- WHO Advises EU To Restrict Alcohol Sales During Lockdown
WHO Advises EU To Restrict Alcohol Sales During Lockdown
The World Health Organization (WHO) published a statement Tuesday that read European governments should restrict the sales of alcohol to citizens as nationwide lockdowns continue.
The statement read, “during the COVID-19 pandemic, alcohol consumption can exacerbate health vulnerability, risk-taking behaviors, mental health issues, and violence.”
The WHO’s European office said, “Existing rules and regulations to protect health and reduce the harm caused by alcohol, such as restricting access, should be upheld and even reinforced during the COVID-19 pandemic and emergency situations.”
It also said, “alcohol compromises the body’s immune system” and can lead to higher probabilities of contracting the deadly virus. During the pandemic, people should “minimize their alcohol consumption” to build up their immune system. There was also mention that Europeans are known for their “excessive” consumption of alcoholic beverages.
While the WHO attempts to persuade European countries to enforce alcohol restrictions, the European Union (EU) published a note on Thursday morning detailing how mobile apps are being used to contain the spread of the virus.
Last week, France admitted that it was working on a “StopCovid” app that would march the country, and even maybe the bloc, towards an Orwellian society.
It appears the pandemic has been a perfect cover for governments to implement totalitarian measures to control and track their citizens, all in the name of “flattening the pandemic curve.”
When it comes to banning alcohol sales, France already tried that last month, and because of public and internet uproar, the measure was quickly reversed.
It was reported that Greenland had banned alcohol consumption in the capital Nuuk and nearby settlements in a bid to decrease incidences of child abuse as people stay inside to avoid spreading the virus.
More recently, Thailand banned sales of alcoholic beverages in an attempt to curb irresponsible socializing.
As for the US, alcohol sales surged 22% at supermarkets for the week ending March 28 compared with the same time last year, according to Nielsen data. Banning or limiting sales in the US would be hard, and if the WHO attempted to instruct the Trump administration on it, well, we believe it wouldn’t fly, considering Trump is now defunding the NGO.
Nevertheless, angry Americans would riot if sales of alcohol would be limited or banned. Already, they are pissed about lockdowns, as protesters on Wednesday surrounded the state Capitol building in Lansing, Michigan, demanding the economy to be reopened.
Is the WHO overreaching as it calls for the EU to ban or restrict alcohol? Or do they have some valid points?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/17/2020 – 02:45 - The EU Has Failed Europe Over Coronavirus
The EU Has Failed Europe Over Coronavirus
Authored by Con Coughlin via The Gatestone Institute,
The deepening divisions among European nations over their response to the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the inability of the European Union to provide strong and effective leadership in times of crisis.
Faced with arguably the greatest challenge Europe has faced since the end of the Second World War, the EU’s failure to help coordinate the actions of the 27-nation bloc in tackling Covid-19 has once again brought the organisation’s institutional failings into sharp focus.
Not only has the Brussels bureaucracy been unable to provide vital medical assistance to stricken countries in the form of badly-needed protective clothing and key equipment, such as ventilators. The EU has also completely failed in its efforts to provide financial support for those countries, such as Italy and Spain, that have been worst affected by the crisis.
The EU’s inability or unwillingness to respond should raise fresh questions about the EU’s long-term future.
Furthermore, a meeting of EU finance ministers held to discuss setting up a $380 billion coronavirus rescue package failed to reach agreement when wealthier northern European states refused to back measures to help their less wealthy southern partners unless they agreed to punitive loan terms.
This additional failure prompted Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to warn that if the EU proved unable to help member states in their hour of need, it was in danger of collapse.
“If we do not seize the opportunity to put new life into the European project, the risk of failure is real,” Mr Conte said.
The EU’s failure to organise a coordinated response among member states to the pandemic has also been the subject of criticism. The EU’s refusal to set up a special programme for Covid-19 research last week prompted Professor Mauro Ferrari, the President of the European Research Council, to resign in protest. In his resignation letter, Prof Ferrari launched a blistering attack against the EU, citing “a complete absence of coordination of health care politics among member states.”
As a result, rather than heeding the EU’s belated advice for member states to coordinate their response to the outbreak, all the evidence suggests that nations are taking matters into their own hands rather than relying on the EU for guidance.
A letter sent by the European Commission to member states earlier this month appealed for European leaders to coordinate their actions as they sought to ease the strict lockdown measures that have been in place since the coronavirus outbreak. The letter warned that failure to do so would “unavoidably lead to a corresponding increase in new cases.”
Instead, all the evidence suggests that the majority of European governments are ignoring the EU’s advice, and acting unilaterally to tackle the impact of the pandemic on their citizens.
Thus, at a time when countries like Spain, Italy and Austria are taking the first, tentative steps to ease the lockdown, with certain businesses being allowed to reopen, French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that the strict lockdown measures imposed over the whole of France will remain in place for the next four weeks.
The divergence in approach among various member states indicates that European leaders are — as they have been from the outset — acting selfishly in their own national interest rather than for the good of the EU as a whole.
It also means they are in breach of some of the EU’s fundamental principles, such as the single market which requires all member states to conduct business on an equal footing. The fact that several countries are allowing various businesses, such as construction, to return to work, whereas in other nations they have been banned from operating during the lockdown, means that disparities will inevitably develop in the economies of member states, a fact that is likely to increase tensions between European leaders in the months to come.
Brussels now says it wants to present an EU-wide “roadmap” for lifting restrictions next week, which will call for national capitals to co-ordinate their exit.
“At a minimum, member states should notify each other and the [European] Commission in due time before they lift measures and take into account their views,” the document is expected to recommend.
“It is essential that there is a common approach and operating framework.”
The problem for the EU is that, now that so many European countries have already taken matters into their own hands, any attempt by Brussels to impose a unified approach to ending the lockdown will surely be a case of too little, too late.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/17/2020 – 02:00 - Iraq Warns That ISIS Now Using Coronavirus Crisis To Reestablish 'Virtual Caliphate'
Iraq Warns That ISIS Now Using Coronavirus Crisis To Reestablish ‘Virtual Caliphate’
The Digital Media Center in Iraq revealed an increase in the number of accounts belonging to the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh) and their supporters on social media platforms, especially Facebook.
The center said in a press release that “this return came during the past months that accompanied the coronavirus pandemic and led to a delay in the response of Facebook’s support to delete accounts.”
Illustration via The Wahid Foundation “The members of ISIS and those who support them took advantage of the opportunity and started creating new accounts or reactivating old accounts, and they published and promoted their terrorist operations through the platform,” Iraqi media monitoring watchdog said.
The Center warned users not to interact with these posts even if it was criticizing them through comments or sharing them, which leads to unintentionally free promotion.
The official government-run Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service also echoed the warning, alerting the public to the “growing number of accounts of ISIS members and supporters on social media platforms, especially Facebook.”
#مركز_الاعلام_الرقمي @iraqDMC يحذر مستخدمي وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي من التفاعل مع هذه المنشورات حتى لو كان بانتقادها من خلال التعليقات او مشاركتها، مما يؤدي الى الترويج المجاني لها دون قصد.
— جهاز مكافحة الإرهاب (@iraqicts) April 16, 2020
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In January of this year, a United Nations warning was issued as follows:
Islamic State has begun to reassert itself in its heartlands in the Middle East and continues to seek opportunities to strike in the west, the United Nations has said.
A report to the UN security council based on recent intelligence from member states describes how the group is mounting increasingly bold insurgent attacks in Iraq and Syria, calling and planning for the breakout of its fighters from detention facilities and exploiting the weaknesses of local security forces.
The report portrays an organisation that has suffered significant setbacks but is tenacious, well-funded and still poses a considerable local and international threat.
Iraq’s counter-terrorism forces further called on users to make “the necessary concerted efforts to counter the terrorist tide through extensive reporting of these accounts so that Facebook closes them.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/17/2020 – 01:00 - No, We Are Not "All In This Together"…
No, We Are Not “All In This Together”…
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
A common phrase I have heard lately all around the internet as well as all around the area I live whenever the pandemic situation is broached is that “We are all in this together, and WE will get through this together….”
The sentiment is repeated like a religious mantra and I believe it is rooted in a collectivist reaction in the minds of many. The idea is that if we all comfort each other by repeating the lie that we’re all in the same boat, and if everyone believes it, then the threat of the outbreak along with the economic collapse will somehow simply “disappear”.
The notion that “we are going to get through this together” seems to be based in the assumption that the crisis is going to move quickly, and if we hold tight, our sacrifice will be minimal and all will go back to the way things were before. This is simply not so.
I highly respect the ideal of giving hope to others whenever possible (as Aragorn says in Return Of The King “I give hope to men. I keep none for myself”). However, hope has to come from a legitimate place. It has to be based in some reality. There are too many lies driving public psychology right now to give concrete hope to anyone. The lies have to land, they have to touch ground, and the facts have to hit people hard before we can then come to an understanding of what we have to do to survive this event. In the meantime, the majority of people are going to be trapped in fantasy land, hypnotized by delusions of magical cures and economic silver bullets that will lead to salvation “in just two more weeks”.
On top of all that, the American public has never been more divided than it is right now. Sure, we can soak in a bathtub of brain-dead dreams with worn-out elitist celebrities like Madonna, telling us that the virus “makes us all equal”, but does it really? I’m sorry, but the truth that not all people are equal is about to become more apparent than ever before.
The pandemic along with the economic collapse is going to separate people into clearly definable categories, and many of these groups will be in direct conflict with each other:
The Prepared
These are the people that saw this event coming ahead of time and spent many months if not many years stocking supplies and training to survive it. The Prepared were smarter and had more insight into the reality of the situation than most people. If we were to apply evolutionary standards then The Prepared would be at the top of the food chain, the alpha species, but let’s not let this go to our heads; there are many downsides to being a member of The Prepared.
In a just world, the masses would be going to The Prepared for answers to the crisis, and some do, but overall I think The Prepared will be more hated for their predictive capabilities than admired. This is why prepared people have to stick together, organize and protect one another; because the day is coming when they will be targeted as enemies of the collective.
The Unprepared
The Unprepared are not all alike. There are people who are arrogant and ignored all evidence of collapse presented to them ahead of time, and now they are going to suffer for that. These are the people I call “grasshoppers”, as in the fable of ‘The Ant And The Grasshopper’. They danced and played all summer and laughed at all the warnings of impending winter. These are the people who will act indignant and vicious when they are deprived of comfort, and they will demand that the ants give up their preps to save them (which is not going to happen).
There are other people who were merely oblivious to the situation and are mostly innocent in their lack of preparation They just weren’t exposed to the available information for whatever reason. They live decent hard working lives and they are mostly innocent in all of this. They too will be faced with hard decisions in the near future – Some of them will try to prepare as best they can while the crisis is still in its early stages. Others will join the grasshoppers out of fear and demand a draconian government response.
The Independents
The Independents are people that will seek to solve the problems surrounding the crisis with their own ingenuity. They will not demand help from the government, nor will they demand that other people “share” their resources with them out of a sense of entitlement. They will ask for help where needed, but they will try to do the best they can to endure the crisis without trying to force others to make things easier for them.
The Independents will understand the difference between collectivism and voluntary organization. The first strategy requires force and fear, the second strategy does not. The Collectivists will try to interfere or even destroy The Independents, because if they are successful in organizing voluntarily and becoming prosperous through free market innovation then this will prove that the collectivist ideology is unnecessary and outdated. The Collectivists would rather “win” than be right in their thinking.
The Collectivists
Collectivist people will applaud the vast expansion of government power and control, because within their cult religion government is god. To them, the pandemic is not a curse but a blessing, because it gives them a rationale to take part in a grand subjugation of other people and feel the power they have always wanted to feel. These are the people with inherent narcissistic and sociopathic traits within our culture. They represent only 1% to 5% of the total population, but they are predatory and single-minded in their goal to control others and feed off the world like parasites.
