The pandemic is real, but the puppet masters of the world are using this situation for abhorrent and frightening power grabs, leaving people seemingly helpless to do anything about it while we are told to “shelter in place” as our rights get stripped away. It’s very convenient for those in power, and it’s frightening what they’re getting away with.

We are addressing this pandemic all wrong.

People with compromised immune systems should be taking precautions while the rest of the world builds immunity. The government should be pushing for the population to make healthier, safer lifestyle choices and this should be a huge reminder to us all that both how we take care of our environment and how we talk care of our bodies is paramount. And on that note, as necessary as they may be in some situations, wearing a face mask for long periods of time really isn’t good for you. This whole face-mask obsession could end up causing a lot of illness as well as environmental problems. I’m not recommending wearing face masks. I’m not recommending not to wear them. It’s complicated.

On the other hand, it’s fascinating to see what’s happening, and there’s lots of good news resulting from the way we are “sheltering in place.” The environment is showing signs of remarkable resiliency, people are generally eating much better (restaurant food is really bad for you), homeschooling is the new normal, we’re finally taking a serious look at how we’ve set up “capitalism” and what it means for us in such dire times, and it’s really just a fascinating experiment at a time when we need to look hard at these issues.

But this perspective comes from a place of immense privilege. All across the world business and schools and daycares are closed, incomes have stopped, people are hungry, family members are stuck with abusive family members at such incredibly stressful times, and so much more. The reaction to the pandemic is ruining a lot of lives right now. Even if everything were to get better from today on and just go back to normal, the reverberations would still last a very long time. And this is mostly due to how poorly the U.S. and many other governments are handling the situation.

Hundreds of thousands of children could die this year due to the global economic downturn sparked by the coronavirus pandemic and tens of millions more could fall into extreme poverty as a result of the crisis, the United Nations warned on Thursday.”

Reuters

It’s likely that more people will die from the economic collapse of our financial system than from the virus itself. That’s not to say that the measures taken are pointless. It’s hard to know for sure, but it’s possible that if we had gone about business-as-usual we likely would have endured far more deaths and economic destruction than we’re dealing with now. Also, you never know how seriously a novel pathogen can impact us until it does. So it’s pretty hard to justify lax measures.

The estimate could be low. The risk report included that nearly 369 million children who normally rely on school meals for daily nutrition no longer have this as an option. According to the UN, malnutrition is still the leading cause of death in the world today. The foreseen is being considered, but there’s also going to be a heck of a lot of unforeseen in this very novel, globally-connected situation we’re in now.

The potential losses that may accrue in learning for today’s young generation, and for the development of their human capital, are hard to fathom. More than two-thirds of countries have introduced a national distance learning platform, but among low-income countries, the share is only 30 percent.

United Nations

We Are Doing It All Wrong

We’re radically underestimating the number of coronavirus cases but with that, we’re also radically underestimating the numbers of people who have gotten the virus, recovered, and developed antibodies.

A coronavirus vaccine is not going to work any better than the flu vaccine works, which is to say it will make pharmaceutical companies a lot of money only to damage a lot of people. There are multiple reports of people getting the virus more than once and we now know the virus has mutated at least twice. Whether or not the virus was made in a lab or is a result of environmental destruction, more is sure to come. We need a totally different approach for the economy, the environment, and our health. Allopathic medicine, our profit-driven pharmaceutical system, and our economic system are showing everyone around the world that there needs to be a better way, for our health and the environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsCo8w67FhE&t=244s

What We Should Be Doing

Under the current system, if I ruled the world, but if I only had a conventional understanding of health, I would implement free healthcare to everyone, a UBI of 80% of everyone’s income up to 100,000 a year, paid weekly via direct deposit or debit card or cash (no restrictions that disproportionately affect poor or minorities).

Small businesses should be able to apply for loans and grants should be available for the ones that are trying to do the work that most needs to be done (like medical and environmental for instance).

Side note: If you wondering “how are we going to pay for all of this?” then please check out this YouTube channel called Economics Explained.

Big businesses should be left to file for bankruptcy and have to restructure and get more component CEOs who like to save money for such instances instead of continually relying on government bailouts.

