The Commentariat -- March 25, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates for Wednesday for coronavirus developments are here. "... in New York City..., the 1.8-million-square-foot Jacob K. Javits Convention Center -- which was scheduled to hold an expo for exotic flowers this week -- looked more like a front-line military depot as workers rushed t transform the complex to handle an imminent surge of patients. Governor Cuomo said that with cases doubling every three days in New York City alone, as many as 140,000 people might need urgent care in the next few weeks.... And the state was still in dire need of critical equipment.... When asked how he came up with April 12 as a target date [to ease social-distancing restrictions], Mr. Trump did not cite any scientific evidence. 'I just thought it was a beautiful time,' he said[.]" ~~~

NEW. "A last-minute dispute over jobless aid was delaying a final Senate vote expected on Wednesday to approve sweeping legislation to deliver $2 trillion in government relief for an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic. Four Republican senators said they believed the bill, which would provide a substantial expansion of unemployment insurance, could lead to layoffs and incentivize workers to collect unemployment payments rather than take a job."

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here. "... with the virus racing through the country, cancer doctors and patients are taking sometimes drastic steps to try to deal with the crisis. The changes range from the simple to the complex. At NYU Langone Medical Center, for example, cancer patients are directed to separate elevators to reduce their chance of being infected by the coronavirus. Nationwide, oncologists are delaying some surgeries and paring back treatments to reduce patients' hospital time and risk of infection. Cancer-fighting pills taken at home are being substituted for IV therapies administered at hospitals and clinics. With blood donations falling sharply, doctors are switching to regimens that require fewer transfusions.... The Italian government announced Wednesday that it would suspend its daily briefing on the novel coronavirus because emergency chief Angelo Borrelli has a low-grade fever."

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. The Never-Trump Provision. John Wagner & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Businesses controlled by President Trump and his children would be prohibited from receiving loans or investments from Treasury Department programs included in a $2 trillion stimulus plan agreed to early Wednesday by White House and Senate leaders in response to the coronavirus crisis. The provision, which was touted by Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) in an early-morning letter to colleagues, would also apply to Vice President Pence, members of Congress and heads of federal departments, as well as their children, spouses and in-laws. During a television interview Wednesday morning, Schumer stressed that the provision applies not only to Trump but to 'any major figure in government.'... On Sunday, Trump was asked whether his business would abstain from any federal bailout. He did not give a clear answer. 'Everything's changing, just so you understand; it's all changing,' he said. 'But I have no idea.'"

Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Senate plans to vote Wednesday afternoon on a $2 trillion stimulus package that is designed to flood the U.S. economy with money in an effort to stabilize households and businesses that have been floored by the coronavirus outbreak." This is an update of a story linked earlier & yesterday; the article is free to nonsubscribers. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: This is the biggest "deal" of Trump's (or any) presidency, and Donald Trump had nothing to do with it. He left all the negotiating to Steve Mnuchin and others. Mnuchin -- a former shady banker, hedge-fund manager & movie mogul -- is certainly experienced at making deals. Still, its amazing -- and good for Americans -- that Trump ceded his vaunted but fake deal-making skills to the Treasury Secretary. The White House aides who manipulated Trump into butting out did the country at least one good deed. (Supposedly Trump eschewed the task because he couldn't stand to be in a room with Nancy Pelosi; I suspect there's more to it than that.)

"Trump to New York: Drop Dead." Jennifer Senior of the New York Times: "President Trump is treating each of our 50 states as individual contestants on 'The Apprentice' -- pitting them against one another for scarce resources, daring them to duke it out -- rather than mobilizing a unified national response to a pandemic.... Untold thousands will likely die absent federal intervention. And it needs to happen this instant -- not just for the good of [New York City], but for the nation. The president needs to set a precedent in his hometown.... The governor has already said that the state is 30,000 ventilators short. The only way to acquire the volume we need -- delivered at the speed we need -- is through federal intervention, which means sending us the bulk of the ventilators from the strategic national stockpile, which has roughly 20,000, and deploying the Defense Production Act to force private manufacturers to make more. But that's not what the president is doing. He refuses to use the Defense Production Act, fearing it'll put an undue burden on business, and he's keeping his federal stash under tight lock and key.... [New York has] 10 times the number of cases as Washington and eight times that of California." New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he would ship the ventilators to other areas as needs move elsewhere. ~~~

~~~ Trump Plays Politics with Blue-State Lives. Asawin Suebsaeng, et al., of the Daily Beast: "The latest evidence of the delicate, sometimes impossible line that [Democratic] governors have been forced to walk [to mollify Donald Trump] came Tuesday, when the president took swipes at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo during a televised town-hall-style program on Fox News. 'I watched Gov. Cuomo [today] and he was very nice,' the president said of the man steering the state hardest hit by the virus. Cuomo had, moments earlier, conducted a press conference in which he scoffed at how insufficient the administration's help in procuring ventilators had been. 'He had a choice... He refused to order 15,000 ventilators,' Trump said, referencing a recent column by Betsy McCaughey, a hardened Trump supporter and longtime health-care policy crusader on the right. 'It says that he didn't buy the ventilators in 2015 for a pandemic, established death panels and lotteries instead.'.... 'It's a two-way street,' Trump said of having the feds help states with a coronavirus response policy. 'They have to treat us well, too.'... Trump's comment resonated not only for how callous it seemed but also for how manufactured the evidence was that he was citing.... President Trump 'obviously didn't read the document he’s citing -- this was a five-year-old advisory task-force report, which never recommended the state procure ventilators -- it merely referenced that New York wouldn't be equipped with enough ventilators for a 1918 flu pandemic,' said Dani Lever, director of communications for Cuomo." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A big part of Trump's problem with New York, of course, is that Gov. Cuomo is getting high marks & a lot of publicity for his daring, proactive response to the coronavirus, even as Trump is justifiably excoriated in stories appearing in nearly all major media outlets. For instance ~~~

~~~ Jesse McKinley & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: New York Gov. Andrew "Cuomo was once considered a bit player on the national stage, an abrasive presence who made his share of enemies among his Democratic Party peers. He was too much of a pragmatist for his party's progressive wing, too self-focused for party leaders and too brusque for nearly everyone. But now, he is emerging as the party's most prominent voice in a time of crisis. His briefings -- articulate, consistent and often tinged with empathy -- have become must-see television. On Tuesday, his address was carried live on all four networks in New York and a raft of cable news stations, including CNN, MSNBC and even Fox News.... Mr. Cuomo's handling of the crisis has fostered a nationwide following.... Mr. Cuomo's daily addresses have stood in stark contrast to the sometimes contradictory pronouncements coming from Washington. Mr. Cuomo's briefings have been filled with facts, directives and sobering trends...."

My mother's not expendable. We're not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable. And we're not going to put a dollar figure on human life. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), responding to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's (R) suggestion that old folks sacrifice their lives for the economy ~~~

~~~ Media Matters: "Fox's Brit Hume says it's an 'entirely reasonable viewpoint' to expect that grandparents would be willing to die to protect the economy[.]" Mrs. McC: Hume is 76 years old. ~~~

~~~ Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Republicans who once decried the Affordable Care Act as a harbinger of 'death panels' are now toying with cutting out the middleman and sentencing the country's oldest to death without bothering with any panels at all.... The poster boy of such stupidity is currently Dan Patrick, Texas' Republican lieutenant governor, who told Tucker Carlson on Monday night that he and America's other grandparents would be willing to risk their own lives if it meant America getting 'back to work' before the pandemic was contained adequately.... Patrick ... seems incapable of understanding that we can't conclude anything about the virus without widespread testing, which remains unavailable.... The problem with Trump and Patrick and [Jerry] Falwell [Jr. -- story linked below --] and all those who continue to believe that young Americans or Christian Americans or Americans in red states are somehow not susceptible to the same risks as the rest of us isn't just that it continues the sordid trend of pitting people against others that has been so politically disastrous for the nation. It also stands as a substitute for actually doing the many, many things that need doing right now, things that needed doing weeks ago, when they could have saved more lives."

Noah Weiland & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The White House is preparing to use software provided by the technology giant Oracle to promote unproven coronavirus treatments, including a pair of malaria drugs publicized by President Trump, potentially before the government approves their use for the outbreak, according to five senior administration officials and others familiar with the plans.... Mr. Trump has tried to reassure Americans that what he has called a 'game changer' treatment is imminent, but his language has alarmed senior health officials and public health experts, who say that the Oracle program would amount to a sprawling, crowdsourced clinical trial without the usual controls of the F.D.A.... [Two] drugs are still being studied by the F.D.A. for their effectiveness in treating the virus.... Jared Kushner, as well as agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the F.D.A., are involved in the Oracle efforts, according to two senior administration officials.... On Tuesday afternoon, Dr. [Anthony] Fauci met with Drs. Deborah L. Birx, the White House's coronavirus coordinator, Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Stephen M. Hahn, the F.D.A. commissioner, to go over their concerns with the Oracle project and review new Chinese data that indicated the drugs have no meaningful effect.... [A week ago,] to the surprise of top officials at the F.D.A., Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that he would be holding a news conference 'to discuss very important news from the F.D.A. concerning the Chinese Virus!' Pleading with the White House, officials at the F.D.A. were able to hold it off..., forcing Mr. Trump to take his message to the next day's coronavirus task force news briefing, where he told reporters that chloroquine would be distributed to 'large groups of people' even before the government had concluded studying its safety and effectiveness."

When we went to war, we didn't say, any company out there want to build a battleship? Who wants to build a battleship? -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on Trump's refusal to implement the Defense Production Act ~~~

Jeanne Whelen, et al., of the Washington Post: "A mad scramble for masks, gowns and ventilators is pitting states against each other and driving up prices. Some hard-hit parts of the country are receiving fresh supplies of N95 masks, but others are still out of stock. Hospitals are requesting donations of masks and gloves from construction companies, nail salons and tattoo parlors, and considering using ventilators designed for large animals because they cannot find the kind made for people. The market for medical supplies has descended into chaos, according to state officials and health-care leaders. They are begging the federal government to use a wartime law to bring order and ensure the United States has the gear it needs to battle the coronavirus. So far, the Trump administration has declined."

