Newark Public Safety Director Anthony F. Ambrose strongly urges the public against posting false information on social media regarding the presence of the coronavirus in the City of Newark.
“Any false reporting of the coronavirus in our city will result in criminal prosecution,” Director Ambrose said. “We are putting forth every investigative effort to identify anyone making false allegations on social media to ensure that any posted misinformation is immediately addressed.”
Director Ambrose adds that misleading information on social media may cause an unnecessary public alarm.
“The State of New Jersey has laws regarding causing a false public alarm and we will enforce those laws,” Ambrose said. “Individuals who make any false or baseless reports about the coronavirus in Newark can set off a domino effect that can result in injury to residents and visitors and affect schools, houses of worship, businesses and entire neighborhoods,” he added.
New Jersey law doesn’t threaten to punish people for honest (even unreasonable) mistakes in what they say about epidemics or other immediate threats, but it does forbid certain knowing lies, see N.J. Stats. 2C § 33-3:
(a) [A] person is guilty of a crime … if he initiates or circulates a report or warning of an impending fire, explosion, crime, catastrophe, emergency, or any other incident knowing that the report or warning is false or baseless and that it is likely to cause evacuation of a building, place of assembly, or facility of public transport, or to cause public inconvenience or alarm.
(b) A person is guilty of a [more serious crime] if the false alarm involves a report or warning of an impending bombing, hostage situation, person armed with a deadly weapon …, or any other incident that elicits an immediate or heightened response by law enforcement or emergency services.
(c) A person is guilty of a [similarly serious crime] if the false alarm involves a report or warning about … any building, place of assembly, or facility [in the State] that is indispensably necessary for national security, economic stability, or public safety….
Such bans on these sorts of knowing lies are likely constitutional (and might even be constitutional if applied to “reckless” falsehoods, which is to say statements that the speaker knows are probably though not certainly false).
U.S. v. Alvarez (2012) did hold that some lies are constitutionally protected; there, the Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act, which broadly banned lies about one’s own military decorations. But the two-Justice concurrence concluded that lies are generally less protected than other speech, and in particular that lies that are likely to cause tangible harm (beyond just the emotional distress or misplaced affection created by the deceit) are often prohibitable. And the three-Justice dissent would have gone even further, and would have treated most lies as generally unprotected.
This having been said, the concurrence and the dissent agreed that “[l]aws restricting false statements about philosophy, religion, history, the social sciences, the arts, and the like” create “a grave and unacceptable danger of suppressing truthful speech,” and are thus generally unconstitutional. The same may be true about the life sciences, so any attempt to punish even lies about (for instance) how coronavirus is generally transmitted would likely be unconstitutional; the remedy for such lies is public argument, and not criminal punishment. But the law likely can properly punish specific lies about whether one has been diagnosed with coronavirus, whether a person diagnosed with coronavirus has been present in some place, and so on; if the New Jersey statute (which is a bit vague on such matters) is interpreted as limited to lies on such specific topics, it will likely be upheld.
Thanks to reader Matt Monforton for the pointer.
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What is our country going to look like if COVID-19 keeps spreading this rapidly? The map that Johns Hopkins University is using to track the spread of this virus has become extremely popular, and I refer to it several times a day. On Monday, I watched as the number of confirmed cases in the United States crossed the 500 mark, and then on Tuesday I was really shocked to see it jump up to 1,025. In less than 48 hours, the number of confirmed cases more than doubled. Needless to say, we are going to be in a whole lot of trouble if this keeps happening. Of course the U.S. is far from alone. This outbreak has gotten completely out of control all over the western world, and right now Europe is being hit harder than anyone else.
On Monday night, computer scientist Mark Handley, Professor of Networked Systems and part-time Roboticist at UCL in London, tweeted a graph showing how growth figures in other infected countries compare to Italy’s.
‘Everyone else will be Italy in 9-14 days time,’ Handley tweeted along with the data.
At this moment, the entire nation of Italy has been locked down. If Handley is correct, we should expect to see this happen in a bunch of other countries before two more weeks are gone.
