CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: March 30th

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: 735,135 (up from 524,478 Friday)
  • Total Confirmed Deaths Worldwide: 34,807 (up from 24,369 Friday)
  • Total Confirmed Recovered Worldwide: 155,950 (up from 125,490 Friday)
  • 5% of Active Cases are considered serious (requiring hospitalization) Steady from 5% Yesterday, but down from 19% high back in February
  • Note that 11% of US Confirmed Cases require Hospitalization, roughly on par with Italy who is at 12% requiring hospitalization.
  • US has 142,746 Confirmed Cases and 2,489 Deaths, up from 85,749 cases and 1,304 deaths Friday
  • In the US, 20,220 citizens are officially hospitalized with COVID-19, another 6,402 with presumptive-positive cases (waiting test results)
  • The United States of America now leads the world in total confirmed cases, with 45,000 more cases than Italy (although Italy leads the world in Deaths with 10,799 officially dead)
  • US has 2,489 Dead vs 4,562 Recovered and 2,970 in Critical Condition
  • The US Currently has 135,695 Active Cases of COVID-19, with less than 0.5% of the total US population actually tested: 851,578 Tests Resulted in 16.5% Confirmed Positive Cases for COVID-19 (note US policy has been to test only patients with positive-symptoms or known exposure to confirmed-infected persons, resulting in high net-positive results vs other countries).
Trump Extends US "Shutdown" Through April 30thhttps://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3077485/coronavirus-trump-says-social-distancing-guidelines
  • The Trump Administration extends recommendations for extreme social distancing, closed schools and houses of worship, work-from-home, and severe travel restrictions through April 30th.
  • The move was based on a simple model: 100-200k deaths if we continued shut-down vs 2-3 Million deaths if we lifted the shutdown in early April.
  • "How do you decide it's ok to let millions of Americans die? You don't." He said during a Rose Garden press conference. "I won't do that."
  • The updated timeline comes as the US President Donald Trump says the death toll from the virus is likely to continue to climb for another two weeks, and estimates that recovery is likely by June 1.
  • Trump said his earlier plan to lift the restrictions by Easter, on April 12, was only "aspirational". "Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won," Trump said.
  • Officials in the White House coronavirus task force, including Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, Deputy to Vice-President Mike Pence, have estimated that COVID-19 would kill as many as 2.2 million Americans if mitigation measures were not in place.
As COVID-19 Epidemic In New York Continues, 9-11 System Is Overwhelmedhttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-ems.html
  • 911 Emergency system in New York City & Tri-State Area is receiving over 7,000 calls per day, more than at any time since September 11th, 2001.
  • The System has broken 3 records this past week, with nearly 8,700 calls on Thursday.
  • Many calls are for people with high-fevers and flu-like symptoms including severe cough, chills and difficulty breathing.
  • "It's all a war zone," one of the paramedics said. "There is no way we can respond to this many emergency calls."
  • Because of the high-risk of COVID-19 infection, many life-saving procedures have been suspended, including CPR and artificial respiration.
  • By Friday, more than 206 emergency medical technicians from the NY Fire Department had tested positive for COVID-19. Another 750 NYPD officers have also tested positive, and more than 10% of New York's police force is currently offline due to infection or Quarantine due to suspected infection.
  • One Paramedic who chose not to be named estimated that over 20% of 9-11 calls are going unanswered. "I can see them on my screen, with no units responding," he said.
In Yet Another Scene Out of a Hollywood Disaster Movie, Field Hospital Is Being Set Up in Central Park https://news.yahoo.com/field-hospital-set-yorks-central-park-202813283.html
  • Residents posted pictures of make-shift field hospitals being set up in Central Park in Manhattan.
  • Dozens of people worked in a drizzle to erect the facility for an expected influx of COVID-19 patients at the epicenter of the US COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Samaritan's Purse, a US-based Christian global relief agency, is setting up the hospital on the park's East Meadow lawn, where workers in face masks unloaded a white tarp and other equipment on the grass.
  • "There are lots of cases here in New York and a lot of people that need help," said Elliott Tenpenny, a doctor and team leader for Samaritan's Purse COVID-19 Response Team.
  • "The hospitals all over the city are filling up and they need as much help as they can get. That's why we're here."
  • He said the charity was working with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Mount Sinai, with the aim of receiving patients within two days.
  • Unlike other temporary facilities going up in the New York region, this site will have the equipment and personnel necessary to handle COVID-19 patients. Tenpenny called it a "respiratory focused field hospital" which will have a capacity of 68 patients, and the doctors and nurses to treat them.
  • Samaritan's Purse has set up a similar temporary hospital in Cremona, Italy, the country with the highest COVID-19 death toll.
Your Papers Please! US State by State Travel Restrictions & Warnings Go Into Effecthttps://www.the-sun.com/news/604376/andrew-cuomo-new-york-coroanvirus-slams-donald-trump/One Week After Mexican Governor Claims Poor People Are Immune, Epidemic Evident in Mexicohttps://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/hugs-kisses-dining-out-during-virus-raise-fear-in-mexico/ar-BB11SinY
