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On March 18th, researchers in France circulated a study about the promising experimental use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, in combination with azithromycin, an antibiotic, as a treatment for the disease caused by the coronavirus. The study was neither randomized nor peer-reviewed, and other scientists soon criticized its methodology. But Tucker Carlson, on Fox News, highlighted the work. The next day, President Trump promoted hydroxychloroquines very, very encouraging early results. He added, mentioning another unproven therapy, I think it could be, based on what I see, it could be a game changer.

At a White House press briefing on March 20th, a reporter asked Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whether hydroxychloroquine could be effective in treating covid-19. The answer is no, Fauci said, before yielding the microphone to Trump, who countered, May work, may not. I feel good about it. Thats all it is, just a feeling, you know, smart guy. A few days later, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, said, Using untested drugs without the right evidence could raise false hope and even do more harm than good.

Trumps quackery was at once eccentric and terrifyinga reminder, if one was needed, of his scorn for rigorous science, even amid the worst pandemic to strike the country in a century. Yet his conduct typified his leadership as the crisis has intensified: his dependency on Fox News for ideas and message amplification, his unshakable belief in his own genius, and his understandable concern that his relection may be in danger if he does not soon discover a way to vanquish COVID-19 and reverse its devastation of the economy.

New York City now faces a troubling and astronomical increase in cases, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo, and the emergency is overwhelming hospitals, straining drug and equipment supplies, and threatening to cause a shortage of ventilators. The grim course of events in the city is a canary in the coal mine for the rest of the country, Cuomo said, and leaders elsewhere must take decisive action lest they, too, become inundated. Trump, though, spent much of last week promoting a contrarian gambit that has been percolating in the right-wing media. He said that, to revitalize the economy, he would like to lift travel restrictions and reopen workplaces across the country within weeks, perhaps by Easter, which is on April 12th, because, as he put it repeatedly, we cant let the cure be worse than the problem.

Public-health experts immediately warned against such a reversal of social-distancing rules. The virus will surge, many will fall ill, and there will be more deaths, William Schaffner, a specialist in preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told the Times. When a reporter asked the President whether any of the doctors on your team had advised him that a hasty reopening was the right path to pursue, he replied, If it were up to the doctors, they may say, Lets keep it shut down... lets keep it shut for a couple of years. Public-health specialists have said no such thing; they have spoken of a conditions-based approach (You dont make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline, Fauci has said), while advising that, to save the most lives, local leaders must wait to lift restrictions in their areas until the data show that the virus has stopped spreading. Trump said that any loosening of rules he might seek around the countryhe mentioned Nebraska and Idaho as possible siteswould be based on hard facts and data, but he also said that he chose Easter as a target date because he just thought it was a beautiful time.

It is true, as Trump also argued, that enormous job losses and an all but certain recession caused by the pandemic will harm many vulnerable Americans, and claim lives, as ill people without health insurance, for example, forgo care or struggle to get it at stressed clinics and hospitals. Yet, at least in the short term, over-all mortality rates fall during recessions; the reasons for this arent fully clear, but social scientists think they may include the public-health benefits of a decrease in pollution, as a result of the slowing economy. In any event, the case the President made for hurrying an economic revival against the advice of scientists was morally odious; it suggested that large numbers of otherwise avoidable deaths might have to be accepted as the price of job creation.

Public-health officials spoke frankly to the press about the catastrophic prospects of the Presidents Easter folly. (President Trump will have blood on his hands, Keith Martin, the director of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, told the Times.) Trump responded on Twitter by lashing out at the LameStream Media for reporting such forecasts, calling the press the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. Last Wednesday, after Mitt Romney, the only Republican who voted to convict the President, on a charge of abuse of power, during the Senate impeachment trial, announced that he had tested negative for COVID-19, Trump tweeted mockingly, Im so happy I can barely speak. At the White House briefings, surrounded by the sorts of civil servants and experts he habitually disdains, Trump has adapted awkwardly to the role of solemn unifier. When he leaves the podium to tweet nonsense at his perceived enemies, he at least provides his opponents among the countrys homebound, screen-addled, and anxious citizenry with a galvanizing dose of his immutable obnoxiousnessa splash of the old new normal.

The journal Science asked Fauci why he doesnt step in when the President makes false statements in the briefings. I cant jump in front of the microphone and push him down, he said. Americas public-health system is fragmented and market-driven, conditions that only compound the challenge of quashing COVID-19. In the Trump era, however, decentralization has a benefit: the President is not solely in charge, and in the months ahead governors and mayors will continue to shape the odds of life or death for great numbers of Americans. Last week, Trump reviewed the possibilities for quarantine in New York City, his ravaged home town. He rambled about the stock exchange (Its incredible what they can do), before going on to pledge, If we open up, and when we open up... were giving the governors a lot of leeway to decide how this should be done. We can only hope so.

