Related: Coronavirus Scare a Mass Social Experiment and New Normal
To see how you respond to a SHUT DOWN:
"As coronavirus cases in Mass. pass 100, disruption reaches almost every sector" by Danny McDonald and Laura Crimaldi Globe Staff, March 12, 2020
The disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic reached into virtually all aspects of life in New England and beyond Thursday, leading to the suspension of the seasons for professional sports leagues, forcing officials to consider postponing the Boston Marathon for the first time ever, upending travel, and prompting the closure of arts venues from Broadway to Boston.
They said it may, but it has.
Officials discussing rescheduling the world-famous race are targeting autumn in an attempt to salvage some of the economic benefits this year, according to two people familiar with the plans.
State officials said Thursday that the tally of cases in the state had jumped to 108, up from 95 the day before, including 102 presumed positive cases and six confirmed by federal public health authorities. Worldwide, the number of cases topped 128,000 while the number of deaths exceeded 4,700.
Presumed?
As I have been commenting, they once again add around 100 to the death toll everyday with no proof or verification, although in this case it looks like they added about 400.
The outbreak may also force the Marathon to be postponed until autumn. Two people familiar with the discussions said officials are hoping to salvage some of the Marathon’s economic benefits this year. It would be the first time in 124 years that the event — which regularly draws about a million spectators and thousands of visitors from around the world — wouldn’t be held as planned.
In response to the outbreak in Massachusetts, the Legislature on Thursday passed a supplemental budget to create a $15 million fund that will support the state’s monitoring, treatment, containment, public awareness, and prevention efforts. Governor Charlie Baker signed the bill Thursday evening.
According to earlier reporting, they have no idea where it is going as it $lu$hes around.
Speaking in Pittsfield, Baker said local public health officials now have the capacity to process four times as many tests as they did a week ago, but he cautioned that federal help is still needed to increase testing availability in Massachusetts.
Later on Thursday, the state’s Department of Public Health announced that two commercial labs received federal approval for coronavirus testing, which will support the state lab to expedite the testing process.
Mu$t be where $ome money i$ going. Keep those labs up and running.
On the federal level, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health agreed that the United States needs to improve its testing.
“The system is not really geared to what we need right now,” he said on Thursday. “That is a failing. It is a failing, let’s admit it.”
That fraud has a ve$ted intere$t in all of thi$.
Authorities continued to advise the public to take precautions including hand washing, social distancing, and staying home when they feel ill. Going outside and going to work if you’re sick, Baker said on Thursday, is “simply just a bad idea.”
The governor’s briefing came one day after the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic and President Trump announced he is sharply restricting travel from Europe to the United States in an attempt to limit the spread of the disease, but Trump’s announcement was greeted by a dramatic drop in financial markets, concern in Europe, and anger among travelers who were stranded, or feared being so.
In Austria, Holyoke resident Thomas Casartello said a group ski trip was being cut short by several days, with a Friday flight to get back into Boston before the travel ban takes effect.
Even though they’ll be flying into Boston, he said, some people on the ski trip were being told by employers to self-quarantine upon return.
“We have a surgeon on the trip who has 40 surgeries scheduled for the next two weeks and is going to be quarantined,” Casartello said.
Says he was blindsided by a political move by Trump and is now confused and worried about getting home even as the health care system groans under coronavirus.
Logan Airport has seen a downturn in passenger travel.
Lisa Houston, a West Bridgewater resident who flew to Washington, D.C., on Thursday, said that there were fewer than 12 people on her American Airlines flight and that she made it through security in under one minute.
Oh, the damage to the climate!
“It was very unusual for me because I’ve been to Logan many, many times, and I’ve never seen anything like that,” she said. “It was very, very empty, and very, very strange.”
Meanwhile, Boston’s most prominent art museums said they would close to the public, effective at the end of the Thursday.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Institute of Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum cited increased vigilance concerning the spread of Covid-19 in Massachusetts. The news came just a few hours after New York’s enormous Metropolitan Museum of Art announced a temporary closure.
In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered all Broadway theaters to shut their doors, banning gatherings of 500 or more in the city.
More on the movies near the end of this post.
Around Greater Boston on Thursday, the pandemic continued to change the day-to-day operations of various institutions, with many local groups choosing caution.
A litany of Boston-area colleges announced they would be switching to remote learning, and many told students to leave campus.
See: As coronavirus closes campus, some college students left scrambling
I'm told 50 angry students protested on the MIT campus Thursday, fearing going home as they have had their lives upturned by the coronavirus.
The judicial system was not spared. Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins said she is reducing her office to skeleton-level staffing starting Monday.
At least 82 of the Massachusetts coronoavirus cases were traced to a leadership conference of Biogen employees in Boston late last month. On Thursday, Boston’s Marriott Long Wharf hotel, which was the venue for the conference, said it will close “in the interest of public health.”
Covid-19 is also affecting religious life.
Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, meanwhile, took sweeping action Thursday to contain a potential coronavirus outbreak, declaring a state of emergency and revoking all entertainment licenses for at least two weeks. The virus has infected five Rhode Island residents to date.
Not a good time to be announcing layoffs and early retirements to address financial woes.
Like Providence, Pittsfield, where there are three presumptive coronavirus cases, also declared a state of emergency, so that the city could more easily seek reimbursement for expenses related to the illness.
"We are very concerned about our families and we understand that they are very worried about what’s ahead,” said Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer.
Businesses were also taking action.
At the Encore Boston Harbor resort, members of the hotel management staff are taking the temperatures of guests who are coughing, sneezing, or showing other symptoms of illness, according to Rosie Salisbury, a spokeswoman for the hotel and casino.
Here is something to worry about in our "democracy":
As part of its coronavirus response, Baker's administration issued an emergency order temporarily changing the state's open meeting to allow government agencies to continue carrying out essential functions. The order, according to authorities, suspends the requirement for public access to the physical location where a public meeting is taking place, so long as there is another means of access available, like a phone conference line or an online stream.
