#QuarantineAndChill Friday Reads: The Corona Virus Times
Posted: March 13, 2020 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, just because | Tags: corona virus 20 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
How’s that Social Distancing thing going for you? I will fully admit to doing that ever since 2016 when the Trump Virus was let loose in the world. I mean you could run into something unpleasant like a TV turned to FOX News. This self isolation time just means I’m now not alone alone in the entire self isolation thing. I can look at my window and know every one is avoiding each other on my street now. It’s not just me avoiding them.
I’m venturing out shortly to hit the pharmacy at my local ghetto Walgreen’s. I’ve been noticing that the public bus drivers are masked and not in the traditional Mardi Gras sense. A quick conversation with a concierge whose a long time neighbor and hospitality worker told me he’d spent the last few days doing nothing but cancellations. My last lecture on ground was Wednesday night and I’m trying to figure out what kind of tools I have at my disposal to spend the rest of term teaching a course in a school that basically has no remote distance programs and whose only remote distance experience was basically post Katrina. It seems they have no bandwith for these number of classes/students. I will be helping fellow faculty members figure out what to do on Monday. I’ve been scheduled to provide a 2 hour seminar. But really, if the tools aren’t there already I doubt this will be easy.
My last major discussion with my students was about the stock market and had airplane stock bottomed yet? Simultaneously, Trump was delivering the message that Europeans–from some random countries but not the UK and Ireland–were going to be denied access to the US. For some reason, Trump’s worried about Europe having so many “open borders” as if a virus can’t go any where if there’s a drawbridge up in a castle. US Equity markets spent all day yesterday crashing to a point we hadn’t experienced since 1987. Remember those Reagan Wonder Economy years? Me neither.
Let’s face it. The Trump administration is simultaneously bumbling and toxic. How much more can we take of this? From The Atlantic and Republican Peter Wehner: “The Trump Presidency Is Over. It has taken a good deal longer than it should have, but Americans have now seen the con man behind the curtain.” We can only hope.
To be sure, the president isn’t responsible for either the coronavirus or the disease it causes, COVID-19, and he couldn’t have stopped it from hitting our shores even if he had done everything right. Nor is it the case that the president hasn’t done anything right; in fact, his decision to implement a travel ban on China was prudent. And any narrative that attempts to pin all of the blame on Trump for the coronavirus is simply unfair. The temptation among critics of Donald Trump to use the coronavirus pandemic to get back at Trump for every bad thing he’s done should be resisted, and schadenfreude is never a good look.
That said, the president and his administration are responsible for grave, costly errors, most especially the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, the decision to test too few people, the delay in expanding testing to labs outside the Centers for Disease Control, and problems in the supply chain. These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and, for a few critical weeks, they created a false sense of security. What we now know is that the coronavirus silently spread for several weeks, without us being aware of it and while we were doing nothing to stop it. Containment and mitigation efforts could have significantly slowed its spread at an early, critical point, but we frittered away that opportunity.
“They’ve simply lost time they can’t make up. You can’t get back six weeks of blindness,” Jeremy Konyndyk, who helped oversee the international response to Ebola during the Obama administration and is a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, told the Washington Post. “To the extent that there’s someone to blame here, the blame is on poor, chaotic management from the White House and failure to acknowledge the big picture.”
Earlier this week, Anthony Fauci, the widely-respected director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases whose reputation for honesty and integrity have been only enhanced during this crisis, admitted in a congressional testimony that the United States is still not providing adequate testing for the coronavirus. “It is failing. Let’s admit it.” He added, “The idea of anybody getting [testing] easily, the way people in other countries are doing it, we’re not set up for that. I think it should be, but we’re not.”
BB’s featured many articles about the absolute ineptitude of the Trumpist Regime to alleviate any of the current problems many which they have created. We have the usual call for the Republican cure all economic apple cider vinegar economic tool–tax cuts for large companies and rich folks–being bandied about when retail stores already have suffered a lack of customers and just about every major sporting and entertainment venue in the country has shut down taking jobs for minimum wage workers. Hmmm, no income no income taxes so what good are tax cuts to the rich at this point other than to gratuitously point out the you want the rest of us dead? However, if you can’t work and you don’t get paid, how you going to eat, pay the water bill, or keep a roof over your head?
So, tough luck for every one depending on Medicaid to get through this. “Trump administration blocks states from using Medicaid to respond to coronavirus crisis” via the LA Times. As usual, we get to eat moon pies which is probably the Trumpvian versio of eating cake.
Despite mounting pleas from California and other states, the Trump administration isn’t allowing states to use Medicaid more freely to respond to the coronavirus crisis by expanding medical services.
In previous emergencies, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the H1N1 flu outbreak, both Republican and Democratic administrations loosened Medicaid rules to empower states to meet surging needs.
But months into the current global disease outbreak, the White House and senior federal health officials haven’t taken the necessary steps to give states simple pathways to fully leverage the mammoth safety net program to prevent a wider epidemic.
That’s making it harder for states to quickly sign up poor patients for coverage so they can get necessary testing or treatment if they are exposed to coronavirus.
And it threatens to slow efforts by states to bring on new medical providers, set up emergency clinics or begin quarantining and caring for homeless Americans at high risk from the virus.
“If they wanted to do it, they could do it,” said Cindy Mann, who oversaw the Medicaid program in the Obama administration and worked with states to help respond to the H1N1 crisis in 2009.
One reason federal health officials have not acted appears to be President Trump’s reluctance to declare a national emergency. That’s a key step that would clear the way for states to get Medicaid waivers to more nimbly tackle coronavirus, but it would conflict with Trump’s repeated efforts to downplay the seriousness of the epidemic.
I guess Trumpvian national emergencies are only tools to get walls built through wild life refugees and chop up people’s cattle ranches to stop women with children from seeking asylum. However, several people testing positive for the virus got access to Trump who is still holding rallies and eagerly jerking hands around including Brazil’s president. And Ivanka may have got it from an Aussie official. William Barr also met with that same Australian official who tested positive.
Really, it’s likely time we talk massive bailouts and not just those aimed at Wall Street. Yes, I know we’re already bailing out farmers and others in deep because of Trump’s awful trade policies but what are we going to do with all these folks that don’t have paid leave or can’t just telecommute?
