WTF Just Happened Today

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

• Daily Damage Report.

• Global: Total confirmed cases ~1,500,000; Total deaths: ~88,000; Total recoveries: ~318,000. (Johns Hopkins University)

• U.S.: Total confirmed cases ~425,000; Total deaths: ~14,500; Total recoveries: ~24,000

• At least 1,939 Americans died of the virus yesterday, marking the deadliest day in the U.S. since the crisis started. (The Guardian / NBC News)

• Staggering Surge Of NYers Dying In Their Homes Suggests City Is Undercounting Coronavirus Fatalities. (Gothamist)

• Markets: Dow ????; S&P 500 ????; Nasdaq ????

• Live Blogs: New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / CNBC / The Guardian / CBS News / ABC News / NBC News / CNN

1/ Trump attacked the World Health Organization and threatened to withhold funding because of its handling of the coronavirus outbreak and its criticisms of his own policies. Trump, seeking to blame the WHO for the same missteps and failures his administration made, accused the group of having “called it wrong […] every aspect of it wrong” and being “China-centric.” After saying that the U.S. would “put a hold on money spent to the WHO – We’re going to put a very powerful hold on it,” Trump later denied that he had made those remarks, saying “I’m not saying that I’m going to do it […] I said we’re going to look at it.” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus responded, saying: “If you want to be exploited and if you want to have many more body bags, then you [politicize the virus]. If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it.” (New York Times / The Guardian / NPR / CNBC)

2/ U.S. intelligence officials warned in November about a contagion sweeping through China’s Wuhan region. The report by the military’s National Center for Medical I...

Visit WTF Just Happened Today? for more news and headlines, brought to you by Matt Kiser. The WTFJHT Podcast is narrated and produced by Joe Amditis.