Norwalk

Trump now says if 100,000 Americans die from coronavirus he will have done 'a very good job'

The president repeatedly cited a projection that as many as 2.2 million people would have died if the administration had “done nothing” to mitigate COVID-19’s spread.

Suspected SARS virus and flu samples found in luggage: FBI report describes China's 'biosecurity risk'

An FBI report about China’s involvement with scientific research in the U.S. has raised alarms. While the report refers broadly to foreign researchers, all three cases cited involve Chinese nationals.

Are pot and guns essential in a pandemic?

As states and cities shut down all nonessential businesses to stop the spread of coronavirus, pot shops and gun stores are staying open in some places. Are they really essential?

Lindsey Graham Calls on IG Horowitz to Testify in Further FISA Hearings after Scathing New Report

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) plans to call DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz to testify before congress regarding his office’s audit of the FBI’s FISA application process, which was released Tuesday and revealed potentially systematic abuses of the transparency measures required of the Bureau when agents interact with the FISA court.“I have just been briefed on Inspector General Horowitz’s audit of FISA applications involving American citizens. This random audit shows discrepancies regarding verification of the information under the Woods Procedures,” Graham said in a press release. “I intend to have Inspector General Horowitz come to the Committee to explain his findings and receive his recommendations about how to change the program.”Horowitz’s latest report revealed that the FBI included “apparent errors or inadequately supported facts” in all 29 FISA surveillance applications filed between 2014 and 2019 and reviewed as part of the audit.The Woods Procedure dictates that the Justice Department verify the accuracy of and provide evidentiary support for all facts stated in its FISA application. The FBI is required to share with the FISA Court all relevant information compiled in a Woods file when applying for a surveillance warrant.Four of the 29 applications lacked Woods files entirely, while the other 25 had “an average of about 20 issues per application reviewed, with a high of approximately 65 issues in one application and less than 5 issues in another application.”“FBI and NSD officials we interviewed indicated to us that there were no efforts by the FBI to use existing FBI and NSD oversight mechanisms to perform comprehensive, strategic assessments of the efficacy of the Woods Procedures or FISA accuracy, to include identifying the need for enhancements to training and improvements in the process, or increased accountability measures,” the report states.Horowitz recommended that the FBI begin to “systematically and regularly examine” its Woods reviews to uncover abuse, beginning with a “physical inventory to ensure that Woods Files exist for every FISA application submitted to the FISC in all pending investigations.”In a statement after the audit’s release, the DOJ said that it is “committed to putting the Inspector General’s recommendations into practice and to implementing reforms that will ensure all FISA applications are complete and accurate.”> DOJ statement on today’s report from IG Horowitz identifying concerns with the FBI’s handling of procedures related to FISA applications. pic.twitter.com/DAiB61IoSk> > -- KerriKupecDOJ (@KerriKupecDOJ) March 31, 2020The findings are the latest in a growing trail of FBI abuses involving the FISA Court. Horowitz appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in December after finding “basic and fundamental errors” in the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign, and blamed the FBI chain of command for lacking oversight in the FISA applications used to surveil Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page.“The circumstances reflect a failure, as we outline in the report, not just by those who prepared the applications, but also by the managers and supervisors in the Crossfire Hurricane chain of command, including FBI senior officials who were briefed as the investigation progressed,” Horowitz said in his statement to Graham and the other senators.Later in the hearing, Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) said Horowitz’s findings showed how the “the FBI effectively meddled in an ongoing presidential campaign,” while other Republicans acknowledged that they had not realized FISA abuse was a serious threat.“As a national security hawk, I’ve argued with Mike Lee in the four-and-a-half or five years that I’ve been in the Senate that stuff just like this couldn’t possibly happen at the FBI and at the Department of Justice,” Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) said. “ . . . Mike Lee has warned me for four-and-a-half years the potential for abuse in this space is terrible and I constantly defended the integrity and the professionalism of the bureau and of the department that you couldn’t have something like this happen.”Senator Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) echoed Sasse in recognizing Mike Lee’s past criticisms of FISA.“Because we’ve now seen the abuses we were warned about, you can smirk again, you were right,” Tillis told the Utah Republican.

One country is refusing to shut down to stop the coronavirus

“It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees!” Lukashenko, who hit the ice for a weekend hockey game, said.

Cuomo: Rate of hospitalizations decreasing

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that the rate of hospitalizations because of the coronavirus pandemic is slowing in the state.

Venezuela prosecutor's office summoned Guaido for 'attempted coup'

State prosecutors in Venezuela have summoned opposition leader Juan Guaido for an alleged "attempted coup d'etat" and attempted assassination, Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced Tuesday. In a statement broadcast on state television, Saab said Guaido had been summoned to appear before prosecutors next Thursday following an investigation last week into the seizure of a weapons cache in neighboring Colombia that he said was to be smuggled into Venezuela.