Elisha Fieldstadt of NBC News: "Health experts say it's no surprise that New Orleans is the center of the coronavirus crisis in hard-hit Louisiana after over a million people flocked to the city to celebrate Carnival for more than a month, culminating in Mardi Gras at the end of February. Gov. John Bel Edwards [D] requested a Major Disaster Declaration for the state Tuesday as the number of cases rose to 1,388 in 43 of Louisiana's 64 parishes, according to the state's Health Department. At least 46 people have died.... But New Orleans, with 567 of the state's cases -- 20 that led to death -- is by far the center of the pandemic in the state."

Raphael Minder & Elian Peltier of the New York Times: "Across Western Europe..., the coronavirus ... has left some hospitals on the brink of collapse.... Out of Spain's 40,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, 5,400 -- nearly 14 percent -- are medical professionals, the health ministry said on Tuesday.... In Brescia province, the center of Italy's outbreak, 10 to 15 percent of doctors and nurses have been infected and put out of commission, according to a doctor there.... And infected workers and their hospitals are increasingly being recognized as vectors for the spread of the virus." Mrs. McC: MEANWHILE, the Trump administration has failed to supply U.S. hospitals with protective equipment, criminally-negligent Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to trigger the Defense Production Act, keeps lying about supplies & deflecting responsibility to the states & suggests he'll soon order an end to social distancing recommendations, while the majority of the American people say he's doing a good job.

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Prince Charles..., the heir to the British throne, has contracted the coronavirus, Buckingham Palace said on Wednesday, adding that he had been suffering from mild symptoms since last weekend."

Jesse Eisenger & James Bandler of ProPublica: "For almost two years [beginning in 2016, federal prosecutors had] investigat[ed] the opioid dispensing practices of Walmart, the largest company in the world. They had amassed what they viewed as highly damning evidence only to face a major obstacle: top Trump appointees at the Department of Justice.... The prosecutors' push to persuade [then-deputy attorney general, Rod] Rosenstein to revive the criminal case had failed.... [W]hen the prosecutors sought to indict a mid-level Walmart manager, the Trump officials blocked that, too.... That left potential civil claims. After the meeting with Rosenstein, Brian Benczkowski, the head of the criminal division, had told [prosecutors], 'You have a whopper of a civil case,' according to four people familiar with the investigation. But the civil case, too, was stymied by Trump appointees in the DOJ who continued to side with Walmart.... In its dealings with the DOJ, Walmart ... relied on Jones Day, an influential law firm that has salted officials throughout the Trump administration." --s

Jillian Ambrose of the Guardian: "The world's wind power capacity grew by almost a fifth in 2019 after a year of record growth for offshore windfarms and a boom in onshore projects in the US and China. The Global Wind Energy Council found that wind power capacity grew by 60.4 gigawatts, or 19%, compared with 2018, in one of the strongest years on record for the global wind power industry." --s

Graham Readfearn & Adam Morton of the Guardian: "The Great Barrier Reef has experienced a third mass coral bleaching event in five years, according to the scientist carrying out aerial surveys over hundreds of individual reefs.... It follows the worst outbreaks of mass bleaching on record killing about half the shallow water corals on the world's biggest reef system in 2016 and 2017." --s

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"Ill Be the Oversight." Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House has agreed to allow enhanced scrutiny over a massive loan program that is a centerpiece of the Senate's $2 trillion coronavirus economic package, two people briefed on the discussions said, taking steps to address a major Democratic concern and potentially pave the way for a vote by Tuesday night.... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also struck a positive tone in remarks on the Senate floor, in a marked shift from days of bitter partisan wrangling...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ ** New Lede: "Senate leaders and the Trump administration reached agreement early Wednesday on a $2 trillion stimulus package to rescue the economy from the coronavirus assault, potentially setting the stage for swift passage of the massive legislation through both chambers of Congress. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we are done. We have a deal,' White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland told reporters around 1 a.m." The story is free to nonsubscribers.

Cross of Gold. Quint Forgey, et al., of Politico: "Top Trump administration officials on Tuesday signaled that they were already laying the groundwork to reopen the U.S. economy amid the coronavirus pandemic -- a task that ... Donald Trump revealed he would like to accomplish by mid-April. 'I'd love to have it open by Easter, OK? I would love to have it open by Easter...,' Trump said from the White House Rose Garden, where he and members of the administration's coronavirus task force participated in a virtual town hall on Fox News. 'It's such an important day for other reasons, but I'll make it an important day for this, too,' he added. 'I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.' [April 12] Trump's comments came hours after Vice President Mike Pence told conservative leaders on a private call that White House aides were discussing ways to encourage businesses to reopen and healthy Americans to return to work at the end of the current 15-day period, during which administration officials have asked Americans to avoid social gatherings with more than 10 people and stay home as much as possible." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I saw a videoclip on the teevee where Trump was telling viewers that he wanted to see churches "packed" on Easter Sunday. ~~~

~~~ William Wan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Health experts point to overwhelming evidence from around the world that closing businesses and schools and minimizing social contact are crucial to avoid exponentially mounting infections. Ending the shutdown now in America would be disastrous, many say, because the country has barely given those restrictions time to work, and because U.S. leaders have not pursued alternative strategies used in other countries to avert the potential deaths of hundreds of thousands.... 'To be a week into these restrictions and already be talking about abandoning them is irresponsible and dangerous,' said Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Removing restrictions now would allow the virus, he said, to 'spread widely, rapidly, terribly, and could kill potentially millions in the year ahead with huge social and economic impact.'... To ease current restrictions even slightly without a massive increase in the U.S. death toll, some epidemiological models show, the country must first put in place other strategies -- like the large-scale contact tracing of infections being done in South Korea, which local health departments simply do not have the capacity to do." Access to this story is free to nonsubscribers. ~~~

~~~ First, Kill All the Old Folks. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Everyone is talking about Dan Patrick's on-air death plea. Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, touched off an outpouring of anger when he declared to Tucker Carlson that people like him -- grandparents in their twilight years -- should risk death so people can stop social distancing to avert economic calamity.... Patrick's plea to Carlson was inspired by Trump himself. As Patrick noted, his 'heart is lifted' by Trump's suggestion that it might be time to go back to work.... It captures something essential about President Trump.... Right now, Trump is actively considering relaxing federal recommendations on social distancing. As Trump put it, 'we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.' Health experts are screaming warnings.... Trump may have adopted the idea that 'the cure is worse than the disease' almost verbatim from a segment on Fox News, which has pushed this line relentlessly.... Trump would not put it quite [the] way [Patrick does]. But this, at bottom, is what he's asking us to accept." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Sorry, Greg, I see no indication Fat Old Grandpa Donald is willing to sacrifice himself for the kids & the economy.

     ~~~ Eric Levitz of New York: "The animating absurdity of Mitchell and Webb's 'Kill the Poor' sketch lies in the boss character's obsession with discerning the technocratic viability of a homicidal policy that he himself regards as morally unthinkable. The American right's budding consensus on coronavirus policy is absurd in a ... more sociopathic ... respect: Trumpists are eagerly endorsing the moral permissibility of reviving the economy through mass manslaughter, even as they evince little interest in the question of whether such a policy would even work.... An unconstrained COVID-19 outbreak wouldn't just kill seniors by ravaging their lungs...; it would also kill them by overwhelming hospital capacity, thus forcing health professionals to leave some treatable elderly COVID-19 patients to die. The chances that a Texas hospital would deny Dan Patrick a ventilator ... are nil.... The life he is volunteering to jeopardize is not his own.... Trump did not acquiesce to the recommendations of public health officials this month because he realized the health of the old and infirm was more important than that of the S&P 500.... He belatedly recognized that prioritizing public health was a precondition for restoring economic growth." Read on. ~~~

~~~ Robert Schlesinger in an NBC News opinion piece: Explicitly cutting against health experts' advice, Trump is embracing the chic new philosophy of the economic right: Death happens, live with it.... This might be Trump's greatest pivot yet: turning the self-anointed pro-life party into one of death-tolerance. It's true that all public policy involves some level of cost-benefit analysis, but few people really think Trump is capable of such nuance. Even if he were, how could we really analyze those costs? We haven't taken the infection curve's measure, let alone started to bend it.... The Donald Trump who [briefly] pivoted and took coronavirus seriously was never long for this world. He remains saddled with the problems that made him dangerously insufficient to the challenges in the first place, including a lack of credibility that compounds at the geometric rate of the virus itself, a baseless and bottomless self-certainty and a child-like impatience.... The now-daily news conferences that seem to be the main result of his turn as a 'wartime president' have only spun up the pace of his bunkum...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Schlesinger believes the only hope is that Trump still has a week to "pivot back" to taking a responsible position. I suspect the only way that will happen is if Trump himself gets at least a mild case of Covid-19. I don't wish anyone ill health, but this would be a good time for Trump to get a hacking cough that nearly takes his breath away. ~~~

