Monthly Archives: April 2020

WASHINGTON Russian spies are likely using the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to collect intelligence on U.S. supply lines, which have struggled to provide adequate medical equipment, according to an intelligence report issued earlier this week by the Department of Homeland Security and obtained by Yahoo News.

The Russian intelligence services likely are watching the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, says says an April 6 intelligence bulletin produced by the DHS Counterintelligence Mission Center.

Intelligence collection on medical supply chain vulnerabilities could inform future operations aimed at weakening key logistical elements in preparation for a wartime attack, or opportunistically during an emergency, the document says.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the report comes at a time when the U.S. has surpassed other countries in coronavirus cases, while also facing domestic concerns about shortfalls in medical supplies, particularly for personal protective equipment, or PPE, for health care providers. After weeks of delays, President Trump last month authorized the use of the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of equipment, including ventilators and N95 respirator masks.

Moscow, in the meantime, has already scored some major public relations coups amid the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier this month, Russia sent a planeload of medical equipment to the United States in what at first appeared to be a donation, though it was later revealed that the United States paid for supplies.

On Friday, President Trump spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the coronavirus pandemic, the White House announced.

Last month, Russia flew in plane loads of medical equipment and more than 100 personnel to Italy as part of what it describes a humanitarian mission. But La Stampa, an Italian newspaper, reported that Russian military intelligence officials were also on those flights.

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Michael Carpenter, managing director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, told Yahoo News he wasnt surprised by the reports claims, given how Russia operates. Russian intelligence service is always probing vulnerabilities among adversaries. Its not surprising even in the midst of a pandemic where they are supposed to be focusing on their own safety and health, theyre scrutinizing our supply chain vulnerabilities, our critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and so forth, said Carpenter, who previously served as a senior Pentagon official responsible for Russia.

This pandemic is essentially a war game of countries resilience, how command and control works, how governments respond rapidly, he added.

The unclassified DHS report notes that Russia has since January conducted a disinformation campaign related to the coronavirus epidemic. DHS also expects that Russia will use the current crisis as a way to improve its future information operations.

We expect the Kremlin analyzes American public reaction to disinformation and adjusts techniques to maximize the impact both during the current COVID-19 situation and in the future, such as Russias ongoing 2020 election interference, the report says.

Daniel Hoffman, a retired CIA senior Intelligence Officer, said that Russia is using its propaganda to send a not so cryptic message to the U.S. government. "The Russians are well aware that we know what our vulnerabilities are," he said. "Implicitly threatening us, the Kremlin wants us to know they also know our vulnerabilities."

Russia Likely Watching US R... by Sharon Weinberger on Scribd

Another target of Kremlin propaganda are Russians, according to Bret Schafer, a media and digital disinformation fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. During the 2016 presidential elections, the Kremlin-directed interference campaign spread conspiracy theories.

Now its different, according to Schafer. Instead, the narrative framing from state-backed outlets has generally been to portray the Russian governments response to the crisis as competent, while framing the EU and U.S.s response as inept, he wrote in an email to Yahoo news.

Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., agreed that the focus of Russian information operations now appears to be on a domestic audience. The goal is to show Russians what Putin is accomplishing, she says.

Im sure they're watching as different parts of our supply chain are breaking down under this unique environment, she says. They can use that to broadcast at home.

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Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and the WHOs resource guides.

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Exclusive: Russia collecting intelligence on U.S. supply line failures amid coronavirus crisis, DHS warns - Yahoo News

By Deena Beasley

(Reuters) - More than two-thirds of severely ill COVID-19 patients saw their condition improve after treatment with remdesivir, an experimental drug being developed by Gilead Sciences Inc., according to new data based on patient observation.

The analysis, published on Friday by the New England Journal of Medicine, does not detail what other treatments the 61 hospitalized patients were given and data on eight of them were not included -- in one case because of a dosing error.

The paper's author called the findings "hopeful," but cautioned that it is difficult to interpret the results since they do not include comparison to a control group, as would be the case in a randomized clinical trial. In addition, the patient numbers were small, the details being disclosed are limited, and the follow-up time was relatively short.

There are currently no approved treatments or preventive vaccines for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 100,000 people worldwide.

Gilead last month sharply limited its compassionate use program for remdesivir and is conducting its own clinical trials of the antiviral drug, with results expected in coming weeks. Researchers in China as well as the U.S. National Institutes of Health are also testing the drug in COVID-19 patients.

