For now, it's still a National Emergency:
"Mass. coronavirus cases rise to 123; Baker issues ban on large gatherings" by Brian MacQuarrie, Matt Stout and Tim Logan Globe Staff, March 13, 2020
As President Trump declared a national emergency Friday to combat the coronavirus pandemic, unlocking $50 billion in emergency funding, Governor Charlie Baker prohibited gatherings of more than 250 people in the state, the latest act in a growing effort to reduce public interaction.
The move came as state health officials announced that coronavirus cases in Massachusetts had jumped to 123, an increase from 108 on Thursday. Meanwhile, the scope of the crisis became clearer and more surreal, punctuated by another rash of cancellations, public school closings, runs on supermarket shelves, half-empty trains, and even the postponement to September of the storied Boston Marathon, which will not be held in April for the first time in its 124-year history.
The race has been rescheduled for September 14th.
At a time of mounting worry and isolation, even more churches were forced to close.
God has abandoned you!
Speaking from the White House Rose Garden, Trump said the emergency declaration would free up as much as $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the outbreak. He also waived interest on federally held student loans and directed the US Department of Energy to buy oil and fill the strategic petroleum reserve “to the top.”
Good idea now that the market is being flooded with oil.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average rocketed upward by 9.3 percent, or 1,985 points, after dropping dramatically the day before. Meanwhile, dire warnings and predictions continued to emerge from health experts in the United States and around the world that the impact of the virus had not abated.
In Massachusetts, Baker’s ban on large crowds extends to community, civic, public, and leisure gatherings, faith-based events, sporting events with spectators, concerts, conventions, fund-raisers, parades, fairs, festivals, and any similar activity that brings together 250 or more people in a single room or space.
"Everybody needs to do their part on this for us to be successful,” Baker said of the ban.
What are they going to do with people who may not want to "do their part?"
Baker said the order does not apply to normal operations at airports, bus and train stations, medical facilities, libraries, shopping malls and centers, polling locations, grocery and retail stores, or other spaces where 250 or more people might be in transit.
The prohibition also does not apply to restaurants that provide for social distancing, or to offices, government buildings, or factories where it is unusual for people to be within arm’s length of one another.
Then what good is it really, other than to prevent unruly mass gatherings opposed to the machinations of authority or their situation?
Related: "Welcome to campaigning in the time of coronavirus. The mounting public health crisis is upending campaigns around the state, forcing candidates to cancel events, move operations into the virtual realm, and scramble to find new ways to meet voters when pressing the flesh threatens to feed a pandemic. Some candidates have pressed Secretary of State William F. Galvin about the possibility of pushing back the deadlines they face for submitting signatures to make the ballot, a basic but crucial step that is complicated when “social distancing” is the new norm....."
Another step closet to the Matrix.
Also see: Coronavirus Scare a Mass Social Experiment and New Normal
Get away from me!
The state, Baker said, is in "a pivotal moment on what we do” to contain the virus.
Uh-huh.
However, public health officials are not recommending that schools be closed across Massachusetts.
Cough?!
That decision is being left to the state’s 351 individual communities, despite a letter signed by 22 mayors and city managers who urged that schools be shut statewide.
“We feel strongly that if each municipality is left to respond to the crisis on their own, this ad hoc response will generate panic and confusion among our residents," read the letter, whose co-signers included Mayors Carlo DeMaria of Everett and Joe Curtatone of Somerville.
I'm starting to wonder if that isn't the intent.
Friday night, Mayor Martin J. Walsh ordered Boston public schools closed until April 27, joining some other districts around the region.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston announced Friday that all Boston parish schools and archdiocesan elementary and high schools will be closed for two weeks from Monday through March 27 and could remain closed beyond that.
Who will abuse the kids?
Amid the flurry of changes and cancellations, the state continued to face questions and frustration about the pace of its testing for the coronavirus, a critical step in determining the scope of the disease and plans to limit it.....
What do they really want?
Everyone's DNA for the databases?
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The Globe says Baker should step up the virus response and asks why isn’t Massachusetts leading the way like Bo$ton?
"Boston schools to close Tuesday through April 27; pressure builds on Baker for statewide shutdown" by Deirdre Fernandes, Mark Arsenault and Malcolm Gay Globe Staff, March 14, 2020
In a dramatic turnaround that is likely to upend the lives of tens of thousands of families and children, Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston announced Friday that all the city’s schools will close for six weeks in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Boston Public Schools will close starting on Tuesday and remain shuttered until April 27.
“We have determined that now is the time to take bold action, and slow the spread of the virus," Walsh said. The schools may reopen sooner if it is safe, he added.
Boston's nearly 125 schools will be open on Monday for a regular school day. Students will have a chance to collect any items from school and parents will have the next few days to plan for child care and other needs, he said.
(Blog editor puts palm to forehead, and one can only imagine the scrambled panic such a thing is likely to unleash on the agencies and people who provide such services. Good luck!)
The city is developing lesson plans for students to take home and still finalizing ways to ensure that the thousands of children who rely on school services, including daily meals, don't go hungry, Walsh said.
Oh, one can see the disaster unfolding before it's even happened. I hope it's worth it.
Related: "The Federal Communications Commission Friday said it has gotten the nation’s broadband carriers to agree to not discontinue Internet access to any customers during the coronavirus crisis. A host of broadband companies, including Comcast, Verizon, RCN, Charter, and AT&T, have vowed that for the next 60 days they won’t discontinue service to homes or businesses late in paying their Internet bills. The carriers will also waive any late fees accrued during this period. In addition, the carriers will offer free access to their networks of Wi-Fi hotspots. The provision of free hotspot access could prove especially important for low-income families if public schools are shut down as part of the response to coronavirus......"
Sorry, kids, no skipping class.
Walsh's announcement Friday marks perhaps the most aggressive approach in Massachusetts to the worsening news about the coronavirus. Many districts in the region, for instance, have announced two-week closures.
Walsh said those school systems will probably have to reconsider their plans.
