Palm Beach County has declared a state of emergency after two men in their 70s tested positive for COVID-19.
The declaration opens up avenues for the county to get assistance, including money, from state and federal agencies, and empowers the county administrator to require emergency actions such as establishing a curfew and restricting travel. It will last until March 20.
Even as events shut down throughout the county, officials made a case for calm at a news conference Friday in the face of the rising coronavirus threat.
“This state of emergency should not change anything in your life except pay more attention to what’s going on, to be diligent in watching out for our personal health and being even more concerned about not interacting unnecessarily ... with vulnerable people in our community,” County Mayor Dave Kerner said.
The Palm Beach County cases were among 15 new Florida cases announced by the state health department late Thursday, raising the number of confirmed cases in Florida to 42. That includes 11 in Broward County, by far the most cases in the state, and one in Miami-Dade.
>>Coronavirus: What Palm Beach County residents need to know
The county cases involved a 73-year-old man who traveled to Egypt for a Nile River cruise tour and a 74-year-old man who traveled to Europe. Both men have been isolated and will remain in isolation until public health officials clear them, the health department said. Also, as response to the pandemic intensified, the Palm Beach County School District announced Friday it would cancel classes for next week, the last classes before spring break.
The Palm Beach County cases were among 15 new Florida cases announced by the state health department late Thursday, raising the number of confirmed cases in Florida to 42. That includes 11 in Broward County, by far the most cases in the state, and one in Miami-Dade.
The county cases involved a 73-year-old man who traveled to Egypt for a Nile River cruise tour and a 74-year-old man who traveled to Europe. Both men have been isolated and will remain in isolation until public health officials clear them, the health department said.
Also, as response to the pandemic intensified, the Palm Beach County School District announced Friday it would cancel classes for next week, the last classes before spring break.
The announcements came a day after local officials reported that a man aboard a JetBlue flight from New York to West Palm Beach had tested positive for coronavirus. The man was placed in isolation, health officials said.
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said they were “researching” whether there would be public endangerment charges filed against the passenger.
“We’ve looked into this. We’ve contacted (Aronberg) and federal authorities to see if in fact there would be some kind charge launched against him in this particular manner. But as of right now, we’re still in the research phase,” Bradshaw said.
Bradshaw also warned residents to follow quarantine orders issued by the health department if awaiting testing results or having tested positive.
“This is not a casual request, folks. The sheriff’s office is fully capable of enforcing these orders from the health department. Trust me, you want to stay in your residence. You don’t want to stay at my hotel. It’s much more comfortable at home,” he said, referring to the county jail.
The first reported in my county. Actually, it's a bit of a relief that they were immediately checked at the airport on arrival.
Boca Raton law firm sought class-action status Thursday for a lawsuit with a novel aim: to hold the People’s Republic of China and some of its government agencies accountable for the deadly coronavirus now sweeping America.
The Chinese government knew that COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, was “dangerous and capable of causing a pandemic, yet slowly acted, proverbially put their head in the sand, and/or covered it up for their own economic self-interest,” reads the complaint by The Berman Law Group.
The lawsuit, which names five plaintiffs from Florida, seeks class-action status for any American injured or affected by the coronavirus.
Two of the five plaintiffs, Lawrence Wood and Stephen Clyne, are from Palm Beach County. Two, Logan Alters and Marta Reyes, are from Miami-Dade County. The fifth is The Pitching Lab, a Boca Raton-based business owned by Clyne.
None of the plaintiffs have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the law firm said.
“No nation, particularly a rich world superpower like China, should be able to get away with what it has done,” said Jeremy Alters, chief strategist at Berman Law Group and father of plaintiff Logan Alters. “It suppressed information from the global medical community that could have averted or minimized the damage that has been done.”
The complaint lists a handful of unsubstantiated rumors about the Chinese government’s role in downplaying the danger of the virus early on, including that China censored doctors who tried to warn the public about the coronavirus, which emerged in December in the province of Wuhan.
The law group employs as consultants former state Sen. Joseph Abruzzo and Frank Biden, brother of presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden.
But Frank Biden is not involved in this lawsuit, both he and the firm, told The Palm Beach Post Friday.
The firm, which initially invited the media to a news conference in their Boca offices and later called it off, declined to comment beyond Alters’ statement and a press release.
Abruzzo, a Democrat who did not respond to a phone call Friday, is quoted in the press release chastising China.
“This could have been contained while Chinese officials instead attempted to put a positive narrative on the unfolding epidemic for China’s own economic self-interest,” he said. “When you read about the rising death tolls, and see the almost complete halt to normal life and travel, remember that China waited seventeen critical days before sharing the COVID-19 genome sequence with other nations.”
Jeremy Alters, once a licensed attorney but disbarred in 2018, is not the attorney on the suit, but he has represented clients in several class-action suits in the past, including a suit against the Chinese government and Chinese drywall manufacturers.They settled that lawsuit for about $1 billion, he said.
First, it's a law firm right here in my hometown.
Second, one of the partners is VP Joe Biden's brother. Then there's the aspect that one of the law partner's was disbarred in 2018 (I'd love to know why).
And that while the last two sound shaky, the same firm has successfully sued the Chinese government previously for a very respectable $1 billion. So that means two different members of the Biden family have received over a billion dollars from the Chinese government.
“ ALCINDOR: You did disband the White House pandemic office, and the officials that were working in that office left this administration abruptly. So what responsibility do you take to that, and—the officials that worked in that office said the White House lost valuable time because that office was disbanded. What do you make of that?
TRUMP: Well, I just thank it’s a nasty question, because what we’ve done, and Tony had said numerous times that we saved thousands of lives because of the quick closing. [Ed.: The closing of borders to some travelers.] And when you say me, I didn’t do it. We have a group of people, I could ask perhaps, in my administration, but I could perhaps ask Tony about that, because I don’t know anything about it. I mean, you say we did that, I don’t know anything about it. Disbanding, no, I don’t know anything about it …
ALCINDOR: You don’t know about the reorganization that happened at the National Security Council.
TRUMP: … It’s the administration, perhaps they do that, let people go, you used to be with a different newspaper than you are now, you know, things like that happen.”
Then the reporters mic was cut off. We live in a country where a shit bag’s supporters will hate the reporter for doing her job and love the leader who didn’t.
Some good news is the house passed a Coronavirus bill that Trump is urging republicans to support. (I think) I read reporting yesterday and my impression is that Trump wasn’t going to support it, his gop toadies were on all board not to support it. At some point in the early evening though it became apparent that nobody told the toadies that Trump was now for it. I give Trump credit for at least realizing that he needs this bill for his political survival. I give Pelosi credit for doing all the work that will ultimately benefit most politically a shit bag that can’t even handle meeting her. Pelosi in a time of crisis got a bill put together for some much needed relief as the virus sweeps the country.
An article in China’s state-run Xinhua news service last week threatened to impose restrictions on medical exports so the United States will be “plunged into the mighty sea of coronavirus.”
The Xinhua piece, published on March 4 and entitled “Be Bold: The World Owes China a Thank You,” was largely composed of standard Chinese Communist Party propaganda about how the world stands in awe of China’s amazing response to the coronavirus outbreak. Naturally, it neglected to mention how the virus ran wild in the first place because of Chinese bureaucratic incompetence and cover-ups.
The Chinese have become as determined to wipe the first months of the coronavirus from the pages of history as they are to keep anyone from remembering Tiananmen Square. The Xinhua article made a point of noting that China has leverage over the U.S. and Europe because it can restrict the supply of medicines that were unwisely outsourced to China in the heyday of globalism.
The Chinese paper explicitly threatened to do so if Americans and Europeans continue criticizing its response to the coronavirus or act too slowly to lift travel bans and other restrictions the Chinese government dislikes, but then cushioned the threat in the Communist Party’s usual creepy way by insisting China is filled with so much “love” for the world that it would never harm the people of other countries, or even “insult” them the way China has been “insulted” during the coronavirus epidemic.
