Hell is Coming and We Sold Out Our National Security For A Few Dollars.By Inan Dogan, PhD

I am furious and frustrated. Once the greatest country on the face of this planet, the United States is going hat in hand to China, begging for a few respirators and masks. Anthony Fauci and the CDC know that nearly half of the infected people show no symptoms and stealthily spread the new coronavirus, yet their hands are tied trying to tell the American people to wear masks because the few that we do have rightfully belong to our healthcare workers. We are absolutely helpless.

Let’s start from the beginning. On December 31, China notified the World Health Organization about an unknown virus causing a SARS like disease. By January 2nd, there were 44 confirmed cases in Wuhan, obviously all of which were symptomatic cases. At least 6 of these patients died.

On January 3rd, Singapore started temperature screening all passengers arriving from Wuhan. That same day, Hong Kong reported two cases, both of whom travelled to Wuhan and displayed fever and pneumonia like symptoms.

On January 7th, the World Health Organization reported that Chinese experts isolated a novel coronavirus causing a new outbreak.

The first known COVID-19 death, a 61 year old male, occurred on January 9th, but China revealed this on January 11th.

Two new cases outside of China were reported on January 13th and 16th in Thailand and Japan; both patients had traveled to Wuhan.

The CDC announced that passengers from Wuhan would be screened at JFK starting on January 17th, and in San Francisco and Los Angeles on January 18th. At the time, the CDC didn’t know whether the virus could spread from person to person.

We discovered the first case of COVID-19 in the U.S. on January 21st. “A man from Washington state returned home after a trip to Wuhan, China, on Jan. 15, sought medical attention on Jan. 19 and now is in isolation at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Wash.,” according to NPR.

America is a great country, but it seems like Singapore is greater when it comes to acting fast and detecting COVID-19 infections. We started screening passengers from Wuhan on the west coast 15 days after Singapore did.

China reported its second and third COVID-19 deaths on January 17th and January 20th. “Zhong Nanshan, who heads up China's National Health Commission, told Xinhua News Agency, China's official state-run news organization, that two cases of human-to-human transmission had been confirmed in China, one in Wuhan and one in Guangdong,” reported ABC news.

Three days later, on January 23rd, the World Health Organization’s director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calmed our nerves, saying “At this time, there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China”, and decided not to declare the coronavirus outbreak a “global emergency”.

"On January 23, 2020, the Department of State ordered the departure of all non-emergency U.S. personnel and their family members from Wuhan" the State Department said. That’s the same day China cancelled its New Year celebrations and imposed extensive travel restrictions to Wuhan and surrounding municipalities.

On January 24th “A woman from Chicago who traveled to Wuhan, China, at the end of December and returned on Jan 13 represents the second travel-related case of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infection diagnosed in the United States, according to officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health" University of Minnesota’s CIDRAP reported.

Also on January 24th the Chinese COVID-19 death toll stood at 26 (assuming that they weren’t lying about it or undercounting it).

On January 25th, China expanded travel restrictions to five other Chinese cities in Hubei, covering 56 million people. The Chinese death toll reached 56 the next day (kind of fishy, right? Just 56 people died but China is imposing unheard of lockdowns).

Also on January 25th the third case of a coronavirus infection was confirmed in Southern California, a traveler from Wuhan.

On January 26th, two more cases of the new coronavirus infection were detected in Arizona and Los Angeles, both with travel histories to Wuhan.

The death toll in China reached 106 on January 27th if you can believe it.

On January 29th, we evacuated 195 “Deep State Department” (as Trump calls it) employees from China to California. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial for us if they stayed isolated in China and provided human intelligence in terms of the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak within China?

On January 30th, the CDC confirmed the 6th coronavirus infection, also the first “known” human-to-human transmission within the U.S. Thankfully, the CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield let us know that "the immediate risk to the American public is low." Nevertheless, on that same day the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency because their “greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it." Thank God we have a strong health system and are well-prepared to deal with this kind of outbreaks.

The clowns at the World Health Organization urged countries not to restrict travel or trade in response to COVID-19 on January 30th as well.