The move relieves the requirement that a quorum of members of a body be physically present at a public meeting, allowing members to participate by remote or virtual means.....
Looks like that is where we are headed.
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(flip to below fold)
"Severe shortage of tests blunts coronavirus response, Boston doctors say; Despite assurances, Massachusetts is testing fewer people and revealing less information than other states" by Andrew Ryan, Kay Lazar and Liz Kowalczyk Globe Staff, March 12, 2020
Despite assurances from Governor Charlie Baker and top state health officials, Massachusetts doctors say a severe shortage of tests for Covid-19 is hindering efforts to control the local coronavirus outbreak.
State health officials have kept strict limits on who can be tested for the coronavirus, forcing physicians to turn patients away who they believe should be tested, according to doctors and patients, and while the testing shortage is a national crisis that originated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, other states are testing more people than Massachusetts and have been significantly more transparent about the scope of testing — a key component to containing the virus.
I $en$e a nefariou$ pu$h to te$t everyone!
Testing is critical to combating infectious disease because it diagnoses the sick, determines who has been exposed to the virus so they do not infect others, and measures the effectiveness of containment measures, but Massachusetts officials have not routinely disclosed the total number of people tested and the state has urged hospitals not to provide their own numbers. The most recent figure was released at a news conference Tuesday, when Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said they had tested approximately 400 people in total since Feb 28 and that the state lab had “adequate supplies and adequate staffing” and was doing a “superb job,” but at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Monique Aurora Tello described in a Facebook post Wednesday seeing eight people with probable coronavirus, some of whom had recently been on buses and planes — and being unable to test some of the suspected cases. Aurora Tello wrote “Not enough tests!!”
In an interview, Aurora Tello declined to provide a specific number of the people that could not be tested because of the directive from the state Department of Public Health, which she said was performing as well as it could under the circumstances, but Aurora Tello described severe limits on testing that have prevented medical officials from containing the virus.
“In the early stages of an outbreak, this is how to get it under control. You test, test, test, test,” Aurora Tello said. “Get the contacts of the people who tested positive and get everybody doing their quarantines. That’s how you get it under control. We never did that here and it’s past the point of containment.”
State officials announced Thursday that coronavirus cases have risen to 108. At a news conference in Pittsfield, Baker urged the federal government hasten approval of private and hospital labs to add testing capacity, but he offered little new information about the state’s testing efforts. The governor said that the state received supplies to test 5,000 more people, but he did not say how long it would take to perform those tests.
Earlier this week, state officials said it had the capacity to perform 200 tests a day, but the Baker administration has not said if that many people were actually being tested.
Even with the new material, it would take the state lab on its own at least 25 days at full capacity to perform 5,000 tests, a number far below what public health officials say is needed to help stem the spread of the virus. A spokeswoman for Baker referred follow-up questions to the Department of Public Health, which is also overseen by the governor.
Thursday night state health officials announced that two commercial labs received federal approval to test for Covid 19 in Massachusetts, which should increase the number of tests processed each day, but they did not say by how much. One of the labs reported its first presumptive positive test, which was included in the numbers released Thursday by the state.
Then they will have to keep te$ting, right?
Nothing $elf-$erving going on here, of cour$e.
The state has said it follows CDC guidelines for Covid-19 testing, which initially limited the test to those who had traveled to designated international locations and had symptoms, or had known contact with individuals with confirmed cases. Last week, the CDC loosened the guidelines, leaving testing to the discretion of clinicians, but until Thursday in Massachusetts, all tests were performed at the state lab in Jamaica Plain, which has limited capacity and rejected many requests, doctors said.
Remember the state drug lab and all the malfeasance there? All this talk of authority getting on top of it comes with a proven track record of alleged corruption and incompetence.
Officials Monday automated a portion of the test that allowed the state lab to increase capacity from 50 a day to 200, but even that increase seemed inadequate in the face of the pandemic. Dr. Michael Mina, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, estimated that based on the success South Korea has had slowing the virus, Massachusetts needs to be testing roughly 1,000 people a day for the next three months, to achieve what the Koreans did in about three weeks.
By this point you can see why I chose the title for this post that I did.
$o who makes the te$t?
Another physician, Dr. David Dildine, wrote on Facebook that he has seen three patients with symptoms and exposure to others who have tested positive for the virus and that, “getting the tests approved is becoming increasingly difficult.”
“Many patients at high risk are not being tested,” wrote Dildine, who declined an interview request and noted in his post he was offering his personal view. “I do not believe we have contained that [Biogen] cluster and expect it to become widespread in MA in the coming weeks. I agree with others who suspect this has been spreading in the community. We don’t know because we aren’t testing.”
There are essentially two different ways of combating the coronavirus — wide-scale quarantining or widespread testing — and the United States and many states, including Massachusetts, have been doing poorly at both, according to Mina, but Mina said widespread testing is likely to be the far more effective approach, especially in the United States, rather than shutting down large swaths of everyday life. South Korea, with its widespread testing, has demonstrated that it is possible to turn the tide and slow infection rates, he said.
They are ALREADY SHUTTING DOWN LARGE SWATHS of EVERYDAY LIFE!
Now they want to te$t!
South Korea’s robust testing system was forged from hindsight, after a deadly 2015 outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome there exposed a lack of testing capacity. Afterward, the country created a nimble system that allows regulators to collaborate quickly with researchers to rapidly develop and approve test kits for viruses.
By comparison, the CDC relied on a much more rigid approach, insisting state labs use a CDC-developed test, instead of one already approved by the World Health Organization. That CDC test turned out to be flawed, and the US lost precious weeks in tracking and tackling the coronavirus.
I say go to the source.
Massachusetts and other states should stop using narrow rules for rationing testing, Mina said.
“We should be trying to test as much as possible and not just our clinically significant patients,” he said.
“Everyone is working as hard and as fast as they can,’’ said Dr. Eric Rosenberg, director of the clinical microbiology lab at Mass. General. “If this wasn’t a crisis situation this is the sort of test that would take a couple of months to bring on board for clinical use.’’
