some challenges it has already posed.
  •   The need for contingent telecommuting. [...]
  •   The need for backup logistical systems to supply communities under lockdown. [...]
  •   The need for interlocks in the travel stream to safely move people from one environment to another without passing a pathogen. [...]
  •   The need for failover arrangements to replace critical processes knocked out by the disruption. [...]

No peak in sight as China reports 5,000 new coronavirus cases.  China's coronavirus outbreak showed no sign of peaking with health authorities on Friday reporting more than 5,000 new cases, while passengers on a cruise ship blocked from five countries due to virus fears finally disembarked in Cambodia. [...] In its latest update, China's National Health Commission said it had recorded 121 new deaths and 5,090 new coronavirus cases on the mainland on Feb. 13, taking the accumulated total infected to 63,851 people.

Eight planes locked down at Heathrow Airport over coronavirus fears.  Coronavirus fears sparked a lockdown of eight planes Friday morning at Heathrow Airport — including a flight from California — after passengers complained they were suffering from symptoms, according to new reports.  Passengers on United Airlines Flight 901 from San Francisco were told by the captain to stay put after landing because someone on board might be infected, the Daily Mail and ITV reported.  British passenger Andy West told the Mail the captain said they might not move for a while because "seven other planes" had suspected cases as well.

Will the coronavirus seal Trump's reelection?  A Military Times headline yesterday stated, "U.S. military prepping for coronavirus pandemic."  Recognized experts and current and former government officials and advisors state that containment has failed and that the Chinese virus will break out here and everywhere.  China is under a de facto worldwide transportation embargo.  Amazon is reportedly hoarding Chinese-made goods (essentially almost everything it sells, other than books, foodstuffs, and hygiene/beauty products) in anticipation of a logistical breakdown.  Uncle Sam is preparing to evacuate consular staff from Hong Kong as he already did from the mainland.  (Singapore likely comes next, then perhaps Thailand.)  Anyone who steps into a clinic anywhere in the U.S. is being asked if they have traveled to China or been near someone who has.  This is not random or undirected.

San Diego lab discovers COVID-19 vaccine in 3 hours.  In a race against the clock, a San Diego lab is scrambling to get a COVID-19 vaccine out and on the market.  As the days go by, Inovio Pharmaceuticals is getting closer to releasing the desperately needed vaccine against the deadly virus.  Inovio Pharmaceuticals, which is located in Sorrento Valley, has also created a vaccine for the Zika virus, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and the vaccine for Ebola.

Free Speech in the Time of the Coronavirus.  There is nothing more powerful than an idea.  That is why governments insist on controlling who can have them.  Freedom of speech is both an idea and an idea-generator.  That is why governments work so hard to control who can be heard.  In the early hours of February 7, the Wuhan Central Hospital released a short statement online that Dr. Li Wenliang was in critical condition.  Within a half hour, over a half-million Chinese had replied to the hospital's social media account with anguish.  "We are not going to bed," wrote one.  "We are here waiting for a miracle."  When he succumbed to his illness a short time later, the reaction was immediate and immense.  Within hours, Dr. Li's death became the most read and discussed story in China, with over 1.5 billion views alone on Weibo, the heavily monitored and censored Chinese social media platform. [...] In a closed socialist dictatorship, Dr. Li was "willing to speak the truth."

Rule in the Time of Coronavirus.  The cliché is that the Chinese ideogram for "crisis" combines "danger" and "opportunity."  (This is not entirely true.)  It's widely believed that the "real" infection and death rates in China are five to ten times higher than the official rates.  (And the official rates jumped from around 45,000 to over 60,000 yesterday.)  Much has been written about how the pandemic is a grave threat to China's Communist leadership.  Slow growth was already threatening the nation's house-of-cards banking system, and the pandemic.  But Xi Jinping may also be thinking of it as an opportunity.  Remember that Xi is part of political party that killed an estimated 65 million of its own people, and was happy to put a couple of million Uighers in concentration camps in order to reeducate them about their racial inferiority to the Chinese.  They had to hold off tiananmening a few thousand Hong Kong activists only because too much of the world was watching and too much money is at stake.  But now?  Now they've got tens of millions of people under quarantine, they're reportedly burning thousands of bodies that died from the virus without reporting them, so many that they're showing up on satellite photos mapping particulates.  With the quarantine and even heavier than usual censorship, the communist government has ideal circumstances for score-settling and purging "subversive" elements.