Of course Handley is not the only one making these sorts of projections. Dr. John Crane of the University of Buffalo says that the U.S. is “on the exact same trajectory” as Italy…
He told DailyMail.com in an interview that the world had never seen anything like the outbreak and that the US seemed to be watching how Italy responded before making any drastic decisions of its own.
‘It looks like they’re on the exact same trajectory. Italy had an 11.5 day head start,’ he said, referring to the data.
We definitely do not want what is happening in Italy to happen here.
There are now more than 10,000 confirmed cases in Italy, the death toll is up to 631, and their healthcare system is being absolutely overwhelmed…
Italian hospitals are so ‘overwhelmed’ by coronavirus that strokes are going untreated and elderly patients are not even being assessed, a doctor at the centre of the crisis has said – while another medic said people in the UK and US should be panicking more.
Doctors in Italy have been forced into life-or-death decisions over who should receive intensive care, with virus cases piling up around the country.
The same thing could soon start happening in the United States.
When there are too many people to treat, not everyone will be treated.
This is yet another reason why you want to stay away from public places so that you do not get this virus.
Top national disease expert Anthony Fauci is urging the nation to take an ‘all hands on deck’ approach to the coronavirus – and urging officials to plan for immediate measures even in states that haven’t had cases show up yet.
‘It doesn’t matter if you’re in a state that has no cases or one case,’ Fauci said at a press briefing with Vice President Mike Pence Tuesday. ‘You have to start taking seriously what you can do now that if and when the infections will come – and they will come – sorry to say, sad to say, they will,’ he told reporters.
Like so many others, Fauci seems resigned to the fact that we are going to see a lot more cases in this country.
But where will we put them? We only have a limited number of hospital beds, and those will fill up pretty quickly.
According to Washington Governor Jay Inslee, there could be 64,000 cases in his state alone by May…
Confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus are swiftly ballooning across the United States, and President Trump’s former Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert says time is running out to control the spread.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who is overseeing one of the country’s largest clusters, said “if you do the math” there could be 64,000 cases of COVID-19 in the Evergreen State by May, while New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the positive cases in the city are “coming in so intensely now” that public officials are struggling to keep up with them. He said he wasn’t in a position to give the media a “detailed case breakdown” because of the rapidly changing number.
Speaking of New York, a state of martial law has essentially been instituted in New Rochelle in a desperate attempt to contain the cluster that has erupted there…
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the most rigorous actions to date to combat the spread in New Rochelle, which he described as the “most significant cluster in the country” and accounts for the lion’s share of the surging caseload in the tri-state area.
Those measures include deploying National Guard troops to a Health Department command post and setting up a satellite testing facility and one-mile, two-week containment area in the city. Public schools in that containment zone will be closed through March 25; National Guard troops will help clean surfaces and deliver food in that one-mile radius.
Unfortunately, it is only a matter of time before similar measures are put into place in communities all across the nation.
The months ahead are going to be extremely challenging for all of us, and so let us hope that this outbreak begins to subside as soon as possible.
We are already starting to see things happen that would have been unimaginable just a few weeks ago. If you can believe it, colleges and universities all over America are choosing to cancel classes for the foreseeable future…
A growing number of U.S. colleges have canceled in-person classes because of the coronavirus. The closures began in Washington state, and now include Harvard University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Rice University, Stanford University, Hofstra University, University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Washington, among others. As of midday Tuesday, more than half a million students are affected by the cancellations.
Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden’s presidential campaigns canceled rallies set for Cleveland on Tuesday night due to coronavirus concerns, the first disruptions the outbreak has caused in the 2020 Democratic primary.
In separate announcements, the Democratic presidential contenders’ campaigns said they exercised caution about holding large public gatherings after hearing guidance from public health officials.
At this point, there is even talk that the Tokyo Olympics could be delayed for a year or two.
In the short-term, bringing public activity to a screeching halt all over the western world won’t hurt too much.