On January 31st, the CDC confirmed the seventh coronavirus infection, a male who traveled to Wuhan. “We are preparing as if this were the next pandemic, but we are hopeful still that this is not and will not be the case,” the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Dr. Nancy Messonnier said after this news came out. Very comforting!!

On January 31st, Trump also announced that all foreign nationals who had traveled to China except the immediate family members of US citizens or permanent residents won’t be allowed into the U.S.  effective February 2nd, 5 pm (EST). Better late than never, though why just China? The virus had spread to around two dozen countries by the end of January.

The next day Joe Biden sent the following tweet: “We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency.” So, if Biden were the POTUS, would he have listed to the clowns at the WHO, CDD, and NCIRD and have done nothing?

On February 1st, a Boston student who recently traveled to Wuhan became the 8th confirmed coronavirus case in the U.S.

On February 2nd, a Santa Clara woman became the ninth confirmed case. She also traveled to Wuhan. The 10th and 11th cases, a husband and wife from California, were also confirmed later that day. The husband traveled to Wuhan and the wife was infected by the husband.

On February 5th the twelfth known coronavirus case in the U.S. was confirmed, a Wisconsin man who traveled to Beijing and was exposed to known cases while there. In the meantime, 350 Americans from Wuhan arrived into the country and were quarantined.

On February 10th, the thirteenth known case of COVID-19 was identified, one of the evacuees from Wuhan.

On February 12, another evacuee from Wuhan was confirmed as the 14th case. The 13# and the 14# patients arrived in different flights from Wuhan and had no contact with each other in the U.S.

On February 13th, the CDC “confirmed another infection with Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in the United States. The patient is among a group of people under a federal quarantine order at JBSA-Lackland in Texas because of their recent return to the U.S. on a State Department-chartered flight that arrived on February 7, 2020,” from Wuhan.

On February 19th Iran confirmed its first coronavirus case and hours later reported two deaths from COVID-19. More importantly, “state news agency IRNA reported that they had not travelled abroad or even outside of Qom province prior to their deaths,” according to BBC. These two were the first two known community transmission of the new coronavirus outside of China. On that day, Trump was busy granting clemency to Blagojevich, Milken and Kerik, and the S&P 500 Index closed at 3386.

On February 21st, Italy reported the first local transmission of the new coronavirus, a 38-year male was believed to have contracted the virus after coming in contact with someone who had been to China.

On February 22nd Italy reported its first two deaths from COVID-19, two patients at two different locations.

That’s when I realized the gravity of the situation. I spent the next few days reading and researching the subject. On February 25th I came to the conclusion that it was just a matter of time that the new coronavirus will spread from Italy to other European countries and then to the United States.

One viable option for us to slow down the spread of this virus was to impose a complete travel ban (meaning no foreigners at all would be allowed to enter, and Americans arriving from other countries would be tested and put in a 14-day quarantine). Sure, this would have had a small economic impact on our economy as our GDP would take a 2.9% annualized hit, but we would save hundreds of thousands of jobs (and lives???).

The other alternative was burying our heads in the sand and pretending that everything was going to be magically ok. In this scenario I expected the recession to be deeper because this is the route initially taken by China and they were quickly forced to change course. So, I sent an email alert to our premium subscribers on February 26th.

That night, the CDC confirmed the first community transmission of the new coronavirus in California.

On February 27th, I also published a free article on our site and on Yahoo Finance with the title Recession is Imminent: We Need A Travel Ban NOW. I predicted that a US recession is imminent and that US stocks would go down by at least 20% in the next 3-6 months (you will notice a pattern of too conservative predictions by the end of this article). I also told you to short the market ETFs and buy long-term bonds.

One of the commenters said “Author needs to be sited for trying to cause hysteria”. Another said “Media fearmongering as usual.” A third one said “Where this person get his PhD from? Trump university? And in the end, seems he is more interested in protecting his stock.” A fourth one said “Wouldn’t a travel ban push the economy into an even bigger recession? The nonsense about bioterrorists (which, BTW, is not even a word according to Spell Check) is obviously just fear-mongering. I call fake news.”