The new analysis includes patients in the United States, Europe, Canada and Japan who received a 10-day course of intravenous remdesivir.

Before the treatment, 30 patients were on mechanical ventilators, and four were on a machine that pumps blood from the patient's body through an artificial oxygenator. After a median follow-up of 18 days, 36 patients, or 68%, had an improvement in oxygen-support class, including more than half of the 30 patients receiving mechanical ventilation who had their breathing tubes removed. A total of 25 patients, or 47%, were discharged from the hospital. Seven patients, 13% of the total, died.

Twelve patients, 23%, had serious side effects including multiple-organ-dysfunction syndrome, septic shock and acute kidney injury.

"We look forward to the results of controlled clinical trials to potentially validate these findings," wrote Dr. Jonathan Grein, the paper's lead author and director of hospital epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles.

(Reporting By Deena Beasley; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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Two thirds of COVID-19 patients improve after Gilead drug - NEJM - Yahoo Money

Tom Brady and Donald Trump hung out through the years. Then the friendship got complicated.

Trump ran for U.S. President in 2016 and won. Brady, then the New England Patriots quarterback, pretty much stopped discussing his friend in public, hoping to avoid controversy. Trump continues to bring up Brady, however.

Brady had perhaps the most expansive interview of his career on Wednesday, spending hours on The Howard Stern Show discussing a number of topics. Stern is renowned for his skills as an interviewer and he got Brady discussing Trump, something he has been reluctant to talk about for years.

It became a big deal when reporters noticed a Make America Great Again hat in Bradys locker after Trump was running for office. That and Bradys well-known friendship with Trump led to an awkward spot in which Brady was being asked political questions he clearly didnt want to answer.

Stern had a friendship with Trump too. Trump was a frequent guest on Sterns show, and Stern said Trump came to his wedding. Stern related to Brady that way.

I dont know where youre at politically, but it was weird because there was a time when Donald called me up and said, I want you to speak at the Republican convention, Stern recalled. And Donald can be very forceful. It was weird, I was actually a Hillary Clinton supporter, I was really into her. It was awkward for me because he was asking me to do that and I had to say no to him, and its not an easy thing to do somebody who has been kind to you. Did you get asked the same thing? I imagine he wanted you to endorse him.

Yeah, Brady said. Well, he wanted me to speak at that convention too, and I wasnt going to do anything political.

Brady said he met Trump in 2001 and the friendship evolved as Bradys football career took off.

He would call me after games, I watched your game Tom, lets play golf together, Brady told Stern. So 2003, 2004, thats kind of the way it was. He would come up to our games and stand on the sideline and cheer for the Patriots. He had a way of connecting with people, and still does. But the whole political aspect came, and I got brought into a lot of those things because it was so polarizing around the election time. It was uncomfortable to me. You cant undo things not that I would undo a friendship but the political support is totally different than the support of a friend.

Brady said he felt getting involved in the political realm could have affected his job of being the quarterback to teammates who might not have been voting for Trump.

Tom Brady chats with Donald Trump at a 2005 boxing match. (Photo by Donna Connor/WireImage)

Brady explained how he felt uncomfortable juggling his friendship with Trump and the sudden political implications involved with that.

I didnt want to support, I didnt want to get into all the political ... theres zero win in anything in regards to that. Its politics, Brady told Stern. The whole political realm right now ... Im a person, from my standpoint, to embrace leadership. I got brought together in a locker room where I was trying to get along with everybody. In an outward sense, when you start talking about politics is about how you do you not bring people together, which is the opposite of what politics should have always been in our country.

From my profession, leadership and responsibility is about embracing the whole and trying to bring people together to lead them to a common goal. Now, theres a lot of different agendas and goals.

Brady said there was never a rift in the locker room over his Trump friendship,

Did teammates ever get pissed off at you for your relationship? Stern asked.

No, no, never, Brady said. They know me. They know who I am. I was with them every day.

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Stern switched topics, bringing up Trumps previous desire to have Brady date his daughter Ivanka. Brady had a round of awkward laughter over the question.

That was a long time ago, Brady said. That was a long time ago in my life.

Brady said Trump never told him he wanted him to date his daughter, but Stern said Trump had said that on his show before.

There was never that where we dated or anything like that, Brady said.