~~~ Frank Bruni's column isn't particularly illuminating, but the headline on his NYT column is chilling: "We are relying on Trump to care about our lives." ~~~

~~~ Just as Chilling. Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "... Donald Trump may be enjoying a small rally in public support as the nation faces the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty-nine percent of U.S. adults, up from 44% earlier this month, approve of the job Trump is doing as president. Trump also had 49% job approval ratings -- the best of his presidency -- in late January and early February around the time of the Senate impeachment trial that resulted in his acquittal."

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump has praised Dr. Anthony S. Fauci as a 'major television star.' He has tried to demonstrate that the administration is giving him free rein to speak. And he has deferred to Dr. Fauci's opinion several times at the coronavirus task force's televised briefings. But Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, has grown bolder in correcting the president's falsehoods and overly rosy statements about the spread of the coronavirus in the past two weeks -- and he has become a hero to the president's critics because of it. And now, Mr. Trump's patience has started to wear thin." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, the first sign that Trump's patience with Fauci has worn thin was when Trump called Fauci a "major television star." Trump squirms when his underlings appear to outshine him or get "too much" public attention. Trump fired Steve Bannon not long after Bannon starred on the cover of Time.

David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: "For the first time, it is now possible to quantify the cost of the lost weeks [of coronavirus preparations], as President Trump was claiming as recently as February that in a 'couple of days' the number of cases in the United States 'is going to be down to close to zero.' Ford's timeline [-- they cannot produce the first ventilators until early June --] suggested that if the administration had reacted to the acute shortage of ventilators in February, the joint effort between Ford and General Electric might have produced lifesaving equipment sometime in mid- to late April.... The gap between the production timelines and the need for immediate supplies led to a scathing assessment from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York.... 'You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators?' Mr. Cuomo said. 'What are we going to do with 400 ventilators when we need 30,000 ventilators?'... For the past two weeks, the administration has usually avoided indicating the number of ventilators, masks or personal protective equipment that it has distributed. That changed on Monday, when Rear Adm. John P. Polowczyk, a senior [Pentagon] logistics officer..., began specifying delivery quantities. So far those figures have not compared the number of deliveries to the number of equipment needed. And that gap seems huge." ~~~

~~~ Nick Turse of the Intercept: "... Donald Trump has repeatedly defended his administration against the suggestion that the government is failing to secure enough ventilators.... 'We have tremendous numbers of ventilators, but there’s never been an instance like this where no matter what you have, it's not enough,' Trump said on March 18. 'It sounds like a lot, but this is a very unforeseen thing. Nobody ever thought of these numbers.' A day later, he doubled down, noting that 'nobody in their wildest dreams would have ever thought that we'd need tens of thousands of ventilators.'... Almost every federal agency you can imagine has, in fact, warned about shortages -- and some have offered specific and sobering estimates of need -- for the better part of two decades." Turse runs down a long list of government reports that outlined the federal glaring shortage of ventilators & other supplies that would be needed for respiratory pandemics.

Wowza! Fred Imbert & Thomas Franck of CNBC: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared on Tuesday, logging its best day in 87 years as investors bet U.S. lawmakers would deliver soon a stimulus bill to rescue the economy from the damage caused by the coronavirus and shutdowns designed to stop its spread. It was a historic bounce coming amid a historic sell-off. The 30-stock average closed 2,112.98 points higher -- or more than 11% -- at 20,704.91, notching its biggest one-day percentage gain since 1933. The S&P 500 rallied 9.4% to 2,447.33 for its best day since October 2008. The Nasdaq Composite surged 8.1% to 7,417.86, its best day since March 13. Both the Dow and S&P 500 rebound off their lowest levels since late 2016." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

New York: "'For anyone in the New York metropolitan area who has traveled, our task force is encouraging you to monitor your temperature, be sensitive to symptoms,' explained Vice President Pence in a Tuesday afternoon press conference, 'And we are asking anyone who has traveled out of the New York City metropolitan area to anywhere else in the country to self isolate for 14 days.' The recommendation, which was endorsed by both National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci and coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx, came in light of the tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases which have been discovered in and around the city in recent weeks."

Matt Dixon of Politico: "While New York, California and other states shutter their economies to keep the coronavirus at bay, Gov. Ron DeSantis [R] ... [has taken a] cure-can't-be-worse-than-the-disease approach ... as cases of the virus in Florida surge past 1,400.... On Tuesday, state Senate Democrats began papering the governor's office with letters urging him to issue a shelter-in-place order. 'That is the dumbest s--- I have heard in a long time,' said state Sen. Oscar Braynon (D-Miami Gardens).... DeSantis has grown only more defiant. On Monday, instead of buckling to political pressure to issue a shelter-in-place order, he said he would restrict visitors coming into the state from coronavirus hot spots including New York.... On Monday he announced that anyone flying from New York, New Jersey or Connecticut to Florida would have to undergo a 14 day self-quarantine...."

Nick Judin of the Jackson (Mississippi) Free Press: [Mississippi] "Gov. Tate Reeves [R] rejected calls today for a statewide shelter-at-home order, a measure of caution against the spread of COVID-19 being rapidly deployed next door in Louisiana, elsewhere in the United States and across the globe. 'It is my goal to make sure we make good, solid decisions based on experts,' the governor said in an afternoon Facebook Live address, where he took questions from Mississippi residents.... One Mississippian asked the governor why the state was not emulating China, the first country to detect COVID-19 and the first to control the spread of the virus. 'Mississippi's never going to be China. Mississippi's never going to be North Korea,' Reeves responded."

What Would Jerry Do? Richard Chumney of the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "As the coronavirus threatens to spread across the Lynchburg region, Liberty University officials are preparing to welcome back up to 5,000 students from spring break this week. Defying a national trend of campus closures, President Jerry Falwell Jr. has invited students to return to residence halls and has directed faculty members to continue to report to campus even as most classes move online.... Falwell..., who has publicly downplayed the threat of the virus in recent weeks..., said somewhere between several hundred to more than 5,000 students are expected to live in campus dorms, where they will continue coursework online rather than in classrooms. Meanwhile, hundreds of professors and instructors without a valid health exemption will come to campus to hold office hours.... The university has taken some steps to help slow the spread of the virus. Gatherings in campus buildings, including a handful of classes still holding in-person meetings, are capped at 10 people in accordance with an order by Gov. Ralph Northam." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McC: My guess: A big part of Liberty's profits come from dorm charges.

The spring-breaker dude who said, "If I get corona, I get corona," has apologized. Aimee Ortiz of the New York Times: "'I wasn't aware of the severity of my actions and comments,' the man, Brady Sluder, said on Instagram on Sunday. "I'd like to take this time to own up to the mistakes i've made and apologize to the people I've offended.'" Mrs. McC: The tragedy is that a Wayne's World kind of guy is now behaving far more responsibly than the POTUS*.

"If Coronavirus Does Not Kill Us, Hunger Will." Jeffrey Gettleman & Kai Schwartz of the New York Times: "India's prime minister ordered all 1.3 billion people in the country to stay inside their homes for three weeks starting Wednesday -- the biggest and most severe action undertaken anywhere to stop the spread of the coronavirus. 'There will be a total ban of coming out of your homes,' the prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced on television Tuesday night, giving Indians less than four hours' notice before the order took effect at 12:01 a.m. 'Every state, every district, every lane, every village will be under lockdown,' Mr. Modi said.... But Mr. Modi did not make clear how people would get food, water and other necessities during the lockdown, or how they would maintain a safe distance from one another in the cramped spaces where many now live.... The breadth and depth of such a challenge is staggering in a country where hundreds of millions of citizens are destitute and countless millions live in packed urban areas with poor sanitation and weak public health care.... 'The police beat us if we try to step out,' [a New Delhi tenement-dweller] said. 'We dare not step out even to buy vegetables whose prices have skyrocketed. The future looks very dark,' she added. 'If coronavirus does not kill us, hunger will.'"

Some Rare Good News. Matt Steib of New York: "As the World Health Organization launches trials for potential treatmnts for COVID-19, scientists studying the coronavirus are encouraged that its low mutation rate could mean that a single vaccine is possible. According to researchers who spoke with the Washington Post, there are only around four to ten genetic differences between the coronavirus strains that have infected Americans and those of the original virus in Wuhan. 'That's a relatively small number of mutations for having passed through a large number of people,' Peter Thielen, a Johns Hopkins molecular geneticist, told the Post. 'At this point, the mutation rate of the virus would suggest that the vaccine developed for SARS-CoV-2 would be a single vaccine, rather than a new vaccine every year like the flu vaccine.' Rather, a potential coronavirus vaccine would act more like those for the measles or chickenpox, in which one shot grants immunity for a substantial amount of time."

The Commentariat -- March 24, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Wowza! Fred Imbert & Thomas Franck of CNBC: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared on Tuesday, logging its best day in 87 years as investors bet U.S. lawmakers would deliver soon a stimulus bill to rescue the economy from the damage caused by the coronavirus and shutdowns designed to stop its spread. It was a historic bounce coming amid a historic sell-off. The 30-stock average closed 2,112.98 points higher -- or more than 11% -- at 20,704.91, notching its biggest one-day percentage gain since 1933. The S&P 500 rallied 9.4% to 2,447.33 for its best day since October 2008. The Nasdaq Composite surged 8.1% to 7,417.86, its best day since March 13. Both the Dow and S&P 500 rebound off their lowest levels since late 2016."

