The WHO finally admitted what any person with common sense knew long ago: Coronavirus is Pandemic.
Key Points
- “The bottom line: It is going to get worse,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the House Oversight Committee. “We would recommend that there not be large crowds,” he added. “If that means not having any people in the audience as the N.B.A. plays, so be it.”
- “Given a virus for which there is no immunity and no immunization, we have to understand that many people will be infected. The consensus among experts is that 60 to 70 percent of the population will be infected,” said German Chancellor Angel Merkel. Major events, including all large cultural performances in Berlin, Munich and elsewhere, such as many soccer games, have either been canceled or will take place without spectators. “How we respond matters,” Ms. Merkel said. “We are playing for time.”
- President Trump has signaled that he will consider ways to stimulate the economy. Options include cutting payroll taxes and extending the American tax filing deadline past April 15. But so far, the White House has yet to announce any specific measures, and most experts say a payroll tax cut is not an effective way to combat the problems facing the economy.
Trump Responds With Blackout
The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, an unusual step that has restricted information and hampered the U.S. government’s response to the contagion, according to four Trump administration officials.
“We had some very critical people who did not have security clearances who could not go,” one official said. “These should not be classified meetings. It was unnecessary.”
A spokeswoman for the HHS, Katherine McKeogh, issued a statement that did not address questions about classified meetings.
Mish Translation
Trump is frightened and clueless given his earlier comments downplaying the virus.
Meanwhile 75% of Companies Suffer From Coronavirus Supply Chain Disruptions.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I bet secrecy has a lot to do with his need to appear in control. If he is portrayed as acceding authority to someone who knows more/can make a better decision than he can, the carefully crafted image shatters.
The one thing we know for sure is that in times of crisis, you keep people from panic by being open and honest with them. If you hid things, people are scared and panic. Given that that is common knowledge, the fact that he classified the information even has me scared. I can’t think of anything that could be bad enough to justify that.
Hope they’re not trying to keep the lid on the carrier groups being armed Diamond Princess’ as far as infections go…..
As for “has to do with China”, the fact that China got in front of the worst of the outbreak in a reasonable amount of time will, if the rest of the world gets hit as hard as Lombardy and Iran, most likely give China a higher standing geopolitically than they currently have. They’ll be the ones called when a poorer country need help with a major health issue. Which I’m sure the Chinese will, over time, leverage into other issues as well.
Setting aside the possibility of a maverick development “curing” the disease coming out of America’s labs and pharmacos, this does have the potential to pretty seriously increase China’s relative standing as a leading player in the world. While contributing to America looking ever more the paper tiger has-been.
“To ensure that working Americans who are impacted by the virus can say home without fear of financial hardship, I will soon be taking emergency action, which is unprecedented, to provide financial relief. This will be targeted for workers who are ill, quarantined or caring for others due to coronavirus. I will be asking Congress to take legislative action to extend this relief,” Trump said.
SOCIALISM!!!!! REEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
The Donald’s overweening megalomania disgusts me, but to his everlasting credit, his stopping the inbound China air traffic on Jan. 31st. has doubtlessly saved tens of thousands of American lives. Had he not, we’d be in exactly the same sad shape as poor Italy, so I won’t be found in the long line of those awaiting their chance to piss on Trump.
Xenophobia just happens to be the correct response to pandemics.
We’ll still be in the same shape as Italy in a week or two, depending who you ask.
Trump will address nation at 9:00 PM whether he announces Martial law , State of emergency or does nothing the Trump haters and Mish won’t like it . Everything is political even with many lives at stake that is the sad state of America . This goes for both sides
My bet is he announces handouts for the Oil and Hospitality industries, with some mumbo jumbo about the heroic efforts of the housecleaning staff, while he continues to charge premium rates for the secret service at mostly empty Mar Alago. Golfing will intensify.
One things for sure if he got Obama to make the announcement you would love it no matter the message
Obama’s been gone for years my friend. You have to let go of that Obama Trauma. It’s a brave new world, with Donald Trump at the helm. Rejoice, friend! Rejoice!
I bet in 9 months we figure out it’s made everybody sterile.
What happens if Biden kicks the bucket… it seems pretty damn possible. He needs to choose a running mate, pronto.
I can think of a bunch of reasons to classify high level meeting after all the leaks and political crap that has gone on . How about this is a bio weapon that got loose, not saying it is but that would be one . Also Dem governors declaring state of emergency like Cooper in N.C. with only 2 cases confirmed . This gives the governors a lot of power to move funds around as they see fit lets track where the money gets moved and who benefits . If Trump declares state of emergency nation wide he gets lots of power also and the Dems won’t like it . Remember y2k and ebola the world was going to end but didn’t . One thing is for sure nearly all the deaths will be recorded as being caused by the virus but only some people will be recorded infected many will never be tested so my guess is the ratio is skewed way to the high side . Unfortunatley everything is political now see Mish columns
how is a death recorded as caused by the virus without testing? makes no sense
Not all the people will be tested that were and are infected but anyone who dies will be tested and recorded as having died of the virus . So the number for people who actually had the virus will be way higher than what the recorded number would actually be .