Then Brady, who is married to supermodel Gisele Bndchen, relied on one of his best media skills, which is deflecting during an awkward question.

It all worked out for me anyway, Brady said. I married the woman of my dreams.

Tom Brady and Donald Trump playing golf in January of 2006. (Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)

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WASHINGTON Reprising the skeptical tone he has applied to the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, President Trump accused the World Health Organization of helping China conceal the number of its citizens that have been infected by the coronavirus.

I do believe they knew, the president said at Fridays briefing of the coronavirus task force, suggesting that the WHO was aware that China was not being truthful about the scope of COVID-19 infections. But they didnt want to tell the world. And were gonna get to the bottom of it.

Trump did not provide evidence to support his assertion, but he made clear that the international public health organization would remain a primary target in the coming days. We're going to talk about the WHO next week in great detail. I didn't want to do it today, Good Friday. I didn't want to do it before Easter, and also didn't want to do it before we have all the facts, he said.

Fridays comments came during a week in which Trump has repeatedly blamed the WHO for improperly handling the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, he said that the WHO was very biased toward China.

Trump has said he wants to put a hold on U.S. funding to the WHO, although when or how he intends to do so remains unclear (funding is appropriated by Congress). The United States contributed $893 million to the WHO for its current two-year funding period, while Chinas latest contribution was $86 million.

Were paying them more than 10 times more than China, the president said. And they are very, very China-centric.

The source of Trumps irritation appears to be that the WHO did not endorse his restriction on travel from China to the United States, which he implemented on Jan. 31. Four days before that, a WHO guidance advised against unnecessary restrictions of international traffic.

More broadly, the president appears to be annoyed that the WHO has generally praised Chinas response to the pandemic, which originated within its borders, in the southeastern city of Wuhan. Praise for China has indeed been fulsome from WHO officials. Dr. Bruce Aylward, a Canadian epidemiologist who led the WHO team in China, told Yahoo News that if he were to get infected by the coronavirus, he would seek treatment in China.

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They know how to keep people alive, he said.

Aylward added, however, that Chinese epidemiologists learned much of what they know from American counterparts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Praise for China has irked some in the United States, Trumps allies in particular. They believe that Trump has been unfairly maligned while China has been unfairly celebrated. Instead of acting in the best interest of our global health, the WHO has served as a propaganda arm for the Chinese government, Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., wrote on Twitter earlier this week. She said she supported a funding freeze.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has also criticized the WHO for what he perceives as its overly solicitous attitude towards China.

Earlier this week, Trump also charged that the WHO minimized the threat very strongly. That appears to be a reference to a Jan. 14 tweet from the WHO that declared that Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. That would prove an incorrect assertion. Trump has also made false assertions about the coronavirus, including that it would vanish of its own accord.

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Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

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The coronavirus pandemic has put production on the next season of The Bachelorette on hold, while ABC has scrapped plans for its Bachelor Summer Games spinoff. But fans in need of a Bachelor Nation fix while they quarantine need look no further than their favorite online bookstore, where theyll find a brand-spanking-new memoir courtesy of Colton Underwood.

Published on March 31, The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV unravels the former Bachelors personal history and complicated experience on the dating show. which notoriously played up his status as a then-26-year-old virgin. (Incidentally, Underwood, who is still dating final rose recipient Cassie Randolph, is more tight-lipped about his status these days.)

Speaking to Yahoo Entertainment from Randolphs family home in California where the couple is isolating following Underwoods bout of COVID-19, from which he has since recovered the former reality star addressed some of his books biggest revelations, including his frustrations with producers he felt sometimes crossed the line while filming Season 23 of The Bachelor.

Colton Underwood (pictured with girlfriend Cassie Randolph) spills behind-the-scenes details about his experience on The Bachelor in his new memoir. (Photo: John Fleenor via Getty Images)

I tried to stay really professional with it because theres sort of this fine line, Underwood shared. I understand its showbusiness, I understand what I signed up for, but its still also my personal life. They have another season, another Bachelor to move onto, and I have my life and my decisions that I make on the show carry on into my real life.

Im so appreciative of the franchise and Im very grateful for their opportunities, but of course theres some things we disagreed on, theres some frustrations on my behalf, and Im sure there were things I could have done better for them as well, so Im not downplaying that at all. But when it came to my relationship, I didnt want them to get in the way, and I felt at times there were some certain things that happened that just sort of crossed the line in my opinion.