Cross of Gold. Quint Forgey, et al., of Politico: "Top Trump administration officials on Tuesday signaled that they were already laying the groundwork to reopen the U.S. economy amid the coronavirus pandemic -- a task that ... Donald Trump revealed he would like to accomplish by mid-April. 'I'd love to have it open by Easter, OK? I would love to have it open by Easter. I will tell you that right now,' Trump said from the White House Rose Garden, where he and members of the administration's coronavirus task force participated in a virtual town hall on Fox News. 'It's such an important day for other reasons, but I'll make it an important day for this, too,' he added. 'I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.' [April 12] Trump's comments came hours after Vice President Mike Pence told conservative leaders on a private call that White House aides were discussing ways to encourage businesses to reopen and healthy Americans to return to work at the end of the current 15-day period, during which administration officials have asked Americans to avoid social gatherings with more than 10 people and stay home as much as possible." ~~~

~~~ Robert Schlesinger in an NBC News opinion piece: Explicitly cutting against health experts' advice, Trump is embracing the chic new philosophy of the economic right: Death happens, live with it.... This might be Trump's greatest pivot yet: turning the self-anointed pro-life party into one of death-tolerance. It's true that all public policy involves some level of cost-benefit analysis, but few people really think Trump is capable of such nuance. Even if he were, how could we really analyze those costs? We haven't taken the infection curve's measure, let alone started to bend it.... The Donald Trump who [briefly] pivoted and took coronavirus seriously was never long for this world. He remains saddled with the problems that made him dangerously insufficient to the challenges in the first place, including a lack of credibility that compounds at the geometric rate of the virus itself, a baseless and bottomless self-certainty and a child-like impatience.... The now-daily news conferences that seem to be the main result of his turn as a 'wartime president' have only spun up the pace of his bunkum...." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Schlesinger believes the only hope is that Trump still has a week to "pivot back" to taking a responsible position. I suspect the only way that will happen is if Trump himself gets at least a mild case of Covid-19. I don't wish anyone ill health, but this would be a good time for Trump to get a hacking cough that nearly takes his breath away.

"Ill Be the Oversight." Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House has agreed to allow enhanced scrutiny over a massive loan program that is a centerpiece of the Senate's $2 trillion coronavirus economic package, two people briefed on the discussions said, taking steps to address a major Democratic concern and potentially pave the way for a vote by Tuesday night.... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also struck a positive tone in remarks on the Senate floor, in a marked shift from days of bitter partisan wrangling...."

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump has praised Dr. Anthony S. Fauci as a 'major television star.' He has tried to demonstrate that the administration is giving him free rein to speak. And he has deferred to Dr. Fauci's opinion several times at the coronavirus task force's televised briefings. But Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, has grown bolder in correcting the president's falsehoods and overly rosy statements about the spread of the coronavirus in the past two weeks -- and he has become a hero to the president's critics because of it. And now, Mr. Trump's patience has started to wear thin." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, the first sign that Trump's patience with Fauci has worn thin was when Trump called Fauci a "major television star." Trump squirms when his underlings appear to outshine him. Trump fired Steve Bannon not long after Bannon starred on the cover of Time.

First, Kill All the Old Folks. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Everyone is talking about Dan Patrick's on-air death plea. Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, touched off an outpouring of anger when he declared to Tucker Carlson that people like him -- grandparents in their twilight years -- should risk death so people can stop social distancing to avert economic calamity.... Patrick's plea to Carlson was inspired by Trump himself. As Patrick noted, his 'heart is lifted' by Trump's suggestion that it might be time to go back to work.... It captures something essential about President Trump.... Right now, Trump is actively considering relaxing federal recommendations on social distancing. As Trump put it, 'we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.' Health experts are screaming warnings.... Trump may have adopted the idea that 'the cure is worse than the disease' almost verbatim from a segment on Fox News, which has pushed this line relentlessly.... Trump would not put it quite [the] way [Patrick does]. But this, at bottom, is what he's asking us to accept." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Sorry, Greg, I see no indication Fat Old Grandpa Donald is willing to sacrifice himself for the kids & the economy.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jabari Young of CNBC: "The International Olympic Committee postponed the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, officials announced Tuesday. The event was scheduled to start July 24 in Tokyo. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Tuesday he and the head of the International Olympic Committee agreed to delay the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo for about a year. The games will take place 'no later than summer 2021,' according to a statement from the IOC."

The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Tuesday are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here. From the WashPo updates:

London: "In an address to the nation on Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered Brits to stay at home,' while outlining strict measures that would only allow people to leave their homes to exercise, shop for essential items and travel to and from work 'where absolutely necessary.' But on Tuesday, confusion continued to swirl. Photos on social media showed people sandwiched together in subway carriages as many still attempted to travel across the city to get to work. The photos raised questions about how the government intends to support those who are self-employed and sparked debate over who should still be going into the workplace."

This will CHILL every Democrat on the Hill being asked to vote for the Phase 3 stimulus package: 'I'll be the oversight,' Trump says. Remember, last night the president would not rule out stuffing his own pockets with taxpayer bailout money for his private hotels. -- James Hohmann, in a tweet, Monday (thanks to NiskyGuy for the lead) ~~~

~~~ From Monday's New York Times' live updates on coronavirus developments: "President Trump, in a nearly two-hour coronavirus briefing, hinted on Monday that the economic shutdown meant to halt the spread of the virus across the country would not be extended. 'Our country wasn't built to be shut down,' he said. 'America will again and soon be open for business,' the president added, without providing a timeline for when he believes normal economic activity could resume.... He later added, 'I'm not looking at months, I can tell you right now.'... He compared deaths from the novel coronavirus so far to deaths from other causes -- influenza and car accidents.... Estimates from ... scientists place the potential deaths in a range from several hundred thousand to several million deaths, substantially more than annual deaths from car accidents and flu combined.... Mr. Trump continued to push two traditional malaria medications, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, in combination with a common antibiotic, azithromycin, as a treatment for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, despite caution by the government's top doctors.... A hospital system in Arizona reported on Monday that a man died and his wife was in critical condition after the couple self-medicated with chloroquine." ~~~

~~~ Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "As he watches stock prices plummet and braces for an expected surge in unemployment, Trump has received urgent pleas from rattled business leaders, Republican lawmakers and conservative economists imploring him to remove some of the stringent social distancing guidelines that he put in place for a 15-day period ending March 30, according to several people with knowledge of the internal deliberations. . [At his press briefing Monday, ] Trump predicted 'we're going to be opening our country' in a shorter time frame than months.... Trump drew parallels to the flu season, which he said was on pace to be responsible for the deaths of some 50,000 Americans, as well as to car crashes -- comparisons that [Anthony] Fauci and other experts have dismissed as examples of false equivalency.... Democrats criticized Trump for his scattershot messaging. 'He's a notion-monger, just tossing out things that have no relationship to a well-coordinated science-based government-wide response to this,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said." The story is free to nonsubscribers. ~~~

~~~ Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday said he is considering scaling back steps to constrain the spread of the coronavirus in the next week or two because of concerns that the impact on the economy has become too severe. But loosening restrictions on social distancing and similar measures soon probably would require him to override the internal warnings of senior U.S. health officials, including Anthony S. Fauci, who have said that the United States has not yet felt the worst of the pandemic, according to several people with knowledge of the internal deliberations." The story is free to nonsubscribers. Mrs. McC: I don't think Fauci attended Monday's briefing.

~~~ Myah Ward of Politico: "The White House Correspondents Association on Monday said a reporter who was at the White House multiple times over the last two weeks is suspected to have coronavirus, according to an email from the organization. The reporter was at the White House on March 9, 11, 16 and 18, and the WHCA is encouraging all journalists present at the White House during those days to 'review public health guidance, consult their medical professionals and take the appropriate next steps.... We ask again that all members who can stay home or work remotely please do so. Please do not come to the White House if you do not have a workspace or an assigned seat on that day. And please DO NOT come into the White House if you are feeling at all ill,' the statement said.... And the WHCA has issued new protocol for White House journalists, cutting the number of available press room seats in half -- leaving a half-empty briefing room as ... Donald Trump addresses the nation about the pandemic. On Monday..., the WHCA issued even stricter guidelines, cutting the seats from 25 to 14 reporters." ~~~

~~~ Jim Tankersley, et al., of the New York Times: "As the United States entered Week 2 of trying to contain the spread of the coronavirus by shuttering large swaths of the economy, President Trump, Wall Street executives and many conservative economists began questioning whether the government had gone too far and should instead lift restrictions that are already inflicting deep pain on workers and businesses. Consensus continues to grow among government leaders and health officials that the best way to defeat the virus is to order nonessential businesses to close and residents to confine themselves at home.... Relaxing those restrictions could significantly increase the death toll from the virus, public health officials warn. Many economists say there is no positive trade-off -- resuming normal activity prematurely would only strain hospitals and result in even more deaths, while exacerbating a recession that has most likely already arrived." ~~~

~~~ David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "Before Trump called for reevaluating lockdowns, [local officials] shuttered six of his top-earning clubs and resorts[.]... So far, the Trump Organization has closed hotels in Las Vegas; Doral, Fla.; Ireland; and Turnberry, Scotland -- as well as the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida and a golf club in Bedminster, N.J.... Another of Trump's golf clubs, in Aberdeen, Scotland, appeared likely to shut down soon, after an order from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that 'nonessential' shops should close and that people should leave home only to buy food, buy medicine or exercise alone. Even the Trump properties that remain open have been sharply affected: In Chicago, New York and Washington, the restaurants have closed, cutting off a key source of revenue."

Tucker Higgins of CNBC: "... Donald Trump on Monday unleashed a barrage of posts spreading conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, chastising the World Health Organization for its early messaging, attacking his political enemies and the media, and promoting a dubious article that suggested a miracle cure was at hand.... The president ... retweeted, or posted to his own account, a number of replies, including one from a man named Chuck Callesto, who is identified as a 'Digital Real Estate Manager,' promoting a possible cure. 'They should take a SERIOUS LOOK at this...' Callesto wrote in the tweet posted to the president's account, with a link to a story with the headline 'REPORT: French Doctor Reports 100 % Cure Rate Using Malaria Drug to Treat Corona Virus.' There is no known cure or treatment for coronavirus, though scammers have sought to cash in on the panic it has caused.... In other messages, including tweets and retweets, the president attacked former Vice President Joe Biden..., as well as The New York Times, the WHO, and China, which he suggested was manipulating health data."

Jonathan Lemire, et al., of the AP: "... as the coronavirus crisis threatens his presidency, and upends his campaign for reelection, Trump is rapidly losing patience with the medical professionals who have made the case day after day that the only way to prevent a catastrophic loss of life is to essentially shut down the country -- to minimize transmission and 'flatten the curve' so hospitals aren't overwhelmed with critical patients. The president also has been furious that his efforts to halt the harrowing drop in the stock market have so far proven ineffective. He has been calling friends and economists at all hours and berated aides and reporters who try to persuade him to recognize the severity of the outbreak."

David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's refusal to invoke the Defense Production Act to commandeer resources for the federal government is based on a bet that he can cajole the nation's biggest manufacturers and tech firms to come together in a market-driven, if chaotic, consortium that will deliver critical equipment -- from masks to ventilators -- in time to abate a national crisis. Over the past five days, after weeks of minimizing the virus and dismissing calls to organize a national response, administration officials have been pulling executives into the White House Situation Room, and connecting them by phone, in a desperate effort to unlock existing supplies and ramp up new production.... But it is far from clear that the effort to enlist companies like General Motors, Apple and Hanes, just a few of the firms that have promised to free up existing supplies of masks or repurpose 3-D printers to produce ventilator parts, constitutes an effective strategy.... The White House has not said who will set the priority list for deliveries. And it is not clear that any of it will arrive in time for the cities and the states that are hit the hardest, including New York....

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the heads of major corporations have lobbied the administration against using the act. They say the move could prove counterproductive, imposing red tape on companies precisely when they need flexibility to deal with closed borders and shuttered factories. Mr. Trump and the director of his national economic council, Larry Kudlow, as well as [Jared] Kushner, were persuaded by those arguments, administration officials said." Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Actually, It's All About Corporate Interests. Sharon Lerner & Lee Fang of the Intercept: "[Monday] afternoon, the Food and Drug Administration granted Gilead Sciences 'orphan' drug status for its antiviral drug, remdesivir. The designation allows the pharmaceutical company to profit exclusively for seven years from the product, which is one of dozens being tested as a possible treatment for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.... Experts warn the designation, reserved for treating 'rare diseases,' could block supplies of the antiviral medication from generic drug manufacturers and provide a lucrative windfall for Gilead Sciences.... But a loophole [in the 1983 Orphan Drug Act] allows drugs that treat more common illnesses to be classified as orphans if the designation is given before the disease ... affect[s] ... 200,000 people in the U.S.... [Gilead] maintains close ties with ... Donald Trump's task force for controlling the coronavirus crisis. Joe Grogan, who serves on the White House coronavirus task force, lobbied for Gilead from 2011 to 2017 on issues including the pricing of pharmaceuticals.... [Monday], Gilead abruptly announced that it would no longer provide emergency access to remdesivir, telling the New York Times that 'overwhelming demand' left it unable to process requests for the drug through its compassionate use program. Hours later, the Food and Drug Administration gave the drug orphan status. Almost immediately, Gilead's stock price shot up." Emphasis added. ~~~

