Today marks the beginning of a new format for presenting you our Monday through Friday live show along with a written story each day. Here’s how it will work:
- Early each morning you’ll continue to get an email with a reminder of the TNN Live show at 9:00-11:00 AM (Central) with teases of content.
- At 9:00 sharp we begin the live show.
- At 11:00 simultaneously with the show ending, our daily full story complete with videos, audios, pictures and finalized details from our daily show will go live in written form on the website.
Why are we doing this? To make sure all of our partners who may not be in positions to allow them to listen to the show to never miss at least the skeleton of the show — as much of two hours as we can put in our article. We’re doing everything we can do to keep you informed with the latest truth we can find regarding everything that is important to you!
Let’s be frank: everything we do today has some tie — or maybe several — to Coronavirus. It has taken over our healthcare system, shutdown our economy, closed businesses of every kind imaginable most significantand has put millions of Americans on the street, each praying they’ll be back at their jobs in just a week or so.
When in your life do you remember anything like this?
While we segue into a mindset that prepares us each day to begin and finish it with “Coronavirus” always being both the first and last thing on our minds each day, let’s together endeavor to find a roadmap for life that will not drive us to drink or drive us off a cliff!
There’s no doubt this pandemic has each of us in a quandary. We don’t know what to do or how to do “it” even if we knew what “it” is! Don’t you wish you could walk into a library and check out the “How to Master Life in Coronavirus?” There’s no such book! Yet each of us has to either write our own book with that title, steal someone else’s book, or cheat by copying your best friend.
The bottom line: we’ll find a way through this. And, I guarantee this: when we get to that mystical “other side” of Corona-Pandemonium, we’ll all be much better for our efforts.
So let’s do this: grab another cup of coffee, take a seat and turn the volume up or just keep reading, and then take a breath. Let’s get started on our day of Truth News together to get a foundation of facts that we can comfortably use to face our day.
First, let’s get the latest Coronavirus statistics from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):
World Cases of COVID-19 infections: 1,348,628
World Deaths from the virus: 74,834
U.S. Cases of COVID-19 infections: 368,449
U.S. Deaths from the virus: 10,994
That makes the World mortality rate this morning: 5.5%
That makes the U.S. mortality rate this morning: 2.9%
Wisconsin is going to vote today
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday afternoon shot down a last-minute election-eve push by the state’s governor to suspend in-person voting for the state’s scheduled Tuesday primary due to health concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic. The state’s highest court — which is controlled by conservatives — ruled 4-2 that Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, lacked the authority to move the election on his own. Just hours later, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal district court judge’s ruling allowing people voting by absentee ballots an extra week to return their ballots. That ruling by SCOTUS broke along ideological lines: 5 appointed by Republicans overruling the four appointed by Democrats.
USNS Comfort Crew Member Positive for Coronavirus
Remember the mistake made when accidentally Coronavirus patients were transferred from a New York hospital to the ship Comfort? Comfort was supposed to help with patient overloads at area hospitals by receiving non-Coronavirus patients aboard for treatment. Someone made a mistake and several positive-tested patients were brought aboard. Now a USN Comfort crew member has tested positive.
In a statement the Navy said the diagnosis of the crew member would have “no impact” on the Comfort’s mission and it “will not affect the ability for Comfort to receive patients.”
The President early on Monday changed the mission of Comfort to go ahead and receive Coronavirus patients for treatment.
Here’s what we have for you today in this story and show:
- Our “Corona Bug” seems to be racist;
- U.K.’s Prime Minister is fighting Coronavirus himself;
- That President Trump Travel ban for those coming from China is NOT working;
- Some foreigners choosing to vacation inside the U.S. are taking Coronavirus home with them;
- Experts have discovered that respiratory distress is NOT the only problem with Coronavirus. There’s more about which to be concerned;
- It is final: China Is our Enemy!
So let’s dig in.
Coronavirus is Racist!
Early data from U.S. states shows African Americans are more likely to die from COVID-19, highlighting longstanding disparities in health and inequalities in access to medical care, experts said.
In Illinois, black people make up about 30% of the state’s cases and about 40% of its coronavirus-related deaths, according to statistics provided by the state’s public health agency. However, African Americans make up just 14.6% of the state’s population.
In Michigan, black people account for 40% of the state’s reported deaths, according to data released by the state, but its population is only 14% African American.