3 mild symptoms could predict which coronavirus patients develop severe lung disease, research suggests — including body aches

Body aches — along with two other factors — could be an early warning sign of severe coronavirus cases.

Trump says Democrats' push for expanded voting threatens Republicans

President Trump on Monday criticized attempts by Democrats in Congress to expand voting access for the presidential election in the fall, saying increased voter turnout would keep Republicans from getting elected.

Open coffins are left on roads to remind people to stay inside while soldiers shoot disinfectant from water cannons. Here's what lockdown for 57 million people in the Philippines looks like.

Despite the lockdown, on Sunday the Philippines reported a daily increase of 343 new coronavirus cases — its highest one day increase yet.

AOC Drifts Away from Activist Left, Toward a More Conventional Staff and Political Strategy

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has taken steps recently to collaborate more with the Democratic establishment, taking a less contentious approach and allying with fellow Democratic members.After urging fellow progressives in 2018 to run for office with the support of the progressive group the Justice Democrats, which supported her, the New York Democrat has declined to endorse most of the candidates the group is backing to oust incumbent Democrats in 2020.Of the six candidates the group is backing this time around, Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed Jessica Cisneros in Texas and Marie Newman in Illinois, both of whom are running against conservative Democrats who oppose abortion and were subsequently supported by several other high-profile Democrats.The move comes as the Justice Democrats are recruiting progressive candidates to run against liberals and moderate Democrats."We don’t usually endorse so far out," Ocasio-Cortez's communications director, Lauren Hitt said of the congresswoman's lack of endorsements for the group of candidates, according to Politico.Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez, who shot to notoriety in 2018 when she ousted powerful Democratic congressman Joe Crowley, is also replacing some of her more radical, progressive top aides with more conventional political professionals, Politico reported.The freshman congresswoman has also struck a more conciliatory tone towards Democratic leadership in recent months, in February calling Pelosi the “mama bear of the Democratic Party.”She also criticized supporters of her progressive ally, 2020 presidential contender Bernie Sanders, for their antagonistic behavior online.“There’s so much emphasis on making outreach as conflict-based as possible,” she said. “And sometimes I even feel miscast and understood. Because it’s about what tools you use, and conflict is one tool but not the only tool.”Nevertheless, Ocasio-Cortez has largely maintained her status as a progressive standard-bearer. Earlier this year, she endorsed a group of progressive women running for Congress on Friday through her political action committee, Courage to Change.In January, she announced that she would not pay dues to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to the House.