These people are not always elites. In fact, most of them are just like you and me in terms of status and income. In times of great crisis, these creatures tend to rise to the surface and reveal themselves. They feel particularly energized within environments that fuel tyranny; they love the feeling of power and will exploit crisis events as an excuse to act as evil as they always wanted to but could not during normal times. Take for example Doctor John Rademaker in Louisville, Kentucky who attacked a group of girls and tried to strangle one of them for “not social distancing”. Once we consider the fact that by attacking the girls he was also breaking social distancing guidelines, it becomes clear that people like this don’t actually care about their own rules, they only care that OTHER PEOPLE follow those rules.
They want to be the observers, like the Soviet Cheka. They know will never be at the top of the power totem pole, so they ride the coattails of tyranny and feed on whatever scraps of power they can get.
These people seem like they would not work well with others, but they do tend to congregate in groups as long as there is mutual gain to be had. They have all the character qualities of global elites including a complete lack of empathy, a penchant for self worship and idolization, zero belief in anything greater than themselves, a propensity towards deceit and violence to get what they want, and using disasters to their advantage.
The Global Elites
This is a tiny group of creatures that benefit the most from the pandemic crisis. Through this disaster they will be able to absorb vast amounts of hard assets for pennies on the dollar, devouring wealth and property from the middle class and changing the entire economy into something unrecognizable. The elites don’t want your property and wealth simply because they are greedy; they want your property and wealth because they don’t want YOU to have any. They want to end the concept of private property for all time, for without property and the ability to accumulate wealth through our labors the masses are always dependent on government for their survival.
Beyond this, the ultimate goal of the elites is a one world cashless society, as well as a one world government. Already, the US Senate is considering a bill that would create a digital dollar and a digital wallet system to replace paper currency. Other nations have begun going cashless, and the coronavirus is being used as an excuse to speed up the process. The UN’s World Health Organization has specifically called for going cashless as well. Once the public is trapped into a digital system, they will never be able to trade without using the banks as the middle men, and all transactions will be tracked. Nothing will be private ever again, and with the push of a button what little wealth you are allowed to accumulate can be frozen within the new socialist control culture. You will be at the mercy of the government and the banks.
Moving past the economic, the elites have bigger dreams of a massive surveillance society in which every person is tracked 24 hours a day. Bill Gates is all over the mainstream news lately promoting the idea of tracking apps (like those already being used in China) to “fight the coronavirus”. Apple and Google are pushing the agenda as well and are ready to launch tracking apps whenever the government is ready to write them into law.
The Global Elites do not care about saving lives. They do not care about saving the economy as we know it. They do not care about political affiliations. They are on their own side, and they only care about power. Like I said, we are NOT all in this together.
The Sheeple
Sheeple are people that have no capacity for self leadership. They will follow whoever they think has the best chance of securing their survival, even if those people have evil intentions. Sheeple are not necessarily nefarious minded, they just don’t care about the bigger picture and they only see what is right in front of them. This is a different mindset from those of us that look for leadership in people that display integrity, experience and competence; Sheeple don’t care about any of that. They just want to feel protected and secure no matter what, even if they have to sacrifice their freedoms in exchange for that feeling. They are a prime target for The Collectivists and The Global Elites.
Trying to talk sense to sheeple is almost impossible. They will not listen. You probably know a few Sheeple in your life who even now in the midst of a global collapse still think this crisis will be over in a matter of weeks and that the government will save them. Attempting to convince them otherwise is a waste of time.
All you can do is provide a better solution than the collectivists and hope The Sheeple follow your lead instead of the evil empire’s when the crash hits hardest.
Irreconcilable Differences
These different types of people are mostly at odds with each other. There is no “we”, there is no “us” and there is no “getting through this thing together”. I will say that the vast majority of people do have a conscience, unlike the globalists that created this calamity in the first place, but that does not mean we will all end up on the same team. The dark magic of chaos is that it can be used to convince otherwise peaceful people to support horrifying tyranny in the name of the “greater good”.
Beware anyone promoting the notion that we are “all in this together”; this is the gateway to collectivism and it is a blatant lie. As mentioned, there are establishment elites that plan to gain from this event while the rest of us suffer; they are NOT on our side or in our boat. They will use the pandemic and the simultaneous economic collapse (which they have engineered) to maneuver the public into abandoning their freedoms in the name of collective safety.
There are useful idiots and narcopaths out there that thrive in these types of unstable environments. They too are vampires seeking to bleed people dry while using the disaster as cover. These are the people screaming at strangers walking down the street that they need to “go back home” and “flatten the curve”. These are the people calling the cops on their neighbors for talking in a group bigger than two or three. These are the local government officials calling for bans on church services even when they are held outside and follow the “guidelines” of social distancing. These are the people calling preppers “hoarders” and demanding that their supplies be redistributed. These are the people that revel in authoritarianism.
Understand that there are many sides to this conflict and very few of them are honorable. Listen to your conscience, listen to evidence, truth and reason, and choose your side wisely.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 23:45 - Ford Tests Buzzing Wristbands To Keep Workers Six Feet Apart
Ford Tests Buzzing Wristbands To Keep Workers Six Feet Apart
Ford Motor Co. is now piloting new wearable social-distancing wristbands for its workers once its factories reopen, reports Bloomberg.
A group of workers at a factory in Plymouth, Michigan, are currently testing the wristbands that vibrate when someone on the assembly line comes within six feet of one another.
Kelli Felker, the company’s spokeswomen, said the new wristbands could be deployed more widely when manufacturing plants reopen next month. She said the new devices would allow employees to work safely with social distancing in mind.
Ford is expected to restart production lines next month after a six-week shutdown. All employees will be subjected thermal-imaging scan before entering any facility. Felker said employees would be given protective medical gear such as masks, face shields, and gloves.
The new health measures are being worked out with the United Auto Workers union (UAW):
“Ford and the UAW are working closely to identify different ways to keep our people safe while they are at work,” Felker said.
The Plymouth plant is also the site where Ford is producing ventilators and respirators for hospitals.
Starting in April, we’re producing a ventilator with @GEHealthcare, leveraging the design of @AironCorp’s FDA-cleared ventilator. It’s designed to operate on air pressure without electricity, making it a versatile solution to help those fighting #COVID19. #BuiltFordProud pic.twitter.com/DtsB0fPGe0
— Ford Motor Company (@Ford) March 30, 2020
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The automaker has also converted airbag material and reworked assembly lines to manufacture protective suits for hospital workers.
And maybe Amazon’s patent from a few years ago to track employees via wristbands could finally come in hand during these challenging times.
In a post-corona world, surveillance in the workplace will certainly increase.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 23:25 - Quantifying The COVID-19 Shock On The Job Market: Where Jobs Are Growing And Where They Are Gone
Quantifying The COVID-19 Shock On The Job Market: Where Jobs Are Growing And Where They Are Gone
Submitted by Priceonomics,
The coronavirus outbreak has been an unprecedented shock to the hourly job market. The past few weeks have seen huge changes in who’s hiring. Snagajob is the largest site for hourly jobs. Its employers include some of the hardest hit categories like sit-down restaurants. It also helps employers in the grocery and warehouse industries—and these jobs are critical to keeping the economy running during this crisis.
According to Snagajob, overall job postings are down almost 40% from their peak a month ago. In particular, sit-down restaurants, staffing firms and entertainment have been the hardest hit. If you’re looking for a job, hiring is up in warehousing (Amazon), logistics (shipping, i.e. more Amazon), retail, groceries (Whole Foods, so even more Amazon) and transportation (you guessed it).
***
Before we start in with the charts, here are a few points to remember. The following data looks at the number of job postings by category and location, before and after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic on 3/11/2020.
To start, let’s look at overall jobs posted on Snagajob over the last two months.
You can see that jobs peaked on March 4th, before starting to drop, even before the WHO declared a worldwide pandemic on 3/11. From this peak, job postings have declined 41%. However, compared to the first day of this analysis (2/3/2020), jobs postings are only down 12.6% so far.
There is a bright spot though. There’s a small uptick in job postings in the most recent dates. There is a complete reordering of the hourly job market, where some categories have disappeared for the time-being, but others are growing.
The world is completely different than before the pandemic, but it’s not all bad news when it comes to job postings. Logistics and warehouse job postings are up over 156% since the pandemic declaration. Retail, transportation and grocery job postings are also up. You can still find jobs in essential services that keep people fed and supplied.
There are still a lot of categories, however, that have seen a steep decline in job postings. Temporary staffing jobs have seen the largest drop, falling 74.1%. Entertainment, hospitality, on-demand and sit-down restaurant job postings have all fallen more than 30%.
Lastly, let’s look at the impact on job postings across America. The chart below shows the decline (or increase) in hourly jobs after the declaration of pandemic.
Of the 122 largest metro areas on Snagajob, 113 of them have seen a decline in hourly jobs—just nine have seen an increase so far. At the high end, places like Lafayette, Louisiana have seen a nearly 60% decrease in job postings for hourly workers. Of the top 10 most negatively affected cities, seven of them are in Louisiana or Utah. So far, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle have all seen an increase in job postings on Snagajob after the pandemic.
***
In summary, warehouse and logistics jobs are up over 150% in three weeks. Job postings for grocery stores and retail are also up as people still need to shop for essential items. While job postings may be down overall, the companies that are providing essential services to the country are still hiring. The hourly job market is still in flux and overall job postings are in decline. However, for those who are currently looking for jobs, some employers are hiring more than ever.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 23:05 - For The First Time Ever, The Fed Will Monetize Double The Total Treasury Issuance
For The First Time Ever, The Fed Will Monetize Double The Total Treasury Issuance
While daytraders look transfixed at a stock market which continues to surge higher even as the US has lost around 22 million jobs in the past month alone, something far more nefarious is taking place behind the scenes: the Fed is nationalizing (or privatizing, depending on whether one views the Fed as a public, or a private – which it actually is – entity) the entire capital market at a pace unseen before in history.
AS the following chart from DB’s Torsten Slok shows, the current pace of weekly Treasury purchases is simply staggering, unparalleled by anything seen before in history.
It’s not just the Fed: with QE officially back (and not in the cute “Not-QE” variant, but full blown global debt monetization), every single central bank is now actively injecting billions of liquidity into the stock market.
We show this chart just so all the idiots on TV (and in the Minneapolis Fed) who still claim the Fed has no impact on stock prices and instead stocks are driven off future earnings (which are now expected to be down 70% according to JPM) will mercifully shut up for ever.
But back to the Fed, where we bring up something Torsten Slok said today, and which has to go straight to the heart of the issue whether MMT will unleash a new era of socialist prosperity and utopia for everyone, or instead, it will result in a fiscal crisis and the loss of the dollar’s reserve status, to wit:
At the peak in late March, the Fed was buying $75bn in Treasuries every day, and we are now down to “only” $30bn per day, see also here. These enormous Fed purchases combined with rates moving sideways in recent weeks make you wonder where 10-year rates would have been if the Fed had not intervened. As the Fed gradually steps away over the coming weeks, and Treasury issuance continues to increase to finance the fiscal stimulus, the market will be focusing more and more on demand and supply in the US Treasury market.
And as we ride into the sunset of US monetary supremacy and into the gaping chasm of economic, financial and fiscal turmoil now that helicopter money has been unleashed without anyone apparently realizing what has just happened, we highlight the following chart, also from Slok, which lays out succinctly what it now takes to avoid a full-blown fiscal crisis: a Fed which is monetizing twice the Treasury’s net issuance. From Slow:
When the Fed did QE in the years following the 2008 financial crisis monthly Treasury purchases never exceeded US Treasury net issuance, but the Fed is now on track to buy double the amount of net issuance
While we have nothing else to add to the chart above, a quote from Shelley: “Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 22:45 - Facebook 'Fact Checker' Worked At Wuhan Biolab; Ruled Out Virus-Leak While 'Debunking' Articles
Facebook ‘Fact Checker’ Worked At Wuhan Biolab; Ruled Out Virus-Leak While ‘Debunking’ Articles
A Facebook fact checker who has ‘debunked’ articles suggesting that COVID-19 may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has a giant conflict of interest; she worked at the institute – which is now suspected of accidentally leaking the hyper-virulent virus which has killed over 130,000 people and cast the global economy into chaos.
