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Airlines Face Loss of up to $30 Billion in Revenues in Wake of Coronavirus; Pandemic Would Spark Deep Recession and Pose a ‘Significant Threat’ to Trump’s Re-Election, Top Economist Says

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By Breitbart. The spread of the coronavirus from its epicenter in central China to infections identified around the world is having a severe impact on airlines as consumers cancel or delay travel plans. Industry experts say airlines worldwide could lose as much as $30 billion in revenues this year, with Chinese carriers facing the brunt of the loss with an estimated $12.8 billion deficit.

The Asia-Pacific region could face lost revenues of $12.8 billion, and carriers outside of that region could be out $1.5 billion, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

“Regional carriers will see their revenue dip by 3 per cent, but this figure can go up to 50 per cent if the outbreak continues and travel restrictions are expanded,” Muhammad Ali Albakri, regional vice-president, Africa and the Middle East, at IATA said in a GulfNews.com report:

Albakri said there has been a drop in ticket sales in the Middle East and elsewhere. The industry is staring at a potential 13 per cent full-year dip in passenger demand for carriers in the Asia-Pacific region.

The estimates by IATA are based on a scenario where COVID-19 has a similar V-shaped impact on demand as was experienced during the SARS outbreak in 2003. SARS was responsible for the 5.1 per cent fall in revenue per passenger kilometre (RPK, an industry measure) carried by Asia-Pacific airlines.

(Read more from “Airlines Face Loss of up to $30 Billion in Revenues in Wake of Coronavirus” HERE)

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Coronavirus Pandemic Would Spark Deep Recession and Pose a ‘Significant Threat’ to Trump’s Re-Election, Top Economist Mark Zandi Says

By CNBC. Moody’s Analytics Mark Zandi warns Wall Street is underestimating the damage from a coronavirus pandemic — both on the economy and President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

“Right now, we don’t have a whole lot of confidence. I mean he can’t seem to get on the same page with the experts, the CDC,” the firm’s chief economist told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Friday. “This is a significant threat to his re-election.”

Not only is the response to the medical emergency key, an economic downturn sparked by the coronavirus would be political kryptonite. . .

“They’re at least even odds,” he said. “If you take the most likely scenario and the CDC is roughly right, then it’s pretty hard to avoid one.” . . .

“Valuations were very stretched. Anything probably would have pushed the stock market back on its heels,” Zandi said. “COVID-19 [coronavirus] is more than just something, and that is something very substantive.” (Read more from “Coronavirus Pandemic Would Spark Deep Recession and Pose a ‘Significant Threat’ to Trump’s Re-Election, Top Economist Mark Zandi Says” HERE)

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Forgotten Issues in the Coronavirus Debate: Mass Migration and Offshoring to China

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This week, Congress will debate its reaction to the coronavirus. One hundred percent of the discussion will revolve around how much money to throw at HHS agencies already flush with record budgets, but nobody is discussing the biggest policy problem implicated during critical public health crises – mass migration and outsourcing to and from the very source countries of these outbreaks.

Immigration, when managed properly, at the right levels, from the right places, with prudent vetting and fostering of Americanization among the new arrivals, can enrich a country. But when done with no regard for American sovereignty and security, and through irresponsible and unchecked mass migration, it can be the biggest conduit for whatever global concerns we seek to avoid – whether drugs, cultural problems, espionage, terrorism, trade theft, or communicable diseases.

It is evident from both the 2003 SARS and 2020 coronavirus outbreaks that China cannot be trusted to keep these viruses in check or to be truthful and collaborative in containing them. Living with such a clear reality, why are policymakers not questioning the effect of bringing in hundreds of thousands of Chinese students and tens of thousands more on other visas every year? Why do we not clamp down on mass travel the minute there is a sense of a novel virus outbreak in China? Those are the questions policymakers should be grappling with this week.

Given the sheer number of Chinese students studying in our universities, an outcome the American people never voted for, how many countless thousands traveled back from school vacations in China when the new semester began in January? That coincided with the outbreak of the virus. What protocols were put in place to ensure they were not carrying the virus, or is such an effort even possible with such large numbers in a rush to get back for the new semester?

