First there was the coronavirus. Then came &#8220;murder&#8221; hornets. And now here come the cannibal rats.
With major cities becoming ghost towns amid fears of COVID-19, rat populations are surging. But with restaurants closed and city garbage cans mostly empty, some rats are turning to eating &#8230; each other.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently put out a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/rodents.html">warning</a> about “unusual or aggressive” behavior in rats.
&#8220;Jurisdictions have closed or limited service at restaurants and other commercial establishments to help limit the spread of COVID-19. Rodents rely on the food and waste generated by these establishments. Community-wide closures have led to a decrease in food available to rodents, especially in dense commercial areas. Some jurisdictions have reported an increase in rodent activity as rodents search for new sources of food. Environmental health and rodent control programs may see an increase in service requests related to rodents and reports of unusual or aggressive rodent behavior,&#8221; the CDC said.
The U.S. health agency also said rats have been observed resorting to eating their young in the wake of urban shutdowns.
“The rats are not becoming aggressive toward people, but toward each other,” Bobby Corrigan, an urban rodentologist, told The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/24/us/cdc-coronavirus-rats.html">New York Times</a> on Sunday. “They’re simply turning on each other.”
“They are going to war with each other, eating each other’s young in some populations and battling each other for the food they can find,” Corrigan said. “But the rats that live and eat in residential blocks probably haven’t noticed a single bit of difference during the shutdown.”
In case you haven’t heard, Asian giant hornets, or, more scientifically, Vespa mandarinia — but also known as “murder hornets” — have arrived in America.
“It’s a shockingly large hornet,” Todd Murray, a specialist in invasive species at Washington State University (WSU), told <a href="https://www.insider.com/murder-hornet-insect-capable-of-killing-humans-colonizing-us-2020-5">CBS News</a>, which added “while generally not aggressive towards people or pets, the hornets can attack if provoked, officials say, and have killed humans in extreme circumstances.”
The two-inch-long hornets started showing up in Washington state in December, and there are fears that the insects will spread across the country. The hornets kill upwards of 50 people in China and Japan each year, and they also attack honeybees, which pollinate the fruits and vegetables we eat.
Scientists fear the hornets, like the stink bugs that emerged in the U.S. several years ago, will eventually sweep the nation.
Meanwhile, wild animals are reportedly roving all over the country amid the empty cities and locked down suburbs.
“Animals have started taking advantage of cities as they enter lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. From New Delhi, India, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, groups of animals including deer and lemurs have started to come out to explore — in search of food or just to play,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2020/apr/22/animals-roaming-streets-coronavirus-lockdown-photos">The Guardian</a> wrote.
“Pigs Are Taking Over the Streets of Paris,” said another <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCoB0xlkxVs">headline</a>.
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black rat

Forget The Murder Hornets. Beware The Cannibal Rats.

Coronavirus

The Centers for Disease Control has provided updated <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/rodents.html">guidance</a> on rodent control, and the latest version cautions that environmental management programs and pest control services may receive reports of  “unusual or aggressive rodent behavior&#8221; amidst pandemic-related closures.
The new guidance, which has been updated to reflect pandemic closures, warns that rats may be missing out on restaurant scraps and commercial business garbage, causing them to scatter off to new places in search of food.
“Rodents rely on the food and waste generated by these establishments. Community-wide closures have led to a decrease in food available to rodents, especially in dense commercial areas,” said the CDC guidance. “Some jurisdictions have reported an increase in rodent activity as rodents search for new sources of food. Environmental health and rodent control programs may see an increase in service requests related to rodents and reports of unusual or aggressive rodent behavior.”
Bobby Corrigan, an urban rodentologist and consultant, told <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/starving-angry-cannibalistic-america-s-rats-are-getting-desperate-amid-n1180611">NBC News</a> last month that when rodents face food shortages, they may declare war on other rodent colonies or start to cannibalize each other.
“It&#8217;s just like we&#8217;ve seen in the history of mankind, where people try to take over lands and they come in with militaries and armies and fight to the death, literally, for who&#8217;s going to conquer that land. And that&#8217;s what happens with rats,&#8221; said Corrigan. &#8220;A new &#8216;army&#8217; of rats come in, and whichever army has the strongest rats is going to conquer that area.&#8221;
&#8220;They&#8217;re mammals just like you and I, and so when you&#8217;re really, really hungry, you&#8217;re not going to act the same — you&#8217;re going to act very bad, usually,&#8221; said Corrigan, who also mentioned that rats are designed to find “food molecules like heat-seeking missiles.”
Inside Edition recently published a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO4pNuiFJhc">video</a> report showing rodents, “emboldened like never before,” swarming a trashcan in front of a restaurant in New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio told the public only the week before that the rodent problem in the city would not become worse, purportedly in response to rats problems in that same location, reports the news agency.
“As New Yorkers, unfortunately, we know way too much about rats. And we are certainly not going to ever let it get to be a worse situation. We’re going to fight it back,” the mayor told reporters in a press conference.
Inside Edition notes in response: “But our camera found they’re still here, and they’ve brought reinforcements, swarming all over this trash can.”
To reduce the likelihood of coming into contact with rodent-borne diseases, the CDC recommends taking preventative measures, such as “sealing up access into homes and businesses, removing debris and heavy vegetation, keeping garbage in tightly covered bins, and removing pet and bird food from their yards.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Rats on a Subway Platform in New York City

CDC Warns Of ‘Aggressive’ Rats In Lockdown-Linked Rodent Control Guidance

COVID-19

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Robert Redfield said Wednesday that he supports reopening the country and that he believes states are &#8220;ready&#8221; to return to more normal operations, albeit with some key changes, including social distancing and contact tracing.
<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/coronavirus-report/498668-cdc-director-says-us-ready-to-reopen-predicts-thousands-more">Speaking to The Hill</a>, Redfield said that states are making significant strides in bringing down the number of coronavirus cases, and the drop, from March and April when cases peaked, is noticeable &#8212; and something to celebrate.
&#8220;I want to clarify that the community-based transmission, the community-to-community transmission that overwhelmed the public health departments in late February, March, April, that&#8217;s really coming down,&#8221; Redfield said.
He added that &#8220;the CDC is working with state public health agencies to contain outbreaks in nursing homes, among homeless populations, in meatpacking facilities and in other areas. He signaled states will have sufficient testing and contact tracing to follow the White House&#8217;s guidelines for reopening.&#8221;
The CDC is heavily focused on &#8220;contact tracing,&#8221; which involves using data, available through cell phone applications (most of which is provided voluntarily to apps like Facebook), and voluntary connections with individual Americans, to track individuals who test positive for the virus and track their movements, warning those who might have come into contact with coronavirus carriers that they could be in danger of contracting the virus.
The CDC has its own team of contact tracers, but Redfield says the agency is working with state health departments to help them train their own teams, as well.
&#8220;Ultimately, that number [of contact tracers] is going to be decided by the efforts that we have with the local health departments,&#8221; Redfield told The Hill. &#8220;But that&#8217;s ongoing now, and it needs to be in place, operationally ready by October of this year.&#8221;
Redfield stressed that even as coronavirus infections wane, health care officials should be on the offensive, prepared for a possible second wave either or or in addition to an upcoming flu season. He also implored state health departments to improve their guidelines for handling further coronavirus outbreaks, including isolated outbreaks in nursing homes and other residential care facilities.
The CDC was only briefly in the lead of the United States&#8217; coronavirus pandemic response; the issue quickly gave way to a full-government response that spanned agencies and involved its own team of experts. Now that the White House is more focused on the economic implications of the virus, much of the day-to-day pandemic management is falling back on the CDC&#8217;s shoulders.
On Thursday, the CDC released several documents, including updated guidelines for schools, child care centers, restaurants, bars, and subways on how to return to &#8220;normal&#8221; after coronavirus-related lockdowns are lifted. Last week, the agency released a guide on how businesses could disinfect public spaces efficiently and effectively.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Dr. Robert Redfield