Danielle Anderson, who works at Duke University’s NUS Medical School lab in Singapore, also contributes to Science Feedback – which Facebook has been using to slap “False Information” labels on articles claiming that COVID-19 may have originated at the Wuhan institute – where Anderson worked with bat coronavirus.
A quick search of Anderson’s publications reveals no fewer than nine collaborations with Dr. Peng Zhou – a Wuhan scientist experimenting on bat coronavirus (the mention of whom may result in a Twitter ban).
If you follow the info, you will find the Facebook fake fact-checker on the China Wuhan lab is a scientist who works/worked at China’s Wuhan lab the past two years and says it is impossible that they would be sloppy because they are very careful! 😂😡@Facebook https://t.co/Ldvu7He82v
— Sharyl Attkisson🕵️♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) April 16, 2020
Anderson has been adamant that the lab adheres to the highest standards of safety, and that COVID-19 simply couldn’t have accidentally been leaked by her colleagues.
“I have worked in this exact laboratory at various times for the past 2 years. I can personally attest to the strict control and containment measures implemented while working there,” Anderson writes in one such ‘debunking’ of a New York Post article that claims “China [is having] a problem keeping dangerous pathogens in test tubes where they belong” while Science Feedback cast doubt on the Post‘s claim that “evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 research being carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Except, they were carrying out SARS-CoV-2 research at that exact lab, according to new reports in the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Mail and Fox News.
An April 9 report in the Journal reveals that COVID-19 is genetically identical to a coronavirus found in a horseshoe bat “collected by hazmat-clad scientists from the Institute of Virology in Wuhan.”
While a Wednesday report from Fox News reveals that COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that “patient zero” was an employee who became infected before spreading it throughout the community, according to ‘multiple sources who have been briefed on the details.’
And while Anderson was busy covering for her corona-labmates with Facebook debunkings implicating the WIV, she went on national television to explain that the virus could have only come from outside the lab.
Anderson further peddled the now-debunked wet-market theory in a paper she co-wrote in The Lancet, which reads: “While recognising the tremendous effort by the China CDC team in the early response to the 2019-nCoV outbreak, the small number of team members trained in animal health was probably one of the reasons for the delay in identifying an intermediate animal(s), which is likely to have caused the spread of the virus in a region of the market where wildlife animals were traded and subsequently found to be heavily contaminated. Unfortunately, what animal(s) was involved in transmission remains unknown.”
Any suggestion to the contrary is now deemed ‘False Information’ by Facebook, thanks to the highly conflicted Danielle Anderson and crew over at Science Feedback.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 22:35 - The History Of Hydroxychloroquine In India
The History Of Hydroxychloroquine In India
As most of us are already aware, Hydroxychloroquine has already taken the world by storm as a treatment against COVID-19. Every newspaper is talking about it, and all countries are requesting India to supply it. Now, a curious person might wonder why and how this chemical composition is so deeply entrenched in India, and is there any history behind it. Well, there is an interesting history behind it which goes all the way to the Indian king Tipu Sultan’s defeat.
In 1799, when Tipu was defeated by the British, the whole of Mysore Kingdom with Srirangapatnam as Tipu’s capital, came under British control. For the next few days, the British soldiers had a great time celebrating their victory, but within weeks, many started feeling sick due to Malaria, because Srirangapatnam was a highly marshy area with severe mosquito trouble.
The local Indian population had over the centuries, developed self immunity, and also all the spicy food habits also helped to an extent. Whereas the British soldiers and officers who were suddenly exposed to harsh Indian conditions, started bearing the brunt.
To quickly overcome the mosquito menace, the British Army quickly shifted their station from Srirangapatnam to Bangalore (by establishing the Bangalore Cantonment region), which was a welcome change, especially due to cool weather, which the Brits were gravely longing for ever since they had left their shores. But the malaria problem still persisted because Bangalore was also no exception to mosquitoes.
Around the same time in 18th century, European scientists had discovered a chemical composition called “Quinine” which could be used to treat malaria, but it was yet to be extensively tested at large scale. This malaria crisis among British Army came at an opportune time, and thus Quinine was imported in bulk by the Army and distributed to all their soldiers, who were instructed to take regular dosages (even to healthy soldiers) so that they could build immunity. This was followed up in all other British stations throughout India, because every region in India had malaria problem to some extent.
But there was a small problem. Although sick soldiers quickly recovered, many more soldiers who were exposed to harsh conditions of tropical India continued to become sick, because it was later found that they were not taking dosages of Quinine. Why? Because it was very bitter!! So, by avoiding the bitter Quinine, British soldiers were lagging behind on their immunity, thereby making themselves vulnerable to Malaria in the tropical regions of India.
That’s when all the top British officers and scientists started experimenting ways to persuade their soldiers to strictly take these dosages, and during their experiments, they found that the bitter Quinine mixed with Juniper based liquor, actually turned somewhat into a sweet flavor.
That’s because the molecular structure of the final solution was such that it would almost completely curtail the bitterness of Quinine.
That juniper based liquor was Gin. And the Gin mixed with Quinine was called “Gin & Tonic”, which immediately became an instant hit among British soldiers.
The same British soldiers who were ready to even risk their lives but couldn’t stand the bitterness of Quinine, started swearing by it daily when they mixed it with Gin. In fact, the Army even started issuing few bottles of Gin along with “tonic water” (Quinine) as part of their monthly ration, so that soldiers could themselves prepare Gin & Tonic and consume them everyday to build immunity.
To cater to the growing demand of gin & other forms of liquor among British soldiers, the British East India company built several local breweries in and around Bengaluru, which could then be transported to all other parts of India. And that’s how, due to innumerable breweries and liquor distillation factories, Bengaluru had already become the pub capital of India way back during British times itself.
Eventually, most of these breweries were handed over from British organizations after Indian independence, to none other than Vittal Mallya (the fugitive Vijay Mallya‘s father), who then led the consortium under the group named United Breweries headquartered in Bengaluru.
Coming back to the topic, that’s how Gin & Tonic became a popular cocktail and is still a popular drink even today. The Quinine, which was called Tonic (without gin), was widely prescribed by Doctors as well, for patients who needed cure for fever or any infection. So, that’s how the word “Tonic” became a colloquial word for “Western medicine” in India.
Over the years, Quinine was developed further into many of its variants and derivatives and widely prescribed by Indian doctors.
One such descendant of Quinine, called Hydroxychloroquine, eventually became the defacto cure for malaria, which is now suddenly the most sought after drug in the world today.
* * *
Thread by Primordial Kāshyap on Twitter. Read here the history of The Prince Who Defeated East India Company In House Of Commons.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 22:25 - "A Bad Global Precedent" – Chinese GDP Collapses More Than Expected, Worst Since At Least 1992
“A Bad Global Precedent” – Chinese GDP Collapses More Than Expected, Worst Since At Least 1992
So, the question is – just how ‘manufactured’ will this smorgasbord of Chinese macro data be? As v-shaped as the incredible ‘survey’ data? Or as realistic as the traffic and pollution numbers suggest?
The red oval is the ChiNext stock index’s reaction to the worst of China’s virus impact… green is PMI and red is the macro surprise index (which will be smashed one way or the other tonight)…
Source: Bloomberg
Of course the big one tonight is Chinese GDP growth. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a 6% contraction in the first three months of the year, when the coronavirus outbreak forced an unprecedented lockdown of factories, stores and schools across the country (ING Bank saw a +3.6% print and at the other end of the spectrum, Capital Economics forecast a 16.0% contraction in GDP).
“China’s economy is going to recover only gradually,” said Scott Kennedy, senior adviser and trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
“If the government over-stimulates, the only result will be a lot of wasted spending and greater debt. And that won’t help resolve the core problem of China’s economy: low productivity.”
Additionally, the government will also release data for retail sales, fixed asset investment and industrial output for March, offering the most complete picture yet of the economic destruction since the virus outbreak (but we have already seen the collapse in this monthly data for February and expectations are for a rebound or slowdown in the collapse).
And so here we go… the magic number for tonight is… a miss – Chinese GDP shrank by 6.8% from a year ago (considerably worse than the 6.0% drop expected) and the worst drop on record (since 1992)
As Bloomberg notes, the sharp contraction underscores the pressure that Chinese policy makers face as they attempt to revive the economy without nullifying efforts to contain the virus. The continued spread around the world also threatens to add fresh downward pressure on China’s exporters in a feedback loop that could throw millions out of work.
“The economic loss is unprecedented,” Pacific Investment Management Co. economists wrote.
“The global recession will hit exports primarily in the second and third quarters of 2020, domestic demand is still hampered by quarantine curbs, and stimulus transmission is weak amid spreading bankruptcies and job losses.”
And the rest of the Chinese data improved marginally but:
-
Industrial Production fell 8.4% YTD YoY (better than -10.0% exp)
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Retail Sales fell 19.0% YTD YoY (worse than -12.5% exp)
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Fixed Asset Investment fell 16.1% YTD YoY (worse than 15.0% exp)
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Property Investment fell 7.7% YTD YoY
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Surveyed Jobless Rate improved from 6.2% to 5.9%
As Bloomberg’s Asia Economy Team Manager, Malcolm Scott notes, the March numbers probably tell us a bit about human psychology as well as economics — you can turn factories back on and rev up production lines, but it’s tougher to restore consumer confidence that’s been so badly shaken. And while the consumer plays a larger role in China’s economy today than in the past, it’s nothing like the contribution in most advanced economies. That could be a bad precedent globally.
Finally, International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Gita Gopinath said in an online media briefing on Tuesday that the fund is tipping 1.2% growth for China this year.
“The rest of the global economy is now in the grips of the pandemic and there are severe containment measures around the world so that would have a big negative impact in terms of external demand on China’s growth.”
However, “until there is a usable vaccine, it is tough to see life getting anything like being back to vague normality,” warned Jim O’Neill, Chair of Chatham House and the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief economist who coined the term BRIC.
And for those craving the next stimulus move by Chinese officials, Shang-Jin Wei, a China expert at Columbia Business School in New York and formerly chief economist of the Asian Development Bank, warns: “Prevention of a return or the ‘second wave’ of the virus outbreak is more important than getting a high growth rate for the remainder of the year.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 22:10 -
- Trump Says Guidelines Would Allow Some States To Reopen "Tomorrow"
Trump Says Guidelines Would Allow Some States To Reopen “Tomorrow”
Update (1900ET): President Trump definitely hasn’t shied away from rambling tonight, though he’s also remained pretty poised in the face of some pretty tough questioning.
But one thing he said is that he believes there are about 29 states that he expects will be reopening “soon”, though he refused to name them.
When the time comes, it’ll be “up to the governors” Trump said.
* * *
Update (1830ET): One of the first questions for President Trump was if the new federal guidelines would replace the old federal guidelines that called for social distancing, school closures and WFH to remain in place at least until the end of the month. Trump replied that they did. So, could a state like, say, Montana reopen tomorrow, if it wanted?
“Sure,” Trump said.
The press corp. didn’t seem to happy with that, as they pressed Trump to discuss which states he felt were on track to reopen, and when.
* * *
Update (1840ET): If you’re looking for a copy of all of the slides shared by Dr. Birx during Thursday evening’s press conference, they’re included in the White House report which, as we noted earlier, was leaked to the New York Post shortly before the press conference started.
Read it below:
* * *
The moment we’ve been waiting for (or at least that Trump has been hyping up) has finally arrived…President Trump is unveiling his “guidelines” to re-open America, officially entitled the “Opening Up America Again” plan.
Trump kicked off the press conference by saying that the US has succeeded in flattening the curve, and that the “peak” is finally behind us.