There are certainly a lot of terrific people who come here from China. But we can’t ignore the fact that the Chinese government is our biggest adversary and is using its diaspora of students, which flows into a pipeline of Chinese workers employed in sensitive industries and government research labs, as a means of stealing our expertise, data, and trade secrets and bringing it back home.

According to a bipartisan Senate Homeland Security subcommittee report, there are 10,000 Chinese nationals conducting research in the Department of Energy’s National Labs. The report found that agencies and departments conducting scientific research like the National Institutes of Health and the State Department do not “systematically track visa applicants linked to China’s talent recruitment plans.”

The report found that foreign-born researchers working for various U.S. scientific research agencies were being paid by China under the Thousand Talents Plan run by the communist government. It concludes, “American taxpayer funded research has contributed to China’s global rise over the last 20 years,” because it allowed China to go “from brain drain to brain gain.”

Just take the recent case of a Chinese national working for Coke in Atlanta. Just last month, Xiaorong “Shannon” You, a Chinese national, was indicted for stealing $100 million in trade secrets from six Coke vendors before she left the company. According to the FBI, this enabled her to win Chinese government funding to start a company making next-generation can coatings back in China.

As the Atlanta-Journal Constitution pointed out, “Chinese companies, individuals and agents steal between $225 billion and $600 billion a year in U.S. intellectual property ranging from copying designs to make knock-off handbags to pirated music and movies to corporate America’s most sensitive technologies, according to one outside estimate U.S. officials cite.”

It’s a fulfillment of what the Senate subcommittee report warned: how China, over the past generation, discovered that it’s “more efficient to allow its nationals to learn how to conduct research and develop cutting-edge technologies overseas and later find ways for these nationals to assist China.”

This is how China has been able to develop an army of people with American expertise to then work for these American or Chinese companies for a cheaper price overseas. Now, not only does China have an easy conduit to bring in communicable diseases to our country, but it has used it to stymie our ability to deal with such outbreaks properly, because most of our drug ingredients are made in, you guessed it, China!

On Friday, CNBC reported that the Food and Drug Administration announced its first drug shortage as a result of the coronavirus because so many of our drug manufacturers rely on ingredients made in China, but declined to name the drug. Again, the irony is lost on most policymakers that so many outbreaks occur in China, we bring in endless foreign students from China right during the outbreak in late December/early January, and the pipeline of Chinese students and workers is what has caused the very offshoring that makes us vulnerable during Chinese virus outbreaks!

The amazing thing is that senators will publish reports with findings smacking them in the face and indicting unbridled mass migration, yet they will never point the finger at the obvious culprit when the results become so painfully obvious during a time of a health epidemic. How could mass migration from China ever work for us when the politicians know how China is using it to scavenge America’s carcass?

No money in the world funneled to HHS can solve the problem of our de facto open-borders policy and the multiple ways China uses it against us. (For more from the author of “Forgotten Issues in the Coronavirus Debate: Mass Migration and Offshoring to China” please click HERE)

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Chinese Destroyer Shoots Weapons-Grade Laser at U.S. Navy P-8A Plane Operating Near Guam

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A U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft was lased by People’s Republic of China (PRC) navy destroyer 161 on Feb. 17 while flying in airspace above international waters approximately 380 miles west of Guam.

The P-8A was operating in international airspace in accordance with international rules and regulations. The PRC navy destroyer’s actions were unsafe and unprofessional.

Additionally, these acts violate the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a multilateral agreement reached at the 2014 Western Pacific Naval Symposium to reduce the chance of an incident at sea. CUES specifically addresses the use of lasers that could cause harm to personnel or damage to equipment.

The destroyer’s actions were also inconsistent with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between U.S. Department of Defense and the Ministry of National Defense of the PRC regarding rules of behavior for safety of air and maritime encounters.

The laser, which was not visible to the naked eye, was captured by a sensor onboard the P-8A.
Weapons-grade lasers could potentially cause serious harm to aircrew and mariners, as well as ship and aircraft systems.

The P-8A is assigned to VP-45, based out of Jacksonville, Florida, and is forward-deployed to Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan. The squadron conducts routine operations, maritime patrol and reconnaissance in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations.

U.S Navy aircraft routinely fly in the Philippine Sea and have done so for many years. U.S. Navy aircraft and ships will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.