At least 500 Wuhan medical staff are infected with coronavirus.  Hundreds of hospital staffers have been infected with the coronavirus in Wuhan, the Chinese epicenter of the outbreak, according to a new report.  There were at least 500 confirmed cases of infected Wuhan hospital workers by mid-January — with hundreds more suspected to have the virus, sources told the South China Morning Post.  The cases reportedly include at least 100 staffers from both Wuhan Xiehe Hospital and Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, as well as an additional 50 cases at Wuhan Number 1 Hospital and Zhongnan Hospital.

Coronavirus Outbreak 'Just Beginning' Outside China, Says Expert.  The coronavirus outbreak may be peaking in China where it was first detected in the central city of Wuhan but it is just beginning in the rest of the world and likely to spread, a global expert on infectious diseases said on Feb. 12.  The Chinese regime's senior medical adviser has said the disease is hitting a peak in China and may be over by April.  He said he was basing the forecast on mathematical modeling, recent events and government action.  Dale Fisher, chair of the Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network that is coordinated by the World Health Organization, said that predicted "time course" may well be true if the virus is allowed to run free in Wuhan.

'Draconian measures': China allegedly cremating coronavirus victims in secret.  A Chinese media outlet covering the deadly coronavirus in the country has raised suspicion about the actual death toll of the illness after local doctors said they have been cremating victims of the disease in secret.  "Also, one thing that #China is hiding is the number of death caused by the virus," tweeted Deutsche Welle reporter William Yang.  "Credible Chinese media outlet @initiumnews interviewed people working at local cremation centers, confirming that many dead bodies were sent directly from the hospitals to the cremation centers."

The bio-weapon theory of the China epidemic.  Many reports and rumors are circulating:  huge numbers of people are trying to escape lockdown in Chinese cities; bodies in Wuhan are piling up; Chinese agents or assets stole biological materials from two labs in the US and Canada, for the purpose of smuggling them into China; a new biowar research facility has opened in Wuhan.  At the heart of these reports is:  the dreaded coronavirus has been weaponized and is on the loose — either as the result of an accident or an intention.

Fears packages could be contaminated with coronavirus.  Google coronavirus and packages and you get hit with countless results — all answering the question, can you catch coronavirus from packages coming from China?  The answer is no.  Despite fears the deadly infection can be transported through packages, experts say this is simply not the case.

Coronavirus outbreak may be over in China by April — expert.  The coronavirus outbreak is hitting a peak in China this month and may be over by April, the government's senior medical adviser said on Tuesday, in the latest assessment of an epidemic that has rattled the world.  In an interview with Reuters, Zhong Nanshan, an 83-year-old epidemiologist who won fame for combating the SARS epidemic in 2003, shed tears about the doctor Li Wenliang who died last week after being reprimanded for raising the alarm.

Coronavirus 'super-spreader' speaks out after infecting 11 others with virus.  A British man who unknowingly infected nearly a dozen others with the deadly coronavirus has come forward.  Steve Walsh contracted the virus while on a business trip to Singapore in late January.  He then went to a ski resort in the French Alps, where he unwittingly spread the virus to at least 11 others.  At least five Britons who stayed at the resort — including a 9-year-old boy — were infected, as were five people in France.  He was also connected to at least one case in Spain, the BBC reported.

Team Trump entirely right on drastic action to keep coronavirus out of US.  Chinese government officials and the World Health Organization are bad-mouthing the Trump administration for trying to stop the coronavirus from invading the United States.  Team Trump is barring foreigners who have been in China recently from entering the country.  Americans returning from China are quarantined for 14 days. [...] You can't fight an epidemic with political correctness.  Trump's travel restrictions are saving lives here and sparing US hospitals, which are already overwhelmed by flu season, from being thrown into crisis.  Instead of bashing America, WHO officials should be criticizing Beijing's abusive methods of disease containment.  Chinese officials are offering cash or free masks to anyone who squeals on sick neighbors.  Suspected virus carriers are dragged from home and trucked to quarantine warehouses, where medical care is lacking but contracting the virus is almost guaranteed.  People daring to report the dire conditions on social media are silenced.  In China, the public is under control, not the disease; the daily death count is steadily rising.

If Coronavirus Isn't A Serious Threat To The US, Why Is Our Government Turning 11 Military Bases Into Quarantine Camps?  If this coronavirus outbreak is not a serious threat, then why is the U.S. government preparing to quarantine victims all over America?  As you will see below, 11 U.S. military bases located close to major airports are being converted into "quarantine centers" for potential patients.  When I first learned about this, I was greatly alarmed, because we have all seen what is going on in China right now.  People are literally being physically dragged out of their homes and are being forcibly relocated to "mass quarantine camps" with hordes of other very sick people.  Sadly, many of them will never come out of those camps alive.