Some details of the guidelines leaked to the New York Post (and were immediately shared by the newswires), and we discussed them here.
Many New York City and Washington DC-based journalists might be surprised to learn that a large swath of the country hasn’t reported a single new case in a week.
And remember, since futures are soaring thanks to that remdesivir report, Trump is thinking everything really is fixed, as he ticks off the many deleterious effects of the ‘stay at home’ orders, including suicide and drug abuse.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 22:09 - Eric Holder Sees Coronavirus As 'Opportunity' To Redesign US Election System
Eric Holder Sees Coronavirus As ‘Opportunity’ To Redesign US Election System
Eric Holder thinks the COVID-19 pandemic is a great opportunity to fundamentally change the way America votes.
“Coronavirus gives us an opportunity to revamp our electoral system so that it permanently becomes more inclusive and becomes easier for the American people to access,” Holder told Time magazine.
And as the Washington Examiner‘s Andrew Mark Miller notes, the former Obama Attorney General thinks mail-in ballots are the solution.
“There has to be a sea change in our thinking there,” Holder told the magazine, adding “Allow people to access their primary American right by voting at home. It’s not as if this is an untried concept. Oregon has been doing this for years. But we have to make sure that we’re being sensitive to the needs of poor communities and communities of color by doing things like having prepaid postage on envelopes. Construct a system so that you’ve got expanded in-person voting, you’ve got expanded at-home voting and expanded no-excuse absentee vote-at-home measures.”
The changes, according to Holder, will help “enhance our democracy.”
Democrats across the country have been pushing for increased mail-in voting during the coronavirus crisis despite reports over the past week suggesting over 28 million mail-in ballots have been lost in the past 10 years and that thousands of ineligible voters could possibly receive mail-in ballots, including many dead people.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on his show this week he believes these efforts to push mail-in voting are part of a broader effort on behalf of Democrats to “encourage” voter fraud to win elections. –Washington Examiner
The push for mail-in ballots has gained steam in Congress, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) suggesting that the new system would “remove all obstacles to participation” in the 2020 election.
Trump and GOP lawmakers have suggested that the scheme is a politically motivated power-grab – warning that the system is “corrupt” and would invite widespread fraud.
“They grab thousands of mail-in ballots and they dump it,” Trump told reporters earlier this month, adding that vote-by-mail “doesn’t work out for Republicans.”
Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans. @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2020
Holder and Pelosi are joined by House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) reportedly suggesting in a March conference call that coronavirus presents political opportunities – referring to it as a “tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 21:45 - Baltimore PD Wants 24-Hour HD Surveillance Drones To Enforce Social Distancing
Baltimore PD Wants 24-Hour HD Surveillance Drones To Enforce Social Distancing
Authored by Cassius K. via The Organic Prepper blog,
The Baltimore Police Department and “Persistent Surveillance,” an Ohio-based company, signed a deal together to spy on the residents of Baltimore, Maryland with drones. In Nazi Germany, fascism was characterized by the fusion between corporate and government power.
This shady company was under fire almost 4 years ago in 2016, for doing surveillance with the Baltimore Police Department and violating their own 45-day data retention policy.
Give an inch, they take a mile. Their client, the BPD was able to violate their official policy with impunity.
“All media will be stored in a secure area with access restricted to authorized persons,” states the official policy of Persistent Surveillance Systems.
“Recordings not otherwise needed for criminal evidence or for official reasons are retained for a period of 45 days and then destroyed.”
The company used drones to collect over 300 hours of aerial surveillance footage over Baltimore throughout 8 months in 2016.
This was directly after nationwide scrutiny came to the department in the aftermath of the death of Freddie Gray, which sparked nationwide protests.
City officials approved the new deal on April 1, and then the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore Police Department about a week and a half later on April 9.
How invasive is surveillance in Baltimore?
The drones will be equipped with high-resolution cameras, capable of posing a real threat to the security of anyone deemed a “criminal.”
The ACLU emphasized that this crosses a massive line, explaining that the plan places every resident of Baltimore “under constant aerial surveillance.”
“It is equivalent to having a police officer follow us, each of us, outside all the time in case we might commit a crime,” senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Maryland, David Rocah said. “If that happened in real life, everyone would clearly understand the privacy and First Amendment implications, and it would never be tolerated.”
The high definition surveillance drones can reportedly cover around 90% of the City of Baltimore’s land area at any particular moment.
The ACLU noted that in combination with cameras on the ground accessed by the Baltimore Police Department, license plate readers, and other sources of info, it can all be combined to provide detailed information about the actions, identities, whatever you can think of, in regard to residents.
Representing the philosophical split between the fundamentally opposed sides of totalitarian vs not totalitarian, a Baltimore Police Commissioner admitted the police will in fact combine the data and have massively increased power.
“This actually can serve as a force multiplier for the police department, and perhaps can be used as an investigative tool while we are practicing social distancing,” said Police Commissioner Michael Harrison.
This week happens to be the 5 year anniversary of Freddie Gray’s tragic death at the hands of the Baltimore Police Department.
It sparked protests throughout 2015 from Baltimore, Maryland to Sacramento, California, coast to coast in the US during a year of police brutality-awareness.
“Putting residents under continuous, aerial surveillance will impact the privacy rights of everyone, but it is especially dangerous for Black and Brown communities,” the ACLU representative said. “Baltimore is a city with a terrible history of racism and lack of accountability for abuses by police. It’s the last place a novel system of mass surveillance should be tested.”
Will your city be next?
Common sense tells us that if one American city is under totalitarian drone surveillance, more will follow.
The ACLU recognized that possibility as well. A staff attorney with the ACLU stated that they are concerned if the drones are deployed in Baltimore, police across America will try to use police drones.
This month, in April 2020 the drones are set to launch, and this “trial period” of their use will last 180 days. A decision will be made by April 24, regarding the ACLU lawsuit against the Baltimore Police Department.
If the police drones are deployed, it will probably happen around the end of April.
If the trial comes to an end and the drone use is discontinued, according to their promises, the drones will be out of the sky around 6 months from their launch: the end of October.
Baltimore, Maryland is of course known to have one of the highest crime rates in not just America, but the world, providing a heavy justification for deploying police drones equipped with high definition cameras.
If the drones were deployed and accepted, one might see a city like Chicago or Atlanta, San Francisco or New York adopt them. San Diego-area city Chula Vista, California is already using police drones equipped with similar night vision cameras, to spot people breaking quarantine rules.
A line into totalitarianism is being crossed.
5 years after one of the most protested police murders in American history, the city of Baltimore is threatened with becoming the location of the line being crossed. Baltimore is threatened with becoming the location of a new paradigm of totalitarian surveillance, a fork in the road in history that we can either fight now or be subject to for who knows how many years.
It will definitely take more than civil liberties organizations and lawsuits to shut down a movement like this, directly aimed at the civilian class. This could be considered equal to a declaration of war against the common people: a very clear line being crossed that could usher in true totalitarianism.
What scenarios might people see if these drones were deployed throughout America? Jails and prisons might fill up with people charged with new crimes, destruction of surveillance drones and things like that. Your every move could be watched when you’re outside your home. Where you go who you go there with…and yes, even if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you do have something to worry about: your complete invasion of privacy.
It’s difficult to believe people will be accepting of this. Either way, this moment of the line being crossed is extremely important to recognize. Whatever social power we have, it should be utilized to oppose the persistent advances of totalitarianism and the surveillance state.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 21:25 - Wholesale Gasoline Hits 12 Cents A Gallon In Midwest
Wholesale Gasoline Hits 12 Cents A Gallon In Midwest
Two weeks ago we reported how the “steepest decline in global oil consumption ever recorded” spelled negative prices for crude in what Goldman’s Jeffrey Currie as “the largest economic shock of our lifetimes.”
Now, the unprecedented collapse in consumption has hit the other end of the industry – gasoline.
According to Bloomberg, gasoline in Fargo, North Dakota has hit 12 cents a gallon at ‘the rack’ – the wholesale market where gas station owners buy fuel before marking it up at the pumps – which have become “little more than makeshift storage for ballooning inventories.”
“When you see gasoline down around 12 cents a gallon, no one is going to be making money,” said Ron Ness, President of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, who added that it’s nearly impossible for retailers to turn a profit at that price.
“Our gasoline business has been cut in half,” said David Olson, general manager of RJ’s Gas Station outside of Fargo. Nearby, Shaun Lugurt told Bloomberg that he estimates sales at his station have tumbled 80% in a month.
“The biggest part for us that has been so hard is the unknown,” said Lugurt, adding “It’s been kind of a roller coaster.” Lugert co-owns Don’s Car Washes, and has also been forced too cut back store and worker hours.
The slump in rack prices, which are typically stable due to intense competition among distributors, is the latest sign that the coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc on every aspect of the fuel market. American gasoline consumption fell to the lowest level on record last week as lockdowns take drivers off the road while gasoline stockpiles rose to a record high. That’s caused rack prices across the U.S to collapse. Milwaukee this week beat out Fargo for the lowest price in the nation. –Bloomberg
“The local racks are just inundated with material,” according to Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy – who suggested that some refineries may be selling gasoline “at a break even or even a loss.”
“What we are seeing is that a lot of the big pipelines are being used as storage, and the product will just get pushed and pushed until it has no place else to go,” said DTN refined products analyst, Brian Milne. “Those places are at the end of the line.”
Retail gas prices, meanwhile, are catching up.
“You’re not going to be able to flip a switch and go back to what it was before coronavirus,” said Olson, the station manager at RJ’s. “Even with businesses opened back up again, people are going to be apprehensive.“
Olson is probably right – as a recent Gallup poll found that 80% of Americans say they will wait to return to normal activities after the government lifts the nationwide coronavirus lockdown.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 21:05 - Gilead Pours Cold Water On Report That Sent Market Soaring: "Anecdotal Reports With No Statistical Power"
Gilead Pours Cold Water On Report That Sent Market Soaring: “Anecdotal Reports With No Statistical Power”
After a one-two punch of disappointing news for Gilead out of China, where as we reported yesterday a trial of remdesivir in Covid-19 patients with mild or moderate symptoms was suspended as no eligible patients could be recruited according to an update on ClinicalTrials.gov, which in turn followed a trial of the drug in severely ill Covid-19 patients which was also terminated for similar reasons, it felt like one or more hedge funds would seek to manipulate public sentiment – and the market – and get out of an underwater position.
They did just that at 430pm today when the low profile Statnews published a report by Adam Feuerstein, best known for doing the bidding of one or more hedge fund clients, according to which a “Chicago hospital treating severe Covid-19 patients with Gilead Sciences’ antiviral medicine remdesivir in a closely watched clinical trial is seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms, with nearly all patients discharged in less than a week, STAT has learned.”
“Learned” from whom? A hedge fund or two who were long GILD and needed a fake news catalyst to get out? Because last time we checked, double blind, secret drug trials are, er… secret.
The report went on: “patients using Gilead’s remdesivir were “seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms”, which is odd considering the two previous incomplete/failed trials in China. According to the report, “almost all patients were discharged in under than a week, and only two patients died.”
Which actually is very bad news because as the FT reported later – this time using facts not sources – “none of the patients on the Chicago trial had been on invasive ventilation“, so is it possible that the drug killed them? Maybe Feuerstein can ask his
hedge fundsource.In any case, at the time the data hit Bloomberg around 4:21pm, it barely registered among the institutional audience, or even the algos, as most serious players were well aware of Feuerstein’s “tactical” reputation.
It wasn’t until the news was reported by CNBC about 30 minutes later – and hit the retail investing audience – that GILD stock soared 16 and the entire market took off as if someone had suddenly discovered not only a cure but also a vaccine for coronavirus.