~~~ Tom Krisher & Hope Yen of the AP: "... Donald Trump is falsely asserting how quickly automakers including GM, Ford and Tesla can manufacture ventilators to help fill an acute U.S. shortage of the medical equipment for coronavirus patients. Ford and GM have yet to start production, and it would take them months, if not longer, to begin production, if it's even possible. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Thomas Fuller, et al., of the New York Times: "Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday said that California would be short about 17,000 hospital beds, raising his previous estimate of a 10,000-bed shortfall. The state was also short 1 billion protective gloves and hundreds of millions of masks, he said. And the pace of testing remains stubbornly slow in California. New York State, with half the population, has conducted twice as many tests for the virus as the Golden State.... Mr. Newsom said the state was ... chartering flights to China to procure protective equipment and expressed concern for smaller states that might not have the same purchasing power. Warning that America could be just days behind Italy, where the virus has claimed thousands of lives, officials in California have rushed to reopen hospitals that had been shuttered, buy motels to house the state's more than 150,000 homeless people, and retrofit college dormitories to serve as hospital wards."

Fred Imbert of CNBC: "Stocks fell sharply on Monday as U.S. lawmakers failed to push through massive fiscal stimulus to curtail the economic blow from the coronavirus. Talks are ongoing, but investors believe the longer Washington waits, the greater the damage to the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 582.05 points lower, or down 3.1%, at 18,591.93, its lowest closing level since November 2016. The S&P 500 slid 2.9% to 2,237.40. The Nasdaq Composite was down just 0.3% at 6,860.67 as investors began making small bets on technology stocks." This is an update of a story linked earlier. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Have Press, Will Print. Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "The extraordinary actions of the Federal Reserve on Monday morning can be boiled down to two sentences: There is a rapidly developing shortage of dollars across the economy. And the Fed will do anything it needs to, on any scale imaginable, to end this shortage. Its announcement was phrased in the dry bureaucratese typical of statements from a central bank. But it contains a powerful idea. The Fed, the one entity in the world with the power to create dollars out of thin air, has every intention of doing so at whatever magnitude is necessary to try to reduce the severity and limit the duration of the coronavirus economic crisis." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ The New York Times' market updates for Monday are here. "Investors remained focused on the political stalemate in the U.S. Senate that has slowed a rescue plan for the American economy. The S&P 500 fell more than 4 percent, even after the Fed unveiled its new bond buying program." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate leaders and the Trump administration appeared closer to reaching bipartisan agreement Monday evening on a massive stimulus bill that could inject $2 trillion into the economy to blunt the impacts of the coronavirus. After a day of partisan rancor and posturing on Capitol Hill, the outlook grew markedly more positive later in the afternoon, when offers and counteroffers were exchanged. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) convened Democrats on a conference call and told them he was hopeful about striking a deal by the end of the day, according to a person familiar with the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal details.... Democratic concerns have focused on a $500 billion funding program Republicans want to create for loans and loan guarantees, with some Democrats calling it a 'slush fund' that lacks any oversight because the Treasury Department would have broad discretion over who receives the money. Asked about this Monday evening, Trump responded, 'I'll be the oversight.'"

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "The Senate on Monday failed to advance a massive coronavirus stimulus package for the second time in as many days. Senators voted 49-46, falling short of the three-fifths support necessary to move forward with a 'shell' bill, which the text of the agreement would ultimately be swapped into. Democratic Sen. Doug Jones (Ala.) broke with the party to vote in support of the measure." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

From the Washington Post's live updates of coronavirus developments Monday: "U.S. states on Monday reported more than 100 deaths from the novel coronavirus, pushing the country's total death toll past 500 and marking the first time single-day fatalities have risen into the triple-digits since the pandemic reached U.S. soil. The virus has now claimed lives in at least 34 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and has infected more than 41,000 people nationwide, according to tracking by The Washington Post.

