Army Briefing Warned COVID-19 Could Kill Tens of Thousands, Democrats Want an Independent Commission, Record 6.6M People File for Unemployment Claims
The Butcher’s Bill
935,817 confirmed cases worldwide
193,700 recovered worldwide
47,231 deaths worldwide
Data is current as of 11:00 p.m. Pacific time on Monday, March 31, 2020.
Sources: Johns Hopkins, U.S. data is from the New York Times, Italian data is from the Dipartimento della Protezione Civile, Spanish data is from the Ministerio de Sanidad.
NOTE: Some of the Johns Hopkins data is broken down to the state or provincial level, rather than a figure for the entire country. In these cases, the data is marked in the column as N/A.
To see the full list of data, go to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center. I also recommend checking out the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Situation Dashboard. Italy’s Department of Civil Protection has its own Italian-centric version of the Johns Hopkins website which you can view here.
There was a pretty grim barrage of headlines today. Rather than write them all up individually, they will be listed here, with links to the original publication:
· The number of coronavirus cases around the world crossed the 900,000 mark today, one day after breaking the 800,000 barrier. The death toll has also reached the 47,000 mark. At the current rate of growth, it will probably clear 1 million cases and 50,000 deaths tomorrow (Thursday). (Washington Post)
· Vice President Mike Pence said models for the coronavirus outbreak suggest the United States was facing a trajectory similar to Italy’s. (Washington Post)
· The daily death toll in the United States cleared the 1,000 mark, the worst single day of the pandemic so far. (USA Today)
· The federal government’s emergency supply of medical equipment is almost gone. (New York Times)
· U.S. government is requesting 100,000 body bags. (Bloomberg)
· 44 University of Texas students who went on spring break to Mexico two weeks ago tested positive for coronavirus. (CNN)
Anthony Fauci Gets a Security Detail
The nation’s top infectious diseases expert who has become one of the administration’s main faces and voices in discussing the COVID-19 pandemic, has been given a small security detail, according to the Washington Post. This comes after drawing the ire of pro-Trump elements, as well as supporters and well-wishers from the public at large. The security detail will come from within the Department of Health and Human Services, who will be deputized for the job by the U.S. Marshalls Service.
Army Briefing in February Warned Coronavirus Pandemic Might Kill 80-150K
An unclassified briefing document on the novel coronavirus prepared on Feb. 3 by U.S. Army-North projected that “between 80,000 and 150,000 could die.” It framed the projection as a “Black Swan” analysis, meaning an outlier event of extreme consequence but often understood as an unlikely one.
In other words, the Army’s projections on Feb. 3 for the worst-case scenario in the coronavirus outbreak are, as of this week, the absolute best-case scenario–if not a miraculous one.
It is not known how widely this briefing document was circulated, especially outside of the Pentagon. If 9/11 was a failure of the imagination, as the 9/11 Commission famously concluded, the coronavirus pandemic seems to be exactly the opposite, if recent media reports are correct. There were plenty of warning signs, even a simulation with officials from the outgoing Obama administration during the transition. There were red flags, and it happened anyway. Which sets up the next story…
Democrats Looking Into Setting Up Independent Panel to Investigate Government’s Response to Coronavirus
House Democrats have begun informally discussing plans to create a task force modeled on the 9/11 Commission to look into the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, NBC News and Reuters reported. Regarding an investigation related to the ongoing pandemic, according to NBC News, “One option could be a plan to review the administration's response in the annual National Defense Authorization Act.” One member to keep an eye on is Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who according to Reuters “would introduce in the coming days legislation to create a 25-member panel modeled on the one that recommended changes in counter-terrorism strategy after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.”
Another member to watch is Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. During a recent interview with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, he mentioned his support for the creation of an independent commission to look back on what happened after the current ongoing crisis has passed.
Historical reminder: President George W. Bush was initially against the creation of a 9/11 Commission, having been content with the joint House-Senate Intelligence Committee investigation. He eventually changed his mind.