The Brigham will be able to test a maximum 100 people a day, while Mass. General expects that initially it could run 20 to 40 tests a day but could increase that number eventually. The hospitals will focus on testing patients at their own facilities, particularly those who are sick and need urgent treatment. If they are able to, they would look to relieve the health department of some of the burden of wider testing.
There have been a number of obstacles preventing hospitals from launching their own tests. The federal government initially limited who could run tests until the US Food and Drug Administration recently relaxed the requirement. That has allowed hospitals to move forward, although they will still need final approval from the FDA.
A chemical needed to extract the genetic material from the virus for testing has been in short supply because of the demand, Mina said. The Brigham has enough of the chemical to get started on testing but it will soon need more, he said.
Bad news then; the chemical they need is manufactured in China.
Then there’s the matter of the test itself. Because the virus is new, companies that would normally manufacture quick tests have not had time to develop the technology and get federal approval. Compared to tests for the flu, the diagnosis of Covid-19 requires more staff and takes longer to produce results.
“We normally use tests for viruses that are akin to microwave dinners. You put it in a microwave and push a button and get a result back," Mina said.
Remember Theranos before they went out with a whimper?
Testing people for the virus has two main purposes: To diagnose sick people, direct their treatment, and protect health care workers; and to test those who have been exposed to the virus so they do not infect others and to measure the effectiveness of containment measures.
Yes, it's all benign, I'm $ure.
“The lack of testing in the United States is a debacle,” said Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s Chan School and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. “We’re supposed to be the best biomedical powerhouse in the world and we’ve been unable to do something that every other country has been able to do.”
“We are nowhere near what we need” in terms of testing capacity, and not moving quickly enough to meet the need, Lipsitch said in a telephone briefing with reporters on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Hillary King went to Mass. General at the direction of her health insurance company because she had a cough that kept her up through the night and had trouble breathing.
“The nurses would hear me cough and look at me sideways,” said King, who lives in the North End, where an infected attendee at a Biogen conference last month sparked the state’s largest known outbreak, but King had not had any known contact with someone who had tested positive and based on the criteria outlined by the Department of Health she didn’t qualify for testing. She described her doctors pleading for a test, admitting to her that her symptoms and negative flu and strep tests suggested she might have Covid-19.
“You could tell they really really wanted to test me,” said King over the phone, between coughing fits from her apartment, “but ultimately the doctor got off the phone with DPH and said there were not enough kits for use beyond those that meet the exact criteria.”
Who make$ the kit$ again?
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Related:
As stocks fall, Congress nears a deal on rescue plan
By Emily Cochrane, Jeanna Smialek and Jim Tankersley New York Times
My printed copy carried a Washington Post piece regarding the snowballing losses as the fear level rises that has apparently been scrubbed from the web according to Google.
At the bottom of the page is the Globe's wishful thinking called anal-ysis:
"Trump struggles to contain a crisis that could define his term" by Jess Bidgood and Liz Goodwin Globe Staff, March 12, 2020
WASHINGTON — The collapse of the stock market and the spread of the coronavirus are creating a political and leadership crisis for a president who was elected on promises to blow up Washington bureaucracy and who has survived previous controversies by dismissing unfavorable facts and pointing to a roaring economy. His instinct to downplay what is now a global pandemic has sown confusion in the United States and given the man he will likely face in November, former vice president Joe Biden, the opportunity to present himself as a calming and stable force in a time of trouble.
OMG!
They are using this to promote the demented and doddering Biden's leadership!
Is there no level to which the Globe will not sink?
The coronavirus has forced President Trump out of his comfort zone of improvisational and revved-up rallies, which have been canceled for now, and into the more difficult terrain of grave telemprompter speeches, but that’s exactly the field where Biden, who struggles to attract passionate crowds on the trail and can make mistakes when off-script, would like the election to be played on.
By Thursday, Biden sought to capitalize on what his supporters see as a leadership vacuum by delivering a weighty coronavirus speech of his own and rolling out a sweeping plan to contain and stop the spread of the virus.
OMG!
He can do that because he is nothing more than a candidate right now. Talk is cheap.
What's even more sickening is the Globe trying to use this deve$tating cri$i$ to make a political pitch for Biden!
Seeking to project presidential readiness, Biden has already convened his own Public Health Advisory Committee, and called for free coronavirus testing, more frequent reporting of vital public health statistics, and for the country to lead a coordinated global effort to stop the spread of the illness.
Doesn't he read the Bo$ton Globe?
It was a split-screen moment that Democrats hoped would embody a fundamental contrast between Biden and Trump, as well as the former vice president’s central argument for his own election: That the country needs to go back to stable leadership.
Now I am going to be sick!
“Any time a crisis happens at this magnitude in the middle of an election, it fundamentally alters the way voters are perceiving the contest,” said Ian Sams, a Democratic strategist who worked on Senator Kamala Harris’s presidential bid, and who said Biden’s depth of experience and measured tone could be an asset to him now. “This moment is sort of tailor-made for Biden’s greatest strengths.”
Well, his record isn't exactly one of success, and with all due respect, Biden's infirmities have me considering voting for Trump. Trump may be an out-of-touch a$$hole with an abrasive style; however, he does not strike me as demented like Creepy Uncle Joe. We are talking PURE QUALIFICATIONS here. You can't have a senile old fool running the country and representing us abroad. Talk about embarrassing!
History is filled with examples of leaders who rose to the moment and it is possible that Trump will seek to change the narrative by acting decisively to vanquish the outbreak, but Trump has not yet shown a willingness to make changes to his governing style that might help him do that.
The alleged "journali$m" makes you want to wretch.
Let's hope he doesn't start a war with Iran to distract, ladies.
“Trump was elected to shake things up and blow up the system and he’s done that,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist, “but this is a moment when people want strong steady leadership and Trump needs to adjust his style and he hasn’t done that.”
