Trump makes thinly veiled attack at AOC during coronavirus briefing after she suggests stimulus bill overly favours corporations

John T Bennett, The Independent•March 26, 2020


Donald Trump took a veiled jab at New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, beloved by the far left, calling her a "little grandstander" over her threats to delay passage of a coronavirus economic aid package.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez, known colloquially as "AOC," has complained that she is concerned the bipartisan measure, which cleared the Senate on a 96-0 vote, is too friendly to large corporations. She wants more provisions to help workers and those who have lost their jobs due to the super bug outbreak.

Mr Trump again said "we have to get back to work," saying the people of the United States are not suited to "sit around."

Earlier in the day, the White House released outlines of a plan to assess counties one-by-one, ranking them into three risk categories. The president told reporters during his daily virus briefing that his team will release more information about that plan nex

RIGHT WHING NUTS  SAY JUMP FOR TRUMP, OFF A TRUMP TOWER
In coronavirus pandemic, Trump allies say they're ready to die for the economy

Conservatives weigh coronavirus deaths versus the economy

Christopher Wilson Senior Writer,Yahoo News•March 25, 2020
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Brit Hume and Glenn Beck. (Loren Elliott/Getty Images, Fox News, Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Conservative supporters of President Trump are increasingly volunteering to risk death — and implicitly the deaths of elderly and at-risk Americans — from the coronavirus if it will help the economy.

The push for Americans to get back to work in the face of an unprecedented economic downturn began last week but accelerated on Sunday evening, after the president began pushing the message that “we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” On Tuesday, Trump said he “would love to have the country opened up by Easter,” which falls on April 12. Public health experts say it is impossible to predict now when it will be safe to end social distancing measures but are virtually unanimous in believing they will be needed beyond then.

On Monday evening, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick explained how the trade-off between saving lives and spurring the economy worked in his mind.

“I just think there are lots of grandparents out there in this country like me … that what we all care about and what we all love more than anything are those children,” said Patrick, who turns 70 next week, on Tucker Carlson’s primetime Fox News show. “My message is that: Let’s get back to work. Let’s get back to living. Let’s be smart about it, and those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves, but don’t sacrifice the country. Don’t do that. Don’t ruin this great American dream.”

He then said he would be willing to risk his life to keep the economy going.

“No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” said Patrick. “And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”

Fox News commentator Brit Hume supported Patrick on Carlson’s show the following night.

“The utter collapse of the country’s economy — which many think will happen if this goes on much longer — is an intolerable result,” the 76-year-old Hume said. “[Patrick] is saying, for his own part, that he would be willing to take a risk of getting the disease if that’s what it took to allow the economy to move forward. He said that because he is late in life, that he would be perhaps more willing than he might have been at a younger age, which seems to me to be an entirely reasonable viewpoint.”


On the Tuesday airing of his program on BlazeTV, right-wing commentator Glenn Beck said that at 56 he is in the “danger zone” for the virus and would also make the sacrifice.

“I would rather have my children stay home and all of us who are over 50 go in and keep this economy going and working,” Beck said. “Even if we all get sick, I would rather die than kill the country. Because it’s not the economy that’s dying, it’s the country.”

A corollary argument is that the loss of jobs and incomes from prolonged social isolation would eventually lead to more deaths — from poverty and psychological distress — than might result from COVID-19.

In the video, Beck is alone in a room, socially distant from anyone who could give him the virus and not apparently facing the same risks as people without TV shows, such as health care professionals and grocery store workers.

Sacrificing the elderly for the good of the economy runs counter to Beck’s position a decade ago, when he rose to prominence during President Barack Obama’s tenure by railing against so-called death panels that he said would be created under the Affordable Care Act to ration health care. “We care about the elderly,” said Beck in 2009, adding, “We value life in this country, and when you start devaluing life, then you’re in trouble.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took issue with the ethical choices implied by Trump’s priorities, saying, “My mother is not expendable and your mother is not expendable and our brothers and sisters are not expendable, and we’re not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable, and we’re not going to put a dollar figure on human life.”

The policy dilemma replicates on a national scale a well-known exercise in ethics known as the “trolley problem,” which asks whether it is justified to kill another person to avoid a larger number of deaths. It posits a situation in which a runaway vehicle is heading toward a large number of people — unless someone throws a switch that will divert it onto a different track, where only one person would be endangered.

This one's a real head-scratcher. pic.twitter.com/f0mUAvCk1K
— Juhana Leinonen (@JuhanaIF) March 24, 2020

As a matter of public health, experts point out that social distancing rules are in place to protect the entire population, not just the elderly. People 60 and older are at increased risk of mortality from the coronavirus, but so are younger people with other health problems, and people as young as teenagers have contracted the illness.

In economic terms, analyses such as those by Beck and Hume don’t take into account the second-order economic effects of a pandemic that if unchecked could be fatal to as many as 2 million Americans, both directly and indirectly, by overwhelming the hospital system. Whether that would ultimately be better or worse for business than the short-term partial lockdown the economy is now in is, of course, unknowable.

It is also not a binary choice between a massive economic downturn and mass death. The U.S. could follow the lead of other nations, guaranteeing wages during the period of social isolation while strengthening social programs to help working-class Americans get by. Such a program would likely be anathema to economic conservatives, however.