One of the insults harped on by Xinhua was Walter Russell Mead’s February 3 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal entitled “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia,” a piece that prompted Beijing to expel Wall Street Journal reporters and begin complaining incessantly that Mead’s piece was insulting and racist. According to Xinhua’s March 4 editorial, Mead, his column, and the entire Wall Street Journal publication are now “infamous.”
Although most commentary has focused on the “mighty sea of coronavirus” threat, the Xinhua piece is also interesting as an early example of the Chinese Communist propaganda crusade to portray the coronavirus as originating in the United States and claim it was brought to Wuhan by the U.S. Army. Xinhua muttered darkly on March 4 about Americans “returning from Wuhan, China” right before the outbreak exploded and complained it was therefore hypocritical and insulting for the U.S. to impose travel bans on China.
The article was noticed and partially translated by Fox News on Friday in light of the Food and Drug Administration’s announcement that at least one unspecified drug useful for treating coronavirus patients is currently in short supply because the components for the drug cannot be obtained readily enough from China.
“In other words, they threatened to kill us, and we’re all sort of standing back like, ‘Oh, you know it’s not a big deal.’ It’s a terrifying situation,” Tucker Carlson of Fox News said on Wednesday.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) warned in a Fox News interview on Thursday that “about 80 percent of the active ingredients” in some vital drugs come from abroad, “and the overwhelming majority of that 80 percent are manufactured in China.”
Rubio and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich elaborated on China’s leverage over the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, and other sectors of the American economy, in an op-ed for Fox:
For years, China has enticed American multinational corporations with access to its markets in exchange for off-shoring and sharing intellectual property. Americans watched as Beijing captured critical portions of global supply chains, including in pharmaceutical drugs and medical equipment. Today, up to 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in American drugs are sourced abroad.
Now, in the face of a pandemic, the absence of domestic capacity in critical medical sectors has critically endangered both the U.S. public health system and our economy. The inability to quickly increase the production of key supplies, such as surgical masks, medical gowns, respirators and pharmaceutical drugs limits our ability to mitigate the worst effects of the disease in this emerging crisis and in any future pandemic.
It is unacceptable that China holds this much leverage over America’s public health and economy, both essential components of our national security. For this reason, we propose that the U.S. take action to expand our production capacity while global supply chains are in flux and the global economy teeters on the edge of recession.
Rubio and Gingrich suggested encouraging and incentivizing American corporations to bring manufacturing capacity back from overseas, especially from hostile areas like China, taking advantage of the current chaos in global markets to implement measures that might have seemed unacceptably risky or painful in calmer times.
“America must make rebuilding our domestic supply chain a priority of its own,” they wrote, comparing their recommendations to Beijing’s deliberate strategy for capturing the biomedical industry.
Yeah, just to country we should rely on for 80% of our pharmaceuticals, and 96% of our antibiotics as we currently do.
Obviously, this China-dependency is going to diminish rapidly over the next year.
“ ALCINDOR: You did disband the White House pandemic office, and the officials that were working in that office left this administration abruptly. So what responsibility do you take to that, and—the officials that worked in that office said the White House lost valuable time because that office was disbanded. What do you make of that?
TRUMP: Well, I just thank it’s a nasty question, because what we’ve done, and Tony had said numerous times that we saved thousands of lives because of the quick closing. [Ed.: The closing of borders to some travelers.] And when you say me, I didn’t do it. We have a group of people, I could ask perhaps, in my administration, but I could perhaps ask Tony about that, because I don’t know anything about it. I mean, you say we did that, I don’t know anything about it. Disbanding, no, I don’t know anything about it …
ALCINDOR: You don’t know about the reorganization that happened at the National Security Council.
TRUMP: … It’s the administration, perhaps they do that, let people go, you used to be with a different newspaper than you are now, you know, things like that happen.”
Then the reporters mic was cut off. We live in a country where a shit bag’s supporters will hate the reporter for doing her job and love the leader who didn’t.
Prove to me that "the reporters [sic] mic was cut off."
M E M, you again reveal YOURSELF to be a shitbag when you call the president that. The most quantifiably accomplished president in 50 years, and who has vastly limited the Wuhan Flu outbreak with his quick action, as is easily proven by comparing the ratios of uncontrolled outbreak in China and Europe.
I saw that press conference live. She was able to ask two questions, then she pulled a Jim Acosta and partisanly railed into the president and attempted to monopolize the press conference. She asked two questions, which were answered, and then other reporters were given equal access.
The National Security council was cut down in size because because it was artificially inflated in size during the last year of Obama's presidency by Robby Mook, ballooned the size of the NSC staff to almost 300, filled with Democrat-zealot Obama/Hillary loyalists like Alexander Vindman and his brother, and still-unnamed "whistleblower" CIA and NSC staffer Eric Ciaramella. For the clear purpose of exerting Obama/Democrat infuence over the NSC, and sabotage, long into the Trump asministration. The NSC-planted leakers and traitors who were openly plotting against President Trump, leaking classified information to the media to hurt Trump, and undermining Trump's policy any way they could. I'm frankly surprised they were not let go three years ago. But it obviously took a while to learn who the infiltrators were, and how they were planted by Mook. By comparison, Obama fired every U.S. ambassador when his presidency began, to avoid having any disloyal incumbents in his administration. Now those same Democrats have an absolute hissy-fit when Trump removes ONE ambassador, Marie Yovanovich, who was a blatant partisan who relentlessly badmouthed Trump to other U.S. embassy officials and Ukraine officials, and was openly loyal to the previous (anti-Trump) Ukrainian government administration, who the new President Zelensky personally said to Trump his government had no confidence in and that she was hostile to them (in their famous transcribed phone conversation), and she was fired for these multiple absolutely legitimate reasons.
The new National Security Advisor, O'Brien, finally cleaned house and fired or re-assigned over 70 of these Obama-planted deep-state Democrat-loyalist infiltrators. How is that relevant to the Wuhan Flu epidemic? It seemed clear in Trump's response to the reporter's question that he wasn't immediately familiar with the details of the NSC staff cuts, he entrusted O'Brien to administrate staff changes in his own department.
Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the NIH, said that Trump's suspension of China flights (20,000 people a day who would otherwise have spread the virus quickly across the United States) a suspension of air flights that Fauci said was absolutely, without question the right thing to do, that absolutely prevented tens of thousands of infections and bought the nation preparation time.
Obama declared a national emergency when 1,000 people were already dead from Swine Flu/H1N1 in 2009, and millions infected. Trump declared a national emergency yesterday when less than 50 were reported dead and about 1,700 diagnosed infected.
Which president do you think is acting more in proactively/effectively and in the interest of the American people, M E M?
Some good news is the house passed a Coronavirus bill that Trump is urging republicans to support. (I think) I read reporting yesterday and my impression is that Trump wasn’t going to support it, his gop toadies were on all board not to support it. At some point in the early evening though it became apparent that nobody told the toadies that Trump was now for it. I give Trump credit for at least realizing that he needs this bill for his political survival. I give Pelosi credit for doing all the work that will ultimately benefit most politically a shit bag that can’t even handle meeting her. Pelosi in a time of crisis got a bill put together for some much needed relief as the virus sweeps the country.
I saw an interview early this morning with a Republican House member who would not vote for the emergency bill, because he had no opportunity to read the bill in advance, and said he supports the president and respects Pelosi (both of whom encourage passing the bill), but under those conditions could not vote for it.
He said that only Pelosi possibly knows everything that's in it.
So it's another case of "You have to pass it to see what's in it." Which, on the part of those in both parties who passed it, is irresponsible government. Pelosi had already a day before it passed tried to sneak in a bypass of the 1976-legislated "Hyde Amendment" (that no government funding of abortion would be permitted, except in the cases of rape, incest, or risk to the like or health of the mother). As Tucker Carlson termed it, "Pelosi tried to barter saving lives of adult Americans by funding the deaths of children."
