What a day. The stock market ripped higher on renewed expectations of a coronavirus bill agreement, death and infection totals have skyrocketed in New York, Jake Tapper corrected Joe Biden's cough etiquette, and Nancy Pelosi took the temperature of the room and recognized that voters don't like the idea of holding up relief in the name of the Green New Deal, loan forgiveness, amnesty for illegal aliens, and sanctuary cities.
Tallies of diagnosed cases of the Chinese coronavirus moved up throughout the day, especially in New York, where testing has been most concentrated. The case fatality rate (CFR), which had been trending down in the U.S., actually went up slightly today. The CFR is simply the number of dead divided by the number of confirmed cases. It moved from 1.2% this morning to 1.3% at time of writing.
There are currently 51,542 confirmed cases in the U.S. and 672 deaths. Worldwide, those numbers are 414,277 and 18,557, respectively.
New York, the American coronavirus capital, saw its largest single-day gain in cases--25,665--and deaths, 210. 60 of the deaths have come in the last 24 hours, approaching a rate of three deaths per hour in the state. As Gov. Andrew Cuomo noted in his morning address, the doubling rate for cases is once every three days. A peak is anticipated in 14 to 21 days.
If the infection rate were to remain linear, that would equal more than 3 million total cases in 21 days in New York alone.
As the White House reported, we have ramped up testing significantly in the past week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 11.37%, its largest daily gain since 1933. The NASDAQ was up 8.12%, and the S&P 500 was up 9.38%. Those gaudy numbers reflect not only the appetite for relief, but for bipartisanship.
Americans are eager to see Washington do something, anything, to address the virus. The question this morning was whether Congress would do something stupid, such as tacking ridiculous sums to liberal riders, pet projects of Nancy Pelosi and her Squad colleagues, or the more sober Senate bill.
If Twitter is any barometer of national mood, this morning's message was clear as a bell. Trending hashtags included #PelosiHatesAmericans, #PelosiChokesWhilePeopleGoBroke, and #PelosiForPrison. The writing was on the wall, and by midday, reports started to pour in that the Speaker had caved--for now--on her outrageous riders. The full Democrat wish list is 63 pages long.
The ugliest of the provisions that had nothing to do with assistance for reeling Americans included:
The modus operandi of the new Democrat party seems to be this: Pelosi will agree to air the demands of the far-left Squad caucus, but when their ideas meet too much resistance, she pulls the demands. It's a ridiculous way to do political business, but it seems to satisfy the party for now. Perhaps the strategy is to repeatedly air silly ideas, hoping that the public will begin to accept them over time.
After such a dramatic day, it was nice to find some comedy in the afternoon hours. Joe Biden made appearances on several networks today, fielding questions and proving his ability to complete sentences after yesterday's disastrous "shadow conference" live stream.
The clip above is must-see TV. Jake Tapper, like a child nagging a parent about a bad habit, took Biden to task over a cough. Biden coughed into his hand, not the preferred elbow method, and the news anchor was visibly offended. Tapper corrected Biden's "old school" manners, to which Biden protested that he was "home alone."
Really, Joe? You set up the camera? No crew? There's no campaign staff there? Just a 77 year-old hanging out, taking interviews, patching into various TV networks?
Come on, man!
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