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Protesters defy lockdown as coronavirus threatens Ukraine-Russia peace push

Veronika Melkozerova, NBC News•March 26, 2020

KYIV, Ukraine — The streets of Kyiv are empty. Restaurants, bars and shops are closed. Only a few passersby can be spotted on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the central square in the Ukrainian capital, where thousands gathered during the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014.

The massive protests led to the ouster of the pro–Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and fueled pro–Russian uprisings in the eastern Donbass region.

Now, like much of the rest of Europe, Ukraine is on lockdown, but the spread of the coronavirus comes at a critical time for the future of the country and how it might resolve the war still raging in its eastern fringes. Restrictions on movement not only could slow the peace process but also could hinder a protest movement that is passionately calling for Ukraine not to give two breakaway regions run by Russian rebels, Luhansk and Donetsk, any legitimacy.

Public protests and other gatherings are forbidden on Ukraine's streets, because of a virus that has already infected more than 460,000 people worldwide and killed more than 21,000.

Image: Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Emmanuel Macron, 

Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel (Ian Langsdon / Reuters file)

With 156 confirmed cases so far and five deaths in Ukraine, according to the country's Health Ministry, the government has closed public institutions and limited transportation within and outside of the country.

However, Yaryna Chornoguz, 24, a military medic who fought in the Donbass war, is not following the rules. She is one of many protesters demanding that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who took office last year, reverse a decision to include representatives from Luhansk and Donetsk on a new advisory council tasked with coming up with peace solutions in the Donbass.

Like others, she fears that the new council will oblige Kyiv to lead negotiations directly with the separatists and Russia, which is widely seen as having a direct hand in the conflict and which protesters fear will step back from the talks, leaving the rebels in charge.

"When I found out about the new deal in Minsk that would legitimize Russian proxies and turn Russia from an aggressor into just an observer, I understood our novice president just spit upon six years of the Ukrainian diplomacy and years of our resistance to the Russian invasion," Chornoguz told NBC News. "He needs to back down and cancel the decision, or he should be impeached."

News

Chornoguz's boyfriend, Mykola Sorochuk, 22, was killed on Jan. 22 in the Donbass war. "It was Russian sniper who killed him," she said.

She took her sleeping bag and went to a protest at the building of the Presidential Office in central Kyiv on March 13, when the advisory council was announced in Minsk after talks among Ukraine, Russia and a group of other European nations, four days before the coronavirus lockdown.

Soon Chornoguz's friends, also war veterans, joined her protest. On March 17, in direct contravention of a ban on public gatherings, 500 more Ukrainians came to the Presidential Office to protest — but they left as fears over the coronavirus intensified.

"Many people called me to explain they didn't show up because of the coronavirus," said Pavlo Bilous, 50, a protest organizer. "Some were afraid to get infected. Others were afraid to infect people, because they felt sick."

He added: "We are not afraid to come back even despite the lockdown. We don't want to be healthy but wake up in Russia after the epidemic."

Now, in defiance of the lockdown, around a dozen people still keep watch during the night near the Presidential Office. There have been no arrests so far, but the Interior Ministry has warned that police and the National Guard will patrol the streets to arrest people who violate the lockdown rules.

The official name for their protest movement translates to "Spring on Granite 2020," and a Facebook page encourages others to join.

"I think a lot more people would have joined us," said Viktor Pylypenko, 33, a Donbass war veteran and protester. "However, the coronavirus is an important constraining factor."
I

mage: A Ukrainian soldier (Oksana Parafeniuk / NBC News file)

The new advisory council is proposing to give people who live in Luhansk and Donetsk the right to vote on the future of the territories, which have been torn apart by a war that had killed more than 13,000 people as of January, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

While Zelenskiy's office called the decision to form the council risky, its proponents defended it as a possible breakthrough that could break Russia's influence over the occupied territories. The agreement said the council should be created after Wednesday March 25, after consultations with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, France, and Germany.

But on Wednesday Dmytro Rezikov, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister, said in an interview with the Liga.net news website that there will be no agreement signed in Minsk this week on the new advisory council, due to Covid-19. Instead, the meeting will be held via Skype and the signing postponed.

Nevertheless, many in Ukraine still see the council as surrendering national interests to the Kremlin.

"The so–called coordination council is a direct step towards Russia," Pavlo Klimkin, a former Ukrainian foreign affairs minister, wrote on Twitter. "It is the acknowledgement of the occupation authorities of the Donbass. While Russia is going to be turned from the aggressor into a mediator, like Germany or France."

Despite the wave of criticism, Ukraine's government continues to defend the decision.

"During the March 11 meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk the sides agreed to create the council as a mechanism needed to bring full ceasefire and achieve the long–awaited peace with the representatives of the rebel–held regions of the Donbass," said Iuliia Mendel, a spokesperson for Zelenskiy.

Mendel added that there will be no Russian proxies in the new council.

Image: A Ukrainian armored personal carrier

 (Anatolii Stepanov / AFP - Getty Images file)

In a bid to stop the war, Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany signed the so–called Minsk Peace Agreements in Belarus in 2015. Ukraine agreed to lead the local election and decentralization reforms with the representatives of the occupied parts of the Donbass. However, it demanded that Russia cede control over parts of the border that Ukraine lost in 2014. The Kremlin has so far refused to do so.

Although international watchdogs and journalists have alleged that Russia is an active participant in the war in the Donbass, the Kremlin has denied sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine.