It is loathesome that Pelosi and the Democrats would try to slip that kind of stuff into a bill for emergency funding containing a Wuhan Flu/"Covid-19" epidemic, that worlwide has a track record of killing about 1% of those infected. That is what they're playing games with.
But Trump, who spent weeks downplaying coronavirus before declaring it a national emergency on Friday, argued that the health care system was not designed for an outbreak on the scale of coronavirus, “with the kind of numbers that we are talking about.” Politico
That is such a vicious lie.
It was Trump who (amidst a phony and baseless Senate impeachment trial by the Democrats) sounded the alarm early on with a suspension of all airline flights and travel from China, about 20,000 people a day barred from the U.S. That's an unprecedented move, and a very loud and visible warning flare. There's a difference between "downplaying", and calmly taking precautions while not creating a panic. As contrasted with what the liberal media and Democrat leadership have been doing, to try and bring down Trump's presidency.
To the damage and detriment of the nation.
The only errors in the crisis so far are: 1) not having Coronavirus test kits available to screen in advance which is clearly caused by bureaucratic failures withing the CDC//NIH, as Anthony Fauci and other officials have repeatedly cited their organization is responsible for. 2) Trump making a verbal gaffe that test kits are available already, based on what he was told by the CDC. Those "available test kits" have been delayed several times.
But Trump has more than made up for that by organizing/mobilizing private companies to do this testing nationwide over the next week. I doubt it would even occur to Obama or Hillary to rely on and organize the private sectorr to help out in a national eemergency.
And with his trade war over the last year, Trump has already made a huge dent in dependency on manufacturing and imports from China. How much more vulnerable would we be to "being thrown into a mighty sea of coronavirus" by Chinese dependency?
Only because of Trump are we approaching regained sovereignty and independence from China. Hillary or Biden would continue to corruptly take the money and further push us into enslavement and danger from Chinese supremacy.
Obama declared a national emergency when 1,000 people were already dead from Swine Flu/H1N1 in 2009, and millions infected. Trump declared a national emergency yesterday when less than 50 were reported dead and about 1,700 diagnosed infected.
Which president do you think is acting more in proactively/effectively and in the interest of the American people, M E M?
Obama did, you can lie all you want but I’ve seen plenty of fact checks on how conservatives are trying to use the swine flu comparison. Obama declared an emergency when there was something like 20 confirmed cases in the US. He didn’t play it down or contradict his administration’s experts all the way like Trump has. The CDC didn’t have the same problems with testing that it is having here. Obama didn’t classify the deliberations either like Trump has. And when there was a vaccine available some of your conservative heroes like Rush and Hannity pushed conspiracy stories. You continue to cite numbers that are artificially low because this country doesn’t have enough tests. Trump has known this was an issue and that we’ve been flying blind mostly while the virus has spread. We don’t know who decided not to use the WHO test but instead a whole new one that ended up being flawed btw. The CDC isn’t saying nor is the Trump administration. Who could be being protected here?
Some good news is the house passed a Coronavirus bill that Trump is urging republicans to support. (I think) I read reporting yesterday and my impression is that Trump wasn’t going to support it, his gop toadies were on all board not to support it. At some point in the early evening though it became apparent that nobody told the toadies that Trump was now for it. I give Trump credit for at least realizing that he needs this bill for his political survival. I give Pelosi credit for doing all the work that will ultimately benefit most politically a shit bag that can’t even handle meeting her. Pelosi in a time of crisis got a bill put together for some much needed relief as the virus sweeps the country.
I saw an interview early this morning with a Republican House member who would not vote for the emergency bill, because he had no opportunity to read the bill in advance, and said he supports the president and respects Pelosi, but under those conditions could not vote for it.
He said that only Pelosi possibly knows everything that's in it.
So it's another case of "You have to pass it to see what's in it." Which, on the part of those in both parties who passed it, is irresponsible government. Pelosi had already a day before it passed tried to sneak in a bypass of the 1976-legislated "Hyde Amendment" (that no government funding of abortion would be permitted, except in the cases of rape, incest, or risk to the like or health of the mother). As Tucker Carlson termed it, "Pelosi tried to barter saving lives of adult Americans by funding the deaths of children."
It is loathesome that Pelosi and the Democrats would try to slip that kind of stuff into a bill for emergency funding containing a Wuhan Flu/"Covid-19" epidemic, that worlwide has a track record of killing about 1% of those infected. That is what they're playing games with.
I’ve heard accusations from both sides on this. The other side is saying that this was an attempt to tank the aid package by trying to create a false abortion issue. Outside of the accusations Pelosi negotiated a package with Trump (who couldn’t even set aside his partisanship to meet with her) that passed with only 40 republicans voting against it.
No doubt Trump downplayed the threat of coronavirus to the deterrent of the nation WB.
Washington Post has made clear their hostility toward Trump consistently over the last 4 years, and multiple times put foreward false narratives and completely wrong stories, in their zeal to report whatever negative strory then can manufacture about Trump. Often with anonymous sources.
I said above the errors Trump and the CDC have made. I've made clear the far greater counterbalancing advance leadership by Trump, things no other president would have done, that Dr. Fauci has called "absolutely the right thing to do", that has aalready saved countless thousands of lives. Whatever errors Trump might have made in a select few off-the-cuff remarks is far surpassed by the information Pence and the CDC and NIH make daily to inform the nation of the actual facts.
Trump's job as president is to rally the nation and not incite it into panic. I don't fault him for giving assurances and saying what his own CDC promised him about availability of test kits. That failure was within the CDC and not from Trump. And it's not like we only have only a state-run political statement from Trump or other political leaders (as in, say, China or Iran or North Korea, or perhaps even socialist Europe). Quite the contrary, any statement that is ambiguous or misleading or incorrect is immediately, THAT DAY corrected by Pence or Fauci or other medical officials.
Much as propagandists of the Left, including a centerpece of the Left, The Washington Post, would like to undermine the president and try to destroy his popular support.
I’ve heard accusations from both sides on this. The other side is saying that this was an attempt to tank the aid package by trying to create a false abortion issue. Outside of the accusations Pelosi negotiated a package with Trump (who couldn’t even set aside his partisanship to meet with her) that passed with only 40 republicans voting against it.
It was pretty clear that this Republican congressman was a supporter of Trump and would have voted for the bill if he was allowed 24 or 48 hous to actually read it.
It's again a case of Pelosi's: "You have to pass it to see what's in it."
And a case of Cloward and Piven strategy, to create a crisis situation where reforms that would never be allowed to pass in normal circumstances, give advantage to Marxist revolutionaries who can advance secret legislation within a crisis legislation.
And a manifestation of Rahm Emmanuel's "Never let a crisis go to waste", in using a crisis to advance theior deceptive secret agenda.
Obama declared a national emergency when 1,000 people were already dead from Swine Flu/H1N1 in 2009, and millions infected. Trump declared a national emergency yesterday when less than 50 were reported dead and about 1,700 diagnosed infected.
Which president do you think is acting more in proactively/effectively and in the interest of the American people, M E M?
Obama did, you can lie all you want but I’ve seen plenty of fact checks on how conservatives are trying to use the swine flu comparison.
The "factchecks" are again written by the Washington Post (Factcheck) and Tampa Tribune (Politifact), which 75% of the time overwhelmingly target Republicans/conservatives to deconstruct and paint as liars. Papers that have expressed their clear partisan hatred of the president (and Republicans in general). I'm not saying they can't post facts, but they do consistently reach for a context to label a Republican as "somewhat true" or "partially true" when they are just plain TRUE.
Specific to the declaration of a national emergency, Obama had declared lesser emergencies prior to declaring a national emergency. The factcheck spin-sites hide that. It was only when 1,000 people were already dead in 2009 from Swine Flu/H1N1, six months AFTER the crisis began, that Obama declared a national emergency. As Trump did Friday, 6 weeks after suspending flights from China, at a point when there were about 40 deaths. Swine Flu ultimately infected 59 million people. Only a national emegency declaration allows the relaxing of bureaucracy and massive sudden move of resources that we are seeing now.