The rest is here:
The Meaning of Donald Trumps Coronavirus Quackery - The New Yorker

Political fact-checkers have flourished under Donald Trump, a president who according to one count uttered more than 16,000 misleading or false claims during his first three years in the White House.

The coronavirus outbreak has seen Trump add to that total. Here are some of his most misleading and most often repeated claims about Covid-19, his administrations response to the outbreak and what might lie ahead.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his surprise at the scale of the coronavirus as it spread around the world and raced across the US.

I would view it as something that just surprised the whole world, he said in a press conference earlier this month. Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion.

In a separate briefing, Trump said: I just think this is something that you can never really think is going to happen.

There is evidence, however, that not only was the Trump administration warned about the potential of a pandemic and its dangers to Americans, it was given a plan on how to deal with it, which it promptly shelved.

During the Obama administration, the national security council drew up a 69-page playbook on fighting pandemics, Politico has reported. The document, crafted in the wake of the 2016 Ebola outbreak, contained advice on tracking the spread of a new virus, how to ensure testing was conducted effectively and the need to stockpile emergency resources.

The incoming Trump administration was briefed on the playbook but it was was thrown on to a shelf, according to an anonymous official quoted by Politico.

This wasnt the administrations only insight into the threat posed by a pandemic. In October, an internal federal government report warned how underprepared and underfunded the US would be in terms of tackling a virus without a cure.

Trumps reaction to coronavirus has spanned disbelief, a severe understating of the problem and an optimism that appears unmoored from reality.

In February, Trump said the virus could maybe go away. Well see what happens. Nobody really knows. He predicted it is going to disappear. One day its like a miracle it will disappear.

This position has been repeatedly contradicted by public health experts who predicted the sharp increase in Covid-19 infections, blunted only by social distancing measures and the shut down of large gatherings.

Even in China, which instituted the most severe crackdown on the movement of people, it has taken several months for cases to start tapering off.

Youve got to be realistic, and youve got to understand that you dont make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline, Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said recently.

Without basis, Trump has claimed the US has done an excellent job in testing people for the coronavirus. As early as January, the president said the situation was totally under control. Just six weeks later the US had emerged as the new global center of the pandemic.

In reality, healthcare providers faced a severe shortage of testing kits as coronavirus hit the US, with the situation exacerbated by faults in the testing system and restrictions on who could actually take a test. A big disparity opened up whereby rich or famous people were able to get tests while others struggled to do so.

Mike Pence, the vice-president, has admitted we dont have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand. Dr Fauci told a congressional hearing the US system was not really geared to what we need right now regarding the test kits. He added: That is a failing. Lets admit it.

As is the case with many of Trumps statements, his claim he has always taken the pandemic seriously deviates wildly from his previous comments. Perhaps most infamously, Trump said I dont take responsibility at all when asked about the faltering US response.

The president has repeatedly downplayed the threat posed by Covid-19, criticising concern over the crisis as a hoax, fretting that letting infected Americans off a cruise ship would increase the number of confirmed cases and claiming that only a couple of Americans had it as cases began to soar across the country.

He has compounded this by suggesting social distancing restrictions be lifted around Easter a timeline wildly out of kilter with public health experts who warn this would cause hospitals to overflow with sick and dying patients.

In a White House meeting with pharmaceutical company bosses and public health officials, Trump suggested a vaccine for Covid-19 will be available over the next few months.

He was contradicted by Alex Azar, the health and human services secretary, who pointed out: You wont have a vaccine. Youll have a vaccine to go into testing.

Dr Fauci and others at the meeting confirmed that clinical trials standard for any new vaccine would have to take place first. A vaccine is more likely to be a year or 18 months away.

Despite being told this, Trump told a rally in North Carolina on 2 March that there will be a vaccine relatively soon.

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Five of Donald Trump's most misleading coronavirus claims - The Guardian

It's been an historic week for the U.S. with president Donald Trump signing a record $2.2 trillion coronavirus-induced emergency stimulus package.

The massive cross-party rescue deal is designed to help Americans and businesses cope with the economic shutdown caused by the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. dollar has taken a beating, however, dropping almost 4% against a basket of currencies this weekits biggest weekly loss since the height of the global financial crisis over 10 years ago.

The U.S. dollar has sunk against a basket of major currencies this week after posting record gains ... [+] earlier this month. Some think the massive stimulus offered by the Trump administration and the Federal Reserve will undermine the dollar and open the door to alternatives such as bitcoin.