We should be making sure everyone has access to raw, fresh, healthy, organic produce. People should start growing as much of their own food as they can, and the government should be helping to facilitate this as well as helping get the food we currently have to the people who need it.

There should be educational campaigns about how people should take care of themselves.

But none of this would really be necessary if we already knew how to take care of ourselves. The virus is rarely if ever killing healthy people. If it did, it would exhaust it’s host supply too quickly and be far less likely to be an epidemic. Ideally, the immunocompromised would be told to shelter in place, wear masks for short periods of time if they must go out, wash their hands obsessively while out, etc. Grocery stores would know how to reduce transmission and would be disinfecting properly. Then we wouldn’t need an economic shutdown.

We really shouldn’t even worry so much about “germs.” We should be taking better care of ourselves and doing what Sweden is doing to build up herd immunity.

What Am I doing?

My family and I are fortunate, so far, due to the nature of the businesses we are involved in, and the fact that we were already growing our own food and homeschooling our kids.

We have started an urban farm, both to feed us and for the whole neighborhood.

We have to take certain sanitization measures with our businesses, with which we are using a spray of 65% alcohol and 35% industrial strength vinegar. But other than that, we’re doing our normal thing of eating salads and drinking cranberry lemonade every day. We are sure to have on stock Echinacea, Shillington’s Blood Detox, reishi mushroom, and our favorite root cider. If we were to feel a tickle in the through or a snuffy sinus we’d take them all until symptoms are gone, but we haven’t had any such issues. Our gut health is as good as it gets, and this is absolutely paramount when it comes to staying healthy. For more on supplements for coronavirus, click here.

Perhaps you’ll unearth a can of Crisco for the holiday baking season. If so, you’ll be one of millions of Americans who have, for generations, used it to make cookies, cakes, pie crusts and more.

Republished from The Conversation

But for all Crisco’s popularity, what exactly is that thick, white substance in the can?

If you’re not sure, you’re not alone.

For decades, Crisco had only one ingredient, cottonseed oil. But most consumers never knew that. That ignorance was no accident.

A century ago, Crisco’s marketers pioneered revolutionary advertising techniques that encouraged consumers not to worry about ingredients and instead to put their trust in reliable brands. It was a successful strategy that other companies would eventually copy.

Related: Stop Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

Lard gets some competition

For most of the 19th century, cotton seeds were a nuisance. When cotton gins combed the South’s ballooning cotton harvests to produce clean fiber, they left mountains of seeds behind. Early attempts to mill those seeds resulted in oil that was unappealingly dark and smelly. Many farmers just let their piles of cottonseed rot.

It was only after a chemist named David Wesson pioneered industrial bleaching and deodorizing techniques in the late 19th century that cottonseed oil became clear, tasteless and neutral-smelling enough to appeal to consumers. Soon, companies were selling cottonseed oil by itself as a liquid or mixing it with animal fats to make cheap, solid shortenings, sold in pails to resemble lard.

Shortening’s main rival was lard. Earlier generations of Americans had produced lard at home after autumn pig slaughters, but by the late 19th century meat processing companies were making lard on an industrial scale. Lard had a noticeable pork taste, but there’s not much evidence that 19th-century Americans objected to it, even in cakes and pies. Instead, its issue was cost. While lard prices stayed relatively high through the early 20th century, cottonseed oil was abundant and cheap.

Americans, at the time, overwhelmingly associated cotton with dresses, shirts and napkins, not food.

Nonetheless, early cottonseed oil and shortening companies went out of their way to highlight their connection to cotton. They touted the transformation of cottonseed from pesky leftover to useful consumer product as a mark of ingenuity and progress. Brands like Cottolene and Cotosuet drew attention to cotton with their names and by incorporating images of cotton in their advertising.

Related: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections 

King Crisco

When Crisco launched in 1911, it did things differently.

Like other brands, it was made from cottonseed. But it was also a new kind of fat – the world’s first solid shortening made entirely from a once-liquid plant oil. Instead of solidifying cottonseed oil by mixing it with animal fat like the other brands, Crisco used a brand-new process called hydrogenation, which Procter & Gamble, the creator of Crisco, had perfected after years of research and development.