CDC Director: Actually, The Country Is Ready To Reopen

Robert Redfield

As we continue through the fifth month of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its guidance on how COVID-19 spreads, saying it “does not spread easily” over contaminated surfaces.
The Blaze <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/cdc-updates-guidance-contaminated-surfaces">reported</a> that the CDC guidance has changed in a “subtle” way, but it is still of interest. “The disease has always been thought to spread mainly through person-to-person contact by respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks. But up until recently, the CDC maintained that the virus could also spread through contact with contaminated surfaces,” the outlet reported.
The guidance <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html">now says</a> &#8220;the virus spreads easily between people&#8221; but &#8220;does not spread easily in other ways.&#8221; The guidance also says: &#8220;It may be possible for COVID-19 to spread in other ways, but these are not thought to be the main ways the virus spreads.&#8221;
This is a slight difference from previous guidance, which Yahoo News <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/cdc-coronavirus-mainly-spreads-through-persontoperson-contact-and-does-not-spread-easily-on-contaminated-surfaces-153317029.html?ncid=facebook_yahoonewsf_akfmevaatca">reported</a> as saying the virus spreading in other ways “may be possible” without the disclaimer noting it is not the main way for the virus to spread.
More from The Blaze:
<blockquote>Much of the thinking on the virus&#8217; spread through contaminated surfaces stemmed from a <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973">New England Journal of Medicine study</a> in March that found the virus could survive in the air for hours and on certain surfaces for days. In the study, the virus was detected up to four hours later on copper, up to one day later on cardboard, and up to three days later on plastic and stainless steel.
Though the study never purported to say that people who touched those surfaces could become infected, guidance on the matter advised caution.
In April, when the Food and Drug Administration announced that customers don&#8217;t need to worry about contracting the virus from grocery packaging, <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/fda-says-no-need-to-wipe-down-groceries-experts-disagree">CDC guidance expressed caution</a>, citing the study.</blockquote>
Yahoo reported that the change wasn’t based on any new study, but epidemiological data.
&#8220;Based on the epidemiology, we know that the main way this virus is infecting people is from direct contact with other infected people,&#8221; Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told the outlet. &#8220;Contaminated surfaces play some role, but it&#8217;s likely much smaller.&#8221;
&#8220;This is a respiratory virus, and respiratory viruses largely spread through breathing in infected respiratory droplets,&#8221; Dr. Adalja added.
As with any information about the coronavirus, this shouldn’t be taken to mean people shouldn’t take caution when touching surfaces. The virus may still be present and they can still contract it, so take necessary precautions and use common sense.
&#8220;It might be possible to become infected after touching a surface that has the virus, then touching one&#8217;s face,&#8221; Dr. Richard Watkins, an infections disease physician at Northeast Ohio Medical University, told Yahoo. &#8220;That is why handwashing and avoiding touching one&#8217;s face are important. However, this isn&#8217;t the main way the virus is spread.&#8221;
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Spraying disinfectant

CDC Revises Guidance, Says Coronavirus ‘Does Not Spread Easily’ Over Contaminated Surfaces

On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that measles outbreaks could occur in the United States because routine vaccinations for young children in the U.S. have dropped since the beginning of 2020. The CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6920e1.htm?s_cid=mm6920e1_x">wrote</a>, &#8220;The observed declines in vaccination coverage might leave young children and communities vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles. If measles vaccination coverage of 90%–95% (the level needed to establish herd immunity) is not achieved, measles outbreaks can occur. Concerted efforts are needed to ensure rapid catch-up for children who are not up-to-date with measles-containing vaccines as well as other ACIP-recommended vaccinations.&#8221;
The CDC continued, “As the nation continues efforts to mitigate transmission of SARS-CoV-2, disruption of essential health services might occur, including in outpatient settings. Many provider offices have transitioned to telemedicine practices, where possible, to provide continuity of care in the medical home.”
“The CDC analyzed immunization data from Michigan, which implemented a stay-at-home order intended to curb the spread of the virus on March 23. The vaccination status of babies and toddlers at 1, 3, 5, 7, 16, 19 and 24 months old was assessed, with each group including an average sample size of 9,269 for the study period from 2016 through 2019, and 9,539 for 2020,” <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/18/coronavirus-cdc-warns-of-possible-measles-outbreak-as-vaccinations-for-children-fall-during-pandemic.html?__source=Facebook">CNBC</a> reported.
The CDC reported:
<blockquote>Vaccination coverage declined in all milestone age cohorts, except for birth-dose hepatitis B coverage, which is typically administered in the hospital setting. Among children aged 5 months, up-to-date status for all recommended vaccines declined from approximately two thirds of children during 2016–2019 (66.6%, 67.4%, 67.3%, 67.9%, respectively) to fewer than half (49.7%) in May 2020. For the 16-month age cohort, coverage with all recommended vaccines declined, with measles-containing vaccination coverage decreasing from 76.1% in May 2019 to 70.9% in May 2020.
In addition to a decline in up-to-date status in almost all age cohorts, the number of noninfluenza vaccine doses administered and reported for children aged ≤18 years decreased 21.5%, and the number of doses administered to children aged ≤24 months decreased 15.5% during January–April 2020, compared with the same averaged periods in 2018 and 2019.</blockquote>
The CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html">has reported</a> of how measles was eliminated in the United States by 2000:
<blockquote>In 1978, CDC set a goal to eliminate measles from the United States by 1982. Although this goal was not met, widespread use of measles vaccine drastically reduced the disease rates. By 1981, the number of reported measles cases was 80% less compared with the previous year. However, a 1989 measles outbreaks among vaccinated school-aged children prompted the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) to recommend a second dose of MMR vaccine for all children.
Following widespread implementation of this recommendation and improvements in first-dose MMR vaccine coverage, reported measles cases declined even more. Measles was declared eliminated (absence of continuous disease transmission for greater than 12 months) from the United States in 2000.</blockquote>
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Large Outbreak Of Measles Reported In California

CDC Warns Measles Outbreak Could Occur Because Vaccinations Have Declined in 2020

Measles

Dr. Deborah Birx has become one of the most familiar faces amid the pandemic sweeping the U.S., serving as the Coronavirus Response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
But it turns out she&#8217;s not a huge fan of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least according to one report.
&#8220;During a task force meeting Wednesday, a heated discussion broke out between Deborah Birx, the physician who oversees the administration’s coronavirus response, and Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,&#8221; The <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-deaths-mount-trump-tries-to-convince-americans-it-s-safe-to-inch-back-to-normal/ar-BB13QL8U">Washington Post</a> reported over the weekend.
&#8220;Birx and others were frustrated with the CDC’s antiquated system for tracking virus data, which they worried was inflating some statistics — such as mortality rate and case count — by as much as 25 percent, according to four people present for the discussion or later briefed on it. Two senior administration officials said the discussion was not heated.
&#8220;&#8216;There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust,&#8217; Birx said, according to two of the people.&#8221;
The conflict came shortly after an internal government model, based on data from the CDC and other agencies, projected the daily death count would rise to 3,000 by June 1. Birx has taken issue with that projection, saying in a statement to The Post: “Mortality is slowly declining each day. To keep with this trend, it is essential that seniors and those with comorbidities shelter in place and that we continue to protect vulnerable communities.”
She&#8217;s right, at least according to <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/">Worldometers.info</a>. A graph on the website shows the death rate since May 6, when the daily deaths hit 2,528. On May 7, there were 2,129 deaths; on May 8, 1,687; on May 9, 1,422; and on May 10, just 750.
Birx&#8217;s criticism came after the CDC widened its criteria for what constitutes a &#8220;coronavirus&#8221; death.
&#8220;If COVID–19 played a role in the death, this condition should be specified on the death certificate. In many cases, it is likely that it will be the [underlying cause of death], as it can lead to various life-threatening conditions, such as pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS),&#8221; <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf">CDC guidelines</a> from last month said.
&#8220;In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a death certificate as &#8216;probable&#8217; or &#8216;presumed.&#8217; In these instances, certifiers should use their best clinical judgement in determining if a COVID–19 infection was likely. However, please note that testing for COVID–19 should be conducted whenever possible,&#8221; said the CDC.
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Members Of The Coronavirus Task Force Hold Press Briefing

Dr. Birx: ‘Nothing From CDC I Can Trust’

Dr. Deborah Birx

Dr. Jeremy Samuel Faust, an emergency medicine physician and instructor at Harvard Medical School, has published a blog post on <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/">Scientific American</a> calling on the Center for Disease Control to change the way it reports flu deaths, suggesting that those figures may be misleading the public about the lethality of the coronavirus. 
Dr. Faust draws attention to the figures many people associate with flu deaths, noting that they are calculated in a different way than coronavirus deaths, and as such, comparing the death rates from the two is like “comparing apples to oranges.”
As Dr. Faust points out, the CDC determines a range of flu deaths by creating an algorithm that accounts for a variety of factors including total reported deaths, estimated cases, hospitalizations, and total presumed unreported deaths, among others. 
<blockquote>In the last six flu seasons, the CDC’s reported number of actual confirmed flu deaths—that is, counting flu deaths the way we are currently counting deaths from the coronavirus—has ranged from 3,448 to 15,620, which far lower than the numbers commonly repeated by public officials and even public health experts.</blockquote>
For example, the preliminary CDC estimate for total flu deaths in the 2017-2018 season, the most deadly flu season in the last several years, has been modeled at about 61,000 deaths. In addition to this figure, the center has also published an <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm">estimated death range</a> between 46,404 and 94,987. 
But while the preliminary estimate for flu deaths is 61,000 in the 2017-2018 season, the total number of <a href="https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html">confirmed flu deaths</a> is 15,620. Between January 13 and January 20, 2018 — the deadliest week of the deadliest flu season in the last several years — there were 1,626 confirmed flu deaths. 
The Washington Post, which has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/02/theres-more-accurate-way-compare-coronavirus-deaths-flu/">also reported</a> on Dr. Faust’s blog post, notes that the flu season mortality estimate comes from a “model that attempts to adjust for what many epidemiologists believe is a severe undercount” in flu deaths. 
Of the flu death figures, Dr. Faust writes: 
<blockquote>The CDC should immediately change how it reports flu deaths. While in the past it was justifiable to err on the side of substantially overestimating flu deaths, in order to encourage vaccination and good hygiene, at this point the CDC’s reporting about flu deaths is dangerously misleading the public and even public officials about the comparison between these two viruses. If we incorrectly conclude that COVID-19 is ‘just another flu,’ we may retreat from strategies that appear to be working in minimizing the speed of spread of the virus.</blockquote>
The CDC’s <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm">provisional coronavirus</a> death count, which is updated as death certificate data becomes available, shows that 12,516 people died from coronavirus between April 4 and April 11. The following week, 10,478 people died from the coronavirus. 
According to the provisional death count, which is an average of 1-2 weeks behind, 38,576 people have died as of May 4. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html">The New York Times</a>, 68,672 people in the United States have died from coronavirus. As of April 29, this figure includes 5,600 deaths that public health officials have identified as probable coronavirus cases. 
The news agency notes that “most states and counties only report figures in which a coronavirus infection was confirmed through testing.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Boston Medical Center Has Many Coronavirus Cases