A Dutch–led team of international investigators confirmed the work of the open–source news outfit Bellingcat in 2018 when it said that a mobile Buk missile that brought down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over the contested part of Ukraine in 2014 had come from the Russian military.

The trial of four men, three Russians and a Ukrainian, charged with murder in the downing of the plane, which killed all 298 people on board, has been adjourned until June 8. Russia has consistently denied any involvement in the attack.View

Coronavirus cases in the U.S. now exceed China. How can you choose between saving the U.S. economy and saving lives?

March 26, 2020 By Quentin Fottrell

‘People get tremendous anxiety and depression, and you have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies,’ President Trump said this week. The president has said he would like to put people back to work by Easter. MarketWatch/Terrence Horan

How do you strike a balance between the country’s economic life and actual human life?

Is putting America back to work sooner rather than later a Sisyphean task, the equivalent of rolling a rock perpetually uphill while up to 2 million people, in a worst-case scenario, die of COVID-19? Or does the Sisyphean task involve waiting, while millions more people lose their livelihoods, only to find themselves among the long-term unemployed or underemployed, eventually succumbing to substance abuse and chronic depression, and even perhaps, as the president forecasts, suicide?

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft MSFT, +6.25% and now a megaphilanthropist whose foundation focuses in large part on fostering global health, issued some strong words for the Donald Trump this week. “There really is no middle ground, and it’s very tough to say to people, ‘Hey, keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, [and] ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner,’ ” Gates said in a TED interview, as described by the Vox Media site Recode. “We want you to keep spending because there’s maybe a politician who thinks GDP growth is all that counts.”

In a worst-case scenario, the CDC has forecast that 2.4 million to 21 million people in the U.S. could require hospitalization, potentially crippling the country’s health-care system.

On the other side of the argument stands Trump, who has warned that efforts to stem the rapid spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2, are spiraling the U.S. economy into another Great Recession; the impact has already sent the Dow Jones Industrial Index DJIA, +6.37% plunging toward potentially its worst-ever month. He said he would like to put people back to work by Easter. “You’re going to have suicides by the thousands,” Trump said this week.

The debate over the ramifications of a months-long shutdown of the American economy in an effort to force people to “socially distance” and, thus, prevent coronavirus from spreading unchecked also highlights the chasm between left and right on the American political spectrum. The left generally believes that strong social structures beget a stronger economy for all. The right traditionally follows the idea that a strong economic system begets strong social structures for all.

“People get tremendous anxiety and depression, and you have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies,” Trump said. “You have death. Probably and — I mean, definitely — would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about with regard to the virus.” (“It is not a foregone conclusion that we will see increased suicide rates,” Christine Moutier of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention told the Associated Press.)

However, the Centers for Disease Control has warned that in a worst-case scenario 2.4 million to 21 million people could require hospitalization, potentially, should they take ill within a condensed time frame, crippling the country’s health-care system. U.S. hospitals have just over 924,000 staffed hospital beds, according to the American Hospital Association. Up to 2 million people could die from the novel coronavirus if the disease caused by it is allowed to spread, the CDC added.

‘Unprecedented levels of deaths of despair’

The spread of the disease does not appear to have yet peaked. Coronavirus had infected at least 83,836 people in the U.S. as of Thursday evening and killed at least 1,209 people, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering. New York State accounts for roughly 50% of the national total, and 7% of global cases. Worldwide, there were 529,591 confirmed cases of the virus and 23,970 reported deaths.

George Loewenstein, professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, said it’s not as simple as making a choice between the human lives of Americans and the long-term health of the American economy. “I think it might be a false dichotomy because we don’t have a very good understanding of what the impact of a severe [economic] depression would be on human life,” he said. “It will dramatically decrease the quality of human life, and it will certainly kill people as well.”

“We’ve already have unprecedented levels of deaths of despair, and, if we lose a generation as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, that’s going to have mortality consequences,” Loewenstein added. “They’re just going to be more difficult to discern from the statistical victims. If you ignore the impact on quality of life — which is potentially an immense thing that should be taken into account — we don’t really understand what the impact of the economy on mortality.”

‘We’ve already have unprecedented levels of deaths of despair, and if we have a lost generation as a result of the coronavirus pandemic that’s going to have mortality consequences.’— George Loewenstein, professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh

Anne Case and Angus Deaton, economists at Princeton University, first chronicled these “deaths of despair” among middle-aged non-Hispanic Caucasians since 1999. They include deaths by suicide, alcohol poisoning, overdoses of opioids and other drugs, and cirrhosis of the liver. The CDC estimates that such deaths of despair have almost doubled since 1999, reaching 150,000 in 2017, with one-third of that figure accounted for by suicide. The Trump campaign of 2016 may have had the victims and potential victims of such outcomes in mind when it spoke of “the forgotten people.”

While COVID-19 fatalities are understandably the main focus now, Loewenstein said those who would ultimately lose their lives as the result of another Great Recession or, worse, a new Great Depression, are sometimes left out of the current economy–vs.–human life conversation. “The Identifiable Victim Effect is the idea that identified victims get much more attention and help than much more statistical victims that will predictably emerge in the future,” he said.