The US-China coronavirus blame game is undermining diplomacy

Tensions are rising, but US and Chinese governments must work together to stem the tide of the pandemicAs the world grapples with the human and economic devastation being wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic, not even the relationship between the United States and China is being spared. However, the US and China cannot allow their global competition and rising tensions to impede efforts to fight the pandemic.There will be time enough when this global emergency is over to figure out the ways in which the Chinese Communist party’s (CCP) actions endangered the world by covering up the initial outbreak. But we are where we are, and China, the United States, and the rest of the world must focus on fighting the pandemic.Unfortunately, neither the US nor CCP leadership seems willing to resist throwing mud at one another. Donald Trump, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and other elected officials have called Covid-19 the “Chinese virus” and one White House official reportedly called it the “Kung Flu”. The Republican senator Tom Cotton hinted (without evidence) that the virus could be a bioweapon created by the CCP.In China, a spokesman for the PRC ministry of foreign affairs lied in suggesting that the US military could be to blame for the virus. Chinese government officials have echoed that sentiment while the CCP’s propaganda machine is busy promoting these conspiracy theories.This blame game is undermining diplomacy between the countries. Instead of calling his counterpart to coordinate responses to the global pandemic, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, called China’s senior foreign policy official, Yang Jiechi, instead to object to “PRC efforts to shift blame for Covid-19 to the United States”. And the Trump administration has reportedly attempted to stop the UN security council and the G7 from taking action against the pandemic unless the groups singled out China for blame.It’s important to get the facts right. The virus started in China. In the early days, doctors tried to sound the alarm, but were not allowed to do their jobs. As the virus spread, the CCP censored many of those attempting to raise alarm bells. The CCP’s botched initial response to the virus probably made this pandemic far worse.But the priority for every nation right now must be the pandemic, and tensions between the world’s two biggest economies cannot get in the way. Toning down aspects of the US-China competition temporarily in no way means that the United States should ignore the CCP’s dangerous initial response to the virus, nor does it mean that the United States should stop blunting dangerous Chinese behavior elsewhere. What it means is taking concrete steps to ensure that the competition does not inhibit the fight against the pandemic.First, the United States must stop scapegoating China. Leaders need to stop referring to Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus”, trying to blame China for the outbreak and feeding conspiracy theories about China launching the disease on purpose. Halting this kind of rhetoric can help reduce some of the discrimination against Asian Americans that has been sparked by racist comments surrounding the virus. And while China will continue trying to spin this crisis to its advantage to win headlines, at the very least the United States can play the role of responsible leader rather than infantile finger-pointer.> We must ensure all the doors to cooperation on the pandemic are open right nowSecond, the United States must ensure that no policy that is intended to blunt nefarious Chinese behavior will negatively affect the fight against the pandemic. In order to address genuine concerns, the United States has increasingly scrutinized Chinese investment and private sector cooperation in education, scientific collaborations and the technology sector. Sometimes, those actions can have unintended consequences: for instance, ProPublica reported that one scientist – who had lived in the United States for decades and left the country after being investigated for ties to China – is now developing a rapid coronavirus test in China. Whether it’s scientists sharing research to find a vaccine or companies partnering to produce necessary equipment, we must ensure all the doors to cooperation on the pandemic are open right now. The Trump administration’s move to lift tariffs on Chinese medical products like masks and sanitization products is a good step.Third, the US and Chinese governments must work together to stem the tide of the pandemic. As tensions have risen in recent years there are fewer and fewer areas on which the two countries have pursued robust cooperation. But combating the pandemic is exactly the kind of challenge that requires the two nations to come together, from sharing lessons learned in their respective responses to searching for medical treatments to working together in multilateral organizations like the World Health Organization and the G20. And it means being open to support from one another: while China initially refused US help, reports now suggest the United States is declining China’s offers of sending personal protective equipment.Fourth, don’t worry for the moment about China’s attempts to win public relations victories by sending aid to US allies. The United States must focus on actually helping US allies – such as coordinating travel restrictions to avoid the disaster when the Europe travel ban was announced – and being supportive of allies getting desperately needed help from anywhere it can, whether the United States, China or anyone else. Even if the United States has relatively little to offer and China is sending small amounts of aid as a public relations move, responding by trying to remind everyone that China is the cause of the outbreak will only make America look petty (and some countries are already finding out on their own that part of China’s aid is faulty).If the United States and China are successful in fighting this pandemic – and doing so together – perhaps, at the end of all of this, the two countries just might end up building bridges that could be useful in tempering the more dangerous aspects of their competition.

India’s coronavirus emergency just beginning as lockdown threatens to turn into human tragedy

A week after Narendra Modi ordered the largest national lockdown the planet has ever seen and Delhi's Bhogal market is little quieter than usual. Rather than being confined to home to stop the spread of Covid-19, large groups of residents instead huddle together in the shade, drinking tea and playing cards. Street vendors continue to hawk fresh fruit and vegetables and the police watch as daily life in the capital's backstreets continues, apparently content to enforce movement restrictions only on the capital's major thoroughfares. The failure to abide by the prime minister's decree is due to necessity, rather than defiance, said Muhammad Asif, 21, a cycle-rickshaw driver scanning the crowd for customers. The three-week-long social distancing precautions ordered by Mr Modi are an unaffordable luxury for tens of millions of daily-wage labourers.

US Navy captain says carrier faces dire coronavirus threat

The captain of the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt told the Pentagon that new coronavirus is spreading uncontrollably through his ship and called for immediate help to quarantine its crew. Captain Brett Crozier wrote in a four-page letter that they had not been able to stem the spread of COVID-19 through the 4,000 crewmembers, describing a dire situation aboard the vessel now docked at Guam, a US territory in the Pacific. "The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating," Crozier wrote, referring to the ship's "inherent limitations of space."

Stabbing of Asian-American 2-Year-Old and Her Family Was a Virus-Fueled Hate Crime: Feds