That same day I went to Costco, bought a ton of food and ordered a freezer from Walmart. It didn’t occur to me to buy water or toilet paper that day. Costco was slightly more crowded than usual, so a few of our fellow Americans also saw this coming.

On February 28th, the second and third cases of unknown origin of the novel coronavirus were reported on the west coast.

On February 29th, the first death from COVID-19 was reported in Washington. It is now crystal clear to us that the new coronavirus is spreading uncontrollably within the United States.

On March 1st, New York confirmed its first case of COVID-19, a woman who recently traveled to Iran. Can you believe that New Yorkers were able to identify only a single case just a month ago?

On March 8th, I published another article with the title “Plunge Protection Team Gives You Another Opportunity To Short The Market”. S&P 500 Index closed at 2972 on Friday despite all the indications of a COVID-19 pandemic. As expected, we told our readers once again to short the market to protect their nest eggs. I said the following:

“I usually don’t publish my stock recommendations publicly before things happen. I put bread on the table by selling newsletter subscriptions. Once a year or so I make an exception. Make a note of this prediction. Better yet, do yourself a favor and hedge your market exposure. You will thank me later.”

I have yet to receive a thank you email. But that same day I received an email from a hedge fund honcho (though not the head honcho) from Manikay Partners who said “Why don’t you think this risk is already priced in?  And in fact this is a buying opportunity?  If the cases stabilize, interest rates are already lowered, and earnings will accelerate.  Just my 2 cents -it’s quite easy to recommend shorting the market given all the fear, but the opposite might in fact be the correct trade. I don’t believe we will enter a recession.”

That article that he disagreed with also made the following prediction:

“Remember, Italy reported its 3rd coronavirus case on February 7th and its first death from coronavirus within 15 days. Fifteen days after that death, Italy has 7375 infections and 366 deaths. United States is roughly 3 weeks behind Italy in terms of the spread of the coronavirus. By the end of March, we will probably be in the same position as Italy is in now.”

As always, my predictions proved to be too conservative. At the end of March we reported 3,900 COVID-19 deaths.

Two weeks ago, on March 20th, I published my last article: “Hell is Coming: Here is the Mathematical Proof”. At the time, our death toll stood at 205.

I shared a very simple model that predicts the number of deaths and the actual number of infections through April 15th. I have an engineering undergrad and a PhD in financial economics. Trust me when I say I can develop very complicated models. You have to be really skilled to develop complicated models. However, it is extremely difficult to develop a simple model that can make accurate predictions and can also be understood by ordinary people.

I don’t want to take your time with sharing the details of the model (please click the link and read the article if you are curious). The model predicted that the U.S. death would reach 800 by March 26th (the actual death toll was 1042 on the morning of March 26th).

The model also predicts a U.S. death toll of 6400 for April 3rd. That’s today. We have about 12 hours to find out the actual death toll which currently sits at 6068.

Here is the first sentence of that article: “Right now 2 million Americans are infected with the coronavirus. The total U.S. death toll by April 15th will be more than 20,000.”

The 2 million U.S. coronavirus infections was an estimate for March 20th.

I also republished the same article on Yahoo Finance and it received more than 700 comments. Most readers couldn’t understand at all how my simple model worked. “After 5 months, there are only 250,000 infected globally. How is it that the US will magically have 2,000,000 infected when the rest of the world (including the originating country with 1.4 billion individuals vs the US's 350 million people) combined had 250,000?” asked one reader.

“Kinda sounds like a weather man to me. We could get up to 15 inches of snow and wind up with 2 inches. We don't know what's gonna happen and can't predict the future. This is exactly what put people into absolute panic mode,” another reader opined.

“I'm all for freedom of the press but this is out of control. All they do is fear monger anymore and someone needs to put a stop to it somehow,” a third reader said.

“The author is clearly pulling made up numbers out of thin air,” a fourth reader commented.

“Why do you scare people with your theory. These numbers haven't been seen anywhere else, and likely won't be here either,” another reader said.