Alas, neither happened, and as it has done on numerous occasions previously, about three hours after the news broke conveniently providing one or more hedge funds ample opportunity to offload their position in the thin after hours market, Gilead issued a statement which suggested that STAT was pumping the stock based on nothing more than “anecdotal reports” to wit:
“We understand the urgent need for a Covid-19 treatment and the resulting interest in data on our investigational antiviral drug remdesivir. The totality of the data need to be analysed in order to draw any conclusions from the trial.”
“Anecdotal reports, while encouraging, do not provide the statistical power necessary to determine the safety and efficacy profile of remdesivir as a treatment for Covid-19. We expect the data from our Phase 3 study in patients with severe Covid-19 infection to be available at the end of this month, and additional data from other studies to become available in May.”
And so, one more attempt to ramp the market using fake news of an imminent drug has failed, with some observing that a Phase 1 drug trial is now the functional equivalent of a Phase 1 trade deal – both meaningless on their own, but with the power to send stocks surging when used tactically by unknown players.
Experts had high hopes for remdesivir because it had shown it was effective in stopping the Ebola virus replicating. Ebola shares a similar mechanism of replication with Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes the Covid-19 disease. However, there has been no definitive statistic evidence yet that that is the case.
As a result, the drug has not been approved to treat any disease and scientists are waiting for the results of large trials with control arms for proof that it works and that the benefits outweigh any risks of side-effects. Umer Raffat, a biotech analyst at Evercore, said that he was “cautiously optimistic” about remdesivir but warned it was not a “silver bullet”.
He said it was important to note that none of the patients on the Chicago trial had been on invasive ventilation, which tends to be an indication of a more serious condition and worse outcomes. In short, the observed response could have been nothing more than a placebo effect.
And while stocks soared to new one month highs on the initial overhyped news of a trial that has not yet even concluded amid the latest powerful short squeeze, the rally has since reversed even if the drop has a long way to go before it fills the gap. Meanwhile, stocks are now the most overvalued ever, ever on the basis of forward multiples.
In short, we just observed another marketwide pump and dump, in which whales used gullible, CNBC-watching Joe Sixpack retail investors for “distribution”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 20:46 - Some Things Will Never Be The Same After The 'Bat-Gobbler-Flu'
Some Things Will Never Be The Same After The ‘Bat-Gobbler-Flu’
Authored by Kurt Schlichter, op-ed via Townhall.com,
You cannot have a social upheaval like the Bat Gobbler Flu and expect everything to go back to exactly how it was before the ChiCom’s fetish for eating weird Schiff turned the world upside down. Pressure has a way of changing what it is applied to. Sometimes it makes diamonds, other times it makes things go splat. No one expected something like this to come out of leftist field and derail our booming economy. We wanted to let the good times roll, but no one saw them rolling right off a cliff.
The pandemic and the response are going to not change some things much at all. For example, once the economy gets rolling again the survivors will rally and we’ll knock unemployment way down while pumping the Dow back up. But other things are another story. Some things were changing anyway, and this body blow is going to accelerate the trends towards creative destruction as old ways of doing things fade away quicker than expected and new ones come to the forefront. We’re going to see many areas where change was always coming, and now it’s come faster. In many cases, it will help crush our enemies, which is awesome.
Academia: Speaking of enemies, a lot of colleges have moved online, and do you think that millions of students and their parents haven’t noticed that the only real difference between staring at a screen and staring at some hippie burnout prof run his filthy bunghole from 33 rows back is that the students aren’t getting hammered in the dorms every night? Okay, maybe they are getting hammered at home, but the fact is that the four-year party model of post-secondary education was headed for retirement anyway and this is really ripping away academia’s lame claims that campuses are necessary to get a real education. Have you noticed the clueless campus commies who claim to be educated these days?
The lockdown has demonstrated that you can impart knowledge just as effectively over a computer, but then the purpose of modern academia is not to impart knowledge. It’s to provide sinecures for man-bunned lefty academics and bureaucrats and allow them access to the soft, bendable minds of our young. But they can no longer justify the $70K a year price tags of their SJW reeducation camps, which are sweetened up with a plot of partying. A quarter mil is a stiff price to pay to drink a lot of Old Milwaukee and cavort with eager booty callers for four years. You can do that at home, and without all the pronoun drama. Look for scores of mid-level colleges to die as the vast majority of students move toward a utilitarian model over the pricey vacation model.
The Media: It was always a smoldering dung heap and now it’s a fecal inferno. The definitive example of its uselessness was how it decided that what the president is actually saying was unfit to report. No, what is fit to point out – which the president gloriously did via a “Best Media Fails” highlight reel on April 13th – is the garbage media’s garbage take on what the president was actually saying. Just when rediscovering the virtues of objectivity and a commitment to the facts might have saved the media from its fate, or at least put off the inevitable day of reckoning brought on by technology and economics, the media decided to do precisely the opposite. Leave it to the media to empty the water filling up the rowboat by poking some more holes in the hull so the water can drain out.
Work: Working at home was already getting to be sort of a thing. Now, it’s pretty obvious that a lot of people can work at home. In fact, they should. Sure, there’s the management challenge of making sure employees don’t confuse working at home with a vacation, but for a lot of us, the office is going to be a thing of the past. This is especially good news if you tend to dislike other people.
Small Businesses: So, small business owners needed help and the Democrats were right there to demand all sorts of SJW baloney before they would lend a hand. If that didn’t get them woke, nothing will. The days when small business owners had the luxury of imagining that the Democrats really are not that different from the Republicans are over. The Democrats are the party of the big corporation, largely because the Democrats share their ideology with a lot of big corporations’ CEO’s younger second wives – and small business is the enemy. Small business owners are unruly, and independent, and can’t compete in terms of funding lobbyists. Corporate bigshots are much more pliable. A small business owner voting for a Democrat is like an attractive young woman walking over and standing close to Grandpa Badfinger. Nothing good is going to come of it.
Open Borders Nuts: Gee, it turns out that America faces foreign threats, and that maybe throwing open the door isn’t a great idea. Some ChiCom bat biter got sick and the rest is history. If Trump had listened to the whining children who screamed “RACISM!” before he shut down flights from the Far East petri dish, we’d have a zillion more cases. To paraphrase the old saw, maybe you don’t believe in borders, but borders sure as hell believe in you.
The Globalist Bureaucracy: Well, CNN and the NYT still think we should be sucking up to the WHO and its Peking puppet of a head honcho, but the rest of us have had a terrific lesson in why the international establishment is garbage. They denied Taiwan exists, which appears to be more important to them than defeating the Chinese coronavirus. They lied about the pangolin pathogen. And we should cut them off without a dime.
The Climate Hoaxers: Hey, the science people can’t generate a model that correctly predicts tomorrow, but we should totally go for a re-do times a hundred of the current economic chaos because some freaky Nordic waif demands we obey models that purport to give us the weather report for the year 2120. Pass. We’ve now all had a taste of the sacrifice the weather cultists demand for their angry Sun Goddess, and no thanks. We’ll roll the dice that the people who predicted the ice age unless we gave them more money and power in the 1970s are also going to be wrong about us burning to a cinder if we don’t give them more money and power today.
Regular Americans: You know, we were getting kind of soft. That’s not an entirely bad thing. It’s actually a measure of success. The goal of a lot of hard-working Americans doing hard things over the centuries was so that later generations would not have to do hard things. But hard things happen. The problem is that a lot of us never imagined that things might get tough, or at least a bit scary and challenging like the whole Woking Pneumonia epidemic has been. Yet we have faced this crisis, and we have prevailed. Sure, you see YouTube vids of idiots fighting over Lieu-wipe and bitter Karens hectoring and nagging, but in general we the peeps have done pretty well. You go to a store and the vibe is less free-for-all than all-in-this-together.
People have adapted. People have overcome, and many went beyond and helped their family and neighbors too. We learned that we aren’t completely helpless. Some made masks. Some brought local old people and shut-ins food. Other realized that the security of themselves and their community is each citizen’s personal responsibility, not a duty to be outsourced to others, and (where they could) heeded my call to “Buy guns and ammunition.”
No, this is not an epic disaster like a famine, earthquake or plague of frogs, but it is also not nothing. And when the Big One hits – a really bad virus, an asteroid, a leftist administration that declares war on freedom-loving citizens and tries to make us serfs – then maybe, just maybe, we’ll be confident in our ability to face the challenge and emerge victoriously.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 20:45 - Anonymous Tip Leads To Grisly Discovery: 17 Bodies 'Piled Up' In Virus-Hit NJ Nursing Home
Anonymous Tip Leads To Grisly Discovery: 17 Bodies ‘Piled Up’ In Virus-Hit NJ Nursing Home
From the start of the coronavirus pandemic impacting North America, nursing homes have been hardest and earliest hit, but perhaps none worse than an unfolding nightmare at a large nursing home in New Jersey.
“The call for body bags came late Saturday,” the WSJ begins of the shocking story of Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I and II long-term care facility in the small town of Andover, New Jersey.
Over the weekend an anonymous tip was called into local police reporting that a body had been stored in a shed. Police on the scene subsequently discovered 17 dead people at the facility after COVID-19 swept through the nursing home. No body was actually ever found in the shed, however.
The WSJ describes based on eyewitness testimony a ghastly scene of “17 bodies piled inside the nursing home in a small morgue intended to hold no more than four people.”
In total over 100 residents are confirmed for COVID-19, with another more than 180 residents and staff reportedly showing respiratory and flu-like symptoms typical of the disease.
“The 17 were among 68 recent deaths linked to the long-term care facility, Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I and II, including two nurses, officials said. Of those who died, 26 people had tested positive for the virus,” WSJ continues.
After a police investigation, which as of Thursday afternoon has reached the attention of the governor, who has also vowed to open an investigation into how bodies were allowed to be piled up – and in many cases families kept in the dark as the fate of their loved ones – Andover’s police chief Eric Danielson acknowledged “They were just overwhelmed by the amount of people who were expiring.”
Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center, in Andover, New Jersey, Getty Images. Andover Subacute is New Jersey’s largest licensed facility, with over 700 beds for patients, according to state figures. When the crisis was first uncovered state authorities reportedly mulled sending in the National Guard to assist.
Once local staff were overwhelmed and feared outside help wouldn’t come, at a moment the entire tri-state area is in full crisis mode as now the global COVID-19 epicenter, a staff member of Andover Subacute & Rehab Center Two wrote on Facebook Monday: “To all the people calling into the governor’s office, the congressman’s office to help us tell them WE NEED HELP.”
That post has since been deleted as the facility assists in a state investigation, and ahead of likely legal fallout.
AP Photo “I feel so helpless,” one family member of a resident of the facility wrote on Facebook on Tuesday according to the WSJ report. “I feel like everyone is going to get Covid. What do we do?”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 20:25 - NYC's Intensive-Care Units Still "Dangerously Overcrowded" Despite 'Flattening Curve': Live Updates
NYC’s Intensive-Care Units Still “Dangerously Overcrowded” Despite ‘Flattening Curve’: Live Updates
Summary:
- Germany reports jump in new cases, deaths
- Spain reports most new cases in a week
- North Dakota releases plan to reopen state May 1
- US case total passes 650k
- France confirms
- Turkey releases mafia boss from prison
- Global Times editor denies report about leak from Wuhan lab
- Trump reschedules tonight’s press conference for 6pmET
- Switzerland unveils bailout package
- Singapore reports another record daily jump as 2nd wave arrives
- Trudeau says no plans to open border with US to “non-essential” traffic
- Italy reports slight rise in new cases, pullback in deaths
- NJ reports jump in cases
- Phil Murphy opens investigation into nursing home deaths
- Details of Trump’s reopening guidelines are leaking out
- Cali gov says Trump said “what we were hoping to hear”
- More promising reports about remdesivir
- Sweden reports another alarming jump
- Chinese factories on verge of second shutdown
- France coronavirus-linked deaths fall for first time in 4 days
- UK health minister says it’s too early to end lockdown as measures set to be extended
- Trump set to release reopening ‘guidelines’ some time after 3pmET
- Belgium reports more than 1k new cases
- UK extends lockdown by “at least” 3 weeks
- Macron says EU may collapse unless “coronabonds” happen
- 7 Midwestern states drop guidelines for reopening economy
- Britain crosses 100k case threshold
- European Commission President apologizes to Italy
- Russia’s streak of record new cases stretches to 5th day
- Japan expands state of emergency to cover whole country
- WSJ reports medical supplies bound for US are being blocked from export by Beijing
- Cuomo reports 606 more deaths in NYS
- UK planning to announce lockdown extension today
- Party of South Korean president wins 180 of 300 seats in legislative vote
- President Trump to unveil plan to reopen economy Thursday
* * *
Update (2020ET): Denver Broncos Pro Bowl linebacker Von Miller has tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming the second NFL player to contract the virus.