Originally Posted By: M E M
Obama declared an emergency when there was something like 20 confirmed cases in the US. He didn’t play it down or contradict his administration’s experts all the way like Trump has. The CDC didn’t have the same problems with testing that it is having here. Obama didn’t classify the deliberations either like Trump has. And when there was a vaccine available some of your conservative heroes like Rush and Hannity pushed conspiracy stories. You continue to cite numbers that are artificially low because this country doesn’t have enough tests. Trump has known this was an issue and that we’ve been flying blind mostly while the virus has spread. We don’t know who decided not to use the WHO test but instead a whole new one that ended up being flawed btw. The CDC isn’t saying nor is the Trump administration. Who could be being protected here?
The numbers I cite are the numbers. CONFIRMED cases. Both Trump and CDC have said the numbers will see a rise when testing begins, to diagnose already infected cases. And despite the delay in available tests, Trump way more than Obama shut down flights from China, and now Europe, to contain the spread.
I watch Hannity regularly, and never saw the demagoguery that you allege. There's a difference between expressing concerns, and engaging in hysteria and disinformation.
While I'm typing this I'm listening to the opening editorial on The Next Revolution (a populist show that I like because it holds both parties accountable for corruption and disinformation) and he was expressing concerns about how bad this crisis could get in the U.S., urging the building of auxilliary hospitals to prepare, and prevent U.S. hospitals from being overwhelmed. If it were Obama he were criticizing, you would characterize that as fomenting panic and "conspiracy theories". But it is the same warning and concern, the same standard, Fox had regarding Obama, and the 2003 SARS outbreak under W. Bush.
I heard a similar bio-security and infectious disease expert, Michael Osterholm express fears of under-preparation with a lack of hospital staff and respirator machines on Tucker Carlson a few nights ago. He was angered at the complacency of the Medicare/Medicaid head who was interviewed just before him. Far from Fox being just the "everything is great" propaganda you allege, that only targets Obama. Likewise Lou Dobbs on FBN the last few nights. Likewise Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. While not inciting panic, they express there is a possibility hospitals could be overwhelmed. And as I cited with the BBC News video I linked, both the U.S. and U.K., and probably all nations dealing with this, are trying to "flatten the curve" and avoid that spike that overwhelms the system. See the Australian Four Corners video I posted above, showing exactly how bad it got in Wuhan province. State officials went building to building and melted the locks with welding torces so people could not leave their apartments! Basically trapping them to die in their homes, if infected.
Perhaps the brutal authoritarian measures the Chinese used prevented the crisis from being even worse there. One commentator I saw speculated that our unwillingness to so brutally contain the infected population could lead to a wider outbreak in the U.S., and cost more lives. But I suspect (as do most nations) that thousands more died than is officially reported in China, and "treatment" was mostly rounding them up and leaving them somewhere out of sight to die.
No doubt Trump downplayed the threat of coronavirus to the deterrent of the nation WB.
Washington Post has made clear their hostility toward Trump consistently over the last 4 years, and multiple times put foreward false narratives and completely wrong stories, in their zeal to report whatever negative strory then can manufacture about Trump. Often with anonymous sources.
I said above the errors Trump and the CDC have made. I've made clear the far greater counterbalancing advance leadership by Trump, things no other president would have done, that Dr. Fauci has called "absolutely the right thing to do", that has aalready saved countless thousands of lives. Whatever errors Trump might have made in a select few off-the-cuff remarks is far surpassed by the information Pence and the CDC and NIH make daily to inform the nation of the actual facts.
Trump's job as president is to rally the nation and not incite it into panic. I don't fault him for giving assurances and saying what his own CDC promised him about availability of test kits. That failure was within the CDC and not from Trump. And it's not like we only have only a state-run political statement from Trump or other political leaders (as in, say, China or Iran or North Korea, or perhaps even socialist Europe). Quite the contrary, any statement that is ambiguous or misleading or incorrect is immediately, THAT DAY corrected by Pence or Fauci or other medical officials.
Much as propagandists of the Left, including a centerpece of the Left, The Washington Post, would like to undermine the president and try to destroy his popular support.
You can spin all you want but even I knew Trump was wrong when he said anybody could get tested when he said it. If I knew that how in the heck did shitbag not know? And this wasn’t something that just happened that day. Trump had to have known way before than that there was a testing problem and how much that was going to leave us flying blind. And who actually made the decision not to use the WHO tests? Trump nor the CDC is saying. Who does it sound like that would reject a foreign test for an American one?
For something this huge mistakes will happen. It would be unfair to parse what the shit bag says or take out of context. I sadly don’t need to do that.
On Friday, Hannity showed media coverage from multiple liberal media networs from the day and evening in 2009 when Obama declared a national emergency for Swine Flu/H1N1, 6 months after the outbreak began. Where they cheerfully said the death total in the U.S. had reached 1,000 from H1N1. "But hey, don't worry, no need to panic..." To which Hannity, with anger but almost comedically said "Kind of a difference in media coverage, don't you think?"
There is absolutely no doubt the liberal media is trying to weaponize the outbreak to bring down Trump at every turn. As they have with every other exploitable false narrative for the last 4 years.
Did he show any clips of himself fearmongering about rationing of the h1n1 vaccine? Hannity is guilty of exactly what he’s accusing. Shills like him really helped enable Trump to fail this country. These days Trump doesn’t even need to pretend they take responsibility for what they or do.
You can spin all you want but even I knew Trump was wrong when he said anybody could get tested when he said it. If I knew that how in the heck did shitbag not know? And this wasn’t something that just happened that day. Trump had to have known way before than that there was a testing problem and how much that was going to leave us flying blind. And who actually made the decision not to use the WHO tests? Trump nor the CDC is saying. Who does it sound like that would reject a foreign test for an American one?
For something this huge mistakes will happen. It would be unfair to parse what the shit bag says or take out of context. I sadly don’t need to do that.
It is not "spin" for me to cite the facts that you lyingly evade. (And again, you only demonstrate YOURSELF to be a "shitbag" when you call the president that. His actions as president demonstrate him to be the most quantifiably accomplished and transformative president of the last 50 years, even more accomplisshed his first year than Ronald Reagan.) And you were not misled, were you, Dr Fauci and Vice President Pence almost immediately clarified the test kits were expected in days, no one was misled. It is a gaffe, not not a major gaffe. The only real error was not having the test kits available, and again, that is not Trump's failure, but a bureaucratic failure within the CDC in not producing the kit on time.
Trump's job, as I said before, and is obvious, is to not panic the nation, to insteas assure and stabilize the nation and economy, and I certainly undertand that's what Trump was trying to do. You of course, in kneejerk reflex, spin the slightest mis-statement by Trump as negatively as you possibly can. Shitbag that you are, you would eagerly destroy the country just to destroy Trump. Which puts you in the company of Bill Maher, Paul Krugman and the like.
Just as you and your party have deceitfully weaponized every proven lie you could against Trump over the last 4 years.
I deconstructed the list of Trump's mis-statements, both real and manufactured in a post above, as itemized by the leftist Vox.
Did he show any clips of himself fearmongering about rationing of the h1n1 vaccine? Hannity is guilty of exactly what he’s accusing. Shills like him really helped enable Trump to fail this country. These days Trump doesn’t even need to pretend they take responsibility for what they or do.
PROVE IT! Show the clips, IN FULL CONTEXT!
I've never seen any allegation from Media Matters or similar liberal blogs that didn't reveal itself to be a blatant misrepresentation of the truth when shown in its full context.
For example when the shitbags on your side allege that Donald Trump "conspired" with the Russians to get them to hack Hillary Clinton's deleted e-mails. When in truth, he joked at a rally to an audience of 10,000 Trump supporters, "Hey, maybe we can just ask the Russians to give them to us!" In a clearly joking context, and far from a secret conspiracy. Media Matters misrepresents as if Trump did this in secret, and conspired to have Russia get them in the first place on Trump's orders. Whereas the joke was that Russia already hacked them a long time ago, and we should just ask them for what they already have. And not even really ask, just as a joke.