The best feedback I received was the following email message:

“My name is Shawn xxxx (redacted) and I am a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist sending a message to Inan Dogan, PhD. I happened across his article Hell is Coming... on Yahoo and wanted to pass along the tremendous good it has done. I live in the XXX area (redacted) and using his Covid-19 model for the US, extroplated a model informing the XXX (redacted) 13 county community containing 7 million people. Back in early March upon completing this work was so alarmed I organized a 13 county healthcare communication channel via FB groups and now have over 1000 members. We are organizing in advance, taking care of each other, moving resources and responding proactively rather than reactively. This is all come about because of Inan's work and I wanted to pass along my immense thanks from all the physicians, nurses, and other healthcare workers that are benefiting from his foresight and wisdom. Thanks so much.”

I am not the hero here. Shawn and his colleagues are the true heroes. To hear him take the time out of his day to send goodwill my way warmed my heart. It is a shame that our first responders and frontline healthcare workers don’t even have the stupid $1 masks and PPEs, and are forced to put their lives on the line to help the sick.

A week after my article was published, another reader left the following comment: “And here we are in the future. On March 26, the United States was up to 1300 deaths. The predictions in this article were not fear mongering. They were math. Sadly the predicted numbers were on the low side. I am genuinely curious if any of the commenters from a week ago (SO many negative comments) have changed their opinions on this matter. I wish very much that this all was wrong, but here we sit in the reality of what is happening.”

Yesterday another reader summarized the general mood right now:

“So I read this article the day after it was published. I truly wanted it to be wrong or flawed in some manner. Unfortunately, if anything as the author stated, he was being overly conservative. I have continued to reread the article and the comments every couple of days. I am continually shocked at people who want to try to bash basic math as somehow partisan. I truly hope that the inability to accept basic facts and truths has not doomed our country to worse than otherwise predicted. I hope over the next few days that we will seem some positive effects of social distancing on this initial model. Btw I have noticed the nasty replies start to silent. Crickets.”

I want to provide some updated estimates for the next 3 weeks, but we are already at 3200 words. We need to use a more detailed model this time around because we need to take into account the effects of the reactionary policies (social distancing, stay at home orders, etc.) implemented over the last 2.5 weeks to slow down the spread of this virus.

We know that the number of infections doubles approximately every 3 days when we don’t take any actions. Since every metropolitan area started taking actions at different points in time, we now have to develop separate models for each metropolitan area and aggregate the predictions of each model to arrive at a national figure for the number of infections and projected death count.

There isn’t a pressing need now to estimate these figures anymore because Donald Trump pivoted a few days ago and shared more reasonable projections of 100K-240K deaths from COVID-19. I will publish my estimates in a few days.

This crisis showed us that we need to make fundamental changes to our “heads I win tails you lose” capitalist system. US corporations started to migrate their manufacturing operations into China 20 years ago. They wanted to save a buck and increase profits at the expense of our national security. Today, China is the undisputed leader in manufacturing, probably even better than Germany.

This coronavirus pandemic started in China. Did you read a single story about China needing ventilators and masks over the last 3 months? There are 1.4 billion people in China and every single one of them is wearing a mask in public. Yet here, our healthcare workers can’t find any to wear.

Now, we have to go hat in hand to China and ask for ventilators, masks, and other PPEs. How can we be this helpless? Aren’t you disgusted by this? I am furious. The republican politicians failed us. The democrats failed us. We need a completely new mindset.

You understand that we have to spend $2.2 trillion on a bailout package because we couldn’t take action on January 3rd the same way Singapore took action, or we couldn’t impose a total travel ban because our hospitality industry might get hurt. Well, now we practically imposed a similar travel ban after the horse bolted out of the barn. The new coronavirus is still spreading like a wildfire in several of our states, and their governors can’t put their states under a lockdown because it isn’t "practical".

You know what? They will have to do it sooner or later. If Chinese dictators can’t turn a blind eye to this COVID-19 menace, democratically elected governors can’t do it either. By delaying the response, they are giving the new coronavirus more time to spread.

There will be more time to talk about what needs to be done. Here is what I know. This isn’t going to be a shallow recession and our economy won’t snap back at the end of Q2 or in Q3. The system has to change fundamentally.