Flu Death Figures From CDC ‘Dangerously Misleading The Public,’ Says Emergency Medicine Physician

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday updated their coronavirus tracking numbers, leading to confusion on social media about two websites within the organization that show vastly different death tolls.
The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm">website</a> for the coronavirus lists the total deaths from COVID-19 – the disease caused by the virus – as 37,308 in the United States. That’s a much lower number than what has been reported in the media or by other coronavirus trackers. For example, the Johns Hopkins University <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html">coronavirus tracker</a>, lists the number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. at 65,645.
Even more confusing, a separate CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html">website</a> – dedicated exclusively to the novel coronavirus – lists the total COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. as 64,283. The NCHS website was updated on May 1, while the CDC’s coronavirus-specific website says it was updated on May 2.
The discrepancy seems to be an issue of how the data relating to deaths was coded at the state level, that is, what the cause of death on a death certificate says. The NCHS website lists 37,308 total deaths from death certificates listing COVID-19 as the cause, which includes COVID-19 as the presumed cause of death. The CDC gives some explanation why the NCHS data may be different from other reported numbers (emphasis original):
<blockquote>Provisional death counts may not match counts from other sources, such as media reports or numbers from county health departments. Our counts often track 1–2 weeks behind other data for a number of reasons: Death certificates take time to be completed. There are many steps involved in completing and submitting a death certificate. Waiting for test results can create additional delays. States report at different rates. Currently, 63% of all U.S. deaths are reported within 10 days of the date of death, but there is significant variation among jurisdictions. It takes extra time to code COVID-19 deaths. While 80% of deaths are electronically processed and coded by NCHS within minutes, most deaths from COVID-19 must be coded manually, which takes an average of 7 days. Other reporting systems use different definitions or methods for counting deaths.</blockquote>
The CDC’s coronavirus website does not include the same explanation, though it does mention state and local public health officials:
<blockquote>CDC does not know the exact number of COVID-19 illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths for a variety of reasons. COVID-19 can cause mild illness, symptoms might not appear immediately, there are delays in reporting and testing, not everyone who is infected gets tested or seeks medical care, and there may be differences in how states and territories confirm numbers in their jurisdictions.
State and local public health departments are now testing and publicly reporting their cases. In the event of a discrepancy between CDC cases and cases reported by state and local public health officials, data reported by states should be considered the most up to date.</blockquote>
The CDC did not immediately return a Daily Wire request for information about the discrepancy. This post will be updated if and when that information is received.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Two CDC Websites Give Vastly Different Coronavirus Death Tolls

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has added six new possible symptoms to its list for the coronavirus. Previously, the CDC only listed three possible symptoms for the virus – fever, cough, and shortness of breath.
On Sunday, the CDC updated that list to include an additional six symptoms, ABC News <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/coronavirus-live-updates-cdc-adds-symptoms-covid-19/story?id=70351472">reported</a>:
<ul>
<li>Fever</li>
<li>Cough</li>
<li>Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing</li>
<li>Chills</li>
<li>Repeated shaking with chills</li>
<li>Muscle pain</li>
<li>Headache</li>
<li>Sore throat</li>
<li>New loss of taste or smell</li>
</ul>
NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/27/845321155/cdc-adds-6-symptoms-to-its-covid-19-list">reported</a> that the “expanded symptoms list could prove important because with a limited number of test kits available, typically those seeking a test must first show symptoms.” The outlet also reported last month along with others that some patients who had developed COVID-19 reported they lost their sense of taste and smell. Others have reported chills, headache, and muscle pain – all symptoms that now have been added to the CDC’s list.
Symptoms of coronavirus generally appear two to 14 days after one has been exposed to the virus. The CDC still lists “emergency warning signs” as difficulty breathing, pain or pressure in the chest that won’t go away, confusion, and bluish lips or face. If you are showing these symptoms, seek medical attention immediately.
As ABC reported, more than 2.89 million around the world have been diagnosed with COVID-19, which means millions more could have had the virus without showing enough symptoms to warrant testing. The Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html">shows</a> that more than 200,000 people have died from the disease, although we know in the United States these numbers include anyone who died while also having COVID-19, meaning someone who was had the virus but died of a heart attack was still listed as a coronavirus death.
In the U.S., nearly 55,000 people have died while testing positive for the coronavirus, though as ABC noted, the “vast majority of people who become infected will show either no symptoms or only mild ones.”
The coronavirus originated in Wuhan, a province in China, though the Chinese communist government worked to suppress the dangers of the virus and cover up its role in spreading what is now a pandemic. As The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/heres-a-timeline-of-the-coronavirus-outbreak-and-chinas-coverup">reported</a>, China was aware of the coronavirus since mid-November, but continued to act as if nothing was happening. By the end of December, doctors in the country began sounding the alarm about a new disease, but the Chinese government silenced them through detentions. China also ordered a genomics company to stop testing the new virus and destroy all samples. These actions continued through January and the World Health Organization (WHO) was complicit in taking China’s word as the truth. On January 14, the WHO finally admitted that there may have been human-to-human transmission of the virus. After this, China continued to cover up evidence of the virus.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">subscriber</a>.

Man in self isolation

CDC Adds Six New Symptoms For Coronavirus

President Donald Trump on Saturday retweeted a post from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that warns Americans about the dangers of the improper use of disinfectants and household cleaners.
The move came two days after Trump was hammered by the mainstream media for allegedly suggesting the use of disinfectants to stave off the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
“Household cleaners and disinfectants can cause health problems when not used properly,” the CDC wrote in the post, which included a link to the agency&#8217;s general guidelines for using sanitizing and cleaning products. &#8220;Follow the instructions on the product label to ensure safe and effective use.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Household cleaners and disinfectants can cause health problems when not used properly. Follow the instructions on the product label to ensure safe and effective use. Learn more about cleaning and disinfecting your home: <a href="https://t.co/PW0UbW8KeE">https://t.co/PW0UbW8KeE</a>. <a href="https://t.co/rdcR9QJNIR">pic.twitter.com/rdcR9QJNIR</a>
&mdash; CDC (@CDCgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1253742258853199872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
At the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing on Thursday, Bill Bryan, head of the science and technology directorate at the Department of Homeland Security, discussed the findings of the federal government&#8217;s study on how sunlight, humidity, and temperature effect on the coronavirus, as well as disinfectants.
&#8220;We&#8217;re also testing disinfectants readily available. We&#8217;ve tested bleach, we&#8217;ve tested isopropyl alcohol on the virus, specifically in saliva or in respiratory fluids. And I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes; isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds, and that&#8217;s with no manipulation, no rubbing — just spraying it on and letting it go. You rub it and it goes away even faster. We&#8217;re also looking at other disinfectants, specifically looking at the COVID-19 virus in saliva,&#8221; Bryan said.
Trump then talked about discussions he&#8217;s had with Bryan, looking at him as he did so.
&#8220;So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting.&#8221;
Then Bryan discussed disinfectant again. &#8220;We&#8217;re continuing with that. For example, on the aerosol side, you notice the figures were 20 percent humidity. We&#8217;re looking at higher humidity levels. We would expect that would even have a greater impact on the virus. We&#8217;re looking at other types of disinfectants. And — and so we&#8217;re — this is a — as a scientific community, we&#8217;re continuing to study the virus to understand its characteristics.&#8221;
On Friday, Trump was asked to clarify his remarks.
&#8220;I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen. Now disinfectant or doing this maybe on the hands would work. I was asking the question of the gentleman who was there yesterday, Bill [Bryan], because when they say that something will last three to four hours or six hours, but if sun is out, or if they use disinfectant, it goes away in less than a minute. Did you hear about this yesterday?&#8221; he said.
&#8220;When I was asking a sarcastic — a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside, but it does kill it, and it would kill it on the hands and that would make things much better. That was done in the form of a sarcastic question to a reporter,&#8221; Trump said.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a subscriber.