We do have some information coming from the NYT on a possible stimulus package that is supposedly nearing agreement between the administration and congress.
The legislation, according to a letter Ms. Pelosi sent to her members, will include enhanced unemployment benefits, free virus testing, aid for food assistance programs and federal funds for Medicaid. The package also ensures 14 days of paid sick leave, as well as tax credits to help small- and medium-size businesses fulfill that mandate. Language was still being drafted for provisions related to family and medical leave, according to a Democratic aide, as staff members worked through the night to prepare the bill.
Ms. Pelosi, in her letter to lawmakers, also said that the House would soon pursue another package “that will take further effective action that protects the health, economic security and well-being of the American people.”
The fast-moving measure reflected a sense of urgency in Washington to enact a fiscal stimulus in the face of a pandemic that has wreaked havoc on the financial markets, which have proved impervious to other interventions. The Federal Reserve, in a drastic attempt to ensure Wall Street remained functional as volatility roiled even normally staid bond markets, said it would promptly inject as much as $1.5 trillion in loans into the banking system and broaden its purchases of Treasury securities. But neither the Fed’s actions, nor a plan by the European Central Bank to offer cheap loans to banks and step up its bond-buying campaign, were enough to assuage investors, who sent the S&P 500 down 9.5 percent.
Amanda Marcotte–writing for Salon–believes the Republican Party’s ideology brought us to this point and I agree. Republicans have become rabid take no prisoner free marketeers for every one but their buddies and total suck ups to religious nuts and science deniers.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell smelled an evil liberal conspiracy on Thursday, one designed to steal away his decades of tireless work to kneecap the federal government. The Democratic-majority House had passed a large emergency bill, designed to combat the coronavirus pandemic, and McConnell was absolutely certain Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were trying to pull one over on him.
“Unfortunately, it appears at this hour that the speaker and House Democrats instead chose to produce an ideological wish list that was not tailored closely to the circumstances,” McConnell said. He accused Democrats of exploiting this situation, saying the bill addresses “various areas of policy that are barely related, if at all, to the issue before us.”
There’s a lot at stake here, but apparently the big sticking point for McConnell was a provision requiring employers to offer paid sick leave to employees, which McConnell claims would “put thousands of small businesses at risk.”
In reality, of course, this is just common sense. As the New York Times editorial board noted, companies that don’t offer paid sick leave “are endangering their workers and customers.” A lot of workers with public-facing jobs — such as food service workers and retail employees — come into close contact with dozens or hundreds of people a day. But they are the people least likely to be allowed to stay home without losing their jobs, or at least losing a paycheck.
McConnell is so poisoned by his right-wing ideology that he can’t see this, or chooses not to. Instead, he’s standing firm on the long-standing Republican tendency to view employers as feudal lords who should be allowed to treat employees however they wish — even, apparently, if that means allowing a deadly disease to rip through the population, potentially killing hundreds of thousands of people if it is not checked.
This is another reminder that the Republican party is hardly pro-life.
So, the pharmacy undid whatever tech problems my order was having and has informed me I can go pick the damn pills up. I probably should buy new underwear so I can impress any medics that have to show up on my street which according to my mother was much more important than a stockpile of tp. This post also turned up late due to the blue screen of death which was basically Microsoft’s way of crashing my computer to update it. And I will be back with a few things from the grocery store beans, root vegetables and stuff that keeps like my depression surviving okie Nana taught me. Stews for every one!!! This is the new reality! Or maybe it’s just the old with internet.
Have a great time hunkering down with some on healthy you love!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads: A World Transformed and A “President” Who Has No Idea What To Do Next
Posted: March 12, 2020 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: coronavirus, Donald Trump, European travel ban 55 Comments
Good Morning!!
Last night Trump gave a disturbing “speech” from the oval office. He stumbled over his words, huffed and snorted, seemingly gasping for air. Is he already infected with the virus or is it dementia. There was nothing reassuring about the “speech,” which he read from a teleprompter. Instead it resembled a hostage video, read word or word with none of his usual inane interjections.
He instituted another travel ban with exceptions for countries where he has businesses and said nothing about increased testing of Americans, which is what we need more than anything if we are to understand the scope of the problem in this country. He again suggested a payroll tax cut, which would only serve to starve Social Security and Medicare and would never pass the House.
Market Reactions:
The Washington Post: Europe blindsided by Trump’s travel restrictions, with many seeing political motive.
PARIS — European officials strongly condemned President Trump’s decision to severely restrict travel from Europe to the United States on Thursday, a sudden move that took them by surprise and that many saw as politically motivated.
Of all the slights between Washington and Europe in recent years, the new travel restrictions had all the makings of a potential rupture. In a short statement on Thursday morning rare in its directness, the European Union expressed only exasperation.
“The Coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action,” the statement read, co-signed by E.U. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel.
“The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation.”
CNN: Trump address sparks chaos as coronavirus crisis deepens.
President Donald Trump set out to steady a rattled nation and a diving economy in a solemn Oval Office address, but instead sowed more confusion and doubts that he is up to handling the fast-worsening coronavirus crisis.
Trump spoke to the nation at a fearful moment, when the rhythms of everyday American life are starting to shut down — with schools closing, the NBA suspended, hospitals on high alert and movie icon Tom Hanks saying he and his wife have the disease.
“The virus will not have a chance against us. No nation is more prepared or more resilient than the United States,” the President said, before painting a rosy picture of an economy that is already taking a beating from the virus fallout. The President unveiled several measures to help on that score, to help workers who lack sick pay but have to self-isolate and are hard-hit by shutdowns, though his call for a payroll tax cut is not popular in Congress.
Trump’s big announcement for keeping the virus at bay — what he said was a 30-day ban on travel to the US by Europeans and restrictions on cargo — was immediately engulfed in confusion.
CNBC: Dollar skids as Trump’s virus response disappoints.
The dollar slid in another seismic shift to price in more U.S. interest rate cuts on Thursday, as President Donald Trump sapped market confidence with a coronavirus plan light on details.
The greenback dropped as far as 1% to 103.32 yen, fell as much as 0.6% to $1.1333 against the euro and lost 0.6% to the safe-haven Swiss franc.