China Enters The Next Phase of Its COVID-19 Outbreak: Suppression

There are now so few coronavirus cases in China that some days authorities don't see any local transmission. China has gone from reporting thousands of cases a day in February to one or two a day now. Over the last week, officials with China's National Health Commission reported just 5 new domestic cases. The total of new cases was higher but almost all of them were imported cases in travelers who'd recently returned from abroad.

China has driven coronavirus transmission down to nearly zero (although there's some question among international academics about China's case reporting and whether some cases are being overlooked, it's generally agreed that they've suppressed transmission to a very low level). But some undetected cases are still probably floating around, and the virus can always be brought back in from abroad.

So life has not yet returned to normal. Many restrictions from the health crisis are still in place. Isolation wards are still open for patients even with mild symptoms. Quarantine centers are housing suspected patients and contacts of confirmed patients. Testing labs are still running. And monitoring systems are still on high alert for new cases.

"We are very aware that there could still be a second wave in China. That is possible," says Kylie Ainslie, a research associate at the MRC Center for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London.

"However, we haven't seen that occurring yet."

Ainslie along with her colleagues has been looking at how China emerges from one of the largest lockdowns in human history. They've been analyzing GPS tracking data of human movement to monitor how social restrictions are being eased or tightened in any given area.

"Areas where the outbreak was less had movement restrictions removed sooner," she says. "But that didn't mean completely. It meant first they started major factories and started letting those people who work there go back to work so that they could restart their industries."

Movement restrictions – basically orders for people to stay home — are still in place for some areas and some people considered to be high risk.

Most factories in Wuhan, which was the epicenter of the outbreak, for instance, have not yet cranked up their production lines.

"One of the things that China is doing is while it is relaxing social distancing measures, it's not removing them entirely," Ainslie says. "And it's not removing them haphazardly."

For instance, schools in much of the country remain closed.

In several provinces where reported cases have gotten down to zero or close to zero for some period of time, they've seen case numbers rebound. But those upticks have primarily been driven by travelers arriving from Europe.

Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong says these "imported" cases are much easier to contain and don't pose as much of a threat of wider transmission.

"There's less opportunity for infections to get into the general community from those travelers because they (the travelers) are being monitored so carefully," Cowling says. Anyone arriving in China now must go in to 14 days of quarantine where officials can keep a close eye on their health. "So if they do do turn out to be infected, which is a small minority, then they're isolated. Their contacts are traced and put into quarantine. And that's going to slow down any any leakage into the general community."

Cowling says public health officials in China and elsewhere have two sets of tools to contain its outbreak — social distancing and case management. Social distancing makes it harder for the virus to find new people to infect. Case management tracks down cases and potential cases individually and then isolates them – and the virus. China wielded both of these tools aggressively.

"With a lot of testing capacity, they were able to bring down the numbers of infections quickly," Cowling says. "I think more quickly than we will find case numbers decline in New York or northern Italy or Spain or France. And that's because in China, the lockdown was a more extreme version of a lockdown. It was a total lockdown."

People were ordered to stay in their homes and forbidden from traveling.

"In addition to the lockdown, there was also heavy use of testing, isolation and quarantine," Cowling says. "So all of those measures are like really, really trying very hard to get the numbers down."

China is now in a "suppression" phase of the epidemic. They've gotten transmission down to nearly zero but some undetected cases are still probably floating around, and the virus can always be brought back in from abroad.

To make sure that another major outbreak doesn't occur, China is experimenting to see how much it can ease off the highly restrictive social distancing while keeping its testing and quarantine apparatus up and running.

"We're going to see within a month or two whether it's possible to get back to relatively normal social mixing and just be able to rely on test testing, tracking, isolating, quarantine" to keep the virus at an extremely low level in China, he says.

While China is now trying to figure out how to relax social distancing without allowing the virus to come roaring back, this is also a question that European countries and the U.S. hope to address in the coming weeks. But the U.S. may have a harder time doing this than China. Cowling says one problem facing the U.S. is that there are many different outbreaks that are being managed primarily at the state level and might peak at different times.