This week's losses come on the back of the dollar index's biggest weekly gain since the financial crisis, with the dollar surging as investors scrambled for the worlds most liquid currency amid crashing stock and debt markets.

"In short-term, huge dollar demand because short-covering, but it won't last," Wall Street veteran and founder of Wyoming-based crypto bank Avanti, Caitlin Long, said via Twitter, adding she expects the U.S. Federal Reserve's balance sheet to top $10 trillion before the coronavirus crisis is over and predicting the dollar's eventual crash.

On top the of the massive economic aid package, the Fed has been working hard to prop up plunging marketswith mixed results despite its shock-and-awe firepower.

Potential risks of the combined cross-party rescue bill and Fed's biggest-ever bazooka include out-of-control inflation, the dollar's displacement as the world's funding currency, and the complete destabilization of the U.S. financial system.

The Fed has pumped over $1 trillion to the system in recent weeks, with its chair Jerome Powell promising never before seen levels of money printing and so-called quantitative easing to infinity through an unlimited bond-buying program.

The Fed has also cut its benchmark interest rate to near zero and made sure commercial banks will continue lending to companies, cities and statesall told the extraordinary measures are expected to grow the Fed's balance sheet by $4.5 trillion this year.

Throughout and in the aftermath of the global financial crisis the Fed grew its balance sheet by a paltry $3.7 trillion.

"The beautiful thing about our country is $6.2 trillionbecause it is 2.2 plus four [combining the Fed's action and the cross-party rescue bill]its $6.2 trillion, and we can handle that easily because of who we are, what we are," Trump said, speaking after the bill's historic White House signing ceremony, and boasting the package was "twice as large" as any prior relief bill.

The bill will see individuals and companies whose livelihoods and businesses have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic receive direct payments, with every American earning less than $75,000 per year picking up a one off payment of $1,200, as well as $500 per child.

"Its our money; we are the ones, its our currency," Trump said.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed the historic $2.2 trillion stimulus bill in the White House's ... [+] Oval Office, marking the country's biggest-ever rescue package.

Critics of the historic stimulus measures have warned about the possibility of inflation, with many in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency community urging people to explore scarce digital assets.

"Fiat money is getting more plentiful. Bitcoin is getting more scarce," Anthony Pompliano, a well-known bitcoin advocate and partner at bitcoin and crypto-focused hedge fund Morgan Creek Digital, said via Twitter, alluding to bitcoin's upcoming May halving event where the supply of new bitcoin being created will be cut by half overnight and putting bitcoin directly at odds with the Fed's money printing program.

Meanwhile, Trump has said he expects the U.S. to be open for business again by April 12, Easter Sundaya goal that's been widely derided as impossible.

Regardless of when the country opens up again, it will against a wildly different economic landscape.

Read more from the original source:
Donald Trump And The Fed Are Destroying The U.S. Dollar - Forbes

In January the world watched in horror as Wuhan, China battled coronavirus. People criticized Beijing, they blamed Chinese culture and they debated how to properly manage such an outbreak.

Fast forward two months and the U.S. has found itself dealing with more cases than China as the virus spreads across the nation at a faster pace than anywhere else in the world.

When the virus spread from Wuhan to other parts of Asia it became clear coronavirus was a global problem. Covid-19 had ravaged Italy, France and Spain before cases started to spike in New York and California. The U.S. had the benefit of time and experience on its side, so how did we get here?

A short-sighted focus on economic growth is the answer to that question.

Governments around the world demanded social distancing and urged their populations to protect each other. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and politicians in Washington debated how to minimize the economic impact of coronavirus with little regard to slowing its spread. Instead they looked for ways to minimize the threat in the eyes of voters.

The stock market and economy were where the U.S. placed its focus, and it shows. Even as medics in New York City donned trash bags and pleaded for more medical supplies, President Trump continued to focus on the economy.

As the number of cases rose exponentially, he refused to consider a nationwide lockdown. He continued to push to reopen businesses and schools by Easter. He encouraged people to believe coronavirus was no worse than the flu.

Mr. Trump congratulated himself and Congress upon passing a coronavirus relief package that did very little to stop the virus spread or help hospitals in dire need of medical supplies.

He commended the governments efforts to support New York City hospitals by sending 400 ventilators to the regions worst-hit hospitals. But the city was in need of 15,000 of the life-saving devices, making Trumps generous donation too little too late.