  • "Mexico's response was late, wrong and slow, and many people are going to die," said Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. "There's no reason to believe the virus here should behave differently among this population. Cases are growing exponentially."
  • President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico was still hugging and kissing constituents. As recently as eight days ago, he urged them to keep eating out at restaurants.
  • Stung by global criticism and disapproving national polls, the leftist populist widely known as AMLO began to shift in recent days.
  • Schools were closed on March 20; four days later, the country's 51 testing sites broadened their reach to include testing as many as 2,200 persons per day, mostly in Mexico City.
  • Finally, on Saturday, March 28th, the deputy health minister called on Mexicans to stay home, saying it was the "last opportunity" to slow down the virus, with more than 20,000 confirmed infected.
  • "It may be too late. Thousands may die," said Dr del Rio.
Hundreds of Thousands of Migrant Workers Suddenly Homelesshttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/world/asia/coronavirus-india-migrants.html
  • In India, hundreds of thousands of day-laborers were suddenly homeless due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and work shut-downs.
  • Many day-laborers are used to being provided dorm-like beds while on the job, but with work-sites closed down and national transportation systems offline, parks and public spaces are suddenly filled with thousands of men sleeping on sidewalks and in open fields.
  • Soup kitchens in Delhi, the capital, have been overwhelmed. "We normally get a thousand people per day," said one worker. "Today more than 10,000 people lined up before we served our first bowl."
  • So far, more than a dozen migrant laborers have lost their lives in different parts of the country as they tried to return to their home, hospital officials said.
  • Thousands of migrants in Delhi, including whole families, packed their pots, pans and blankets into rucksacks, some balancing children on their shoulders as they walked along interstate highways.
  • Some planned to walk hundreds of miles. But as they reached the Delhi border, many were beaten back by the police under orders to now allow any crossings until further notice.
UN Global Food Supply Panel Warns of Pending Food Shortagehttps://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/26/coronavirus-measures-could-cause-global-food-shortage-un-warns
  • Protectionist measures by national governments during the coronavirus crisis could provoke food shortages around the world, the UN's food body has warned.
  • A shortage of field workers brought on by the virus crisis and a move towards protectionism – tariffs and export bans – mean problems could quickly appear in the coming weeks, Maximo Torero, Chief Economist of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said.
  • "The worst that can happen is that governments restrict the flow of food," he said. "All measures against free trade will be counterproductive. Now is not the time for restrictions or putting in place trade barriers. Now is the time to protect the flow of food around the world."
  • "We need to be careful not to break the food value chain and the logistics or we will be looking at problems with fresh vegetables and fruits soon," said Torero. "Fruit and vegetables are also very labor-intensive... if the labor force is threatened because people can't move then you have a problem."
  • Warnings from the UN come as the EU reportedly plans to provide transportation of more than 70,000 farmworkers from Eastern Europe to France, Belgium and Spain to help with planting season. https://thehill.com/policy/international/489783-united-nations-warns-of-global-food-shortage-caused-by-coronavirus
  • Warnings were less severe in the US, which relies less on global food production for domestic consumption. "There is plenty of food in the US system," said Sonny Perdue, US Secretary of Agriculture. "The US is a net exporter of food supplies, so we can just keep more of our food at home this year."
New Report Estimates US Economic Impact at $1 Trillion GDP Losses Per Monthhttps://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/Risk/Our%20Insights/COVID%2019%20Implications%20for%20business/COVID%2019%20March%2025/COVID-19-Facts-and-Insights-March-25-v3.ashx
  • A study from consulting firm McKinsey & Company estimates the total GDP impact of COVID-19 could exceed $1 Trillion per month starting from March, 2020.
  • The study includes only economic losses in the Private sector and did not calculate the impact of Government-funded bailouts or spending, and future economic losses due to higher debt payments.
  • McKinsey estimates losses in the Oil/Gas sector to exceed 50% for 2020 compared to prior forecasts, and for US retail to suffer losses in excess of 25% compared to 2019.
  • "In a Word: Catastrophic," said lead author of the study. "We'll be digging out from this hole for years to come."
  • McKinsey's study noted its estimates did not include official economic figures for Q1, 2020, expected to be released by the US Government in the coming week.
  • Overall, McKinsey is estimating a broad U-shaped recovery starting in Q3, 2020, but said it was entirely dependent on how quickly US companies could return workers to productivity as well as the impact to the global demand for US goods & technology.
  • "We don't yet know how the World will recover from COVID-19 or how long it will take. There are more unknowns than there are knowns," the study concluded.
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Government Quietly Prepares a Bank Rescue Plan - Just In Casehttps://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/27/congress-coronavirus-bank-rescue-152501

