Glenn gives the latest coronavirus numbers, updating YOU on everything needed to know as Americans and officials monitor China's new COVID-19 virus:
Daily Stats as of 5:30 AM CT (from John's Hopkins)
- Total Confirmed Cases Worldwide: 1,862,254 (up from 1,615,092 Friday)
- Total Confirmed Deaths Worldwide: 114,980 (up from 96,791 Friday)
- Total Confirmed Recovered Worldwide: 431,666 (up from 362,542 Friday)
- US has 560,433 Confirmed Cases and 22,115 Deaths, up from 468,895 cases and 16,697 deaths Friday
- US now leads the World in both Cases and Deaths from COVID-19
- US now accounts for ~30% of all confirmed cases and ~20% of confirmed deaths globally
- All 50 states are under a FEMA disaster declaration for the first time in U.S. history, after President Trump approved Wyoming's declaration Saturday.
- Within 22 days, Trump has declared a major emergency in all 50 states and most territories.
- Trump approved the first major disaster declaration for coronavirus in New York on March 20, followed two days later by Washington and California, the early hot spots of the virus.
- New York has become the hardest-hit state, recording 188,694 positive cases and 10,000 deaths from the virus, according to the state's health department.
- The U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, Washington, D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico all received approved major disaster declarations.
- American Samoa is the only U.S. territory that has not received a disaster designation.
- The US Federal Reserve is purchasing approximately $625 Billion per week in US Treasury Bonds, US Municipal Bonds and Corporate Bonds.
- At that rate of spend, The Federal Reserve will own all outstanding US Public Debt - Federal and Local - by September-October 2020 and all US Private/Corporate US Bond Debt by December.
- The Federal Reserve is already the largest single holder of US Government Bonds...Of $20 Trillion in outstanding US Debt, the Federal Reserve owns approximately $5.7 Trillion and is now adding $1 Trillion in new US Bond purchases every two weeks.
- This comes as the Bank of England skips the Bond Market entirely and is simply printing new currency to fund UK expenditures directly https://www.ft.com/content/664c575b-0f54-44e5-ab78-2fd30ef213cb, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52226482 This is also known as Modern Monetary Theory.
- As of this week's Fed Open Market Committee meeting, The Fed is also willing to purchase so-called Junk Bonds from US Companies in distress.
- The Fed also issued a new fund to buy US Mortgage Assets from Banks, pledging $200 Billion per month to US Banks plus Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy distressed mortgages that may become insolvent due to COVID-19 mortgage delinquencies or defaults.
- The US Federal Reserve is now officially the largest landlord in the world.
- At this point, the only major asset in US Equity Markets the Fed is not directly buying are US Stocks https://finance.yahoo.com/news/feds-cure-risks-being-worse-110052807.html
- In his latest FX Special Report, Deutsche Bank Senior-macro strategist George Saravelos stated, after last week's unprecedented Fed takeover of capital markets, "there is no such thing as a free market anymore."
- Note: Ultimately, it is the US Taxpayer who is responsible for all of this debt, NOT the Fed.
- The Treasury, using the Exchange Stabilization Fund, will make an equity investment in each Fed Fund and be in a "first loss" position, making US Taxpayers responsible should any of the investments or underlying funds fail...
- As such, the US Treasury, not the Fed, is really buying all these securities and backstopping of loans; the Fed is acting as banker and providing financing.
- Without an effective therapy or a vaccine for COVID-19, the U.S. economy could face 18 months of rolling shutdowns as the outbreak recedes locally and then flares up again, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said.
- "We're looking around the world. As they relax the economic controls, the virus flares back up again," Kashkari said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation."
- Kashkari is an influential voice at The Federal Reserve and is a voter in 2020 on the Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee.
- "We could have these waves of flareups, controls, flareups and controls until we actually get a vaccine. I think we should all be focusing on an 18-month strategy for our health care system and our economy," he said.
- Kashkari noted that as South Korea, Japan, China and Hong Kong attempted to re-open economies after periods of shut down, new-outbreaks of the virus caused additional states of emergency to be declared and new rounds of house-arrest to be ordered.
- Scientists indicated that while there are some hopeful signs for a COVID-19 Vaccine, with 2 such vaccines already moved into rapid-development and human clinical trials, 12-18 months is a very optimistic view of when one might be available.
- SARS-1, MERs and the Common Cold have all been known examples of human-contagious Coronavirus for years, even decades. None have a working vaccine despite hundreds of attempts by pharmaceutical companies and researchers.
