WTF Just Happened Today

Monday, April 13, 2020

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• Daily Damage Report.

• Global: Total confirmed cases ~1,906,000; Total deaths: ~119,000; Total recoveries: ~446,000. (Johns Hopkins University)

• U.S.: Total confirmed cases ~573,000; Total deaths: ~23,000; Total recoveries: ~42,400

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

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

1/ Trump was warned about the potential for a pandemic in January that could kill up to half a million Americans and cost trillions of dollars in economic losses. In January, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was notified by Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, about the coronavirus, which was spreading through Wuhan. Azar then notified the White House and sent a report to the National Security Council. Azar first briefed Trump about the threat of the virus on Jan. 18 – while Trump was at Mar-a-Lago. A Jan. 29 memo produced by his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, urged Trump to impose the travel limits, outlining the potential risks of a coronavirus pandemic. Trump, however, told aides that he was unhappy that Navarro had put his warning in writing. On Jan. 30, Azar again briefed Trump, warning that the coronavirus had the potential to become a pandemic. Trump dismissed Azar, saying he was being an alarmist. Trump took his first concrete action at the end of January to limit travel from China. By the third week in February, the administration’s public health experts recommended that Trump should warn Americans of the risks and promote social distancing measures. For three weeks, the White House focused on messaging and predictions of success rather than calling for a shift to mitigation. Trump finally agreed on Mar. 16 to recommend social distancing across the country, but not before the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. had grown from 15 to 4,226. Since then, half a million Americans have tested positive and more than 23,000 have died. (New York Times / Washington Post)

• ✏️ The 10 times Trump was warned about coronavirus. (Axios)

• ✏️ A month after Trump declared a national emergency and promised a mobilization of public and private...

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