“It’s true,” Miller told 9News. “I’ve just been here in the crib and I started to get a little cough. You know, I have asthma and I started getting a little cough a couple days ago. My girlfriend … she told me when I was asleep, she said my cough, it didn’t sound normal.”
Miller told the press that a nebulizer didn’t help and his assistant persuaded him to go to the doctor on Tuesday to get tested.
President Trump may have succeeded in assuaging some concerns of his critics by delegating more power to the states, by in a report published a few hours ago, the New York Post just reminded us how bad the situation truly is inside NYC’s hospitals.
While COVID-19 related hospital admissions have been falling, ICU admissions have been steady or rising. Now, the ICU is where ‘all the drama is happening, according to several nurses. Manhattan’s Mt. Sinai is dangerously overcrowded, with ICU patients crammed into rooms.
[One] nurse at Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Hospital likewise said that while it’s no longer “so insane in the emergency department,” the ICU was “actually where the crazy s–t is happening.”
“When we take patients up there, it’s insane,” the nurse said.
“They’re putting two patients in every ICU unit. When I brought a patient upstairs – a freshly intubated patient who was critical and unstable – we had to transfer them from a stretcher to a bed in the hallway, which is obviously unsafe.”
The nurse added, “If a patient, God forbid, codes [from cardiopulmonary arrest], there’s no room to do a code. There’s no room because patients are just jam-packed in there.”
Meanwhile, ERs nurses at some hospitals are still dealing with 3-4 patients dying on them per shift, and a growing number of patients who die during the ambulance ride to the ER.
* * *
Update (1845ET): Tonight’s press conference is going about as well as can be expected, since President Trump made the smart move of letting Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci take the reins.
If you’re looking for a copy of the slides Dr. Birx presented during her turn at the podium, they’re included in the report below, which outlines the White House’s plan to reopen the economy in a surprising level of detail.
* * *
Update (1820ET): WSJ reported earlier that China is moving to block exports of medically essential supplies manufactured by US companies on Chinese territory, despite the fact that they were lawfully due to be shipped out.
The key paragraphs:
The policies were instituted this month, and Chinese officials have said they are intended to ensure the quality of exported medical products and to make sure needed goods aren’t being shipped out of China. Instead, they have created bottlenecks at a time of urgent need, according to the suppliers, brokers and the State Department memos.
China’s policies have “disrupted established supply chains for medical products just as these products were most needed for the global response to Covid-19,” according to one of the memos sent this week. The State Department said in a statement: “We appreciate the efforts to ensure quality control. But we do not want this to serve as an obstacle for the timely export of important supplies.”
As for these ‘export controls’? Beijing blamed ‘complaints’ from Europe about the quality of certain Chinese-made goods.
To repair its image, China has tried to reshape perceptions about its role in the crisis, leveraging its manufacturing power to export crucial medical supplies to affected countries. Beijing was then hit with complaints from European countries about the quality of masks, gowns and other products they received.
The export restrictions then followed. Chinese customs prohibited the export of medical products without certifications from China’s National Medical Products Administration, even if the goods had been registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. On Friday China added another hurdle, subjecting certain types of surgical protective gear and equipment—including ventilators and masks—to extra checks before they could be shipped overseas.
Interestingly, the editors at WSJ dedicated a surprising amount of column inches making clear that market factors and “legitimate complaints” were contributing to these shortages.
Suppliers said the urgent demand has created a “complete sellers’ market,” with prices changing daily as factories, inundated by offers, dictate minimum purchasing quantities and buying conditions.
“China’s between a rock and a hard place,” said Solomon Matzner, the Shanghai-based founding partner of BioAktive Specialty Products, who assists U.S. and German institutions in sourcing KN95 masks. “They need to get as much product out as possible, but on the other hand, Chinese products are being criticized for quality.”
Is WSJ buttering up the Communist Party censors to try and win favor for an eventual return of their reporters? Or, is it just trying to shield those reporters who haven’t yet left but are due to depart as Beijing kicks out reporters for the WSJ, WaPo & NYT.
Suppliers said the urgent demand has created a “complete sellers’ market,” with prices changing daily as factories, inundated by offers, dictate minimum purchasing quantities and buying conditions.
“China’s between a rock and a hard place,” said Solomon Matzner, the Shanghai-based founding partner of BioAktive Specialty Products, who assists U.S. and German institutions in sourcing KN95 masks. “They need to get as much product out as possible, but on the other hand, Chinese products are being criticized for quality.”
It’s just the latest evidence that the shortages of certain medical supplies aren’t simply due to closed factories; it’s deliberate policy intervention by Beijing.
* * *
Update (1710ET): We neglected to note this earlier, but the FT published an interview with French President Emmanuel Macron shortly before the country reported a massive spike in new cases.
Emmanuel Macron has warned of the collapse of the EU as a “political project” unless it supports stricken economies such as Italy and helps them recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking to the FT from the Elysée Palace, the French president said there was “no choice” but to set up a fund that “could issue common debt with a common guarantee” to finance member states according to their needs rather than the size of their economies. This is an idea that Germany and the Netherlands have opposed. The EU faced a “moment of truth” in deciding whether it was more than just a single economic market, with the lack of solidarity during the pandemic likely to fuel populist anger in southern Europe, Mr Macron said. “If we can’t do this today, I tell you the populists will win — today, tomorrow, the day after, in Italy, in Spain, perhaps in France and elsewhere,” he said. “I believe [the EU] is a political project. If it’s a political project, the human factor is the priority and there are notions of solidarity that come into play . . . the economy follows on from that, and let’s not forget that economics is a moral science.”
Now, why is Macron pitching coronabonds as essential for the survival of the EU as a “political project”, when the primary benefactors would be Italy and Spain? It’s right there in the text: France is the next domino to fall, and Macron knows it. Yet, Germany and the Netherlands remain deeply opposed to the idea.
Too bad for Macron the Europeans are almost as fractious and petty as their colleagues across the Atlantic.
* * *
Update (1700ET): Never a dull moment this Thursday.
For the first time, it looks like investors are getting gassed up on reports about a possible “miracle drug.”
Reports about Gilead’s remdesivir out of a trial in Chicago – trials using the drug are being run around the world on patients in various stages of the illness, though China just shut down two of them for “lack of eligible patients” – are claiming that the drug has shown rapid progress in combating patient’s symptoms.
Futures spike on the news, though keep in mind: This isn’t really anything we haven’t heard before. It’s more reports that the drug “works”, just this time few a few dozen more patients having been tested.
Gilead Sciences climbed 4.4% post-market Thursday as STAT reported severe Covid-19 patients being treated in Chicago with the company’s experimental drug remdesivir are “seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms.”
Almost all patients were discharged in under than a week, and only two patients died, STAT said, citing comments made this week during a video discussion about trial results with University of Chicago faculty members.
STAT cautions that trials are running at other institutions and full study results can’t yet be determined; Gilead told the news outlet that it’s looking forward to data becoming available.
We’re also getting more details on the president’s “guidelines” for reopening the economy, which, like the remdesivir news, is simply more of the same.
Amusingly, the administration appears to have leaked a copy of the “Opening Up America Again” plan to the New York Post, which published a report that has been digested by newswires.
President Trump’s reopening guidelines suggest a 14-day downward trajectory in coronavirus cases before beginning phased re-opening, although document is said to not offer a specific timeframe for opening up the economy.
As a guide, US President Trump told Governors they call the shots regarding reopening the economy and that some could begin before May 1st if they want to, while he will conduct a press conference on re-opening the economy at 1800EDT/ 2300BST where he will explain guidelines for opening up and an official noted that guidelines will be flexible and on data driven recommendations. Furthermore, phase one of the guidelines recommends closed schools should remain shut, that people maximize distance when in public and that gatherings over 10 people should generally be avoided, while bars should remain closed but large venues such as restaurants, theatres and sporting venues could open with strict physical distancing.
We now wait to hear from the big man himself at 6pmET.
Meanwhile, in America’s neighbor to the north, Canadian Prime Minister said Thursday that he has no plans to reopen the border with the US. There had been some talk earlier in the week about the possibility of reopening the border following comments by President Trump.
* * *
Update (1615ET): According to JHU, confirmed coronavirus cases in the US have topped 650k, with more than 30k deaths.
#US #COVID19 cases top 650,000 with more than 30,000 deaths: Johns Hopkins University. #LATEST pic.twitter.com/wTRuV1ONGG
— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) April 16, 2020
Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom is beginning his nightly press conference. Early on, he confirmed that 69 new deaths were recorded in California over the last day, bringing the death toll north of 890.
WATCH NOW: California Gov. Newsom gives an update on the coronavirus https://t.co/l9eVS9iJc8 pic.twitter.com/0prkkD7IoF
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 16, 2020
Newsom said that while there was a modest decline in hospitalizations (down by 0.9% since yesterday) new cases ticked higher. Still overall Newsom said it was “good news” but still only “one day’s headline.”
The Cali governor also signed an executive order that will allow for paid supplemental sick leave for food service workers across California that have been impacted by COVID-19 for the “larger sector” employers whom Newsom said were left out by the federal package.
The order allows for two weeks of additional leave for all workers who have contracted, been exposed to someone who has tested positive, or have been exposed to isolation or quarantine orders by local health officials, he said.
“We don’t want you going to work sick,” he said, referencing workers in grocery, food delivery services, fast food chains and agricultural workers who will benefit from the order.
“I heard a few grocery store workers say this: ‘We’re called essential workers, but increasingly we feel like we’re disposable.’ I want you to know, you’re not disposable. You’re essential and you’re valued,” Newsom said.
More numbers here:
NEW: CA has 26,182 confirmed positive cases of #COVID19.
3,141 of those cases are in our hospitals. 1,191 of those are in the ICU.
CA is flattening the curve — but we MUST continue to take this seriously.
Stay home.
Practice physical distancing.#StayHomeSaveLives
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) April 16, 2020
* * *
Update (1607ET): What’s that? The governor of California saying something…vaguely positive…about President Trump?
- CA GOV SAID WHAT TRUMP SAID WAS ‘WHAT WE WERE HOPING TO HEAR’
Like Cuomo, Newsom has embraced the bipartisan approach of a pragmatic governor trying to manage their state and guide it through a crisis. Notice the contrast between what’s happening in the state houses and what’s happening on Capitol Hill.
* * *
Update (1600ET): And details of Trump’s grand reopening ‘guidelines’ are starting to leak out.
- TRUMP GUIDELINES RECOMMEND STILL DISTANCING IN FIRST PHASE
- GUIDELINES SAY PHASE 2 FOR STATES WITH NO EVIDENCE OF REBOUND
- GUIDELINES URGE TELEWORK, SCHOOLS STAYING CLOSED IN PHASE ONE
And after a volatile session, stocks closed well in the green, leading us to believe…
They’re gonna pull the old pump each phase of opening the economy just like the trade deal
— Hipster (@Hipster_Trader) April 16, 2020
* * *
Update (1545ET): During his call with America’s governors, President Trump reportedly said that some states would be allowed to open some businesses and schools before May 1.
President Donald Trump told U.S. governors on a conference call Thursday that some states would be able to reopen businesses and schools before May 1, when federal social distancing guidelines are set to expire.
