President Donald Trump

Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious diseases expert, has broken with Donald Trump to warn that the world may never “go back to normal” after the coronavirus outbreak because the threat will linger, issuing the caution as America approaches 368,000 cases and 11,000 deaths.

The president has meanwhile persuaded India to lift an export ban on the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which his administration believes could be used to treat Covid-19 but others have dismissed as a “quack cure”, after threatening the superpower he visited in February with “retaliation” if it did not.

Democratic challenger Joe Biden will today continue his fight against Bernie Sanders to win the party’s nomination to challenge Trump in November after the Supreme Court of Wisconsin ruled the state’s primary election could go ahead in defiance of stay-at-home orders intended to limit contact and thwart the further spread of the outbreak.



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Dr Fauci breaks with Trump to warn: 'We may never go back to normal'
India lifts hydroxychloroquine export ban after president threatens ‘retaliation’
Trump says Americans are praying for ‘very special’ Boris Johnson
'Stop being horrid': President attacks reporters at latest press briefing
Wisconsin primary going ahead despite coronavirus concerns
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Wisconsin primary going ahead despite coronavirus concerns

The aforementioned Joe Biden will continue his fight against Bernie Sanders to win their party’s nomination to challenge President Trump in November today after the Supreme Court of Wisconsin ruled the state’s primary election could go ahead in defiance of stay-at-home orders intended to limit contact and thwart the further spread of the outbreak.

The state now finds itself a test case for dozens of others struggling to balance public health concerns with a core pillar of democracy.

The National Guard will help run voting sites across the state after thousands of election workers stepped down fearing for their safety. Dozens of polling places will be closed, but those that are active will open at 7am CDT. Results are not expected to be released on election night. In the wake of a legal battle over whether to conduct the election as scheduled, a court ruling appeared to prevent results from being made public earlier than 13 April.

Now that it is going ahead, Biden hopes the state will help deliver a knockout blow against Sanders, but the winner of Tuesday's contest may be less significant than Wisconsin's decision to allow voting at all. Its ability to host an election under the lash of a growing pandemic could have significant implications for upcoming primaries and even the fall general election.



"This is a warning sign for November and a problem that states need to take all steps to avoid," said Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center for Justice's democracy programme. "Americans should not have to choose between their health and their right to vote."

Democrats in and out of Wisconsin screamed for the low-profile contest to be postponed, yet Republicans - and the conservative-majority state Supreme Court - would not give in. The partisan split was coloured by a state Supreme Court election in which a lower turnout was thought to benefit the conservative candidate.

While Trump's health advisers encouraged all Americans to stay home, Wisconsin Republican Party chairman Andrew Hitt downplayed the heath concerns. The state had reported nearly 2,500 coronavirus infections and 77 related deaths as of Monday night.

"Wisconsin voters are pretty determined," Hitt said, noting that local residents are still going to the grocery store, the liquor store and even boating stores classified as essential businesses. "I can't really think of something more essential than voting."


Dr Anthony Fauci breaks with Trump to warn: 'We may never go back to normal'

A quick word on Doc Fauci, the top US infectious diseases expert, who broke with Trump yesterday to warn that the world may never “go back to normal” after the coronavirus outbreak is reined in and vaccines developed because the threat posed by the disease will linger.

"If 'back to normal' means acting like there never was a coronavirus problem, I don't think that's going to happen until we do have a situation where you can completely protect the population," he said.

"When we say 'getting back to normal' we mean something very different from what we're going through right now, because right now we are in a very intense mitigation."

President changes tack and says he could intervene in fired navy captain controversy

Finally from that press conference, Trump also indicated yesterday that he could step into an internal US Navy dispute about a fired aircraft carrier commander who was fired by the service's top civilian official for raising concerns about coronavirus spreading through his crew.

"I don't want to destroy somebody for having a bad day," the commander-in-chief said of Captain Brett Crozier, sounding a more concilliatory note on the issue than he has in recent days.

JTB has a little more on this.

Trump slams watchdog report on hospitals engulfed by virus

The president also got angry yesterday about a federal survey that found hospitals faced severe shortages of coronavirus test supplies, questioning whether its conclusions were skewed by politics.

The non-partisan Health and Human Services (HHS) inspector general's office reported on Monday morning that a shortage of tests and long waits for results were at the root of mounting problems faced by hospitals.

You can read it in full right here, should you so wish.

"Hospitals reported that severe shortages of testing supplies and extended waits for test results limited (their) ability to monitor the health of patients and staff," the report said.

Three out of four American hospitals told the inspector general's office they are already treating patients with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 and they expect to be overwhelmed.

Asked by a reporter about the report's finding on testing, Trump responded, "It is wrong."

"So, give me the name of the inspector general?" he asked before suggesting without evidence, "Could politics be entered into that?"

Acting in the role of HHS inspector general is Christi A Grimm, a career government manager who took over the position early this year in an interim capacity. "When was she appointed?" Trump asked.

Trump's comments carried an edge because last Friday he announced the firing of the inspector general of the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, for reporting to Congress the whistleblower complaint that the president tried to enlist Ukraine in investigating Joe Biden's son.

Grimm's title is principal deputy inspector general. She began her career with the agency more than 20 years ago.