Trump Shares CDC Guidance Warning Against Improper Use Of Household Cleaners

Donald Trump

The capacity to perform early coronavirus testing and detection in the United States was severely hindered by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which released tests that were contaminated during the initial manufacturing process at the centers’ lab.
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/contamination-at-cdc-lab-delayed-rollout-of-coronavirus-tests/2020/04/18/fd7d3824-7139-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html#comments-wrapper">The Washington Post</a>, which first reported on the findings, has concluded that the CDC failed to fix the problem for nearly a month, and didn’t provide enough information for the FDA to determine that the problem was the centers’ failure to follow laboratory procedures, and not a flaw in the test design.
Regulators told the news agency that they have made a similar determination, with the FDA telling the Post in a statement that the “CDC did not manufacture its test consistent with its own protocol.”
The CDC has since outsourced test manufacturing to a private lab, and in a statement said that the agency has since “implemented enhanced quality control to address the issue.”
On January 11, Chinese scientists published the genetic sequence of the coronavirus – without permission from the communist government – allowing countries around the world to begin developing tests, reports <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3052966/chinese-laboratory-first-shared-coronavirus-genome-world-ordered">The South China Morning Post</a>. (China shut down the lab for “rectification” the following day, publicly released the genetic sequence themselves, and later claimed that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.)
But as other countries began to develop tests to detect the virus, the CDC embarked on a journey to develop its own test, one that was more sophisticated than the tests that were ultimately used in other countries, reports The Washington Post.
The tests used in other countries contained two portions, each to identify a separate region of the virus’ structure. On the other hand, the CDC developed a test with a third portion, seemingly with the goal of increasing the confidence in the results.
But the third portion ultimately slowed down the entire project. In interviews with the news agency, scientists and regulators indicated that the bad batch of tests likely experienced cross-contamination at the manufacturing lab, which assembled the tests in places where coronavirus material was handled.
Unknown to the CDC, they sent out the compromised test kits to 26 public health labs across the country, instructing them to perform controlled experiments with purified water. Twenty-four of the labs reported positive results, stemming from the third portion of the test, reports the news agency.
“My question is – where was the adult supervision?” a former CDC lab chief told the news agency, which interviewed more than 30 people. “A competent laboratory would not have that problem. I don’t really understand how the kits got out without detecting a problem.”
Not only did the third portion slow down the process, experts believe it was ultimately unnecessary.
“Either the CDC didn’t know it was a crisis or they should have pulled the plug on that faster,’’ Paul Keim, a geneticist at Northern Arizona University, told the Post. “They didn’t have a test that worked.”
The CDC first publicly acknowledged that there may be an issue with the tests at a press briefing on February 12, reports the news agency.
“We think that the issue at the states can be explained by one reagent that isn’t performing as it should consistently, and that’s why we are remanufacturing that reagent,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, at the press conference.
According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pandemic.html">The New York Times</a>, the CDC planned to perform surveillance testing during mid-February in five major cities, two days after the press conference, but the plans didn’t come to fruition in most places, seemingly due to a lack of testing kits.
“We would be in a far different place,” Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, told the news agency with regard to the lack of early detection efforts.
The CDC continued to conduct tests at its lab in Atlanta, as those were not afflicted with the same manufacturing problem and had been successfully used to identify non-community spread patients.
Furthermore, the agency declined to adopt the tests being used in other countries, in part due to concerns that the other tests had not been approved by federal regulators for use in the United States.
Dr. Anne Schushat, the principal deputy director of the CDC, reportedly later said that the CDC didn’t believe it was necessary to adopt “somebody else’s test.”
According to The Washington Post, complicating the CDC’s manufacturing fiasco, some public labs believed that the tests could be conducted without the third portion, but didn’t, on account that the center’s emergency guidelines prohibited them. Some labs eventually started using the test kits anyway, and promised to confirm the results with additional testing at the CDC.
Ultimately, the FDA couldn&#8217;t determine that the CDC&#8217;s manufacturing process was the problem until the weekend of February 23, nearly a month after the problems with the initial batch of tests were noticed.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/health/cdc-coronavirus-lab-contamination-testing.html">reports</a> that at an undisclosed point in time, Dr. Timothy Stenzel, the official who concluded that the manufacturing process was flawed, allegedly made troubling observations about the CDC.
<blockquote>Early on, the F.D.A., which oversees laboratory tests, sent Dr. Timothy Stenzel, chief of in vitro diagnostics and radiological health, to the C.D.C. labs to assess the problem, several officials said. He found an astonishing lack of expertise in commercial manufacturing and learned that nobody was in charge of the entire process, they said.
Problems ranged from researchers entering and exiting the coronavirus laboratories without changing their coats, to test ingredients being assembled in the same room where researchers were working on positive coronavirus samples, officials said.  Those practices made the tests sent to public health labs unusable because they were contaminated with the coronavirus, and produced some inconclusive results.</blockquote>
The timeline suggests that the CDC’s failure to properly manufacture tests adversely affected how quickly cases of community spread were identified by public labs across the country.
At the time the FDA determined the source of the flaw, the CDC was still operating under highly specific testing guidance and a criteria that didn’t account for the possibility of community spread cases, and instead focused on foreign travelers.
“Patients that have fever, symptoms of lower respiratory infection, requiring hospitalization, and a history of travel from mainland china meet the case definition for testing,” Dr. Messonnier said in a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0221-cdc-telebriefing-covid-19.html">press conference</a> February 21.
“We are regularly looking at the epidemiological situation globally, with our state and local health department partners, evaluating our case definition to make sure it is sensitive and specific enough,” said Dr. Messonnier. “We want to make sure that we’re targeting our efforts appropriately.”
The same weekend the FDA determined the manufacturing process was flawed, and not the design, the CDC authorized <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/news/patient-and-precautions-uc-davis-medical-center/">UC Davis Medical Center</a> to conduct testing on a patient with no known travel history to China.
The medical center had previously requested coronavirus testing from the CDC, shortly after the patient arrived from a separate hospital four days earlier, but said that a test wasn’t immediately administered because the patient didn’t meet the CDC’s criteria.
According to the medical center’s press release, neither the county nor the state were conducting coronavirus tests at the time. It’s unclear why the CDC allowed the patient to be tested for coronavirus at the time that they did.
On February 26, after receiving the positive test results from the CDC, the UC Davis Medical Center announced that they were treating “possibly the first patient to have received the infection from exposure in the community.”
A <a href="https://bedford.io/pdfs/papers/bedford-ncov-cryptic-transmission.pdf">study </a>out of Washington in mid-March has since found that the coronavirus was likely introduced to the state between late January and early February, “before active community surveillance was implemented.”
<blockquote>We demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in Washington State for 4-6 weeks before the first community-acquired case was detected on 28 February, 2020. Refining the time and geographic origin of the introduction into Washington State will require a combination of earlier samples and samples from other geographic locations, including from elsewhere in the United States and from China.</blockquote>

How The CDC Reportedly Botched Early Detection Efforts With Contaminated Tests

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have created a plan to reopen America after the country was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China.
&#8220;CDC and FEMA officials have worked on the public health response for at least the past week, and the resulting document has been discussed at the White House, including by members of the coronavirus task force,&#8221; The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/14/cdc-fema-have-created-plan-reopen-america-heres-what-it-says/">reported</a>. &#8220;The version obtained by The Post appears to be an early draft by FEMA and contains granular instructions for a phased reopening of institutions such as schools, child-care facilities, summer camps, parks, faith-based organizations and restaurants.&#8221;
The <a href="https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/f99f42b3-55c4-4613-9f9c-3ac174f10a4b/note/1a8a55a6-68f9-4b76-8e02-01779290c1a5.#page=1">plan</a> essentially starts now with the goal that communities can start to be reopened on May 1.
A White House official told The Washington Post: “Beneath the bluster of the president saying May 1, and he’s in charge, and all the other things, there are real efforts to figure out how we could safely and actually do this.”
The plan outlines designating communities in three categories:
<ul>
<li>Low Mitigation – communities where significant spread was never observed, can “re-open” soon</li>
<li>Moderate Mitigation – former hot spots entering controlled recovery, limited mitigation communities observing increased, but contained transmission</li>
<li>Significant Mitigation – current or emerging hot spots, moderate mitigation communities showing signs of strained capacity</li>
</ul>
The plan notes that &#8220;significant advancements in testing, therapeutics, and investments in the public health and health care systems&#8221; have allowed the Trump administration to get to this point where they are ready to get things going again.
Decisions on reopening individual communities – which will be made at the federal, state, and local levels – are contingent on:
<ul>
<li>Confidence that incidence of infection is genuinely low.</li>
<li>A surveillance system that is well functioning and capable of promptly detecting any increase in incidence.</li>
<li>A public health system that is reacting robustly to all cases of COVID-19 and has surge capacity to react to an increase in incidence.</li>
<li>A health system that has the capacity in all respects, including inpatient beds, staffing, an other services, to handle all cases and that is in a position to rapidly scale up to deal with a surge in cases.</li>
</ul>
The three macro-phases outlined in the plan are:
<ul>
<li>Phase 1: Prepare the Nation (now-May 1)
<ul>
<li>National Communication Campaign</li>
<li>Tools to Assess Community Readiness to Re-Open Closed Spaces (by April 15)</li>
<li>Dashboards For Ongoing Decision Support For Adjusting Mitigation Strategies</li>
<li>Coordination Facilitated Across Proximate Geographic Areas By State And Federal Officials In Order To Share Changes Across Indicators And Coordinate Adjusted Mitigation Approaches</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Phase 2: Innovation and Ingenuity Applied to Pandemic (now – May 15)
<ul>
<li>Economic Recovery through Pandemic Management</li>
<li>Economic Recovery through Support for Local Businesses &amp; Schools</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Phase 3: Staged Re-Opening (varies by local conditions – not before May 1)
<ul>
<li>Low Mitigation Locations (first to open)</li>
<li>Moderate Mitigation Locations – Step Down From Significant To Moderate Mitigation, Or Step Up From Low To Moderate Mitigation (Based On Indicators (Not Likely Before June?)</li>
<li>Significant Mitigation Communities (Remain In Shelter In Place Until Thresholds Are Met)</li>
<li>Continuous Monitoring and Mitigation Adjustment ALL Communities (Now Until End Of Spread Or Vaccine Availability)</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
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Tell the Democrat Governors that “Mutiny On The Bounty” was one of my all time favorite movies. A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1250075668282576898?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Portrait Of Smiling Young Woman Holding Open Sign While Standing In Cafe

CDC, FEMA Have Created Plan To Reopen America. Here’s The Projected Start Date And Phases.