Italy now closing all shops except pharmacies and food.
TPTB know something about this virus. Nothing they can do to stop it. India looking to close borders.
The Chinese stopped it…..
It’s no doubt harder than writing up nonsensical tweets, and than mindlessly printing a few trillion worth of welfare checks for connected mediocraties.
But obviously not too hard for even communists to figure out how….
For those who “have proudly voted for Trump and would proudly vote for him again”, you deserve what you get now, while bringing down everybody else with you too!
As you know, Hillary, the DNC and mainstream media colluded to get a Pied Piper candidate nominated by the Republicans that they presumed they could knock down in the fall election. They have gotten what they deserved.
Hillary’s floating tits-up in the fishbowl, and has been for 3 years. Stop humping that corpse.
Ditto for anyone else who voted for someone other than Ron Paul. Or perhaps a Libertarian candidate sentient enough to End the Fed.
On the totalitarian side of the ledger, neither the Kleptocrats in the US nor the Fascists/Social Democrats in Europe, seem to have even a fraction of the ability to deal with this that the straight up Communists in China does.
Which neatly illustrates Mises’ insight that there really is no middle way. If you’re going to commie, may as well do it for real, not halfway.
Meanwhile, back at the problem:
There needs to be Exascale compute power brought to bear on viral epigenetic shift detection and prediction. It could be done if the 3.5 billion web-accessible smartphones sitting idle every night at 3:00 a.m., local time, were loaded with an app and algorithms and centrally triggered with an outbound stride-load of each phone’s preloaded, unique, say, 1K matrix of viral real estate.
A simple matrix roll, testing for fit of most recently detected viral antigen mutation(s), could then provide a Dewline equivalent, (Distant Early Warning) alert for escalation and subsequent follow up. Numerous supercomputers could then be brought to bear on a tractable problem to determine whether it’s a ‘don’t care’ or Oh Damn! situation. Right now, it’s intractable.
Over?
Young people capitalize on cheap coronavirus flights: ‘If I die, I die’
If coronavirus gets really dangerous, “I might as well be somewhere having fun,” one California college student said. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/young-people-capitalize-cheap-coronavirus-flights-if-i-die-i-n1154326
Hes looking at russia. Putins doing it
“Trump is frightened and clueless given his earlier comments downplaying the virus.”
Morrison was in on the phone call and said there was no issue with it, but was concerned about the possibility of abuse of it by other parties. Rightfully so, as Trump was impeached by a political party that now supports Quid Pro Quo for president. Thank Democrats for any need to classify briefings.
L.A. County Democrats down played the virus, allowing possibly millions to use touch screens to vote in the March 3 primary and waiting to the next day to declare a state of emergency. They then allowed the marathon and NBA basketball game to go on, all of which could have caused community spread.
Not only that, the democrats actually created the corona virus in Nancy Pelosi’s secret lair. They sprayed it on Chinese bats so that they could cover their tracks. They don’t care how many die to further their agenda of medicaid for all. These people will literally stop at nothing to make sure you have health insurance. So send money to Pat Robertson, so he can give it to god, so god will bless us with a thousand year reign of ever-more inbred, crosseyed trump spawn!
Your sarcasm does not change the fact that Democrat run L.A. allowed millions to use touch screen voting the day before they declared a state of emergency and allowed the L.A. Marathon to proceed, along with an NBA game with possibly some 20,000 people in attendance, afterward.
I think that there could be some community quarantines. With that in mind, what are some nice things to have a couple of extra of around the house? I was just pondering how I really like Rice-a-roni. Go ahead, laugh. I like it. Salza on frozen veggies. Gotta get some extra jars of that Safeway Smoked Chipotle before it’s too late. And not just any beans, it’s going to be those original Boston Baked Beans and maybe those chili beans with the medium heat chili sauce. Have you had those on Wheat Thins? Oh, and maybe a case of box-o-wine.
So this is how Trump is bolstering the confidence of the nation:
“Vanity Fair Magazine, which will soon be out of business, and their third rate Fake reporters, who make up sources which don’t exist, wrote yet another phony & boring hit piece. The facts are just the opposite. Our team is doing a great job with CoronaVirus!”
Glad to see he’s got time to take on the liberal media in this time of crisis! What if his public image were damaged? We would surely be lost!
This is not a Trump problem; There will not be a Trump fix, but I’ve seen enough to confidently make the following predictions:
1.Six months from now, surviving world “leaders” will have moved on to far more effective vote-getters than personally backing an ongoing Manhattan Project-scale effort to develop an early warning system for potential pandemics.
2.There will be more pandemics, finding humanity equally unprepared.
The medical profession won’t be caught quite as flatfooted next time. Outside of East Asia, which already had their wake up call with SARS, this is health systems’ SARS moment.
This epidemic is also very different from many/most other health “problems”, in that it isn’t something which mainly affects the poor and unconnected, hence politically irrelevant.
