They really need to bring back the public pillory for people like Nunes

"I would like to see a dramatic diminution of the personal interaction we see in restaurants and bars...You could...be a vector or a carrier."
-- Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIAID director

"If you're healthy, you and your family, it's a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant...Go to your local pub."
-- Rep. Devin Nunes

NIAID is the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, that's the division where I go every year when I go to the National Institutes of Health. He's not one of the docs that I see, but it's nice to know that he's the boss of the docs that I see.

More COVID News

More airlines cancelling flights. The movie box office is tanking as theaters are closing seats to encourage social distancing. Movie productions are being suspended. The stock market at its lowest level since 9/11.

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The State of Illinois and City of Chicago are providing free meals for children, drive to any school. No questions asked.

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Disneyland/World are closed. Casinos in Las Vegas are closing tomorrow.

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In an interesting twist, the Federal government cannot cancel an election, but states can. Two states thus far have cancelled their primary elections. I don't know if they can cancel general elections.

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New York, New Jersey, Connecticut close bars and restaurants. NYC theaters are dark. NYC schools are also closed.

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Apple closed ALL of its stores, EXCEPT those in China! How crazy is that. I was in one Thursday getting an extended warranty for my new Watch 5, bought it at Target and they don't sell Apple Care there.

This is going to have an interesting further ripple effect on mall economics as retail slows and other stores start to close, as if they weren't shaky enough. Mall rents used to be based not only on the square footage of the pad the store occupied, but also on the store's revenues. So the money the property owner makes is going to plummet!

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Allegedly the Trump administration offered $1billion to a German medtech firm that has a promising vaccine treatment for exclusive U.S. rights to the drug. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/not-for-sale-anger-in-germany-at-report-trump-seeking-exclusive-coronavirus-vaccine-deal

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A hotel chain has offered to let its hotels be used as quarantines. Smart move since travel is so curtailed, they can at least get the gov't paying for beds.

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In UK news, Boris Johnson et al has come up with the brilliant plan that England can make their own respirators! COVID problem solved! Just like in World War 2 when everybody started making airplanes and tanks!

Yeah. A factory that used to make lawn mowers can now make lung pumps? Requiring precision electronics? Clean rooms? And more importantly, parts that are only available from Europe and China? It's going to be a fiasco, and a lot of these are going to fail in-place and kill people.

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Myself, I'm stopping working. I'm going in to work today to put interlibrary loan into shutdown as it was set to resume on Wednesday. I was in contact with a co-worker and she said patron traffic was really slow, so that's good. It'll give me a chance to catch up and get ahead of homework, and get a bunch of music converted and maybe refined for LOTRO. I don't like losing the money, but I got our taxes filed last night, so that should be coming in within a couple of weeks, so we'll be fine financially.