"It's possible that New York could be coming out of lock down, having got the numbers to a low level. But there are other cities where they're having a lot more infections and it is going to be very difficult to have travel restrictions," Cowling says. "And the worst case scenario is that infections are kind of bouncing around the U.S. And so, the lockdown is relaxed and then infections come back and then you have to lockdown again and nobody wants that to happen. So it really is a urgent question to figure out what's the best way to suppress transmission across the whole of the U.S."

Watching how China navigates this suppression phase may offer guidance to the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Face masks from China intended for France 'hijacked' by US at the last minute

Coronavirus masks that France ordered from China were bought at the last minute by the United States as they waited to be loaded onto cargo planes, French officials have said.

"Americans pay three or four times the amount we pay, and in cash," said Jean Rottner, head of France's eastern region, one of the areas worst affected by the coronavirus outbreak, according to reports by France Info.

On Thursday, a planeload of Chinese-made face masks were bought up right on the tarmac just as the much needed protective gear was about to set off for France.

"We're working around the clock to ensure these masks arrive," says Rottner, blaming unfair competition for delays. 

The United States, which now has the highest number of known cases of coronavirus in the world, is trying to procure any masks available, disrupting deliveries to other nations, another report by French daily Liberation indicated.

The east of France nonetheless received 2 million masks from China on Wednesday, to the delight of its president.

"I was very happy to see that airplane arriving in our region last night," Rottner said.

France has ordered more than one billion face masks, a quarter from China, as it battles the pandemic and currently has less than three weeks worth of supplies.

Mask shortage cover up

At the end of last month, French President Emmanuel Macron insisted the country needed to regain its "independence" in producing vital medical equipment, without relying excessively on imports.

Macron hopes to rebuild "national sovereignty" by the end of 2020. However, according to reports by French online investigative website Mediapart, the government knew about dwindling medical stocks as early as January.

The health ministry, aware of the limited supplies, decided to order only a small amount of masks, despite internal warnings, writes Mediapart.

The news site says the government knowingly covered up the shortage of masks for over two months, changing its health advice accordingly. Initially, the director of health insisted any person in contact with a coronavirus patient wear a mask, but as stocks began to dwindle, he made a U-turn and insisted it was no longer necessary.

The limited supplies have left health officials and those at the frontline of the crisis exposed. All eyes will be on government policy when the lockdown period comes to an end. Deputy economy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher has admitted that the state will have to "massively equip the population," according to Mediapart.

Intense struggle

In the meantime, lower-level officials are following in Rottner's footsteps and taking the matter into their own hands. The head of the south-eastern Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region Renaud Muselier told RT France that he ordered around 60 million masks but has also experienced delivery problems.

To ensure the delivery of 4 million masks by this Saturday, Muselier has opted for a different route, passing by the sea instead. "At least that way, I can be sure that no one will steal my masks from the tarmac," he said.

The United States, like France, has come under criticism for its lack of preparedness in dealing with Covid-19. However, its covert efforts to make up the shortfall of masks is also being called into question.

Logistically speaking, taking different routes is "an intense struggle," said Muselier.

US official denies claim that Americans buying up France's masks

A senior US official on Thursday rejected allegations from French politicians that Americans have been snapping up Chinese masks previously ordered by France during the coronavirus crisis, calling the stories "completely false."

The leader of the Ile-de-France region, which includes Paris, accused unidentified Americans of swooping in with cash at the last minute to secure shipments already promised to French buyers.

"We lost an order to the Americans who outbid us on a shipment that we had lined up," said Valerie Pecresse, the chief of France's most populous region.

Pecresse claimed that while France pays on delivery for such supplies -- crucial in the global fight against the pandemic -- "Americans pay cash" without bothering to see the goods.

They "are just looking to do business on the back of the whole world's distress," she told LCI television.

A similar accusation was made by Jean Rottner, the leader of the Grand Est region in northeastern France on Wednesday, although he did not explain where he got his information from or identify the people supposedly involved.

"There on the runway, the Americans take out cash and they pay three or four times more for the orders that we had made," Rottner told RTL radio.