  • Just days after the FDIC issued a video urging Americans to not withdrawn cash from Banks, reports emerge that the US Senate and Treasury are working on separate plans to prevent banks from becoming unstable amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.
  • Plans range from limiting withdrawals for foreign investors and savers, as well as providing extra liquidity to banks to cover US Consumer withdrawals up to $10,000.
  • Washington's move to stand behind the banking industry underscores the aggressive efforts underway by officials throughout the government to prepare for the worst — including potential runs on deposits as the economic outlook darkens.
  • "The banks are in very good shape, but people are panicking anyway," said Karen Petrou, a managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics who advises bank executives on policy issues.
  • The Federal Reserve Insurance Corporation (FDIC) recently released a one-minute video encouraging people to keep their money in banks.
  • In the video, Chairman Jelena McWilliams emphasizes that hoarding cash in mattresses in 1933 "didn't pan out well for so many people." The video is intended to discourage a bank run.
  • "The last thing you should be doing is pulling your money out of the banks now, thinking that it's going to be safe for someplace else," she said in the video.
  • The FDIC has more than $2.05 billion in cash reserves, as well as a $100 billion credit line with the US Treasury to cover bank runs, according to a 2018 US Government audit.
  • US Consumers have more than $1.7 Trillion deposited at US Banks, not including home-equity loans or lines of credit.

Counting cookies? Here are the CRAZIEST ways people predict the election.

Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Every four years, America faces the same question: who will win the presidential election?

Top political scientists and media companies devise elaborate polls, complex formulas, and sophisticated projections to calculate who will win the election at any given moment. Even Stu has thrown his hat in the ring with Plusecast, a one-stop shop for all your polling questions. But these methods aren't the only ways to predict who will be the next commander-in-chief.

From cookies to football, here are some unorthodox ways to predict the next president:

The Cookie Poll

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Can cookies really predict the next president? According to Busken Bakery, they are more accurate than you might think.

Busken Bakery, has been using cookies to predict the winner of presidential elections since Regan beat Mondale in 1984, and has only been wrong once. Their method is simple: they sell cookies with the faces of both candidates and tally the sales of each. Whoever sells the most cookies is predicted to win. The simplicity of this method is its strength, and the only time it was wrong was the 2020 election. Currently, President Trump is far outstripping VP Harris, selling 23,477 cookies compared to her 8,781 cookies (as of 8/15). Busken posts daily updates on their Instagram, here.

Busken isn't the only bakery to make presidential predictions. Lochel's Bakery in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania has gained popularity recently. Lochel's has correctly predicted three of the last four elections by selling red and blue cookies printed with the names of the candidates. The current count for Lochel's is 28,212 for Trump and 2,097 for Harris. Again, Lochel's posts daily updates on their Instagram, here.

According to the cookies, this election is looking pretty sweet for President Trump!

Vegas Odds

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It's time to put your money where your mouth is.

It's not just political scientists who cook up election predictions. Casinos and sports betting services get in on the action. What could be a better way to predict an election than by asking people to put their hard-earned dollars on the line?

The big casinos and sports betting sites all have odds on the election, and Trump tends to be the favored candidate. If you are unfamiliar with betting odds in the U.S., the simple explanation of how they work is the smaller the number the better the odds. Here is the spread for three of the big betting sites:

bet365- Trump: -138, Harris: +110

BetMGM- Trump: -137, Harris: +110

Caesars- Trump: -145, Harris: +120

While you shouldn't take this as a sign to put all your money (or any) on President Trump, it is an optimistic sign!