The vicious stabbing of an Asian-American family, including a 2-year-old girl, at a Sam’s Club in Texas earlier this month has been deemed a hate crime by the feds, as authorities continue to raise alarm bells about a potential surge in racially motivated crimes amid the coronavirus outbreak.Jose L. Gomez, 19, confessed to authorities that he attempted to murder three Asian-American family members, including the toddler and a 6-year-old, on March 14 at the Midland, Texas store, according to the Midland Police Department. Gomez, who stabbed the individuals and a Sam’s Club employee, is now facing several charges, including three counts of attempted capital murder and one count of aggravated assault. He is being held on several bonds totaling $1 million.“The suspect indicated that he stabbed the family because he thought the family was Chinese, and infecting people with coronavirus,” according to an FBI analysis report obtained by ABC News.Inside the Ugly Uber and Lyft Driver Freakout Over CoronavirusThe Texas incident was used in the report as one example of a recent surge in hate crimes and racially fueled violence targeting Asian-Americans as the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep the United States. According to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Midland Reporter-Telegram, Gomez attempted to kill the Asian-American family of four inside the wholesale store at about 7:30 p.m. When a Sam’s Club employee and another patron intervened, Gomez allegedly stabbed the patron in the leg and fingers with a knife. At one point, the customer was able to knock the knife away from Gomez during the struggle before the teenager was finally subdued by Border Patrol Agent Bernie Ramiez, who was off-duty and just leaving the store after shopping for groceries, the affidavit states.Ramirez later told CBS7 that during the altercation, he saw the store employee had managed to put Gomez in a chokehold after he had stabbed multiple people.“My initial thought was it was just the shortage of items that they were fighting over,” Ramirez told the local outlet. “So I just started making my way over there to break it up.”The agent added, “I’ve got close to 19 years in law enforcement. It’s crazy and it’s sad the way certain individuals think, their mindset. It’s a sad deal.”When authorities arrived at the Sam’s Club, investigators immediately began to question Gomez. The teenager then admitted to trying to kill the family and assaulting the patron with a knife, the affidavit states. Ramirez did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment and a spokesperson for Midland Mayor Patrick Payton’s office declined to comment, stating that the case has now been turned over to the FBI. According to the intelligence report that was compiled by the FBI’s Houston office and distributed to local law enforcement agencies across the nation, federal officials believe hate crimes will only increase as COVID-19 continues to spread.‘We’re Scared’: Doctors in New Coronavirus Hotspots Brace for ‘Tsunami’ of Patients“The FBI assesses hate crime incidents against Asian Americans likely will surge across the United States, due to the spread of coronavirus disease... endangering Asian American communities,” the report states. “The FBI makes this assessment based on the assumption that a portion of the US public will associate COVID-19 with China and Asian American populations.”To date, more than 3,416 people have died and 174,467 individuals have been infected with the virus nationwide—a death toll that has eclipsed China’s official count and put much of the United States on lockdown.Since then, several political and media commentators, including President Donald Trump, have adopted the practice of calling the pandemic the “China virus” or the “Wuhan virus.”“It did come from China,” Trump said at a March 19 White House briefing. “It is a very accurate term.”Many experts and political figures believe that officials using racial terms for the virus has contributed to discrimination against members of the Asian-American community. “This is a global emergency that should be met with both urgency and also cultural awareness that COVID-19 is not isolated to a single ethnic population,” Jeffrey Caballero, executive director of the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations, said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Xenophobic attacks and discrimination towards Asian American communities are unacceptable and will not make our families safer or healthier.”California Gov. Gavin Newsom reiterated the FBI’s report findings, stating he has seen a “huge increase” in assaults targeting the Asian-American community in his state. In New York, Attorney General Leticia James launched a hotline for victims of coronavirus-related bias crimes. Since the surge, even Trump tried to backtrack on his language, tweeting on March 23, “It is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States, and all around the world. They are amazing people, and the spreading of the Virus is NOT their fault in any way, shape, or form. They are working closely with us to get rid of it. WE WILL PREVAIL TOGETHER!”‘This Is a War’: Cuomo Pleads for Help From Doctors Across U.S. as Coronavirus Death Toll SurgesAccording to one New York City medical social worker, racism is also rampant in the health-care system as Asian-American doctors and nurses struggle to care for patients who don’t want to be touched. “I get yelled at down the street coming into work from people in their cars saying all these really nasty things and telling me I should be punished for bringing the virus here,” the social worker told The Daily Beast last week. “Inside the hospital, I have heard from several Asian-American doctors and nurses that some patients don’t want to be treated by them because they think they already have the virus. It’s like we are the virus or something.”“It’s scary and it’s dangerous. We’re already putting ourselves on the line to help others. Don’t make it harder for us than it is,” she added. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Wuhan's death toll could be astronomically higher than the Chinese government has reported, some residents say

Officials in Wuhan, China, reported that 2,535 people in the city have died from COVID-19. Some residents suspect that's a severe undercount.

Trump, Cuomo and the mystery of the missing masks

Earlier this month, Cuomo said that people were stealing face masks and other equipment needed to fight the coronavirus from area hospitals. On Monday, the New York governor dismissed a similar claim by the president.

U.S. House Speaker Pelosi will not take coronavirus test

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday she does not plan to be tested for coronavirus despite her proximity to the latest lawmaker diagnosed with the illness. U.S. Representative Nydia Velazquez, a Democrat from New York, said on Monday that she had been diagnosed with a presumed case of coronavirus after developing symptoms of the ailment on Sunday, although she had not been tested. Velazquez was in the Capitol on Friday and attended a ceremony at which Pelosi signed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus response plan.