Riskier currencies were punished as the fearful mood sent the Australian dollar down 0.6% and the South Korean won skidding 1%, and losing even more ground to the rising yen.
Trump announced on Wednesday a ban on travelers from 26 European countries entering the United States for a month.
He unveiled economic steps to counter the virus but his address from the Oval Office was light on medical measures beyond assurances that “the virus has no chance against us”.
“The market was looking for more,” said Moh Siong Sim, currency strategist at the Bank of Singapore.
CNN Business: Airline stocks crushed after Trump announces Europe travel ban.
London (CNN Business)Airline stocks tumbled Thursday after US President Donald Trump announced a 30-day ban on travel from more than two dozen European countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
The move will deepen the crisis facing airlines, which have been forced by the coronavirus outbreak to cancel huge numbers of flights and make dramatic changes to their operations. The industry was already facing hundreds of billions of dollars in lost sales.
Edward Luce at Financial Times: Donald Trump’s troubling coronavirus address.
On Wednesday night the global pandemic met US nationalism. It will not take long to see which comes off best. As Donald Trump was speaking, the Dow futures market nosedived. His Europe travel ban came just a few hours after the US stock market entered bear territory — a fall of 20 per cent or more — for the first time since the global financial crisis. It also followed the World Health Organization’s declaration of a global pandemic. Mr Trump’s address was meant to calm the waters. By the time he finished they were considerably rougher.
His purpose was to convey that he has a grip on the epidemic. Having spent weeks playing down the threat, Mr Trump had already tied one of his arms behind his back. The previous day he told Americans to “stay calm. This will go away.” A few weeks ago he described the epidemic as a Democratic “hoax”.
Then on Wednesday night he pivoted. He suspended all travel from Europe for 30 days. For the first time since the second world war, direct US travel to the European continent will be closed off. He excluded the UK and Ireland from the ban despite the fact that Britain has almost half the number of US infections with less than a fifth of its population.
Moreover, his action contradicted expert guidelines. The WHO clearly advises against international travel bans because they stifle the flow of medicines and aid, and “may divert resources from other interventions”. Mr Trump has been badly shaken by the stock market fall that has wiped out most of the gains of his administration. Yet his actions will almost certainly deepen market pessimism. In addition to the chilling effect on transatlantic trade, Mr Trump has elevated the uncertainty risk. To put it bluntly, no one has much clue what he will do next.
Pundit Analyses:
David Frum at The Atlantic: The Worst Outcome. If somebody other than Donald Trump were in the White House, the coronavirus crisis would not be unfolding this way.
At every turn, President Trump’s policy regarding coronavirus has unfolded as if guided by one rule: How can I make this crisis worse?
Presidents are not all-powerful, especially not in the case of pandemic disease. There are limits to what they can do, for good or ill. But within those limits, at every juncture, Trump’s actions have ensured the worst possible outcomes. The worst outcome for public health. The worst outcome for the American economy. The worst outcome for American global leadership.
Trump’s Oval Office speech of March 11 was the worst action yet in a string of bad actions.
Here are the things the president did not do in that speech.
He offered no guidance or policy on how to prevent the spread of the disease inside the United States. Should your town cancel its St. Patrick’s Day parade? What about theatrical productions and sporting events? Classes at schools and colleges? Nothing.
He offered no explanation of what went wrong with the U.S. testing system, nor any assurance of when testing would become more widely available. His own previous promises of testing for anyone who needs it have been exploded as false. So what is true? Nothing.
Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine: Trump’s Speech Shows He Has No Idea What to Do About the Coronavirus.
Guiding the United States through a pandemic would be a difficult task for any president under any circumstance. The challenge has grown more forbidding by barriers decades in the making — the skeletal social safety net, with its patchy access to health-care and pressure placed on sick workers to keep earning money — as well as President Trump’s decision to dismantle the White House pandemic response team.
The most basic necessity for grappling with the coronavirus is understanding how pandemics work. And Trump revealed in his Oval Office speech that he does not comprehend the most basic facts.
Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon
Trump’s speech had no mention of the central problem in the American response to the coronavirus, which is the lack of a functioning testing regime. Having falsely promised on Friday that everybody who currently wants a test can get one, Trump simply ignored the question altogether. At the moment, people who have symptoms do not know what they can do about it. The number is due to explode, and Trump offered them no guidance.
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Allen at The New York Times: Trump’s Re-election Chances Suddenly Look Shakier.
President Trump faces the biggest challenge yet to his prospects of being re-elected, with his advisers’ two major assumptions for the campaign — a booming economy and an opponent easily vilified as too far left — quickly evaporating.
After a year in which Mr. Trump has told voters that they must support his re-election or risk watching the economy decline, the stock market is reeling and economists are warning that a recession could be on the horizon because of the worsening spread of the coronavirus.
And instead of elevating Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, as Mr. Trump made clear was his hope, Democrats have suddenly and decisively swung from a flirtation with socialism to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has run a primary campaign centered on a return to political normalcy.
“Biden’s success in the suburbs makes him an acceptable alternative to Trump,” said Scott Reed, the top political adviser for the United States Chamber of Commerce. “His turnout in the suburbs threatens the Republican Senate.”
That presents Mr. Trump with a confounding new political landscape, one that close advisers concede he had seemed unwilling or unable to accept until Wednesday, when he addressed the nation about the pandemic.
The good news is that we have Nancy Pelosi’s leadership to look to.
Politico: Pelosi ignores Trump taunts as she steers through another crisis.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was preparing to hop in a caravan of SUVs to depart the Capitol Tuesday afternoon when he called Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Mnuchin had just spent an hour huddling with Senate Republicans as President Donald Trump tried to sell wary GOP lawmakers on his plan to prevent an economic collapse from the coronavirus pandemic. Pelosi, who was having a hard time hearing Mnuchin due to poor cell phone reception, asked if he just wanted to come to her office across the Capitol instead.
Just hours before, Trump had taken his latest shot at Pelosi in a morning tweet. But that didn’t deter the speaker, who huddled with Mnuchin for a 30-minute meeting in her office. The two also chatted on the phone twice on Wednesday, and Pelosi is now on the verge of pushing through a massive stimulus bill that could earn GOP support, as well as Trump’s signature.
