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: 1,615,092 (up from 1,529,961 yesterday)
- Total Confirmed Deaths Worldwide: 96,791 (up from 89,426 yesterday)
- Total Confirmed Recovered Worldwide: 362,542 (up from 337,164 yesterday)
- US has 468,895 Confirmed Cases and 16,697 Deaths, up from 435,160 cases and 14,797 deaths yesterday
- That is two days in a row with nearly 2000 deaths in the US from COVID-19
- Measured on a weekly basis for the last 7 days, COVID-19 is currently the leading cause of death in the US
- US Now Accounts for 30% of all confirmed/diagnosed cases globally
- The US Federal Reserve is purchasing approximately $625 Billion per week in US Treasury Bonds, US Municipal Bonds and Corporate Bonds.
- That that rate of spend, The Federal Reserve will own all outstanding US Public Debt - Federal and Local - by September 2020 and all Private/Corporate US Bond Debt by December.
- The Federal Reserve is already the largest single holder of US Government Bonds...Of $20 Trillion in outstanding US Debt, the Federal Reserve owns approximately $5.7 Trillion, and it is adding $1 Trillion in new US Bond purchases every two weeks.
- This comes as the Bank of England skips the Bond Market entirely and is simply printing new currency to fund UK expenditures directly https://www.ft.com/content/664c575b-0f54-44e5-ab78-2fd30ef213cb, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52226482 This is also known as Modern Monetary Theory.
- As of this week's Fed Open Market Committee meeting, The Fed is also willing to purchase so-called Junk Bonds from US Companies in distress.
- The Fed also issued a new fund to buy US Mortgage Assets from Banks, pledging $200 Billion per month to US Banks plus Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy distressed mortgages that may become insolvent due to COVID-19 mortgage delinquencies or defaults.
- At this point, the only major asset in US Equity Markets the Fed is not directly buying are US Stocks https://finance.yahoo.com/news/feds-cure-risks-being-worse-110052807.html
- Ultimately, it is the US Taxpayer who is responsible for all of this debt, NOT the Fed.
- The Treasury, using the Exchange Stabilization Fund, will make an equity investment in each Fed Fund and be in a "first loss" position, making US Taxpayers responsible should any of the investments or underlying funds fail...
- As such, the US Treasury, not the Fed, is really buying all these securities and backstopping of loans; the Fed is acting as banker and providing financing.
- Nearly 17 Million Americans have sought unemployment insurance since March 16th, over 10% of the entire US Workforce.
- If you include the estimated newly out of work Americans who have yet to seek Unemployment Insurance, the US has lost 15% of its workforce.
- Analysts expect another wave of newly unemployed in April as well, as most states continue to experience Economic shutdowns due to COVID-19-related travel restrictions and limits on social activity.
- Per McKinsey & Company, the US GDP is losing over $1 Trillion per month to COVID-19. US GDP was $22 Trillion last year.
- In eerie echoes of The Great Depression, food lines stretch for miles as hungry Americans line up for boxes of food supplies.
- "Six weeks ago, I had a job making $55,000 a year and could buy my own food. Now I am just trying to make sure my kids eat this weekend," said David Kramer, standing in line for a food bank in San Diego.
- At Feeding San Diego's emergency drive-thru distribution Saturday, vehicles lined up 14 deep in the SDCCU Stadium parking lot for boxes filled with produce and nonperishable food. About 1,200 vehicles were served until the food bank ran out - in just under an hour.
- "We're seeing as much as a 40 percent to 50 percent increase in demand at individual distribution locations," CEO Vince Hall said. "Many of the people that we're seeing have never before sought food assistance. Many of them aren't even sure what the process is. We get lots of very fundamental questions: 'Do I qualify? Is there somebody more deserving than me?'"
- In some markets, such as Baton Rouge, Louisianna and Omaha Nebraska, Food Banks that saw 100 people show up a day in February are seeing 900 people per day now. "We're at zero, zero food left," said Pastor Byron Hicks in Omaha. "It's Easter weekend, there's nothing left to hand out."
- Nationwide, demand for Food Assistance is up nearly 200% compared to this time last year. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/business/economy/coronavirus-food-banks.html
- WHO says numbers out of North Korea must be believed.
- "We trust all Governments to deliver valid data to our organization, and have no valid reason to doubt any numbers delivered at this time,' said a WHO spokesperson.
- North Korea claims that it has zero cases of COVID-19, despite the fact that reports have leaked of hundreds of corpses being loaded into trucks wrapped in white sheets from Hospitals in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital.
- Meanwhile, Reuters noted that U.N. human rights experts want the international sanctions against North Korea's nuclear weapons program lifted "to ensure that food supplies reach hungry populations during the pandemic."
- It is unclear why the experts would think this necessary since WHO officially believes North Korea's insistence that there is no pandemic impact in N Korea.
- The United Kingdom on Monday revealed that all 17.5 million Coronavirus antibody test kits the country ordered from China are unreliable when used outside "severely ill" populations.
- "The test developed in China was validated against patients who were severely ill," Professor John Bell, coordinator of coronavirus testing for Public Health England, told reporters.
- "Whereas we want to use the test in the context of a wider range of levels of infection….So for our purposes, we need a test that performs better than these can."
- Bell added, "We see many false negatives… and we also see false positives. This is not a good result or test suppliers or for us."
- Nasal Swab tests developed in China and sold to Western Governments reportedly have false-negative rates as high as 40%. "It's basically like flipping a coin," one researcher said.
- Just two weeks after terrifying America with predictions of 200,000 or more dead, Dr Anthony Fauci said new data shows that only 60,000 Americans will die...maybe.
- He noted that early predictive models of 100,000 – 240,000 deaths were already down to about 60,000.
- "That's a sign when you take the data you have and you reinsert it into the model, the model modifies," he said. "Data is real. The model is hypothesis."
- Fauci acknowledged the number of deaths continued to go up, but that other numbers, such as new hospitalizations and patient admittance into the ICU, were down.
- "It is in the sense of deaths a bad week," he said, acknowledging new record death rates in a single day. "At the same time, as we're seeing an increase in deaths, we're seeing a rather dramatic decrease in hospitalizations."
- But Fauci said that the social distancing guidelines should remain in place through April.
- "That means that what we are doing is working, and therefore it means we need to continue to do it," he said. "Lower numbers mean this is working," he said.