Biden, on the other hand, can take advantage of the suspension of regular campaign rallies — a format Trump loves, but where Biden is less comfortable — to deploy a “Rose Garden campaign where he can give serious scripted speeches instead of going out to rallies and making errors,” Williams said.
They are going to wrap Joe in bubblewrap for the next seven months, using the virus as an excuse.
Oh, how wonderful is a virus, 'eh? Advancing so many agendas all at once under the cover of fear and shut down.
On Thursday, Trump’s Twitter feed was a mix of guidance from the CDC on hand-washing and other information and complaints about a “coup” against him, which is how he described the now-closed Russia investigation. He has claimed in recent days that anyone who wants to be tested for the coronavirus can be — an assertion that has been challenged by public health officials and even his own Republican allies.
On Thursday, the CDC website reported just 11,000 people had been tested for the virus in the United States since January — a stunning number compared to a country like South Korea, where 20,000 people are being tested every day in a strategy known as “trace, test, and treat.”
The coronavirus isn’t only threatening Trump’s reelection prospects. On Thursday, the president dismissed concerns that he himself might be exposed to the virus, after it was revealed he spent time with a Brazilian official last week who has tested positive for it.....
They New York Times says he is refusing to be tested and argues that it is grounds for impeachment.
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Related:
"Former vice president Joe Biden has named Jen O’Malley Dillon as his new campaign manager, a major shake-up that comes as the party’s leading candidate plans an organizational expansion to prepare for the general election, according to a person familiar with the decision. The move is intended to quell concerns raised in recent weeks by senior Democratic strategists about the leadership structure of the Biden campaign, which has been beset by underwhelming fund-raising, scant staffing resources, and organizational miscues during the early nominating contests. The campaign shuffle is an acknowledgment that while Biden has had a remarkable recent run of victories — at least 15 of the past 21 contests — his operation would not be up to the challenge posed by President Trump if Biden were to win the nomination. After Biden performed below expectations in the Iowa caucuses, Anita Dunn, a senior adviser who previously worked for President Barack Obama, took operational control of the campaign, sharing responsibilities with Biden’s original campaign manager, Greg Schultz. Schultz, who built the Biden campaign and oversaw initial hiring and delegate strategy, is expected to stay on in a new role that will involve organizational planning and continued outreach to donors and other stakeholders for the general election, the person familiar with the plans said. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity. Dunn, who also helped Biden prepare for a possible 2016 run for president before he decided not to run, will also continue with the campaign, returning to her role as a senior adviser to Biden. An operative with deep ties across the party, O’Malley Dillon, 43, served as a deputy campaign manager for Obama’s 2012 reelection effort and as executive director for the Democratic National Committee during his first term. During Obama’s first term, she was an attendee of regular strategy meetings where Obama’s brain trust prepared for the 2010 midterms and the 2012 reelection campaign. More recently, she helped to lead an early 2019 Democratic effort to create a new for-profit data exchange to allow for greater information sharing among Democratic campaigns and affiliated groups, an effort party leaders see a crucial for catching up with the Republican data program. O’Malley Dillon later served as the presidential campaign manager for former congressman Beto O’Rourke of Texas, relocating to El Paso. After O’Rourke’s campaign ended, she volunteered as a campaign adviser for Biden before the Nevada caucuses, and then continued on as an informal adviser to senior Biden campaign officials in recent weeks. O’Malley Dillon will work out of the campaign’s Philadelphia headquarters."
Joe isn't up to the challenge anyway, so they brought in an Obama aide as the hidden hand within the sock puppet. I can only wonder who will be his vice-presidential pick.
"The Democratic National Committee has moved Sunday’s planned presidential debate between former vice president Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders from Phoenix to Washington because of concerns about the coronavirus, the DNC announced Thursday. The Democratic Party had already announced that the event would take place with no live audience or an assembled press corps. The shift is the latest example of the way concerns about the coronavirus have affected the presidential primary. Washington was selected to host the debate because CNN has a studio in the capital and both campaigns and the DNC have staff already in or near the city who would not have to travel through commercial airports to attend the debate. Biden will travel to the debate from his home in suburban Wilmington, Del. Sanders has been at his home in Burlington, Vt., since arriving from Michigan on Tuesday evening....."
They bring it back to Washington where the CPAC and AIPAC meetings infected people and from which we have Congre$$critters in quarantine and the candidates will have to fly to get there.
One is starting to get the feeling that all we are seeing on TV is a fictional matrix produced in studios.
Looks like the campaign is over and Bernie is just an afterthought and also-ran:
"Senator Bernie Sanders has won California’s Democratic presidential primary, according to Edison Media Research. Many Californians vote by mail for its contest, which was held March 3, Super Tuesday. California has 415 delegates, the greatest number of all Super Tuesday states. The final delegate allotment is still being determined. In California’s primary, as in all Democratic contests, delegates are awarded proportionally, meaning that both Biden and Sanders are on track to win delegates. The state’s Democratic primary was hotly contested; polls ahead of Super Tuesday showed Sanders leading, but with Biden gaining ground. No candidate worked harder to win California than Sanders, who bet his 2016 campaign on a last-minute win there and never stopped campaigning after he lost. Exit polling suggested a strong finish for the US senator from Vermont, who was trailing in polls there as recently as October. Sanders’s strengths resemble his advantages in Nevada’s caucuses, which until Super Tuesday had been the high point of his campaign. According to exit polling in California, Sanders led Biden among white voters by 6 points; among Asian voters by 12 points; and among Latino voters by 27 points. He trailed among only Black voters, but not by the landslide margins that he had in Super Tuesday’s Southern primaries."
Amazing, isn't it?
They call Biden's victories before one vote is even reported, yet it takes them almost two weeks to announce a Sanders win, and somehow those blocks of voters in California abandoned Sanders en masse elsewhere on Super Tuesday.
That was Bernie's high point because after Nevada the DNC decided things had gone far enough. Better to engage in outright fraud and vote theft than allow a brokered convention.