First minor with coronavirus in New York City dies

Only a handful of deaths of people under 18 with coronavirus have been announced around the country.

FBI report describes China’s ‘biosecurity risk’

In late November 2018, just over a year before the first coronavirus case was identified in Wuhan, China, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Detroit Metro Airport stopped a Chinese biologist with three vials labeled “Antibodies” in his luggage.

Bernie Sanders remains hopeful about 'narrow path' to Democratic nomination

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) isn't backing out of the 2020 race just yet.Sanders, who remains about 300 delegates behind former Vice President Joe Biden in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, was Late Night with Seth Meyers' first remote guest of the COVID-19 pandemic Monday night. Meyers asked Sanders if he still saw a path to the nomination, "and if not, why are you remaining in the race?" Sanders had an answer for both questions.Acknowledging the delegate count, Sanders said "we have a path," but "it is, admittedly, a narrow path." "We have a strong grassroots movement who believe that we have got to stay in the race" to fight for his platform's principles, Sanders continued. "We need Medicare-for-all," to "raise the minimum wage to a living wage," and "paid family and medical leave," Sanders said -- issues that have been highlighted throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Watch the whole interview below. More stories from theweek.com Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is what real coronavirus leadership looks like The case for cautious optimism about the pandemic The next 2 weeks are going to be 'tough' and 'painful,' Trump warns

U.S. is swiftly deporting migrant children at the border

"Despite everything I experienced along the way, they deported me the next day," one indigenous teenager from Guatemala told CBS News.

'Sailors do not need to die': Captain of aircraft carrier hit by coronavirus outbreak begs Navy for more help

The commanding officer told the Navy that the outbreak was worsening and called for the removal of almost the entire crew as soon as possible.

White House projects 100K to 240K US deaths from virus

President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned Americans to brace for a “hell of a bad two weeks” ahead as the White House projected there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the U.S. from the coronavirus pandemic even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained. Public health officials stressed that the number could be less if people across the country bear down on keeping their distance from one another. “We really believe we can do a lot better than that,” said Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force.

Women who left N.Y. for China amid U.S. coronavirus outbreak document their journey

“Because we're kind of in between these two cultures, we also understand both. So it feels like our experience could speak to both of the audiences.”

Some doctors are telling patients to switch from contact lenses to glasses to lower their risk of contracting the coronavirus

Evidence suggests the coronavirus can enter the body through the eyes, so some eye doctors say glasses are safer.

Romanian Virus Death Toll Rises to Worst in EU’s Eastern Wing

(Bloomberg) -- Romania is suffering a surge in fatalities caused by the coronavirus after tens of thousands of its citizens returned from Italy and Spain, making it the worst-hit nation in central and eastern Europe.The death toll surged to 69 in the past 24 hours, with more than 2,100 people infected with COVID-19. That’s almost the combined number of deaths in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. The latter two countries -- along with Romania -- were among the European Union’s first after Italy to impose strict lockdowns on most aspects of public life earlier this month.A small historical town in the north of the country, Suceava, is the epicenter, with almost half of the deaths originating from a hospital where most doctors and nurses contracted the illness. The town, renowned for its UNESCO religious heritage status, was placed in full lockdown on Tuesday to try to limit the contagion. Authorities estimate that more than 1,000 more potentially positive cases are still unidentified.Ukraine also recorded the first cases in its western region bordering Romania. Authorities suspect a woman who returned from working in Italy passed the virus to 15 people in her village. Ukraine has currently registered 549 coronavirus cases and 13 deaths.Years of underfunding left Romania’s health-care system -- ranked one of Europe’s worst -- among the most exposed to the virus. In the face of the recent outbreak, medical staff at some small hospitals resigned, saying they don’t want to take the risk because they don’t have the proper equipment to treat infected patients.“I can’t issue a decree to force people to stay and fight on the front lines,” Health Minister Nelu Tataru said late Monday. “We’re making efforts to send equipment everywhere. This will give people the confidence they need to stay and fight.”Romania is trying to boost local production of face masks and protective suits, with companies switching production lines with help from the government. The cabinet of Prime Minister Ludovic Orban plans to boost the budget of the Health Ministry and will try to use all funds available at the EU level to confront the crisis.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