From the beginning, the company’s marketers talked a lot about the marvels of hydrogenation – what they called “the Crisco process” – but avoided any mention of cottonseed. There was no law at the time mandating that food companies list ingredients, although virtually all food packages provided at least enough information to answer that most fundamental of all questions: What is it?

In contrast, Crisco marketers offered only evasion and euphemism. Crisco was made from “100% shortening,” its marketing materials asserted, and “Crisco is Crisco, and nothing else.” Sometimes they gestured towards the plant kingdom: Crisco was “strictly vegetable,” “purely vegetable” or “absolutely all vegetable.” At their most specific, advertisements said it was made from “vegetable oil,” a relatively new phrase that Crisco helped to popularize.

But why go to all this trouble to avoid mentioning cottonseed oil if consumers were already knowingly buying it from other companies?

The truth was that cottonseed had a mixed reputation, and it was only getting worse by the time Crisco launched. A handful of unscrupulous companies were secretly using cheap cottonseed oil to cut costly olive oil, so some consumers thought of it as an adulterant. Others associated cottonseed oil with soap or with its emerging industrial uses in dyes, roofing tar and explosives. Still others read alarming headlines about how cottonseed meal contained a toxic compound, even though cottonseed oil itself contained none of it.

Instead of dwelling on its problematic sole ingredient, then, Crisco’s marketers kept consumer focus trained on brand reliability and the purity of modern factory food processing.

Crisco flew off the shelves. Unlike lard, Crisco had a neutral taste. Unlike butter, Crisco could last for years on the shelf. Unlike olive oil, it had a high smoking temperature for frying. At the same time, since Crisco was the only solid shortening made entirely from plants, it was prized by Jewish consumers who followed dietary restrictions forbidding the mixing of meat and dairy in a single meal.

In just five years, Americans were annually buying more than 60 million cans of Crisco, the equivalent of three cans for every family in the country. Within a generation, lard went from being a major part of American diets to an old-fashioned ingredient.

Trust the brand, not the ingredients

Today, Crisco has replaced cottonseed oil with palm, soy and canola oils. But cottonseed oil is still one of the most widely consumed edible oils in the country. It’s a routine ingredient in processed foods, and it’s commonplace in restaurant fryers.

Crisco would have never become a juggernaut without its aggressive advertising campaigns that stressed the purity and modernity of factory production and the reliability of the Crisco name. In the wake of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act – which made it illegal to adulterate or mislabel food products and boosted consumer confidence – Crisco helped convince Americans that they didn’t need to understand the ingredients in processed foods, as long as those foods came from a trusted brand.

In the decades that followed Crisco’s launch, other companies followed its lead, introducing products like Spam, Cheetos and Froot Loops with little or no reference to their ingredients.

Once ingredient labeling was mandated in the U.S. in the late 1960s, the multisyllabic ingredients in many highly processed foods may have mystified consumers. But for the most part, they kept on eating.

So if you don’t find it strange to eat foods whose ingredients you don’t know or understand, you have Crisco partly to thank.

[ You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter. ]

A recent study done by the University of Bath shows that exercising before eating breakfast can have a significant positive impact on overall health. The study was conducted over a period of 6 weeks with 30 men classified as overweight or obese. During the study, researchers examined a group who ate breakfast before exercising, a group that ate breakfast after exercising, and the control group who made no changes. 

The results of the study showed that while eating breakfast before or after working out did not make significant differences in terms of weight loss, those who ate breakfast after working out increased their body’s ability to respond to insulin. Additionally, those who ate breakfast after workout burned more fat and saw general improvements in their overall health.  

We found that the men in the study who exercised before breakfast burned double the amount of fat than the group who exercised after. Importantly, whilst this didn’t have any effect on weight loss, it did dramatically improve their overall health.”

-Dr Javier T. Gonzalez, Department for Health, University of Bath

Subjects not in the control group ate a breakfast of cornflake cereal in skimmed milk with wholemeal toast, sunflower spread, and strawberry jam. The group who ate breakfast first, ate breakfast and then allowed for a 90-minute “rest and digestion” period and then exercised by cycling on stationary bikes for 60 minutes, the group who ate breakfast after working out participated in the same exercise and then immediately ate breakfast. 