Even if the House votes to establish a Coronavirus Commission (for lack of a better name at the moment), it would still have to be voted on in the Senate and signed into law by the president. Given how much this president dislikes oversight and how much in lockstep the Senate Republican caucus has been with him, it is highly unlikely he would sign off on a commission that will spend another two years investigating his administration, after having survived Mueller and impeachment. (All this doesn’t even take into consideration Schiff’s support for the legislation. The president has repeatedly and personally attacked Schiff for his work on the House Intelligence Committee regarding the Russia investigation and the Ukraine scandal, as well as his role as a House impeachment manager.)
If a Coronavirus Commission were to happen, it would probably be under the next president, assuming Joe Biden wins the presidential election in November and Democrats control at least one chamber of Congress going into 2021. At that point, it would be up to the next Congress and the next White House to create it. If Trump is re-elected and Democrats still control the House in 2021, it would be up to the relevant oversight committees to hold hearings and get witnesses and documents, presumably after long court battles.
House Democrats Want to Push Five-Year $760 Billion Infrastructure Plan Next Coronavirus Stimulus Bill
Infrastructure Week may be back from the dead again. According to the Wall Street Journal, House Democrats want to push their 5-year $760 billion infrastructure plan as part of the next coronavirus stimulus bill (this would be the fourth such bill, for those of you keeping score). The Democratic plan would fall within President Donald Trump’s 10-year, $2 trillion infrastructure plan. According to the report, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Trump both want to take advantage of low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve to invest in the country’s infrastructure.
Meanwhile, over in the Republican-controlled Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Washington Post that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “needs to stand down on the notion that we’re going to go along with taking advantage of the crisis to do things that are unrelated to the crisis,” and called her comments about a fourth virus-related bill “premature.”
McConnell is referring to public comments Pelosi has made about pushing for a repeal of the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions that was put in place by the Trump tax cut passed in 2017, as well as legislation calling for all voters to be given the option of requesting mail-in ballots for the presidential election in November.
The Senate is in recess until April 20, though that might change depending on circumstances.
Democrats Postpone Their Presidential Convention Until August
Joe Biden mentioned it during a recent interview on The Tonight Show and now, it’s going to happen. The Democratic National Convention, originally scheduled from July 13-16 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has been pushed back to the week of August 17 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. A statement on the convention website reads:
In light of the unprecedented health crisis facing our country, the 2020 Democratic National Convention will now be held the week of August 17 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, providing our team more time to determine the most appropriate structure for this historic event.
Ensuring the safety of the convention’s host community and all convention-goers has been—and always will remain—the top priority of the Democratic National Convention Committee. As we continue to monitor the unpredictable and unprecedented public health emergency, we remain in constant communication with the local, state, and federal officials responsible for protecting public health and security, and will continue to follow their guidance.
The Republican National Convention is still scheduled to take place in Charlotte, North Carolina from August 24-27 as of this writing.
Los Angeles Mayor Urges Residents to Wear Masks to Contain Spread of Virus
In light of recent re-evaluation by the CDC of whether or not people should wear masks in public if they are healthy, Mayor Eric Garcetti urged the people of Los Angeles to start wearing masks when out in public. From the Los Angeles Times:
At a Wednesday afternoon news briefing, Garcetti said he had been awaiting advice on masks from the CDC but with the COVID-19 rate surging had decided to wait no longer.
The mayor said everyone performing essential tasks such as as food shopping should wear homemade, nonmedical face coverings, or even bandannas, as people in other countries have done.
“To be clear, you should still stay at home. This isn’t an excuse to suddenly all go out,” Garcetti said.
He added that people shouldn’t use medical-grade masks, which are in short supply and are needed by healthcare workers and first responders.
Wall Street Update
Second Quarter Begins with Four Percent Drop in Stocks
One day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed its worst quarter since 1987, it fell 973 points, its worst ever first day of a new quarter, according to the Wall Street Journal. Similar drops hit the NASDAQ and S&P 500. All three indices fell by approximately 4.4 percent during the course of trading hours on Wednesday.
Record 6.6 Million People Filed for Unemployment Benefits During Week of March 22
Last week, a record 3.3 million people filed for unemployment during the week of March 15. One week later, that record was shattered, as twice as many people filed for benefits. From the Wall Street Journal:
A record 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as the new coronavirus struck the U.S. economy and sent a recently booming labor market into free fall.