The shit bag said this yesterday....” "It's a very contagious virus, it's incredible, but it's something we have tremendous control of," the President said.
That simply isn’t true. I get that you don’t want to create panic but because his administration dropped the ball with testing the nation is flying blind with a contagious virus that is much more deadly than the flu. His lies are irresponsible and only make a bad situation worse as there are still a lot of folks who still don’t get the situation we’re truly in.
Did he show any clips of himself fearmongering about rationing of the h1n1 vaccine? Hannity is guilty of exactly what he’s accusing. Shills like him really helped enable Trump to fail this country. These days Trump doesn’t even need to pretend they take responsibility for what they or do.
PROVE IT! Show the clips, IN FULL CONTEXT!
I've never seen any allegation from Media Matters or similar liberal blogs that didn't reveal itself to be a blatant misrepresentation of the truth when shown in its full context.
For example when the shitbags on your side allege that Donald Trump "conspired" with the Russians to get them to hack Hillary Clinton's deleted e-mails. When in truth, he joked at a rally to an audience of 10,000 Trump supporters, "Hey, maybe we can just ask the Russians to give them to us!" In a clearly joking context, and far from a secret conspiracy. Media Matters misrepresents as if Trump did this in secret, and conspired to have Russia get them in the first place on Trump's orders. Whereas the joke was that Russia already hacked them a long time ago, and we should just ask them for what they already have. And not even really ask, just as a joke.
Your side are SUCH fucking liars.
Not that I think it actually makes a difference with you but here is Hannity during H1N1.... HANNITY: Did you see the -- the AP story? There's an AP story, ladies and gentlemen, out there about -- everyone's a little bit worried in the back of your mind about swine flu. OK? A lot of people have been talking about it -- they're concerned.
They literally have a list of priorities. When this vaccine finally comes out --
DICK MORRIS (Fox News contributor): Yeah -- right.
HANNITY: -- in October sometime, you know who's last on the list? People 65 and older.
MORRIS: Right.
HANNITY: And I read that, and I'm thinking, all right, isn't that a form of --
MORRIS: Yeah.
HANNITY -- government deciding rationing, if you will --
MORRIS: Exactly.
HANNITY -- the limited number of vaccines they'll ultimately come up with?
MORRIS: Yeah, and more importantly these decisions are being made by a policy board, not by your doctor.
HANNITY: Exactly.
MORRIS: If your doctor knows that you're weak and susceptible and all of that, and one shot -- one attack of the flu is going to kill you, then you should be able to get the shot.
You can see the clip on Media Matters. Now would you have any evidence of Hannity acting supportive of the Obama administration during H1N1? Is it a shock that he acts differently now that it’s a lying piece of shit in the WH? Hannity is just a propagandist shill, no principles on what he says. If it’s a dem, undermine. If it’s gop than damage control.
Did he show any clips of himself fearmongering about rationing of the h1n1 vaccine? Hannity is guilty of exactly what he’s accusing. Shills like him really helped enable Trump to fail this country. These days Trump doesn’t even need to pretend they take responsibility for what they or do.
PROVE IT! Show the clips, IN FULL CONTEXT!
I've never seen any allegation from Media Matters or similar liberal blogs that didn't reveal itself to be a blatant misrepresentation of the truth when shown in its full context.
For example when the shitbags on your side allege that Donald Trump "conspired" with the Russians to get them to hack Hillary Clinton's deleted e-mails. When in truth, he joked at a rally to an audience of 10,000 Trump supporters, "Hey, maybe we can just ask the Russians to give them to us!" In a clearly joking context, and far from a secret conspiracy. Media Matters misrepresents as if Trump did this in secret, and conspired to have Russia get them in the first place on Trump's orders. Whereas the joke was that Russia already hacked them a long time ago, and we should just ask them for what they already have. And not even really ask, just as a joke.
Your side are SUCH fucking liars.
Not that I think it actually makes a difference with you but here is Hannity during H1N1.... HANNITY: Did you see the -- the AP story? There's an AP story, ladies and gentlemen, out there about -- everyone's a little bit worried in the back of your mind about swine flu. OK? A lot of people have been talking about it -- they're concerned.
They literally have a list of priorities. When this vaccine finally comes out --
DICK MORRIS (Fox News contributor): Yeah -- right.
HANNITY: -- in October sometime, you know who's last on the list? People 65 and older.
MORRIS: Right.
HANNITY: And I read that, and I'm thinking, all right, isn't that a form of --
MORRIS: Yeah.
HANNITY -- government deciding rationing, if you will --
MORRIS: Exactly.
HANNITY -- the limited number of vaccines they'll ultimately come up with?
MORRIS: Yeah, and more importantly these decisions are being made by a policy board, not by your doctor.
HANNITY: Exactly.
MORRIS: If your doctor knows that you're weak and susceptible and all of that, and one shot -- one attack of the flu is going to kill you, then you should be able to get the shot.
You can see the clip on Media Matters. Now would you have any evidence of Hannity acting supportive of the Obama administration during H1N1? Is it a shock that he acts differently now that it’s a lying piece of shit in the WH? Hannity is just a propagandist shill, no principles on what he says. If it’s a dem, undermine. If it’s gop than damage control.
There is what was actually said, and how you characterize it as "fearmongering". When your side asks the same kind of questions, it's perfectly OK, it's "journalism". When my side asked regarding Obama the exact same kind of quenstion, it's spun as "fearmongering".
It's a fact that was a general fear from the moment Obamacare was legislated, that there were "death panels" where insurance companies for a broaad base of illnesses under Obamacare that insurers could for cost-benefit corporate reasons deny healthcare or heart surgery to a taxpaying citizen in his 70's or 80's, and then give that same quadruple bypass surgery availability to a 40-year-old illegal immigrant. That was a legitimate already-asked question about heart surgery under Obamacare. Why is it illegitimate and "fearmongering" to ask about limited availability and rationing of H1N1 vaccine under the same rationed-care plan?
I just listened to a daily Coronavirus press conference with Donald Trump and his healthcare team, where he was asked some arguably similar questions, about limited access to vaccine and who would get it. Dr Fauci said that today they began testing the prototype vaccine on 25 volunteer test subjects over the next 28 days. If successful they could begin vaccine production that quickly. I've further heard reporters at this and previous recent press conferences asking Trump: "Are you personally responsible for this?", "What is your level of responsibility?", and "On a scale from 1 to 10 how would you rate your response to this crisis?"
I don't recall then-President Obama similarly >>EVER<< being asked such questions, even when there were 1,000 or even 12,000 dead from Swine Flu/H1N1. Fearmongering? Demagoguery?
Currently, there are about 60 dead Americans from Wuhan Flu/Covid-19. For your relative comparison.
As recently as two weeks ago, Democrat candidate Mike Bloomberg had flatout said we should deny lifesaving government-funded healthcare treatment to elderly patients in their 70's and 80's, to give those resources to younger patients. He flatout said let them die.
Is that "fearmongering" to report, or just citing the facts? For all the factchecks and alleged "de-bunking" of Obamacare death panels, I never saw adequate facts to disprove what Republican critics of Obamacare officials were saying. What has been occuring for a decade or more with public-option/rationed-care in Canada, the U.K., France and other European countries.
As I cited at the time, even Canadian public officials who legislated an average Canadian citizen had to wait 3 or 6 months for a CAT-scan for a brain tumor, would come across the border and pay out of pocket for superior U.S. private care. Private health care for me, and for thee, peasant citizen, rationed care!
The shit bag said this yesterday....” "It's a very contagious virus, it's incredible, but it's something we have tremendous control of," the President said.