Coronavirus outbreak 'very grave threat' for rest of world:  WHO.  A day after a team of World Health Organization (WHO) medical experts arrived in China to help investigate the deadly coronavirus outbreak, the health agency's director said the virus poses "a very grave threat for the rest of the world."  Over 1,000 people in China have died after contracting the virus, which has sickened over 43,000 others globally.  Just under 400 of those cases have been confirmed in countries outside of China.

Could the coronavirus take China's communist dictatorship down?  Monday [2/10/2020], China's leader, Xi Jinping appeared in public for the first time since a big swath of the country was shut down due to the coronavirus. [...] The BBC called that appearance "rare."  Foreign Affairs calls it "a stress test."  Or more likely, he's running scared.

Coronavirus infects 66 more passengers on Diamond Princess, bringing total to 130.  Japan may test every person aboard the Diamond Princess for the coronavirus after it was determined Monday that there were 66 new cases on the quarantined ship docked at a Yokohama port.  The Japan Times, which first reported the increase, said the passengers will be able to disembark after test results become available.  Princess Cruises confirmed to Fox News the number of new cases.

Fury in China as footage appears to show officials taking doctors' face masks.  Footage of government officials in Wuhan appearing to take face masks intended for health workers battling the highly infectious coronavirus has fuelled a growing wave of anger over how Chinese authorities have handled the outbreak.  Images of medical staff making protective equipment out of rubbish bags, sleeping in hospitals, and crying in frustration and exhaustion have dominated Chinese social media over the last two weeks, inspiring an outpouring of sympathy and donations of supplies.  A video posted by Beijing News on Sunday appeared to show government workers taking some of those donated supplies.

Corona Virus: 566 Dead, 28,364 Cases.  Scenes from hospital and outside

China drags its coronavirus victims kicking and screaming into big state pens.  In contrast to the U.S. citizens who may have been exposed to the coronavirus, transported by the U.S. from China to U.S. military bases in California, willingly coming to isolation units and then being given humane care to ensure recovery, (and speaking gratefully for it) China is conducting mass arrests of anyone exposed to the coronavirus and dragging them to camps.

Is China hiding how bad the coronavirus is?  The Chinese government would have the world believe that the coronavirus is under control and the risks of it spreading to the rest of us is minimal.  But foreign governments and intelligence agencies believe that China has been lying about the extent of the epidemic and continues to deny the truth about the numbers of dead and infected.  Judging by leaked videos on social media that purpotedly show the dead lying untended in the street, bodies wrapped in sheets lying on benches and crematoriums working 24/7 with bodies unceremoniously stuffed into ovens with no burial rites, millions of Chinese people appear to agree with the foreign assessments.

Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst designated as quarantine camp to stop U.S. coronavirus pandemic.  In the event of a coronavirus outbreak in the United States, this sprawling military installation in Ocean and Burlington counties was designated Thursday as an emergency camp to quarantine potential patients.  U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper was asked by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to select forts and bases near 11 major airports that could house airline or cruise ship passengers, should existing designated sites become filled, according to the Pentagon.

Bio-warfare experts question why Canada was sending lethal viruses to China.  China strongly denies it makes germ weapons, and Canadian officials say the shipment was part of its efforts to support public-health research worldwide.  Sharing of such samples internationally is relatively standard practice.  But some experts are raising questions about the March transfer, which appears to be at the centre of a shadowy RCMP investigation and dismissal of a top scientist at the Winnipeg-based NML.  "I would say this Canadian 'contribution' might likely be counterproductive," said Dany Shoham, a biological and chemical warfare expert at Israel's Bar-Ilan University.  "I think the Chinese activities ... are highly suspicious, in terms of exploring (at least) those viruses as BW agents.

Top 10 Corona virus Outbreak Updates You Won't See on Legacy Media.  [Numerous video clips]

British honeymooner among dozens of new cases reported on quarantined cruise ship.  The third person to have been diagnosed with coronavirus in the UK is believed to have caught the disease in Singapore.  It comes as Japan reported 41 new cases of the illness on a quarantined cruise ship near Yokohama.  Before the new cases, 20 infected passengers had been escorted off the Diamond Princess.  Meanwhile, a Chinese doctor who had been threatened by police after sounding the alarm about the coronavirus died.

Rare revolt in China in name of martyred coronavirus doctor.  The death of a Chinese doctor who was punished for blowing the whistle on the coronavirus outbreak has triggered unprecedented public criticism of the Communist Party from inside China.  Li Wenliang, 34, was hailed a martyr amid growing dissent and anger over China's moves to cover up the early stages of the outbreak.  Censors were in overdrive to erase the internet backlash by blocking discussion topics like "the Wuhan government owes Doctor Li Wenliang an apology" and "we want free speech".