As the rest of the world worked to flatten the curve, the U.S. continued to question the severity of coronavirus. Despite scientific evidence showing that social distancing is the most powerful tool in the fight against coronavirus, the U.S. waited and watched. Even as health experts warned that millions would likely die if the U.S. allowed its healthcare system to become overwhelmed, the government did nothing.

And now as the number of coronavirus cases continues to climb, Donald Trump is still looking for ways to hide the truth. Increased testing was cited as a reason for the rising numbers. Some pointed to a low mortality rate among U.S. coronavirus patientsbut all of that masks a grim reality: things are already out of control.

The lack of federal intervention means travel between U.S. cities and states is unrestricted. Those living in places like New York where the outbreaks are most serious have traveled to other parts of the country, likely bringing the infection with them.

It remains to be seen whether the staggering number of cases will be enough to push Trump into action. Unlikely, considering his track record of blaming the media and spewing lies to the American public. But at some point the impact of coronavirus in America will become undeniablesomething that touches everyones life in some way.

But by then it will be too late to slow the spread and save the healthcare system.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.

This article was edited by Sam Bourgi.

Last modified: March 28, 2020 11:31 AM UTC

Here is the original post:
U.S. Has the Most Coronavirus Cases in the World, But Donald Trump Still Wont Act - CCN.com

The wisest fool in Christendom.Henri IV,referring to James I of England.

At first blush it seemed like nothing more than a coincidence.And the first reaction was to think he had not even thought of it since he is not a religious man.Sober reflection and awareness of the high esteem in which he holds himself, repeatedly assuring us that few, if any, are, or have been, as brilliant, selfless and talented as he, however, gives rise to the thought that it is more than a coincidence.It is deliberate, symbolic, and comports with his view of himself, a view shared by his devoted followers who cheer for him at rallies, and his devoted disciples, such as Mike Pence and Ben Carson, who stand behind him at press conferences gazing admiringly at their beloved leader. And here it is.The same day that Christians the world over will be celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the trump has decreed that he, like Christ, will be celebrated throughout the United StatesChrist for religious reasons and the trump for ending the mandatory quarantining in the United States that was designed to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 in the United States.Just as Christians resume normal activities after celebrating Christs resurrection, the people in the United States will be able to resume all their normal activities, thanks to the inspired leadership of the trump and his proven ability to solve what, to lesser mortals, seem like intractable problems.The trump can see the similarity between himself and Christ as he stands at the podium and makes statements about how quickly the pandemic will be over. Of course there are a few non-believers standing next to him who contradict him when he finishes speaking, but the trump and his disciples all know that the trump knows best. The trump is not, nor should he be, offended bycomments made by the non-believers standing next to him any more than Christ was offended by those who crucified him.Indeed when considering those who publicly contradict him, it might serve the trump well to recall Christs words when he said:Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.Those in need of forgiveness are those who rely on science rather than the trumps optimism.The trump has many reasons to be satisfied that by ending the quarantine on Easter Sunday he is doing what is in the best interests of his people.As heobserved, the number of deaths that may be caused by the pandemic in the United States is nothing when compared with the number of people killed each year in car accidents in the United States. In the United States, 90 people die every day in car accidents.Three million people are injured of which two million have permanent injuries.As of the date the trump was explaining why the country should reopen on Easter Sunday, fewer than 200 people in the United States had died from the coronavirus.On March 23 he told a gathering that:You look at automobile accidents, which are far greater than any numbers were talking about.That doesnt mean were going to tell everybody no more driving of cars.So we have to do things to get our country open.And hes absolutely right that no one is suggesting that cars be banned to save lives. Viewed in that light the pandemic is, as the trump knows better than the scientists who stand behind him at his daily briefings, there is no reason to continue to keep the country shut down.And if the comparison to car deaths is not enough for the trump, he brings up another reason that the country must reopen.If the lockdown continues, as the trumpexplains, Youre going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression.Youre going to lose people.Youre going to have suicides by the thousands.At another appearance he said:Im talking about where people suffer massive depression, where people commit suicide, where tremendous death happensI mean it definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that were talking about with regard to the virus.Of course hes right.As of March 25, at an estimated 928 victims of CoVID-19 in the United States have died from this virus. By comparison, in 2017, 47,173 American died by suicide and that figure goes up annually.With less than two weeks until Easter Sunday, believers and non-believers alike can look forward to that day. Believers, of course, may have more reason to rejoice since their belief has sustained them throughout their lives and they can find joy in celebrating the event that took place many years ago.Non-believers should not become too excited about the prospects for celebrating on Easter Sunday.The trump is no match for Jesus, contrary to what he may believe, and there is an outside chance that none of what he has promised will happen.

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Donald Trump Meets the Easter Bunny - Common Dreams