“I’m assuming that those districts are closing for two weeks, but that they’re going to continue that closure,” Walsh said. “There are no signs right now that the coronavirus threat is going to stop or slow down.”
Separately Friday, more than a dozen Boston charter schools announced they would be shut for about two weeks. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston also announced that all Boston parish schools and archdiocesan elementary and high schools will be closed for two weeks from Monday through March 27 and could remain closed beyond that.
Walsh had been more reticent in recent days about closing Boston schools, even as surrounding suburban districts have shut down their schools for cleanings and to limit exposure to the virus.
Walsh said he and school officials have been discussing closing Boston’s schools for the past several days, but the district is complex and student needs are far more extensive than in smaller districts. Many of the city’s students rely on the schools for breakfast and lunch, for example......
Just don't drink the lead-tainted water from the fountains (have they not passed that yet?).
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Related: Mass. officials release scathing review of Boston school system
Maybe it's a good thing they have closed down.
Also see: Prosecutors won’t pursue Boston Calling case against Walsh aides
He needed some good news!
(flip to below fold)
Ready for your test?
Ready for your test?"A ray of hope in coronavirus outbreak: Mass. loosens rules on who can get tested" by Kay Lazar and Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff, March 13, 2020
Amid mounting frustration over access to coronavirus testing, the Baker administration on Friday released new guidelines to health care providers that significantly relax rules on who can be tested, a move doctors say should substantially increase access, but it remains unclear exactly how many tests the state is actually completing. The administration promised to double capacity, from 200 tests daily to 400, by next week, but Baker and his health secretary refused to reveal how many Massachusetts residents have actually been tested each day. They said that information won’t be released until Wednesday, and only on a weekly basis after that.
That sparked the ire of state Attorney General Maura Healey, who chided the administration for a lack of transparency and urged leaders to do better. Healey also criticized Baker for failing to coordinate a response across state agencies to address child care, especially for health workers, as well as unemployment benefits, mortgage and rent issues, and business assistance.
Hours earlier, the state health department issued a memo to health care providers saying many patients who didn’t fit the state’s earlier, narrower criteria for testing would now be eligible for a test.
Until Friday, the health department was guiding doctors to only allow testing for patients who were showing symptoms of Covid-19 illness — fever and respiratory problems ― and only if they had traveled to countries with high levels of the disease, or had been in contact with someone who had a confirmed Covid-19 illness. Doctors were required to call the state health department to get permission to take a nasal and throat swab from each patient who fit that narrow criteria before sending the specimen to the state’s lab for testing.
Health care providers were balking at that, saying some patients appeared to have the illness, but didn’t fit the state’s rigid criteria. More widespread testing was crucial, they insisted, to diagnose the sick, determine who’d been exposed to the virus so they would not infect others, and measure the effectiveness of containment measures.
The state’s expanded guidelines could mean anywhere from a threefold to a tenfold increase in who gets tested, said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, the head of the infectious disease division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Kuritzkes said dropping the prior approval of the state health department for each test clears a huge hurdle. That process was causing a backlog, since each case had to be reviewed by a limited number of health department staff, he said.
Kara Keating Bench, a doctor at Lynn Community Health Center, said getting approval from the state health department for testing has been cumbersome. Doctors could call at 11:30 a.m and wouldn’t get a response until 5 p.m., she said.
“It takes hours, it’s ridiculous,” Bench said. Under the new guidelines, "we can use our clinical judgment, which is nice.”
Bench said she had a patient this past week with a history of asthma, who had recently traveled domestically and returned with a persistent cough. Bench said she couldn’t even ask the state for a test, because the woman didn’t meet the required criteria.
Though she’s relieved that such a patient could now be tested, Bench worries that widespread testing won’t proceed quickly enough, because supplies, such as vials, masks, gloves, and swabs are limited.
Better get those factories up and running then.
What do you mean they are in China?
Paul Biddinger, chief of the division of emergency preparedness at Massachusetts General Hospital, hailed the looser guidelines, but he said the real game-changer would be a faster, more efficient, commercially available test for the coronavirus.
When can I buy one at Walgreens?
The Food and Drug Administration this week gave the emergency green light to Swiss medical company Roche to start mass-producing its test kits, which can provide results in three and a half hours, but it will take some time to get these kits out into the market, Biddinger said.
Cha-Ching.
Meanwhile Mass General on Friday started deploying its own, in-house tests for the most urgent cases of admitted patients and certain staff, Biddinger said.
It’s labor intensive and takes half a day, but gets faster results than the two- or three-day wait times at the state health department’s facilities and the two commercial labs that have received FDA approval to conduct tests, he said.
Several commercial labs nationwide came online this week to accept large numbers of samples, but it’s unclear whether they will be prepared for the deluge, said Dr. Michael Mina, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“A major concern is that as these looser restrictions take place across the country, the commercial laboratories may become overburdened and backlogged as well,” Mina said.....
At least Vertex is helping out.
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Related: "Frustration and confusion over who can get tested in Massachusetts for the coronavirus have been mounting, and official answers seem to change daily. Here’s the latest....."
They advi$e taking a hike to the store:
"A walk through a city gone eerily quiet; On Friday, at the end of the week when everything changed, the city of Boston was a shell of its usual self" by Billy Baker Globe Staff, March 13, 2020
It is different now. Normal life has been replaced by something else, some cautious cousin. The trains still run and the stores still sell and the city’s schools were still open — were — but in Boston on Friday, the signs were unmistakable.
The giant pause has begun.
The morning streets of downtown, typically a mash of humanity as 9 a.m. nears, looked suspiciously like the streets of a frigid Sunday, but the context had changed. Looking through a lens colored by the specter of illness and fear made the familiar picture fraught and foreboding.
It's nearly the only thing the paper sees anymore.
“There would normally be a lot of people waiting to cross this street with me,” Erinn Gloster said as she stood alone at 8:55 a.m. and prepared to cross North Street into Faneuil Hall, on her usual route from her home in the North End to her office in the Financial District.
“I just walked through the Haymarket stands, which are usually bustling, but there’s hardly anyone around,” she said as she gave another look around to survey what was missing, before stating another painfully obvious fact. “It seems like there are barely any cars on the roads.”