"A scrappy coalition of activist groups supporting Senator Bernie Sanders plans to intensify its fund-raising and organizing efforts against the Democratic establishment, which is coalescing around former vice president Joe Biden. The sprawling network of socialists, climate-change activists, millennial organizers, and other liberal advocates, who raise money from millions of members and have knocked on many doors, say they plan to cite the coronavirus and the uncertain economy to advance him as the only candidate who can enact broad economic and environmental change. Their efforts come even as major Democratic super PACs line up to spend millions for Biden as the candidate they now consider best positioned to win the party’s nomination."
The people have $poken!
Speaking of plagues:
"A supercomputer is boosting efforts in East Africa to control a locust outbreak that raises what the UN food agency calls ‘‘an unprecedented threat’’ to the region’s food security. The computer, a donation from Britain that is based in a regional climate center in Kenya, where the insects have been particularly destructive, uses satellite data to track locust swarms and predict their next destination. Quickly sharing the information of the locusts’ movements with regional authorities is key to controlling the outbreak, as even a small swarm of locusts in a single day can move nearly 100 miles and consume the amount of crops that would otherwise feed 35,000 people. Kenya, Somalia and Uganda have been battling the worst locust outbreak that parts of East Africa have seen in 70 years. Swarms have also been sighted in Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania, Congo, and South Sudan, a country where roughly half the population already faces hunger after years of civil war. The threat from the locusts “remains extremely alarming’’ in the Horn of Africa, where “widespread breeding is in progress and new swarms are starting to form, representing an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods at the beginning of the upcoming cropping season,” according to a warning issued this month by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Locust swarms, sometimes as large as some cities, can destroy crops and devastate pasture for animals. Aerial spraying is generally considered the only effective control method. In Uganda, where the locust infestation has recently spread to more than 20 districts in the country’s north and northeast, soldiers have been battling swarms using hand-held spray pumps because of difficulties in getting aircraft as well as the recommended pesticide....."
They need $70 million to step up aerial pesticide spraying, the only effective way to combat them, the UN says.
"German authorities are formally placing parts of the far-right Alternative for Germany party under surveillance after classifying it as extremist, the country’s domestic intelligence agency said Thursday. Thomas Haldenwang, head of the BfV intelligence agency, said that after more than a year of examination, his office has concluded that a radical faction within Alternative for Germany, known as “The Wing,” meets the definition of a “right-wing extremist movement.’’ ‘‘This is a warning to all enemies of democracy,’’ said Haldenwang, noting that it was his agency’s duty to prevent growing far-right extremism from overthrowing the country’s democratic order the way the Nazis did in the 1930s. Alternative for Germany immediately criticized the move, which allows authorities to use covert methods to observe The Wing and its estimated 7,000 supporters. They make up about 20 percent of the party’s overall membership but hold significant sway over its direction, according to former party members including its one-time leader Frauke Petry. The Wing is led by AfD’s regional chiefs in the eastern states of Thuringia and Brandenburg, Bjoern Hoecke and Andreas Kalbitz. Haldenwang described Hoecke and Kalbitz as ‘‘right-wing extremists,’’ noting Hoecke’s historical revisionism, his anti-Islam and anti-immigrant rhetoric, and his close ties to other known extremists outside of the party. Hoecke has described Berlin’s memorial to the victims of the Nazi Holocaust a “monument of shame” and called for a ‘‘180-degree turn’’ in the way Germany remembers its Nazi past. “We mustn’t just keep an eye on violent extremists but also watch those who use words to spark fires,” said Haldenwang, adding that anti-Semitism, hatred of Islam, and racism spread online or in political arenas provides the “breeding ground” for violence. Germany has been shaken by a series of killings over the past year, including the slaying of a regional politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, the attack on a synagogue in Halle, and a deadly mass shooting targeting people with migrant backgrounds in Hanau. “Right-wing extremism and terrorism are currently the biggest threats to democracy in Germany,” Haldenwang told reporters, adding that more than 200 people have been killed by right-wing extremists in the country since 1990. Kalbitz, the AfD leader in Brandenburg, called the intelligence agency’s decision “factually unfounded and completely politically motivated.” Putting The Wing under increased surveillance could strengthen calls for it to be banned."
Isn't that the point, and so much for the threat of coronavirus in Germany, huh?
Looks to me like the greatest threat to democracy is from the democracies themselves:
"Hopes of bipartisan deal rise as White House, Democrats negotiate coronavirus relief package" by Mike DeBonis and Erica Werner Washington Post, March 12, 2020
WASHINGTON — With both sides under intense pressure to act as the scale of the crisis mounted, the talks between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin raised hopes on Capitol Hill that a bipartisan agreement was in reach — within days if not hours — to address the health catastrophe that has upended Washington and the nation.
A congressional recess is scheduled for next week, but Pelosi vowed Thursday not to leave until action was taken, while Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, announced he would cancel the recess to advance ‘‘bipartisan legislation to continue combating the coronavirus and keep our economy strong.’’
Then you know this is $eriou$. They left town for two weeks right in the middle of impeachment, leaving the country in the hands of a threat to our national security.
The behind-the-scenes negotiations between Democrats and the White House stood in contrast to the partisan response that greeted a package of economic measures that House Democrats introduced late Wednesday, but as the day progressed, the leaders of both parties sent growing signals there was a deal to be had.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked up stairs to her office in the Capitol before a vote in Washington on Wednesday. Democrats, eager to put their stamp on a coronavirus relief package as the White House debates which economic plan to propose, scrambled to draft and introduce legislation to provide financial help to patients, workers, and families affected by the fast-moving epidemic and speed it to a House vote on Thursday (Anna Moneymaker/New York Times).
That's where I stopped reading the rest of my printed article.
Only last week Congress passed an $8.3 billion emergency spending plan to address public health needs arising from the crisis, but as the stock market plunges, layoffs begin, schools around the country shut down, and entire sports leagues shutter their seasons, the need for a robust economic response has become glaring.
There are now well over 1,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States and more than three dozen deaths, numbers that are expected to exponentially rise, and increasing numbers of lawmakers are announcing plans to shut down their offices and self-quarantine following brushes with infected individuals.