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That said, Underwood underscored that his book isnt about trashing the franchise, but rather an opportunity to describe his constant struggle with finding love within the constraints of a hugely popular TV show.

But neither Underwood nor Randolph who abruptly left the show in Week 9 after expressing doubts about getting engaged, prompting her beaus infamous fence-jumping moment conformed to the standard Bachelor formula, which caused some friction.

I dont know exactly what their game plan was, I dont know exactly what they wanted out of it, said Underwood, who has written that producers appeared to discourage his romance with Randolph. There was a part of me that maybe thought they just wanted an engagement, and they wanted me to go with somebody who was going to be ready for that, and I dont think they thought Cassie was ready at the time. But that wasnt for them to decide. I signed up for the show to find somebody who I could spend the rest of my life with, and if Cassie wasnt ready for the show, to say yes at the end of the show, but shes going to be ready in a year from now, then Im willing to put in the work, Im willing to be patient, Im willing to compromise [on] what I went into the show expecting at the end. I can change thats allowed, for people to change what they want.

Underwood says that Bachelor producers meddled in his relationship with Randolph on the show. (Photo: Paul Archuleta/Getty Images)

Despite his frustrations, Underwood added that has no hard feelings for his former Bachelor producers, saying theres a mutual respect. But he felt that showrunner interference could be responsible for sabotaging some of the on-screen romances. (Though Underwood didnt name them, neither the last Bachelor, Peter Weber, or the last Bachelorette, Hannah Brown, ended up with their final picks.)

Theyre very good at their job, they know what theyre doing and they have a hit show, he said. Im not here to bash or say anything poorly about them, but theres also a point where I just want to stand up and say, Hey, you guys need to get back to what makes the show so special, and what people love about this show, and thats love.

You look back at the last few Bachelorettes and Bachelors, and they didnt end with love, and you have to sort of ask yourself, why is that? I havent watched those two [seasons] but Ive seen through social media, and even just talking to people, the frustration of [things behind the scenes] that maybe lead to ... not having that fairy-tale ending that theyre used to. I dont know, I just hope that Claire [Crawley, the next Bachelorette] comes out of it very happy at the end of her season.

Underwood admitted that he didnt regret being so open about his virginity during his time on the show, saying, Do I wish that maybe they could have handled it a little different? Of course, [and] I could have handled certain situations different as well. He also laughed as he revealed how his grandma called him up after she read in The First Time about how hed use fake yawns to signal to producers that he had a boner during a hot-and-heavy moment.

And more than a year into his relationship with Randolph, Underwood shared that things are going great.

Obviously were like any other couple, he said. At times it gets hard relationships are hard, and on certain days you have to work harder on that relationship than on others but overall its been a good experience, and weve been very open and honest with each other about expectations, what we want out of the relationship. Weve been supportive of each other, and I cant say enough good things about her.

Video produced by Jon San

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Colton Underwood says 'Bachelor' producers 'crossed the line' by meddling in his relationship with Cassie Randolph - Yahoo Entertainment

(Editor's note: Attention to expletives in 4th and 9th paragraphs that some may find offensive.)

By Nick Brown

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sam remembers the moment he realized he could no longer smile at patients. He was helping a nervous man suffering from COVID-19 at the New York City hospital where he works as a nurse. The patient cracked a joke, and Sam laughed. Then he felt air in his eye.

It was a bleak moment, he said.

The smile had lifted Sams N95 respirator mask off his face, creating an air leak. With COVID-19, the deadly respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, transmittable through the air, thats a risk.

A big smile helps things feel less scary, said Sam, who was not authorized to speak to the media and asked that his last name not be used. Not having that, in a time when my patients are scared shitless, is challenging.

Already battling overcrowded hospitals and equipment shortages, healthcare workers on the front lines of New York's coronavirus outbreak say the highly contagious virus has hampered their ability to comfort patients fighting to stay alive.

COVID-19 has infected more than 161,000 people in New York and killed 7,000.

One of nurse Peggy Desiderio's elderly coronavirus patients at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan calls her into her room every time she walks by. But Desiderio doesnt have much to give.

I have to say wait a minute, then put on my PPE, says Desiderio, referring to personal protective equipment like masks, gloves and gowns. Then I feel guilty because I need to rush her. She really needs company, a human voice.