Many U.S. states, including hardest-hit New York, have not released demographic data showing the virus’ toll on different racial groups.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has not publicly reported data on the race and ethnicities of patients who have contracted COVID-19, the sometimes deadly respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus.
“Because we don’t have broad access to testing, we don’t know how many people are infected in the U.S.,” said Dr. Jeffrey Levi, a professor of public health at The George Washington University. “We only have accurate data on who is actually getting hospitalized.”
In a letter sent late last month, a group of Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Kamala Harris, urged Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to ensure such data is collected and published.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in Intensive Care
- U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved to intensive care as his coronavirus symptoms worsened, according to a statement from the government.
- Johnson was conscious when he was transferred to the ICU around 7 p.m. Britain time Monday evening (2:00 PM Central). Johnson’s medical team decided to move him to that unit as a precaution in case he needed ventilation.
- Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will temporarily take over the prime minister’s duties while Johnson is hospitalized, the government said.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved to intensive care as his coronavirus symptoms worsened over the course of hours Monday, according to a statement from the government.
“Since Sunday evening, the Prime Minister has been under the care of doctors at St. Thomas’ Hospital, in London, after being admitted with persistent symptoms of coronavirus,” a spokesman for No. 10 Downing Street said in a statement.
“Throughout this afternoon, the condition of the Prime Minister has worsened, and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital,” the spokesman said.
“The PM has asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is the First Secretary of State, to deputize for him where necessary,” the spokesman added. “The PM is receiving excellent care, and thanks to all NHS staff for their hard work and dedication.”
Johnson was conscious when he was transferred to the ICU around 7 p.m. GMT (3 p.m. ET). Johnson’s medical team decided to move him to that unit as a precaution in case he needed ventilation. He was given oxygen overnight but did not require a ventilator. Since Sunday, the prime minister has been in St. Thomas’ Hospital in London.
The China Travel Ban is NOT Being Enforced
430,000 flew directly from China since January; 40,000 since ‘shutoff
While we are confined to our homes, it appears that 40,000 people have come here from China since the supposed shutoff. It’s unclear how many were Americans or Chinese nationals and from which parts of China they came, but according to the New York Times, they included “other authorized travelers,” and many came in with “spotty screening.”
The Times reports that since New Year’s Eve, 430,000 people have arrived in the U.S. on direct flights from China. All but 40,000 came in before the shutoff on February 2. ABC News reports that if you go back as far as when the virus is now known to have surfaced, not when our government officials became aware of it, that number is as high as 760,000. According to the NYT, thousands of them came directly from Wuhan.
The bulk of the passengers, who were of multiple nationalities, arrived in January, at airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Newark and Detroit. Thousands of them flew directly from Wuhan, the center of the coronavirus outbreak, as American public health officials were only beginning to assess the risks to the United States.
U.S. Winter Vacations Mean…Coronavirus!
More than 500 wealthy Mexicans, including many of the country’s financial and business elite, spent their annual winter vacation in the resort town of Vail, CO. Over two carefree weeks, they skied, shopped, hosted gatherings in their condos, and dined on sushi and steak at trendy restaurants.
By the time they returned to Mexico in early March, at least 50 of them had COVID-19. including the head of Mexico’s stock exchange and the chief executive of the company that owns José Cuervo tequila. Hundreds are now in self-imposed quarantine.
Mexican public health officials have identified the Vail trip as a key source of infection for the country. They believe that international competitors, some of whom traveled from Italy, brought the virus to a big snowboarding event held the weekend of Feb. 24.
The infection pattern has repeated across the globe. Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau’s wife, tested positive for COVID-19 after traveling in early March to London, where she attended a charity event with celebrities including actor Idris Elba, who also tested positive.
Louisiana has moved into first place in the mortality rate in the nation. Most of the COVID-19 infections circle New Orleans. What just happened there? In late February, more than half-million visitors rushed to the Big Easy for ten days of “Carnival,” or as it’s known in NOLA, “Mardi Gras.” Coronavirus case confirmations ramped up quickly beginning immediately after the event. And cases in outlying U.S. cities and other cities around the Globe have been tied to Mardi Gras 2020 in New Orleans.
COVID-19 Looks to be More than Respiratory Illness
While the focus of the COVID-19 pandemic has been on respiratory problems and securing enough ventilators, doctors on the front lines are struggling with a new medical mystery.