@12:19 pm ET: "Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said Monday that her husband, John Bessler, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, has coronavirus. After sharing the news on Twitter, Klobuchar elaborated on her husband's situation during a previously planned conference call advocating vote-by-mail options in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak. 'I just wanted to reiterate that one of the hardest things about this disease is he's in the hospital -- he's been there a few days -- and I can't even be by his side,' Klobuchar said. 'I think many families in America are now experiencing this and things that are much, much worse.' She said it took five days to get her husband's test back.... Klobuchar said in a statement that she and her husband have 'been in different places for the last two weeks and I am outside the 14-day period for getting sick.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Amber Phillips of the Washington Post on Rand Paul's decision to go about business as usual while he was awaiting coronavirus test results (he tested positive). There's this, for instance: "Paul had part of his lung removed last year after an attack by a neighbor. Between that and his medical background, you might think he'd be extra sensitive to the implications of spreading it. Wouldn't he understand how dangerous being around other people, including older senators, could be if there was even the remote possibility he had the virus?" Mrs. McC: Phillips doesn't say where "home" is. I assume Paul has some sort of living quarters in the D.C. area, but is that where "home" is? Or did he fly to his old Kentucky home? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Mrs. McCrabbie: In case, like me, you thought it was probably safe to touch possibly-contaminated stuff after three days, here's a story to give you pause: ~~~

~~~ William Feuer of CNBC: "The coronavirus survived for up to 17 days aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, living far longer on surfaces than previous research has shown, according to new data published Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study examined the Japanese and U.S. government efforts to contain the COVID-19 outbreaks on the Carnival-owned Diamond Princess ship in Japan and the Grand Princess ship in California. Passengers and crew on both ships were quarantined on board after previous guests, who didn't have any symptoms while aboard each of the ships, tested positive for COVID-19 after landing ashore. The virus 'was identified on a variety of surfaces in cabins of both symptomatic and asymptomatic infected passengers up to 17 days after cabins were vacated on the Diamond Princess but before disinfection procedures had been conducted,' the researchers wrote, adding that the finding doesn't necessarily mean the virus spread by surface.... Researchers from the National Institutes of Health, CDC, UCLA and Princeton University previously found that COVID-19 can last up to three days on plastic and stainless steel. That study also found that the amount of the virus left on those surfaces decreased over time."

Sabrina Tavernise & Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "As the coronavirus upends American life, Chinese-Americans face a double threat. Not only are they grappling like everyone else with how to avoid the virus itself, they are also contending with growing racism in the form of verbal and physical attacks. Other Asian-Americans -- with families from Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar and other places -- are facing threats, too, lumped together with Chinese-Americans by a bigotry that does not know the difference.... Many described being yelled at in public -- a sudden spasm of hate that is reminiscent of the kind faced by Muslim-Americans and other Arabs and South Asians after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But unlike 2001, when President George W. Bush urged tolerance of Muslim-Americans, this time President Trump is using language that Asian-Americans say is inciting racist attacks." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jodi Kantor of the New York Times: "Wary of a long, confined spring, city dwellers are fanning out to vacation rentals, their own second homes, or anywhere else they can find.... It's an instant national ethical dilemma, exacerbating already-tense relationships between rich and poor, urban and rural, and, in the case of Hawaii, largely white outsiders and more diverse locals.... Destinations known for welcoming visitors are now closing themselves off.... Hawaii announced a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all incoming travelers. Southeast Utah has prohibited lodging for nonessential visitors.... History shows that may be the correct call. During the 1918 influenza pandemic, Gunnison, Colo., erected barricades over its highways ... and quarantined anyone who entered. Neighboring towns were decimated, but Gunnison's losses were low.... So, before relocating, consider whether farther truly equals safer, especially if you'll be far from the kind of vast medical corps found in major cities, as well as friends and neighbors to count on in an emergency." ~~~

     ~~~ Antonia Farzan of the Washington Post writes a related story: "In recent weeks, wealthy city dwellers hoping to escape the novel coronavirus have been fleeing to their second homes, exacerbating long-standing tensions between locals and summer residents. While those from out of town feel they have the right to use property that they own and pay taxes on, year-round residents worry that the new arrivals could be carrying the disease, and that local hospitals aren't equipped to handle an outbreak.... From the Catskills to Wisconsin's Door County, communities whose economies usually revolve around seasonal visitors are now asking them to stay away. Over the weekend, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) urged people with cottages on the Jersey Shore to 'stay at your primary residences,' while Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) warned that those with property on Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard should 'stay on the mainland.'"

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Ben Smith of the New York Times: "... for two crucial weeks in late February and early March, powerful Fox hosts talked about the 'real' story of the coronavirus: It was a Democratic- and media-led plot against ... Donald J. Trump. Hosts and guests, speaking to Fox's predominately elderly audience, repeatedly played down the threat of what would soon become a deadly pandemic. The person who could have stopped the flow of misinformation was ... Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of the Fox Corporation. But he wasn't paying much attention.... The most-watched news channel in America has become, since the fall of its powerful founder, Roger Ailes, much more like the Trump White House: a family business where it's not entirely clear who is in charge.... even [Lachlan's] allies told me they no longer think he has the political savvy or the operational skills his job demands." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Ben Smith: "If you were watching some of the commentators on Fox News and Fox Business in the first 10 days of March, you wouldn't have been too worried about the coronavirus -- it would be no worse than the flu, and the real story was the 'coronavirus impeachment scam. Many of the networks' elderly, pro-Trump viewers responded to the coverage and the president's public statements by taking the virus less seriously than ... everyone else had. Public health experts have said that some of them may die as a result.... But one elderly Fox News viewer ... took the threat seriously: The channel's chairman, Rupert Murdoch, who was to celebrate his 89th birthday on March 11. On March 8, as the virus was spreading, the Murdoch family called off a planned party out of concern for the patriarch's health, according to a person familiar with the cancellation.... The canceled party is perhaps the most glaring instance of the gap ... between the elite, globally minded family owners of Fox...." ~~~

     ~~~ Benjamin Fearnow of Newsweek: "TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz touted a 'game-changer' drug combination as a potential 'treatment' for the coronavirus Monday on Fox & Friends, and less than an hour later on the program, the U.S. Surgeon General warned viewers against seeking dubious remedies. Surgeon General Jerome Adams appeared on the Fox News morning show after Oz did, and criticized co-host Steve Doocy and the daytime TV doctor for promoting coronavirus 'treatments' that are clinically untested in the United States. Earlier in the program, Oz, who is also a Columbia University professor, gushed over a French doctor's recent tests that used a malaria treatment, a hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin combination, in hopes of finding a coronavirus treatment. Adams warned Doocy and Fox News viewers to stop talking about pursuing treatments and vaccines and to start talking about halting the current spread of COVID-19.... In a segment Oz later aired on his own Fox program Monday, he introduced the potential wonder drug to his audience." Mrs. McC: Looks as if Doc Adams is trying to get his creds back after claiming Trump was healthier than he.

Judith Mischke of Politico: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel's first coronavirus test came back negative, her spokesperson said on Monday.... A single negative test result does not necessarily mean a person is not carrying the virus, as the specimen might have been collected at a very early stage of the infection. The German chancellor is currently working from home in self-isolation after being informed late Sunday that a doctor who gave her a pneumococcal vaccination last Friday tested positive for the virus over the weekend."

Pamela Constable & John Hudson of the Washington Post: "In a sign of mounting frustration with Afghanistan's leaders, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced early Tuesday that the United States would cut $1 billion in aid to the country because of its inability to form a unity government to negotiate with the Taliban. Pompeo said that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, had failed to set aside their differences, just hours after meeting the two men in a quickly arranged visit to Kabul.... ... 'We are prepared to reduce by another $1 billion in 2021,' Pompeo said, emphasizing that the two leaders' intransigence would not delay America's withdrawal plans."

Second Circuit Upholds First Amendment v. Trump; Trumpist Judges Dissent. Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court in New York on Monday let stand a ruling that prevents President Trump from blocking critical voices from the Twitter account he uses to communicate with the public. The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit denied the Trump administration's request to revisit an earlier holding that Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked individual Twitter users who were critical of the president or his polices.... Two judges, nominated to the bench by Trump, disagreed with the decision and would have reconsidered the earlier ruling."

Presidential Race

There are no primary elections today. (The NYT shows a tentatively-scheduled Republican primary in American Samoa.)

Zach Montellaro of Politico: "Bernie Sanders has won the Democrats Abroad primary, netting a handful of delegates but doing little damage to Joe Biden's big lead. Sanders won 58 percent of the vote, which included just under 40,000 Americans living abroad, and Sanders will be awarded nine delegates to the national convention over the summer, according to the release from Democrats Abroad. Biden won 23 percent of the vote and will take home four delegates." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Lede

New York Times: "Terrence McNally, the four-time Tony Award-winning playwright whose outpouring of work for the theater dramatized and domesticated gay life across five decades, died on Tuesday in Sarasota, Fla. He was 81. The cause was complications of the coronavirus, according to his husband, Tom Kirdahy. Mr. McNally had chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, and had overcome lung cancer."

The Commentariat -- March 23, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Fred Imbert of CNBC: "Stocks fell sharply on Monday as U.S. lawmakers failed to push through massive fiscal stimulus to curtail the economic blow from the coronavirus. Talks are ongoing, but investors believe the longer Washington waits, the greater the damage to the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 582.05 points lower, or down 3.1%, at 18,591.93, its lowest closing level since November 2016. The S&P 500 slid 2.9% to 2,237.40. The Nasdaq Composite was down just 0.3% at 6,860.67 as investors began making small bets on technology stocks." This is an update of a story linked earlier. ~~~

~~~ Have Press, Will Print. Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "The extraordinary actions of the Federal Reserve on Monday morning can be boiled down to two sentences: There is a rapidly developing shortage of dollars across the economy. And the Fed will do anything it needs to, on any scale imaginable, to end this shortage. Its announcement was phrased in the dry bureaucratese typical of statements from a central bank. But it contains a powerful idea. The Fed, the one entity in the world with the power to create dollars out of thin air, has every intention of doing so at whatever magnitude is necessary to try to reduce the severity and limit the duration of the coronavirus economic crisis."

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "The Senate on Monday failed to advance a massive coronavirus stimulus package for the second time in as many days. Senators voted 49-46, falling short of the three-fifths support necessary to move forward with a 'shell' bill, which the text of the agreement would ultimately be swapped into. Democratic Sen. Doug Jones (Ala.) broke with the party to vote in support of the measure."

The New York Times' market updates are here. "Investors remained focused on the political stalemate in the U.S. Senate that has slowed a rescue plan for the American economy. The S&P 500 fell more than 4 percent, even after the Fed unveiled its new bond buying program."

David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's refusal to invoke the Defense Production Act to commandeer resources for the federal government is based on a bet that he can cajole the nation's biggest manufacturers and tech firms to come together in a market-driven, if chaotic, consortium that will deliver critical equipment -- from masks to ventilators -- in time to abate a national crisis. Over the past five days, after weeks of minimizing the virus and dismissing calls to organize a national response, administration officials have been pulling executives into the White House Situation Room, and connecting them by phone, in a desperate effort to unlock existing supplies and ramp up new production.... But it is far from clear that the effort to enlist companies like General Motors, Apple and Hanes, just a few of the firms that have promised to free up existing supplies of masks or repurpose 3-D printers to produce ventilator parts, constitutes an effective strategy.... The White House has not said who will set the priority list for deliveries. And it is not clear that any of it will arrive in time for the cities and the states that are hit the hardest...." ~~~

~~~ Tom Krisher & Hope Yen of the AP: "... Donald Trump is falsely asserting how quickly automakers including GM, Ford and Tesla can manufacture ventilators to help fill an acute U.S. shortage of the medical equipment for coronavirus patients. Ford and GM have yet to start production, and it would take them months, if not longer, to begin production, if it's even possible.

Sabrina Tavernise & Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "As the coronavirus upends American life, Chinese-Americans face a double threat. Not only are they grappling like everyone else with how to avoid the virus itself, they are also contending with growing racism in the form of verbal and physical attacks. Other Asian-Americans -- with families from Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar and other places -- are facing threats, too, lumped together with Chinese-Americans by a bigotry that does not know the difference.... Many described being yelled at in public -- a sudden spasm of hate that is reminiscent of the kind faced by Muslim-Americans and other Arabs and South Asians after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But unlike 2001, when President George W. Bush urged tolerance of Muslim-Americans, this time President Trump is using language that Asian-Americans say is inciting racist attacks."

From the Washington Post's live updates of coronavirus developments Monday: "U.S. states on Monday reported more than 100 deaths from the novel coronavirus, pushing the country's total death toll past 500 and marking the first time single-day fatalities have risen into the triple-digits since the pandemic reached U.S. soil. The virus has now claimed lives in at least 34 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and has infected more than 41,000 people nationwide, according to tracking by The Washington Post.

@12:19 pm ET: "Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said Monday that her husband, John Bessler, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, has coronavirus. After sharing the news on Twitter, Klobuchar elaborated on her husband's situation during a previously planned conference call advocating vote-by-mail options in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak. 'I just wanted to reiterate that one of the hardest things about this disease is he's in the hospital -- he's been there a few days -- and I can't even be by his side,' Klobuchar said. 'I think many families in America are now experiencing this and things that are much, much worse.' She said it took five days to get her husband's test back.... Klobuchar said in a statement that she and her husband have 'been in different places for the last two weeks and I am outside the 14-day period for getting sick.'"

Amber Phillips of the Washington Post on Rand Paul's decision to go about business as usual while he was awaiting coronavirus test results (he tested positive). There's this, for instance: "Paul had part of his lung removed last year after an attack by a neighbor. Between that and his medical background, you might think he'd be extra sensitive to the implications of spreading it. Wouldn't he understand how dangerous being around other people, including older senators, could be if there was even the remote possibility he had the virus?"Mrs. McC: Phillips doesn't say where "home" is. I assume Paul has living quarters in the D.C. area, but is that where "home" is? Or did he fly to his old Kentucky home?

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Ben Smith of the New York Times: “... for two crucial weeks in late February and early March, powerful Fox hosts talked about the 'real' story of the coronavirus: It was a Democratic- and media-led plot against ... Donald J. Trump. Hosts and guests, speaking to Fox's predominately elderly audience, repeatedly played down the threat of what would soon become a deadly pandemic. The person who could have stopped the flow of misinformation was ... Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of the Fox Corporation. But he wasn't paying much attention.... The most-watched news channel in America has become, since the fall of its powerful founder, Roger Ailes, much more like the Trump White House: a family business where it's not entirely clear who is in charge.... even [Lachlan's] allies told me they no longer think he has the political savvy or the operational skills his job demands."

Zach Montellaro of Politico: "Bernie Sanders has won the Democrats Abroad primary, netting a handful of delegates but doing little damage to Joe Biden's big lead. Sanders won 58 percent of the vote, which included just under 40,000 Americans living abroad, and Sanders will be awarded nine delegates to the national convention over the summer, according to the release from Democrats Abroad. Biden won 23 percent of the vote and will take home four delegates."

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here. Both are free to nonsubscribers.

Fred Imbert of CNBC: "U.S. stock futures surged on Monday, erasing steep overnight losses after the Federal Reserve unveiled new measures to keep markets working properly. Wall Street awaited Washington lawmakers to agree to an economic stimulus and rescue plan to cushion the blow from the coronavirus outbreak. As of 9:02 a.m. ET, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up more than 400 points, or 2.4%. S&P 500 futures were up by about 2.6% Nasdaq 100 futures traded 3% higher. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF was off by 2.8% in premarket trading." This is an update of a story posted an hour earlier which read, "Dow Jones Industrial Average futures dropped more than 600 points. ;S&P 500 futures were off by about 3.3%. Nasdaq 100 futures declined by 2.8%. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF was off by 3% in premarket trading." CNBC's live market updates are here. ~~~