`YOU WANT TO SMILE`

When one coronavirus patient wandered from her room in search of a nurse, Sam said, Normally wed politely redirect her. Now its more like screaming: Get back in the fucking room.

A good bedside manner is crucial for Dr. Sonika Randev, 35, a physical medicine and rehabilitation resident at Metropolitan Hospital Center in Manhattan.

Randev provides palliative care to terminal COVID-19 patients and assesses the physical and mental capacity of elderly patients who may have recovered enough to leave the hospital. "Our responsibility is to comfort them," she said.

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Through tears, Randev recalled trying to tell an elderly patient with early signs of dementia, through layers of PPE, that he could not yet go home to his family. You want to smile, you want to hold their hand, she said.

Occasionally, frail COVID-19 patients fall out of bed, said Emily Muzyka, a nurse at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Normally, nurses would rush to help, but now, Muzyka says, they must pause to first put on gowns, masks and gloves.

Muzyka has held patients hands through final breaths in the past, but things have changed.

If I have to do that now, she said, it will be through gloves.

A lack of warmth from doctors can make an already stressful hospital visit harder to bear, said Jacqueline Sperling, a psychologist and instructor at Harvard Medical School, saying that doctors looking to make patients experiences a little smoother can try to smile with their eyes.

One can sometimes determine the emotion someone is communicating just by seeing the eyes, Sperling said. "Practice in front of a mirror at home. See what that looks like, remember through muscle memory.

Some doctors are finding other ways to create bonds.

Randev is planning to show patients photos of herself on her phone, or via printouts, so they can see what she looks like unmasked, hoping it will make patients feel a little safer.

To be able to say, Hi, my name is Sonika, and this is me, she said. This is what I look like. I know its scary.

(Reporting by Nick Brown; editing by Ross Colvin and Leslie Adler)

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Flags fly at full staff outside the NYSE on 9 April 2020 in New York City

US stocks have just recorded their biggest weekly gain since 1974 despite the bleak economic outlook.

Wall Street's S&P 500 shares index has risen 12% this week, as the US central bank announced more stimulus measures to support the economy.

Financial markets have experienced extreme volatility as the economic impact from the coronavirus worsens.

Gold prices hit a seven-year high with many investors still remaining cautious about the future of the global economy.

"It looks like the Fed are on a mission to blow holes in every dam that stops the flow of credit. And it sure sounds like they have plenty more dynamite if needed," said Stephen Innes, global chief market strategist at Axicorp.

"Markets have been encouraged by corona curves flattening in Europe, exits from lockdowns in China, and talk of economic reopening globally. The level optimism has caught virtually everyone by surprise."

On Thursday, the Federal Reserve said an additional $2.3 trillion was available to support debt markets saying it would act "forcefully, pro-actively, and aggressively" to combat an economic tidal wave.

The strong words came after data showed US jobless claims jumped by 6.6 million, taking the three-week total to more than 16 million unemployed and seeking benefits.

The Fed's chairman Jerome Powell emphasised the central bank's measures were temporary, but that there was "no limit" to the dollar amounts it can deploy for programmes already on the books.

Markets were also lifted by comments from Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who said there may end up being fewer fatalities from the coronavirus than earlier forecast.

He placed the number at around 60,000 Americans, compared to earlier estimates of up to 240,000 deaths.

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The original TB12 isnt as impressed with the current TB12 as most everyone else is.

Appearing Thursday on 97.3 the Fan in Pittsburgh, Terry Bradshaw rattled off various quarterbacks whom Bradshaw regards as more talented than Tom Brady.

I dont think hes the greatest quarterback of all time, Bradshaw said, via the New York Post. Its hard to say. He may be the best quarterback weve had in the last 30 years. Is he better than [Roger] Staubach? No. Is he better than Dan Fouts? No. Dan Marino? No. Im talking talent-wise when youre putting all of it together.

Does he have more Super Bowls than anybody? Yes. Therefore, hes the best. I absolutely have no problem saying it. If youve got the most Super Bowls, you can be in there, but I dont put anybody as the greatest of all time. . . . Is he better than Montana? Not in my opinion. Is he better than Drew Brees? Yeah, maybe.

Bradshaw also isnt impressed with the drama surrounding Brady after 20 seasons in New England.

Im a little bit tired of all this soap opera going on between him and Belichick,Bradshaw said. Look, he left because he wanted to prove something, and he wants to prove to everyone that he can win without Bill Belichick.