He cites the case of “Baby Jessica,” the 18-month-old girl who fell down a well in her aunt’s backyard in Midland, Texas, in 1987. “The world was fixated on this girl who fell in the well,” he said. Donations of up to $800,000 poured in. She was rescued after 2½ days. “It’s a sign of our humanity. If we ignored such events, we would have a hard time looking at ourselves in the mirror.” Loewenstein added. “At the same time, it creates an immense distortion in policy making.”

Loewenstein argues that Americans are caught between these two events now: start the economy too soon and an avoidable number of people will likely die; wait too long and it could also lead to untold long-term suffering. “I don’t think people have thought efficiently or carefully about smart strategies that would get the best of both, and make a better trade-off between the two. I say that as someone who is 64, and who might be — as part of a smart strategy — isolated,” he added.


The Value of Statistical Life. Colin Camerer/Quentin Fottrell

‘We’re very comfortable with making these trade-offs’

“It’s appalling to attach a dollar number to a human life — for noneconomists,” said Colin Camerer, a behavioral financier, and professor of behavioral finance and economics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “You can never make things perfectly safe with zero risk. We do have limited time, health-care staff, ventilators and money. What is the curve of transmission? How many people are going to die, if you open up the economy? No one is really too sure.”

“We’re very comfortable with making these trade-offs,” Camerer said. “Without even thinking about it, we do make these trade-offs. You may pay less attention crossing the street if your parking meter is about to run out. You are endangering your life in a tiny way to avoid getting a parking ticket. Such decisions that involve an implicit trade-off, but they’re almost invisible.” However, he said such decisions involving other human beings are obviously far more morally complicated.

‘We do make these trade-offs. You may pay less attention crossing the street if your parking ticket is about to run out. You are endangering your life in a tiny way to avoid getting a parking ticket.’— Colin Camerer, Caltech

Economists use the Value of Statistical Life. It measures the value placed on changes that increase likelihood of death, not the value on a human life to avoid death. “It’s used in court cases when assigning damages,” Camerer said. I could make a highway a little safer at a very high cost. This is one reason economics is called the dismal science. People are typically paid more money to do risky jobs in timber and fishing. We call that a compensating differential.”

VSL is used in court and by governments. Guidance on the amount varies by state agency and can run up to $10 million. “Imagine volunteering for a dangerous mission, and there’s a 10% chance you’ll get killed, and you’re going to be paid x,” Camerer said. “The implicit value of a life is x divided by 0.10. If the boss offers $1 million and the guy says no, he’s acting like his life is worth more than $10 million. If he says yes, he’s acting like it’s worth less.”

What if there are not enough ventilators and you, as a doctor, have to choose between a young child and an elderly patient? And what if you have two people who are exactly the same age and both have an equal chance of survival? Would the minutes between when the patients were admitted to the hospital be the deciding factor? Or would it be who required ventilation first? “You have to go outside of the labor-market framework into an ethical domain,” Camerer said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo appealed for more ventilators, as the city braces for a surge of hospitalizations. He said the state requires 30,000 ventilators; 4,000 have been sent by the federal government and 7,000 have been procured. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN Wednesday evening that one thing will decide when people go back to work: “You can’t make an arbitrary decision until you see what you’re dealing with.”

“The virus will decide the timeline,” he said.

Pakistan coronavirus: 'We can't see it, but everyone is terrified'

By Secunder Kermani - BBC News, Islamabad, BBC•March 26, 2020

Social distancing measures and surgical masks can now be spotted across the country

When 50-year-old Saadat Khan returned to his village outside the northern Pakistani city of Mardan from a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia earlier this month, a feast was thrown in his honour.

According to his son Haq Nawaz, about 600 people attended.

"We cooked rice, meat and chicken," he told the BBC. The "whole village" came and congratulated him, he added.

It's traditional in Pakistan to celebrate the achievement of performing such an important religious ritual.

Mr Khan (right) seen during his pilgrimage with two others

Just days later, however, Mr Khan would become the first person in the country to die from coronavirus, and his entire local district would be placed under a strict lockdown.

Out of 46 people tested for the disease in the community so far, 39 have been confirmed as positive. Two friends who flew back with him from Saudi Arabia also contracted coronavirus.
 

The number of confirmed cases has started to soar across the country

Mr Khan's death highlights the challenges of fighting the infection in developing countries like Pakistan, where large extended families live together, often in crowded conditions, and where healthcare systems are already struggling. One health expert warned the country was heading for "disaster" if adequate preventions were not implemented.

Festival held in shadow of outbreak

There have been about 1,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and eight deaths in Pakistan. A substantial portion are people who were travelling back from neighbouring Iran, which has been particularly badly affected, but there are growing fears about how the virus is spreading.

Professor Javed Akram, vice-chancellor at the University of Health Sciences in Lahore, told the BBC "domestic transmission" within Pakistan was now his main concern.

Mr Akram added that the true number of cases in the country, as elsewhere in the world, was likely to be far higher than had been recorded, because of a lack of testing capacity. So far, about 6,000 tests have been performed, while Pakistan's population is over 207 million.

Fears are growing nationally of a major outbreak

The teeming port city of Karachi is Pakistan's commercial hub, and has been home to a rising number of coronavirus infections. Amongst the patients is Saeed Ghani, the education minister for Sindh Province.

Speaking to the BBC on the phone whilst in isolation, Mr Ghani said it was unclear how he became infected and he had not developed any symptoms.