The White House was also moving to assemble its own relief plan, one that included requests for congressional action as well as administrative actions that the Trump administration could take unilaterally, but the price tag for the federal government could be vast — stretching easily into the tens of billions of dollars......
I expect Democrats and the pre$$ to be screaming dictator.
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Related:
Trump Attacks Democrats Hours After Calling for Bipartisanship
Also see:
Maryland closes public schools for two weeks
Disney shuts down California theme parks
Precautions taken in several state capitols around US
911 responses, court trials may slow down
If you have questions about the coronavirus, here are some answers.
What is needed is a finance agency to handle the financial meltdown from coronavirus along with a coronavirus communications to-do list for Charlie Baker because of Trump’s virulent state of denial as he fails to reassure a jittery nation:
Schools across the suburbs are shutting down in a concerted effort to try to slow coronavirus
Churches and synagogues cancel services, realign outreach
When the coronavirus hands you lemons, you make T-shirts.
Funny, ha-ha!
If you are self-quarantined and looking for something to do, the state suggests you take the census.
"Forget comparisons to 2008 or 1987. This meltdown is nuts; Economic damage from coronavirus may linger longer than the health crisis, but there are steps we can take to minimize the pain" by Larry Edelman Globe Staff, March 12, 2020
Maybe they should close the stock market, too.
Bernie would have by now.
On a day when March Madness was canceled and everything from the Museum of Fine Arts to Broadway to the NHL said they would go dark, stocks cratered, with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 10 percent, its worst day since the crash of 1987, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq indexes entering bear markets.
The Wall Street walloping, along with equally disastrous losses in London and across Europe, left absolutely no doubt that the economic pain caused by the coronavirus pandemic would be widespread and severe — and could linger even longer than the public health crisis.
Because just as there is no coronavirus vaccine to keep us from getting sick, there is no way to inoculate the economy and markets from the fallout of a crisis whose true dimensions remain unclear.
Yet even as our portfolios are battered and our work and social lives upended, I keep hearing the same refrain: This is nowhere near as bad as 2008.
A somber President Trump tried to make that point Wednesday night.
“This is not a financial crisis,” he said in a televised address from the Oval Office. “This is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome together as a nation and as a world.”
True. America’s biggest banks aren’t on the verge of collapse. The financial markets are under stress but still functioning. Foreclosures aren’t throwing millions of people out of their homes, at least not over the coming weeks and maybe months, as consumers and businesses try to absorb the impact of a nation grinding to a near halt: quarantines and self-isolation; the closing of schools, entertainment and sports venues, places of worship, and just about anywhere else people congregate in large numbers; and potential restrictions on domestic airline travel and public transportation.
Did he intend to admit that Trump told the truth before the imposition of martial law?
The Federal Reserve is slashing interest rates and on Thursday said it would pump $1.5 trillion into the short-term funding market, just as it did in the financial crisis. Congress and the White House are weighing measures to cushion the economic blow, just as they did during the financial crisis, and the stock market is melting down, just as it did during the financial crisis.
Why are they doing that if it is nowhere near as bad?
Looks like $omething el$e is going on, huh?
Investors are also frustrated that administration incompetence and Washington political gridlock are slowing the responses to the health and economic crises.
They want their money and they want it now!
Now, we’ll be lucky to escape with just a brief recession, as we did after the dot-com bust. Consumer spending, which propelled the economy all last year, is bound to suffer. Businesses, which were already pulling back, will retrench even more.
With the added benefit that it will get rid of Trump.
Are we headed for the Great Recession 2.0? Let’s hope not, but we can limit the spread of the virus. That will hasten the day when we can get back to our normal routines.
Maybe for those in his cla$$. Not the rest of us.
Until the arc of the coronavirus crisis becomes clearer, expect more anxiety-inducing days in the market like we’ve had this week.
“Insanity is contagious,” Captain Yossarian said in Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.”
In the markets, at least, it seems like Yossarian was right.....
You want to know what is insane?
--more--"
Yeah, all that after "it was all setting up to be a good spring for the restaurants and bars around TD Garden. The Bruins are in first place and poised to repeat last year’s deep playoff run. The Celtics are contenders, too. There’s a full slate of concerts lined up. Not anymore....."
Even the long-planned Opening Day ceremonies at Fenway have been cancelled.
Here is what else the Globe is talking about:
Comcast offers free option for new low-income customers
Rates mixed after hitting record lows last week
Bank of America cuts ratings on homebuilders
Jobless claims fall for a second week
Wholesale prices fell in February by the most in 5 years
Solar energy company backs relief for battered oil producers
Turns out the solar companies are owned by them.
Icahn increases his stake in Occidental Petroleum
UPS chief retiring
They shut down service.
Bitcoin value plunges amid coronavirus pandemic
Another by-product of the viru$.
At least the digital media will $urvive:
"HuffPost and BuzzFeed were once the shooting stars of the new-media galaxy, innovators that showed ‘‘legacy’’ media organizations how news could be edited and packaged for the young and digitally savvy. These days, however, the sky no longer seems the limit, not just for BuzzFeed and HuffPost but for the entire field of digital-news sites that had once seemed to be journalism’s future. Digital publishers face the same issues that have beset, and decimated, whole swaths of the traditional media, particularly local newspapers. Digital ad rates have fallen steadily for years amid an unending supply of competitors and slow-growing demand from sponsors. Looming over the entire business are the twin colossi, Facebook and Google, which collect about 60 percent of every dollar spent by digital advertisers. Video streaming, once thought to be a savior, turned out to be a high-cost investment with mixed returns, and few digital publishers have been able to convert their visitors into regular subscribers, which seem to be a key to long-term financial stability. The result has been a pullback by venture capital firms that once showered start-up dollars on the likes of BuzzFeed, Vice, Vox, Business Insider, and other digi-news ingenues. There’s also been shrinkage within: Over a few days in January last year, BuzzFeed, AOL, Yahoo and HuffPost — the latter three all owned by Verizon Media — collectively laid off more than a thousand employees....."