The comments continue a recent trend by Bradshaw, who believes Brady wants to show he was more important to the Patriots success than Belichick. As both men move forward without the other, the performances of the Patriots and Buccaneers will be compared as closely as any two teams, in any sport.

Terry Bradshaw doesnt think Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time originally appeared on Pro Football Talk

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In his 2014 book The Loudest Voice in the Room, journalist Gabriel Sherman reported that top Fox News executives meet every morning to strategize about how the network can angle its daily coverage to advance the Republican Partys political agenda.

After first downplaying the threat of the coronavirus, then accusing Democrats of overhyping it to hurt President Trump, then claiming the cure of shutting down the economy could be worse than the disease, Fox News hosts now seem to be following a new set of marching orders when discussing the deadly pathogen: questioning whether all that many people are really dying from it.

Like each of its predecessors, Foxs latest pandemic talking point that the coronavirus death toll could be exaggerated because it includes individuals who had other health issues in addition to COVID-19 doesnt stand up to scrutiny.

Weve made it very clear, every time Ive been up here, about the comorbidities, Dr. Deborah Birx, the U.S. coronavirus response coordinator, said Wednesday during the White House coronavirus task force press briefing. This has been known from the beginning. So those individuals will have an underlying condition, but that underlying condition did not cause their acute death when its related to a COVID infection.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, also made a point to weigh in, cautioning against such conspiracy theories.

They are nothing but distractions, Fauci said. Let somebody write a book about it later on. But not now.

Yet that didnt stop former Fox News host Brit Hume from appearing on Tucker Carlsons show Tuesday to speculate that the overall U.S. death toll by Thursday,more than 14,800 and rising may be inflated.

There are lots of people who are asymptomatic who may have other terrible diseases, Hume said. And if everybody is being automatically classified, if theyre found to have COVID-19, as a COVID-19 death, were going to get a very large number of deaths that way, and were probably not going to have an accurate count of what the real death total is.

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Carlson agreed, adding that there may be reasons people seek an inaccurate death count and that when journalists work with numbers, there sometimes is an agenda.

As if on cue, Fox anchor Harris Faulkner joined the chorus Wednesday even though she is a member of the networks news division, not an opinion host like Carlson or an analyst like Hume.

The federal government now is classifying all COVID-19 patient deaths as such, regardless of whether any other underlying health issues were a factor, Faulkner said before playing a clip of Birx confirming that if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.

How many of those people had other health risks at play, though, and maybe it wasnt in fact COVID-19 that caused their death? Faulkner asked.

Despite the furrowed brows on Fox, however, Faulkners question isnt all that hard to answer. According to actual experts, if theres any problem with the COVID-19 death count, its not that its too high.

Its that its too low.

The first thing to note is that despite all the innuendo on Fox, there is nothing unusual about the way the media or the government is counting coronavirus deaths. In any crisis whether its a pandemic or a hurricane people with preexisting conditions will die. The standard for attributing such deaths to the current crisis is determining whether those people would have died when they did even if the current crisis had never happened.

When it comes to the coronavirus, the data is clear: COVID-19 is much more likely to kill you if your system has already been compromised by some other ailment, such as asthma, HIV, diabetes mellitus, chronic lung disease or cardiovascular disease. But that doesnt mean patients with those health problems would have died this week (or last week, or next month) no matter what. The vast majority of them probably wouldnt have. COVID-19 was the catalyst the reason they died now and not later.

Given the potentially large number of asymptomatic cases circulating in the population, its possible, as Hume suggested, that some number of people who never got sick from the coronavirus but tested positive and then died from a different underlying cause are being mistakenly counted as COVID-19 deaths. But that number is likely to be vanishingly small, for one simple reason: People who dont feel sick arent getting tested.

Much larger is the number of people who arent getting tested even though they have experienced symptoms. And thats why, contra Fox News, experts say the coronavirus death toll is almost certainly an undercount. As Birx noted, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counts only deaths in which the presence of the coronavirus is confirmed by a test. But as the New York Times reported Sunday, inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision making from one state or county to the next have made it impossible to test every likely coronavirus death. Victims with flulike symptoms in February and early March werent tested. Victims in rural areas, where coroners say they dont have the tools they need to detect the disease, still arent being tested. Victims who die at home or in overburdened nursing homes arent being tested.