He said officials were aware that reported figures were not necessarily an "accurate reflection" of the reality on the ground, and that led the local Sindh government to implement a strict lockdown earlier this week. All non-essential travel outside the home has been banned, while only food and medical stores are allowed to stay open. Similar measures are now also in place across the country.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, however, has appeared out of step with local provincial governments. He had previously said a "lockdown" would not be sustainable in Pakistan, as it would cause too much harm to those on low incomes.

After provincial governments went ahead and introduced measures tantamount to a "lockdown" anyway, Mr Khan attempted to explain he only opposed what he described as a "curfew," while also outlining some measures to protect the poorest in society, who are dependent on daily wages to feed their families. Unlike other Muslim countries, his government has not ordered an end to congregational prayers on Fridays.

For Prof Akram, implementing preventative measures in Pakistan is crucial, as he says "curative care is not an option". Given that richer countries such as Italy had struggled to cope with the outbreak, the more "primitive" health facilities in Pakistan would be quickly overwhelmed, he said.

Outlining the challenges faced by health professionals in the country, one of the seven confirmed deaths of coronavirus patients in Pakistan so far was that of a young medic. Dr Usama Riaz, 26, was working in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, screening pilgrims returning from Iran, when he contracted the disease and died.

Medical professionals have criticised the lack of protective clothing provided to frontline staff. One of Dr Riaz's colleagues told the BBC they had now been provided with full protective suits, but he was concerned other doctors elsewhere had not.

Young doctor Usama Riaz died at the weekend

"Life and death are in the hands of God," he said, "but to work without protective equipment is suicide."

Officials say they are urgently attempting to improve the resources available to healthcare workers.

Back in the village of Saadat Khan, Pakistan's first coronavirus fatality, residents are trying to come to terms with the crisis.

One relative of Mr Khan's, who had tested positive too, despite not having any symptoms, told the BBC he couldn't understand how the disease could be so deadly, so quickly.

"We can't see it, but everyone is terrified of it."

How Hard Will Coronavirus Hit U.S., Global Economies?

David Payne, Staff Economist, The Kiplinger Letter, Kiplinger•March 26, 2020


Markets are panicking about coronavirus. Should you? No. But the risks are serious. The virus itself is dangerous but not dire, based on the outbreaks that have happened so far. It's highly infectious, but seems far less deadly than SARS, which killed about 10% of its victims. More people are likely to die of the seasonal flu this year than of coronavirus, based on recent trends.

It's the psychological impact that matters, at least as far as the economy and stock market go. If workers stay home from their jobs and consumers are afraid to gather in public places, the economy will take a severe hit. That happened in China, is happening in other countries, and could happen in the U.S. if widespread infections show up here.

Here's the realistic worst-case scenario as we see it for the world economy and for the U.S.: Global economic growth will be cut in half, to something like 1.6% this year. That's assuming that the virus spreads to every major economy and severely hampers international trade and travel. Several countries with weak economies are especially vulnerable to the virus: Italy, Japan and Germany, which are all either in recession now or on the brink of it. South Korea, which already has a significant outbreak, will feel the bite as well. And China, of course. Its economy is just starting to recover after virtually shutting down for much of January and February and will take a while to rebound


How badly will the U.S. economy suffer? Assuming virus outbreaks crop up here, U.S. GDP growth could slip close to 0% this year or eke out a small gain. Industries that could be taking a big hit: tourism, airlines, mass entertainment, movies, sporting events, restaurants, retail malls. A mild recession can't be ruled out. It depends on how widespread cases are, how long any outbreaks last, and how spooked consumers and businesses get. A few businesses will benefit, such as eat-at-home groceries, e-commerce delivery, downloads of apps and livestreaming.

The Federal Reserve is bound to cut interest rates. But that won't do much. Availability of credit isn't the problem. Any Fed cuts will be largely symbolic. Interest rates, short- and long-term, are likely to be depressed while the panic lasts. On employment, we see a modest effect: some layoffs, but the unemployment rate is unlikely to rise past 4% from its current 3.6%.


However bad the situation gets, the hit to global trade is already a given. Expect shortages of certain goods to begin by late March or April as inventories run out, especially so for electronics, ingredients for generic drugs and automotive parts.

The U.S. imports more than half of computers and electronics for smart phones, tablets and many other devices from Asia. So while it's too early to know which particular products might be hurt most, if you're in the market for a gadget like a new phone or virtual-reality headset, you might want to buy now. Similarly, if you rely on a generic drug, consider reaching out to your doctor to check on name-brand alternatives or getting a prescription for a longer supply. Oh, and garlic. With China providing 70% of the U.S. consumption, you might want to set some aside to keep enough zest in your cooking. In the longer run, expect businesses to rethink their global supply chains and bring more production home. We are already hearing of such plans in the works.

As for the stock market: Count on more volatility, with further selloffs on any bad news, and brief rallies on any hopeful news. How much lower stocks go is impossible to say. We advise exercising caution about making any big moves, either buying or selling. Sometimes during turbulent times, it's best to sit tight.

So, where does this all end? With the development of a better virus test kit, drugs that can treat the effects and lower the death rate, and with a vaccine. Better test kits have been developed, but await production and distribution. Several possible vaccines have been proposed, and will soon begin human testing. But it is likely to be nine to 12 months before any vaccine will become widely available.

The US government has a stockpile of 16,000 extra ventilators in case of an emergency like COVID-19.

It isn't enough.