Prevention and response: March 9, 2020
For any other leader, the rapid turnaround on the recovery plan would be a herculean feat at best. But for Pelosi, successfully negotiating a multi-billion-dollar economic package with a hostile and often antagonistic Trump administration was just another day in the speaker’s suite.
It’s also a reminder that for all Trump’s omnipresence on Twitter and cable TV, Pelosi remains the dominant figure on Capitol Hill when it comes time to actually getting something accomplished.
Not that Trump is happy about having to work with Pelosi. The Daily Beast reports that Trump is “seething” about it.
All of official Washington has come to an agreement that swift, bold action is needed to counteract the dramatic economic impact of the coronavirus’ spread. But negotiations around such a package have been complicated by the fact that President Donald Trump can’t stand the idea of negotiating one-on-one with his chief counterpart, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Indeed, he suspects that she would use the moment to try to humiliate him.
Two senior Trump administration officials described a president who, out of an intense bitterness toward the House Speaker, has shuddered at the prospect of being in the same room with her during the ongoing public-health crisis and economic reverberations.
Instead, Trump has deputized some of his more prominent lieutenants to handle the delicate negotiations. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, in particular, has emerged as one of the administration’s top envoys to Capitol Hill, as Team Trump and lawmakers attempt to cobble together some form of economic stimulus in the wake of a now-declared global pandemic.
“At this time, the president does not see it as productive to [personally] negotiate directly with Nancy Pelosi,” said one of the senior administration officials. “For now, it’s best for her to deal directly with Sec. Mnuchin and others in the administration.”
That sounds like a good idea, because Trump has no idea what to do. Too bad Nancy can’t be president.
As we face another day in a world transformed by the coronavirus, I wish you and yours good health and courage. As always this is an open thread.
Tuesday Reads: Six Primaries Today, But Coronavirus Still Tops the News
Posted: March 10, 2020 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2020 Democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders, coronavirus, COVID19, Donald Trump, Italy, Joe Biden 24 Comments
The 2020 presidential contenders
Good Morning!!
Today there will be primaries in 6 states with 352 delegates up for grabs: Michigan, Washington, Missouri, Mississippi, Idaho, and North Dakota. What to watch for in each state, according to Buzzfeed News:
The 2020 Democratic primary radically changed last Tuesday, when Joe Biden surpassed even the highest expectations to build a delegate lead over Bernie Sanders. This Tuesday, the race could effectively lock into place.
Six states with a total of 352 delegates vote in the Democratic presidential primary today, which isn’t really a second Super Tuesday, even though many are calling it that (California, which voted last week, had 415 delegates on its own). But with Biden already up just about 80 delegates over Sanders going into Tuesday, a strong performance in these states could give him a lead that will be tough for Sanders to overcome. And alternatively, a surprising result for Sanders could make the primary more competitive than some assume it is right now, leading into states later this month that on paper look strong for Biden.
The biggest haul of delegates will come from Michigan, followed by Washington.
Michigan…is the big state tonight, with 125 delegates. Sanders won the primary here in 2016 over Hillary Clinton in a surprise, helping to revive his campaign even as the two basically split delegates evenly (67 for Sanders and 63 for Clinton).
Sanders and Biden have both spent much of the last week focused on winning the state. A win for Biden, especially one by a decisive margin, could be brutal for Sanders. A win for Sanders could prove that his promised coalition of young people — including young people of color — and the white working class still has life. Recent polls have shown a double-digit lead for Biden, but they showed one for Clinton ahead of the 2016 primary, too….
Washington…is tonight’s second-biggest state, with 89 delegates. Sanders won the state in a blowout in 2016 and is hoping to win by a decent margin again this year.
But Sanders has a disadvantage this year relative to 2016: The state will no longer hold caucuses, where he performed well with hyper-engaged, organized supporters. Washington this year is conducting its primary entirely by mail. About 22% of ballots were returned before Super Tuesday, which could limit a Biden bounce. Voting by mail has also reduced fears about the state’s coronavirus outbreak limiting turnout. But the result here isn’t necessarily certain: There’s been limited recent polling, and neither candidate has campaigned here in the last week.
NBC News: Democrats vote: What the polls show for Biden and Sanders in Michigan, other states.
A Detroit Free Press poll released Monday found that Biden has a 24-point lead over Sanders, with the former vice president drawing 51 percent of Democratic voters’ support to Sanders’ 27 percent. A Monmouth University poll, also released Monday, saw Biden with 51 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, while 36 percent supported Sanders. The RealClearPolitics polling average puts Biden up by 22.6 points.
Still, the Free Press noted, Sanders overcame a similar polling margin to win the state four years ago: The paper’s 2016 survey by the same pollsters gave Hillary Clinton a 25-point lead, but Sanders eventually won by 1.4 percentage points thanks to an unexpected surge of younger voters….
Biden has a narrow lead in Washington after eroding Sanders’ early lead with his Super Tuesday momentum. According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Biden’s up by 2 points over Sanders.
The progressive-leaning state has 89 delegates — it’s the second-biggest trove of the day after Michigan — and Sanders won it handily in 2016….
Biden is also leading the polls in Missouri and Mississippi. Results in the tiny states of Idaho and North Dakota are anyone’s guess.
Obviously, the coronavirus is is leading the news today, despite the importance of the primaries. Here’s the latest.
Is what’s happening in Italy a preview for the U.S.? CBS News: Coronavirus brings Italy’s “darkest hour,” and takes a mounting toll in the U.S.
As Italians woke up to the most severe restrictions on their every-day lives since World War II, China said it was easing virus-control measures in the province where the COVID-19 disease emerged late last year. The contrasting conditions on two of the biggest battlefronts against the virus showed its severity, and the feasibility of corralling and controlling it.
AlJazeera: Italy in nationwide lockdown to prevent spread of coronavirus.
Italy has imposed unprecedented travel restrictions on its 60 million people to control the deadly coronavirus outbreak in the country.
“I am going to sign a decree that can be summarised as follows: I stay at home,” Conte said on television, announcing that the entire country would effectively be placed on lockdown from Tuesday.