But what if this outbreak continues to keep growing month after month?
Right now, it looks like this virus is going to be with us for a long time to come.
In Spain, the number of confirmed cases tripled in just two days, and the number of confirmed cases in France rose 70 percent from Monday to Tuesday.
Health minister Nadine Dorries has tested positive for coronavirus and fears for Boris Johnson’s health have been sparked after she attended an event hosted by the Prime Minister at No 10 last week. Ms Dorries is understood to have fallen ill on Thursday and then over the weekend, the “classic symptoms” of the disease emerged.
But everything that I just shared with you pales in comparison to what just happened in Germany.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly told the German Parliament that 60 to 70 percent of the German population will eventually catch the virus…
Angela Merkel says she expects around 60-70 percent of Germans will be infected with the coronavirus, which equates to about 53 million people.
Reportedly, the German Parliament fell completely silent when Merkel stated the number.
News outlet Bild reported the German Chancellor’s comments, which echoed numbers forecast by Berlin virologist Christian Drosten, who added that such a total could take 2 years or longer to reach.
If we eventually see similar numbers throughout the entire western world, the global economy will collapse, there will be great civil unrest all over the globe, and tens of millions of people will die.
Let us continue to hope that such a nightmare scenario can be avoided somehow.
But let us also prepare for an extended battle with this virus, because it certainly appears that COVID-19 is not going to disappear any time soon.
Watch Live: Bernie Sanders Discusses ‘Future Of His Campaign’
Watch live:
Update (1245 ET): Sanders is expected to say he’s staying in the race and looks forward to debating Joe Biden.
NEW: A source with direct knowledge of @BernieSanders plans tells @CNN at his 1p press event, Sanders is expected to say he is staying in the race and looks forward to a debate w/ @JoeBiden.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will appear at 1 p.m. on Wednesday to shed light on the future of his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, just one day after suffering a serious blow in a round of state primaries that propelled former Vice President Joe Biden into a decisive lead.
Sanders’ clear defeat can be seen in his PredictIt polling results:
On Wednesday, Sanders canceled a scheduled conference call with surrogates – sending them an email which says it would be rescheduled “so that we can better provide you with the most updated plans for upcoming states,” according to the report.
Sanders spent the morning at home with his wife Jane, which the New York Times somehow knew, in what appears to be foreshadowing his withdrawal from the race.
Top aides gathered Wednesday morning in the lobby of Burlington’s Hotel Vermont, surrounded by luggage tagged with Mr. Sanders’s name on it as they prepared for an early-afternoon flight to Teterboro, N.J., for the Vermont senator’s scheduled appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s late-night television show. Sanders’s advance team arranged a conference room at the hotel with a retinue of American flags. Sanders aides from around the country were gathering at the hotel, greeting each other, but provided no further information about the 1 p.m. appearance or what might be next for the campaign.
After getting pummeled in the Super Tuesday nominating contests last week, Mr. Sanders incurred a similar drubbing on Tuesday night, including in Michigan, where he had deployed resources and time in a final attempt to regain momentum. Mr. Sanders watched the results at his home with his wife while his aides gathered elsewhere, and later he opted not to make any public remarks. –New York Times
On Tuesday, Sanders canceled a primary night rally in Cleveland, while aides say a Friday rally in downstate Illinois won’t happen due to concerns over coronavirus.
The campaign instead has opted to hold virtual events such as tele-town halls and live-streamed events – however that may all be out the window after today’s announcement.
… BBB bonds now make up nearly 50% of the index of investment grade bonds, an all time high. BBB bonds are only one notch above high yield, and are at the greatest risk of becoming fallen angels, that is bonds that were investment grade when issued, but subsequently get downgraded to below investment grade, or what is known these days as high yield. It then points out that investors have never been more at risk of capital loss if yields were to rise. In addition, it notes volatility targeting investors will mechanically increase leverage as volatility drops, with variable annuities investors having little flexibility to deviate from target volatility
Following this article, the topic of a tsunami in “fallen angel” credits took on greater urgency, because with over $3 trillion in bonds on the cusp of downgrade, as we discussed in “The $6.4 Trillion Question: How Many BBB Bonds Are About To Be Downgraded“, countless asset managers warned (here, here and here) that this was the biggest threat to the credit pillar of both the US economy and stock market (recall the bulk of BBB rated issuance was used to fund the trillions in buybacks that levitated the stock market over the past few years).