For a city that just defended its title for the worst rush hour traffic in America, you’d have been hard pressed to find any red no matter what route you punched into Google Maps. A pocket here and a pocket there, sure, but the highways were looking like it was a lazy Sunday, rather than the end to the workweek.
As morning gave way to afternoon, the empty feeling in the city only seemed to increase. Lunchtime crowds never materialized. A glimpse through the windows of a dozen downtown restaurants was dour. Each was lucky to have two or three tables of customers. Even those downtown sandwich joints that are famous for their endless lines had none. You could walk right up to the counter at Al’s on State Street. That’s as common as a unicorn.
Tourists, stuck in a city where most cultural institutions and attractions are now closed, semi-crowded into the food court at Quincy Market, which had about 100 customers at its various booths at 12:30, but in the surrounding retail stores in Faneuil Hall, employees far outnumbered customers.
On the plaza outside the New England Aquarium, Sarah-Kim Munger and Charles Sun, a couple who had driven down from Montreal, were enjoying one of the few attractions still functioning as normal: the Atlantic harbor seals in the outdoor tank, who were, as always, putting on a show. Inside, the penguins performed their little lives for no one.
“We got here three days ago, and we’ve actually had a really nice time, despite everything going on,” said Sun, 27, who is a physician back in Canada. “We were able to visit the Museum of Science before it closed, and we had some nice dinners,” but they admitted that when they got in the car for the trip down, they did not anticipate how quickly everything would change in a few days, and were caught off guard by the announcement from their own government that they would now be required to quarantine when they returned to Canada......
You may find Parliament shuttered when you get back.
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Related:
"As concerns over the coronavirus escalate across the New York City region, many riders have abandoned crowded public transit to protect themselves. Others have decided to walk to work instead of using the subway....."
Including Sarah Feinberg, the interim president of New York City Transit and former Federal Railroad Administration head during the Obama Administration.
"Store shelves picked clean as people panic-buy goods at local supermarkets; From Dedham to Somerville to Chelmsford — food and toiletries are going fast. Industry experts say it’s not a long-term disruption" by Steve Annear and Janelle Nanos Globe Staff, March 13, 2020
It’s slim pickings these days at supermarkets and convenience stores across the region as people are jamming into aisles to stock up on food, household goods, and cleaning supplies amid rising concerns they’ll be forced to self-quarantine for an extended period of time. As cases of the coronavirus continue to spread, industry experts promise that the virus won’t lead to a break in the food supply chain -- but it was clear in busy groceries Friday that many shoppers would rather be safe than sorry.
I hope the Globe isn't lying like that television station on the video the other day. As far as around here, the convenience stores are fine and there has been a run on pasta, sauce, and toilet paper at the supermarket, but other than that it is situation normal.
Supermarket industry experts said that while stores should do their part to assuage customers’ health and safety concerns, the larger concerns about lack of food availability are unwarranted.
Maybe we all should stop eating food and starve the virus to death.
“There’s no point in panicking, the supply chain is not stopping and the stores are not closing,” said James McCann, a local investor for early-stage food and retail companies, and the former CEO of Ahold USA, the parent company of Stop & Shop and Hannaford.
I kind of wasn't. I've been annoyed more than anything else. $creeching of the pre$$.
He said that most stores’ supply chain and buying teams will be trying to guess what the demand will look like for the next three or four weeks, and begin placing orders, while manufacturers will be trying to step up production to meet the demand. He expects a strain on e-commerce sales, which usually hover at about 3 percent of total store sales, and estimates that might tick up to about 15 percent if there’s a crush - which could be a challenge for some stores.
From a stocking perspective, McCann said the producers of certain items like hand sanitizers will likely choose to ramp up production and then send their supplies to health care workers who need them most, so it may be a while before shelves are restocked, but for all other aspects of the supply chain, manufacturing should continue largely as planned.....
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The Globe has "never seen anything like that, and it’s like that in every store.”
"What is the financial impact of shutting down Boston’s sports teams because of coronavirus?" by Michael Silverman Globe Staff, March 13, 2020
The inalienable rights of sports fans in Boston and across North America to cheer, boo, or simply watch a live sporting event were denied with alarming abruptness this week because of the coronavirus.
This jarring new sports-free reality overshadows a looming threat. If sports leagues, stadiums, and arenas remain shuttered for months, not weeks, the financial impact on the estimated $100 billion North American sports industry threatens to balloon into a burden none of the teams in any of the leagues are prepared to face.
Is it possible that leagues cold fold (and just after they legalized $ports betting, too)?
In Boston, the removal of fan-generated revenue from the big five local pro franchises would turn coffers red very quickly.
With Thursday’s announcement that at least the first two weeks of the baseball season would be scrubbed, the Red Sox lost six games from their 81-game home slate at Fenway Park.....
Thank God the NFL is in its offseason.
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One can only wonder what will the sports TV networks do with no sports to broadcast?
The need for leadership has never been more important as baseball matters become inconsequential and the long layoff due to coronavirus could dull the Bruins’ sharpness before they hit the road again.
Look who is coming through in the clutch:
House races to pass coronavirus relief after Democrats strike deal with White House
The New York Times says the global death toll has neared 5,100 -- an increase of 400 since yesterday. Doesn't say who or where.
"Trump declares coronavirus emergency; Pelosi announces aid deal" Mar 13, 2020" by The Associated Press
President Donald Trump on Friday declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency in order to free up more money and resources, but he denied any responsibility for delays in making testing available for the new virus, whose spread has roiled markets and disrupted the lives of everyday Americans.
He is unleashing as much as $50 billion for state and local governments.
Trump also announced a range of executive actions, including a new public-private partnership to expand coronavirus testing capabilities with drive-through locations, as his administration has come under fire for being too slow in making the test available.
Late Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a deal with the Trump administration for an aid package from Congress that aims at direct relief to Americans — free testing, two weeks of sick pay for workers, enhanced unemployment benefits and bolstered food programs.