That simply isn’t true. I get that you don’t want to create panic but because his administration dropped the ball with testing the nation is flying blind with a contagious virus that is much more deadly than the flu. His lies are irresponsible and only make a bad situation worse as there are still a lot of folks who still don’t get the situation we’re truly in.
All that demonstrates is your irrational hatred of President Trump.
Trump is saying we as a nation are trying to take the greatest preventive measures possible. And that we have the outbreaks in China, South Korea, Italy and the rest of Europe to learn from and better prepare.
Regarding a question about eating in restaurants or even takeout food still being served, President Trump said today food service and takeout is still occurring in less densely contaminated regions of the country. Over whether that will remain open, Trump concluded: "I defer to the opinion of healthcare professionals." Is even that a satisfactory response by Trump for you, M E M?
All along, on any given day, whatever assurances by Trump, often standing next to him to clarify are Mike Pence, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and surgeon general Jerome Adams, adding expert details to what Trump says, every day. I think you vastly exaggerate how Trump "misinforms" the public. Like any other person with common sense, I listen to medical officials for information, and understand the statements by Trump and other political figures are more weighted by assurances. Or in the case of CNN, Democrat officials and the other DNC-allied liberal media, just politically motivated attacks.
I think Trump's immediate and unprecedented suspension of flights from China on Jan 31st puts the lie to Democrats' notion that Trump "downplayed" the severity of the Wuhan Flu epidemic.
Trump's suspension of flights, said Kayleigh McEnany last night, "is now the standard by which all future outbreaks will be handled by future presidents."
As for “smoking doesn’t kill” Pence, I read how he treated hiv in his state. He’s already proven he can make a bad situation worse.
By not handing out needles to IV drug users, and thus encouraging IV drug use?
I have a better idea: Arrest drug users and put them in jail, where they can't continue to shoot up and share needles. The Left has demonized Pence from day one because he's a devout Christian conservative. But I haven't seen where it is proven with any evidence that Pence actually increased the AIDS crisis in Indiana as governor with his policies. Pence just thought it was a dumb idea for his government to give needles to drug addicts, and thus give state endorsement to IV drug use.
On the 6PM news, it was reported that as of today, medical facilities natiowide have 1 million Coronavirus testing kits distributed and ready to test. Next week it will be 2 million, and the week after 5 million.
As of today with increased testing, there are 4,567 reported infections, 85 have died, and 73 have fully reccovered and are out of the 14-day quarantine. In the last 2 days, over 23,000 have been tested, of which about 3,000 have tested positive for the virus. Over 50 of the dead are in Washington state alone, 29 at one nursing home.
Looking at the China numbers for today: 80,880 cumulative total infected, 3,213 deaths, and 67,819 fully recovered. Leaving 9,848 reported cases still pending. If their numbers are reliable. That's with the most draconian measures taken to contain the virus. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...n_China.svg.png Even as severe as it was in China, it peaked in about 4 weeks, and reported new cases have rapidly receded.
Hopefully in the United States the crisis will peak and be receding in 4 to 6 weeks, based on the example of China. And the examples of Italy and South Korea, which had their initial cases around Feb 18 to 24th, barely 3 weeks ago.
Likewise France. Britain and Spain are only possibly in the last day or two starting to see a decline in new cases. Of the other European nations, virtually all despite having a relatively low number of cases per individual country, virtually all seem to still be rising in daily new cases.
On 14 March, several federal states widened their measures to limit public activities. For example, Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein and Saarland closed bars among other leisure venues. Cologne forbid all events in the city center. Shops noted a great increase in demand for provisions and sanitary products.[133] An FDP member of Bundestag, Thomas Sattelberger, complained about a video aired by Germany's largest public broadcaster, ARD.[134] The video, intended as satire, presented Covid-19 as a justified reflex of nature by particularly killing the old as well as people in the developed world, who it suggested ruined the planet with global warming and turbocapitalism, so that this way there would be less pollution and overpopulation. Sattelberger, himself 70 years old and infected, declared this satire to be in poor taste under the circumstances. The authors of the video later apologized.
Pretty typical representation of the Leftist mentality. We have wealth, we are polluters of Mother Earth, we are white and aged, we don't deserve to be protected, we deserve to die. No protections or closures of borders or restricted travel from Iran and other infected nations outside the E.U. It was only massive popular outrage that made German political leadership finally BEGIN to deal with the crisis. They have no natural impulse to protect their citizens. A perfect and inevitable by-product of the liberal mentality. The mentality of the broadcasters's video is the same mentality as Germany's political leadership. And this is 5 years after Merkel let in over a million muslim refugees to rob, rape, and terrorize German citizens, and ultimately not assimilate.
Gee, what if we had an enlightened liberal president like Angela Merkel...
Just imagine how many wealthy white polluters could be eliminated!
Thank God we dodged that bullet, and have the president we do.
This is getting rather unsettling. The country is getting closer and closer to a complete lockdown. And intermittently between public assurances, there are doctors and epidemiology experts, even within the CDC, who say that hospitals could be overwhelmed with more pneumonia-symptom patients than they have beds and respirators to care for. I first saw the term in BBC News a few days ago, about "bending the curve" through self-imposed isolation, to prevent a wave of infections that could overwhelm hospital capacity to treat all those infected.
In addition, we are fiercely dependent on China for supplies, for 80% of our phamaceuticals, and for 96% of our antibiotices. And as I cited earlier, at least one source in Chinese news media has threatened to deny supplies and drown America "in a mighty sea of coronavirus".
Oddly on FBN, the Trish Regan and Kennedy shows (their 8PM and 9PM nightly programs) have been taken off the air and replaced by Objectified (celebrity interview re-runs), and Strange Inheritance (re-runs of FBN's version of Antiques Roadshow). FBN officially is saying they suspended the shows to run breaking news on the Covid-19 crisis, but instead they are just playing inane re-runs.
I hope that efforts to contain the virus mean that at almost 8,000 cases diagnosed in the U.S. at this point (out of 321 million total population), and massive testing now being done, that we are near or passing the peak outbreak and new cases will begin to decline, as virtually everyone at risk will either be in isolation or in treatment, and new outbreak clusters increasingly easy to isolate.
But there are certainly voices saying the outbreak could get a lot worse, and cases could explode into the hundreds of thousands where, like in China and Italy, many could die just because there are no more facilities left available to care for those who require hospitalization to recover. 80% have mild/moderate symptoms that don't require hospital care. About 20% of them do. About 1% die even with the best care. As shown in Italy (where we know the actual numbers), and in China (where we don't), without that technology the numbers can go a lot higher. Even with the best care many take a month of care, or possibly more, to recover. The entire world is only 10 weeks into this epidemic since China disclosed Coronavirus-19's very new existence on Dec 31st. 10 weeks. There is still a lot we don't know.
I'm also seeing a lot more interviews of Covid-19 patients in their 40's and even younger, who don't have any visible immune problems like asthma or heart disease, healthy relatively young people who are getting whacked by this and require hospitalization. The official narrative is that if you're not over 60 or immune-compromised you're safe. But there are a number who are ostensibly healthy who are requiring hospitalization. Especially alarming are doctors and nurses infected, and even, as of this writing, two CDC officials.
This much is also true: Even in the best scenario, this is a nation-changing event, and globe-changing event, that will alter the world forever. Telemedicine. Increased home-employment and "social-distancing". A move away from globalization and reliance on foreign manufacturing and supply, especially away from reliance on China. In the best scenario, we will regain our sovereignty and become more self-reliant, more nationalist and less reigned into globalism. While the period of vulnerability of this crisis will pass, the memory of it will not. And while much of our culure will return to relative normal, much will change permanently as a result.
My whole office got sent home today for at least two weeks. Governors orders. Everyone’s getting paid. The support staff is furloughed but can be called in to assist other departments if necessary. I am to work from home via remote access unless there’s an emergency that requires me to go to court. The courts are more or less closed to everything but emergency actions until the end of April.
This is reminiscent of 9-11-2001. But even larger. I always prefer to pay cash. If I even choose to leave home to do something necessary during this crisis, many places will not take cash now, you have to use credit cards.
