Today Ohio, Delaware and Louisiana joined California, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Illinois by issuing mandatory stay at home orders for their citizens. A total of eight states now have total coronavirus compliance orders restricting movement.
(Via Reuters) […] “Every piece of evidence that I can lay my hands on indicates that we’re at an absolutely crucial time in this war and what we do now will make all the difference in the world,” said Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. “What we do now will slow this invader. It will slow this invader so our health care system … will have time to treat casualties.”
Ohio has 351 cases and three deaths while Louisiana has 837 cases and 20 deaths, several in a senior care facility. Louisiana has the third highest number of cases per capita and saw a 10-fold increase in cases in the past week, Governor John Bel Edwards said.
White House Trade and Manufacturing Policy Advisor Peter Navarro discusses some of the more granular details behind the COVID-19 mitigation strategy. The policies are designed to counter the economic impacts, and then use a tactical approach toward the challenges in the supply chain for medical supply needs.
Navarro discusses some of the private sector shifts in production and manufacturing to generate medical supply needs as an outcome of the defense production act.
Steve Bannon appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the U.S. response to the coronavirus. Bannon advocates for a military style shut-down of the U.S. to shut down everything now and get through the crisis as quickly as possible.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin appears on Fox News to discuss the financial legislation (likely vote tomorrow) to support workers and businesses immediately impacted by President Trump’s proactive shut-down of the U.S. economy.
The ‘good cop bad cop’ routine with deBlasio just seemed a little too scripted… Then the framework of a usefully constructed contrast narrative started to become clear… Then, as if on cue, all national broadcasts started being interrupted for maximum exposure; again a little odd.
A deep, very deep, connection to Bloomberg reappeared as a little flashing light in the corner of the picture… Then the Murdoch’s started to shape the landscape; curiosity piqued… Followed by positioning that seems a little too centrally located in the political sphere.. Then Hannity and Bannon started singing his praises. Well, Bannon doesn’t exactly have a good track record of judgement… I digress. But it really wasn’t until the CIA started publishing their endorsement that things possibly started making sense. WATCH:
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Are they positioning NY Governor Andrew Cuomo to exit the DNC convention as the consensus nominee; the chosen one? It would take the construct, at least the optics of, a reluctantly drafted candidate to pull it off. Then again, what is all this – if not that.
There’s been a debate about possible political motives surrounding the panic he has created; the massive economic damage he has inflicted; and the conflicting assertions of National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci.
CTH identifies the motives as sketchy. He appears to use his position to advance theories and yet position himself to avoid scrutiny.
Sometimes within a 24 hour period Fauci will make a statement, then contradict the initial assertion, then attempt to cloud his own conflict with obtuse and wordy explanations. After watching for several weeks, we called it out HERE.
Perhaps one way to help see through the professional obfuscation, and identify just exactly how political Dr. Fauci is, would be to: compare and contrast Dr. Fauci under President Obama in September 2009 after 3,000 to 4,000 H1N1 deaths in the USA -vs- Dr. Fauci under President Trump in March 2020 after 200 to 300 COVID-19 deaths. WATCH:
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Now, to better absorb the information…. According to the CDC final estimate of 2009 U.S. H1N1 cases (published in 2011): from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010 approximately 60.8 million U.S. cases, 274,304 U.S. hospitalizations, and 12,469 U.S. deaths occurred due to H1N1. That’s the empirical data.
After: (1) watching that 2009 video; and (2) comparing the 2009 H1N1 response to the current 2020 COVID-19 response; and (3) reviewing the empirical data; we must admit to ourselves there is a VERY BIG difference. So now, with the baseline established, we look for why such a big difference; and to do that we (4) evaluate the politics:
Comrade citizens, if you don’t believe there are local, state and federal contingency plans to activate the National Guard as a police authority you have not paid close attention over the past three decades. However, nothing quite grabs attention like a convoy of Humvees and MWRAPS driving though Main Street…
In this small example of what is happening on a national scale, Illinois State Police and Chicago police prepare to enforce Governor Pritzker’s “stay-at-home” order. WATCH:
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Watch for the words: “opportunity”, “challenges” and “support” when used within a sentence that describes the deployment of the national guard.
Math is math. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math, understand the logistics of the current extreme demand, recognize that fixed assets are limited, and realize if you shut down essential services for truckers the total supply-chain will suffer.
On March 17th Pennsylvania officially shuttered all Turnpike service plazas in response to coronavirus concerns. However, the decision was ridiculously short-sighted as long-haul and regional Truckers depend on fuel stations, bathrooms and restaurants along the route. Thankfully PA officials realized their error and reopened the service stations yesterday.
PA Authority – The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has agreed to reopen all of service plazas that they shuttered earlier this week for Coronavirus.
All 17 closed service plazas are set to reopen at 7 a.m. on Friday, March 20, according to a news release from the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has an important message about the U.S. food sector. With shortages in the retail food (grocer) sector the last part is key…. “don’t take more than you would normally use in a week or two.” WATCH:
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The aspect that most models are missing, is the pressure on the supply-chain will not soon end. The restaurant sector (‘food away from home’) appears to be operating at far less than half capacity (perhaps as low as 25%) due to coronavirus restrictions. As long as those food consumers remain shifted into the retail supply chain (food at home), there are going to be long-term shortages due to capacity constraints and distribution limits.
Earlier today President Trump announced the closing of the southern border (Mexico) and northern border (Canada) to non essential travel. Entry/Exit for trade and business travel will continue to operate with additional screening.
PROTECTING PUBLIC HEALTH: President Trump is taking action at our northern and southern borders to prevent further spread of the coronavirus in the United States.
♦ The United States has reached mutual agreements with Canada and Mexico to restrict non-essential travel across our northern and southern borders.
♦ The United States will expeditiously return aliens who cross between ports of entry or are otherwise not allowed to enter the country, as the facilities in which these aliens would normally be held cannot support quarantine for the time needed to assess potential cases.