"We are proud to have reached an agreement with the Administration to resolve outstanding challenges, and now will soon pass the Families First Coronavirus Response Act," Pelosi announced in a letter to colleagues after days of negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The House was poised to vote.
The crush of late-day activity capped a tumultuous week in Washington as the fast-moving virus shuttered the capital’s power centers, roiled financial markets and left ordinary Americans suddenly navigating self-quarantines, school closures and a changed way of life.
The White House was under enormous pressure, dealing with the crisis on multiple fronts as it encroached ever closer on the president.
You could see it in Trump's body language as he was being bent over by the banisters and pharmaceutical scum the last few days.
Trump has been known to flout public health advice — eagerly shaking hands during the more than hour-long afternoon event — but acknowledged he "most likely" will be tested now after having been in contact with several officials who have tested positive for the virus. "Fairly soon," he said.
He's actually a germaphobe, so he is so far off the reservation at this point.
Still, Trump said officials don't want people taking the test unless they have certain symptoms. "We don't want people without symptoms to go and do that test," Trump said, adding, "It's totally unnecessary."
He acts as if he knows this is all an overblown hoax.
Additionally, Trump took a number of other actions to bolster energy markets, ease the financial burden for Americans with student loans and give medical professionals additional “flexibility” in treating patients during the public health crisis.
"Through a very collective action and shared sacrifice, national determination, we will overcome the threat of the virus," Trump said.
Everybody now!
Central to the aid package from Congress, which builds on an emergency $8.3 billion measure approved last week, is the free testing and sick pay provisions.
Oh, so they are throwing more money into the collapsing economy.
The ability to ensure paychecks will keep flowing — for people self-quarantining or caring for others — can help assure Americans they will not fall into financial hardship.
Hopes for swift passage of the bill stalled as talks dragged and Trump dismissed it during as "not doing enough."
That's a real belly drop after reading what Pelosi said earlier.
Ahead of Trump's new conference, Pelosi delivered a statement from the speaker's balcony at the Capitol imploring the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to "put families first" by backing the effort to provide Americans with relief.
"Our great nation has faced crisis before," Pelosi said. "And every time, thanks to the courage and optimism of the American people, we have prevailed. Now, working together, we will once again prevail."
She makes me sick.
Pelosi and Mnuchin engaged in days of around-the-clock negotiations with cross-town phone calls that continued even as Trump was speaking. Both indicated earlier they were close to a deal.
They both promised a third coronavirus package will follow soon, with more aggressive steps to boost the U.S. economy, which economists fear has already slipped into recession.
Oh, it's a ma$$ive money grab then. I now predict this crisis will peter out rather quickly, with TPTB and their mouthpiece media telling us how they saved us all.
According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to be over it.
No, no, no. The impression my pre$$ has left me with is certain death if contracted (presumed, that is. Could be the flu or a cold, but....).
Trump said he was gratified that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested negative for the virus, after the pair sat next to each other for an extended period of time last weekend at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. A senior aide to Bolsonaro tested positive.
Related: "Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has tested negative for the new coronavirus, according to a post Friday on his official Facebook profile. Concern about Bolsonaro’s exposure to virus — and possibly that of President Trump — had grown after confirmation that the Brazilian leader’s communications director tested positive. The senior official had joined Bolsonaro just days earlier at a meeting with Trump and senior aides in Florida. There had been a swirl of confusing information earlier Friday, with some media reporting Bolsonaro had received an initial positive test result, but the president’s official social media account later said tests were negative, and also posted a photo of Bolsonaro making an offensive arm gesture to reporters earlier this year. ‘‘Don’t believe the fake news media!’’ he wrote in a subsequent post. Bolsonaro’s meeting this week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort also included Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner, Brazil’s Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, and Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, who is a federal lawmaker, among others. Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani also went to Mar-a-Lago that evening."
They are actively rooting for Trump to contract coronavirus.
How sick!
Trump's daugher, Ivanka Trump, worked from home Friday after meeting with Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, now in isolation at a hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus. White House spokesman Judd Deere said she was evaluated by the White House Medical Unit and it was determined that because she was exhibiting no symptoms she does not need to self-quarantine.
Attorney General William Barr, who also met with the Australian official, was staying home Friday, though he "felt great and wasn't showing any symptoms," according to his spokeswoman Kerri Kupec.
Related: "A top government official from Australia said that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus, just days after he returned from a meeting with Ivanka Trump and a Justice Department event in Washington that was attended by Attorney General William Barr and acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf. Peter Dutton, Australia’s home affairs minister, said Friday that he woke up with a fever and sore throat and would be checking into a hospital. On March 5, Dutton had visited Justice Department headquarters for a news conference about an initiative to fight online sexual exploitation of children. Dutton was one of six government officials who spoke at the news conference, including Barr and Wolf. With counterparts from Britain, New Zealand, and Canada, the officials stood together on a dais for about 45 minutes to discuss the initiative. Given the number of countries involved in the announcement, there were scores of people who attended the gathering. The group also met that day with White House officials, and Dutton was photographed standing directly next to the president’s daughter and a few feet from Barr. Officials said Barr was staying home from work Friday but was feeling well, and medical experts have not recommended he get tested. White House spokesman Judd Deere said Ivanka Trump, who worked from home on Friday, was evaluated by the White House Medical Unit and it was determined that because she was exhibiting no symptoms she does not need to self-quarantine. Kellyanne Conway, a White House counselor also present at the meeting, confirmed she met with Dutton but said she had not been tested for the virus."
Can you imagine the media's glee were Barr to contract it?
Several lawmakers, including some close to Trump, have also been exposed to people who tested positive for the virus, and are self-isolating.
Among them are Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Rick Scott, who were at Trump's club on the weekend. Graham announced Friday that he also met with the Australian official who has now tested positive, and GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who had previously isolated himself after a potential exposure at a conservative conference in Washington, said Friday he met with a Spanish official and is now self-quarantining.
Spain is now under a state of emergency.
Hospitals welcomed Trump's emergency declaration, which they and lawmakers in Congress had been requesting. It allows the Health and Human Services Department to temporarily waive certain federal rules that can make it harder for hospitals and other health care facilities to respond to an emergency.