~~~ Sylvan Lane of the Hill: "The Federal Reserve on Monday announced a drastic expansion of its efforts to bolster the U.S. economy and stabilize financial markets plunging due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets Fed monetary policy, announced Monday it would purchase an unlimited amount of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities and open three new facilities to purchase corporate and municipal debt. The moves are the Fed&'s latest steps down a path of unprecedented intervention in the U.S. economy, intended to keep credit flowing to households and businesses amid an economic calamity caused by the coronavirus pandemic."

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) blocked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) attempt to set up a Monday morning vote on the stimulus package, effectively delaying the vote until the afternoon. McConnell had vowed earlier Sunday that he would force a second procedural vote related to the stimulus package at 9:45 a.m., 15 minutes after the markets open. But when McConnell tried to lock in that time, Schumer objected, denying the GOP leader the consent he needed to enact his plan."

Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate Democrats blocked a massive coronavirus stimulus bill from moving forward Sunday as partisan disputes raged over the legislation that's aimed at arresting the economy's precipitous decline. Lawmakers had hoped to pass a massive $1.8 trillion bill by Monday but Sunday night they were scrambling to revive talks, with the stock market poised for another sharp drop and households and businesses fretting about an uncertain future. Negotiations continued even as the initial procedural vote fell short, with 47 senators voting in favor and 47 opposed. The tally was well short of the 60 votes that were needed to move forward. The number of 'aye' votes was especially low because five Republicans are quarantined over coronavirus fears.... 'The legislation had many, many problems,' Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. 'At the top of the list, it included a large corporate bailout provision with no protections for workers, and virtually no oversight.'" The article is free for nonsubscribers. (This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "Congressional lawmakers are feuding over a central component of the massive economic relief package being debated by the Senate..., in part because the Treasury Department would have broad discretion over where the mone would go. President Trump already has said he wants the money to be used to rescue the cruise ship and hotel industries..., but at a press conference on Sunday refused to say whether his own hotel properties would apply for the funding. 'There's too much money with no oversight,' Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) told reporters Sunday.... Democratic lawmakers and labor groups say the GOP plan amounts to a 'corporate bailout' that could reward business recklessness and hurt workers. Democratic leadership has demanded funding for corporations include protections related to workers, such as ensuring their job security and health care, pensions, and 401(k) contributions, as well as prohibitions on discharging their collective bargaining agreements." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: IOW, this is sort of Munchkin's Syndrome by Proxy. Giving complete discretion to Mnuchin is the same as giving complete discretion to the man who has no discretion at all: Donald Trump. Do you think Mnuchin will say "no," when Donnie Junior phones up with an ask for billions of dollars to bail out the underwater Trump resorts? Ha!

~~~ ** Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) was on MSNBC & described the bill that failed as "the worst of the worst" massive slush fund, which authorized Mnuchin & Trump to dole out money to whomever they chose without revealing who the recipients were, without restrictions on executive bonuses & stockholder dividends, and with no protections for workers. Merkley said at the last minute McConnell stripped out restrictions & conditions to create this Trumperiffic slush fund. ~~~

~~~ Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Sunday that House Democrats would draft their own coronavirus stimulus bill after all sides failed to reach a deal on a massive proposal being negotiated in the Senate." (Also linked yesterday.)

Sarah Ladd of the Louisville Courier Journal: "Sen. Rand Paul has tested positive for the coronavirus, he announced on Twitter Sunday. 'Senator Rand Paul has tested positive for COVID-19,' Paul wrote on Twitter. 'He is feeling fine and is in quarantine. He is asymptomatic and was tested out of an abundance of caution due to his extensive travel and events. He was not aware of any direct contact with any infected person.'... According to the tweet, no staff has had contact with Paul since his D.C. office began working remotely 10 days ago." Mrs. McC: I wonder if this means Randy won't be able to vote against the trazillion-dollar stimulus package Congress is negotiating, as he did against the last relief bill, a vote he also delayed so he could grandstand a nonsense amendment. Also nice he could get a test even tho he's asymptomatic, while ordinary people with symptoms still can't get the test in many parts of the country. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Romney's in isolation? Gee. That's too bad. -- Donald Trump, at his press conference Sunday ("The reporter asked the president if he could 'detect sarcasm' in his voice. 'No,' Trump answered. 'None whatsoever.'") ~~~

~~~ Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Republicans gathered for a closed-door caucus lunch when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) broke the news ... [that] Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), had tested positive for the coronavirus.... The first known case of a senator contracting the disease set off a domino effect throughout the chamber as colleagues tried to recall the last time they were in close contact with Paul, who was in the Capitol complex as recently as Sunday. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told reporters on Sunday afternoon that senators would have to weigh whether or not they would need to self-quarantine. Only hours later, he announced that he would.... He was preceded by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who became the first senator to announce he or she would self-quarantine because of Paul.... Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) are already self-quarantined for exposure unrelated to Paul.... After McConnell's announcement, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) made an observation to his colleagues during the lunch: That he had seen Paul in the Senate gym just that morning. The disclosure sparked two questions: Why was the Senate gym still operating while gyms across the country have shuttered, and why had Paul decided to come to the Capitol even though he was awaiting test results." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Got that? Rand Paul is a self-accredited medical doctor who thought it was a good idea to leave his sweat all over gym equipment used by old folks while awaiting the results of a coronavirus test. He should disaccredit himself.

Thomas Burr of the Salt Lake Tribune: "Rep. Ben McAdams [D-Utah], who has a confirmed case of COVID-19, said Sunday night that he was admitted to the hospital Friday evening after suffering 'severe shortness of breath.'... McAdams, who said last Wednesday that he had contracted the novel coronavirus, said he was following public health guidelines when he phoned the COVID-19 hotline after his breathing grew worse." The story is free to nonsubscribers.

Trump Has Not Learned Anything. It's Still All About Trump. Brett Samuels & Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "President Trump is suggesting he might lift restrictions intended to prevent the spread of coronavirus if the economic pain from the measures becomes too great.... 'WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,' Trump said in a late night tweet. 'AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!'... Trump on Monday morning retweeted several accounts that urged the loosening of those restrictions in the name of getting Americans back to work.... Vice President Pence said at a briefing on Sunday that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would be issuing new guidelines allowing workers who may have self-quarantined or been exposed to the virus to return to their jobs more quickly by wearing masks. The guidance, paired with Trump's new tone, previews a looming clash between the president, who has tied his reelection bid closely to the strength of the economy, and public health experts who have insisted that social distancing measures and changes to daily life may drag on for weeks or months to avoid a soaring number of infections and deaths." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Social distancing is not a "cure," Donald You Ignorant Prick. It's a preventive measure designed to limit the number of people who get sick & die as well as to "flatten the curve" so that fewer people get sick at the same time, straining healthcare personnel & facilities. Trump seems to think letting the virus have its way will be good for the economy and get him re-elected.

Rishika Dugyala of Politico: "In response to a reporter's question on whether he would reach out to any former presidents (George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter), Trump implied that wasn't in the cards. 'I think we're doing an incredible job. So I don't want to disturb them, bother them,' he said at the White House coronavirus task force briefing. 'I don't think I'm going to learn much and, you know, I guess you could say that there's probably a natural inclination not to call.' The president instead pointed to his approval numbers on the job his administration is doing -- 55 percent of respondents approve of Trump's management, a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found -- and boasted having 'the best people in the world.'... On Sunday, Trump did extensively cite one former president during his extended press briefing. In discussing the sacrifices he made in becoming president, Trump repeated a tale about ... George Washington having two desks -- one for his business, one for his presidential work. Historians have debunked that story." Mrs. McC: Trump is right about one thing: he isn't going to learn much. He never does.

I can't jump in front of the microphone and push him down. OK, he said it. Let's try and get it corrected for the next time. -- Anthony Fauci, on how he responds when Trump says something that isn't "true & factual," in an interview with Science

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday said the National Guard had been activated in New York, California and Washington.... Trump said the federal government would fund '100 percent' of the National Guard units carrying out approved missions in those states.... The president said various additional medical supplies would be shipped out to those states in the coming days and that troops would help construct additional medical facilities at specified sites in each state. New York will receive four federal medical stations with 1,000 hospital beds, while California will receive eight medical stations with 2,000 beds and Washington will receive several stations and 1,000 beds. Trump also touted the shipment of tens of thousands of pieces of personal protective equipment from the national stockpile to those states, including gloves, masks and gowns.... Trump has repeatedly urged governors to try to acquire supplies independently and said the federal government would assist them as needed. But governors have expressed frustration that the federal government has in some cases outbid them and called on Trump to lead the supply chain efforts." Mrs. McC: No way to know how much of this is true or when states might actually receive the protective covering.

Robert Costa & Aaron Gregg of the Washington Post: "President Trump's response to the >coronavirus pandemic sparked uproar and alarm among governors and mayors on Sunday as Trump and his administration's top advisers continued to make confusing statements about the federal government's scramble to confront the crisis, including whether he will force private industry to mass produce needed medical items.... Trump -- who has sought to cast himself as a wartime leader -- reacted to criticism that his administration has blundered with a torrent of soaring boasts and searing grievances. He tweeted that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and others 'shouldn't be blaming the Federal Government for their own shortcomings. We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!' Trump changed his tone at an evening news conference, however, touting an 'amazing' relationship with New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and saying governors he spoke with on Sunday will be 'very happy' with the upcoming federal response." A related NBC News story is here. ~~~