FEMA

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/cdc-director-coronavirus-cases-stabilized-peak-soon">told Fox News on Monday</a> that he believes the number of coronavirus cases is &#8220;stabilizing&#8221; across the country and that the United States is close to the virus&#8217; &#8220;peak.&#8221;
The CDC has been largely on the sidelines during the coronavirus pandemic as the nation&#8217;s infections disease experts take the lead in helping President Donald Trump manage the crisis. The CDC has been focused on issuing guidelines for &#8220;social distancing&#8221; and self-protection for Americans looking to prevent or slow the spread of coronavirus in their states and cities.
The agency has been tracking coronavirus numbers, Redfield told Fox &amp; Friends Monday, and he and other CDC experts believe the pandemic has &#8220;stabilized,&#8221; especially in &#8220;hot zones&#8221; like New York City.
“I think we’ve really stabilized across the country,” Redfield said. “We’re still seeing a small rate of increase in the range of 5 to 6 percent, as opposed to where we were before when it was 20 percent, 30 percent per day; but we are close.”
Redfield added that once the day-over-day numbers begin coming down, authorities can begin discussing how to reopen the country and ease coronavirus-related lockdowns. That moment could come as early as this week.
“We’re stabilized and I anticipate that we will begin to see a decline in the days ahead, but we have got to just continue to take it day by day and look at the data,” he continued. “We&#8217;re going to need to reopen gradually in a thoughtful, prudent way, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, based on the data about what&#8217;s the state of transmission of this virus in those areas.&#8221;
Redfield did caution that, even as cases begin declining, Americans will still have to follow some of the CDC social distancing guidelines and shelter-in-place when possible, and that group gatherings and outings should be limited.
Redfield credited the CDC&#8217;s social distancing guidelines &#8212; and Americans&#8217; willingness to limit their movement and comply with the CDC&#8217;s recommendations &#8212; with significantly lowering death count projections from between one and two million to under 60,000.
“It&#8217;s much, much, much less than that and it’s really a direct consequence of the American public all coming in,” he said. “It&#8217;s going to be critical over the next four to eight to 12 weeks that we continue thoughtful mitigation steps as we begin to bring our country back to work.”
An economic recovery will hinge on &#8220;early case recognition, isolation, contact tracing,&#8221; and available testing.
&#8216;We’re obviously gearing up to reinforce the public health capacity across this nation to do it, but increasing in testing is continuing on a daily basis and it is going to need to be in place in order for us to effectively reopen and keep this nation reopened.”
The United States has around 22,000 confirmed deaths from coronavirus and over a half million confirmed cases. According to readily available data, the pace of new confirmed cases is, in fact, declining. Last week, the U.S. was averaging over 30,000 new cases per day. On Sunday, that number dropped below 30,000 for the first time since the beginning of April.

Robert Redfield CDC

CDC Director Says Coronavirus Cases Are Stabilizing, Could Peak This Week

Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden&#8217;s attempt to demonstrate to voters that he would be a more competent and trustworthy leader amid the COVID-19 crisis is not going over well, including with left-leaning fact-checkers.
The Biden campaign&#8217;s coronavirus informational video posted Saturday — part of Biden&#8217;s &#8220;shadow&#8221; COVID-19 briefings series — not only failed to feature the candidate himself, it needlessly worked in a claim about President Trump&#8217;s handling of the situation egregious enough that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/24/biden-campaigns-false-claim-top-cdc-official-was-silenced/">The Washington Post</a> felt compelled to weigh in on it. The result was Biden&#8217;s team getting slapped with four Pinocchios.
On Saturday, Biden tweeted out an informational video hosted by Ron Klain, the Obama administration&#8217;s Ebola outbreak response coordinator, which quickly went viral (below). Among the claims made by Klain was that Trump supposedly &#8220;silenced&#8221; officials who &#8220;raised an alarm&#8221; about the threat of COVID-19, including Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease:
<blockquote>Klain: All the while, anyone who raised an alarm about this — a red flag — was silenced. Look no further than Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a career official at the Centers for Disease Control who was the first to raise the alarm. … Starting the next day, Dr. Messonnier no longer appeared at public briefings of the White House coronavirus task force. The president and the White House sent a clear message to scientists in the government — there would be a price for speaking out and speaking up.</blockquote>
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Everyone knows that we&#39;re facing a real crisis from the coronavirus. But do you know how we got here and what we need to do next? Ron Klain, former White House Ebola Response Coordinator, breaks it down for us: <a href="https://t.co/XRkIw2EzM4">pic.twitter.com/XRkIw2EzM4</a>
&mdash; Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1241416531684331526?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2020</a></blockquote>
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But as Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler puts it, &#8220;Klain’s framing of the Messonnier situation is simply wrong.&#8221; Trump was indeed reportedly upset by Messonnier&#8217;s public statements, but there&#8217;s simply no evidence that he tried to &#8220;silence&#8221; her or other officials in any way.
During a Feb. 25 phone briefing, Messonnier warned, &#8220;It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.&#8221; She went on to suggest we would experience &#8220;significant disruption of our lives&#8221; and potential &#8220;school dismissals or school closures&#8221; in the U.S.
The Post was among the outlets that initially <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html?tid=lk_inline_manual_21&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_21" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a> on Trump&#8217;s response to Messonnier&#8217;s statements:
<blockquote>On Feb. 25, Nancy Messonnier, a senior CDC official, sounded perhaps the most significant public alarm to that point, when she told reporters that the coronavirus was likely to spread within communities in the United States and that disruptions to daily life could be &#8220;severe.&#8221; Trump called [Health and Humans Services Sec. Alex Azar] on his way back from a trip to India and complained that Messonnier was scaring the stock markets, according to two senior administration officials.&#8221;</blockquote>
But did Trump then try to &#8220;silence&#8221; her? Kessler says that claim is baseless. Kessler describes how Biden&#8217;s video so deceptively frames the situation:
<blockquote>In the Biden video, Klain claims there was immediate blowback: “Starting the next day, Dr. Messonnier no longer appeared at public briefings of the White House coronavirus task force. The president and the White House sent a clear message to scientists in the government — there would be a price for speaking out and speaking up.” The video imposes question marks over the heads of the people appearing onstage with Trump on Feb. 26.
But if you look closely, you will see there is a woman standing next to Trump. Who’s that? Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director — and Messonnier’s superior.</blockquote>
Schuchat, Kessler explains, had delivered, just one day before, almost the identical message as Messonnier, saying in a coronavirus task force <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?469708-1/hhs-officials-hold-news-conference-coronavirus" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">news conference</a>: “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen, and how many people in this country will become infected? And how many of those will develop severe or more complicated disease?”
<div class="remainder-content">
<section>
<div>
&#8220;[F]ar from being silenced, Messonnier kept doing her telephone briefings with reporters — on <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0228-COVID-19-update.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Feb. 28</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0229-COVID-19-update.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Feb. 29</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0303-COVID-19-update.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">March 3</a> and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0309-covid-19-update.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">March 9</a>,&#8221; Kessler writes. &#8220;She also appeared in four videos shared on social media, such as this one from March 14.&#8221;
In other words, those who &#8220;raised alarms&#8221; were not &#8220;silenced,&#8221; rather presented by the administration as authoritative voices and allowed to continue to provide information to the public, including information that was &#8220;alarming.&#8221; When Trump appointed Vice President Mike Pence to take over the coronavirus task force, even more senior people were featured, and they likewise at times presented troubling information.
</div>
<div>
&#8220;Messonnier’s remarks on Feb. 25 may have caught the attention of Wall Street and caused angst in the White House. But we cannot find evidence of her being immediately silenced, as Klain claims in the video,&#8221; Kessler concludes. (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/24/biden-campaigns-false-claim-top-cdc-official-was-silenced/">Read the full fact-check here</a>.)
</div>
<div>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-flag-democrats-nancy-pelosi-signal-surrender-on-coronavirus-relief-bill-as-white-house-helps-ink-deal">White Flag? Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, Signal Surrender On Coronavirus Relief Bill As White House Helps Ink Deal</a>
H/T <a href="https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2020/03/24/wapo-four-pinocchios-team-bidens-trump-silenced-cdc-official-accusation/">Ed Morrissey</a>
</div>
</section>
</div>

Donald Trump Anthony Fauci

Biden Team Claims Trump ‘Silenced’ Officials On Coronavirus; Fact-Check: ‘Simply Wrong’