Li Wenliang (12 October 1986 – 7 February 2020) was a Chinese ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital who on 30 December 2019 warned fellow colleagues about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), later acknowledged as COVID-19, on WeChat. He became a whistleblower when his warnings were later shared publicly.[1][2] On 3 January 2020, Wuhan police summoned and admonished him for "making false comments on the Internet".[1][3] Li returned to work, later contracted the virus from an infected patient and died from the disease on 7 February 2020, at age 33.[4][5]
An unsung hero who tried to warn the world, and was punished for it by the Chinese government.
Italy had 475 deaths in one day today. That's a lot of grief for a lot of families in one day. In the previous 3 days, they lost 345, 349, and 368. I hope for their sake that's the worst day and the numbers will decrease from this point forward.
An Ohio mother is warning any skeptics doubting the seriousness of coronavirus to think again — saying the “brutal” bug quickly took over her body without warning. Amy Driscoll, 48, of Hudson, shared her experience with COVID-19 in a detailed Facebook post on Saturday [March 14], just hours after being released from a hospital.
“I am the face of this infection,” Driscoll wrote, using her maiden name of Brock. “It is brutal and I’m a healthy 48 year old [sic] with no underlying conditions … Please take this seriously. People you love, their lives may depend on it.” Driscoll, a mother of four, said she first started feeling “run down and feverish” on Wednesday afternoon [March 11] with a headache, a cough and a fever that reached 99.2 degrees before she fell asleep.
Driscoll then awoke at 3 a.m. Thursday [March 12] with difficulty breathing, prompting her to drive herself to a hospital after being told by emergency room staffers to first call the state’s Department of Health coronavirus hotline, she recalled. “It’s a good thing I did,” she continued. “My [blood pressure] was very low and my heart rate was very high. These are not good signs on top of fever and cough.”
Medical staff gave Driscoll “every test they could think of” and kept her Thursday in an isolation unit, which was a “horrible” experience, she told the Plain Dealer. “It was lonely, it was disorienting,” Driscoll told the newspaper while thanking nurses for their devoted care. “Every time they came in my room they risked exposure to the virus. I just can’t thank them enough.”
It’s unclear where Driscoll picked up the virus, but she went to a Cleveland Cavaliers game on March 7 and her ex-husband recently traveled to Germany, the newspaper reports. She now remains in self-quarantine with her son — though they are staying away from one another within their home. “If I’m upstairs, he’s in the basement,” she told the newspaper. “If he comes up, I move to another room.”
Health officials in Summit County announced Sunday that an unidentified woman in her 40s had been confirmed as the county’s second coronavirus case. “The patient had no known travel associated risk or known exposure to someone infected with the virus,” health officials said in a statement. “Therefore, this is most likely the result of spread of the virus in our community.”
Driscoll, meanwhile, is one of 36 people across Ohio who had been diagnosed as of Sunday, the Akron Beacon Journal reports. She’s continuing to recover, but is still fighting through fatigue and headaches, she told the newspaper.
So about a 5-day period from exposure to onset of symptoms, and then at least a 14-day recovery time.
On Shannon Bream's show this hour, I watched another interview of a doctor, saying that against the narrative that you have to be older and have immunity problems to be stricken by Covid-19/Hunan Flu badly enough to require hospitalization. But Dr. Jerome Siegel said that many in their 20's, 30's and 40's have required hospitalization to live. the difference is that with care, they were strong enough to survive.
There are several other personal accounts alongside this article, at the link.
My favorite nude-photos and 3-way sex with her office staffers former U.S. representative! In all seriousness, I wish her well, she seems to be past the potential crisis period.
Benjamin Netanyahu has authorized the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, to use cellphone location data to help combat the coronavirus. According to a New York Times report, the data will be used to retrace the movements of individuals who test positive for the virus, and identify others who should be quarantined.
The agency has permission to use the data, which the Shin Bet has collected from Israeli carriers [cel phone carrier services] since at least 2002, for the next 30 days. By directing individuals who may have come into contact with the virus to quarantine themselves immediately via text message, the government could greatly speed up the isolation process. The agency has not made public precisely what data it collects, but experts told the Times that the Israeli government can use it to track almost anyone’s location.
“We must preserve the balance between individual rights and general needs, and we are doing so,” Netanyahu said yesterday at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, where the plan was announced.
An anonymous security official told the Times that the data would be used narrowly, in a “focused, time-limited and limited activity.”
While this is the first high-profile instance of a government using cellphone tracking for public health purposes, such data has been used for advertising and law enforcement in many countries. Last year, Motherboard reported that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint have sold customer location data to data sellers, who sold it to over 250 bounty hunters and related firms. The data included the phones’ assisted GPS data, which is intended to help first responders locate 911 callers, and can accurately pinpoint a user within a few meters.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he would issue lockdown orders unless Israeli residents started complying with guidelines urging them to stay home amid increasing coronavirus cases.
“Yesterday we gave clear instructions ... asking people to stay at home as much as they can and to go outside only when it’s vital, for food supplies and other such needs we specified,” he said in an interview with Israeli Channel 12 TV. Netanyahu said Israel’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community and “parts of the minorities,” referencing Arab-Israelis, have not taken the message. “If the message is not understood, then I will not hesitate to impose an order,” Netanyahu said, according to Reuters.
In the interview, he cited instances in which the country’s ultra-orthodox community continued to hold large weddings and some religious schools remained open despite a national closure of educational institutions. He did not give any details of a lockdown order and said he would further address the issue in public remarks on Thursday. "If necessary, the order for a lockdown will be ready tomorrow," he said, adding that a full lockdown would have devastating effects on the economy.
Netanyahu said that Israel’s situation was better than that of most countries. “We need to make sure that is continues this way,” he said, as reported by the Jerusalem Post.
As of Wednesday, 433 people had been diagnosed with the virus and six were in critical condition, marking an increase of about 100 people in 24 hours. “So far we have done all the things that have led the State of Israel to be among the three or four countries in the best situation in the world - but that is not summer vacations. We have anticipated the rest of the world in closing borders, widespread home isolation, limiting malfunctions, and using digital tools that have now been activated,” the prime minister said.
Netanyahu’s remarks came after the nation announced Wednesday that it would be sealing its borders, barring all foreigners to curb the spread of Covid-19.
As of March 12, the country would still allow non-Israel nationals into the country if they could prove they had the ability to self-quarantine. Under the new ban, even those with the means to self-quarantine will be denied access to the country. Only Israeli citizens and permanent residents will be allowed back into the country. Also on Wednesday, the Health Ministry announced it has begun using mass surveillance tools to retrace the movements of coronavirus carriers. It has already informed 400 people who have been in contact with carriers that they must quarantine themselves.
The tracking aims to alert those who were within two meters of someone diagnosed with the virus within the previous two weeks. The electronic tracking program, conducted by the Shin Bet security service, has faced criticism and its legality is currently being challenged in the High Court of Justice. On Tuesday, the nation announced a set of restrictive measures barring visits to parks, beaches, pools, libraries and museums. Health Ministry Director General Moshe Bar Siman Tov told Israeli citizens to stay at home unless absolutely necessary.
Netanyahu also promised a dramatic increase in testing capabilities, saying that he expected between 3,000 and 5,000 people would be tested per day, with testing increasing to up to 10,000 a day within two weeks. According to the Health Ministry, 2,200 tests took place Tuesday, more than double the amount of previous days.
“Leaders around the world laud my decisions,” Netanyahu told Channel 12.
Leave it to the Israelis to pursue the most firm and innovative strategy to insure their safety, and not mess around.