~~~ Alice Ollstein of Politico: "Governors, mayors and front-line health care workers ... said Sunday they have not received meaningful amounts of federal aid, including the shipments of desperately needed masks and other emergency equipment that administration officials say they have already dispatched.... 'We are desperate,' New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy [D] told ABC Sunday morning. 'We've had a big ask into the strategic stockpile in the White House. They've given us a fraction of our ask.' Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer [D] ... [said] her state's hospitals ... are struggling with serious shortages of both test kits and protective equipment for medical workers. The shortages have forced hospitals to adopt risky practices like reusing masks and having staff wear bandanas when no mask is available.... 'We've gotten no indication of any factory on 24/7 shifts. We've gotten no shipments,' New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on NBC. 'I can't be blunt enough: If the president does not act, people will die who could have lived otherwise.' De Blasio also called on the president to mobilize the military's health care workers to immediately deploy to coronavirus hot spots like his own city.... Trump ... tweeted Sunday morning that he has given a handful of car companies 'the go ahead' to make ventilators and other unnamed 'metal products' for hospitals, but gave no indication of a timeline or quantity. Converting factories from making cars to making medical equipment cannot happen immediately, and could take several months. In the meantime, hospitals need immediate help." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "Metal products"?? What? Lead-lined caskets?

Nancy Cook of Politico: "... Donald Trump spent the weekend vacillating between casting himself as an empathetic leader and wartime president.... But above all, he still wants credit. Credit for cutting off travel from China. Credit for giving up money to run for office. Credit for uniting the nation. During three collective hours of briefings on Saturday and Sunday, the president extolled his administration's 'extraordinary mobilization in our war against the virus,' dropped superlatives while describing efforts to offset testing shortages and move a major economic stimulus bill on Capitol Hill and trumpeted a national emergency he declared over a week ago. 'There's never been anything like we're doing on the Hill right now,' he told reporters in one of many laudatory passages."

The New York Times live updates of coronavirus developments for Sunday are here. "Peter T. Gaynor, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency..., President Trump's top emergency management official, confronting growing cries from governors and other elected officials for more hospital masks, ventilators and other medical supplies, said on Sunday that localities not severely affected by the outbreak would simply have to wait.... [New York Gov. Andrew] Cuomo also said that FEMA would erect four hospitals inside the Jacob K. Javits Center in Midtown Manhattan.

"[American Dimwits.] As Americans clean and sterilize countertops, doorknobs, faucets and other frequently touched surfaces in their homes, many people are then tossing disinfectant wipes, paper towels and other paper products into the toilet. The result has been a surge in backed-up sewer lines and overflowing toilets, say plumbers and public officials, who have pleaded with people to spare the nation's pipes from further strain." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Just saw another portion of Cuomo's daily briefing. That's presidential! And, in a way, entertaining. Cuomo is not taking any crap, either from irresponsible New Yorkers or from the useless President*. ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates are here. "President Trump last week claimed he is using the Defense Production Act to push companies to produce crucial medical equipment for hospitals.... 'I invoked the Defense Production Act, and last night, we put it into gear,' Trump said at Friday's coronavirus task force briefing. But two days later, his FEMA chief said that's not the case. 'No. We haven't yet,' FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor said Sunday on CNN's 'State of the Union.' Not [long] after Gaynor's appearance on CNN, Trump on Sunday sent a tweet that added further confusion to the situation. 'Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! @fema Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are?' Trump tweeted. [Mrs. McC: Congrats on that punctuation, Donnie.]

"D.C. officials are trying to thin crowds around the Tidal Basin, where cherry blossom trees nearing their peak bloom continue to draw many spectators in defiance of calls by officials to practice social distancing. Police will close major roads to traffic in the westernmost part of the Mall between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. and are urging pedestrians to keep their distance, too." (Also linked yesterday.)

Marisa Taylor of Reuters: "Several months before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China.... The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China's disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to help.... The American expert, Dr. Linda Quick, was a trainer of Chinese field epidemiologists who were deployed to the epicenter of outbreaks to help track, investigate and contain diseases. As an American CDC employee, they said, Quick was in an ideal position to be the eyes and ears on the ground for the United States and other countries on the coronavirus outbreak, and might have alerted them to the growing threat weeks earlier. No other foreign disease experts were embedded to lead the program after Quick left in July, according to the sources."

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department this weekend brought its first case of alleged fraud stemming from the coronavirus crisis, convincing a federal judge in Texas to issue a restraining order Sunday to block a website that claimed to be distributing vaccines. In court documents, the department alleged the operator of the site, coronavirusmedicalkit.com, was facilitating a wire-fraud scheme, 'intentionally making false statements' about the vaccines, which do not exist. 'The website falsely claims that the World Health Organization is giving away free vaccine kits and that individuals who visit the website can order such a kit by paying $4.95 for shipping,' the Justice Department wrote.... A Justice Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, said officials do not know who created the site, and it was possible it was registered with NameCheap by someone using a fake name or other cyber tools to hide their identity. The restraining order, the official said, also covers NameCheap, though there is no allegation the company has committed a crime."

Sasha Pezenik of ABC News: "Critical medical gear is still in short supply as the nation grapples with new coronavirus, and while Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Peter Gaynor said masks are in the midst of shipping from the national stockpile, he could not provide details on a concrete timeline. 'They're shipping today, they shipped yesterday, they'll ship tomorrow,' Gaynor said on ABC's 'This Week' Sunday. 'When you say "they," how many? Which masks? The new masks?' Co-Anchor Martha Raddatz pressed. 'I mean, it is hundreds of thousands of millions of things that we're shipping from the stockpile. I can't give you the details about what every single state or what every single city is doing,' Gaynor said. 'But I'm telling you that we are shipping from our national stockpile, we're shipping from vendors, we're shipping from donations. It is happening. The demand is great.'" Read on. Mrs. McC: It doesn't get better. All we know for sure is that Trump has added another side-stepping shuffler to his bigsong-and-dance show. (Also linked yesterday.)

Florida Republicans Are So Helpful in a Crisis. Miami Herald Editors: "With Florida's economy crashing under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Ron DeSantis is working overtime to preserve our status as the world's leading exporter of political comedy. Friday, DeSantis mounted the bully pulpit to present House Speaker Jose Oliva, with a baseball bat inscribed with the words 'Slayer of the healthcare industrial complex.' It was a sophomoric bit of messaging on any day. It was inexcusably tone-deaf when the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Florida topped 500. At least 10 people had died since the crisis began.... Unfortunately, DeSantis, who despite trying to appear large and in charge in front the microphone and TV cameras..., has been a timid leader in the face of the growing scourge -- and growing number of deaths -- from the disease in his state." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Lake Okeechobee News: At the March 20 meeting of the Okeechobee County Commission, Commissioner Bryant Culpepper recommended blow-drying your nose to kill the coronavirus. Culpepper learned this excellent technique on the righty-right-wing One America News. Mrs. McC: I'm waiting for Trump -- an OAN fan -- to recommend the method in his next briefing. Good luck, Tony Fauci! (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ ** Update. Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist: "For what it's worth, Culpepper is now apologizing -- sort of...." Well-worth reading Mehta's entire post. P.S. Before you click on the link, try to imagine what Culpepper looks like. Bet you get it right. Many thanks to Hattie for the link.

~~~ MEANWHILE, the Kids Are All Right: ~~~

Leader of the Free World Shelters in Place. Katrin Bennhold & Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "Germany on Sunday barred groups of more than two people from gathering, except for families, and Chancellor Angela Merkel later said she herself was going into isolation because her doctor had tested positive for the coronavirus.... The chancellor will be tested regularly in coming days while carrying out her duties from home.... In the absence of a vaccine or a cure, she said, it is up to people to curtail their interactions, she said. 'Our own behavior,' she said, 'is currently the most effective antidote we have: to reduce public life as much as is possible, to reduce contact with people through whom the virus could be transmitted.' 'In short,' she said, 'that's how we save lives.' The chancellor, a trained scientist, has won wide praise for her calm and transparency during the crisis."

Dominic Patten of Deadline: "Harvey Weinstein has tested positive for the novel coronavirus in prison. Just days after being transferred to the Wende Correctional Facility from NYC's Rikers Island, the Oscar winning producer and convicted rapist is now in medical isolation, an Empire State law enforcement official confirms to Deadline."