However, despite a few close scares, and the downgrades of some massive IG names to junk such as Ford and more recently, Macy’s, there never emerged a clear catalyst that would trigger a wholesale downgrade of IG names to junk, especially since the Fed ending its monetary tightening in late 2018 and unleashed another rate cut cycle coupled with QE4 in 2019 sent IG and HY yields and spreads to record lows, even though as Morgan Stanley pointed out no less than 55% of BBB-rated investment grade bonds, would have a junk rating based on leverage alone.
But the bandwagon of fallen angel optimism that prompted the mockery of anyone who warned about the risk of a fallen angel tsunami resulting a corporate bond crash, came to screeching halt on Monday when Saudi Arabia started an all-out price war with Russia and US shale producers, destroying the OPEC cartel overnight and causing the biggest one-day drop in oil prices in almost 30 years.
As Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Spencer Cutter writes, following Monday’s plunge in oil prices, more than $140 billion of bonds issued by North American energy companies are at risk of losing their investment grade status, noting that a number of bonds from high grade rated oil producers already trade with credit spreads approaching distressed levels. Worse, according to Cutter, “a prolonged downturn could affect an additional $320 billion of triple-B rated midstream debt.“
Here is what we know: as of this moment, over $140 billion of debt issued by independent oil and gas producers, oilfield services providers and integrated energy companies has triple-B credit ratings from Moody’s or S&P and is now at risk of falling to junk status.
In the 2015-16 downturn, both credit-rating companies lowered their commodity-price expectations, driving a wave of rating cuts. Occidental Petroleum, which yesterday slashed its dividend for the first time in almost two decades to preserve cash flow, is the largest issuer, with almost $35 billion of debt and credit ratings of Baa3/BBB. As further shown in the table below, other significant potential fallen angels include Canadian Natural Resources (Baa2/BBB+), Noble Energy (Baa3/BBB), Apache Corp. (Baa3/BBB) and Concho Resources (Baa3/BBB-). A number of companies already have one foot in the high yield camp including Devon Energy (Ba1/BBB-), Hess (Ba1/BBB-) and Continental Resources (Ba1/BBB-).
And while in the past rating agencies have been painfully behind the curve and slow to adjust to changing fundamentals (for obvious conflicted reasons – after all the last thing their clients want us to see their bonds crater following a downgrade to junk), this time they have no choice as the market has already repriced the relevant debt.
As Bloomberg notes, since the recent plunge in oil prices, bonds issued by several oil and natural gas producers with triple-B credit ratings have already started to trade with high yield-like credit spreads. In the case of Ovintiv and Continental Resources, which have crossover ratings of Ba1 at Moody’s and triple-B from S&P and Fitch, spreads on their unsecured bonds have climbed to about 800 bps, close to the 1,000 bp-plus level, which typically qualifies as distressed. Spreads on Occidental Petroleum notes due in 2029 have climbed north of 700 bps, while Devon Energy and Noble Energy benchmark bond spreads have jumped to 630 bps and 540 bps, respectively. In January, none of the bonds had a credit spread above 300 bps.
Putting those spread in context, the FT noted that almost 12% of the $936BN of bonds issued by US oil and gas companies are were trading on Monday with a yield more than 10% points above Treasuries — a commonly used definition of distress. Among junk-rated borrowers, issuers with ratings below triple-B, which account for $175bn of the total, the proportion of debt in distressed territory has risen to almost two-thirds.
Ok, some may counter, $140BN is a lot but there is just over $3 trillion in total BBB rated credits. This is hardly a disaster.