Related: Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included

Breath samples and blood samples were collected at the 25-30 minute mark, and again at the 55-60 minute mark, to determine which fuels were being used to power the cyclist. The results of the data collected show that moderate-intensity exercising before eating breakfast can help regulate insulin, regulate blood sugar, as well as burn more fat. Both those who ate breakfast before and after working out lost weight at the same rate, however, the group who ate breakfast before working out saw no changes in their body’s response to insulin.

The group who exercised before breakfast increased their ability to respond to insulin, which is all the more remarkable given that both exercise groups lost a similar amount of weight, and both gained a similar amount of fitness. The only difference was the timing of the food intake.”

Can Excercising Before Breakfast Dramatically Improve Your Health?

The co-author of the study has noted that it is not recommended that you participate in high-intensity workouts on an empty stomach. The long term effects as well as rather or not this benefits women, in the same way, have yet to be studied. 

Recommended: Homemade Vegan Nut Milk Recipes

Sources:

• Can Exercising Before Breakfast Dramatically Improve Your Health? -Scientific American
• Lipid Metabolism Links Nutrient-Exercise Timing to Insulin Sensitivity in Men Classified as Overweight or Obese -Academic.oup

Vitamin C is needed for the immune system, but that is not it’s only claim to fame. Vitamin C is needed for many physiological functions. It is an anti-oxidant. It is a co-factor for eight enzymes, thereby aiding in developing and maintaining scar tissue, blood vessels, cartilage, hormonal stability, biosynthesis of neurotransmitters, and transport of fatty acids into mitochondria.

It’s no surprise that in the middle of a pandemic vitamin C is hard to find. It’s almost always better to get your vitamin C from whole foods, but there’s also a way to make your own whole-food vitamin C supplement that’s probably better than anything you’d find in the store.

Related: How to Make the Healthiest Smoothies – 4 Recipes

Fruits With At Least 50% Daily Recommended Vitamin C

• Papaya (one medium) – 224%
• Strawberries (one cup) – 113%
• Pineapple (one cup) – 105%
• Oranges (one medium) – 93%
• Kiwi ( 1- 1/2 in) – 85%
• Cantaloupe (1 cup) – 78%
• Grapefruit (1/2) – 59%

What may surprise you is the number of vegetables that meet the criteria.

Vegetables With At Least 50% Daily Recommended Vitamin C

• Bell Peppers (1 cup) – 157%
• Broccoli (1 cup) – 135%
• Brussels sprouts (1 cup) – 129%
• Cauliflower (1 cup) – 73%
• Kale (1 cup) – 71%
• Cabbage (1 cup) – 69%
• Bok Choy (1 cup) – 59%
• Parsley (1 cup) – 54%
• Turnip greens (1 cup) – 53%
• Sweet potato (1 cup) – 52%

If you eat well you should be getting plenty of vitamin C. But if you would still like to supplement your diet with extra vitamin C, we recommend not wasting your citrus peels. They’re full of vitamin C! Simply dehydrate them and then grind them up into a powder.

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

Other herbs and supplements you may want to consider for vitamin C include thyme, basil, rose hips and chlorella.

I don’t take a multivitamin but I do use something called Total Nutrition Formula. It’s expensive to buy by the bag but if you can afford the bulk ingredients from Mountain Rose Herbs you can make your own and save lots of money.

Total Nutrition Formula Recipe

With this recipe, a “part” means a measurement by volume and not weight. What volume you use is up to you. All ingredients should be organic or wildcrafted.

Available for purchase on Green Lifestyle Market

• 1 part Alfalfa Grass Powder
• 1 part Barley Grass Powder
• 1 part Wheat Grass Powder
• 1 part Norwegian Purple Dulse Seaweed Powder
• 1 part Beet Root Powder
• 1 part Spinach Leaf Powder
• 1 part Rosehips Powder
• 1 part Orange Peel Powder
• 1 part Lemon Peel Powder
• 1 part Astragalus Powder
• 1.5 parts Spirulina Green Algae
• 1.5 parts Chlorella Broken Cell Algae
• 5 parts Yeast Flakes
• 5 parts Yeast Powder

Related: Homemade Calcium and Magnesium

Remember, it’s not how many nutrients you can get into your system, it’s how many quality ingredients your body can absorb and use.

