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: 872,891 (up from 799,995 Yesterday)
- Total Confirmed Deaths Worldwide: 43,271 (up from 38,735 Yesterday)
- Total Confirmed Recovered Worldwide: 184,588 (up from 169,995 Yesterday)
- 5% of Active Cases are considered serious (requiring hospitalization) Steady from 5% Yesterday, but down from 19% high back in February
- Note that 11% of US Confirmed Cases require Hospitalization, roughly on par with Italy at 12% requiring hospitalization
- US has 188,592 Confirmed Cases and 4,056 Deaths, up from 164,359 cases and 3,173 deaths yesterday
- The United States of America now leads the world in total confirmed cases, with 78,000 more cases than Italy (although Italy leads the world in Deaths with 12,428 officially dead)
- US is 24th in Total Confirmed Cases per 1 Million Population, with 507 cases per 1 Million people. Spain has 2,185 Cases per 1 Million.
- US is 28th in Total Confirmed Dead per 1 Million Population, with 12 Dead per 1 Million citizens. Italy has 206 Dead per 1 Million.
- US has 4,056 Dead vs 7,251 Recovered and 4,576 in Critical Condition
- The US Currently has 177,285 Active Cases of COVID-19, with less than 1% of the total US population tested
- 16% of Americans who have been tested have been diagnosed with COVID-19
- Rick Perry issues a dire warning that America's energy industry is about to experience a massive collapse due to low oil prices caused by a huge drop in energy demand.
- COVID-19 related slowdowns in airline, car transportation as well as a 45% drop in industrial production in March have dropped the demand for oil to 20-year lows.
- Rick Perry recommended that US refineries be restricted from importing and refining any foreign petroleum products for at least 60 days as a means to help domestic energy producers in Texas, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Colorado.
- "If independent energy producers go out of business, we're handing the global market for energy back Russia and Saudi Arabia. It will be like 1974 all over again," Perry said.
- Year over Year automobile sales in the US are off as much as 90% compared to the same time in 2019.
- Analysts expect April to be worse, with more than 75% of Americans now living under some form of House Arrest or Shelter-in-Place orders.
- Autosales is not considered essential work in any state in the US with COVID-19 related restrictions.
- Dan Furgeson, Manager of a Ford dealership in Arizona, indicated he may have to lay-off his entire staff of 48 employees. "We hear there are supposed to be government loan programs for small businesses, but that money could be weeks away. I can't make payroll this week," he said, expressing a sentiment that is becoming as epidemic as the virus itself across the US.
- Medical Journal Lancet published a study that takes into account projected number of cases that are not diagnosed formally and do not require hospitalization.
- President Donald Trump had been highly criticized earlier in March for stating he believed the final Case Mortality Rate would be "way below 1%", a number far below the 2.4% out of Wuhan, China.
- Final Case Fatality Rate may be as low as 0.66%, still 6-times higher than the seasonal flu, but well below the higher rates seen in Italy, Iran, Spain, China and other hard-hit countries.
- So far, the fatality rate in the US is about 2.1%, but expected to go lower as more and more people are tested and diagnosed.
- Researchers did warn that the final case mortality rate for each country might be highly-localized and dependent upon hospital capacity and quality of medical care available.
- A report issued by Saudi Arabia's news service cites internal medical records that list "lung disease", "pneumonia" or "heart failure" as the cause of death on hundreds of people who died in February and March, from just one hospital.
- Iran has lost 16 members of Parliament and 2 cabinet members to COVID-19.
- The country now joins China as two countries with totalitarian regimes caught blatantly lying about official cases and death statistics related to the Pandemic.
- Wuhan China, where the virus originated, has had more than 218,000 cremations so far in 2020, compared to just 32,000 for the same period in 2019, according to a report by RT News.
- As social distancing is proving to slow the spread of COVID-19, Walmart will ask all employees to wear masks and gloves, as well as have temperature taken before all shifts starting April 1st, 2020.
- North American President of Retail Operations indicated in a Memo that many employees have requested masks and gloves be provided to them.
- More than 18% of Walmart's retail staff missed some time due to illness in March, according to CBS news, citing an anonymous source inside the company. "This is much higher than a normal month," the employee indicated.
- The move comes as the CDC and COVID-19 Task Force indicated it may be shifting its stance on the general public wearing masks to help prevent the spread of the virus.
- On March 6th, a church choir decided to go ahead with rehearsal. Now dozens of members have COVID-19 and two are dead.
- With the coronavirus quickly spreading in Washington state in early March, leaders of the Skagit Valley Chorale debated whether to go ahead with weekly rehearsal.
- The virus was already killing people in the Seattle area, about an hour's drive to the south.
- But Skagit County hadn't reported any cases, schools and business remained open, and prohibitions on large gatherings had yet to be announced.
- Sixty singers showed up. A greeter offered hand sanitizer at the door, and members refrained from the usual hugs and handshakes.
- After 2 1/2 hours, the singers parted ways at 9 p.m.
- Nearly three weeks later, 45 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or ill with the symptoms, at least three have been hospitalized, and two are dead.
- The outbreak has stunned county health officials, who have concluded that the virus was almost certainly transmitted through the air from one or more people without symptoms.
- "That's all we can think of right now," said Polly Dubbel, a county communicable disease and environmental health manager.
- In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, eight people who were at the rehearsal said that nobody there was coughing or sneezing or appeared ill.
- Experts said the choir outbreak is consistent with a growing body of evidence that the virus can be transmitted through aerosols — particles smaller than 5 micrometers that can float in the air for minutes or longer.
- The World Health Organization has downplayed the possibility of transmission in aerosols, stressing that the virus is spread through much larger "respiratory droplets," which are emitted when an infected person coughs or sneezes and quickly falls to a surface.
- A study published March 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that when the virus was suspended in a mist under laboratory conditions it remained "viable and infectious" for three hours — though researchers have said that time period would probably be no more than a half-hour in most real-world indoor conditions.