Business Insider•March 25, 2020
 

A multi-function ventilator, partially disassembled to show 

inner electronics, in Bothell, Washington. Reuters/Lindsey Wasson


The American government has a stockpile of 16,000 ventilators, the Center for Public Integrity reported Tuesday.

The country's medical system has 160,000 ventilators in total.

It isn't enough. Already, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says his state needs 30,000 more ventilators for the projected cases in the next two weeks, and the number of cases across the US that require ventilators could reach 960,000 overall.


The United States government began amassing a reserve of ventilators more than 20 years ago, in preparation for a future, widespread attack on Americans. To date, the government has stockpiled 16,000 of them.

Though there hasn't been a war on American soil, the spread of the coronavirus is an emergency of its own. And the government's ventilator-reserve falls short of the number of devices needed to help sickened Americans, according to a report from the Center for Public Integrity published Tuesday.

Reporters at the independent investigative outlet confirmed with a US Department of Health and Human Services employee that the US government has just 16,000 ventilators. The US medical system overall has a total of 160,000.

To date, more than 62,000 people in the United States have contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Roughly 85% of sickened individuals show only "mild or moderate" symptoms, meaning most would not require hospitalization.

A projection from the American Hospital Association on COVID-19 cases, however, found that even if a small percentage of sickened Americans need ventilators, that population will exceed the number of available devices. "960,000 [sickened patients] would require ventilatory support," a study forecasted, though that doesn't mean they'll all need ventilators simultaneously.

Still, the number of available ventilators in some regions is already too low. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that the state — the hardest-hit in the US — needs 30,000 more over the next two weeks to handle the projected cases.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks in front of stacks of medical protective supplies during a news conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which will be partially converted into a temporary hospital during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York City, New York, U.S., March 24, 2020.REUTERS/Mike Segar

The state may soon try the risky operation of attaching multiple people to a single ventilator, and companies like GM and Ford are starting to make their own ventilators to make up for the shortfall. But it's not clear if that'll be enough.

The government's stockpile is not going to increase in the immediate future, according to Greg Burel, who oversaw the ventilator reserves until early this year.

"The reality is the stockpile could never have enough money to be the immediate fallback for everybody, and nobody does anything themselves," Burel told the Center for Public Integrity.

Ventilators are crucial to treating patients with severe cases of COVID-19, as they ensure the lungs can continue to work.

"The coronavirus can destroy the small air sacs in the lungs, preventing them from passing oxygen to the blood — suffocating patients from the inside," the Center for Public Integrity report said. "Ventilators take over for weak lungs, forcing air and oxygen into the body."

They are also expensive, costing roughly $25,000 apiece. But many hospitals, especially in low-income and rural areas, are already under financial duress. No fewer than 30 hospitals went bankrupt last year, according to Bloomberg News.

"Americans are fleeing rural areas in favor of urban centers, reducing the demand for hospital services in already struggling communities," Bloomberg News reported. "In both cities and towns, many hospitals that care for impoverished citizens often rely heavily on government payments that reimburse less than private insurers and may fail to cover rising costs."
Read the full report from the Center for Public Integrity.

Read the original article on Business Insider

USA UNEMPLOYMENT

‘This is just the tip of the iceberg’

‘I’ve been a labor economist for a very long time — and have never seen anything like this.’ Jobless claims rise nearly 1,500% in 3 weeks

Published: March 26, 2020 By Quentin Fottrell

‘Government labor market data that really show — in a breathtaking manner — the impact the coronavirus shock is having on the labor market.’ Getty Images

Initial unemployment claims jumped to 3.28 million last week from 211,000 three weeks ago and 282,000 two weeks ago, the Labor Department said Thursday. Businesses across the country have closed in an effort to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, and millions of Americans have been advised to stay home and practice “social distancing.”

That’s nearly a 1500% increase in three weeks, said Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at the progressive Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. “I have been a labor economist for a very long time and I have never seen anything like this. This is a case where a picture is worth a thousand words.”

The $2 trillion stimulus package, passed by the Senate late Wednesday, will help the U.S. through this “unprecedented crisis,” Shierholz added. “This package would represent a very important step in the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic.”



The actual or unadjusted number of new claims, meanwhile, was 2.9 million, according to new figures released Thursday by the Labor Department. Experts say the travel, retail, restaurant and hospitality industries, among others, have been particularly badly hit.

“Government labor market data that really show — in a breathtaking manner — the impact the coronavirus shock is having on the labor market,” Shierholz said. (Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a 2.5 million increase.)

“The figure shows initial unemployment insurance claims over the last 50-plus years,” she said. “The spike at the end shows what unprecedented territory we are in right now. Furthermore, this is just the tip of the iceberg. We estimate that by the summer, 14 million workers will lose their jobs due to the coronavirus shock, with significant losses in every state.”

‘I have been a labor economist for a very long time and I have never seen anything like this. This is a case where a picture is worth a thousand words.’— Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute

The latest jobless numbers break the weekly jobless claims records of 665,000 in March 2009 and 695,000 in October 1982, which was a the highest in modern U.S. history.

The $2 trillion stimulus package includes a $250 billion expansion of unemployment insurance, including an increase in the level of benefits and the creation of a Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program which would be available to many workers who are not eligible for regular unemployment insurance (independent contractors, for example).