U.S. 7th Fleet is the largest numbered fleet in the world, and with the help 35 other maritime-nation allies and partners, the U.S. Navy has operated in the Indo-Pacific region for more than century, providing credible, ready forces to help preserve peace and prevent conflict. (For more from the author of “Chinese Destroyer Lases U.S. Navy P-8A Plane Operating Near Guam” please click HERE)

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Military Experts at CPAC Warn China Is Trying to ‘Strangle Us’; U.S. Professor Charged With Hiding China Ties From NASA

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By Breitbart. Experts on China at a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) panel on Thursday sounded the alarm about the Communist nation’s efforts to defeat the United States and without ever having to fire a shot.

The experts on the panel, hosted by the Committee on the Present Danger: China, warned that China is laying the groundwork to replace the U.S. as the world’s superpower, which will have profound implications for Americans.

China expert and author Gordon Chang said China is becoming more belligerent to the U.S. — not less — and is trying to lay the groundwork in China to blame the coronavirus on the United States. . .

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Steven L. Kwast, who recently retired and speaks about the threat of China as a private citizen, said China is pursuing a strategy of seeking dominance while “trying not to awaken the great giant” — the U.S. . .

China is trying to “strangle us [so that] we go out with a whimper,” he said. Yet, he added, “We are going about our lives.” (Read more from “Military Experts at CPAC Warn China Is Trying to ‘Strangle Us’” HERE)

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U.S. Professor Charged With Hiding China Ties From NASA

By Quartz. An engineering professor at the University of Tennessee was arrested today after allegedly concealing his relationship with a Chinese university while working on projects for US government agencies, including NASA.

Anming Hu has been on the faculty of UT Knoxville’s Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering since 2013. But, prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed today, he was also a faculty member at the Beijing University of Technology’s (BJUT) Institute of Laser Engineering, pursuing research sponsored by the Chinese government, and actively hid the affiliation from UT officials.

While NASA is often promoted as a diplomatic tool, capable of bridging geopolitical controversies with its focus on research and exploration, the US space agency is restricted from funding any activity that that cooperates or collaborates with the Chinese government or Chinese companies, including Chinese universities.

According to court documents, prosecutors say NASA would not have given any funding to UT Knoxville and Hu had the space agency been aware of Hu’s affiliations in China. Hu’s research was supported by $110,000 in federal contracts. (Read more from “U.S. Professor Charged With Hiding China Ties From NASA” HERE)

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WATCH: Brave Chinese Woman Risks Her Life To Denounce ‘Evil’ Regime’s Handling Of Coronavirus; 2 Passengers Die After Leaving ‘Chaotic’ Quarantined Cruise Ship

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By Breitbart. An anonymous Chinese woman courageously posted a video message to her fellow citizens on Sunday in which she called for resistance to the Communist Party, accusing it of destroying countless lives by bungling its response to the Wuhan coronavirus and warning that even now, the Party is primarily interested in suppressing dissent and maintaining power than fighting the disease.

Taiwan News was impressed by the woman’s willingness to say just about everything that can get you arrested in China, at a moment when swarms of censors have been unleashed to quash public anger over the coronavirus:

In the opening of the video, the woman addresses her “fellow citizens,” saying that ordinary people are being sacrificed by the “schemes and plans of the government.” She complains the government does not care about the average person and that no amount of money can buy the necessary medicine and hospital beds needed to treat the deadly virus.

She then proceeds to break every major taboo in the CCP censors’ book by expressing her support for independence in Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. She condemns the “evil deeds of the Chinese Communist Party and the corrupt regime, and evil society,” which she says prevents people from speaking freely.

The woman points out that anyone who dares to speak about the reality on the ground in Wuhan is quickly rounded up by the police. She says the solution of the authorities is to take people “to drink tea,” a euphemism for police interrogation, followed by detention and adjudication.

(Read more from “WATCH: Brave Chinese Woman Risks Her Life To Denounce ‘Evil’ Regime’s Handling Of Coronavirus” HERE)

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2 Passengers Die After Leaving ‘Chaotic’ Quarantined Cruise Ship

By NBC News. . .The mandatory federal quarantine for nearly all of the U.S. citizens and their families who were evacuated from Wuhan, China, earlier this month on State Department-chartered planes has ended.

On Thursday, the 57 evacuees at Camp Ashland near Omaha, Nebraska took their final health checks. All were determined to be healthy.