“Travel must be avoided across the entire peninsula unless it is justified by professional reasons, by cases of need or for health reasons,” Conte said.
These measures extend a quarantine zone that Italy had imposed on its northern heartland around Milan and the greater Lombardy region, Venice, and Pesaro Urbino on Sunday.
The restrictions will run until April 3.
All schools and universities will immediately close. Serie A football matches and all other sporting events are also being suspended for the coming month.
All ski resorts are out of action and cinemas, museums, nightclubs and similar venues must remain shut after being ordered to close their doors over the weekend, the decree said.
While religious institutions will stay open, as long as people can stay a metre from one another, ceremonies such as marriages, baptisms and funerals are banned.
Read more at the link.
The Trump administration’s coronavirus strategy is still gaslighting and covering up.
Time Magazine: The Trump Administration Is Stalling an Intel Report That Warns the U.S. Isn’t Ready for a Global Pandemic.
The office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was scheduled to deliver the Worldwide Threat Assessment to the House Intelligence Committee on Feb. 12 and the hearing has not been rescheduled, according to staffers and members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. The DNI’s office declined requests for a comment on the status of the report. Democratic staffers say they do not expect the report to be released any time soon.
The final draft of the report remains classified but the two officials who have read it say it contains warnings similar to those in the last installment, which was published on January 29, 2019. The 2019 report warns on page 29 that, “The United States will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.”
The 2019 warning was the third time in as many years that the nation’s intelligence experts said that a new strain of influenza could lead to a pandemic, and that the U.S. and the world were unprepared. “Although the international community has made tenuous improvements to global health security, these gains may be inadequate to address the challenge of what we anticipate will be more frequent outbreaks of infectious diseases because of rapid unplanned urbanization, prolonged humanitarian crises, human incursion into previously unsettled land, expansion of international travel and trade, and regional climate change,” the 2019 threat assessment warned.
Rather than acting on these recurrent warnings and bolstering America’s ability to respond to an outbreak, the Trump administration has instead cut back money and personnel from pandemic preparedness.
Click the link to read the rest.
Apparently, Trump doesn’t want immigrants to know how to protect themselves from the virusThe Miami Herald : Trump administration orders immigration courts to immediately remove coronavirus posters.
Immigration court staff nationwide have been ordered by the Trump administration to take down all coronavirus posters from courtrooms and waiting areas.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which falls under the Department of Justice, told all judges and staff members in an email Monday that all coronavirus posters, which explain in English and Spanish how to prevent catching and spreading the virus, had to be removed immediately.
“This is just a reminder that immigration judges do not have the authority to post, or ask you to post, signage for their individual courtrooms or the waiting areas,” wrote Christopher A. Santoro, the country’s acting chief immigration judge in a mass email to immigration court administrators nationwide.
“Per our leadership, the CDC flyer is not authorized for posting in the immigration courts. If you see one (attached), please remove it. Thank you.”
The information in the flyers came from the CDC. Why doesn’t the Trump administration want people in these courts to have the information?
Will the Republicans change their attitudes now that some GOP lawmakers–and maybe even Trump and Pence–have been exposed to the virus?
The Daily Beast: CPAC Attendees Want to Know Who the Mystery Coronavirus Patient Is.
Revelations that a man infected with the novel coronavirus hobnobbed with top Republicans at the annual Conservative Public Action Conference last month has prompted a wave of fright among Republican operatives who attended the conference and fear they may have been exposed, too. And as the fear has mounted so too have complaints that the conference’s planners have been too secretive about the man’s identity.
“If you’re not rich and important, you don’t get to know if you were exposed to someone with Coronavirus at CPAC,” Breitbart reporter Brandon Darby tweeted Monday….
The American Conservative Union, which organizes the annual event in National Harbor, Maryland, announced Saturday afternoon that a man who was infected with the coronavirus attended CPAC. Since then, four prominent Republicans—Sen. Ted Cruz (TX), Rep. Paul Gosar (AZ), Rep. Doug Collins (GA), and Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL)—have announced that they’re self-quarantining after interacting with the man.
Gaetz has undergone a test for the virus. In contrast, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who also had contact with the infected man, said he won’t self-quarantine.
Gaetz flew on Air Force One with Trump yesterday and rode with him in the presidential limosine. Doug Collins was seen shaking hands and talking with Trump after the conference. For unknown reasons, Trump has not been tested for the virus.
Politico: ‘My phone’s been blowing up’: CPAC attendees rip the group’s virus messaging.
A CPAC attendee infected with coronavirus attended multiple days of the conference on a gold-level VIP ticket as well as a Friday night Shabbat dinner associated with the event, according to people familiar with the situation.
The infected attendee was a CPAC regular who made a hobby of meeting high-profile conference speakers and taking photographs with them. His gold-level ticket gave him access to a private lounge directly outside the green room for speakers on the conference’s main stage.
As of early Monday evening, event organizers have contacted “just over a dozen” people who they have identified as having direct contact with the infected attendee, according to Ian Walters, spokesman for the American Conservative Union, which organizes the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.
The ACU’s handling of the case has led to grumbling from some conferencegoers, who have complained of a two-tiered system: VIPs have been notified directly even to be told they did not interact with the infected man, while ordinary rank-and-file attendees have by and large been left to wonder, receiving only vaguer information in mass emails. Meanwhile, critics have noted the irony of prominent officials downplaying the outbreak even as the disease may silently have been spreading among the Trump administration’s own members and supporters.
More stories to check out today:
The Atlantic: COVID-19 Has Dangerously Inverted the Long-Standing White House Theme.
Jennifer Senior at The New York Times: President Trump Is Unfit for This Crisis. Period.
Brian Klass at The Washington Post: The coronavirus is Trump’s Chernobyl.
The Atlantic: The Dangerous Delays in U.S. Coronavirus Testing Continue.
Tom Bossert at The Washington Post: It’s now or never for the U.S. if it hopes to keep coronavirus from burning out of control.
AP: Trump talks down virus as his properties face possible hit.
The Daily Beast: Trump Chatted With Taliban Leaders on Secret U.S. Kill-or-Capture List.