The Redskins Rule

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The Redskins Rule is a well-documented correlation between the outcome of the presidential election and the performance of the Washington D.C. football team, the Redskins (now The Commanders). The rule is that if the Redskins win their last home game before the election, the incumbent party will win the election. If the Redskins lose, the challenging party will win the election. This rule is surprisingly accurate and held true for every election between 1940 and 2000.

If this rule is to be believed, the determining game is on Sunday, October 27th when the Redskins/Commanders play the Chicago Bears in Washington D.C. If the Bears win, that should mean Trump will win the election. If the Redskins win, then Harris will win.

But there is the fact that the rule has been broken several times since 2000. Has the charm worn off? And does it even count anymore if the team is no longer called the Redskins? Only time will tell!

Glenn joined Trump for an eventful weekend in the Southwest

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We are mere weeks away from the election, and President Trump has been making every day count.

This last weekend, Trump held two rallies back to back in the southwestern corner of our country—one just outside Coachella, California, and the other in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Glenn joined Trump in Arizona, along with thousands of other Americans, to support the former president in his final push towards election day. The polls still show a very tight race. Every vote matters, and with so much at stake, Trump has to finish strong.

Catch up with Trump and Glenn's busy weekend below:

Coachella

On Saturday the 12th, thousands of Donald Trump supporters flocked to Calhoun Ranch, an area not far from the famous Coachella fairgrounds, and braved the heat, drawn by Trump's promise to "Make America Great Again."

The headlining event of the rally was the alleged third assassination attempt on President Trump, although the Trump campaign doesn't see it that way. The action started when the alleged assassin, Vem Miller, was arrested while trying to enter the rally using allegedly fake press credentials and was charged with illegal possession of a handgun, a shotgun, and a high-capacity magazine. Miller has not admitted to an attempted assassination, and in fact, claims to have been a strong Trump supporter since 2018. Miller claims the firearms were purchased as a defensive measure after he received death threats linked to his work in the media. He also claims that the press credentials are not fake, and the mix-up was caused by the fact that he uses a different name on his press credentials as a safety precaution.

The Trump campaign, Secret Service, and FBI do not believe this was an assassination attempt, but in this heated political climate, one can never be too safe.

Prescott Valley

As soon as his rally in Cali was over, Trump hit the road to prepare for his next rally. On Sunday the 13th Trump held a rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona, where both Glenn and U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake gave opening remarks.

In Glenn's short, yet powerful speech, he emphasized the importance of this election and highlighted all that was at stake— this is a battle of good and evil. He brought up the Left's attempt to erase women through transgender ideology and how that ideology encourages the predation of children. Glenn furthered the case of good versus evil by citing the Left's obsession with abortion. Glenn called abortion the sacrifice of a child's body for the convenience of the parents, a perversion of Christ's sacrifice of His body for us. Glenn called for God's Army to stand up and fight back against evil, using our voices and most importantly, our vote.

Glenn also lambasted Kamala for a recent interview where she admitted she wouldn't have changed anything if she had a chance to do her term as VP over again. He laid into her for marketing herself as an agent of change, while simultaneously defending the status quo. Glenn pointed out that if anyone wants to change the country for the better, Trump is the man to do it: Trump is the candidate for change, not Kamala.

Glenn: What I saw on the ground in Asheville gave me hope

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The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care.

I’ve seen a lot of destruction in my life. I’ve walked through war zones and cities torn apart by riots, and I've stood at the sites of natural disasters that leave communities devastated. But what I saw in Asheville, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed.

Houses were washed down rivers, upside down and crushed. Train tracks, strong enough to support locomotives, were left suspended in midair after the earth beneath them was eroded away. Semi-trucks, rolled by the force of the floodwaters, now lie like children’s toys, tossed and overturned hundreds of feet from the road. Whole towns have been uprooted and scattered — debris from homes miles away, stacking up like dominoes, bridges that stood for decades washed out by water so high that it flowed six feet over their tops.

'You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.'

I stood there, looking at this idyllic small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I thought, “This will take years to rebuild. Maybe even decades.” But I didn’t just see destruction. I saw something far more powerful than nature’s wrath: the resilience of the American spirit.