The American Medical Association said the emergency declaration would help ensure America's health care system has sufficient resources to properly respond to the ongoing outbreak.
Trump has struggled to show he's on top of the crisis, after giving conflicting descriptions of what the U.S. is doing to combat the virus. On Wednesday he announced he would ban travel to the U.S. from Europe, and on Friday he suggested extending that to the U.K. because of a recent rise in cases.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, said more tests would be available over the next week, but warned, "We still have a long way to go."
Fauci said Friday, "There will be many more cases, but we'll take care of that, and ultimately, as the president said, this will end."
He can kiss my blarney stone.
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Related:
"As thousands of Americans flee from Europe and other centers of the coronavirus outbreak, many travelers are reporting no health screenings upon departure and few impediments at US airports beyond a welcome home greeting......"
That is over at Logan, and even top officials acknowledge the task of sealing the United States from the virus is impossible because it is not a “hermetically sealed process,” and “viruses do not care about boundaries.”
Here is the worst case scenario:
"The worst-case estimate for US coronavirus deaths is about 1.7 million deaths" by Sheri Fink New York Times, March 13, 2020
Officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and epidemic experts from universities around the world conferred last month about what might happen if the new coronavirus gained a foothold in the United States. How many people might die? How many would be infected and need hospitalization?
One of the agency’s top disease modelers, Matthew Biggerstaff, presented the group on the phone call with four possible scenarios — A, B, C, and D — based on characteristics of the virus, including estimates of how transmissible it is and the severity of the illness it can cause. The assumptions, reviewed by the New York Times, were shared with about 50 expert teams to model how the virus could tear through the population — and what might stop it.
The CDC’s scenarios were depicted in terms of percentages of the population. Translated into absolute numbers by independent experts using simple models of how viruses spread, the worst-case figures would be staggering if no actions were taken to slow transmission.
Between 160 million and 214 million people in the US could be infected over the course of the epidemic, according to one projection. That could last months or even over a year, with infections concentrated in shorter periods, staggered across time in different communities, experts said. As many as 200,000 to 1.7 million people could die, and, the calculations based on the CDC’s scenarios suggested, 2.4 million to 21 million people in the US could require hospitalization, potentially crushing the nation’s medical system, which has only about 925,000 staffed hospital beds. Fewer than a tenth of those are for people who are critically ill.
The assumptions fueling those scenarios are mitigated by the fact that cities, states, businesses, and individuals are beginning to take steps to slow transmission, even if some are acting less aggressively than others. The CDC-led effort is developing more sophisticated models showing how interventions might decrease the worst-case numbers, though their projections have not been made public.
You know what they say happens when you assume something, right?
All our fates predicated on a $elf-$erving model and algorithm, too.
“When people change their behavior,” said Lauren Gardner, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering who models epidemics, “those model parameters are no longer applicable,” so short-term forecasts are likely to be more accurate. “There is a lot of room for improvement if we act appropriately.”
The Times obtained screenshots of the CDC presentation, which has not been released publicly, from someone not involved in the meetings. The Times then verified the data with several scientists who did participate. The scenarios were marked valid until Feb. 28 but remain “roughly the same,” according to Ira Longini, co-director of the Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Diseases at the University of Florida. He has joined in meetings of the group.
The CDC declined interview requests about the modeling effort and referred a request for comment to the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Devin O’Malley, a spokesman for the task force, said that senior health officials had not presented the findings to the group, led by Vice President Mike Pence, and that nobody in Pence’s office “has seen or been briefed on these models.”
The assumptions in the CDC’s four scenarios, and the new numerical projections, fall in the range of others developed by independent experts.
“A fire on your stove you could put out with a fire extinguisher, but if your kitchen is ablaze, that fire extinguisher probably won’t work,” said Dr. Carter Mecher, a senior medical adviser for public health at the Department of Veterans Affairs and a former director of medical preparedness policy at the White House during the Obama and Bush administrations. “Communities that pull the fire extinguisher early are much more effective.”
The four scenarios have different parameters, which is why the projections range so widely. They variously assume that each person with the coronavirus would infect either two or three people; that the hospitalization rate would be either 3 percent or 12 percent; and that either 1 percent or a quarter of a percent of people experiencing symptoms would die. Those assumptions are based on what is known so far about how the virus has behaved in other contexts, including in China.
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I don't mean to be cavalier about the coronavirus; however, I am wondering from where it really came:
"China spins tale that the US army started the coronavirus" by Steven Lee Myers New York Times, March 13, 2020
BEIJING — China is pushing a new theory about the origins of the coronavirus: It is an American disease that might have been introduced by members of the US Army who visited Wuhan in October.
There is not a shred of evidence to support that, but the notion received an official endorsement from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose spokesman accused American officials of not coming clean about what they know about the disease.
The intentional spreading of an unfounded conspiracy theory — which recirculated on China’s tightly controlled internet Friday — punctuated a downward spiral in relations between the two countries that has been fueled by the basest instinct of officials on both sides.
The New York Times reaction tells you the Chinese hit damn close to the mark, and I'm sure they wish for a tightly controlled internet here -- and they just might get it.
The insinuation came in a series of posts on Twitter by Zhao Lijian, a ministry spokesman who has made good use of the platform, which is blocked in China, to push a newly aggressive, and hawkish, diplomatic strategy. It is most likely intended to deflect attention from China’s own missteps in the early weeks of the pandemic by sowing confusion or, at least, uncertainty at home and abroad.
Zhao’s posts appeared to be a retort to similarly unsubstantiated theories about the origins of the outbreak that have spread in the United States. Senior officials there have called the pandemic the “Wuhan virus,” and at least one senator hinted darkly that the pandemic began with the leak of a Chinese biological weapon.
It was Tom Cotton as he told us to beware the Ides of March, and it looks like it was a preemptive finger-point to throw everyone of the trail.
“The conspiracy theories are a new, low front in what they clearly perceive as a global competition over the narrative of this crisis,” said Julian B. Gewirtz, a scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard.
