'I don’t agree with him': Trump splits with Fauci on whether US has enough testing

President Trump disagreed with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who said the United States is not where it should be regarding coronavirus testing. The Trump administration has recently begun announcing that states have the number of coronavirus tests needed to track new cases in their states while reopening their economies, but multiple governors of both parties have refuted that claim. Fauci has also expressed concern about the number of U.S. tests performed and the capacity to perform them. “We need to significantly ramp up not only the number of tests, but the capacity to perform them, so that you don’t have a situation where you have a test, but it can’t be done because there isn’t a swab, or because there isn’t extraction media or not the right vial,” Fauci said in an interview with Time. “I am not overly confident right now at all that we have what it takes to do that. We are doing better, and I think we are going to get there, but we are not there yet.”

Trump then said he disagreed with Fauci's evaluation during Thursday's White House press briefing. "As you know, and as I've said many times, we are very advanced in testing," the president explained after being asked if he agreed with Fauci's conclusions. "Other countries are calling us to find out what are we doing. And by the way, within two weeks, you'll see numbers, and you'll see different forms of testing, just like we came up with the Abbott Laboratories machine, which gives it to you in five minutes, and everyone wants — everybody is asking, can we get that? But you can only make them so fast." "But, as you know, we have done more testing than every other nation combined, and that’s a big statement. When they talk about different tests and different things, we are also a bigger nation than most. And so, when they look at statistics, statistically, we are doing phenomenally, in terms of mortality, in terms of all of the different elements that you can judge," Trump continued before later concluding, "If he said that, I don’t agree with him." The president also said that some countries' death toll and total number of cases were "obviously … ridiculous, in the form of low" and went on to accuse unnamed nations of misleading the world about the spread of the virus.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/i-dont-agree-with-him-trump-splits-with-fauci-on-whether-us-has-enough-testing

'I think it was a fake report': Trump claims report about Kim Jong Un's health concern was 'false'

President Trump said he believes the report that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is in grave condition was false but declined to provide evidence to back up his claim. Earlier this week, CNN reported the United States was monitoring intelligence of Kim's surgery, citing a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the matter. A correspondent for NBC News also indicated that two U.S. officials said Kim was brain-dead after slipping into a coma, but she later deleted her tweet while awaiting more details.

Trump, who has previously said that he "wishes him well,” questioned the validity of the report during Thursday evening's press briefing. "I think the report was incorrect, let me just put it that way. I think the report was done by a network that was incorrect. I’m hearing they used old documents, but that’s what I hear. I hear that report was an incorrect report. I hope it was an incorrect report," the president stated. The reporter then asked the president if he had reached out to the dictator. "I don’t want to say," Trump responded. "We have a good relationship with North Korea, as good as you can have. I mean, we have a good relationship with North Korea. I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un, and I hope he’s okay … I think it was a fake report done by CNN." Kim was already known to be in very poor general health as a heavy smoker weighing about 300 pounds. That would make him morbidly obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more susceptible to major health issues.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/i-think-it-was-a-fake-report-trump-claims-report-about-kim-jong-uns-health-concern-was-false

'Xi Jinping’s Chernobyl': Experts say Chinese disinformation aims to distract world from coronavirus failures

A disinformation campaign by the Chinese Communist Party is hard at work to distract the international community from Beijing's failures in containing the COVID-19 outbreak, according to experts. The U.S. intelligence community assessed that Chinese agents helped promote the false claims of impending martial law, which went viral in March across multiple social media platforms and that were even texted to people’s cell phones, according to a report from the New York Times citing U.S. officials from six spy agencies. The deceptive messages claimed they were based on inside information from a friend or family inside the U.S. government, and spread rapidly across Twitter, Facebook, 4chan, and elsewhere. The National Security Council sent out a tweet late one night in mid-March denying rumors swirling on social media that the federal government was about to impose a nationwide quarantine during the COVID-19 outbreak, bluntly calling the text messages going around “FAKE.” The State Department also sounded the alarm that China, Russia, and Iran are reinforcing each other's disinformation efforts by sharing similar messages, according to a nonpublic Global Engagement Center report reviewed by Politico.