Meanwhile, postmortem testing by medical examiners varies widely across the country, and some officials say testing the dead is a misuse of scarce resources that could be used on the living, the Washington Post reported over the weekend. In addition, some people who have the virus test negative, experts say.

You cant rely on just the laboratory-confirmed cases, Marc-Alain Widdowson, an epidemiologist who left the CDC last year and now serves as director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp in Belgium, told the Post. Youre never going to apply the test on everybody who is ill and everybody who dies. So without doubt its a truism the number of deaths are underestimated globally.

When adjudicating debates over the data, its worth checking both sides sources. In the case of the Times, the Post and other mainstream news outlets, these sources include hospital officials, doctors, public health experts and medical examiners. Fox News sources, on the other hand, appear to be right-wing media figures such as Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin. People die on this planet every day, Limbaugh said during anApril 2 segmenton the massive speculation that virus patients may actually be dying because of other things; Levin has suggested that heart failure, heart disease, a heart attack may account for an inflated and extraordinarily misleading number of reported COVID-19 fatalities.

I have suspected this for weeks, Levin crowed Tuesday on Twitter.

Yet when Faulkner asked her panel Wednesday whether comorbidities were inflating the overall COVID-19 death count, Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat said, I dont think its going to be a huge discrepancy in the data in the end.

A day earlier, even Trump himself described the death count as very, very accurate.

When you say death counts, I think theyre pretty accurate on the death counts, Trump said. The death counts, I think, they are very, very accurate.

Cover thumbnail photo: Alex Brandon/AP, Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

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Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

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Fox News says the coronavirus death toll is inflated. Experts say the opposite. - Yahoo News

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon says there should have been a pandemic playbook to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, and the lack of preparation is part of a larger set of problems facing the country.

As a nation, we were clearly not equipped for this global pandemic, and the consequences have been devastating, Dimon wrote in his firms widely-read annual letter to JPMorgan shareholders.

The outspoken bank CEO went on to provide a laundry list of flaws in the U.S. beyond the lack of preparedness for the pandemic, from education to infrastructure, which he argues can be fixed in a non-partisan manner.

Dimon wrote: Our inner city schools dont graduate half of their students and dont give our children an education that leads to a livelihood; our healthcare system is increasingly costly with many of our citizens lacking any access; and nutrition and personal health arent even being taught at many schools. Obesity has become a national scourge. We have a litigation and regulatory system that cripples small businesses with red tape and bureaucracy; ineffective infrastructure planning and investment; and huge waste and inefficiency at both the state and federal levels. We have failed to put proper immigration policies in place; our social safety nets are poorly designed; and the share of wages for the bottom 30% of Americans has effectively been going down.

We need to acknowledge these problems and the damage they have done if we are ever going to fix them, he said.

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If theres a silver lining to the current coronavirus crisis, its forcing us to work together and improving civility and remind us that we live on one planet.

I am hoping that civility, humanity, empathy and the goal of improving America will break through. We have the resources to emerge from this crisis as a stronger country, Dimon added.

He went on to sing Americas praises as the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen built on plentiful natural resources; friendly neighboring countries; and rights and values including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and freedom of speech, religion and enterprise.

Jamie Dimon, Chairman & CEO of JP Morgan Chase & Co, speaks during the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York on September 25, 2019. (KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)

These gifts have led to the most dynamic economy the world has ever seen one that nurtures vibrant businesses large and small, exceptional universities, and a welcoming environment for innovation, science and technology, he wrote. America was an idea borne on principles, not based upon historical relationships and tribal politics. It has and will continue to be a beacon of hope for the world and a magnet for the worlds best and brightest.

All said, the 64-year-old executive remains hopeful that this crisis can bring people together to recognize our shared responsibility, acting in a way that reflects the best of all of us.

As we have seen in past crises of this magnitude, there will come a time when we will look back and it will be clear how we at all levels of society, government, business, healthcare systems, and civic and humanitarian organizations could have been and will be better prepared to face emergencies of this scale. While the inclination of some will be to finger-point and look for blame, I hope we can avoid that. I also hope we can avoid people using times of crisis to argue for what they already believe. We need to demand more of ourselves and our leaders if we want to prevent or mitigate these disasters.

According to Dimon, attacking these problems would help the country prepare for these catastrophic events and create better economic outcomes for everyone and strengthen Americas role in the world.

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JPMorgans Dimon: 'There should have been a pandemic playbook' - Yahoo News