The $2 trillion stimulus bill will pay workers $600 a week on top of whatever sum they receive in their state-level unemployment claim for a period of up to four months, according to provisions in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Coronavirus update:

Coronavirus had infected at least 82,404 people in the U.S. as of Thursday evening and killed at least 1,178 people, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering. New York State accounts for roughly 50% of the national total, and 7% of global cases. Worldwide, there were 526,044 confirmed cases of the virus and 22,993 reported deaths.

About the Author
Quentin Fottrell is MarketWatch's personal-finance editor and The Moneyist columnist for MarketWatch. You can follow him on Twitter @quantanamo.

FAUX NEWS TODAY TRIED TO PUT A POSITIVE SPIN ON 3.5 MILLION UNEMPLOYED AS NOT AS BAD AS IT COULD HAVE BEEN, CLAIMING THAT AT LEAST ONE BANK PROJECTED 4 MILLION UNEMPLOYED.... THE AVERAGE GUESS WAS ACTUALLY 2.5 MILLION BY OTHER BANKS.

Dakota access pipeline: court strikes down permits in victory for Standing Rock Sioux

Nina Lakhani, The Guardian•March 25, 2020
 

Photograph: Michael Nigro/REX/Shutterstock

The future of the controversial Dakota Access pipeline has been thrown into question after a federal court on Wednesday struck down its permits and ordered a comprehensive environmental review.

Related: Our fight against the Dakota Access pipeline is far from over

The US army corps of engineers was ordered to conduct a full environmental impact statement (EIS), after the Washington DC court ruled that existing permits violated the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa).

The ruling is a huge victory for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota, which rallied support from across the world and sued the US government in a campaign to stop the environmentally risky pipeline being built on tribal lands.

“After years of commitment to defending our water and earth, we welcome this news of a significant legal win,” said the tribal chairman, Mike Faith. “It’s humbling to see how actions we took to defend our ancestral homeland continue to inspire national conversations about how our choices ultimately affect this planet.”

In December 2016, the Obama administration denied permits for the pipeline to cross the Missouri river and ordered a full EIS to analyze alternative routes and the impact on the tribe’s treaty rights.

In his first week in office, Donald Trump signed an executive order to expedite construction. Construction of the 1,200-mile pipeline was completed in June 2017.

The tribe challenged the permits – and won. As a result, the corps was ordered to redo its environmental analysis, which it did without taking into consideration tribal concerns or expert analysis.

The pipeline continued to transport oil from North Dakota to Illinois. The tribe and EarthJustice, an environmental law not-for-profit group, sued again.

In his ruling on Wednesday, the federal judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, said the environmental analysis by both the companies behind the pipeline and the corps was severely lacking.

The abysmal safety record of the pipeline parent company, Sunoco, “does not inspire confidence”, he added.

The court-mandated EIS will be more in depth than the assessment already completed by the corps – and could take years. The court will next decide if the pipeline should be shut down until the EIS is done.

The corps did not respond to a request for comment.

“This validates everything the tribe has been saying all along about the risk of oil spills to the people of Standing Rock,” said Jan Hasselman, an EarthJustice attorney. “The Obama administration had it right when it moved to deny the permits in 2016.”

The setback for the pipeline comes as the Trump administration moves to severely curtail Nepa, the 1969 legislation which is widely considered the cornerstone of US environmental protection. Trump has repeatedly blamed Nepa for blocking fossil fuel projects.

Asian American lawmakers sound the alarm on coronavirus-related discrimination

Nicholas Wu, USA TODAY•March 26, 2020

WASHINGTON — Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., fears for his safety when leaving his home to get groceries, he told USA TODAY in a recent interview.

Lieu said he had pepper spray and was considering bringing it with him when he left his home.

"Now, I think about if I'm going to go to the grocery store, I wonder if I should carry this on me. And no one should be thinking about that," said Lieu, who represents a Los Angeles-area district.

"Especially when we're dealing with a health pandemic, we should all be working together trying to figure out what's the best way to solve this crisis and keep it from spreading."

Amid a rise in anti-Asian American sentiment, many Asian Americans have reported an uptick in discrimination and hate crimes. Lawmakers are no exception, and several have raised their concerns over the current climate surrounding coronavirus.

Gregg Orton, the National Director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, a coalition of over 35 national Asian American advocacy organizations, said there was “no question” the number of discriminatory incidents and attacks against Asian Americans had increased since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

More: Coronavirus is spreading. And so is anti-Chinese sentiment and xenophobia.

More: GOP senator says China 'to blame' for coronavirus spread because of 'culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs'

“Over the last month, there has been a steady increase (in incidents) and as COVID-19 conditions intensify, we are concerned that these kinds of anti-Asian attacks will only continue to go up,” he said.

He noted the number of incidents was likely to be even higher, “since victims may be reluctant to come forward.”

In recent press conferences and on Twitter, President Donald Trump, top administration officials, and his allies have repeatedly called the coronavirus “Chinese virus,” despite fierce criticism from Asian American advocates and public health advocates amid broader concerns about an increase in anti-Asian American sentiment and attacks.

"It's not racist at all, no," Trump told reporters at a coronavirus task force news conference last week when asked about his name for the virus. "It comes from China. I want to be accurate." Trump told reporters then he was not concerned about Chinese Americans' concerns about racism, either.

But in a Twitter post Monday, Trump said it was "very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States."

"They are working closely with us to get rid of it," he said.