Daniel Hoffman, the CIA’s former station chief in Moscow, told the Washington Examiner that he sees similarities between what the Chinese Communist Party is doing and what the Russians have done for a long time. “I don’t know if they’re learning from Russia — I know they certainly share plenty with Russia. I’m sure they’re sharing tactically quite a bit … Their similarity with Russia and, frankly, the Soviet Union, is they need to conceal the truth from their people. That’s the bottom line, and that’s what the Soviets did too,” Hoffman said. “We are collateral damage in all of that, but they are messaging to their people first and foremost because they don’t want their people to know just how horrifically badly they handled incident response for this pandemic. And then, secondly, they’ve got designs on exploiting the rest of the world, so their reputation is at stake, so they’re going to try to whitewash their reputation.”

The report from the New York Times said U.S. officials do not believe Chinese operatives generated the fake lockdown messages but instead helped spread messages that already existed. The officials claimed the Chinese agents borrowed tactics from Kremlin-linked troll farms and social media disinformation campaigns. The use of encrypted messaging apps by the Chinese operatives helped conceal the true extent of their involvement, but the report said the United States is investigating whether Chinese spies in U.S. embassies and diplomatic outposts played a role in pushing the falsehoods. The article said in the U.S. the Chinese effort aimed to sow political discord, while in Europe, other messaging by Chinese agents attempted to highlight alleged disunity among Western countries. All this while China pushed its so-called donation diplomacy, sharing personal protective equipment and testing technology, much of which has been found to be faulty. There is well-documented evidence that China tried to cover up the spread of the coronavirus, muzzled whistleblowers, intimidated doctors, misled the World Health Organization, and blocked outside health experts. At least one study indicated that if the Chinese government had acted more quickly, the coronavirus’s global spread would have been greatly reduced.

The U.S. intelligence community reportedly believes the Chinese Communist Party downplayed the severity of the initial coronavirus outbreak and continues to mislead about the infection rate and death toll inside China. “Their goal is two-fold. First, to control and repress their own population. And secondly, it’s to whitewash China’s reputation overseas so that they can do their debt-trap diplomacy, exploit African countries and Europe, and gain fellow travelers all over the world, including here in the United States,” Hoffman said. “I’ve called the coronavirus 'Xi Jinping’s Chernobyl.' The Soviet people for sure knew the government was out to screw them, but then they realized that people were getting killed because of this form of government, this obsequious bureaucracy that doesn’t respond the way it should to a crisis. That’s what you’ve got in China, and now their people know it.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/xi-jinpings-chernobyl-experts-say-chinese-disinformation-aims-to-distract-world-from-coronavirus-failures

>>8902975

I'd like to see that investigation reopened on him…when complete the full details disclosed for the entire world to see.

A summer break? New Homeland Security research shows sunlight, humidity kill coronavirus quickly

Homeland Security official: 'I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes, isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds, and that's with no manipulation, no rubbing'

New research from the Department of Homeland Security shows sunlight and humidity kill coronavirus quickly, the White House Coronavirus Task Force announced Thursday. "Increasing the temperature and humidity of potentially-contaminated indoor spaces appears to reduce the stability of the virus," William N. Bryan, acting under secretary for Science and Technology for the Department of Homeland Security, said at the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing. Bryan said DHS testing showed there was a "very significant difference" when the coronavirus is exposed to UV rays, and "extra care may be warranted or dry environments that do not have exposure to solar light."

DHS is testing disinfectants including bleach and rubbing alcohol, on the coronavirus in saliva and respiratory fluids, Bryan said. "I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes, isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds, and that's with no manipulation, no rubbing," he said.

Bryan said research showed that the coronavirus dies the quickest in the presence of direct sunlight. "We've identified that heat and humidity is a weakness in that chain," he said. "We've identified that sunlight, solar light, UV rays, is a weakness in that chain. That doesn't take away the other activities, the White House guidelines, the guidance from the CDC and others on the actions and the steps that people need to take to protect themselves. This is just another tool in our toolbox, another weapon in the fight that we can add to it. And we know that summer-like conditions are going to create an environment where the transmission can be decreased, and that's an opportunity for us to get ahead."

However, Bryan cautioned that warmer temperatures, like those in virus hotspots Florida and New Orleans, won't stop the infection spread when social distancing and other health guidelines are not followed. "It would be irresponsible for us to say that we feel that the summer is just going to totally kill the virus and that it's a free-for-all and that people can ignore those guidelines, that is not the case," he said. "We have an opportunity though, to get ahead with what we know now, and factor that into the decision-making for what opens and what doesn't."

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/summer-break-new-homeland-security-research-shows-sunlight-humidity