“These people pose no health threat to their communities,” Dr. Eric Kasowski, CDC team leader for the quarantine in Omaha, said in a statement. “These Americans have done their duty — 14 days — and they’re getting to go back to their families.” . . .

Another group of 63 people who were under quarantine at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego has also been released. One of those evacuees was also diagnosed with COVID-19, and is hospitalized. The CDC said a close contact of that patient will remain under quarantine.

“Two passengers’ journeys have been delayed, but we are confident in the care they are receiving from local health officials and health care providers,” Dr. Erin Staples, CDC team leader for the quarantine in San Diego, said. (Read more from “2 Passengers Die After Leaving ‘Chaotic’ Quarantined Cruise Ship” HERE)

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China Deploys 40 Incinerators to Wuhan Amid Fears of Coronavirus Death Toll ‘Cover up’

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By Daily Star. China has reportedly deployed 40 industrial incinerators to the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak Wuhan.

Chinese media reports that the furnaces have been shipped to the city amid ongoing fears the death toll is being covered up.

NTD reports that the cabins are for the disposal of animal carcasses, while China Ship news reports the incinerators are for medical waste. . .

The mobile incinerators can reportedly destroy up to five tons of waste every single day – and can burn its load in as little as two seconds. . .

Reportedly the incinerators have been sanctioned for the use by the Chinese military after a test in Golmud, Qinghai in January. (Read more from “China Deploys 40 Incinerators to Wuhan Amid Fears of Coronavirus Death Toll ‘Cover up'” HERE)

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China Records Drop in New Coronavirus Cases; Two Deaths Reported From Quarantined Ship

By Reuters. China reported a dramatic drop in new coronavirus infections on Thursday although scientists warned the flu-like pathogen may spread even more easily than previously believed, while more passengers disembarked a quarantined cruise ship off Japan.

Two elderly passengers from the quarantined Diamond Princess ship had died of the disease, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported. The passengers were a man and a woman in their 80s, NHK said, citing an unidentified government source.

South Korea reported a spike in infections, with 23 new cases linked to a church congregation, up from 14 on Wednesday, in what health officials called a “super-spreading event”.

A 61-year-old woman known as “Patient 31” is suspected of passing the disease to others who attended religious services at a church in the central city of Daegu.

Hundreds of people are believed to have attended services with the woman in recent weeks at a branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, a religious movement founded in 1984 by South Korean Lee Man-hee, who is revered as a messiah by followers. (Read more from “China Records Drop in New Coronavirus Cases; Two Deaths Reported From Quarantined Ship” HERE)

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Coronavirus Is Much Deadlier Than the Common Flu Despite Comparisons

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By The Blaze. The coronavirus that is infecting thousands of people per day in China is much deadlier than the common flu, according to a new analysis by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China.

Some, in downplaying the severity of the coronavirus outbreak, have pointed out how many people die from the common flu every year. During the 2017-18 flu season, about 61,000 people died.

Although the coronavirus has not yet registered such a high number of fatalities, early analysis indicates that there is reason to be more concerned about coronavirus than about the flu. From the New York Times:

An analysis of 44,672 coronavirus patients in China whose diagnoses were confirmed by laboratory testing has found that 1,023 had died by Feb. 11. That’s a fatality rate of 2.3 percent. Figures released on a daily basis suggest the rate has further increased in recent days.

That is far higher than the mortality rate of the seasonal flu, with which the new coronavirus has sometimes been compared. In the United States, flu fatality rates hover around 0.1 percent.

(Read more from “Coronavirus Is Much Deadlier Than the Common Flu Despite Comparisons” HERE)

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Americans on Coronavirus Cruise Ship Barred From U.S. After Failed Quarantine

By Ars Technica. On Wednesday, the initial 14-day quarantine aboard a coronavirus-stricken cruise ship docked in Yokohama, Japan, officially ended. But the grueling saga seems far from for over for the ship’s 3,711 passengers and crew.

As the quarantine time ran out, Japanese officials were still reporting dozens of new cases of COVID-19 aboard. As of Wednesday, the number of coronavirus infections linked to the ship total 621—by far the largest cluster of COVID-19 infections anywhere outside of China. The next-largest cluster outside of China is in Singapore, which has 84 confirmed cases.