He also declined to call coronavirus the "Chinese virus" in Monday's coronavirus task force briefing, calling it the "virus" instead and echoing the message from the tweet, saying, "The spreading of the virus is not their fault in any way shape or form."

"It seems like there could be a little bit of nasty language toward the Asian Americans in our country," Trump said when asked why he commented on Asian Americans.

Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., told USA TODAY Trump's response was "not at all sufficient" coming from someone who "played a large role in setting the fire and now wants people to praise him" for trying to extinguish it.


It is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States, and all around the world. They are amazing people, and the spreading of the Virus....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2020

Meng told USA TODAY the current atmosphere was one of the first times she "felt the hostility very personally," being made to feel like an "outsider."

This is part of the “foreignness” Asian Americans experience, explained Grace Kao, chair of the Yale University Department of Sociology.

Kao, a scholar of race, ethnicity, and immigration, noted that Italy had large numbers of coronavirus cases, but "there isn't a fear of Italian Americans on the street."

"The association with being foreign and being part of one's country of origin, no matter how many generations it's been, it's unique for Asian Americans," she explained.

"As a Chinese American myself, I'm a little bit scared to go outside," she noted. "You don't know what people are going to say or do."

Both the Chinese and American governments have traded blame for the origins of the virus, though most researchers believe the virus originated in China. The Chinese Ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, disavowed the claim that the virus had originated in a U.S. military laboratory in a recent interview with Axios, calling the claim “crazy.”

Tensions flared on Capitol Hill Tuesday as Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., introduced a resolution in the House that would condemn the Chinese government for claiming the virus came from the U.S. and argued the Chinese government's initial response made the pandemic worse.

Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said she called Banks afterward and "told him in very clear terms that introducing this resolution now, as anti-Asian coronavirus hate crimes are on the rise, would be extremely hurtful to the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community."

Banks, in response, told USA TODAY in a statement, "no one should make the mistake of believing that members of the Asian American community or Chinese citizens are responsible for or associated with the Chinese government's lies. Anyone not able to make that distinction would be guilty of discrimination."

More: Fact check: Coronavirus originated in China, not elsewhere, researchers and studies say

More: Trump uses China as a foil when talking coronavirus, distancing himself from criticism

The potential danger is not just limited to Chinese Americans, noted Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., who is of Japanese descent.

“In America, often is the case that how you look, you're just Asians. It doesn't matter what kind of Asian you are, you're just going to feel the effects of a tense moment,” he said, recounting how Vincent Chin, a Chinese American, was beaten to death by two laid-off auto workers in Detroit in 1982. The workers had mistaken Chin for a Japanese American and had blamed him for the loss of their jobs.

Takano, also the first openly gay person of color elected to Congress, told USA TODAY he was reminded of the early name given to AIDS – GRID, or "Gay-Related Immune Deficiency."

Takano recalled facing and hearing about anti-gay sentiment related to the term in the 1980s, and “this kind of stigmatization leads to all sorts of dehumanization and humiliation,” Takano said.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who is of Chinese Thai descent, said the current environment was “like the good and the bad of being Asian American.”

Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost both legs after her helicopter was shot down in the Iraq War, told USA TODAY the situation made her think of how “my whole life, you know, it's almost like you're always an ‘other’ and you're on the frontlines fighting for the nation and protecting and defending the nation and the Constitution.”

She called Trump’s continued use of “Chinese” virus "frustrating" and "not helpful at a time when we as a nation should be uniting and finding strength in one another and helping one another."

The result of the rhetoric against China and Asians, Duckworth said, was that “I feel like right now, you know, it's almost like it's OK to be racist against Asians.”

Those concerns and others are why Lieu said Trump has a "responsibility to ensure that all Americans feel safe and protected. And it's completely irresponsible for him to use unnecessary language that then puts a target on the backs of Asian Americans."

EVEN THE NATIONAL REVIEW GETS IN ON CHINA BASHING OVER COVID-19

Fauci: Italy ‘Hit Very Badly’ By Coronavirus Due to Prevalence of Chinese Tourists 

GIVING COVER TO TRUMP AND POMPEO FOR THEIR RACIST ANTI CHINA TROPES LIKE CHINA VIRUS OR WUHAN VIRUS



Mairead McArdle National Review•March 26, 2020

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, said Thursday that Italy has been impacted particularly badly by the coronavirus pandemic because the country hosted a high number of Chinese tourists in recent months.

“When you look at the different patterns of what happened in different countries, China versus South Korea versus what we’re seeing in northern Italy, it really gives you some interesting insight into certain things, not only in the explosive nature in certain places versus others, but as you get to your peak, how do you know when you’re turning the corner,” Fauci said on CNN.

“It’s when the new infections each day start to level off to be the same and then start going down, then you see the curve go down,” Fauci said, adding that Italy is “not there yet.”

Italy has reported declining numbers of new infections but still added more than 3,400 new cases on Tuesday. More than 57,500 people are currently infected with the coronavirus in Italy, and the country’s death toll passed 7,500 on Wednesday.

“Italy got hit very badly because they had a large number of importations from China by Chinese tourists,” Fauci said.

“Before they even knew what was going on, there was enough baseline people spreading that it essentially got out of hand, and it became difficult for them, as good as they are, and they’re very good, to be able to contain it in a way that is contact-tracing. It was more mitigation,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases continued

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