He said some governors may want to take more time, conceding that some states are in rough shape, two people familiar with the call said. But he told the governors that the country is heading in the right direction.
The president said he’ll announce federal guidelines for states to lift stay-at-home orders and relax social distancing practices during his daily news conference at 6 p.m. He told the governors that they’ll receive booklets with the guidelines.
While states like North Dakota, that is, states with only a few hundred cases and a handful of deaths, are pushing to reopen asap to stave off needless economic harm (which, as we’ve noted before, can often translate into harming of the physical/emotional variety), others, like California, are looking at a much longer timeline. Meanwhile, Bill Gates is insisting that allowing a few states to reopen earlier would be nothing short of disastrous.
We imagine he’ll have something to say about Trump’s comment.
Update (1455ET): In case you haven’t noticed, there’s been a firehose of coronavirus news this afternoon, from various states laying out their plans to reopen their economies, to the White House scrambling to finalize a plan of its own, while the UK, France and even Japan are expanding or extending their own stay-at-home measures.
The chorus of questions surrounding the virus’s origins has grown louder, and Trump has been saying he’s planning a “major” press conference tonight at 6pmET.
As if that weren’t enough, as more states sign on to their official reopening guidelines, Trump is teasing that he thinks the states will be “happy” with the federal government’s plan and – furthermore – it might come with a $2 trillion infrastructure package attached.
The bipartisan infrastructure package has become synonymous with dashed hopes about areas of bipartisan cooperation in the Trump era; the phrase “infrastructure week” has become a niche joke shared by political junkies.
And now here we go again. The White House can’t even find enough common ground with the Dems to top off the ‘PPP’. An infrastructure package seems like a distant dream, as it always has been, and will likely remain.
If the White House is resorting to bringing back “infrastructure week”, then we fear the worst: not only is there no plan, but there was never even any hope for a plan.
Fortunately, the states have been somewhat proactive in that department.
Trump is now holding a virtual meeting with governors.
* * *
Update (1450ET): France isn’t alone in reporting a massive jump in cases. New Jersey reported 4,391 new cases, almost as if Gov. Phil Murphy is trying to make Trump and everybody talking about reopening the economy look bad. It brought the state’s total to more than 75k, while 362 new deaths were also recorded.
The jump in Jersey deaths includes 17 bodies that were found in a nursing home, a story that has scandalized the state.
Earlier, Murphy has asked the state’s AG to open a statewide investigation into COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes in the state.
We now have 75,317 confirmed #COVID19 cases.
• Atlantic: 344
• Bergen: 11,409
• Burlington: 1,326
• Camden: 1,734
• Cape May: 186
• Cumberland: 223
• Essex: 9,084
• Gloucester: 624
• Hudson: 9,165
• Hunterdon: 373 pic.twitter.com/CSWKKWn5sh— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) April 16, 2020
Other states, including neighbor New York, reached out to express support.
New York will send 100 ventilators to our friends in New Jersey.
Other states helped us when we most needed it, and we are proud to do the same.
We’re all in this together.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 16, 2020
* * *
Update (1435ET): Remember what we said ten minutes ago about French officials saying that the pace of new cases ‘accelerated’ over the past 24 hours?
Well, turns out that was a bit of an understatement. In what appears to be the biggest single-day jump in new cases in Western Europe for the last few weeks, France reported 17,164 new cases, bringing its total to 165,027.
Might we also remind readers that Germany reported one of the largest batches of new cases in weeks earlier, and Belgium just reported 1,236 new cases and 417 new deaths, indicating that Belgium is in the phase of the virus where cases accelerate rapidly before the ‘peak’ – or at least that’s what they’ll say. Belgium has a total of 34,809 cases and 4,857 deaths.
Taken together, this doesn’t paint the brightest picture for Europe, even as Italy is looking at May 1 to start accelerating its return to normalcy. In a form of symbolism, the venue in Netherlands that would have been host to the Eurovision 2020 conference has been converted into a COVID-19 hospital.
* * *
Update (1420ET): Speaking of ‘preempting Trump’, the president just tweeted that tonight’s press conference, which is also supposed to feature the release of the federal guidelines, until 6 pm.
Major News Conference tonight, the White House at 6:00 P.M. (Eastern), to explain Guidelines for OPENING UP AMERICA AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2020
Meanwhile, in France, deaths linked to the virus rose to 17,920, according to Director General for Health Jerome Salomon, that’s an increase of 753 from figures reported on Wednesday, a smaller jump than was reported the day before. However, the pace of new cases rose.
* * *
Update (1415ET): As California hints at a return to normalcy that could drag out for over a year, and Cuomo leaves the door open for a summer rebound, a bipartisan group of governors in the Midwest have formed their own little group, as everybody rushes to preempt Trump’s announcement (expected some time after 3pm) to make it look like they’re all firmly in control.
The consensus is that these states are now shooting to start reopening their economies on May 15, a date that some experts believe should be “a good one” for “a lot of places around the country,” according to Josh Bolton from the Business Roundtable, who was speaking about the news on CNBC.
I’m proud to announce that Midwest governors will work in close coordination to reopen our economies in a way that protects families from the spread of COVID-19.
Thank you @GovWhitmer, @GovMikeDeWine, @GovEvers, @GovTimWalz, @GovHolcomb and @GovAndyBeshear for your partnership. pic.twitter.com/dSBeMOEgpq
— Governor JB Pritzker (@GovPritzker) April 16, 2020
The states co-signing the guidelines include: Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.
* * *
Update (1320ET): One Twitter user has highlighted an extremely depressing fact about Italy’s outbreak:
A very sad fact:
It’s the 30th day in a row that Italy reports more than 400 deaths from coronavirus.
Declining, but still 400+ lives lost per day.
— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) April 16, 2020
Meanwhile, across NY, 1.2 million people have filed unemployment claims over the past five weeks, said Melissa DeRosa, secretary to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Across the country, a staggering 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits.
Iran reported its lowest number of new coronavirus deaths since March 13 on Thursday with 92 new deaths, bringing its total to 4,869, and 1,606 new cases, bringing its case total to 77,995.
In the UK, British Foreign Secretary and acting leader Dominic Raab extended the country’s near-total lockdown by “at least” three weeks, as was expected.
In Washington, President Trump tweeted more criticisms at Democrats for refusing to strike a deal on reloading the ‘PPP’.
Democrats are blocking additional funding for the popular Paycheck Protection Program. They are killing American small businesses. Stop playing politics Dems! Support Refilling PPP NOW – it is out of funds!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2020
* * *
Update (1240ET): Italy reported 3,786 new cases of coronavirus and 525 new death on Thursday, bringing its totals to 168,941 cases and 22,170 deaths. Though the number of new cases is higher vs. yesterday, the margin isn’t wide, and testing was also higher. Meanwhile, the number of deaths dropped, while the number of hospitalized and ICU patients also fell.
The highlight, though it’s actually not all that positive, of the report is that 40k people have fully recovered, but that’s only about a quarter of patients. It showcases just how long it takes for some people to recover.
* * *
Update (1240ET): Cuomo’s decision to extend New York’s stay at home order and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum’s decision to release his plan to start reopening the state May 1 have set up an epic clash between states pushing to reopen the economy as soon as possible, and states that want to keep the measures in place as they are for at least another month.
Amid all of this, President Trump is expected to deliver the White House ‘guidelines’ some time after 3pmET on Thursday.
* * *
Update (1215ET): Singapore reported a record 728 new cases of COVID-19 for Thursday, bringing the city-state’s new total to 4,427, up from just a few hundred earlier this month. The sudden resurgence has unfolded despite Singapore’s authoritarian government imposing strict lockdown conditions and focusing on migrant housing units where cases have clustered.
Of the new cases, 81% are linked to previously identified clusters, according to the Ministry of Health.Of the 700+ cases mentioned above, 654 involve foreign worker dormitories, while 26 were work-permit holders who lived outside the dorms (meaning they likely contracted it at work or in another ‘sanctioned’ environment).
As for local cases in the community, 48 cases were reported on Thursday, and there were no new imported cases.
CNA reported that among the new cases was an 89-year-old resident of Pacific Healthcare Nursing Home at 21 Senja Road, a dangerous environment for the virus that presumably is in danger of igniting another cluster. The resident has been placed in isolation.
* * *
Update (1200ET): In keeping with the general theme of the day, Cuomo focused on how the state plans to ‘reopen’ its economy – particularly hard-hit NYC. First, he said that the economy is going to need to change, particularly in crowded public places like restaurants. Employer will need to develop new policies governing everyday activities like travel, interactions in the workplace, commuting etc.
New York on PAUSE will be extended in coordination with other states to May 15.
Non-essential workers must continue to stay home.
Social distancing rules remain in place.
We must STAY THE COURSE.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 16, 2020
Whether or not that does come to pass, Cuomo reiterated that the state is planning to follow four key principles which he first shared yesterday.
Our strategy for reopening New York and bringing people out of their home at the appropriate time:
1) Do no harm: Control the rate of infection
2) Surge/flex: Strengthen the healthcare system
3) Test/trace: Need federal partnership
4) Phased return — not all at once— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 16, 2020
Adding that businesses will gradually reopen based on priority.
He also announced an extension of the state’s shutdown by 2 weeks until mid-May.
And here are today’s charts illustrating how the number of hospitalized patients in the state is starting to decline.
* * *
Update (1140ET): New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo started his daily briefing Thursday like he always does, by confirming the new deaths over the last 24 hours. That number was 606 for Wednesday. That brings the statewide death toll to 12,192, up 5.2% from yesterday, which is better than yesterday’s 7.7% jump from the day before.
The governor added that hospitalizations have continued to fall, as well as intubation and ICU admissions. New cases were roughly ~2k yesterday, roughly even with the rate over the past week or so.
“The good news is, it means we can control the virus, we can control the spread, and we did not know for sure that we could do that. We speculated that we could do it but we didn’t know for sure. Now we know we can control this disease,” Cuomo said.
Watch the press briefing live below:
Holding a briefing with updates on #Coronavirus. Watch Live: https://t.co/D2peQvIqB1
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 16, 2020
* * *
Update (1050ET): More alarming data out of Sweden, one of only a handful of European countries that didn’t go all-in on border closures and stay-at-home orders, surfaced this morning: the country reported 613 new cases of coronavirus and 130 new deaths, bringing its totals to 12,540 cases and 1,333 deaths.
* * *
Update (1000ET): Beating the White House by at least a few hours, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has released new ‘guidelines’ to reopening his state’s economy on May 1.
- NORTH DAKOTA GOVERNOR ISSUES GUIDELINES TO REOPEN STATE MAY 1 – STATEMENT – RTRS
Yesterday, the governor moved to extend restrictions on non-essential businesses until the end of April. Now, North Dakota, though his state is one of five sparsely populated states that haven’t issued stay-at-home orders.
The state has reported only 9 deaths, and 365 cases, as of Thursday morning. Some of Burgum’s critics have slammed him (and his South Dakota colleague, Gov. Kristi Noem) for not taking the outbreak seriously enough by resisting full lockdowns adopted by other states. The mainstream press has been carrying out a veritable crusade against Noem over a small outbreak in Sioux Falls, her state’s largest city, that is, according to all available evidence, completely under controlthe meat-processing plant at the center of the outbreak has been closed indefinitely.
The Washington Post claims it’s currently “the biggest hotspot in the country”.
While that might be technically true based on some obscure metric, there are probably apartment blocks in Manhattan with just as many cases.
Will this inspire more states with fewer cases to follow suit?
As of today…Utah, Idaho, Delaware, Arkansas, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Vermont, Nebraska, Maine, West Virginia, South Dakota, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, and Wyoming have a COMBINED 189 deaths related to coronavirus.
They should all go back to work on Monday.