The problem is that the threat of imminent downgrade to junk is not only in the E&P space: one it strikes, it will certainly affect the midstream as well.
To be sure, while midstream companies aren’t as directly exposed to swings in commodity prices, a prolonged downturn will result in sustained lower throughput volume and an effort to restructure gathering, processing and transportation contracts by their oil and natural gas producing customers. A wholesale review of credit ratings across the sector could affect $320 billion of bonds that have triple-B ratings from Moody’s or S&P, according to Bloomberg. At Baa3 and BBB- rated, Energy Transfer and Sabine Pass Liquefaction each have the lowest level of investment grade rating. While rated high grade by S&P and Fitch, Plains All American already carries junk ratings from Moody’s. Other producers at risk include Williams (Baa3/BBB), Kinder Morgan (Baa2/BBB) and MPLX (Baa2/BBB).
In other words, between just the oil producers and the midstream cos, some $360BN is at risk of near-term downgrade to junk. Assuming that’s all there is, it would increase the size of the $1.2 trillion junk bond market by nearly 30%, resulting in an unprecedented selloff in an asset class that has become an anchor to yield-starved speculators who will be forced to liquidate most if not all of their credit exposure, which would then also drag down the rest of the IG space, resulting in a catastrophic crash in the credit market.
All of this, of course, assumes that the rest of the $3 trillion in Investment Grade names are not downgraded. However with the coronavirus pandemic now assuring not only a bear market, but a recession, guaranteeing that the bulk of the IG names are hit by at least a one notch downgrade, the only question is whether all those names, which MS calculated at roughly $1.6 trillion, that already have junk bond fundamentals, will be downgraded. Alas, even if it is a modest portion, it would still be enough to create a cascade that shuts down the US credit market first, and then spills over to every capital market in the world.
The United States is home to the most innovative biotech companies and university research laboratories in the world. That fact should have given our country a huge advantage with respect to detecting and monitoring emerging cases of COVID-19 caused by the new coronavirus outbreak.
Instead, as TheNew York Times reports in a terrific new article, officials at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stymied private and academic development of diagnostic tests that might have provided an early warning and a head start on controlling the epidemic that is now spreading across the country.
As the Times reports, Seattle infectious disease expert Dr. Helen Chu had, by January, collected a huge number of nasal swabs from local residents who were experiencing symptoms as part of a research project on flu. She proposed, to federal and state officials, testing those samples for coronavirus infections. As the Times reports, the CDC told Chu and her team that they could not test the samples unless their laboratory test was approved by the FDA. The FDA refused to approve Chu’s test on the grounds that her lab, according to the Times, “was not certified as a clinical laboratory under regulations established by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a process that could take months.”
In the meantime, the CDC required that public health officials could only use the diagnostic test designed by the agency. That test released on February 5 turned out to be badly flawed. The CDC’s insistence on a top-down centralized testing regime greatly slowed down the process of disease detection as the infection rate was accelerating.
A frustrated Chu and her colleagues began testing on February 25 without government approval. They almost immediately detected a coronavirus infection in a local teenager with no recent travel history. Chu warned local public health officials of her lab’s finding and the teenager’s school was closed as a precaution. The teen’s diagnosis strongly suggested that the disease had been circulating throughout the western part of Washington for weeks. We now know that that is likely true.
Did the FDA and CDC functionaries commend Chu for being proactive? Not at all. Washington state epidemiologist Scott Lindquist recalled, “What they said on that phone call very clearly was cease and desist to Helen Chu. Stop testing.” On February 29, the FDA finally agreed to unleash America’s vibrant biotech companies and academic labs by allowing them to develop and deploy new tests for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
The Times notes:
The Seattle Flu Study illustrates how existing regulations and red tape—sometimes designed to protect privacy and health—have impeded the rapid rollout of testing nationally, while other countries ramped up much earlier and faster. Faced with a public health emergency on a scale potentially not seen in a century, the United States has not responded nimbly.
Due to red tape, the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. will be worse than it should have been.
