Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s new European travel restrictions have a convenient side effect: They exempt nations where three Trump-owned golf resorts are located. Trump is already under fire for visiting his properties in both countries as president, leading to U.S. taxpayer money being spent at his own firms. The president has been saddled with lawsuits and investigations throughout his term alleging that he’s violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause by accepting taxpayer money other than his salary. The U.S. government…

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The Guardian reports: Up to 10,000 people may already have coronavirus in Britain and many families should expect to lose loved ones before their time, Boris Johnson warned on Thursday as he set out measures less stringent than those taken by other countries. Medical, scientific and public health experts criticised the steps outlined to tackle what the prime minister described as the “worst public health crisis for a generation”, including ending school trips abroad, stopping older and vulnerable people taking…

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The Guardian reports: The EU has condemned Donald Trump’s unilateral ban on travel from 26 European countries as urgent efforts to contain the rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic continued to upend daily life for millions of people around the world. Ireland, Austria, Turkey and Norway on Thursday joined the growing list of countries to close all schools, universities and kindergartens, while Italy – by far the hardest-hit European nation – said its death tally rose to 1,016 from 827,…

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Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me! https://t.co/rQVA4ER0PV — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 8, 2020 Politico reports: President Donald Trump is reluctant to declare an expansive emergency to combat the escalating coronavirus outbreak, fearful of stoking panic with such a dramatic step, according to three people familiar with the situation. Instead, the president is expected to sign within days a more limited designation to allow the federal government to cover small business loans, paychecks for…

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Reuters reports: The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, an unusual step that has restricted information and hampered the U.S. government’s response to the contagion, according to four Trump administration officials. The officials said that dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions have been held since mid-January in a high-security meeting room at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), a key…

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Dali L. Yang writes: Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, was getting ready in early January for the Jan. 6-17 “two sessions,” where local and provincial leaders would gather to discuss the state of affairs at the local/provincial levels. These sessions take place annually throughout China, and authorities mobilize stability maintenance systems to get rid of troublemakers and forestall protests. Local authorities are also motivated by the desire to hide undesirable developments from Beijing. When experts from Beijing arrived to…

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The New York Times reports: Dr. Helen Y. Chu, an infectious disease expert in Seattle, knew that the United States did not have much time. In late January, the first confirmed American case of the coronavirus had landed in her area. Critical questions needed answers: Had the man infected anyone else? Was the deadly virus already lurking in other communities and spreading? As luck would have it, Dr. Chu had a way to monitor the region. For months, as part…

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Business Insider reports: As of Sunday, 1,707 Americans had been tested for the novel coronavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. South Korea, by contrast, has tested more than 189,000 people. The two countries announced their first coronavirus cases on the same day. In the US, test-kit shortages have hampered health authorities’ ability to get a clear sense of how many Americans are infected. Compared with many other countries affected by the coronavirus, in fact, the US…

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Time magazine reports: An annual intelligence report that has been postponed without explanation by President Donald Trump’s administration warns that the U.S. remains unprepared for a global pandemic, two senior government officials who have reviewed a draft of the report tell TIME. The office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was scheduled to deliver the Worldwide Threat Assessment to the House Intelligence Committee on Feb. 12 and the hearing has not been rescheduled, according to staffers and members of…

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Gabriel Sherman writes: Trump’s press conference on Friday at the CDC was a Trumpian classic, heavy on braggadocio and almost entirely lacking a sense of the seriousness of the crisis. “I like this stuff. I really get it,” Trump told reporters, his face partly hidden under a red “Keep America Great” hat. “People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors say, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe…

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