— NotKennyRogers (@NotKennyRogers) April 9, 2020
While the governors critics (many of whom don’t live in the state) slam the decision, it’s worth noting that ND has been examining various ‘contact tracing’ strategies including repurposing an app called the Bison Tracker, created to help fans of the North Dakota State University Bison football team follow its 1,000-mile roadtrip to a championship game in Texas, Bloomberg reports. The governor first mentione the plan during a press conference last night.
* * *
Update (0950ET): Adding to the figures from England released about an hour ago, the UK Department of Health and Social Care reported 861 deaths and 4,618 new cases, bringing its total to 103,093 cases and 13,729 deaths.
As of 9am 16 April, 417,649 tests have concluded, with 18,665 tests on 15 April.
327,608 people have been tested of which 103,093 tested positive.
As of 5pm on 15 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 13,729 have sadly died. pic.twitter.com/z6FNsommq9
— Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) April 16, 2020
Deaths were moderately higher compared with the ~760 reported yesterday, while the number of new cases was slightly higher, but not by much.
Though Thursday’s report is notable because it marks the crossing of the 100k threshold, joining a select group of elite nations that have confirmed more than 100k cases. UK is technically only the 6th nation to cross this threshold, though many suspect that China’s true total was probably north of 100k (likely even north of 1mil).
Britain’s latest release brought the global case total above 2.1 million.
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Update (0850ET): Singapore has reported another record daily increase of coronavirus cases with 447 new cases. Most of these cases, more than 90%, involve migrant workers who live in cramped housing, which the Singapore government has moved to isolate to prevent what is officially the city-state’s second wave from spreading.
During an appearance on CNBC Thursday morning, Expedia/AIC Chairman Barry Diller offered some chilling words for what’s left of the American media: Diller said he expects Expedia to reduce advertising spending by 80% this year, from $5 billion to $1 billion.
And just like that, newspapers die. https://t.co/wi39rre19j
— Dustin P. Walsh (@dustinpwalsh) April 16, 2020
And they won’t die alone: More sites from Buzzfeed will face even more pressure: This is certainly bad news for all those ‘freelance writer’ blue-checkmarks.
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Update (0750ET): The Swiss government has just released measures intended to stave off corporate bankruptcies while helping workers to pay their bills until the economy can be brought back on line. The measures will take effect later this month. The Swiss government has already lent billions of dollars’ in Swiss francs to SMEs operating in the country at an interest-free rate.
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Update (0730ET): As expected, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe on Thursday expanded his ‘toothless’ state of emergency order to cover the entire country, after initially targeting just seven prefectures (including Tokyo) after the entire northern island of Hokkaido declared its own state of emergency on Sunday following a sharp resurgence in new cases.
Though the government can’t force businesses to close and people to stay inside, the government has asked some non-essential businesses to close and people to work from home).
To ease the financial burden on Japanese households, Abe’s government is also planning a Trump-style cash handout of ¥100,000 ($930) for every citizen, regardless of income, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.
The mayor of Tokyo confirmed 149 patients tested positive for the virus in her city on Thursday.
The government had originally planned to give 300,000 to qualified households that had lost income, but it came under heavy criticism because the payments were seen as too complicated and too small. Distributing ¥100,000 to every citizen will cost the government more than 1.2 trillion yen, or $11 billion.
Across the Sea of Japan, South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s left-leaning Democratic Party won a staggering victory during Wednesday’s legislative election, leaving his government in a strong position to push through its agenda of reforms. Despite the outbreak, the turnout in the election reached an all-time high, as South Koreans rushed to reward the government for its response to the outbreak. With 180 seats out of the 300-seat legislature, Moon’s government is in a strong position to push through reforms of the penal system, income distribution and relations with NK, though he doesn’t have enough votes to push through changes to the South Korean constitution.
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What would have been tax day for US citizens has come and gone. And as we enter the back half of April – and millions of Americans join the ranks of the unemployed – and some are starting to get a little restless.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases surpassed the 2 million mark, as we reported last night. According to the FT, 84,515 new cases were confirmed around the world on Wednesday, roughly even with the numbers from the last two weeks. However, a record 7,959 deaths were recorded yesterday, a worldwide record.
But perhaps the most important revelation from last night came shortly after the conclusion of last night’s White House press conference. A Fox News reporter asked the president a couple of surprising questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology and whether the virus might have leaked out of the level 4 bio-lab. We were de-platformed by Twitter for asking the same question a few months back.
Source: FT
As it turned out, those questions portended a much bigger revelation: Fox News reported last night, citing a handful of anonymous sources, that the novel coronavirus accidentally leaked out of the Wuhan biolab.
Now, with yet another ‘conspiracy theory’ apparently well on its way to becoming a ‘conspiracy fact’, Beijing has chosen to issue its rebuttal via the editor in chief of the Global Times, one of the CPC’s most popular English-language mouthpieces.
Fox News published a ridiculous report claiming COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab. President Trump helped hype this story to divert public’s attention. It’s a dirty trick. Trump will further exploit China topic for his reelection campaign.
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) April 16, 2020
We imagine we’ll be hearing more from the CPC’s official spokesmen and women. But the fact that such a high-level mouthpiece was tapped for the initial denial is certainly telling.
Moving on: Two days after Turkey passed a prisoner amnesty law, one of the most notorious Turkish Mafia bosses has been released from prison as part of a program to release 90k offenders, some of whom were violent criminals. Alaattin Cakici, who was convicted for murder and racketeering, is well known for having close ties to an ultra-nationalist party that is working in a coalition with President Erdogan’s AKP. Critics have criticized the amnesty program for leaving thousands of journalists and civil-society activists behind bars.
Offering the latest indication that mainland China is likely headed for a second shutdown, this one driven by a combination of viral resurgence fears and a staggering drop in demand, BBG reports that Chinese manufacturers who resumed work as restrictions were being lifted are already being forced to halt production again due to rising costs, difficulties in funding and logistics, and, of course, the demand drop, said Xu Kemin, an official with the industry ministry.
Germany reported a jump in new cases and deaths, with the number of newly diagnosed cases at its highest level in a week. Spain also reported a jump in new cases, confirming 5,183, the most in a week, bringing its countrywide total to 182,816. Health officials also reported 551 deaths, for a total of 19,130 since the outbreak began.
UK Health Minister Hancock said early Thursday that it’s too early to make a change to lockdown measures in the UK as the virus would likely come roaring back since the outbreak appears to be “approaching” its peak, he said. The UK is expected to announce an extension to its current lockdown period today until May 7, according to reports. The government is reportedly planning to restart the economy by segmenting society into “risk groups”, allowing those in the lower-risk groups to venture back into society. Some scientists have speculated that some level of social distancing will need to remain in place until a vaccine is ready for mass production.
In Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that Europe should offer a “heartfelt apology” to Italy for failing to help when the country became the first EU nation to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
“You cannot overcome a pandemic of this speed and this scale without the truth, the truth about everything: the numbers, the science, the outlook, but also about our own actions,” she said during a speech to the European Parliament.
Of course, as we noted at the time, von der Leyen and the European Commission didn’t just fail to act; they encouraged EU member states to keep their borders open, while playing down the severity of the outbreak.
Finally, Russia’s streak of disturbing records in new cases reported stretched to a fifth consecutive record jump on Thursday, while the country also recorded its highest jump in deaths. Health officials in Moscow said they had recorded 3,448 new cases across the country, a 14% jump that took Russia’s total to 27,938, while 34 more people died overnight, raising Russia’s death toll to 232. And
Looking ahead, President Trump said during the White House’s Wednesday night press briefing that he would unveil the White House’s guidelines for reopening the economy this afternoon. The guidelines were purportedly developed following conversations with CEOs and leaders of American corporations (even as some have pointed out that corporations might not have the best interests of small business at heart).
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 20:05 - Why Americans Don't Have Any Savings
Why Americans Don’t Have Any Savings
Authored by Frank Hollenbeck via The Mises Institute,
In response to a likely worldwide recession, governments have turned on full blast the fiscal and monetary spigots. A $2 trillion spending plan has just been approved in the USA, central banks are on a buying spree, and the $1200 stimulus payment is just helicopter money.
Since the government does not have a magical tree of plenty and can only redistribute from the left pocket to the right by taxing, borrowing, or printing money, how does this make any economic sense or make any country better off?
Government and Keynesian economists will tell you it’s to protect us from the coming dangers of hoarding; specifically, that banks will stop lending and just let funds sit. Keynes brought hoarding to the forefront of economics in his The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money; a concept that the classical economist considered to be irrelevant.
In a circular flow economy, the value of output must be equal to income. Income represents an ability to purchase goods and services and can be divided into three categories: it can be consumed, saved, or hoarded. Consumption is using income to obtain goods and services for current personal satisfaction. Savings is (correctly) defined as a transfer of purchasing power from one group to another.
The saver is giving up his current access to goods and services to be able to consume more of them in the future. These transfers allow investors to use these claims to purchase plants and equipment to produce goods and services in the future. The last category is hoarding, which in the Keynesian view is the equivalent of stuffing money in your mattress for a rainy day. It is the only claim on income that is not used to purchase currently produced goods and services.
This Keynesian nonsense about hoarding has been around for nearly a century and has led to some very bad economic decisions over the last eighty years. In reality, hoarding is just saving, and a simple example will show how the fear of hoarding is grossly overblown. Hoarding simply increases the value of dollars in circulation and is hardly anything to panic about.
Suppose there are ten pencils and only $10. Supply and demand will ensure that the price of each pencil will be $1 each. If the price of each pencil was $2, you could only afford to buy half of the pencils, and the unsold pencils would drive the price down. If the price was only 50 cents, then people would still have $5 looking for pencils to buy, driving their price up.
Now suppose that people hoard or stuff their mattresses with $2 and we only have $8 left to buy ten pencils. The price for each pencil will normally decline to eighty cents, putting us back in equilibrium. The Keynesian fear, though, is that prices are rather inflexible or adjust poorly, such that the price remains at $1 and we are left with two unsold pencils. There’s not enough demand at the old prices. Keynesians advocate government spending to replace this lost demand.
Another Keynesian fear is that if input costs such as wages don’t adjust and the cost of each pencil is stuck at ninety cents when the price has fallen to eighty cents, then businesses will be selling at a loss, leading to reductions in output, bankruptcies, more hoarding, and a downward spiral in the economy. This is the Keynesian fear of deflation. Hence, for a Keynesian either output prices don’t adjust or if they do, input prices don’t adjust fast enough. Of course, this entire Keynesian nightmare scenario assumes that in a market economy both input and output prices adjust slowly or with a long lag. This scenario has not been shown to be true in the real world—unless, of course, governments interfere—and we then might as well assume a world with negative gravity and suggest a policy of large nets to catch people from flying into outer space. If we assume that the successful entrepreneurs are the ones who best forecast output prices and then bid for input prices, there is no real reason to believe that prices in a market economy won’t adjust quickly. There is no empirical evidence that prices are sticky when governments allow them to adjust. If you need a current example, just look at the recent steep dive in oil prices.
Although governments continue their war on cash for fear of hoarding, their real concern today is not individuals stuffing their mattresses, but bank lending. When you put money in your checking account, you are expressing a desire to store purchasing power: otherwise, you would have put this cash in a savings account or purchased a bond. You assume that this money is always there, but banks take this money and lend it to other individuals and businesses in a practice known as fractional reserve banking. This process creates money out of thin air when a bank credits a borrower’s account without debiting the same amount from someone else’s account. It converts your desire to hoard—i.e., save—into spending by someone else with newly created money.
The government fear is that a recession will increase bankruptcies, nonperforming loans, and induce banks to cut back on lending, or essentially allow the money in checking accounts to revert to its intended function as a store (or reserve) of purchasing power.
The money supply will then contract, leading to the Keynesian nightmare scenarios described above. But this money contraction results not from hoarding, but from fractional reserve banking. It is this process which leads to swift contractions in the money supply when recessions strike. This problem would be mitigated by more real saving, including the type of saving that Keynesians call “hoarding.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/16/2020 – 20:05
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