China Threatens to Stop Antibiotics Exports to US, 2977

Good Monday morning, I’m still reporting on the coronavirus.
Well, the numbers are in for ¬¬¬the last 24 hours and the news about the growth of the COVID-19 coronavirus is not good. U.S. confirmed cases rose from 561 to 755 over the 1.14 days between these two screenshots of the Johns Hopkins site were taken.
That averages out to a 30% increase over the past 24 hours.
At that rate, we will hit 1,000 cases some time around midnight, 1400 some time tomorrow, over 1800 by Friday, and about 2300 on Saturday.
We are right now where Italy was 10 days ago. Today, Italy has 9,172 confirmed cases and the nation is effectively shut down.
Last night, a very strange dynamic was in full view. Tucker Carlson is taking the stance that the coronavirus pandemic is going to hit this country much harder than most people now believe with broad implications for our economy. But in addition, there is a national security threat because China yesterday threatened to withhold exports of vital drugs to the United States which would make the pandemic more deadly – in essence, threatening bio warfare.
On the other hand, Hannity, who immediately follows Tucker, is still making the argument that this is just a bad flu, and it will all go away as the weather warms up and by mid-summer this will all be forgotten as we settle in to watch a very unusual Democrat National Convention nominate – or maybe appoint their candidate to run against President Trump.
Initially, I was taking the same approach that Hannity is, but as time goes on, I have slowly come around to thinking the impact will be much more severe.
Some initial findings are that the incidence starts to burn out when 1% of the population has been infected, but that would be 3.2 million Americans, so we have a long way to go.
I’m hoping the doubling rate goes down with the warmer weather, but the doubling rate in the last 24 hours plummeted from 6 days to 3.5 days.
Some of this could be – as we expected – due to the availability of more test kits, but there has apparently been a distribution problem with those, and I don’t know what that problem is.
Tucker’s intro last night was so good, even-handed, and to the point that his later guest, Sen. Marco Rubio, said it was his best and most important. Sen. Rubio obviously shares our more alarmist view of what’s coming.
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And it is just wrong! Of the 4 earliest people to be identified as coronavirus victims in China only one of them was identified as having anything to do with that meat market. The other 3 were of unknown origin, and although that badly needs to be investigated, sadly, it will be lost under the deadly embrace of the Chinese communist state.
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China threatening to stop exporting critical antibiotics is a open threat to bio-war.
President Trump should respond forcefully – and not only in words, but in deeds. Emergency restructuring of manufacturing requirements for prescription pharmaceuticals is in order.
I’m still reporting from just outside the citadel of American freedom. Good Day.