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US House Covid-19 Economic Relief Bill To be Announced Wednesday With Floor Vote Thursday
The US House of Representatives is expected to announce an economic relief package for Americans hurt by the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak. The announcement could be seen as soon as Wednesday afternoon, with a floor vote on Thursday.
Democrats are expected to include “insurance, paid sick leave, and family and medical leave in the bill,” reported Reuters.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, said President Trump’s tax cut proposal is a “non-starter” and would be excluded in the legislation.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin hopes to reach an initial agreement with congress on the economic relief package in the next 48 hours.
With the stock market crashing this week, President Trump promised on Monday a ‘very very substantial’ relief to hard-working Americans hit hard by the virus. President Trump has been in talks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on possible assistance programs to cushion the economic shock.
Regarding President Trump’s proposal, he told GOP Senators earlier this week that he wants to waive payroll taxes through the election. Senator Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said that the payroll cuts could be around $300 billion.
The pitch of economic relief, if it is from Democrats or President Trump, comes as virus cases and deaths are surging across the country.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci was quoted on Wednesday as saying Covid-19 is 10x more lethal than the seasonal flu.
Some form of economic relief is likely to be seen this week, could help Americans weather the next economic downturn.
Dead Man Walking – Hillary Overtakes Bernie In Democratic Primary Betting
After another trouncing on Super Tuesday 2, it would seem Americans are really not fans of socialism after all…
Bernie Sanders odds of becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee for President have collapsed below those of Hillary Clinton!!
Source: Bloomberg
That certainly de-escalated quickly.
Jonathan Turley noted the significance of March 10th as the likely critical blow to Bernie Sanders in his campaign for the presidency. That was the day – 100 year ago – that Eugene Debs, the last major socialist presidential candidate, lost his bid for freedom. He would run his final presidential campaign from jail.
Sanders seems to have fallen to the Eugene Debs curse not just in terms of the calendar but the response of the establishment. Liberal icons like Louis Brandeis would join in condemning him to prison and his presidential campaigns were harassed by a wide array of political and police forces. For Sanders, the only thing that has changed is the threat of criminal prosecution. The united front against his campaign remained the same.
Harvey Weinstein Gets 23 Years In Prison For Sex Crimes
Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison on Wednesday for sexually assaulting two women.
The sentence follows a landmark verdict on February 24, after a jury found that Weinstein raped aspiring actress Jessica Mann at a DoubleTree hotel in 2013 when she was 27-years-old, and forced oral sex on former production assistant Mimi Haleyi, now 42, at his apartment in 2006.
Weinstein’s sentencing was watched in the Manhattan courtroom by all the women who had testified at trial against the once-feared mogul, who was convicted Feb. 24 of rape and committing a criminal sexual act more than two years after explosive news articles about his alleged serial sexual abuse of women.
The producer of films including “Pulp Fiction,” “Shakespeare in Love,” and “Gangs of New York” was found not guilty of the most serious charges: two counts of predatory sexual assault for which he could have been sentenced to life in prison. He also was acquitted of first-degree rape. –CNBC
Weinstein faced a minimum of five years in prison. His lawyer was ‘overcome with anger’ at the sentence.
WATCH LIVE: Harvey Weinstein’s defense team speak following his 23 year sentence.
Prior to his sentence, Weinstein told the judge “I am totally confused,” adding “I think men are confused about all of this…this feeling of thousands of men and women who are losing due process, I’m worried about this country.”
“This is not the right atmosphere in the United States of America,” he added.
Weinstein said he had “serious friendships” with the two primary accusers in the case, Miriam Haley and Jessica Mann. Both women delivered “victim impact” statements before Burke issued the sentence. Haley, who says she was sexually assaulted by Weinstein in his apartment in 2006, told the judge that she was left emotionally damaged by the incident. –Variety
“It scarred me deeply, mentally and emotionally,” said Haley. “What he did not only stripped me of my dignity as a human being and a woman, but it crushed my confidence.”