"They did serve in the previous admin - you mean the Obama administration?" Trump asked a reporter who pressed on with questions. "Thank you for telling me that... there's a typical fake news deal."

The HHS inspector general's report was based on a telephone survey of 323 hospitals around the country, from 23-27 March. With hundreds of new coronavirus cases daily, the situation is becoming more dire for many the nation's 6,000 hospitals.

Trump maintains that virus testing has been a success story for his administration. Although testing is now ramping up, it's been a major source of complaints for weeks.


'Stop being horrid': President attacks reporters at latest press briefing and recounts Joe Biden call

The president also revealed in Monday's session that he had discussed the federal response to the coronavirus crisis with Democratic front-runner Joe Biden in an otherwise bad-tempered Q&A in which he duelled with more reporters for having the audacity to ask him questions.

Here he goes having another pot shot, telling a renowned journalist reporting on a White House crisis briefing that he "will never make it" in his chosen profession.
Amazingly, he got through his entire discussion of Biden without once calling him "Sleepy Joe" or otherwise insulting him.

Instead, he suprisied everyone by describing their 15-minute exchange as "a really wonderful, warm conversation".

Here's more from John T Bennett.

Trump says 'Americans are praying for' Boris Johnson after PM moved to intensive car

Trump says Americans are praying for ‘very special’ Boris Johnson as he battles Covid-19 in intensive care

Back to the man himself, who has been wishing British prime minister Boris Johnson a speedy recovery over his own fight with Covid-19.

"Americans are all praying for his recovery," Trump said during his White House briefing on Monday evening. "He's been a really good friend. He's been really something very special, strong, resolute, doesn't quit, doesn't give up."

The president said he asked two "leading companies" to contact officials in London about therapeutics that could be of help - without naming either one.

"We have contacted all of Boris's doctors and we'll see what's going to take place but they are ready to go," he added.

"When you get brought into intensive care, that gets very, very serious with this particular disease."

Phil Thomas has this report.

Trump trade adviser in heated debate with Dr Fauci over coronavirus measures

There are even deep divisions within the White House over the merits of hydroxychloroquine, with Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro muscling his way into the debate and even disputing the expertise of Dr Anthony Fauci and other members of the coronavirus task force during a heated debate in the Situation Room, according to CNN.

Subsequently asked about the feud on New Day, Navarro commented: "Doctors disagree about things all the time. My qualifications in terms of looking at the science is that I'm a social scientist.

"I have a PhD. And I understand how to read statistical studies, whether it's in medicine, the law, economics or whatever."

Hmmm.

Navarro was seen last week being given a dressing down by the same network's anchor Briana Kielar, who asked him: “Peter, why are you wasting your time on this and not solving the problem you have?"

Here's John T Bennett on a dubious new voice on the matter.




Trump adviser pushed into limelight already clashing with coronavirus experts
Fox guests calls anti-malaria drug pushed by White House 'quack cure' and calls promotion of it 'irresponsible'

With the US now approaching 368,000 cases of coronavirus and 11,000 deaths as the pandemic zeroes in on its peak, it is understandable that the Trump administration might be tempted by a quick fix for the crisis like hydroxychloroquine but ignoring the science is, quite frankly, breathtakingly reckless and places lives at risk.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo did say yesterday that early responses to the antimalarial drug “anecdotally” suggest its use in the coronavirus fight has been “effective", but others have dimissed it outright as a "quack cure".

Take this guest on Trump's beloved Fox News, for instance.

Biotech CEO William Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School professor and HIV/AIDs specialist, says it is "complete and utter nonsense" for the White House to be pushing it, as well as "irresponsible".


The American Medical Association's president, Dr Patrice Harris, meanwhile says she personally would not prescribe the drug for a coronavirus patient, saying the risks of severe side effects were "great and too significant to downplay" without large studies showing the drug is safe and effective for such use.

Dr Harris pointed to the drug's high risk of causing heart rhythm problems. "People have their health to lose," she said. "Your heart could stop."

Trump himself of course prefers to strike a more optimistic note, whatever the evidence to the contrary, telling his Twitter followers yesterday there is...

Combare that with the warning his surgeon general Dr Jerome Adams served up on Fox News Sunday: "The next week is going to be our Pearl Harbour moment. It's going to be our 9/11 moment. It's going to be the hardest moment for many Americans in their entire lives."

Joe Sommerlad
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India lifts hydroxychloroquine export ban after Trump threatens ‘retaliation’

Donald Trump has persuaded India to lift an export ban on the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which his administration believes could be used to treat coronavirus but others regard with scepticism, after threatening the country he visited in February with “retaliation” if it did not.

Indian foreign ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said in a statement on Tuesday that having confirmed sufficient supplies for India's needs, export restrictions "have been largely lifted."

The White House has been championing hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19, even though it hasn't been proven effective against the disease. The drug is officially approved in the US for treating malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus and experts warn it can cause heart rhythm problems.

Trump has said that he spoke to Indian prime minister Narendra Modi last week about lifting the ban and, in a news conference on Monday, said that he would be surprised if Modi didn't comply.

"If he doesn't allow it to come out, that would be OK, but of course there may be retaliation. Why wouldn't there be?" Trump said.

Here's Colin Drury's report