Combine all ingredients. Mix thoroughly. You may need a dust mask when mixing, as the powders can get into the air and irritate the nose and throat. We mix ours on a patio when there is no wind where we can easily rinse off the mess.

Yeast (both the flakes and the powder) must be non-active saccharomyces cerevisiae nutritional yeast fortified with B12. Which is safe for patients with Candida albicans. Doc wrote, “I added astragalus as it is the #1 herb for balancing metabolism and blood sugar levels. Without changing my diet one iota, I dropped 10 pounds when I added this little goody to the formula. I also upped the spirulina and chlorella 50% each to increase the protein, and mineral intake.”

Most of the ingredients can be purchased at Mountain Rose Herbs. We plan to offer all of these ingredients at Green Lifestyle Market soon as well so that you can make your own without having to go to multiple stores to get ingredients. Use 1-2 teaspoons as a daily addition to any drink.

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that coronavirus can survive on surfaces and in the air. A joint effort from scientists at the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, University of California Los Angeles, and Princeton University, these findings have added another level of tension to an already fraught situation. According to the study, COVID-19 was detected on plastic and stainless steel surfaces for two to three days and cardboard for up to 24 hours. The study compared COVID-19 (the technical name for the virus is SARS-CoV-2) with the SARS virus from 2002-2003 and suggested that the coronavirus pandemic has been greater due to asymptomatic people transmitting the virus.

Related:

• U.S. Is Now the Coronavirus Epicenter
• DOJ Wants to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights Because of Coronavirus
• Does Elderberry Increase Risk Of Death With CoVID-19?
• Coronavirus – Your Guide to the CoVID-19 Pandemic

Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to persons from surfaces contaminated with the virus has not been documented. Transmission of coronavirus occurs much more commonly through respiratory droplets than through fomites. Current evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces made from a variety of materials. Cleaning of visibly dirty surfaces followed by disinfection is a best practice measure for prevention of COVID-19 and other viral respiratory illnesses in households and community settings. It is unknown how long the air inside a room occupied by someone with confirmed COVID-19 remains potentially infectious.”

CDC.gov

The study found that SARS-CoV-2 remains infectious in airborne droplets for at least three hours. The majority of safety efforts have concentrated on preventing the spread of the virus through airborne methods like coughing and sneezing. As more information on the pandemic emerges, it seems that people should err on the side of being safe, rather than sorry.

Sources:

• Coronavirus can survive on surfaces and in air for hours, study says – Japan Times
• Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1 – The New England Journal of Medicine
• Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1
• How long does the coronavirus live on surfaces? – USA Today

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) might want to think about changing their name after telling companies on Thursday that the organization would not be enforcing penalties for noncompliance with routine monitoring and reporting. The EPA has suspended these obligations in lieu of the COVID-19 pandemic.

EPA is committed to protecting human health and the environment, but recognizes challenges resulting from efforts to protect workers and the public from COVID-19 may directly impact the ability of regulated facilities to meet all federal regulatory requirements. This temporary policy is designed to provide enforcement discretion under the current, extraordinary conditions, while ensuring facility operations continue to protect human health and the environment.”

Andrew Wheeler, EPA Adminsitrator

While the EPA’s announcement made it clear that this policy is temporary, this announcement will likely do more harm than good.

Air Pollution Affects Lung Health

The reduction in traffic and industrial activity due to coronavirus has been greatly reduced air pollution. In addition to the obvious benefits of that, the improved air quality can only benefit coronavirus outcomes. Air pollution is a significant respiratory irritant.

When something like fine particulate matter injures or irritates the nerves in the respiratory tree, air passages that move air from outside into the lungs, they become inflamed and the fluid the body sends into the lungs. This fluid prevents the body from getting enough oxygen into the bloodstream, leading to severe pneumonia. This is one of the ways COVID-19 cases go from benign to serious illness.

