Tracker

CNN’s Sanjay Gupta found himself shocked after watching President Donald Trump try to correct Dr. Anthony Fauci about potential coronavirus treatments. Shortly after the president’s press conference ended, CNN host John King highlighted Fauci shooting down the idea of using an antimalarial drug to treat the virus. “The information that you’re referring to [regarding the drug] is anecdotal,” Fauci said. “It was not done in a controlled clinical trial, so you really can’t make any definitive statement about it.” He then showed a clip of Trump undercutting his own administration’s top medical expert. “What the doctor said is 100 percent correct, it is early,” the president began, but then added, “I have seen things that are impressive, we’ll see, we’ll know soon.” King then brought on Gupta to ask for his reaction — and he didn’t hold back. “I’ve never seen anything like it, John,” he said. “That was incredible to see this back-and-forth. First of all, the president said that this drug was approved for coronavirus yesterday, it is not. He said there’s a lot of evidence to show how promising it is, there is a one 20-person study out of France that Dr. Tony Fauci described as ‘anecdotal.’”

The Trump administration has instructed state labor officials to not release unemployment numbers, in a clear effort to minimize the severity of the impact the coronavirus pandemic is having on the markets. The New York Times reports the U.S. Dept. of Labor “instructed state officials to only ‘provide information using generalities to describe claims levels (very high, large increase)’ until the department releases the total number of national claims next Thursday.” Gay Gilbert, the administrator of the department’s Office of Employment Insurance in an email instructed: “States should not provide numeric values to the public,” The Times notes. The U.S. Secretary of Labor is headed by Eugene Scalia (photo), who happens to be the son of the late Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia.

During remarks at the White House on Thursday about the ongoing coronavirus crisis, a keen photographer for the Washington Post captured a revealing glimpse of President Donald Trump’s notes. The photo showed that, despite the fact that whoever typed up the comments Trump was to read had written the phrase “Corona Virus,” the word “Corona” had been crossed out and replaced by the word “Chinese.” Jabin Botsford posted the image on Twitter: The note appeared to be in a sharpie and written in Trump’s characteristic all-caps handwriting.

Cheeky.

Secret recording reveals top GOP senator privately warned of deadly coronavirus weeks ago — even as he kept the public in the dark Image via Screengrab. Written by Alex Henderson March 19, 2020 Three weeks ago in late February, right-wing media — from radio host Rush Limbaugh to Fox News and Fox Business — was full of Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump insisting that the mainstream media were exaggerating the threat of coronavirus in order to harm Donald Trump’s presidency (Fox, like Trump, has since shifted its tone). But it was also three weeks ago, on February 27, that Sen. Richard Burr, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, was privately warning about how dangerous coronavirus was. And National Public Radio (NPR) has obtained a recording of Burr’s disturbing assertions. According to NPR’s Tim Mak, Burr addressed the COVID-19 threat at a private luncheon organized by a North Carolina group called the Tarheel Circle. And Burr, in the recording, is heard warning that coronavirus is “much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we’ve seen in recent history. It’s probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.” Burr’s comments, according to NPR, “raise questions” about why that private audience was getting a “a more frank assessment than the general public” was getting at the time. The recording, Mak noted during a March 19 appearance on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” was provided by “an attendee who became alarmed about Burr’s dire warnings” and “began to record.” Mak explained, “Sen. Burr warned well in advance that the coronavirus could be very destructive. A lot of the things he warned about have actually come to pass: 13 days before the State Department began to warn against travel to Europe and 15 days before the Trump Administration banned European travelers to the U.S., Burr warned those in that room to reconsider.” In the recording, Burr is heard saying, “Every company should be cognizant of the fact that you may have to alter your travel. You may have to look at your employees and judge whether the trip they are making to Europe is essential or whether it can be done on video conferencing. Why risk it?” In other words, Burr was giving the Tarheel Circle crowd the type of warning that Democrats and health officials were offering at the time — only to be demonized for it by Limbaugh and many of the far-right pundits at Fox News. “Morning Edition” said that it wanted to “be careful” about the “timing” of Burr’s Tarheel Circle remarks. Asked what Burr was saying publicly at the time, Mak replied, “Nowhere in press statements or other remarks did Sen. Burr provide warnings about how bad he worried the coronavirus crisis would become. I think what’s interesting about this story is that Burr was providing a stark assessment about coronavirus to a small audience of constituents — which as an elected official, he never told the general public. This story raises questions about whether Burr was truly frank with the public about how bad the coming weeks might be, in his opinion.” Mak added, “His comments at the luncheon contradicted the president’s then-rosy outlook. That same date, here’s what the president said about the coronavirus”: Burr, Mak noted, has considerable knowledge on biohazards and pandemics — yet when it came to coronavirus, Burr “didn’t speak out about his assessment” publicly in late February.

Or from Russia or the USA, either.

Did they charge you extra for the additional protein?

He should go into the restaurant business, just not right now.

Not hard to see that this was sarcasm.

You had to know this was coming.......

The GOP (and Faux News) has been instructed to refer to the COVID19 as the "Chinese virus" as often as possible to throw red meat to Trump's base. BTW: Elizabeth Warren has proposed some stunningly effective and rational conditions for any business receiving federal moneys to offset the impact of the pandemic.

Just to demonstrate that I am not one of those panic-buyers of toilet paper, I picked up just one roll today......

But does Damian have a good voice? For you know....his swann song if he gets cut?

And Trump has said that each state should look after getting their own medical supplies. Actually, considering how utterly incompetent he and his administration have been, this is not completely bad advice. Big of him to admit his uselessness,

This will be a great loss to our economy and culture. Where are we going to get shoddy goods now? The Dollar store?

So at least now we know where he was getting his misleading information from. Jared Kushner repeatedly advised President Donald Trump that the media’s coverage was exaggerating the severity of the coronavirus outbreak, according to a report from The New York Times. In the early days of the outbreak, Trump downplayed the threat from the virus, and publicly accused the “Fake News Media” and Democrats of trying “to inflame” the situation. The Times reports that Kushner, who was tasked with carrying out research into the coronavirus to help Trump decide what to do next, privately told Trump what the president then repeated publicly. Kushner has reportedly sought out a bigger role for himself in the coronavirus task force despite his lack of knowledge on the topic. He is said to have urged his father-in-law to go ahead with his European travel ban and declare a national emergency, both of which were announced last week.

Or frequent your nearest McDonald's or Timmy's.

On CNN this afternoon, Trump said that he was consulting with his son (not kidding) on this crisis.

Just came back from Costco. Asked the cashier if there was any more toilet paper. Without even raising her eyes to look at me she yelled out, “NO!” Man I felt awkward having to hobble back to the washroom with my pants down to my ankles. For any of you who might be running low on toilet paper, Princess Auto has a sale on 10 lbs. of shop rags for $5.55 starting tomorrow!

A negative hypothesis cannot be proven.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took dramatic action on Monday to close down travel to his country in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. “We will be denying entry to Canada from people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents,” he said at a press conference Monday afternoon. “This measure will carve out some designated exceptions, including for aircrews, diplomats, immediate family members of Canadian citizens, and — at this time — U.S. citizens.” It was not clear immediately why Americans were exempted from the broader ban. The move was an even more extreme measure than the policy announced by President Donald Trump last week, which banned travel to the United States from countries in continental Europe. But unlike Trump, Trudeau did not completely bungle the announcement, making it clear that there were significant exceptions to the policy and sending no indications that it would restrict trade and cargo.