Meaning the truth is beginning to come out and there is nothing they can do about it!
It's not from bloggers, either. It's from state authorities in other countries for God's sake.
“There are a few Chinese officials who appear to have gone to the Donald J. Trump School of Diplomacy,” added Gewirtz, who recently published a paper on China’s handling of the AIDS pandemic, after a similar disinformation campaign. “This small cadre of high-volume Chinese officials don’t seem to realize that peddling conspiracy theories is totally self-defeating for China, at a moment when it wants to be seen as a positive contributor around the world.”
So says Gewirtz!
The circulation of disinformation is not a new tactic for the Communist Party state. The United States, in particular, is often a foil of Chinese propaganda efforts. Last year, Beijing explicitly accused the US government of supporting public protests in Hong Kong in an effort to weaken the party’s rule.
I'm tired of the New York Times projecting what they do onto others as well as obfuscating and distorting the American role in that failed destabilization. That's why the U.S. government loosed the coronavirus upon China. Neither Hong Kong nor the alleged Uighur concentration camps took hold.
The old tactic has been amplified by more combative public diplomacy and a new embrace of a social media platform that is blocked in China to spread a message abroad.
Victor Shih, an associate professor at the University of California at San Diego who studies Chinese politics, said that while the campaign was very likely an attempt to distract and deflect blame, a more worrisome possibility was that some officials fabricated the idea and persuaded top leaders to believe it.
Like what happened with the allegedly bad intelligence that duped the pre$$ into promoting headlines blaring WMD in Iraq?
Of course, we all know now the pre$$ was a willing conduit for George W. Bush's lies.
“If the leadership really believes in the culpability of the US government,” he warned, it may behave in a way that “dramatically” worsens the bilateral relationship.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has faced sharp criticism for the government’s initial handling of the outbreak, even at home. Public anger erupted in February when a doctor who was punished for warning his colleagues about the coronavirus died, prompting censors to redouble their efforts to stifle public criticism.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Google/Blogger for allowing me to opine the truth these last 13+ years and for not having taken the blog down by now.
Chinese officials have repeatedly urged officials in other countries not to politicize what is a public health emergency. Conservatives in the United States, in particular, have latched on to loaded terms that have been criticized for stigmatizing the Chinese people. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to the “Wuhan virus,” while Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., called it the “Chinese coronavirus.”
Is that politically correct?
In response, Chinese officials and state news media have stepped up their criticism of American officials’ comments.
The coronavirus, according to all evidence, emanated from Wuhan, China, in late December. Scientists have not yet identified a “patient zero” or a precise source of the virus, though preliminary studies have linked it to a virus in bats that passed through another mammal before infecting humans.
Is the New York Times even looking?
A senior official of China’s National Health Commission, Liang Wannian, said at a briefing in Beijing last month that the likely carrier was a pangolin, an endangered species that is trafficked almost exclusively to China for its meat and for its scales, which are prized for use in traditional medicine.
The first cluster of patients was reported at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, and studies have since suggested that the virus could have been introduced there by someone already infected. Wuhan and the surrounding province of Hubei account for the overwhelming amount of cases and deaths, so there is no scientific reason to believe the virus began elsewhere.
So says the New York Times.
Zhao’s assertion began with a post linking to a video of the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert R. Redfield, testifying before the House on Wednesday and suggesting that some flu deaths might have been caused by the coronavirus.
Say what?
“When did patient zero begin in US?” Zhao wrote on Twitter, first in English and separately in Chinese. “How many people are infected. What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your date! US owe us an explanation.”
Could it possibly have been timed and explained by the vape crisis, because the symptomatology is very, very similar and the vape crisis was never adequately explained or solved.
Zhao appeared to refer to the Military World Games, which were held in Wuhan in October. The Pentagon sent 17 teams with more than 280 athletes and other staff members to the event, well before any reported outbreaks. The Pentagon has had confirmed cases in South Korea and Italy and is bracing for more to emerge, but no illnesses have been tied to American service members from October.
So that is when it was introduced to China.
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That article appeared on the back page of the A section, and the crisis must be serious since the Saturday Globe included a rare Metro section:
"The battle against the spread of the coronavirus moved into law enforcement and Massachusetts courthouses on Friday as the state’s high court ordered a halt to new jury trials until April 21. Meanwhile, some police departments are terminating non-emergency in-station visits from the public for the immediate future. Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins has ordered prosecutors to seek a 60-day continuance on criminal cases where the defendant is not in jail. Rollins’ office will work with defense attorneys in cases where their clients are in custody to avoid court appearances, if possible. Rollins also signaled her intent to prosecute anyone targeting Asian-Americans. “We will not allow this pandemic to unleash an epidemic of bigotry and hate,” she said in a statement Thursday. “We are allies in this fight against bigotry and we will hold anyone who commits a hate crime accountable.” Some police agencies are also changing the way they interact with the public. Newburyport police on Friday said they will no longer allow citizens to walk into the station and have face-to-face contact with officers and civilian employees....."
This state will soon be like the former East Germany, although "we all can agree that flowers are one of the world's best medicines."
"UMass Amherst students, with heavy hearts, prepare to leave campus" by Laurie Loisel Globe correspondent, March 13, 2020
AMHERST — University of Massachusetts Amherst junior Alicia Gaom, a 21-year-old accounting major, wanted to be home in China. Officials there, she said, take the pandemic more seriously than this country.
“I could stay, but I choose not to,” said Gao.
On Wednesday, she booked her flight home to China, where she intended to remain until the fall semester. Her parents, convinced she will be safer at home, are relieved.
As news of the coronavirus developed, officials at the Amherst campus initially urged students to remain on campus during spring break, which started Friday, reasoning that if students stayed put, there was less chance they’d return from travels carrying the virus, but mid-week — in another indication of the fast-changing coronavirus landscape — administrators announced that after spring break, classes would go online through April 3.
Sarah O’Connell, 20, a junior majoring in operations and information management, is heading home to Littleton Thursday with just a few of her belongings, holding out hope that classes would resume in April.