Chinese Woman Is FORCED Into A Quarantine Box By Chinese Authorities.  A shocking video leaked from Wuhan shows a Chinese woman being forced into Quarantine Box by authorities.  The sounds of her screams are haunting.  It is not clear if she is suspected of having the Coronavirus or if she is a video leaker being arrested.  Reports have stated China cracking down on citizens leaking videos showing the horrid conditions within Wuhan and other prison cities.  [Video clip]

Only A Slim Majority Favors Banning Those Already Infected With Coronavirus from Entering US.  Better dead than possibly perceived as racist.  The following graph shows the percentages of people, by selected demographics, who think the US government should deny entry into the country to any foreigner who has coronavirus.  "Not sure" responses, constituting 17% of the total, are excluded, so the residuals represent percentages opposed to a ban among the opinionated.

Royal Caribbean bans guests with Chinese, Hong Kong, Macau passports.  The Royal Caribbean cruise line announced Friday it will ban any guests with Chinese, Hong Kong or Macau passports from boarding its ships until further notice — after dozens of passengers aboard its ship Anthem of the Seas, now docked in New Jersey, were screened for the illness.

Pangolin identified as potential link for coronavirus spread.  The endangered pangolin may be the link that facilitated the spread of the novel coronavirus across China, Chinese scientists said Friday [2/7/2020].  Researchers have long suspected that the virus, which has now killed more than 630 people and infected some 31,000, was passed from an animal to a human at a market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.  Researchers at the South China Agricultural University have identified the scaly mammal as a "potential intermediate host," the university said in a statement, without providing further details.

Hong Kong residents join massive queues for masks as fears of coronavirus spread.  People across Hong Kong are desperate to get their hands on masks, particularly after the terrority recorded its first death from coronavirus on February 4.  The next day, thousands of people lined up in front of a shop that had just received a new shipment of masks.  Videos of the huge queue started circulating on social media in a sign of the alarm spreading across the city.

Chinese street being disinfected.  Tencent's February 1st report detail over 24,589 deaths from the coronavirus.  China has essentially shut down the entire country.  [Video clip]

The Lies We Are Being Told About The Coronavirus.  [Scroll down]  The phrase "conspiracy theory" is usually exploited as a way to dismiss facts and evidence without consideration on the basis that the official story is the only story that has any validity.  In other words, the official story requires no justification because the authorities are infallible and always have our best interests at heart.  The problem is, governments and the mainstream media have been caught lying over and over again about issues far less important than a global pandemic, so I'm not sure why we should trust ANYTHING they say ever.  There is considerable evidence that China has been lying incessantly about the number of sick and dead due to the coronavirus, including leaked accounts from medics and other people at ground zero in Wuhan.  These people are now being silenced by the Chinese government.  In fact, the Chinese government was suppressing coverage and information on the coronavirus from the very beginning of the contagion, which helped allow it to spread unchecked.  Now, social media companies are taking action to remove people who try to document the facts of the virus and its potential source in the name of "stopping fake news".  Anyone who questions the official narrative is not only a "conspiracy theorist" but also a "danger" to the public.  This narrative is supported by US government officials:

Wuhan doctor who was Coronavirus whistleblower dies from virus.  Dr. Li Wenliang — the Chinese whistleblower doctor who warned the public of a potential "SARS-like" disease in December 2019 — has died of coronavirus in Wuhan today, according to several state media reports.  Li was questioned by local health authority, and was later summoned by Wuhan police to sign a reprimand letter in which he was accused of "spreading rumors online" and "severely disrupting social order."  He was hospitalized on Jan. 12 after contracted the virus from his patient, and he was confirmed to have the coronavirus on Feb. 1.

'Compulsory quarantine' on all arrivals to Hong Kong from mainland China.  The UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the government is "taking no chances" and adopting a science-led approach in its response to the outbreak.  He added that the government was expecting further cases in the UK.  All arrivals to Hong Kong from mainland China will face 'compulsory quarantine'.  Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said all people entering the semi-autonomous territory from the mainland, including Hong Kong residents, will be required to undergo 14 days of quarantine because of the outbreak of the new virus.  Thousands of medical staff in Hong Kong have gone on strike in a bid to get the government to completely seal the border with mainland China.  The medical union wants the government halt cross-border travel and prevent the spread of a new virus.

Coronavirus:  Ten passengers on cruise ship test positive for virus.  At least 10 people on board a cruise ship docked in the Japanese port of Yokohama have tested positive for coronavirus, health authorities say.  Almost 300 of the 3,700 people on the Diamond Princess have been tested so far.  The number of infected could rise.  The checks began after an 80-year-old Hong Kong man who had been on the ship last month fell ill with the virus.  Some 3,600 people on a second cruise ship docked in Hong Kong are also being tested.  Chinese health authorities are stepping up efforts to control the spread of the virus, with approximately 18 million people in the east of the country now required to stay at home.