Monday “find your happy place and stay there for awhile” Reads
Posted: March 9, 2020 Filed under: Afternoon Reads 39 Comments
Dear Old Dixie Moon sheet music illustration (1920)
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I don’t even know what to say about the headlines today. All I know is I’m going to have to explain what’s going on in the Financial Markets to a bunch of students Wednesday Night and it’s not going to be pretty. It seems Saudi Arabia is dumping oil and the markets are still reeling from the spreading of the COVID19 virus. They’ve shut trading down for the day because the DJ opened down 1800. The crash is being called #OrangeMonday in remembrance of Cheetolini and his total ignorance of economics and finance.
I would like to start with a public service announcement however that deals with the spread of the virus and one impact you should consider.
Millions of children will lose their access to some of the only meals they receive each day if schools shut down under quarantine. Food banks will be essential. Please just donate money because that can bring fresh food to their homes.
I’ve always been a night person. I admit to loving the night, the stars, the moon, and the general quiet that goes with all of it. I’ve been thinking that the most wonderful thing about the night is it’s like turning off the TV, the internet, and the patriarchy for a brief few hours. So, here are visualizations of me in my happy place. It’s the quiet night with the moon and stars.
Oil markets crashed and stocks plunged on Monday as a sudden clash among the world’s biggest oil producers gave already rattled investors another reason to worry about the global economy.
Five minutes into the trading day in the United States, the plunge in the S&P 500 hit 7 percent, triggering an automatic trading halt for 15 minutes. The benchmark recovered some ground soon after trading resumed, and was down about 6 percent — its steepest decline since August 2011.
Shares of oil companies and businesses that service the oil and gas sector led the declines, falling more than 20 percent. Manufacturers and banks, which are sensitive to concerns about the economy, also slid.
Financial markets have whipped around for weeks as investors struggled to quantify the economic impact of the spreading coronavirus: stocks have tumbled, oil prices cratered, and yields on government bonds reflected a sense among investors that there was worse still to come.
“Markets want to hear that the global economy is open for business, and the problem is it isn’t easy to say that going forward,” said Patrick Chovanec, chief strategist at the investment advisory firm Silvercrest Asset Management.
But over the weekend, two of the world’s major oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia, added a new element to the mix by setting off a price war for crude.
While low oil prices can be beneficial to some sectors of the economy, they can also disrupt countries that depend heavily on petroleum dollars. The fall in oil prices since the start of the coronavirus also signals a global economic slowdown.
Oil lost nearly a quarter of its value in early trading on Monday, dragging shares of energy companies lower.
In Europe, major stock benchmarks were down more than 7 percent. Shares ended sharply lower in Asia also.
From Pippa Stevens at CNBC: “Oil prices plunge as much as 30% after OPEC deal failure sparks price war”.
Oil prices plunged to multi-year lows on Monday as tensions between Russia and Saudi Arabia escalate, sparking fears on the Street that an all-out price war is imminent.
The sell-off in crude began last week when OPEC failed to strike a deal with its allies, led by Russia, about oil production cuts. That, in turn, caused Saudi Arabia to slash its oil prices as it reportedly looks to ramp up production
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude and international benchmark Brent crude are both pacing for their worst day since 1991.WTI plunged 18%, or $7.36, to trade at $33.92 per barrel. WTI is on pace for its second worst day on record. International benchmark Brent crude was down $8.44, or 18.7%, to trade at $36.80 per barrel. Earlier in the session WTI dropped to $30 while Brent traded as low as $31.02, both of which are the lowest levels since Feb. 2016.
“This has turned into a scorched Earth approach by Saudi Arabia, in particular, to deal with the problem of chronic overproduction,” Again Capital’s John Kilduff said. “The Saudis are the lowest cost producer by far. There is a reckoning ahead for all other producers, especially those companies operating in the U.S shale patch.”
The price of gasoline was bound to drop anyway. My daughter in Seattle has been keeping me abreast of a lot including the nearly zero commute time she enjoys to the hospital because no on else is on the road. Schools are closed and many businesses have told their employees to telecommute but this is really going to hurt the economies down here in Louisiana and Texas, let alone all those oil fracking states like North Dakota.
Senator Cory Booker is the latest ex candidate to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden. It appears Biden is about to blow his Bernieness out of the water (which would be Lake Michigan in this case) in Michigan! This is from Todd Spangler writing for the Detroit Free Press.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, riding a wave of momentum from primaries in South Carolina and Super Tuesday states, comes into Tuesday’s Michigan primary with a 24-point lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders in a new Free Press poll.
If Biden’s 51%-27% lead in the poll, done by EPIC-MRA for the Free Press and its media partners, holds, it would guarantee him a signature victory in Michigan — a battleground state that helped President Donald Trump win the White House four years ago. It could also starve Sanders’ formerly front-running campaign of delegates needed for the nomination and call into question how long his effort can remain viable.
“Something happened on Super Tuesday with (other) candidates getting out and people are all of a sudden questioning Bernie’s positions on issues,” said Bernie Porn, pollster for Lansing-based EPIC-MRA, which conducted the survey of 400 likely Democratic primary voters between Wednesday and Friday. “If anything, it may be low in terms of the percentage that Biden may get.”
It does look like Democratic voters have decided on their candidate for better or worse. I sure hope Biden ups his debate performance before he potentially faces the Orange Snot blob.
We’re actually beginning to see public officials here in the US be tested for the COVID19 virus and it’s getting interesting.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton has tested positive for coronavirus via ABC.
And in the instant karma category: “Congressman Who Mocked Emergency Coronavirus Bill Goes Into Self-Quarantine”
When the U.S. House passed an emergency $8.3 billion spending bill to battle the coronavirus epidemic last week, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona questioned the tremendous cost. But Gosar announced last night that he and his staff are going into self-quarantine after it was revealed that Gosar recently spent an extended period of time at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) with someone who’s now hospitalized with COVID-19.
“I am not currently experiencing any symptoms, nor is any member of my staff. However, in order to prevent any potential transmission, I will remain at my home in Arizona until the conclusion of the 14 day period following my interaction with this individual,” Gosar said in a statement posted to his website, noting that he shook hands with the unnamed coronavirus patient “several times.”