“I don’t really want to go to online classes, because I think there will be problems, and they’re not so effective,” she said.
She hadn’t packed up her entire room yet, even though most of her professors predicted on-campus classes would eventually be cancelled.
Emma Chase, a sophomore from Hingham who is a double major in biology and French was sitting in a coffee shop in the John Olver Design Building Thursday morning, computer open, canceling her flight to Myrtle Beach, S.C., for spring break.
Despite concerns from her parents, she was making plans to instead drive to Myrtle Beach with her friends to stay in the hotel they booked.
“I might as well be in a warm place, and I really don’t like to be away from my friends,” said Chase.
She was ready to leave campus Thursday afternoon after her final class, French.
“I packed up my whole room last night assuming I’m not coming back,” she said. “It feels surreal.”
As a resident of John Quincy Adams Hall, one of the university’s high-rise towers, she didn’t feel safe remaining on campus.
“It’s the worst possible place when there’s an outbreak," she said.
She, too, had mixed feelings about online classes. Occasionally, she has relied on recordings of her large science lectures when she missed a class, but understanding organic chemistry concepts in person can be challenging enough, so she was especially worried about taking that class online. On the other hand, she said, taking her chemistry final at home would mean an open book test.
Sophomore Alexa Desjourdy, an accounting major from Medfield was planning to leave campus Thursday, hoping against hope that classes would resume in three weeks.
“Everyone is just very disappointed,” she said. “No one wants to go home and no one wants to have online classes but we understand this is a unique situation and there’s nothing we can do unless we want to get the virus.”
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Related:
"The state’s Medicaid organization Friday said it will allow pharmacies to dispense up to a 90-day supply of most prescription drugs for the low-income residents it serves, waiving a 30-day supply limit in response to the spreading coronavirus that has left many residents homebound. MassHealth ― which insures about 1.8 million Massachusetts residents, including about 312,000 seniors and people with disabilities ― also said it will permit them to order early refills of their prescriptions to ensure residents have adequate supplies of medicine during the public health crisis. The changes on prescription coverage will take effect Saturday. The changes, which are meant in part to help an older population deemed at higher risk for coronavirus, were part of a series of guidance statements and bulletins issued by MassHealth as state health officials stepped up efforts to address the pandemic affecting nations globally....."
I better go get my prescriptions refilled.
At least the message on pandemic prevention is finally getting through:
"Stocks rally as Trump and business leaders pledge support" by Alexandra Stevenson and Jeanna Smialek New York Times, March 13, 2020
NEW YORK — Stocks rallied Friday, rebounding from their worst day in more than 30 years, after President Trump said leaders of private companies in the United States had agreed to help with efforts to test for the coronavirus and declared a national emergency that would free billions in funding to fight the epidemic.
Trump also said he would waive interest on all student loans held by all government agencies and that the energy secretary would be buying “large quantities of oil” to fill up the country’s strategic reserve — an effort to bolster flagging oil prices. Trump did not rule out a rescue package for the airline and cruise industries, either.
Asked whether the United States would bail out the cruise industry, Trump acknowledged that “it’s an industry that was very badly impacted by what is going on. We will be helping them and we will be helping the airline industry if we have to.”
He has become Obama!
Trump did note that the virus outbreak had been good for some companies, including some retailers, who have seen runs on things like hand sanitizer, paper goods and foods. “Your business is like the opposite,” he said to the chief executives of Walmart and Target, who were standing beside him. “You’re selling a lot of stuff.”
It is enough to make you $ick, i$n't it?
Google is working with Verily, a life sciences unit of its parent company Alphabet, to direct individuals with a high risk of coronavirus infection to testing sites.
Trump said Friday that Google had devoted 1,700 engineers to build a website to help people screen for Covid-19 symptoms and then be directed to testing locations.
The description of the website fits with an initiative described by Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s chief executive, in an internal memo sent Thursday and obtained by The New York Times. A Google representative was not immediately available for comment, and The Times could not independently confirm the company had devoted 1,700 people to the effort.
“A planning effort is underway to use the expertise in life sciences and clinical research of Verily in partnership with Google to aid in the Covid-19 testing effort,” Pichai wrote in the memo.
You know, the same sector that brought you this.
He explained that once more tests become available, the plan is to have public health officials direct people to a Verily website that can steer people at higher risk to testing sites. Pichai did not lay out how many engineers would be assigned to the project, but he asked for volunteers interested in working on the project.
Adding to oil reserve could help the energy industry, but not a lot.
Trump said Friday that he would fill up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which for decades has been used as a cushion in case of fuel shortages caused by global political events or natural disasters.
The reserve has about 635 million barrels of oil and is equipped to store another 75 million barrels, which is equivalent to three-quarters of one day’s global oil production. By adding to it, the government would have to buy oil on the market, increasing overall demand and lifting prices, but the reserve can take in only about 500,000 barrels a day, or slightly less than 4 percent of US production. Still, oil prices, which have tumbled in recent weeks as demand has plummeted because of the coronavirus outbreak, shot up about 6 percent after Trump’s remarks.
“It won’t clean up the market, but it is an important first step,” said Larry Goldstein, a director of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, an industry and government funded research organization.
With most finished movies pulled off the release calendar through the end of April, Hollywood studios started to halt their assembly lines Friday, beginning with Disney.
“While there have been no confirmed cases of Covid-19 on our productions, after considering the current environment and the best interests of our cast and crew, we have made the decision to pause production on some of our live-action films for a short time,” Walt Disney Studios said in a statement.
Who cares about the filth they trowel out?
The affected Disney projects include a new version of “The Little Mermaid,” which was supposed to begin shooting in London next week; “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” a Marvel superhero film; a remake of “Home Alone,” the 1990 comedy; “The Last Duel,” a period epic starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon; and the big-budget “Peter Pan & Wendy.” Disney is also halting production on two scripted series and 16 pilots.
Netflix is halting production on all scripted television series and films in the United States and Canada for at least two weeks, according to two people briefed on the plans. This will affect dozens of shows, and it includes projects that are either filming or are preparing for production.