Funeral Home Worker in Wuhan:  We Are Working 24/7 to Cremate Bodies.  Workers at crematoriums in Wuhan City, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, say their workload has increased dramatically in recent days, as they constantly transfer the bodies of victims from hospitals and private homes.  In an interview with The Epoch Times, a worker described long working hours to cope with the sudden increase in bodies to be cremated.  Meanwhile, videos from workers dealing with the crisis have been circulating on social media, including one from a worker at a Wuhan funeral home who shared footage of more than 10 bodies lying on gurneys, lined up for cremation.  Some netizens also shared videos they shot within different hospitals in Wuhan, showing bodies waiting to be transferred from the hospitals to funeral homes.

There's Something That Red China Is Not Telling Us.  When a police state starts building giant hospitals every few days, one can be sure that the true impact of the Coronavirus outbreak is still unclear.  Let me throw this out there: the reported numbers are false.

Woman wearing face mask attacked in possible coronavirus hate crime.  A woman wearing a face mask was attacked at a Chinatown subway station after allegedly being called a "diseased b****" — in what police are treating as a possible hate crime sparked by coronavirus fears.  Shocking video shared by the NYPD's hate crimes unit shows a violent confrontation involving a woman with her face completely covered by a yellow face mask, glasses and the hood of a parka.  An eyewitness claimed the victim had already been hit on the head when she ran to confront her attacker — who unleashed a flurry of blows after missing with a flying kick, eventually pushing her into a wall.

Sen. Cotton Shreds China's Official Virus Story, Hints at 'Super Laboratory'.  Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas dismantled a claim from China's communist regime Thursday that pinned the coronavirus outbreak on a market selling dead and live animals.  "China claimed — for almost two months — that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan seafood market," Cotton wrote on Twitter.  "That is not the case."  In a video accompanying his post, Cotton explained that the Wuhan wet market (which Cotton incorrectly referred to as a seafood market) has been shown by experts to not be the source of the deadly contagion.  Cotton referenced a Lancet study which showed that many of the first cases of the novel coronavirus, including patient zero, had no connection to the wet market — devastatingly undermining China's claim.

The Coronavirus Conspiracy.  A Coronavirus is a virus that causes an infection in your nose, sinuses, or upper throat.  It can lead to pneumonia.  Most Coronaviruses are not dangerous.  Some types of them are serious, such as MERS and SARS.  The name comes from the crown-like appearance the virus displays. [...] On a side note:  Remember Novavax that created the Ebola vaccine?  Apparently they are now creating a vaccine for this Wuhan Coronavirus.  Look how much their stock jumped in value when they announced they were developing the vaccine; 71% is a pretty health investment!

Thai Doctors Say They Cured Patient of Coronavirus 'In 48 Hours'.  The Ministry of Public Health on Sunday said they discovered medical treatment that rendered the new strain of coronavirus impotent in 48 hours.  The breakthrough discovery was made in the case of a 70-year-old Chinese woman who was admitted to a hospital in Thailand for pneumonia and excessive fluid in the lungs caused by the coronavirus, according to the ministry.  The unnamed woman had repeatedly tested positive for coronavirus for 10 days before doctors administered her with a combination of anti-HIV and flu treatment medication, Rajavithi Hospital lung physician Kriangsak Atipornwanich said at a news conference.

Why Americans don't need to panic over the coronavirus.  "Do not let fear or panic decide your actions," a Centers for Disease Control official urged Friday.  Those are words of wisdom Americans would do well to remember now that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has declared coronavirus a public health emergency in the United States.  The CDC issued its first quarantine order in 50 years, ordering all passengers returning to the country on an evacuation flight from Wuhan, China, to stay put for 14 days.  Then Azar announced all Americans returning from Hubei province will be subject to quarantine.  And foreign nationals, except immediate family of US citizens, who have traveled anywhere in China in the last two weeks will be banned from entry entirely.  American, Delta, and United suspended all flights to China.

Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say.  The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the world's leading infectious disease experts.  The prospect is daunting.  A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.  Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause.

Is the Coronavirus Outbreak China's Chernobyl?  The outbreak in People's Republic of China (PRC) has led to a declaration of a global public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO). In the 2019 WHO report of the ten most likely threats to global health, an influenza pandemic was in the top three.  In light if recent events, it seems that it should have been listed as the number one threat.  Just as with the Chernobyl cover-up, there are indications that the outbreak of the corona virus is much more severe than has been admitted by the communist government.  There are reports that the PRC is digging mass graves and burning bodies to deal with the death toll.  If true, then the actual death toll is well above the 170 officially stated by President Xi Jinping's government.