“Additionally, out of an abundance of caution, I am closing my office in Washington, D.C. for the week and my team will follow the previously approved Tele-commute plan,” Gosar continued.
Senator Tom Cruz has also self-quarantined himself. Wow! Texas really must be under bad moon rising! Oil crisis and two of its freakzoid congress critterz possibly down with the bug!
Senator Ted Cruz will self-quarantine in his Texas home. He said he had a “brief conversation and a handshake” with the unnamed person at the recent CPAC conference in National Harbor, Maryland.
“I’m not experiencing any symptoms, and I feel fine and healthy,” Cruz said in a statement, adding that authorities have advised him the odds of transmission given their brief interaction was “extremely low.” Those who’ve interacted with him in the last 10 days “should not be concerned about potential transmission,” medical authorities have told him.
I can’t imagine Cruz Cooties are pleasant any day of the week frankly.
In other news:
So, I hope you made it through the first couple days of Daylight Savings Time. It’s that time of the year when I get to spend more time wondering why I am up so damned early! I’m realizing I’m having to tag this as an afternoon reads when it should still be morning and I’m still drinking my coffee. I mean really. I’m supposed to be over the moon waking up so early?
What’s on reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Caturday Reads: Trump Administration Gaslights As Coronavirus Spreads
Posted: March 7, 2020 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Barry McCaffrey, CDC, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, coronavirus, coronavirus testing, Donald Trump, Gaslighting, Juan Andres, Moderna, Richard Hatchett, Robert Redfield, vaccine development, WHO 27 Comments
(Original Caption) 3/23/1959- Worcester Park, Surrey, England: Hep cat. A real live kitten on the keys, this music-loving feline lends vocal accompaniment to his mistress in Worcester Park, England. As Marion Holland 15, plays the piano “Money” the cat joins in the singing. Some people might consider it mere “cat-erwauling,” not Marion thinks it’s really the cat’s meow.
Good Morning!!
After Trump’s disgraceful performance at the CDC yesterday, along with the pathetic sicophancy of the CDC director Robert Redfield, I’m beginning to get really frightened about growing spread coronavirus here in the U.S. Please watch this video of Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
Now take a look at how the Trump administration is responding to the crisis. First, the CDC Director sucking up to the idiot in chief.
I know it’s hard to watch Trump, but please do watch these clips. He is getting more dangerous.
He is treating an epidemic like he did the Russia investigation–lying and covering up. He couldn’t care less how many people get sick and die; he just wants to keep the numbers down so he doesn’t look bad. He doesn’t seem to understand that this won’t work with a public health crisis.
This is quite literally insane, and yet the people around Trump are afraid to correct him or ask him to step back and let the experts handle the situation.
Retired General Barry McCaffrey doesn’t mince words.
Phillip Bump at The Washington Post: Which is Trump more worried about: Coronavirus numbers or coronavirus patients?
A comment President Trump made during his visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday brought into focus a unifying theory of his administration’s fumbling response to the growing spread of the coronavirus.
He was asked if passengers on a cruise ship anchored near San Francisco, some of whom have been exposed to the virus, should be brought ashore.
A cat sitting in a field in September 1918
“From my standpoint, I want to rely on people. I have great experts, including our vice president who is working 24 hours a day on this stuff. They would like to have the people come off,” he said, wearing a baseball cap promoting his reelection campaign. “I’d rather have the people stay, but I’d go with them. I told them to make the final decision.”
“I would rather because I like the numbers being where they are,” Trump continued. “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault. And it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship either, okay? It wasn’t their fault either and they’re mostly Americans. So, I can live either way with it. I’d rather have them stay on, personally.”
Trump can live with patients with coronavirus staying on a cruise ship with uninfected passengers. Whether those patients or future patients can live with that decision is entirely the point.
David Nakamura at The Washington Post: ‘Maybe I have a natural ability’: Trump plays medical expert on coronavirus by second-guessing the professionals.
President Trump likes to say that he fell into politics almost by accident, and on Friday, as he sought to calm a nation gripped with fears over coronavirus, he suggested he would have thrived in another profession — medical expert.
“I like this stuff. I really get it,” Trump boasted to reporters during a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he met with actual doctors and scientists who are feverishly scrambling to contain and combat the deadly illness. Citing a “great, super-genius uncle” who taught at MIT, Trump professed that it must run in the family genes.
This cat’s name was Whisky, and he was the “pet and mascot of HMS Duke of York,” a Royal Navy vessel from the late 1930s.
“People are really surprised I understand this stuff,” he said. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.” [….]
Sporting his trademark red 2020 campaign hat with the slogan “Keep America Great,” the president repeatedly second-guessed and waved off the actual medical professionals standing next to him. He attacked his Democratic rivals — including calling Washington Gov. Jay Inslee a “snake” for criticizing his response — and chided a CNN reporter for smiling and called her network “fake news.”
And he described coronavirus testing kits — which his administration has been criticized for being slow to distribute — as “beautiful” and said they were as “perfect” as his Ukraine phone call last summer that led him to be impeached.
Read the rest at the WaPo.
Trump appears very worried about the U.S. economy, but he thinks he knows better than the experts about that too. John Harwood at CNN: Trump waves off economists’ prescriptions for preventing US coronavirus slowdown.
President Donald Trump sent a message Friday to anyone expecting major economic aid to head off a coronavirus recession: Don’t hold your breath.
From the book Sam by Edward Quigley (photographs) and John Crawford (text) • 1937
With financial markets reeling, some economists back direct bailouts for affected workers and businesses to prevent a contraction of the already-slowing American economy. But as he signed the $8.3-billion emergency coronavirus spending bill passed by Congress — more than triple the amount the White House had requested — Trump waved off the idea of a new fiscal stimulus to protect America’s record-breaking economic expansion, again calling on the Federal Reserve to use its monetary policy tools.
“The Fed should cut and the Fed should stimulate,” Trump told me before leaving the White House to tour tornado damage in Tennessee. And he evinced little concern about the chance of recession anytime soon, declaring, “I think we’re in great shape.”
The President’s characteristically upbeat assessment does not match the darkening mood among business analysts as the coronavirus crisis deepens in the US and around the world. Mark Zandi, an economist with Moody’s Analytics, now pegs the odds of recession this year at 50%.