In Washington, a senior administration official told AFP "the United States government has not purchased any masks intended for delivery from China to France."

"Reports to the contrary are completely false," said the official, asking not to be named.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday asked officials to look into similar claims that masks were being diverted from his country, calling such reports "concerning."

"We need to make sure that equipment that is destined for Canada gets to and stays in Canada, and I've asked ministers to follow up on these particular reports," he told a press conference.

Ottawa has recognized that its stockpiles of protective medical equipment are not enough to meet demand, as it looks to care for a surge of infected patients and slow the spread of the virus.

Canada has earmarked Can$2 billion (US$1.4 billion) to buy medical equipment while asking local companies to pivot assembly lines to make masks, medical scrubs and ventilators.

Health Minister Patty Hajdu said more than 12 million masks were received from abroad, donated locally or released from government stockpiles this week.

"We understand that the needs in the US are very extensive, but it's the same in Canada, so we have to work together to ensure that we can control the spread of this virus," Trudeau concluded.

What did China's Xi Jinping know, and when did he know it? BY BRADLEY A. THAYER AND LIANCHAO HAN

As the global public health crisis continues, it is useful to reflect that its cause is the actions and policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Their conduct has been reprehensible. They have suppressed whistleblowers and information, destroyed lab samples and prevented the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) from gaining access when it might have blunted a global outbreak.   

Let’s examine the timeline of the origins of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Last December, China knew the virus was transmitted human to human. Between Dec. 27, 2019, and Jan. 5, 2020, five firms and institutions detected a SARS-like coronavirus that caused pneumonia among people in Wuhan. The researcher who first sequenced the virus exclaimed that it could be more prevalent than the plague. One tester mistakenly reported that the virus was SARS. As a result, the Wuhan Health Commission issued an internal urgent notice about the virus and reported it to China’s central government, while telling the public that no clear evidence existed for person-to-person transmission. 

This caused at least eight medical professionals to sound the alarm to the public. Chinese police censured these “rumor-mongers” and silenced any other whistleblowers. On Dec. 31, China’s National Health Commission dispatched the first group of experts to Wuhan and the WHO learned of the outbreak. We now know that by the end of 2019, there were at least 104 cases in Wuhan. With so many cases, most governments would institute an emergency response. 

Instead, on Jan. 1, Hubei province health authorities oddly ordered the company that first sequenced the virus to stop testing, destroy all samples and keep information secret. Two days later, central health authorities issued a similar official order to testing facilities across the country. However, on Jan. 5, Shanghai Public Health Center also detected a SARS-like coronavirus from the Wuhan samples and reported to Shanghai and central health authorities, urging the government to take immediate action to control its spread. 

The center’s CCP chief told reporters that they knew then the virus could spread through human contact and began telling doctors to take precautions. This is the reason that China’s health authorities finally launched a second-level emergency response on Jan. 6. Later, the center’s lab provided the international community with the virus’s genetic sequence for the first time, and as a result was forced to close by Chinese authorities. 

By this time — but almost certainly well before — Chinese President Xi Jinping must have known what was transpiring. On Jan. 7, he hosted a CCP leadership meeting and likely was briefed by health officials about the Wuhan outbreak. We do not know exactly what was said in that meeting, of course, but from subsequent conduct and leaked information, we know that China began to take measures to stop the outbreak’s progression while still concealing it from the public. Xi ordered that officials must not spoil the atmosphere of the Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year, during which about 3 billion national trips take place. This is perhaps the primary reason that Chinese authorities and media deliberately misled the public about contagion. 

During a critical window of time between Jan. 6 and Jan. 19, Wuhan reported no new cases as the city and Hubei province proceeded to open their “two sessions” — the annual plenary meetings and the Chinese people’s political consultative conferences, with over 2,300 delegates in attendance. The Wuhan government insisted on proceeding with a lunar year banquet on Jan. 18, where 40,000 families gathered to share home-cooked food. Other official new year celebration events didn’t end until the city closed down on Jan. 23. 