China completes emergency coronavirus hospital in just days.  China completed building on Sunday [2/2/2020] a massive, makeshift hospital in Wuhan that will serve as the frontline in battling the coronavirus epidemic, according to a report.  Huoshenshan Hospital was built in less than two weeks to treat patients at the epicenter of the virus that has killed more than 300 people, BBC reported.  The hospital, which has 1,000 beds, started construction Jan. 23 and will begin admitting patients on Monday, according to Chinese state media China Global Television Network.

The Editor says...
From what I've heard, a place that is called a hospital in China would be called a kennel in the United States.

2 California bases picked as possible coronavirus quarantine sites.  The Defense Department said Saturday it has agreed to house up to 1,000 people who may need to be quarantined upon arrival from overseas travel because of the coronavirus and that two of the four facilities selected are in California.  Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego County are the two California sites that were selected, Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.  The others are Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and the 168th Regiment Regional Training Institute in Colorado.

Coronavirus Has Europe Treating Chinese People Like the Plague.  The sign taped to the glass door of a popular gelateria in front of Rome's iconic Trevi Fountain is perfectly clear, and perfectly ugly.  Written in both Chinese and English, it states what pretty much everyone in a country of hypochondriacs and the rest of Europe is thinking:  "Due to international safety measures, all people coming from China are not allowed to have access to this place."  The writer then apologizes for any inconvenience.  Italy has confirmed just two coronavirus cases despite quarantining 7,000 people on a cruise ship this week over a feverish woman from Hong Kong who had, as it turned out, nothing but the flu.  A full 24 hours after the woman was cleared, citizens of the port town of Civitavecchia near Rome staged a protest at the port, demanding that all 750 Chinese passengers on board be tested for the disease before anyone could get off the ship.

As New Coronavirus Spread, China's Old Habits Delayed Fight.  A mysterious illness had stricken seven patients at a hospital, and a doctor tried to warn his medical school classmates.  "Quarantined in the emergency department," the doctor, Li Wenliang, wrote in an online chat group on Dec. 30, referring to patients.  "So frightening," one recipient replied, before asking about the epidemic that began in China in 2002 and ultimately killed nearly 800 people.  "Is SARS coming again?"  In the middle of the night, officials from the health authority in the central city of Wuhan summoned Dr. Li, demanding to know why he had shared the information.  Three days later, the police compelled him to sign a statement that his warning constituted "illegal behavior."  The illness was not SARS, but something similar: a coronavirus that is now on a relentless march outward from Wuhan, throughout the country and across the globe, killing at least 304 people in China and infecting more than 14,380 worldwide.

Possible case of coronavirus being tested at NYC hospital.  The first person in New York City to undergo testing for the novel coronavirus is being treated in Bellevue Hospital, the city's health commissioner said Saturday [2/1/2020].  The person, who is under 40, fell ill with a fever, cough and shortness of breath — telltale signs of the illness — after returning from China and went to see a doctor, Dr. Oxiris Barbot said in a statement.  Testing showed the person didn't have the flu or a cold virus, so a test for the coronavirus was done.  The fact that the person is being tested shows the system the city put in place to handle the outbreak is working, Barbot said.

Wuhan Revisited.  For a number of years in the 20-aughts, I worked in Wuhan, Hubei Province, People's Republic of China.  China being China, and Wuhan being a provincial outpost of old China, an amalgamation of three towns incorporated under the one name, observations of life there then might be of interest now, given the tumult over the mushrooming conflagration of the coronavirus.  Because I lived on the outskirts of town, near a squealing pig farm, many buffalo in the fields, goats occasioning the streets, wild dogs inoffensively wandering about most of the open-air eateries not presumptuous enough to call themselves restaurants — a few plastic chairs and unwashed PVC tables scattered near a rough kitchen, basically — I was faced daily with the critical choice:  Shall I risk whatever microbes or bacteria or whatever we might 'catch' or go along with the locals, who ate whatever was on offer without much of a tremor or fret.

The Editor says...
After reading the article above, I am surprised the whole nation of China isn't sick.

The real number of coronavirus cases is more than 75,000, according to a scientific model that says the outbreak will double in size every 6.4 days.  The true number of people infected with the deadly Wuhan coronavirus is more than 75,000, according to a scientific model, which claims the official number for those infected is far too low.  Academics at the University of Hong Kong published a paper on Friday in The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, estimating the rate at which the virus is spreading.  It used official data on the number of infections to calculate what it said was the true extent of the disease — almost 100 times the official figures.