Joe Biden

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) updated its directives on gathering and events on Sunday, further limiting the recommended size of assemblies of multiple people to just 50 people and setting a time period for such limits to the next 8 weeks in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The recommendation, the CDC notes, does not apply to day-to-day operations of organizations such as schools or businesses. Gatherings involving higher-risk individuals, the elderly and people with pre-existing heart and lung conditions, should be canceled, officials recommend.
&#8220;Large events and mass gatherings can contribute to the spread of COVID-19 in the United States via travelers who attend these events and introduce the virus to new communities. Examples of large events and mass gatherings include conferences, festivals, parades, concerts, sporting events, weddings, and other types of assemblies. These events can be planned not only by organizations and communities but also by individuals,&#8221; the updated <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/large-events/mass-gatherings-ready-for-covid-19.html">advisory</a> reads.
&#8220;Therefore, CDC, in accordance with its guidance for large events and mass gatherings, recommends that for the next 8 weeks, organizers (whether groups or individuals) cancel or postpone in-person events that consist of 50 people or more throughout the United States,&#8221; the CDC announced Sunday.
&#8220;Events of any size should only be continued if they can be carried out with adherence to guidelines for protecting vulnerable populations, hand hygiene, and social distancing,&#8221; the advisory states. &#8220;When feasible, organizers could modify events to be virtual.&#8221;
&#8220;This recommendation does not apply to the day to day operation of organizations such as schools, institutes of higher learning, or businesses,&#8221; the notice explains. &#8220;This recommendation is made in an attempt to reduce introduction of the virus into new communities and to slow the spread of infection in communities already affected by the virus.  This recommendation is not intended to supersede the advice of local public health officials.&#8221;
Below are excerpts from the CDC&#8217;s updated <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/large-events/mass-gatherings-ready-for-covid-19.html">advisory on mass gatherings and public events</a> with hyperlinks to additional CDC notices and documents:
Large events and mass gatherings can contribute to the spread of COVID-19 in the United States via travelers who attend these events and introduce the virus to new communities. Examples of large events and mass gatherings include conferences, festivals, parades, concerts, sporting events, weddings, and other types of assemblies. These events can be planned not only by organizations and communities but also by individuals.
Therefore, CDC, in accordance with its guidance for <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/large-events/mass-gatherings-ready-for-covid-19.html">large events and mass gatherings,</a> recommends that for the next 8 weeks, organizers (whether groups or individuals) cancel or postpone in-person events that consist of 50 people or more throughout the United States.
Events of any size should only be continued if they can be carried out with adherence to guidelines for protecting <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/specific-groups/high-risk-complications.html">vulnerable populations</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/prevention.html">hand hygiene, and social distancing</a>.  When feasible, organizers could modify events to be virtual.
This recommendation does not apply to the day to day operation of organizations such as <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/index.html">schools, institutes of higher learning, or businesses</a>. This recommendation is made in an attempt to reduce introduction of the virus into new communities and to slow the spread of infection in communities already affected by the virus.  This recommendation is not intended to supersede the advice of local public health officials. [&#8230;]
This interim guidance is based on what is currently known <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/index.html">about the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)</a>. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will update this interim guidance as needed and as additional information becomes available.
This interim guidance is intended for organizers and staff responsible for planning mass gatherings or large community events in the United States. A mass gathering is a planned or spontaneous event with a large number of people in attendance that could strain the planning and response resources of the community hosting the event, such as a concert, festival, conference, or sporting event. Guidance specific to schools and childcare settings, institutions of higher education, and community- and faith-based organizations can be found on <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/index.html">CDC’s website focused on prevention COVID-19 spread in communities</a>. [&#8230;]
At a minimal-to-moderate level of community transmission, it is recommended to:
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Cancel community-wide mass gatherings (for example, &gt;250 people; the cutoff threshold is at the discretion of community leadership based on the<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/community-mitigation-strategy.pdf" target="new" rel="noopener noreferrer"> current circumstances the community is facing and the nature of the eventpdf icon</a>) or move to smaller groupings.
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Cancel gatherings of more than 10 people for organizations that serve <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/community-mitigation-strategy.pdf" target="new" rel="noopener noreferrer">higher-risk populations</a>.
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Health And Human Services

CDC Issues New Advisory Further Limiting Gatherings, Events

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has expanded its guidance for people who need to be especially careful due to the coronavirus.
Anyone over the age of 60 or who has chronic illnesses – including diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and other chronic conditions – should essentially self-quarantine. Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC&#8217;s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a conference call that those who are at serious risk should stock up on supplies such as medications, groceries, and anything else they may need and stay home for the foreseeable future.
&#8220;This virus is capable of spreading easily and sustainably from person to person &#8230; and there&#8217;s essentially no immunity against this virus in the population,&#8221; Messonnier said, as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/09/many-americans-will-be-exposed-to-coronavirus-through-2021-cdc-says.html">reported</a> by CNBC.
&#8220;It&#8217;s fair to say that, as the trajectory of the outbreak continues, many people in the United States will at some point in time, either this year or next, be exposed to this virus and there&#8217;s a good chance many will become sick,&#8221; she added.
More from CNBC:
<blockquote>Most people won&#8217;t develop serious symptoms, but 15% to 20% of the people who are exposed to the virus get severely sick, she said.
Of the 70,000 cases WHO scientists looked at, only about 2% were in people younger than 19. The odds of developing COVID-19 increase with age, starting at age 60. It&#8217;s especially lethal for people over 80.</blockquote>
&#8220;This seems to be a disease that affects adults and most seriously older adults,&#8221; Messonnier said on the conference call. &#8220;Starting at age 60, there is an increasing risk of disease and the risk increases with age.&#8221;
Those over 60 and with chronic illnesses are at risk to develop “serious outcomes, including death,&#8221; she said.
Messonnier said she made similar recommendations to her own parents.
&#8220;During an outbreak with a new virus there is a lot of uncertainty. Our guidelines and recommendations are likely to be interim and subject to change as we learn more,&#8221; she added. She also said that collecting data from other countries, such as South Korea and Japan, is helpful for the CDC to “understand the potential risk in the U.S.&#8221;
At the time of this writing, the Johns Hopkins University <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6">coronavirus map</a> states that 28 people have died in the U.S. due to the virus already &#8211;  23 of whom died in Washington state. The map says there have been 804 confirmed cases in the U.S.
Globally, Johns Hopkins says there have been 118,100 confirmed cases of coronavirus, 80,757 of those were confirmed in mainland China alone. Italy is now the second-most affected country, with 10,149 confirmed cases. The entire country is now under quarantine to try and stop the spread of the virus. In total, 4,262 people have died from the virus, while another 64,391 have recovered. The likelihood of the average person dying from the coronavirus is small, yet those who are at risk should take basic steps to protect themselves, as the CDC recommends. Everyone should practice basic hygiene such as frequently washing their hands and staying home if they are sick in order to protect themselves and others.

CDC Recommends Anyone Over 60 Or Who Has Chronic Illnesses Stay Home

According to the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/#PublicHealthLaboratories">most recent report</a> from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), among the roughly 34 million people who have suffered from the flu this season, 20,000 have died. Influenza A viruses were the most commonly reported, as opposed to the usual predominance of Influenza B. 136 deaths of children have been reported; the CDC noted, “rates among school aged children and young adults are higher at this time than in recent seasons and rates among children 0-4 years old are now the highest CDC has on record at this point in the season, surpassing rates reported during the second wave of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
The CDC noted, &#8220;Almost all (&gt;99%) of the influenza viruses tested this season are susceptible to the four FDA-approved influenza antiviral medications recommended for use in the U.S. this season.”
The CDC added:
<blockquote>While influenza B/Victoria viruses predominated earlier in the season, during recent weeks, influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses have been reported more frequently than B/Victoria viruses. For the season, A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses are the predominant virus … The predominant virus also varies by age group. Nationally, for the season overall, influenza B viruses are the most commonly reported influenza viruses among children and young adults less than 25 years, while A viruses are the most commonly reported influenza viruses among persons 25 years and older. In the most recent three weeks, influenza A viruses are the most commonly reported influenza viruses in all but the school aged children and young adults (5-24 years old).</blockquote>
Of the 2009 pandemic, the CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html">noted</a>:
<blockquote>The (H1N1)pdm09 virus was very different from H1N1 viruses that were circulating at the time of the pandemic. Few young people had any existing immunity (as detected by antibody response) to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus, but nearly one-third of people over 60 years old had antibodies against this virus, likely from exposure to an older H1N1 virus earlier in their lives … 12,469 deaths were reported in the U.S. as a result of the (H1N1)pdm09 virus.</blockquote>
But the CDC also noted, “Though the 2009 flu pandemic primarily affected children and young and middle-aged adults, the impact of the (H1N1)pdm09 virus on the global population during the first year was less severe than that of previous pandemics. Estimates of pandemic influenza mortality ranged from 0.03 percent of the world’s population during the 1968 H3N2 pandemic to 1 percent to 3 percent of the world’s population during the 1918 H1N1 pandemic. It is estimated that 0.001 percent to 0.007 percent of the world’s population died of respiratory complications associated with (H1N1)pdm09 virus infection during the first 12 months the virus circulated.”
In January, speaking on CBS’ This Morning, Dr. Tara Narula, an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine for Hofstra University NSLIJ School of Medicine, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flu-deaths-20000-americans-this-season-including-136-children-cdc/">explained</a> the increase in the deaths of children from the flu this season: “The word we use about the flu is unpredictable, and it&#8217;s been unpredictable. Because we&#8217;ve seen a shift in the predominant strain, which is usually influenza A. This year it&#8217;s influenza B. That hasn&#8217;t happened since the 1992-1993 flu season. And we know that influenza B tends to affect children more. They tend to have more severe reaction to influenza B.&#8221;
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California Flu Deaths Rise Sharply In January