Based on statistics in the New England Journal of Medicine, we estimate there were about 300 cases of COVID-19 confirmed during this time. The official number of 41 as of Jan. 19 is certainly false. Media reports have revealed that government health officials discouraged Wuhan doctors from reporting new cases at the time, although tellingly, internal measures were taken to check passengers at airports and rail stations. 

Chinese health authorities insisted that the virus did not spread from human to human until Zhong Nanshan with the National Health Commission announced human-to-human transmission on Jan. 20. Yet even Dr. Zhong played down the dangers and ensured that China would not have a repeat of the 2003 SARS outbreak. Wuhan’s mayor later explained in an interview that without authorization he could not release information. He implied that only after Xi decided on Jan. 20 to go public could Wuhan order its lockdown on Jan. 23. 

By then it was too late. Five million people had left the city, starting the global spread of the virus. 

Even as other countries reported COVID-19 cases, China and the WHO continued to mislead the world by minimizing the threat. The WHO required that the virus be called COVID-19, rather than a term that would associate it with China, and refused access to international experts including the CDC. Xi called many state leaders, including President Trump, to advance a benign narrative of what was a dire situation.  

As a consequence, the world was duped into lowering its guard. Xi portrayed himself as a competent ruler who had matters under control. According to the CCP narrative, his personal direction of the anti-pandemic campaign rescued China from catastrophe and heroically bought time for the rest of the world to fight the pandemic.

People have questioned China’s mismanagement of this crisis. China launched a global propaganda campaign to blame the United States and Italy for bringing the virus into Wuhan. Using social media platforms, China spreads false information that contributes to considerable anxiety among Chinese Americans. China has used medical supplies it manufactures — masks, ventilators and other equipment needed to treat COVID-19 patients — as leverage to censor critics. Geng Shuang, spokesperson of China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, publicly declared to the world that those who are unfriendly to China cannot get the masks it produces. Those who received China’s supplies, such as Spain, Czechia and the Netherlands, found that testing kits were 70 to 80 percent inaccurate and many masks were defective. 

What we now know about the outbreak in China largely is because of the work of Chinese journalists and netizens who refused to be silenced. Over 41 investigative reports by journalists have been deleted and banned. Citizen journalists such as Chen Qiushi, Fan Bin and Li Zehua are still in police detention. The world will not know the full truth until they are released and free to explain how the CCP allowed the pandemic to happen. 

WHO covering up for China, says US Senator Martha McSally, calling for director general to resign

• Demand for Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to step down is part of escalating series of Republican criticisms of organisation
• McSally also wants US debts to China ‘forgiven, as a minimum’.
• US Senator Martha McSally is calling on the World Health Organisation director general to step down from his post over what she deems assistance in covering up for China's under-reporting of the coronavirus, part of an escalating series of Republican criticisms of the organisation.

  The Arizona Republican said on Fox Business on Thursday that Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus needs to resign over the organisation's handling of the virus, which originated in China.

  While China has claimed it has essentially flattened new cases of the deadly virus now killing thousands of Americans, new reporting has questioned China's rosy claims.
  “I’ve never trusted a communist. And their cover-up of this virus that originated with them has caused unnecessary deaths around America and around the world,” said McSally, who is up for re-election this fall.

  

  WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a Covid-19 news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in February. Photo: Reuters

  “The WHO needs to stop covering for them. I think Dr Tedros needs to step down. We need to take some action to address this issue. It’s just irresponsible, it’s unconscionable what they have done here while we have people dying across the globe.”

  Earlier this week, Senator Rick Scott called for a congressional probe into the WHO and indicated that perhaps the United States should withhold funding for “helping Communist China cover up” the ramifications of the virus.
• McSally agreed that “we need to look at addressing the WHO as well”. She also said US debts to China “should be forgiven, as a minimum”.
• Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the WHO, did not directly address McSally's demands. But he said the organisation expects members “to report data in a timely and accurate manner”.

  “Membership in WHO and signing up to the International Health Regulations both carry with it the responsibility to prioritise public health, nationally and internationally, not only because global health norms say so, but because the two are inextricably linked, as this global pandemic has made clear to the world,” Jasarevic said.