By Kristine Lee and Ashley Feng, The Hill opinion contributors — March 12 2020
As the crisis started to lift at the center of the coronavirus epidemic in China, Beijing launched a powerful campaign to project an image of global leadership while the United States and countries across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East have taken on water. During a call with the Italian foreign minister last month, the Chinese foreign minister expressed hope their “joint fight against the outbreak” would catalyze a “Silk Road” of health care, alluding to the hallmark economic Belt and Road Initiative of President Xi Jinping. Chinese diplomats have proselytized the deft handling of the outbreak by Beijing, as their state agencies sent hundreds of thousands of masks, testing kits and medical supplies to Iran and South Korea last month.
Beijing's actions [are] more pernicious than false advertising. After its early mismanagement of the outbreak, China is brazenly leveraging what is now a global crisis to advance its aims. As Beijing jockeys for leadership in international institutions and tries to mobilize alternative platforms, it is systematically undercutting the ability of these important multilateral systems to provide objective, independent, and transparent assessments that the world needs in times of crisis.
Even before this crisis, China made overtures to international institutions such as the World Health Organization to shape the narrative around it. Tedros Adhanom, the director general of the World Health Organization, a few years ago touted the role of the Belt and Road Initiative in advancing access to quality health care and lavished praise on the proposal by Xi for a health “Silk Road” to promote the exchange of knowledge and replicate the Chinese health model in Belt and Road Initiative countries.
Since the coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan, [WHO director] Adhanom refrained from criticizing Beijing for fear of losing access to China, and instead has gone to great lengths to accommodate Xi. Adhanom has flown to Beijing to praise the Chinese government for its handling of the coronavirus, even though Chinese officials denied the human to human transmissibility of the virus for weeks, detained doctors for “spreading rumors,” and barred World Health Organization officials from entering the country.
While China has effectively silenced the World Health Organization from criticizing its efforts to contain the coronavirus, it has also floated the idea of creating a Chinese alternative to the institution. This is reminiscent of its efforts to create the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to compete with the International Monetary Fund, even as the International Monetary Fund added the renminbi (or Chinese Yuaan) to its special drawing rights basket.
Even as Beijing leverages its clout within the World Health Organization and other international institutions to peddle a narrative that it is leading the global fight against the coronavirus, the United States and its allies remain leading contributors to the World Health Organization. American contributions amount to 22 percent, while Chinese contributions amount to a mere 12 percent. China also remains a distant second to the United States as the largest contributor to the United Nations overall.
These numbers, however, belie the rhetoric that the highest levels of the American government have deployed in multilateral [forums]. Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly two years ago, President Trump had contended that the United States would “reject the ideology of globalism and accept the doctrine of patriotism.” As Beijing tries to retool the United Nations and other international institutions to its advantage, it leaves in its wake a global system that is struggling to recalibrate absent a clear and strong commitment from Washington toward multilateralism.
The United States should take new steps to stave off Chinese efforts to undercut the integrity of critical institutions such as the World Health Organization and ensure that the Chinese style of leadership stops at its borders. The [U.S.] Department of State, along with the Department of Health and Human Services, must coordinate with American allies and partners to pressure the World Health Organization to provide a fair and honest accounting of how China has handled the outbreak, particularly [investigation] in the hospitals [in a way] not staged to serve the purposes of state propaganda.
The United States should also initiate multilateral consultations with allies, and [with] partners at the United Nations and other international institutions, to promote the protection of whistleblowers working in health care. And to ensure open and transparent reporting on future global health crises unfettered by [Chinese] state censorship, propaganda, and the spread of false information. Finally, the Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services need to work with their [WHO and Chinese] counterparts to disseminate accurate data about the scale of the coronavirus.
The ability of China to silence the World Health Organization during the spread of the novel coronavirus, is emblematic of the fact that even in a period of crisis, the Chinese government prioritizes control over public safety. The coronavirus pandemic should be an unequivocal wakeup call for the United States and its allies, to collectively oppose Chinese efforts to hollow out the existing rules, [and the U.S. and its allies should] order and advance alternatives [to the WHO policies] that are detrimental to the free flow of information and global public health. ________________
Kristine Lee is an associate fellow for Asia Pacific Security and Ashley Feng is a policy research associate with the Center for a New American Security.
This was a tremendously uplifting press conference, after 2 weeks of media coverage portraying inevitable armageddon of overwhelmed hospitals, and thousands dying for lack of medical treatment. Trump announced new treatment with several evolving new medical threapies:
1) antiviral medications (two of the most unpronouncable names I've ever seen) hydroxychloraquin (formerly an anti-viral drug for treating malaria) and remdesivir (another already-FDA-approved anti-viral drug, used for treating HIV), both of which have proven with limited study to inhibit Covid-19 virus reproduction and infection in patients, to the point that they don't reach the point of pneumonia inflammation of the lungs that becomes life-threatening and requires a ventilator or respirator, and even with respirator treatment might likely die. These antivirals prevent Covid-19 infection from reaching that stage.
2) Two companies are reaching completion of a vaccine for Covid-19, that normally would take 12 to 18 months after completion to produce, that innovative efforts could possibly make available in 6 months or less.
3) A treament from Australia, making a blood serum from antibodies of recovered Covid-19 paatients, making a serum that can be injected and immunize others. The most astonishing thing is that the doctor interviewed on Tucker Carlson last night (Wednesday, 3-18-2020) said that even injecting it into infected patients has stopped the infection with a "100 percent recovery rate". Tucker Carlson was visibly astonished, and said that he has to keep a heathy journalistic skepticism pending further verification of that claim, because no other treatment boasts 100% effectiveness. But reports I've seen in the 24 hours since supports that level 100% success.
4) Army Corp of engineers supporting existing hospitals is providing care for other patients at hospitals nationwide, allowing hospitals to open up more available beds and staff to treat Covid-19 patients. Along with outdoor tents for testing and treating patients, and the capacity for the Army Corps of Engineers to create more temporary hospitals nationwide, if needed.
5) Since GM has temporarily closed manufacturing, they have volunteered (as did Ford) to mass-produce respirator machines to fill the growing need for them. (Important point: In the middle of this crisis, China has stopped supplying to the U.S. the circuit-board used in creating respirator machines, that now the United States has to circumnavigate. China cannot be relied on.)
Trump is proving himself to be a president dealing with wartime-like preparations, and making innovative decisions, that protect us like no other president would. Mobilizing private-sector retailors, drug-store chains, and manufacturers to work in cooperation with the federal government to deal with this crisis. I don't see any other possible president of either party coming up with these innovations. Let alone statist cultural marxists who don't believe in the private sector like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, or smiling but utterly clueless Joe Biden.
If any of these idealogue bureaucrats were President, we would be drowning in a "mighty sea of coronavirus", instead of deciding quickly to prevent the inflow of infected foreign visitors, and positioning our resources to contain the outbreak. Without President Trump leading the effort, would be China, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, who are overwhelmed, due to leaders who had no will to make the advance preparations to protect their citizens. Thank God we dodged that bullet, and have Trump as President. Who had the instincts and the will to make the right choices early on, while the other nations were overwhelmed.
Shitbag once again veered from what his experts said on the medicines just like he did on the testing, it’s going to be a while before their available if at all. We still don’t have the testing that is needed. I will say he does seem to be done downplaying coronavirus and taking things more seriously.
Shitbag once again veered from what his experts said on the medicines just like he did on the testing, it’s going to be a while before their available if at all. We still don’t have the testing that is needed. I will say he does seem to be done downplaying coronavirus and taking things more seriously.
God. No logical fact-based argument includes the word "shitbag".
You immediately place your comments in a dismissive category with that kind of pure demagoguery and hatred. NOTHING Trump does will ever be acknowledged by you as good leadership and the right move. Yours is just pure kneejerk party-line Democrat propaganda, no matter what. Whatever the Media Matters talking points for the day are.
Even governors Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom, and CNN and MSNBC anchors like Dana Bash and Joe Scarborough have broken through DNC groupthink and praised Trump's decisive leadership. But you go on with the far-left talking points. And really, beyond any logic, just pure partisan hatred.
The expert doctors were right there next to Trump, at this press conference and similar Coronavirus press conferences every day, if there was anything to correct.