No, America’s Response to Coronavirus Isn’t the Worst in the World

The coronavirus pandemic is already a catastrophe. How we fare in comparison to the rest of the world is hardly of paramount importance. Once the Chinese government hid the outbreak, failed to contain it, and then misled the world, there remained little possibility that any nation, much less an enormous and open society like the United States, was going to be spared its devastation.Yet, when the political media isn’t preoccupied with a gotcha du jour, pundits, partisans, and journalists have seemed downright giddy to let their minions know that the United States now has the most coronavirus cases in the world. It took a six-siren-emoji tweet from MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to tell us that fact.Here is how the New York Times’ Paul Krugman framed the number:> America's response to the coronavirus is the worst in the world, which is shocking and has a lot to do with a leader who is completely unfit, temperamentally and intellectually, for the job 1/ pic.twitter.com/sGZuFUukgr> > -- Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) March 29, 2020A Nobel Prize–winning economist surely understands that we don’t have enough data to definitively declare the United States the world leader in cases. Even if we did, it doesn’t necessarily follow that this is the fault of public policy. There are plenty of unexplained coronavirus disparities around the world.The Financial Times chart that that is circulated by Krugman and his fellow pundits, and sometimes cynically deployed as a means of attacking the administration’s response, is largely useless as a point of comparison. For one thing, a graph illustrating per capita cases in all the nations that the Financial Times chart includes looks different. A chart that combined all the cases in European nations — the continent has approximately the same population as the United States — would also look dramatically different. The known cases in Spain and Italy alone are nearly twice as many as the United States right now.Cross-country comparisons at a given point in time fail to account for many things, including density and time. Iceland is not like Italy, and New York is not like Alaska. And simply because nations such as Italy and Spain experienced outbreaks earlier and more deadly than nations such as Germany and Sweden does not mean the disparities are destined to last.Moreover, testing in the United States began slowly before being ratcheted up quickly (and criticism of that delay is a fair one). Thus, the curve reflects the reality of expanded testing as much as it reflects reality of the disease. And though I’m not a statistician, I do know that nations have varied criteria for testing, varied standards of testing, and varying effectiveness in the testing they do perform. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese coronavirus tests sent to European nations, for example, have turned out to faulty. The data are incomplete. Krugman’s claim lacks vital context.Speaking of China, accepting the veracity of numbers offered by the ChiCom government without any skepticism might be good enough for The New York Times and other outlets, but it shouldn’t be enough for anyone who values facts.It’s also worth mentioning that the timeline of these charts are also uncertain. It’s unlikely we know when the tenth or hundredth case was actually transmitted in China or Iran or even here -- and it’s possible that some people had died and some others had recovered before most people understood the magnitude of the future pandemic.All of this is worth keeping in mind when as we see journalists harping on the overall case number without context. If you want to continue to utilize this once-in-a-century pandemic as a cudgel against your political adversaries, have fun. But the most important gauges of success right now are flattening the curve so that hospitals aren’t overwhelmed with new patients, ramping up our testing capacity to get a better handle on the virus’s properties, and measuring the number of recoveries from coronavirus. Not owning Donald Trump.The United States has already dealt with coronavirus far better than the Chinese government. The fatality rate in the U.S., so far, is nowhere near that of Italy. Our dynamism is one of the reasons why an early high case count is a not a measure of either national success or failure. It’s not our nature to allow the state to close down borders, travel, or trade, or to stop interactions with the world — or with each other, for that matter. And yet, many of same people who incessantly and cynically warned of the coming Fourth Reich are now blaming the administration for not acting like a dictatorship. It’s difficult to keep up.

The coronavirus is spreading quickly through Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities

In Israel, the coronavirus is spreading in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities up to eight times faster than anywhere else in the country.Ultra-Orthodox Jews account for 12 percent of Israel's population, but they make up 40 to 60 percent of coronavirus patients at four of the country's largest hospitals, officials told Israeli media. Health experts said the virus is moving so quickly in these communities because the ultra-Orthodox have large families, don't trust the government, and pay little to no attention to secular media. Many are also still gathering for prayers and funerals, despite all Israelis being ordered to stay home.Bnei Brak is a suburb of Tel Aviv, and 95 percent of the population is ultra-Orthodox. On Friday, there were 267 confirmed coronavirus cases, and by Monday, that number climbed to 508. Several hundred mourners gathered in Bnei Brak on Saturday night for the funeral of a rabbi, prompting furious secular Israelis to call on the government to place Bnei Brak under curfew. On Monday, a New York Times journalist and photographer were told to leave a synagogue in the suburb where morning services were being held, and they walked past several groups meeting furtively for prayers.Bnei Brak has just one hospital, and its director general, Dr. Moti Ravid, told the Times he would like authorities to prohibit residents from leaving for at least one week, to slow down the coronavirus' spread. There are lots of small children living in the town, and "if they help to infect others, the result will be that many old people will die," he said.More stories from theweek.com Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is what real coronavirus leadership looks like The case for cautious optimism about the pandemic The next 2 weeks are going to be 'tough' and 'painful,' Trump warns

Coronavirus: Anger as migrants sprayed with disinfectant in India

Footage shared thousands of times shows a group of workers in India being sprayed with chemicals.