In addition to lung damage, many COVID-19 patients are also developing heart problems — and dying of cardiac arrest.
As more data comes in from China and Italy, as well as Washington state and New York, more cardiac experts are coming to believe the COVID-19 virus can infect the heart muscle. An initial study found cardiac damage in as many as 1 in 5 patients, leading to heart failure and death even among those who show no signs of respiratory distress.
That could change the way doctors and hospitals need to think about patients, particularly in the early stages of illness. It also could open up a second front in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, with a need for new precautions in people with preexisting heart problems, new demands for equipment, and, ultimately, new treatment plans for damaged hearts among those who survive.
We Know We’re at War: Is our Enemy Coronavirus, or is it China?
President Trump has taken bold steps to stop the spread of COVID-19 across America. In doing so, he has become a wartime president. But the enemy he is fighting is the Chinese Communist Party or the “CCP.” Long before this crisis, the CCP was waging a political and economic war against the United States. COVID-19 is merely another weapon in this war. As a nation, we need to understand this immediately since the first casualty has been the material well-being of the American people.
What’s the Structure of our Foe
The Chinese Communist Party, led by Chairman Xi Jinping, has a membership of 90 million out of a country of 1.4 billion. Not all may be Marxists or Maoists, but they form a ruling elite for a government — a regime — that has managed to bring wealth and prestige to a once-poor people. They have overseen the building of a modern industrial base, and the creation of a first-world military complete with an advanced nuclear arsenal. Their intelligence services are larger and more sophisticated than those of any other nation on earth. Our Intelligence officials think China’s are better than our own.
At the heart of China’s communist ideology is a deep-seated resentment against the world. After the Century of Humiliation, where China was exploited by the Western powers, Russia, and Japan, they are committed to never letting that happen again.
If you doubt the CCP’s resolve, you need to look no further than the fact that they have killed, through famine and other means, almost 100 million of their own countrymen in a series of communist social and economic reforms they believed necessary to modernize their country. In other words, this is NOT an enemy to be taken lightly. The presidency of Donald Trump presents the greatest strategic threat to their desire to establish themselves as the world’s preeminent economic and military power.
Although it is not the position of our government that the CCP was behind the creation and weaponization of the Chinese virus, we need to at least entertain the notion that a nation that has, in the recent past, killed tens of millions of its own people would not think twice about killing thousands or even millions of other people from other countries if it meant putting them in a greater strategic position and helping them fulfill their objective of communist world order.
What is indisputable is the fact that the CCP almost immediately began to position the virus as a political and economic weapon against the United States. Whether the infection occurred naturally or was accidentally released from a laboratory, our Center for Disease Control was not, and STILL has not been given access to Wuhan. Either there was something they wanted to keep from the United States, or they sought to send a hostile message to the United States about their intentions.
Although the origin of the virus may be unknowable for now, the Chinese response was anything but vague. The CCP’s Xinhua news service threatened Americans that they could plunge us into a “mighty sea of coronavirus” since it was they who controlled the supply chain for the active pharmaceutical ingredients used in the production of 90% of our medicines.
This threat to the security of the American people was followed by a government spokesman promoting the lie that the U.S. military created and spread the virus in Wuhan. Their intelligence services also pushed the narrative that they did not even know where the virus came from, that it was likely an invention of the CIA, and that the world should be thankful for the CCP’s quick response. In war, this is what propaganda looks like.
What Didn’t Happen
Consider the possible alternatives.
When the virus broke out, the CCP could have immediately given open access to the United States and other countries with advanced healthcare systems to try in unity to save lives both in China and those countries around the world that would inevitably be exposed to the virus. Open access would have been a signal to the world that China was a responsible global actor concerned about both the welfare of its own people and those of the world. Such action would have communicated that our shared prosperity and well-being would require a global response.
The United States and the world would have opened their arms and their laboratories to help China get through this awful mess as quickly as possible. Each nation’s own self-interest would have dictated as much. Instead, the CCP did the exact opposite. The United States was denied access, and uncertainty about the virus increased dramatically throughout the world.
This uncertainty has led to greater fear of the Wuhan virus than was necessary. So far the virus seems to impact different populations in different ways. It’s not yet clear precisely what threat it presents to America as a whole. But the fact that we don’t know has led us to come down on the side of caution and treat this virus-like a 1918-level event. The consequence has been a shutdown of the largest economy in the world.
