We're still not calling it a pandemic: But "the World Health Organization has upgraded the global risk of the coronavirus outbreak to 'very high'âits top level of risk assessment," reports the BBC.
Aaaaand there's a new case in Northern California: According to the New York Times, "they are finding hints that the coronavirus may already be circulating locally in California, passing from person to person." Not great!
Aaaand we just got word of a new case in Oregon:
BREAKING: A person in Oregon is sick with the first presumptive case of the new coronavirus in the state, Oregon health officials said Friday.https://t.co/DUSa7kAWov pic.twitter.com/AuBTX2EIY2
â The Oregonian (@Oregonian) February 29, 2020
Amazon tells its 500,000 workers not to travel: "The company had previously restricted travel to China and asked employees who had been to the country where the outbreak originated to quarantine themselves for 14 days before returning to work," according to the Seattle Times.
Luckily, we have a highly competent president whose administration is taking this very seriously and is not at all obsessively trying to silence scientists who might make their tyrant boss look bad: Oh waitâ
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was scheduled to go on all 5 Sunday talk shows and then Pence was put in charge of the coronavirus response and he was ordered to cancelhttps://t.co/Vj7AjDFf0G
â Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 28, 2020
And of course:
President Trump had a lot to say about #coronavirus at the top of his rally, including:
"Democrats are politicizing it"
"This is their new hoaxâ
"We are totally prepared"
"Press is in hysteria mode"
â Monica Alba (@albamonica) February 29, 2020
That said: Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who was told not to go on the shows, found that "the overall clinical consequences of COVID-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza pandemic [which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%] or a pandemic influenza [similar to those in 1957 and 1968]," according to a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine cited by U.S. News & World Report.
But speaking of authoritarian moves: Remember when a federal judge ruled that former White House counsel Don McGahn had to obey Congress's subpoena to testify because "presidents are not kings"? Well, today two Republican-appointed judges overruled one dissenting Democratic-appointed judge on a federal appeals court and dismissed that judgment, according to CNN. However, "by ruling that it doesn't have the authority to handle this case, the court didn't make a decision on the validity of the White House's sweeping claim of 'absolute immunity' for its current and former officials," they write.
Related:
By the way, remember the Senate vote on removing the president, a historic moment that your kids will read about in textbooks and also took place in the same month that you currently exist in
â Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) February 28, 2020
Let's turn to the weather for a second for some less apocalyptic news:
Yikes! My friends frozen home in Hoover Beach Hamburg, NY!!! Heâs fine... his house... is pretty âcool!â @WGRZ pic.twitter.com/d4i3vH8OKw
â Scott Levin (@ScottLevinTV) February 28, 2020
The blizzard above: Is brought to you by lake-effect snow coming off Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, reports KING 5.
Biden admits that he didn't get arrested in South Africa: On the campaign trail, former vice president Joe Biden has been telling crowds that he was arrested along with other members of a congressional delegation en route to see Nelson Mandela. He also said Mandela visited Biden in his office to thank him for risking arrest to see him. The New York Times reports that Biden is now walking back both of those claims. Kind of a big deal on the eve of the South Carolina primary, where FiveThirtyEight projects Biden to win big.
Seattle's top homelessness official resigns: Jason Johnson, a city boss who wasn't well liked by his own employees, announced his resignation as head of the Human Services Department, according to the Seattle Times. He'll stay on to oversee the transition of the city's homelessness services to the new county authority. Erica C. Barnett, who first posted the story on Twitter, says he wasn't fired.
Tax Amazon crowd plans march to Bezos's balls on Sunday:
On Sunday, March 1, #TaxAmazon will march to the Amazon spheres to demand:
âď¸ Tax big business NOT working people!
âď¸ Fund Social Housing and a Green New Deal!
â NO BAN ON TAXING BIG BUSINESS!
Join us! https://t.co/sR8daVhxFA pic.twitter.com/Lm0E9HoEPe
â #TaxAmazon! Join the Movement đĽ (@TaxAmazonMvt) February 27, 2020