Shocking video shows the bodies of NYC coronavirus victims being forklifted into a refrigerated truck used as a temporary morgue

New York City has become a new epicenter of the outbreak, with 914 people dead as of Monday night. Some may find the footage distressing to watch.

2020 Watch: Will Trump lead by addition or subtraction?

The coronavirus pandemic has effectively put presidential politics on hold as elected officials work furiously to save lives and rescue the economy. This is President Donald Trump's show for now as the Republican president is tasked with leading the nation through the worst public health crisis in the modern era. Democratic front-runner Joe Biden and his allies will try to break through, but they'll have to be content with taking a distant backseat for now as the focus stays with the dangerous business of governance in a public health crisis.

Outrage in India as migrants sprayed with disinfectant to fight coronavirus

Indian health workers caused outrage on Monday by spraying a group of migrants with disinfectant, amid fears that a large scale movement of people from cities to the countryside risked spreading the coronavirus. Footage showed a group of migrant workers sitting on a street in Bareilly, a district in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, as health officials in protective suits used hose pipes to douse them in disinfectant, prompting anger on social media. Nitish Kumar, the top government official in the district, said health workers had been ordered to disinfect buses being used by the local authorities but in their zeal had also turned their hoses on migrant workers.

'Best they can get' or more 'politics than policy?' U.S. offers Venezuela a deal

A former senior U.S. government official says it's the "best" deal they can get, while an analyst said this is more about "politics than policy."

New coronavirus death rate estimates show how sharply the risk rises with age

The fatality rate for people infected with the novel coronavirus is estimated to be less than 1%, according to a new study. It's 1.38% for those with COVID-19.

3 nutritionists show what they are eating during the coronavirus lockdown, and how to make the meals yourself

As social distancing and coronavirus lockdowns continue, here are top tips from nutritionists and what meals and recipes they're cooking at home.

Researchers record 1st-ever heat wave in East Antarctica

This January, East Antarctica — an area that previously seemed to be spared from climate warming — experienced its first recorded heat wave.The heat wave was recorded at the Casey Research Station between Jan. 23 and 26, marking the area's highest temperature ever at 48.6 degrees Fahrenheit, while minimum temperatures stayed above 32 degrees Fahrenheit, according to research in Global Change Biology.A rarity in Antarctica, heat waves are known as "three consecutive days with both extreme maximum and minimum temperatures," according to the research.Meanwhile, Denman Glacier — a large glacier in East Antarctica — appears to be rapidly retreating. Its position above the world's deepest known canyon may be causing it to melt faster than it can recover, according to a letter in Geophysical Research Letters, Live Science reports.As the glacier retreats, warm water fills the canyon, which could cause a feedback loop that returns all of the glacier's ice to the ocean, leading to about 5 feet of global sea level rise, reports Live Science. Researchers concluded the retreating of the glacier should be a "wake-up call" to scientists who believed melting in East Antarctica to be less of a threat than that of west Antarctica."Although it is too early for full reports, this warm summer will have impacted Antarctic biology in numerous ways," researchers wrote in their letter on Global Change Biology, noting disruption to ecosystem, community, and populations scales.More stories from theweek.com Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is what real coronavirus leadership looks like The case for cautious optimism about the pandemic The next 2 weeks are going to be 'tough' and 'painful,' Trump warns

Why Taiwan has become a problem for WHO

Taiwan is effectively locked out of the World Health Organization - and tensions are rising.

28 Texas spring breakers who just returned from Cabo have tested positive for the coronavirus

The spring breakers reportedly got on a chartered plane with 70 people. It shows why spring break is such a problem during the coronavirus pandemic.

Meet Candy Sterling, a fierce drag queen at night and a corporate professional by day

This is Candy Sterling – a fierce drag queen who lights up the New York City nightlife while maintaining a professional day job. Get to know her both in and out of drag on this week's episode of Behind the Drag.

Trump warns of 'painful two weeks' as officials predict up to 240,000 US coronavirus deaths