China seems to have taken the position that if they were to suffer the coronavirus, so too was the United States and the rest of the world. What else is to explain the continuation of flights from China to the United States at the rate of some 20,000 passengers a day, until President Trump wisely shut them down?
The Chinese economy was already suffering the consequences of President Trump’s America First policies. Not only had tough trade deals been struck, but serious efforts were underway by the Trump Administration to stop the trillions being stolen in U.S. intellectual property, the CCP’s aggressive industrial espionage, and their sophisticated political influence operations throughout the United States. From the CCP’s point of view, their fundamental business model was under attack.
Given the problems in the Chinese economy that arose as a result of the ongoing trade war with the United States and Donald Trump, the CCP and Xi Jinping appear to have calculated that a crisis caused by the virus would be preferable. A virus-induced crisis would include the added benefit of slowing down the U.S. economy and might reset American politics as well. However popular President Trump might be, it would be difficult in an election year to handle an economic crisis of this size without suffering some political consequences. That this does not make financial sense for China in the short run is beside the point. They are playing a much longer game.
I once had an elderly and very respected Chinese businessman with whom I was negotiating a very complicated business transaction chastise me for pushing to get an agreement completed. He fussed at me for being so impatient. And he explained his feelings about my hurry this way:
“You Americans measure your history in decades. You only have about 25 decades to which to refer for historical comparisons. China measures our history in centuries — TENS of centuries. We do not get in a hurry, as do you. We believe time will always take care of a good opportunity if it is a “good” opportunity. If it does not work out, so be it. We missed making big mistakes.”
Get America Back to Work
Our immediate crisis is not only about the loss of life we will suffer from the Wuhan virus. President Trump has mobilized the economic and industrial engine of the United States to build the capacity to deal with the medical challenges that are about to occur. In a more fundamental sense, this is about our ability as a nation to wage war and defend our way of life.
This challenge is primarily intellectual. We must disenthrall ourselves of globalism. That we would allow the United States to have a critical strategic commodity like medicine produced outside the country suggests a kind of death wish unbefitting of a free people. Although Wall Street kingpins will recoil from what they will perceive as a pull back from the rest of the world, our response must be a national commitment to relocate strategic global supply chains back to the United States. This kind of sensible investment will be part of healing our broken economy.
Right now, the Communist Chinese are more than happy to have the United States on lockdown as long as possible. Every day that goes by, millions of American workers—deplorables if you will—are sitting home, many of them unemployed, and worried about their future. Efforts to reopen the economy are being met with calls for it to stay shut lest the virus spread. Democrat governors who oppose President Trump and members of the federal government’s scientific/medical community—who allowed us to be so ill-prepared in the first place—have little incentive to push for a reopening.
We need to take reasonable measures to prevent the spread of the virus. But the President needs to get Americans back to work as soon as possible. In wars, men die. This war with the CCP is no different. As precious as we Americans believe each life is, this is about our freedom and our economic ability to defend that freedom. That will only happen when we are back to work and building the industrial capacity that will free us from Communist China. This can happen none too soon.
U.S. Senators are now weighing-in on China’s negative impacts on the U.S.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is one the loudest and most demonstrative members of Congress regarding getting the noose, which China has wrapped around the necks of all Americans removed. We all know that over the last quarter-century, China has stealthily and steadily spirited away much of the bevy of manufacturing companies, technological corporations, and (more importantly today) much of our pharmaceutical production: our medicine. Right now, there is quiet panic in the U.S. suppressed by healthcare officials with the understanding that China controls much of the medicine Americans need to fight Corona Virus.
Senator Rubio weighed-in on the floor before the Senate:
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) also weighed-in about the apparent evil of the Chinese and their untruthfulness to our nation. He visitied on FOX News with Martha McCallum:
Summary
There’s far more to do in all this than just try to find ways to stay busy while we’re “social-distancing” or “self-quarantined” at home. We encourage you to dig into the news to find facts. Remember this: the facts you discover and the subsequent decisions you make for yourself and your family will likely get you through this calendar quarter. (Yes, I believe this pandemic is going to be 90-days long — at least in “critical” mode)
Stay close to the TruthNewsNetwork. We’re in deep-dive research mode and stay there: for you. There are many things to be concerned about other than Coronavirus. We’ve got our arms around it. Come take the trip with us!