Delta and American Suspend Flights to China.  Delta Air Lines and American Airlines said on Friday morning [1/31/2020] that they were suspending service to China as concerns about coronavirus spread across the globe.  American Airlines said that it was suspending all flights to and from mainland China immediately through March 27. Delta said it would suspend service from Feb. 6 through April 30.  United Airlines had previously announced cancellations because of declining demand, but still intended to operate some flights to China as of Thursday.

A Thousand Ways to Get Sold Out.  Although Russia and the Ukraine are the focus of US media coverage the most important recent events have occurred in China.  It remains in the grip of an ever expanding coronavirus epidemic that the WHO seems reluctant to wall off, saying Beijing would help those foreign countries that got infected. [...] The 2019-nCoV outbreak is proving to be not only an epidemiological event but a geopolitical development.  Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross pointed out the obvious.  China will be diminished as a result, the only question being by how much.

7,000 People Stuck on Italian Cruise Ship over Coronavirus Fears.  European countries on Thursday [1/30/2020] stepped up efforts to contain the virus infecting central China, sending a plane to evacuate hundreds of Europeans from the country and halting even more flights to China.  Italian authorities kept some 7,000 people on a cruise ship while they checked for a possible infection.

7,000 people banned from leaving cruise ship in Italy due to coronavirus — right out of a movie.  Cruise ship travelers have been confined to their vessel while docked at an Italian port on Thursday after discovering two of their passengers may have the deadly coronavirus.  In total, 6,000 passengers and 1,000 crew members aboard the Costa Smeralda have been placed on lockdown at the port of Civitavecchia, the Daily Express reported.  The lockdown began after the captain told port officials that they had a married couple from Hong Kong suspected of carrying the coronavirus aboard the cruise ship.

Coronavirus: Dems Rooting for a Global Pandemic.  Russiagate didn't work; Ukraine didn't work; the economy is growing at a healthy rate.  Nothing works against this president — but maybe the coronavirus will do it!  That seems to be the attitude among liberals in the U.S. media.  So what if a few million die a miserable death?  We've finally got something that will stick.  After all, the coronavirus is Trump's fault!  That seems to be what liberals from Joe Biden to Elizabeth Warren are saying about this serious health threat — one that started in China and is certainly not the president's fault.

Harvard's Wuhan Connection — Or Vice Versa?  I'll admit it — I've been compulsively following the Chinese coronavirus story.  The big question seems to be:  Does the coronavirus come from bats and snakes, or simply from a Chinese bio-warfare lab that's conveniently located near Wuhan?  Today we learn of another possibility.  Maybe it came from Harvard University!  It's not every day that a department chair at Harvard gets arrested by the feds, but Zerohedge has the story, via the WSJ [...]

Hong Kong cut rail links as virus from China spreads.  The United States and several other nations prepared Tuesday [1/28/2020] to airlift citizens out of a Chinese city at the center of a virus outbreak that has killed more than 100 people.

N95 Virus Masks Sell Out Across The U.S..  We noted last week how worldwide and U.S. internet searches for "virus mask" and "n95 masks" have exponentially increased as the deadly coronavirus spreads across the world.  Our report from Friday [1/24/2020] confirmed virus masks and hand sanitizers were in short supply across China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Japan, South Korea, and other regional countries.

Canada's first coronavirus patient had symptoms on flight from China.  Canada's chief medical officer said on Sunday [1/26/2020] that an individual who was declared the country's first "presumptive" confirmed case of the novel coronavirus had developed symptoms on the plane while traveling from Wuhan in China to Toronto.

Note on Coronavirus:  Don't Panic.  I am not suggesting that we not remain alert, nor am I suggesting that we cast caution to the winds, but this present coronavirus will probably be nowhere near as deadly as many Chicken Littles are predicting.  Why?  Because, quite often, it is not the virus itself, but the secondary infections that are so deadly.

Chinese market at center of coronavirus outbreak sold wolves, rats to eat.  The Chinese market at the center of the deadly coronavirus outbreak sold live animals — including wolf pups, foxes, rats and peacocks — to eat, according to a new report.  The wild animals were among 112 items that were peddled at the Huanan Seafood Market in the central city of Wuhan, Agence France-Press reported.  Other wildlife sold at the market, which has since been shuttered, included crocodiles, giant salamanders, snakes, porcupines and camel meat.