CDC: 20,000 Deaths This Season From Flu

Members of the Democratic Party have repeatedly made false or misleading claims this week over the coronavirus outbreak in an apparent attempt to damage President Donald Trump. Even worse, many of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have proposed policies that would likely put the U.S. at greater risk of having an outbreak.
The Associated Press fact-checked Democratic presidential candidates Michael Bloomberg and Joe Biden over attacks they made on Trump this week.
Bloomberg said: “There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he’s defunded – he’s defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don’t have the organization we need. This is a very serious thing.”
Biden, comparing the Obama-Biden administration to the current administration, said: “We increased the budget of the CDC. We increased the NIH budget. &#8230; He’s wiped all that out. &#8230; He cut the funding for the entire effort.”
The AP debunked the claims, <a href="https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104">reporting</a>:
<blockquote>They’re both wrong to say the agencies have seen their money cut. Bloomberg is repeating the false allegation in a new ad that states the U.S. is unprepared for the virus because of “reckless cuts” to the CDC. Trump’s budgets have proposed cuts to public health, only to be overruled by Congress, where there’s strong bipartisan support for agencies such as the CDC and NIH. Instead, financing has increased.</blockquote>
Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) promoted a claim from far-left Democrat Senator Brian Schatz (HI), who wrote: &#8220;The Coronavirus is not contained. It will not fade in the spring. Trump cut CDC by 9 percent. Trump eliminated the position at the global health security teams at NSC and DHS. They don&#8217;t know what they are doing. They are fixated on the politics and the stock market.&#8221;
Not only is the claim that Trump cut CDC funding wrong, but Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s decision to promote the bogus attack about Trump eliminating a position at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shows her hypocrisy as she called for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ocasio-cortez-calls-elimination-critical-portion-ryan-saavedra">eliminating</a> the entire DHS last year.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Ocasio-Cortez is trying to score political points by attacking Trump for eliminating a position at the Department of Homeland Security
Last year, Ocasio-Cortez called for eliminating the *entire* Department of Homeland Security: <a href="https://t.co/BsNG5YdfFz">https://t.co/BsNG5YdfFz</a> <a href="https://t.co/u0LD2YdPvt">pic.twitter.com/u0LD2YdPvt</a>
&mdash; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1232802243709198336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren politicized the outbreak in an effort to help her campaign, which has been on the fritz for some time now, stating that she would eliminate funding for the border wall – which is an important national security objective – in order to fight the coronavirus.
Warren tweeted, &#8220;Coronavirus poses a serious health, diplomatic, &amp; economic threat, &amp; we must be prepared to confront it head-on. So I’m introducing a bill to transfer all funding for @realDonaldTrump&#8217;s racist border wall to @HHSGov &amp; @USAID to combat coronavirus.&#8221;
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People playing politics with this debate should be roundly condemned by everyone, and do I need to point out the irony of attacking border control right now? <a href="https://t.co/LOQPoYxlwq">https://t.co/LOQPoYxlwq</a>
&mdash; Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) <a href="https://twitter.com/Heminator/status/1233062987239493633?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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On the issue of policy, many of the proposals that the 2020 Democrats are running on would put the U.S. at far greater risk of having an outbreak.
Biden, Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren have all stated that taxpayer-funded health care should be given to illegal aliens, which reports state would act as a magnet and could attract sick people from around the world to come to the U.S.
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We need a vaccine that is available to all, not just those who can afford it.
Let me be clear: it has never been more important to finally guarantee health care as a human right by passing Medicare for All. 3/3
&mdash; Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) <a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1232826930916974597?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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In 2018, The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-single-payer-report-20180317-story.html">wrote</a> the following about the state of California providing <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/10/740147546/california-first-state-to-offer-health-benefits-to-adult-undocumented-immigrants">taxpayer-funded health care for illegal aliens</a>:
<blockquote>As the report notes, declaring a healthcare-for-all policy would make California a magnet for anyone who needed expensive healthcare. In other words, it would make the state a hotbed for medical tourism — on California’s dime.</blockquote>
In a report on the health care proposals from the 2020 Democrats, The Federalist <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/14/how-single-payer-would-make-disease-outbreaks-like-the-coronavirus-worse/#.XlXFKHVdXgU.twitter">reported</a>:
<blockquote>By eliminating virtually all patient payments for their own care, single payer would increase demand for care—demand Bruenig concedes the system likely could not meet, even under normal circumstances. Consider that an outbreak centered more than 6,000 miles from the Pacific coast has already led to a <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/face-masks-selling-out-u-s-china-coronavirus-experts-protect-against-infection-1484356">run on respiratory face masks</a> in the United States. During a widespread outbreak on our shores, an influx of both sick and worried-but-well patients could swamp hospitals already facing higher demand for “free” care.
&#8230;
Including a system of global budgets as part of a transition to single payer would leave hospitals with little financial flexibility to cope with a sudden surge of patients. Sanders’s Senate version of single-payer legislation does not include such a payment mechanism, but the House single-payer bill does. Sen. Elizabeth <a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/4ubxbgy9463z/2Tg9oB55ICu2vtYBaKKcVr/d124e0eeb128ad3a8d8ab8a6ccae44c0/20191031_Medicare_for_All_Cost_Letter___Appendices_FINAL.pdf">Warren</a> and other <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/reports/2018/04/06/448912/evaluating-state-innovations-reduce-health-care-costs/">liberal think-tanks</a> believe the concept, which provides hospitals lump-sum payments to cover the facilities’ entire operating budget, can help reduce health-care costs.
But in its <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-05/55150-singlepayer.pdf">May 2019 report</a> on single payer, the Congressional Budget Office noted that consistently slow growth of global budget payments in Britain’s National Health Service has “created severe financial strains on the health care system.” And how: Rising <a href="https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2018/01/ae-performance-reaches-new-low">hospital bed occupancy rates</a> have created <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7281/CBP-7281.pdf">longer wait times in emergency rooms</a>, with patients stuck on gurneys for hours. In one example of its annual “winter crisis,” two years ago the NHS <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5229733/Thousands-NHS-operations-cancelled-winter.html#ixzz537tRpXfJ">postponed 55,000 surgeries</a> due to capacity constraints, with one ER physician apologizing for “Third World conditions of the department due to overcrowding.”
A British health system barely able to cope with a predictable occurrence like a winter flu outbreak seems guaranteed to crumble in the face of a major pandemic. Voters lured by the siren song of socialism should bear that in mind as they ponder news of the coronavirus and Sanders’ “Medicare for All.”</blockquote>
Sanders, who aggressively backs giving illegal aliens taxpayer-funded health care, has also said that he is open to tearing down border barriers on the southern border and has also stated that he wants to abolish Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which is the front line in protecting America&#8217;s borders.
Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) researcher Spencer Raley <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/352869-the-cost-of-illegal-immigration-to-taxpayers-is-growing">wrote</a> in an analysis of illegal immigration that &#8220;welfare programs and refundable tax credits&#8221; were major drivers of illegal immigration.
While the U.S. should help citizens of other nations if it can, that does not mean that the U.S. should open up its borders to treat people here.
So far, the administration has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-usa/u-s-announces-aid-for-china-other-countries-impacted-by-coronavirus-idUSKBN2012FH">pledged</a> $100 million in financial assistance to China and other nations impacted by the coronavirus.
A report late last year from the prestigious Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the United States was by far the most prepared nation to handle an epidemic.
The 140 Global Health Security Index questions are organized across seven categories:
<ol>
<li>Overall</li>
<li>Prevention: Prevention of the emergence or release of pathogens</li>
<li>Detection and Reporting: Early detection and reporting for epidemics of potential international concern</li>
<li>Rapid Response: Rapid response to and mitigation of the spread of an epidemic</li>
<li>Health System: Sufficient and robust health system to treat the sick and protect health workers</li>
<li>Compliance with International Norms: Commitments to improving national capacity, financing plans to address gaps, and adhering to global norms</li>
<li>Risk Environment: Overall risk environment and country vulnerability to biological threats</li>
</ol>
The report ranked the United States:
<ul>
<li>Overall: #1</li>
<li>Prevention: #1</li>
<li>Detection and Reporting: #1</li>
<li>Rapid Response: #2</li>
<li>Health System: #1</li>
<li>Compliance with International Norms: #1</li>
<li>Risk Environment: #19</li>
</ul>
The Trump administration has aggressively moved to combat the coronavirus as it <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-presidents-coronavirus-task-force/">established</a> a task force to fight it over a month ago; has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/health/cdc-coronavirus-china.html">attempted</a> for the last 2 months to have the CDC enter China to assist in containing the outbreak and researching the virus; has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-usa/u-s-announces-aid-for-china-other-countries-impacted-by-coronavirus-idUSKBN2012FH">pledged</a> $100 million to other countries to combat it; immediately banned flights from China; has soughs $2.5 billion to combat the virus in the U.S. and agreed to give Congress even more when it was asked; has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-considers-invoking-special-powers-to-rapidly-combat-coronavirus">considered</a> using special powers that it has that would boost domestic manufacturing to combat the virus; and has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-navy-orders-all-ships-that-have-visited-nations-in-pacific-region-to-self-quarantine-for-coronavirus">ordered</a> the Navy to have all ships that have visited countries in the Pacific region to self-quarantine for 14 days.
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So, the Coronavirus, which started in China and spread to various countries throughout the world, but very slowly in the U.S. because President Trump closed our border, and ended flights, VERY EARLY, is now being blamed, by the Do Nothing Democrats, to be the fault of “Trump”.
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1233256774964273152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate In Las Vegas Ahead Of Nevada Caucuses

Democrats Lie About Coronavirus To Attack Trump. Their Policies Could Make Fighting Pandemics More Difficult.