Related:

• U.S. Is Now the Coronavirus Epicenter
• DOJ Wants to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights Because of Coronavirus
• Does Elderberry Increase Risk Of Death With CoVID-19?
• Coronavirus – Your Guide to the CoVID-19 Pandemic

The decision by the EPA to stop enforcing federal regulatory requirements due to this pandemic is ironic. The agency states that this is a temporary measure during the pandemic, but this move will increase air pollution during a pandemic that affects the lungs. The EPA has agreed to indirectly extend the pandemic.

Cynthia Giles, the former head of EPA office of enforcement during the Obama administration, condemned the news in a statement to The Hill.

This EPA statement is essentially a nationwide waiver of environmental rules for the indefinite future. It tells companies across the country that they will not face enforcement even if they emit unlawful air and water pollution in violation of environmental laws, so long as they claim that those failures are in some way ’caused’ by the virus pandemic. And it allows them an out on monitoring too, so we may never know how bad the violating pollution was…”

The Hill

Sources:

• What happens to people’s lungs when they get coronavirus? – The Guardian
• Coronavirus pandemic leading to huge drop in air pollution – The Guardian

As of Thursday, the United States has the most recorded cases of COVID-19. The number of total coronavirus cases in the U.S. rose to 85,749, surpassing China’s total of 81,430. It is likely that the number of cases is much higher than reported, as the U.S. healthcare system has been unable to provide easy and effective testing to most of the population.

Image credits Richard Codor (above) World Meters (below/right)

The testing timeline in the U.S. has been rocky. The first case of coronavirus in the U.S. was registered on January 20, but fewer than 4,000 tests had been administered in the U.S. by February 27. The number of tests given by March 12 was less than 4,000. The United States has been unable to provide large-scale testing for the virus until recently. In a March 12 hearing in the Hosue of Representatives, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key figure in the United States’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic addressed the issue.

The system is not really geared to what we need right now, what you are asking for. That is a failing. Let’s admit it. The fact is, the way the system was set up is that the public health component…was a system where you put it out there in the public and a physician asks for it and you get it. The idea of anybody getting it easily, the way people in other countries are doing it, we’re not set up for that.

NBC

Early testing is crucial in limiting the spread of COVID-19. South Korea saw its first case of the virus on the same day that the United States did, January 20th, and the government was quick to implement a testing program. By March 5, South Korea had administered more than 140,000 tests.

Eric Feigl-Ding is a senior fellow and epidemiologist at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C. He notes that South Korea is now testing 15,000 people a day, with a maximum capacity of 22,000.

In terms of per capita testing, Korea has run 3,600 tests per 1 million population. In contrast, U.S. has just run five tests per 1 million people.

NPR

That approach to this pandemic is paying off. On March 26, South Korea recorded a less than 1% (.98%) increase in cases of COVID-19. In contrast, cases in the U.S. increased by 26.5%. Those numbers are only going to increase as the United States struggles to combat a healthcare crisis with a system unprepared to handle it.

Related:

• DOJ Wants to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights Because of Coronavirus
• Loss of Sense of Smell May Be Symptom of CoVID-19
• Does Elderberry Increase Risk Of Death With CoVID-19?
• Coronavirus – Your Guide to the CoVID-19 Pandemic

Why does Coronavirus Spreading So Easily?

Outside a host, viruses are dormant. They have none of the traditional trappings of life: metabolism, motion, the ability to reproduce. AD

And they can last this way for quite a long time. Recent laboratory research showed that, although SARS-CoV-2 typically degrades in minutes or a few hours outside a host, some particles can remain viable — potentially infectious — on cardboard for up to 24 hours and on plastic and stainless steel for up to three days. In 2014, a virus frozen in permafrost for 30,000 years that scientists retrieved was able to infect an amoeba after being revived in the lab.

Washington Post

This could have been stopped by implementing testing and surveillance much earlier — for example, when the first imported cases were identified.

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York.

Now at least 160 million Americans have been ordered to stay home in states from California to New York. Schools are closed, often along with bars, restaurants and many other businesses. Hospitals are coping with soaring numbers of patients in New York City, even as supplies of essential protective gear and equipment dwindle.

NY Times

Sources:

• https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
• https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/usa-now-has-more-coronavirus-cases-than-either-china-or-italy.html
• https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/26/821688981/how-south-korea-reigned-in-the-outbreak-without-shutting-everything-down