Japanese health officials are facing international criticism for their handling of the quarantine on the ship, the Diamond Princess. The quarantine was intended to curb the spread of disease by keeping people aboard, isolated from each other and from the public on land. But as cases mounted over the two weeks, it became clear that the control efforts only enabled the new coronavirus to spread. In fact, the 621 cases include at least three Japanese health officials, who were there to support the quarantine efforts but ended up becoming infected themselves.

“The quarantine process failed,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said Monday. “I’d like to sugarcoat it and try to be diplomatic about it, but it failed. People were getting infected on that ship. Something went awry in the process of the quarantining on that ship. I don’t know what it was, but a lot of people got infected on that ship.” (Read more from “Americans on Coronavirus Cruise Ship Barred From U.S. After Failed Quarantine” HERE)

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Bombshell Chinese Study Fuels Conspiracy of Coronavirus Being a Bioweapon; Coronavirus CAN Reinfect People, and the Second Infection Can Lead to Heart Failure

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By CCN. Coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on the Chinese mainland. As more information leaks out, people are growing concerned that coronavirus is a human-made bioweapon.

During an interview earlier this month, a CBS anchor addressed the concern head-on with Chinese Ambassador Ciu Tiankai. His response was far from a denial. . .

Initially, rumors suggested that the patient zero had contracted the virus at the Wuhan seafood market. Just a few yards away from the seafood market lies the Wuhan Virology Institute. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the institute is China’s first Biosafety Level 4 Lab that researches “the most dangerous pathogens.”

A recent study done by the Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology concluded that coronavirus “probably” originated from that lab.

Scholars Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao claim the WHCDC kept disease-ridden animals in labs. The study also mentions that the bats linked to coronavirus once attacked a researcher and “blood of bat was on his skin.” (Read more from “Bombshell Chinese Study Fuels Conspiracy of Coronavirus Being a Bioweapon” HERE)

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Chinese Doctors: Coronavirus Can Reinfect People, and the Second Infection Can Lead to Heart Failure

By The Blaze. Doctors in China say patients who recover from coronavirus can be reinfected — and if that happens, they become significantly more likely to suffer fatal heart attacks due to the nature of the virus and the effect of the medicine used to treat it, according to the Taiwan News.

The information comes from doctors working in the Hubei province of China, where the virus originated, who spoke under the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from the Chinese government, which has attempted to suppress information about the virus outbreak and punish those who leak info.

“It’s highly possible to get infected a second time,” a doctor told the Taiwan News. “A few people recovered from the first time by their own immune system, but the meds they use are damaging their heart tissue, and when they get it the second time, the antibody doesn’t help but makes it worse, and they die a sudden death from heart failure.”

Additionally, the true scope of the infections still may not be known, due to some complicating variables. Chinese doctors have had issues with false negatives from the coronavirus tests, with cases in which X-rays reveal significant lung infections for people who tested negative for coronavirus multiple times. (Read more from “Chinese Doctors: Coronavirus Can Reinfect People, and the Second Infection Can Lead to Heart Failure” HERE)

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Top 15 #Coronavirus Pics You Won’t See in Legacy Media

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(For more from the author of “Top 15 #Coronavirus Pics You Won’t See in Legacy Media” please click HERE)

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China to Burn Currency to Slow the Spread of Deadly Coronavirus

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The Guangzhou branch of China’s central bank says it will destroy all banknotes collected by hospitals, wet markets and buses to ensure the safety of cash transactions as the country battles a coronavirus outbreak.

Financial news outlet Caixin reported on Saturday that officials at the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) branch in the southern city ordered that all paper currency from sectors with high exposure to the coronavirus be withdrawn for destruction.

Commercial banks in the province should put banknotes from these sectors aside, disinfect them and hand them in to the PBOC.

The order comes after Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the central bank, said on Saturday that 600 billion yuan (US$85.6 billion) of new banknotes had been distributed throughout the country since January 17, including 4 billion yuan (US$572 million) in fresh notes sent to Wuhan at the centre of the outbreak before the Lunar New Year.

The central bank said that in general it would use high temperatures or ultraviolet light to disinfect cash, and store the currency for more than 14 days before putting it back in circulation. (Read more from “China to Burn Currency to Slow the Spread of Deadly Virus” HERE)

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