Bernie Sanders

Elizabeth Warren

On Friday, freshman Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who is very outspoken on the 21s century geopolitical threat <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/end-forever-wars-and-face-chinas-threat-11574634656">posed by China</a>, raised with leading Trump administration officials the possibility of restricting or temporarily outright cutting off travel with the country due to the coronavirus that recently emanated from there.
Hawley &#8220;sent a letter Friday to the heads of four government agencies to ask whether the Trump administration was considering any potential Chinese travel ban to prevent an American outbreak of the coronavirus,&#8221; National Review <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/coronavirus-outbreak-josh-hawley-asks-trump-administration-for-possible-china-travel-ban/">reported</a>.
Specifically, Hawley tweeted: &#8220;As deadly #coronavirus spreads, this morning I’ve written to the Secretary of State and others to ask whether temporary travel restrictions from affected areas in China may be necessary, and if they are, when American travelers will be notified. Public safety must be #1 priority.&#8221;
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As deadly <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/coronavirus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#coronavirus</a> spreads, this morning I’ve written to the Secretary of State and others to ask whether temporary travel restrictions from affected areas in China may be necessary, and if they are, when American travelers will be notified. Public safety must be #1 priority
&mdash; Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1220726263956021248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The tweet accompanied a <a href="https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2020-01/Hawley-Letter-Coronavirus-Departments-Health-Homeland-Security-State-Transportation-Travel.pdf">letter</a> that Hawley sent on Friday to four Cabinet secretaries or acting secretaries: Alex Azar of the Department of Health and Human Services, Chad Wolf of the Department of Homeland Security, Elaine Chao of the Department of Transportation, and Mike Pompeo of the State Department.
Hawley&#8217;s letter concludes by asking four questions of the Cabinet secretaries:
<ol>
<li>Does the federal government have in place procedures and evaluative criteria to guide decisions about restrictions on air travel in the event of disease outbreaks such as this one?</li>
<li>Given the rate at which public health officials are capable of gaining insight into the severity of such an outbreak, can you offer guidance as to when and how the federal government would decide to implement travel restrictions in the event that an outbreak like this one merited them?</li>
<li>Have you begun exploring the means by which the federal government might continue to assist China and the international community in containing this outbreak in the event of restrictions on commercial air travel? If not, why not?</li>
<li>In the event that federal officials make a preliminary determination to rule out restrictions on air travel, will you commit to inform the public that such a determination has been made in the interests of transparency and appropriate public scrutiny?</li>
</ol>
&#8220;The virus, which, causes pneumonia-like symptoms, is related to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, a virus that originated in China and killed hundreds of people in 2002 and 2003,&#8221; National Review also noted.
Since the virus&#8217;s breakout, China has quarantined the entire city of Wuhan in an attempt to staunch the virus&#8217;s pernicious spread.
Conservative commentator Daniel Horowitz, of Blaze Media, <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/will-trump-consider-suspending-travel-china-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/">wrote</a> today in support of a Chinese travel ban: &#8220;One would expect that the first course of action of the government would be to prevent Chinese from traveling here or Americans from traveling to China and returning, or at least to impose a travel ban on parts of China. That is the first step to ensuring that the disease doesn’t spread like wildfire in our country. Yet, as with epidemics of the past, there doesn’t seem to be any imminent warning of suspending travel.&#8221;
Taking a somewhat different approach, Daily Wire columnist Matt Walsh <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-the-media-wants-you-to-panic-over-the-coronavirus-dont-fall-for-it-here-are-the-real-facts">chalked up</a> the coronavirus as much ado about nothing: &#8220;I don’t mean to spoil the twist ending, but here’s how to protect yourself from the coronavirus if you live in America: Do nothing special at all. Carry on with your life. Wash your hands. Avoid ingesting the bodily fluids of strangers, as much as possible. Do all of the normal things you would do to maintain a healthy life. Media reports indicate that face masks are an &#8216;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-face-masks-not-entirely-effective-2020-1" data-reader-unique-id="14">ineffective&#8217;</a> way of preventing the spread of the virus. What the reports forget to mention is that it would be a sign of delusional paranoia if a person in the United States went around wearing a mask for fear of a disease that almost nobody in this hemisphere actually has.&#8221;

Cargo containers with China and united States flag in the harbor.

Josh Hawley Proposes Possible China Travel Ban In Response To Coronavirus

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Josh Hawley

It is rather a surprise to learn that we are all going to die from a viral pandemic, considering that we have all already died from swine flu, bird flu, SARS, and that one time when four people had Ebola. Nonetheless, if media reports are to be believed, we are on the verge of yet another planet-wide outbreak. This time, the imaginary global destruction will happen courtesy of the coronavirus.
Back in realityville, the coronavirus has infected 2,700 people, or about .00003% of the global population. Almost all of the cases are in China, where the death toll has reached 82. The majority of these deaths were people who had the misfortune of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/world/asia/coronavirus-victims-wuhan.html">already being old and sick</a> before they contracted the virus, compounded by the disadvantage of living with China&#8217;s &#8220;<a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/ticking-time-bombs-chinas-health-care-system-faces-issues-of-access-quality-and-cost/">ailing&#8221;</a> health care system. Outside of China, there have been around 50 cases, none of them fatal. So far, five people in the United States have been diagnosed and none have died. Of the approximately 327,000,000 people in the U.S., approximately 326,999,995 do not have the coronavirus. There is no good reason to think that the latter number will significantly shrink, as the infected people pose a &#8220;<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/24/799208865/a-second-u-s-case-of-wuhan-coronavirus-is-confirmed">low risk</a>&#8221; to the public, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Still, none of this has stopped the media from printing <a href="https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-01-27-20-intl-hnk/h_76586a6e47e65a67a3c18ccf644ae736">scary graphics</a> showing how the disease you almost certainly will not contract will affect you if it does, giving <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/chicago-confirms-coronavirus-case-heres-how-to-stay-safe-165352163.html">tips</a> on how to &#8220;stay safe,&#8221; putting terrifying things in their <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/26/containing-new-coronavirus-may-not-be-feasible-experts-say/">headlines</a> like &#8220;containing new coronavirus may not be feasible, using the word &#8220;<a href="https://nypost.com/2020/01/25/inside-the-horrific-inhumane-animal-markets-behind-pandemics-like-coronavirus/">pandemic</a>&#8221; to describe something that is not actually a pandemic, running fantasy <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/scientist-who-simulated-the-global-impact-of-a-coronavirus-outbreak-says-the-cats-already-out-of-the-bag-and-chinas-efforts-to-contain-the-disease-unlikely-to-be-effective-2020-01-24">simulations</a> to show what might happen in a &#8220;hypothetical&#8221; worst-case scenario, and urging the public to &#8220;<a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article239657838.html">protect</a>&#8221; itself.
I don&#8217;t mean to spoil the twist ending, but here&#8217;s how to protect yourself from the coronavirus if you live in America: Do nothing special at all. Carry on with your life. Wash your hands. Avoid ingesting the bodily fluids of strangers, as much as possible. Do all of the normal things you would do to maintain a healthy life. Media reports indicate that face masks are an &#8220;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-face-masks-not-entirely-effective-2020-1">ineffective</a>&#8221; way of preventing the spread of the virus. What the reports forget to mention is that it would be a sign of delusional paranoia if a person in the United States went around wearing a mask for fear of a disease that almost nobody in this hemisphere actually has.
I am not downplaying the significance of this illness. For people who live in China, especially in or near Wuhan, this is a very real public health emergency. But many parts of the world are plagued by many illnesses that either rarely make it onto our shores, or are easily contained and treated when they do. <a href="http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/03/tb-us-all-time-low-global-decline-small">Tuberculosis</a> still kills millions across the globe while comparatively few die from it in this country. <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180315091833.htm">Meningitis</a> is a major killer in Africa but claims only a few hundred lives annually in the United States. For all the lumps our health care system takes, deserved and undeserved, the fact is that we generally don&#8217;t die from a great many diseases that kill a great many people elsewhere on Earth. And that is why the relatively high mortality rate of the coronavirus is not proof that the disease itself is significantly deadlier than garden-variety pneumonia. All we know is that it is potentially deadlier in Wuhan, where every disease is potentially deadlier.
If you&#8217;re a U.S. citizen looking for a disease to worry about, I could suggest more relevant options. The common flu, for example, <a href="http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/04/us-flu-still-elevated-dropping-deaths-high-57000">killed 57,000 people</a> in the U.S. alone last year, which is actually significantly lower than the death toll the year before. That&#8217;s a body count nearly 1,000 times higher than the current figure for the coronavirus. And we&#8217;re talking about U.S. deaths, in this case. True, most people who die of the flu are either very old or very young. But the same is the case for the coronavirus. Even the aforementioned tuberculosis and meningitis are more reasonable candidates for public panic. Pretty much any disease would be, considering the current death toll for the coronavirus in America is zero. If that number jumps from zero to one, or three, or even fifteen, there still would be no reason for panic. The media wants you to panic because panic means clicks, and clicks generate revenue. Don&#8217;t fall for it. Again.

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