Instead, the prime disease target demo, 50+ boomers in dense cities who have active social/professional lives and travel a lot, and whose “jobs” involve meetings instead of doings, are exactly the ones who The Fed was set up to redistribute all wealth and influence to. So they’ll take notice of this one, in a way they never would of problems more closely correlated with poor resource access.
Fake News! It’s just the flu.
…
or not.
What Trump doesn’t realize is that he’s trying to push on a string. You can’t stimulate the economy in this situation with rate cuts, etc. The problem is that, once they stock up, and hunker down, Americans won’t be spending. They are afraid they will be quarantined and have no paycheck. Travel is dead already, and places that are usually crowded, such as restaurants and bars will probably be right behind them. Retail will follow – if you aren’t going out, who needs new clothes? Cleaners, hair salons, nail salons, etc, are optional, especially if you aren’t leaving home. And as those small businesses get crushed, the employees there won’t have any money to spend, and the circle goes around again. That’s the spiraling deflationary cycle.
The only way to reverse it is to get through it, and let the weak businesses fail, and so the stronger ones can survive and grow. Trying to keep the weak businesses alive keeps the strong ones weak and will lead to an anemic recovery. A program to defer mortgage payments, and similar things that boost the confidence of end consumers is about as much as you can do.
In the 1930s we saw what didn’t work, but that was a long time ago. We should try them again, and see if they work better this time. I know! A rate cut. That’s the answer. Maybe?
Leaders should be stressing one thing: the importance of flattening the outbreak curve, so that you don’t end up knowing someone (or being someone) who couldn’t get into the ICU when needed. Would that be too hard for POTUS to say?
He can’t say what he can’t comprehend, and the words are too big to read off a teleprompter.
“Trump is frightened”
…
As well he should. His age right in virus’s wheelhouse + he is a germaphobe.
Classified the meetings…?
One sure-fire way to have people flip the hell out is get caught hiding things. Especially at a time like this. Why even try to do it? You know someone will out you – and no explanation you give is going to make it look okay. In fact, I would say that there is no better way to start a fear-based panic than to have people find out that you could be hiding information that might be vital to the survival of themselves or their loved ones.
I have long held that most (if not all) of those in positions of power in this country (including federal, state, and local) today got there through graft and corruption and not because they were the best choices.
Sadly, their collective performance during this particular event has been on par for that belief.
Trumplings! I give you, The Most Transparent Administration in History!
It’s rather refreshing, isn’t it?
It’s so clear, I can’t even see through it. Believe me.
I hope he doesn’t try to ‘bail out’ the oil and gas company’s.
Casinos OK, though …
Part of being a good leader is knowing when to defer to others. Trump should shut up and let the medical professionals handle things. Give them whatever they want.
His ego and narcissism prevents that.
He believes HE is the only one that can improve public sentiment of the coveted Trump brand
Trump will use it as cover like Maduro for martial law and cancel “elections” indefinetly,as it stands now the permanently collapsed economy can’t really get much worse,virus or no virus,but if big govt collapses,then the Trump junta has an excuse to seize power.
I doubt it, but given the American sheeple are extremely gullible, it would not be impossible to temporarily suspend elections. Further, a quick search shows US November federal elections are a mere law (and laws can be amended), set in 1792, but not immutable nor a constitutional provision. Given Trump penchant for tweaking federal law, it’s not beyond the pale to envision the Republicans passing a law that somehow postpones elections, for health reasons. Not saying it will happen but it’s not impossible. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_(United_States)
No chance
Unless there were too fast a turnover of candidates fit to stand ?
Seeing as how the virus is more likely to infect those who live in a big city, Trump may benefit from the virus. He may have the election come hell or high water if he thinks it benefits him.
Same rumor was started in 2004…that some people believe this crap is sad…
Trump will be proclaimed as Emperor soon by the Republican Senate. All hail Caesar!
That’d be quite the turn-around, from it’s no big deal to we need to cancel the election. Biggest flip-flop ever? (He’s really into those claims of biggest, greatest ever, isn’t he?)
Trump was attempting to down play the impact of the virus to avoid economic impact. Unfortunately that was a bad decision
You have to have quite the ego to run for President in the first place. I mean, really, “Vote for me, I can run this nation and keep the world at peace.”
Dr. Sam Vaknin a NPD self-help author writes in laymen’s language of narcissistic personality disorder. At its height a person would indeed think that he has the power to jaw-bone the economy, and possibly reverse the direction of the earth’s rotation!
It’s no joke, they really believe it. Interestingly, he also believed that Senator Obma was one: “Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist.” Vaknin is a world authority on narcissism. He understands narcissism and describes the inner mind of a narcissist like no other person. When he talks about narcissism everyone listens. Vaknin says that Obama’s language, posture and demeanor, and the testimonies of his closest, dearest and nearest suggest that the Senator is either a narcissist or he may have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).
You say “Decision” like the guy is rational. He makes no decisions, he just acts on his delusions of grandeur.