The large number of claims was double the 3.3 million who sought benefits two weeks ago as the U.S. shut down parts of the economy in an effort to contain the virus. Jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, provide temporary financial assistance for workers who lose their jobs.
Here’s the kicker: a story published in the New York Times yesterday quoted projected estimates ranging from 4.5 to 5.6 million. It noted, “If these forecasts are accurate, there will be as many claims in two weeks as in the first six months of the Great Recession.”
Why You Should Take China’s Coronavirus Numbers with a Massive Grain of Salt
China has been reporting dramatic drops in numbers of new cases of coronavirus inside its borders, while simultaneously carrying on a global diplomatic and public relations offensive offering its medical experts or selling medical devices and equipment to afflicted countries facing shortages. The evidence strongly suggests that China is manipulating or underestimating the numbers. From Foreign Policy:
How to Read China’s Coronavirus Numbers
A classified U.S. intelligence report has found that China’s coronavirus figures are false: that it underreported the number of confirmed cases and deaths. That is no surprise to anyone familiar with Chinese data. The question is this: How false is the data, and how deliberate is the concealment? There is a difference between numbers that are deliberately faked for the outside world and a state struggling—as all countries are—to gather information on a virus that is difficult to detect in many people.
It is likely that Beijing is deliberately underreporting the death toll in Wuhan, where the outbreak began, and the total number of cases across the country in February. Bad numbers in China are always underreported, especially when the national image is at stake, and China is now keen to play up its victory against the virus in contrast with the West’s failures. Still, it’s not as if the Chinese leadership has a secret set of books containing more accurate figures. They, too, are left struggling to figure out exactly what’s going within the vast country.
As a result, local officials have been left with an unsolvable problem. Chinese officials have been warned (link in Chinese) not to “hide cases for the sake of reporting zero.” But the leadership is also demanding close to zero new domestic cases. A series of purges before the pandemic has left officials on edge, and any local authorities unlucky enough to have an outbreak in their territory could be in grave political danger. Their response may be to conceal a local outbreak from the high-level authorities while using strict measures to contain it: reporting zero new cases while still quarantining neighborhoods or towns.
More about the U.S. intelligence community’s classified assessment, as reported by Bloomberg:
China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials.
The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret, and they declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake.
The report was received by the White House last week, one of the officials said.
Experts Warn Coronavirus “Will Almost Certainly Strike Developing Countries”
Robert and Richard Malley wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs warning of the potentially devastating impact of COVID-19 in developing countries with limited means and poor infrastructure. Here’s a sample:
The bottom line is that COVID-19 will almost certainly strike developing countries. The current low numbers are due either to a lack of detection or to the time lag between when the virus first spreads and when it begins to manifest. When it does strike, it will do so with a vengeance, as these countries bundle together all the most potent risk factors. Their basic health infrastructure is inadequate. They often lack clean running water. They also have high population densities and family cohabitation structures that will impede physical distancing. And when workers depend entirely on their paycheck to survive and the government cannot afford to cover the difference, the cost of shutting down businesses becomes unimaginable. As Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed pointed out in the Financial Times, even a short interruption in planting or harvesting could have devastating consequences on his country’s food supply. All of this will inevitably be compounded by the dramatic global economic slowdown that awaits and which will hit fragile states the hardest, further damaging their resilience.
In short, the countries least able to impose physical distancing and perform contact tracing also tend to have the most overstretched health-care systems and the most precarious economies. A major COVID-19 outbreak in any of them could lead to an almost unfathomable number of dead.
Philippines President Duterte Says Police Should Shoot and Kill Anyone Who Violates Lockdown
That’s one way to keep people in line, I suppose:
“If there is trouble or the situation arises that people fight and your lives are on the line, shoot them dead,” Duterte said according to local news site Rappler. “Do you understand? Dead. Instead of causing trouble, I’ll send you to the grave.”
Duterte made the remarks in a televised address late on Wednesday, in which he pushed the country to stick to lockdown measures to help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
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“What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well.
It helps men to rise above themselves.”
Albert Camus, The Plague