China coronavirus:  Wuhan residents describe 'doomsday' scenes as patients overwhelm hospitals.  Hundreds of patients in Wuhan who have yet to be confirmed as carrying the new strain of coronavirus are becoming increasingly desperate as the city struggles to cope with the numbers reporting pneumonia symptoms.  One 36-year-old, speaking by phone outside a major hospital in the city, said she had spent the past week taking her sick husband from hospital to hospital in a vain attempt to get him tested for the virus, which has already killed 41 people and infected hundreds more.

China coronavirus:  Death toll rises as disease spreads.  The death toll from a newly-discovered coronavirus in China has risen to 41 on the day of the Lunar New Year.  Another 15 deaths in Hubei province, where the outbreak began, were announced on Saturday [1/25/2020].  Health officials are struggling to contain the outbreak as millions of people travel for the Chinese new year, one of the most important events.  Many festivities have been cancelled.  There are now more than 1,200 confirmed cases in China.

China rapidly locks down 4 new cities over deadly coronavirus — more people than Florida.  Authorities in China have expanded quarantine orders to stop the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.  Quarantine orders have now restricted travel from five Chinese cities, affecting tens of millions of people, according to the New York Times.  Thus far at least 17 people people have been killed and more than 570 cases of coronavirus have emerged.  On Thursday [1/23/2020] China's National Health Commission (NHC) called for a quarantine of the city of Wuhan, where the virus first appeared.  That initial quarantine order affected a city of more than 11 million people.

Don't buy the media hype over the new China virus.  A CNN reporter broadcasts from Wuhan, China, on the recent viral outbreak.  There is nobody near who could possibly infect him — unless the cameraman has Guinness Book of Records coughs and sneezes.  So why does he insist on wearing a blue surgical mask while talking?  It's called "drama," which is badly needed, because there appears to be nothing very special about this outbreak of the 2019-nCoV or Wuhan virus.  It should actually be called the DvV, or Déjà vu Virus, because we have been through these hysterias before.  Over and over.  Heterosexual AIDS, Ebola repeatedly, the H1N1 swine flu that was actually vastly milder than the regular flu and, especially, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.  Once you start debunking mass hysteria over outbreaks, it gets easy, because the same patterns repeat themselves.

On the other hand...
China's coronavirus outbreak looks worse than the Chicoms are admitting.  Communist regimes are famous for concealing inconvenient information and that appears to be the case in China with the spread of the coronavirus, a SARS-linked pneumonia-like flu that reportedly has killed 26, infected nearly a thousand, and spread to to more than a half a dozen countries beyond China, including the U.S. The Chinese have got 20 million people on lockdown in Wuhan and several cities near it, just as the Chinese New Year begins, which is the entire region's biggest holiday.  It's pretty obvious the epidemic is spreading anyway.  Officials, culpably or not, closed the barn door after the horse got out.

What I learned from my SARS quarantine.  There's a fascinating quote in Health Canada's October 2003 report into the SARS crisis.  SARS killed 44 people in the Toronto area, including three health-care workers, and brought unwelcome international attention to the city, where public health officials struggled to respond to the crisis.  Dr. Richard Schabas, identified then as the chief of staff of York Central Hospital, is quoted as saying, "SARS I was not avoidable.  We were struck by lightning.  Everything after that was."  To understand the reference, you have to have read the report.  It breaks down the Toronto area's experience with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a coronavirus that emerged in China, into two distinct phases.  The first phase — SARS I, March and April of 2003 — was when hospitals in Toronto and around the world were struggling to confront this new virus, even, in some cases, to realize that there was a new virus.  That's the lightning strike Schabas alludes to — it came out of nowhere and did a lot of damage.  SARS II was the second wave of infection that swept the Toronto area after public health officials, believing the virus contained, lowered their guard.  It lasted for much of May and June.

Is This Objectively Disgusting Soup What's Causing China's Disease Outbreak?  A recent outbreak in China of a new strand of coronavirus may be linked to an objectively disgusting Chinese delicacy called bat soup, according to reports.  Video footage online shows an entire cooked, dead bat sitting in soup.  Scientists believe that the virus, which has killed 17 and infected over 640 people, could have spread from snakes or bats.  Is this bat soup the cause of the quickly-spreading virus?

The Editor says...
The Chinese people eat rats and wolves, too.  Maybe that's because they live under communism; but really, it's no wonder they're sick.

Or maybe this has something to do with it:
Virus-hit Wuhan has two laboratories linked to Chinese bio-warfare program.  The deadly animal virus epidemic spreading globally may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory linked to China's covert biological weapons program, according to an Israeli biological warfare expert.  Radio Free Asia this week rebroadcast a local Wuhan television report from 2015 showing China's most advanced virus research laboratory known the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Radio Free Asia reported.  The laboratory is the only declared site in China capable of working with deadly viruses.