My expectations for the government’s assistance were low before I arrived in Asheville, given its failing track record in previous natural disasters, but its response to Hurricane Helene victims — or lack thereof — was a new category of negligence. But the people in Asheville weren’t waiting on FEMA or the federal government to swoop in. They knew no one was coming.

The bridges were out, roads were destroyed, and the mountains had isolated them from outside help. But instead of despair, I saw hope. Instead of panic, I saw action. People were taking care of each other, and that is the America I remember, like in the days after 9/11 when we came together regardless of political party, race, or background. We didn’t care about who voted for whom. We just saw our neighbors hurting, and we asked, “Are you OK? What can I do to help?”

I saw that again in North Carolina. I saw it in the man who turned his Harley-Davidson dealership into a helicopter landing zone, shoveling mud out of his showroom just so rescue teams could land. I saw it in the volunteers flying missions across treacherous terrain, getting the elderly and the injured out of danger. They weren’t asking for government permission. They were doing what needed to be done.

Adam Smith, a retired Special Forces veteran who is coordinating the landing of helicopters in Asheville, told me that the FAA is trying to shut down the operation because it isn’t federally regulated. He told the feds that they’re going to leave because he has a helicopter landing in a few minutes that will actually help people while they are barking orders from Washington.

One story stood out to me. We landed to help evacuate an elderly woman with a broken hip and a severe infection. She just had surgery, but because her family didn’t have insurance, the hospital pushed her out as fast as it could. Her wound became infected, and her leg was on fire. We helped airlift her to get her desperately needed antibiotics and treatment. There were no government resources to help her to an emergency room.

As we loaded the woman into the helicopter, her grandson turned to me and said, “You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.” That hit me hard because it’s the truth. It’s the way America used to be, and it’s the way we need to be again.

As I flew through those mountains in the helicopter, I couldn’t help but think of Billy Graham. I’d visited Asheville about 10 years ago to see him, and I remember thinking how beautiful and peaceful the town was. Today, it’s unrecognizable. The destruction is overwhelming. But the people are stronger than ever.

The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care. I saw it firsthand. We found a FEMA truck parked under a tree, its workers sitting at a card table in the shade. They weren’t doing anything to help.

But we’re Americans. We can take care of ourselves. We don’t need Washington to save us. We need each other. This is the America that Billy Graham spoke to me about — the America that will rise again in times of trouble. And while the government might fail us, we will not fail each other. And that’s exactly what I saw in North Carolina — Americans stepping up, taking care of their neighbors, and rebuilding their communities.

This is what I told the people of Asheville: You are not forgotten. There are millions of Americans who love you, who are praying for you, and who are ready to help. Because that’s what we do. We don’t wait for permission. We roll up our sleeves and take care of our own.

And to the rest of America, I say this: It’s time to remember who we are. It’s time to stop looking to Washington for solutions and start looking at each other. Because when the chips are down, it’s not the government that’s going to save us. It’s you and me, and if we stand together, nothing — no hurricane, no flood, no disaster — can break us.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

UPDATE: Will Florida survive Hurricane Milton?

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For the second time in two weeks, Florida is in the path of a major hurricane.

Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall sometime tonight, Wednesday, October 9th, somewhere near Tampa Bay. This will mark the first time in a hundred years the city has been hit directly by a hurricane, raising concerns about the preparedness of the city's infrastructure. Milton, which was rated a category five hurricane earlier this week, has been reduced to a category four as it approaches land and is expected to make landfall as a powerful category three.

The Sunshine State has already begun to feel the effects of the historic storm, with strong winds and heavy rains battering Tampa Bay this morning. Many are still trying to evacuate or prepare for the storm as conditions worsen. Highways have slowed down, and gas has run short. Residents are preparing for the worst.

The federally recognized "Waffle House Index" is in red, meaning that several Waffle House locations in the Tampa Bay area will be shut down. Waffle House prides itself on being open 24/7, no matter the conditions, so for them to shut down, if only for a brief time, indicates that severe damage to the area is anticipated.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

In short, Milton is anticipated to be a disaster, and as we have learned, FEMA is unlikely to be much help. Fortunately, Floridians have Ron DeSantis, who has continued to prove himself a capable governor, and the aid of good-hearted Americans from across the country. If you want to lend a hand to your fellow Americans you can donate at Mercury One and rest assured that your money will be used to step in to help hurricane victims where the government is failing.