Nobody likes a liar!
Bear market could hurt employment in Boston, particularly at fund firms
Bear market signals over 80% chance of recession hitting US
The spreading coronavirus and historic oil-price shock have ushered in the most volatile period in markets since the financial crisis, and if only there were a va¢¢ine:
"Beth Israel is working with Johnson & Johnson on a coronavirus vaccine; The head of the hospital’s research effort says it will be at least a year before one could be available" by Jonathan Saltzman Globe Staff, March 12, 2020
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the drug-making arm of Johnson & Johnson are working together on a potential vaccine for the new coronavirus, one of dozens of urgent efforts around the world to come up with a way to inoculate people against the virus that causes Covid-19.
You can go to bed after changing the baby's diaper, okay?
Although experts say that none of the potential vaccines could likely be deployed for at least a year, the doctor leading the Boston hospital’s effort said Thursday that a vaccine is what “may actually be required to end this epidemic.”
Dr. Dan Barouch, head of Beth Israel’s Center for Virology and Vaccine Research, disclosed the collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos. in a live-stream video presentation by medical experts hosted by Massachusetts General Hospital.
Beth Israel and Janssen have collaborated for more than a decade on vaccine programs for other illnesses, including Zika virus disease and HIV. They signed an agreement to work together on coronavirus on Jan. 31, Barouch said, just three weeks after Chinese scientists sequenced the genome of the virus and posted it online. Financial terms haven’t been disclosed.
The lab and Janssen are using a common cold virus to deliver a coronavirus antigen into cells to stimulate the immune system. Janssen has used the same approach to make 2 million doses of a vaccine for Ebola that has yet to be licensed but has been provided to about 40,000 people in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The partners hope to begin testing the coronavirus vaccine on healthy people sometime in the fall.
Africa is the Garden of Eden for these guys.
Historically, drug companies are often reluctant to develop vaccines because such efforts are expensive and epidemics sometimes dissipate long before a vaccine can be approved, but that might not happen with Covid-19, Barouch said, in part because some people with the disease appear to be spreading it even when they have only mild symptoms or are asymptomatic.
“That makes it much harder for traditional public health measures of contact tracing and isolation and quarantine,” he said.
Still, Barouch seemed optimistic, citing the success of vaccines against scourges ranging from smallpox to polio.
“History is on the side of vaccines to end viral epidemics,” he said.....
What if it is the vaccines that are actually causing it, as many people have suggested?
They need the virus to get the needle in your arm.
--more--"
They say it is at least 12 to 18 months before the vaccine could be deployed against us.
Time enough to cruise on outta here:
"Norwegian Cruise Line managers urged salespeople to spread falsehoods about coronavirus" by Drew Harwell Washington Post, March 12, 2020
WASHINGTON — Norwegian Cruise Line managers urged their sales teams to share false information about the coronavirus to help land bookings with potential customers, including that the virus can’t affect people in ‘‘tropical temperatures,’’ leaked e-mails from a company whistle-blower show.
Then they are just like new$papers and reporters, right?
Of course, there are whistleblowers and then there are whistleblowers.
The e-mails, first reported by Miami New Times, show the lengths to which the US cruise giant’s leaders have gone to protect the company against the devastating financial impact of the pandemic, which has infected more than 121,000 people around the world and killed more than 4,300.
I was told in my new$ $ection that the death toll is now more than 4,700.
The State Department has warned travelers against taking cruises during the pandemic, and US health officials have prevented some ships from sailing. Cruise lines are expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars this year because of mass cancellations and a slowing of new trips.
Norwegian Cruise Line’s stock plunged 26 percent Wednesday and has fallen nearly 75 percent from its January peak. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
In e-mails the whistle-blower shared with The Washington Post, salespeople were given a list of one-liners to help ‘‘close your guests that are on the fence,’’ including that virus-related cancellations in Asia have ‘‘caused a huge surge in demand’’ for other trips.
The recommended lines, written last month by a manager whose LinkedIn profile suggests the person has worked at the company for more than eight years, also compared the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus with the flu and said, falsely, that the virus ‘‘cannot live in the amazingly warm and tropical temperatures that your cruise will be sailing to.’’
‘‘The only thing you need to worry about for your cruise is do you have enough sunscreen?’’ the manager wrote in an e-mail addressed to dozens employees in two sales offices in Florida.
The whistle-blower, an employee in South Florida who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, said several dozen people on the sales team have been instructed to call more than 150 people a day in pursuit of cruise bookings.
‘‘That means hundreds or thousands of people on a daily basis are potentially getting this false information,’’ the whistle-blower said. ‘‘This is what they’re expecting everyone on our sales team to be saying to all of our customers.’’
That reminds me, I really do need to $top purcha$ing and reading the Bo$ton Globe.
Employees were also urged to tell customers that scientists and ‘‘medical professionals have confirmed that the warm weather of the spring will be the end of the Coronavirus,’’ the e-mails show, but that assertion is contradicted by early scientific evidence, which suggests that the coronavirus can spread easily across a wide range of communities, including in warm and humid climates.
‘‘Certainly out here in Singapore, it transmits without any problem,’’ David Heymann, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said in an interview. Singapore’s government has recently implemented strict policies, including social distancing, to stem the outbreak, with apparent success.
Epidemiologists and health experts also suspect that the virus’s spread could continue for months. Jeffrey Shaman, the director of the climate and health program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said there has been no clear evidence to suggest that the coronavirus that causes the covid-19 disease is less transmissible at higher temperatures. The ongoing pandemic, he said, could last straight through the summer in the United States and Europe.
In another leaked Norwegian Cruise Line e-mail, another sales manager based at the company’s Miami office suggested that ‘‘medical fear stories’’ were being exaggerated to make ‘‘more moola for the fat cats at major media houses.’’