- "Vaccine development is much harder than people think. Of the hundreds of known viral-infections that can be fatal to human beings, only about 25 have working, approved vaccines," said Dr William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt's School of Medicine.
- "There have been times in the past where vaccines have been justifiably rolled out and they haven't measured up," said Dr. Schaffner.
- According to a recent LX/Morning Consult poll, 75 percent of U.S adults said they'd likely get a coronavirus vaccine if it passed clinical trials.
- But whether that's enough to provide herd immunity remains unclear. When it comes to measles, 90 to 95 percent of the population has to be vaccinated to guarantee sufficient protection, research has shown.
- Dr. Schaffner summed it up bluntly: "The stakes really are high."
- In a scene being repeated in states all over the US, Kentucky Churchgoers who are refusing to follow government guidelines for Quarantine are meeting Government resistance.
- Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) urged residents to remain indoors for the Easter holiday and mandated that anyone who breaks the state's stay-at-home order will have to self-quarantine for two weeks.
- Beshear will enforce his state's laws by recording the license plates of any person attending Easter services or other gatherings. The residents will then receive quarantine notices in person, served by Country Sherriffs.
- "This is a time and weekend, a whole week for multiple faiths, that is about faith. It's about knowing we have faced as people – as Christians, as Jews, as members of many faiths – many difficult, dark times, and we have prevailed," Beshear said Friday.
- "This is the only way we can ensure that your decision doesn't kill someone else," he added. "You aren't just deciding for you, your actions might injure or kill other people unintentionally."
- Beshear said the state government was only aware of six churches that were planning to hold in-person services for Easter. Those attending any gathering will be charged with a misdemeanor violation of the emergency orders issued by the governor and Kentucky Department for Public Health.
- Public officials have credited social distancing measures with helping slowly curb outbreaks in a number of states and have warned that reversing such practices could lead to a dangerous COVID-19 resurgence.
- However, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) slammed Beshear's order:
- "Taking license plates at church? Quarantining someone for being Christian on Easter Sunday? Someone needs to take a step back here," Paul, a staunch libertarian, tweeted.
- Another Kentucky church defied orders and held a packed Easter Sunday service — despite a heavy police presence and even nails blocking the parking lots, according to a report.
- Maryville Baptist Church appeared to have a near-full house for its Sunday service despite orders to avoid in-person services.
- Worshippers arrived even after police warned that they would record their car plates to force them into 14-day quarantines.
- Many — including the defiant pastor, Rev. Jack Roberts — arrived with their plates covered, with officers instead recording their VIN numbers, the paper said.
- Even more desperate measures appeared to have been taken to keep the faithful away — with "piles of nails" blocking each entrance, according to photos shared by the Courier-Journal.
- Attorney General William Barr indicated the DOJ is monitoring State and Local Government actions related to limitations of religious services, and will potentially prosecute local officials if they violate the Civil Rights of religious people.
- The Justice Department (DOJ) may take action next week against local governments that have cracked down on religious services as widespread parts of the country are shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- "While social distancing policies are appropriate during this emergency, they must be applied evenhandedly [and] not single out religious [organizations]," DOJ Director of Communications Kerri Kupec tweeted.
- The DOJ move would come as some churches are standing up to city governments that have blocked them from holding in-person services during the outbreak -- even in "drive-in" formats that keep people separated and in their own cars.
- A judge in Louisville, Ky., on Saturday issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of Mayor Greg Fischer's ban on drive-in church services there.
- "The Mayor's decision is stunning," District Judge Justin Walker, a former clerk to Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, wrote in a memorandum to the order. "And it is, 'beyond all reason,' unconstitutional."
- OPEC+ rolled out a 9.7 Million Barrel per day production cut, to be phased in over the next 30 days, a joint-release from Russia & Saudi Arabia said.
- Trump had been pushing for a 12 Million barrel per day cut to help stabilize oil prices and protect US Shale oil producers.
- Trump said he intervened Friday to help resolve the stand-off, speaking with Mexico's populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who told Trump that Mexico will cut its production by 100,000 barrels per day.
- Trump also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi King Salman in a whirlwind bout of diplomacy to try to get the deal to stick. He celebrated the outcome on Sunday, which is the largest oil market intervention in history.
- "The big Oil Deal with OPEC Plus is done," Trump said in a Twitter post. "This will save hundreds of thousands of energy jobs in the United States. I would like to thank and congratulate President Putin of Russia and King Salman of Saudi Arabia. I just spoke to them from the Oval Office. Great deal for all!"