The decision was reached by Netflix executives after realizing that new government rules setting restrictions on gatherings would have made production next to impossible, one of the people said.
Warner Bros. also announced Friday that it was halting production on more than 70 series and pilots that are filming.....
Related:
Coronavirus a Cover For Collapsing Economy
Don't Happy, Be Worry
The Economy is $ick
Also see:
Groundblog Day
Happy Valentine's Day
Slow Saturday Special: The Mask Is On
Looking at a Lockdown
Shutting It Down
And in other news:
"Israel’s political gridlock has been unbreakable through three brutal elections, endless grandstanding, and countless back-channel negotiations. Now, coronavirus could finally give the country its first government in more than a year. As the virus outbreak, and Israel’s response to it, swelled frighteningly in recent days, the warring factions have softened their rhetoric and embraced, tentatively, the possibility of coming together in an emergency coalition. There is no guarantee the coronavirus-inspired talk will actually lead to Israel’s first functioning government since the Knesset, or parliament, was dissolved in late 2018....."
Oh, the poor weary and wary Israeli voter and their brutal elections.
"US airstrikes kill Iraqi soldiers, Iraqi officials say" by Alissa J. Rubin and Eric Schmitt New York Times, March 13, 2020
BAGHDAD — Iraqi military officials strongly condemned the US military on Friday for airstrikes launched overnight that they said killed three Iraqi soldiers, two police officers, and a civilian worker, and damaged an unfinished civilian airport.
American officials said Friday that the strikes had hit sites where rockets and other weapons were stored by an Iranian-backed militia, Kataib Hezbollah, but according to multiple Iraqi military officials, who so far have been largely supportive of the US role in Iraq, the bombings killed members of the Iraqi military and police. It was not clear whether they had killed any Kataib Hezbollah fighters.
The strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack Wednesday that killed two Americans and a British soldier and injured 14 others at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad, American officials said.
Assuming those strikes were real and not some sort of false flag.
In a statement released Friday morning, the Iraqi Joint Command described the attack as “an aggression” that “targeted Iraqi military institutions violating the principal of partnership” between the Iraqi security forces and the Americans.
This attack “cost the lives of Iraqi fighters while they were doing their military duty,” the statement said.
At a news conference at the Pentagon on Friday, General Kenneth F. McKenzie, head of the military’s Central Command, said the US strikes were in self-defense to destroy rockets and other weapons that he said had been supplied by Iran and that could be used against US and allied troops in Iraq.
McKenzie said that American officials had consulted with their Iraqi counterparts after the fatal strikes Wednesday and knew a US response was coming.
He and other US military officials were dismissive of the Iraqi complaints given that Iraqi soldiers and police officers are often located on bases with Iranian-backed militias like Kataib Hezbollah.
“I don’t know whether the Iraqis are happy or unhappy,” McKenzie said. McKenzie also acknowledged that a weapons storage site at an airfield in Karbala had been destroyed. He said he did not yet have details on the overall numbers of casualties from strikes at the five locations, mostly south and southeast of Baghdad.
That guy is a real piece of work, huh?
Even the Nazis cared more about the people they occupied than do we, and he doesn't give a shit in any event anyway!
More broadly, the threat from Iran and its proxies remained “very high,” McKenzie said, adding that tensions “have actually not gone down” since the killing in early January of General Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian general.
Well, TRUMP DOES NEED A WAR RIGHT NOW!!!!
McKenzie said the risk remained greatest from Iran’s proxies, including Kataib Hezbollah, and that the United States was poised to strike additional militia weapons storage sites and other targets should attacks continue.
Separately, the Pentagon identified the two Americans killed in Wednesday’s rocket attack.....
They are an afterthought.
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Related:
Turkish, Russian troops to start Syria patrols on Sunday
The regime change effort is going down.
Also see:
"A retired surgeon accused of sexually abusing as many as 349 young children over decades – primarily his patients, in their hospital rooms — is facing justice at last, in the worst such case to come to light in France. The trial that began Friday in the western city of Saintes is only the beginning, however. Investigators say that under cover of medical acts, the doctor sexually took advantage of children as soon as they were alone in the hospital room. They say his strategy was to pass off sexual violence as a professional gesture, and to target patients so young they might not remember or understand what was happening....."
St. Paul teachers, school district reach deal ending strike
Schools are closed anyway.
Utah passes new abortion rules as Legislature wraps up
Philadelphia officer serving warrant is killed; fugitive arrested
"Might California’s water situation be blessed with a March miracle? After a historically dry opening to 2020, with nearly half the state in a drought, conditions seem to be coming together for a late rally. First, Southern California was pelted Thursday by a large area of moderate rain, some locally heavy, with thunderstorms causing flooding through rates of precipitation exceeding a half-inch an hour. Los Angeles observed its wettest March day in nine years. Additional heavy rain fell Friday morning. Over the coming weekend, it will be Northern California’s turn to get soaked or, in the mountains, blanketed. Forecasts are calling for a major winter storm to slam the Sierra Nevada mountain range with as much as 4 feet of snow, 5 inches of rain, and wind gusts reaching 60 mph. Due to the potential for heavy snow late Saturday into Monday, the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watches from Saturday morning through Monday morning for the Northern Sierra, Mount Shasta, Trinity Alps, and a small portion of the Coastal Range. The heaviest Sierra snow is anticipated to occur early Saturday evening into Sunday evening. A wet pattern is likely to persist over the Golden State next week. The Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes said a possibility coming out of this stretch is ‘‘much-needed relief to drought conditions across much of the state.’’ Even better, the midrange models have another storm system bringing precipitation to California by the middle of next week. Unlike last winter, when a conveyor belt of atmospheric rivers fed storm after storm into the Golden State, ending the drought and filling reservoirs, 2019-20 was historic bust until this week."
Just make sure you put your virus protection gear on before going outside:
A street vendor and costumed character reacted to the rain on Hollywood Boulevard on Friday. (Rich Fury/Getty Images/Getty Images)
I thought they cancelled shooting.