President offers unusually sombre press conference with projections that take physical distancing measures into account * Coronavirus – live US updates * Live global updates * See all our coronavirus coverageDonald Trump has warned America to brace for a “very, very painful two weeks” as the White House projected that the coronavirus pandemic could claim 100,000 to 240,000 lives, even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained.Striking an unusually sombre tone at the start a marathon two-hour briefing, the US president defended his early handling of the crisis and displayed models that, he said, justified his decision to keep much of the economy shut down.“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks. This is going to be a very painful, very, very painful two weeks.”The US death toll from the coronavirus climbed past 3,800 on Tuesday, eclipsing China’s official count. Trump has been widely condemned for exacerbating the crisis by failing to prepare testing kits, breathing apparatus and other equipment.On Tuesday his experts said their models showed between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans could die from the coronavirus even if the country keeps mitigation measures in place.Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus taskforce response coordinator, told reporters that models show a worst case scenario of between 1.5m and 2.2m deaths in the US “without mitigation”.But with measures in place, she added, the “mountain” could be reduced to a “hill” that projects 100,000–240,000 deaths – still a staggering total. She stressed that the number could be lower if people changed their behavior.She displayed a chart in which New York had by far the most cumulative cases, followed by New Jersey, then the other 48 states bunched together. Birx expressed hope that social distancing could prevent major outbreaks in those states.Early mitigation slowing the spread of disease in California and Washington state “gives us great hope”, she added. “It’s communities that will do this. There’s no magic bullet. There’s no magic vaccine or therapy. It’s just behaviour.”Asked if Americans be prepared for the likelihood that there would be 100,000 Americans who die from this virus, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said: “The answer is yes. As sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it.“Is it going to be that much? I hope not, and I think the more we push on the mitigation, the less likelihood it will be that number ... We are really convinced mitigation is going to be doing the trick for us.”He added: “We’re going to continue to see things go up. We cannot be discouraged by that because the mitigation is actually working ... Now is the time, whenever you’re having an effect, not to take your foot off the accelerator and on the brake, but to just press it down on the accelerator. And that’s what I hope and I know that we can do over the next 30 days.”Trump eventually heeded such advice, and opinion polls, after previously declaring an ambition to restart the economy by Easter. He announced on Sunday that he was extending to 30 April the guidelines that urged Americans to cease social gatherings, work from home, suspend onsite learning at schools and more in a nationwide effort to stem the spread of the virus.Trump spoke after another bad day for the stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 400 points, or roughly 1.9%, to seal the worst first-quarter finish of its 135-year history.But the president defended shutting down much of the economy, attempting to rewrite history. Trump, who in speeches and on Twitter has compared Covid-19 to the common flu, said: “A lot of people have said, ‘Ride it out. Don’t do anything, just ride it out. And think of it as the flu.’ But it’s not the flu. It’s vicious.”And as the briefing wore on, more of the old Trump emerged. He made misleading claims about the early travel restrictions he imposed on China and Europe and, despite complaints from state governors, defended the supply of ventilators and other equipment.Although public health experts raised the alarm early based on reports from China, the president claimed: “Nobody knew how contagious this was. I don’t think any doctor knew it at the time. People have not seen anything like this.”Trump denied his early downplaying of the virus had given people a false sense of security and dismissed critics who said he should be more willing to deliver bad news. “This is really easy to be negative about, but I want to give people hope, too,” he said. “I’m not about bad news. I want to give people hope. I want to give people the feeling that we all have a chance.”And trying to put his own efforts in a positive light, he noted that without his mitigation guidelines, models show the death toll could have reached 2.2m. “You would have had people dying all over the place.“You would have seen people dying in airplanes, you would have seen people dying in hotel lobbies. How many people have even seen anybody die? You would have seen death all over.”The president added: “One hundred thousand is, according to modeling, a very low number.” But he also described the figure as “very sobering”.Trump was asked if, as the Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has suggested, he was distracted by the impeachment trial in January. “I don’t think I would’ve acted any differently,” he replied. “I don’t think I would’ve acted any faster.”In the wide-ranging session, there was also a question about a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who proposed that the coronavirus could be carried on droplets a distance of 27ft. Fauci responded: “This could really be terribly misleading ... That is not practical ... That is a very, very robust, vigorous, atchoo sneeze.”

Justice Department cites more flaws in FBI handling of surveillance warrants

The FBI failed to keep all the records it needed to justify wiretaps within the United States, a Justice Department watchdog said on Tuesday in a report that raised new questions about a domestic surveillance program criticized by lawmakers in both parties and civil libertarians. The findings by Michael Horowitz, the department's inspector general, represented another setback for the FBI. Horowitz in a December report criticized the FBI for its handling of surveillance warrants in the early stages of its investigation into contacts between President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russians.

Rep. Velazquez has presumed COVID-19 infection, was near Pelosi, other lawmakers last week

Rep. Nydia Velazquez spoke on the House floor Friday and stood near Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the signing of the $2 trillion stimulus bill.

Democratic lawmakers call for racial data in virus testing

Democratic lawmakers are calling out an apparent lack of racial data that they say is needed to monitor and address disparities in the national response to the coronavirus outbreak. In a letter sent Friday to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, both from Massachusetts, said comprehensive demographic data on people who are tested or treated for the virus that causes COVID-19 does not exist. “Any attempt to contain COVID-19 in the United States will have to address its potential spread in low-income communities of color, first and foremost to protect the lives of people in those communities, but also to slow the spread of the virus in the country as a whole,” the lawmakers wrote to Azar.