- France and Bolivia have postponed elections. Peru handed its president broad new legislative authority. Israel sharply ramped up the reach of its surveillance state.
- The US is curtailing religious services and searching for out-of-staters door to door in some areas.
- While leaders around the world fight the spread of the coronavirus, they're amassing sweeping new powers.
- As legislatures limit or suspend activities in the name of social distancing, many of the norms that define democracy - elections, deliberation and debate, checks and balances - have been put on indefinite hold.
- The speed and breadth of the transformation is unsettling political scientists, government watchdogs and rights groups. Many concede that emergency declarations and streamlining government decision-making are necessary responses to a global health threat. But they question how readily leaders will give up the powers they've accrued when the coronavirus eventually subsides.
- "We've put our economies on hold and we can debate how we bring those back. But we've also put Democracy on hold. We have to bring that back, too," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
- The cost of the $4.7 Trillion Bailout Packages equates to NASA's $22.6 Billion x 207 years of operation.
- Said another way: Cost of the Bailout is equal to fully funding Six Mars Landers/Rovers missions to the Red Planet every day... for over 1 year.
- Just the Phase II deal of $2 Trillion = $7,500 per American (cost) or $16,500 per taxpayer (only about 50% of US Citizens pay Federal Income Taxes).
- No word yet on why it costs $7,500 in actual taxpayer cost for each American to receive $1,200 in stimulus checks.
- False-negative results from coronavirus tests are becoming an increasing concern, say doctors trying to diagnose patients and get a grip on the outbreak, as a surprising number of people show up with obvious symptoms only to be told by the tests that they don't have the disease.
- Some doctors described situations in which patients show up with clear symptoms such as a cough and fever, test negative, and then test positive later on.
- It's a particular issue in New York, where the disease has likely infected far more than the 174,000 people confirmed through limited testing. At Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, doctor Jeremy Sperling says so-called false-negative tests are now a frequent occurrence in the emergency room.
- "If a patient presents with classic COVID-19 symptoms, but tests negative, they've still got COVID," said Sperling, who is the chair of emergency medicine at the hospital. "There is just nothing else it could be in New York City in 2020."
- While still more research is necessary to determine the true prevalence of such false-negative results, experts agree that the problem is significant. False Negative rates in China and Europe exceeded 30%, according to some research studies.
- False negatives not only impede the diagnosis of disease in individual patients and an accurate understanding of the extent of its proliferation but also risk patients who think they aren't ill further spreading the virus.
- Concerns about false negatives arise from a mix of factors: quickly created tests from dozens of labs and manufacturers that haven't been extensively vetted by federal health regulators; a shortage of supplies and material for the tests that may impact results, long incubation times for the infection, and the challenge of getting an adequate sample from a patient from swab tests.
- "We're testing patients 2-3 times each, days apart, just to be sure," Dr Sperling said.
- Smithfield Foods is closing one of the largest Pork processing plants in the US, due to an outbreak there of COVID-19 among workers.
- The Plant was ordered to be shut-down by Health Officials. No word yet on when the plant might reopen, although the current order is for a 14-day shutdown.
- The announcement came a day after South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken wrote to Smithfield and urged the company to suspend operations for 14 days so that its workers could self-isolate and the plant could be disinfected.
- The plant, which employs about 3,700 people in the state's largest city, has become a hot spot for infections.
- Health officials said Sunday that 293 of the 730 people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in South Dakota work at the plant.
- "As a critical infrastructure employer for the nation's food supply chain and a major employer in Sioux Falls, it is crucial that Smithfield have a healthy workforce to ensure the continuity of operations to feed the nation. At the same time, employees need a healthy work environment," Noem and TenHaken wrote to the plant's operators.
- The plant closure comes amid closures by Tyson Foods, Miller Beef and other major meat processors around the US.
- Scientists in China & The US confirm COVID-19 impacts more than just the respiratory system.
- SARS-CoV-2 also targets the immune system itself, taking over T-Cells that normally fight off viruses.
- The discovery may help explain why some patients become so critical so quickly, researchers said. "The Immune system itself becomes a carrier, and virus can spread to the heart, kidneys and brain through this (T-cell) transmission," the study from China indicated.
- US researchers have also found T-Cells infected with the virus.
- T-cells that are supposed to protect the body from harmful invaders.
- One doctor said the concern is growing in medical circles that effect could be similar to HIV, where the Immune System is fully compromised by COVID-19.
UPDATE: Here's how the discussion went on radio. Watch the video below.
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: The Fed is buying 625 BILLION DOLLARS a week in bonds (debt that YOU will pay!)youtu.be
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