Economic stimulus is going to be needed, but Trump thinks he knows better.
Offsetting the coronavirus threat would require a package in the range of $100 billion, Swonk says — comparable to what President George W. Bush and Congress enacted to combat the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Jason Furman, President Barack Obama’s former top economic adviser, has called for a $350 billion stimulus that would send $1,000 to every taxpaying US resident and $500 to each of their children.
The feline mascot of the Australian light cruiser HMAS Encounter peering from the muzzle of a six-inch gun, sometime during World War I
Yet comments by Trump and his top economic aide made clear the White House does not currently back anything close to that scale.
“We’re not looking at these massive, federal, throw-money-at-people plans,” National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow told reporters. “We are looking at timely and targeted (efforts) where we can do the most good.”
With airlines already suffering from canceled flights, Kudlow cited “micro forms of assistance” that could help sectors including transportation, manufacturing, farming and small businesses. He offered no details.
What we need most of all is widespread testing, but the Trump administration doesn’t seem interested in letting that happen. It looks like they are just going to try to keep gaslighting us.
The New York Times: With Test Kits in Short Supply, Health Officials Sound Alarms.
President Trump claimed again on Friday that anyone who needed a coronavirus test “gets a test.” But from Washington State to Florida to New York, doctors and patients are clamoring for tests that they say are in woefully short supply, and their frustration is mounting alongside the growing number of cases around the country.
In California, where thousands are being monitored for the virus, only 516 tests had been conducted by the state as of Thursday. Washington health officials have more cases than they can currently process. And in New York, where cases have quadrupled this week, a New York City official pleaded for more test kits from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Woman holding young cat, likely 1920s
“The slow federal action on this matter has impeded our ability to beat back this epidemic,” the official said in a letter Friday.
More than 300 cases have been confirmed, at least 17 have died, and thousands are in self-quarantine. Public health officials are warning that no one knows how deeply the virus will spread, in part because the federal government’s flawed rollout of tests three weeks ago has snowballed into an embarrassing fiasco of national proportions.
The latest two deaths were announced late Friday night in Florida, marking the first time fatal cases were not on the West Coast.
In the last week, Mr. Trump and his top officials repeatedly promised that 1 million to 1.5 million tests would be sent around the country, even though labs — government and private ones alike — have struggled to get the tests running amid a growing number of infections and rising demand for tests. Despite an order Wednesday by the C.D.C. to greatly expand criteria for who can be tested, many hospitals and state health authorities continued to limit tests to those at the highest risk for infection, adding to the confusion and frustration, especially in hot spots like California and Washington.
Politico: How testing failures allowed coronavirus to sweep the U.S.
On Saturday Jan. 11 — a month and a half before the first Covid-19 case not linked to travel was diagnosed in the United States — Chinese scientists posted the genome of the mysterious new virus, and within a week virologists in Berlin had produced the first diagnostic test for the disease.
Hulda Lundager, daughter of photographer Jens Hansen Lundager
Soon after, researchers in other nations rolled out their own tests, too, sometimes with different genetic targets. By the end of February, the World Health Organization had shipped tests to nearly 60 countries.
The United States was not among them.
Why the United States declined to use the WHO test, even temporarily as a bridge until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could produce its own test, remains a perplexing question and the key to the Trump administration’s failure to provide enough tests to identify the coronavirus infections before they could be passed on, according to POLITICO interviews with dozens of viral-disease experts, former officials and some officials within the administration’s health agencies.
The slowness of the testing regimen — which, administration officials acknowledged this week, is still not producing enough tests to meet the national demand — was the first, and most sweeping, of many failures. So far there have been confirmed cases in at least 23 states, and at least 15 deaths, while the stock market plunged and an otherwise healthy economy braced for a major disruption.
But neither the CDC nor the coronavirus task force chaired by Vice President Mike Pence would say who made the decision to forgo the WHO test and instead begin a protracted process of producing an American test, one that got delayed by manufacturing problems, possible lab contamination and logistical delays.
A cat perched on a radio, photo by Sam Hood
I’ll end with this long piece at the Financial Times on the efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine: Coronavirus and the $2bn race to find a vaccine.
Juan Andres woke up three times during the night after putting his precious vials of vaccine on the back of a delivery lorry. In late February, Moderna, a biotech group based outside Boston, smashed the record for the fastest time between identifying a virus — in this case Covid-19 coronavirus — and creating a vaccine ready to test in humans: just 42 days.
In the lab, the team had been excited but in the early hours Mr Andres, a 30-year pharma veteran in charge of manufacturing, was nervously checking his phone to track the lorry carrying the potential vaccine to a discreet location. There the US National Institutes of Health would start the trial to test whether it works.
“The pride comes from this [being] a race,” he says. “Doing this as fast as possible is something that is a duty.” Once they were sure the vaccine had arrived safely, the team celebrated with ice cream. At least 100 Moderna staff worked on the project but Mr Andres says everyone is excited to be involved, even people’s families. “I can’t remember the last time my 15-year-old thought I did something cool,” he laughs.
Moderna is one of more than 20 companies and public sector organisations worldwide racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, which in little more than two months has exploded from a few people suffering from respiratory disease in the Chinese city of Wuhan to a near-pandemic with 95,000 cases and 3,300 deaths worldwide so far….
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations [see the first video in this post] — a partnership of governments, industry and charities, created three years ago to fight emerging diseases that threaten global health — is already sponsoring four Covid-19 vaccine projects, including Moderna’s. It is also on the point of signing contracts for four more, says Richard Hatchett, CEPI chief executive. He estimates that developing Covid-19 vaccines at the speed required will cost about $2bn over the next 12-18 months.
Moderna is off to the fastest start, Dr Hatchett believes, but several others are close behind. “We received 48 applications from all over the world following our call for proposals in February,” he adds. “There is a real sense of urgency . . . because the threat we are facing is unprecedented in the last 100 years in terms of its speed and potential severity,” he says, referring to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
That’s it for me. Sorry I’m so obsessed with coronavirus. Feel free to discuss any other topic in the comments! This is an open thread.
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