Flu news and fake news: Say it with me: *viral RNA doesn’t necessarily mean live virus was present.* Now you’re going to see “coronavirus can live on surfaces for 17 days!” over and over…

All California trials delayed; L.A. County courts close to public

They report it as though the OLD outbreak ended: Beijing’s leading doctor warns of a NEW coronavirus outbreak in China after the country reported its first case of someone ‘catching the illness from a person returning from abroad’

Bottom feeder of the day.

Nearly half of Canada’s cases now community spread.

But Trump! False hope! New York Governor @andrewcuomo announces that beginning tomorrow, the State will begin treating some patients with a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin.

WHO launches global megatrial of the four most promising coronavirus treatments

You can add your own links — on topic please — in the comments.

Coronavirus has … curling.

Previous.

Wasn’t it just 24 hours before this that the Democrat allies in the Media Party were criticizing Trump for talking about chloroquine and azithromycin?

Wait a minute, yesterday I was told that talking about this was irresponsible and dangerous. https://t.co/WdaZCeXVrm

— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) March 22, 2020

Perhaps the word went out from Governor Cuomo to tell them to give his infected citizens a chance to survive.

Why Is Italy the Hotbed of COVID-19″

Blah blah blah Italians are old.
 
Blah blah blah Italians are sick.
 
Blah blah blah Italians have dirty air.
 
Blah blah blah Italians are bad at numbers.

Or… HELLO.

Prato, the historical capital of Italy’s textile business, has attracted the largest concentration of Chinese-run industry in Europe within less than 20 years.
 
As many as 50,000 Chinese live and work in the area, making clothes bearing the prized “Made in Italy” label which sets them apart from garments produced in China itself, even at the lower end of the fashion business.
 
In some ways, the Chinese community of Prato has succeeded where Italian companies have failed. Italy’s economy has barely grown over the past decade and is only just emerging from recession, partly due to the inability of many small manufacturers to keep up with global competition.

And then there’s the fact that their hospitals are so overwhelmed that the elderly are turned away.

Breaking news

Sad to see Twitter taking the side of the Communist Party of China:

A hostile foreign power is abusing an American platform in the attempt to sow discord and division in a nation in crisis. @Twitter should think long and hard before it permits the CCP to use Twitter's platform and resources to spread misinformation. https://t.co/HcQaXlZMOJ

— David French (@DavidAFrench) March 22, 2020

If you want to see how China’s modern day Goebbels operates, look no further than this fellow. One wonders if Franklin D. Roosevelt would have allowed German and Japanese propagandists broadcast their spin to the American people.

You may have seen this piece floating around yesterday.

It’s now been taken down.

This is why journalists ought not to provide assessments but ask questions of scientists on air, try and read and point — I pointed to offending article— and then rinse, repeat. (And I never want @CT_Bergstrom mad at me.)

The thread is worth reading for the entertainment value alone.

In related developments: projections for New York City are bad. Staggeringly bad. But — at least it’s not climate change.

Landing in the hospital on a ventilator is bad. But worse is being told you can’t have one. After learning that the state’s stockpile of medical equipment had 16,000 fewer ventilators than New Yorkers would need in a severe pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo came to a fork in the road in 2015. He could have chosen to buy more ventilators. Instead, he asked his health commissioner, Howard Zucker to assemble a task force and draft rules for rationing the ventilators they already had.
 
That task force came up with rules that will be imposed when ventilators run short. Patients assigned a red code will have the highest access, and other patients will be assigned green, yellow or blue (the worst) depending on a “triage officer’s” decision. In truth, a death officer. Let’s not sugarcoat it. It won’t be up to your own doctor.
 
Cuomo could have purchased the additional 16,000 needed ventilators for $36,000 apiece or a total of $576 million in 2015. It’s a lot of money but less than the $750 million he threw away on a boondoggle “Buffalo Billion” solar panel factory. When it comes to state budget priorities, spending half a percent of the budget on ventilators is a no brainer.

It’s kind of a New York thing.

In more encouraging news, we may be witnessing the end of the European Union;

With Italy and Spain now bearing the brunt of COVID-19, one member state after another has turned its back on the EU charter, and battened down the hatches against foreigners, including fellow Europeans; sympathy for Syrians and Afghans has had to take a back seat as grandma expires painfully in the back bedroom.
 
Even Germany has had enough and has closed its border to many of its immediate neighbors, while the Schengen Zone, in which citizens of member states (not all of them in the EU) could travel freely, is now “verboten” to outsiders. So say “auf Wiedersehen” to the European Union as we knew it as the Europeans remember the joys and protective uses of nationalism, and those more interested in national survival than the Brussels pipe dream follow Britain out the door.

When this is over, we need a return to the 1960’s relationship with China.

There is no link, because that’s me talking.

Stay home.

If you’ve already been scared into your wits, this isn’t for you. I simply advise you skip it.

For the rest of you, hey — it’s just like a cold and here’s the proof you’ve been waiting for.

Nearly a dozen Saskatchewan healthcare personnel have tested positive for COVID-19 after a curling bonspiel in Edmonton last weekend.

The province’s Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said the bonspiel has resulted in 11 positive COVID-19 cases so far.

Half of those who attended are infected, representing a quarter of Saskatchewan cases. There’s just no other way to describe it – jaw dropping stupidity.