‘‘Focusing all of your attention is actually illogical, especially when we live in a world of daily threats and dangers anyhow,’’ the manager wrote under the headline ‘‘The coronavirus will not affect you.’’ ‘‘Fact: Coronavirus in humans is an overhyped pandemic scare.’’
See what happens when you touch upon the truth?
The ma$$ media and pre$$ call you a liar and says you are full of horse shit.
The whistle-blower told The Post that company leaders are trying to find out who shared the e-mails. In one e-mail sent Monday evening, after a Miami New Times journalist contacted the company, an executive wrote, ‘‘One of our own ratted.’’
--more--"
Maybe you would be better off going to a movie:
"‘Quiet Place Part II’ delayed, as Hollywood braces for shutdown due to coronavirus pandemic" by Jake Coyle The Associated Press, March 12, 2020
The entertainment industry, a business predicated on drawing crowds in theaters, cinemas, and concert venues, is bracing for possible shutdown in the coming weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic, potentially putting on pause the normal hum of TV productions, the bustle of red-carpet movie premieres, and the applause of audiences. On Thursday, the upcoming release of “A Quiet Place Part II” joined the many postponements.
Too bad, because the movie couldn't have been more timely.
The virus' spread, and dawning awareness of its reach, has already forced the cancellation or postponement of all major imminent events on the calendar, including the sprawling, multi-format South by Southwest conference and festival in Austin, Texas; Hollywood's annual movie expo CinemaCon, in Las Vegas; this month's Kids Choice Awards in Los Angeles; the sunny California music festival Coachella, which was postponed to October; and vital television events like the NBA season, which was put on hiatus Wednesday after a player tested positive for the virus.
It's not like anyone is going to miss any of this things they mentioned above.
On Thursday, as California and some states were suggesting bans of not just the largest events but also gatherings of more than 250 to help stymie the virus’ spread, a new focus came on Broadway, multiplexes, and smaller concert venues.
At least the virus has taken the focus off Weinstein and the rapes after he was found guilty.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover within weeks.
As of Thursday afternoon, 39 people had died in the US, while more than 1,300 people had tested positive for the new coronavirus. Tolls have been higher elsewhere. In Italy, where more than 12,000 people had tested positive and more than 800 people had died, all stores except pharmacies and food markets were ordered closed.
Also Thursday, the TCM Classic Film festival scheduled next month in Los Angeles was canceled due to coronavirus concerns.
A part-time usher and security guard who worked at two Broadway theaters in recent days tested positive for Covid-19 and is under quarantine. Broadway is particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus because its audience skews older, thousands of people are packed into small seats for every show, and the industry is dependent on tourism. After extensive cleaning, Thursday night’s show were to go on.
The $how mu$t go on, of cour$e!
The announcement Wednesday evening, while President Trump addressed the nation, that Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson had tested positive for coronavirus sent shudders through the industry. Hanks was easily the most famous person yet to publicly announce that he had the virus. He was in Australia to shoot an Elvis Presley biopic that Warner Bros. said would halt production.
“Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no?” Hanks said of their condition.
I have to tell you, readers, but this whole thing is starting to stink. Looks to me like Hanks is playing a role along with Gobert and all the rest. I wonder what skeletons are in his closet (you have to believe the woman, don't you?).
“The Tonight Show” and other late-night talk shows in New York announced Wednesday they will tape without audiences, while CBS said that production on the next season of “Survivor” was being postponed. “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” have also halted tapings with audiences.
The closures, postponements, and hiatuses are likely to be enormously costly for the entertainment industry. The shuttering of Chinese movie theaters — the world’s second-largest movie market has been closed for more than a month — has already led to the loss of more than $1 billion in ticket revenue. Last year, global box office reached a new high of $42.2 billion.....
They are closing down the cinemas even as shoppers return to the malls.
--more--"
Looks like Halpert sold out saying that “the CIA is something that we should all not only cherish, but be saying thank you for every single day.” He turned out to be Dwight.
I would say at least there is always sports to watch, but.....
Suddenly, coronavirus wipes almost all of our sports off the landscape
I usually shut down the blog during this time period to watch the basketball tournament, but I guess I will just keep on blogging this year.
The entire Sports Section is a Special Section titled "Coronavirus Pandemic" so cancel your weekend.
As for the other "news" in my Globe:
"A University of Miami professor who is a top expert on money laundering in Latin America is scheduled to plead guilty for trying to hide $3 million in proceeds from a corruption scheme with Venezuela’s socialist government. Authorities said the charges arose from deposits he received from bank accounts in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates that allegedly contained the stolen proceeds from a Venezuelan public housing project. Bruce Bagley, 73, an international studies professor, is co-author of “Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime and Violence in the Americas Today,” published in 2015, among other books. He has testified before Congress, as an expert in court and been interviewed by numerous news organizations including the Associated Press. Over the years he held numerous leadership positions at the University of Miami, where he had a reputation as a brilliant scholar. William F. Sweeney Jr., head of the FBI’s New York office, said in a release at the time of the arrest that “About the only lesson to be learned from Professor Bagley today is that involving oneself in public corruption, bribery, and embezzlement schemes is going to lead to an indictment.” Bagley transferred 90 percent of the money into the accounts of a co-conspirator to conceal the nature, source and ownership of the funds, but he kept a 10 percent commission for himself......"
Why did Avenatti just come to mind?
Did you see his mugshot?
Pentagon awaiting decision from Trump on how to respond to deadly rocket attack in Iraq
What do you do when you are getting your ass kicked (answer: start another war)?
Related:
Myanmar repatriates suspected remains of US WWII servicemen
Soldier from New Bedford killed in training accident at California base
The Globe placed that item in the lower-righthand corner of page B5.
I suppose some deaths must be kept in perspective and ignored if possible.
UPDATES:
Baker issues ban on gatherings of more than 250 people in Mass.
Trump prepares to invoke emergency powers over coronavirus outbreak
Store shelves picked clean as people panic-buy goods at local supermarkets
It's too late, readers, and let's hope it isn't a staged event (about 2+ minutes in, readers).
