Your Daily Dose Of Coronavirus. Coronavirus NEWS, We Mean!

Lots and lots of coronavirus updates, so here’s your daily roundup of some of the latest news, which has been hitting with the force of a Silkwood shower. No idea why that simile came to mind.

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The Dow Jones fell over 2000 points at the opening of the stock market this morning, triggering an automatic, temporary suspension of trading. That’s the second time in a week. It appear’s Donald Trump’s speech last night didn’t quite reassure investors. (NBC News)

The Great Man addressed the country in a prime time speech from the Oval Office last night, and spoke far more about the coronavirus as a foreign threat. It was a terrible speech, and shortly after it ended, the White House was already backing away from some parts of it, we mean most of it. Evan has a full look at it right here. (CNN / ABC News video)

Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, have tested positive for coronavirus while in Australia to shoot a movie. Hanks announced the diagnosis on Instagram, and managed to be more reassuring about the disease than certain presidents we can think of, writing,

Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive.

Well, now, What to do next? The Medical Officials have protocols that must be followed.We Hanks’ will be tested, observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires. Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no?

The New York Times notes that in Australia, unlike the USA, coronavirus testing is “free and widely available.” (NPR / New York Times)

Sean Hannity pushed a conspiracy theory from rightwing loonypants Shiva Ayyadurai, the guy who insists he “invented email” (He didn’t). Ayyadurai made it to the Gateway Pundit with a tweet claiming the “Deep State” is using the disease outbreak to “manipulate economies, suppress dissent, and push mandated medicines.” Said Hannity on his waste-of-radio-waves show, “May be true.” (Media Matters)

The NBA has suspended its season after Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19; the announcement came just before a game in Oklahoma City was supposed to start last night. Monday, Gobert very amusingly made fun of coronavirus prevention measures at a press availability, where he touched all the reporter’s microphones. (CBS Sports)

The NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments this month will go ahead as scheduled, but the games will be played in empty arenas, without any fans in attendance. After the decision by the NCAA, most big college athletic conferences said they’ll be holding their playoffs without audiences as well. (Politico / CBS Sports)

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) does coronavirus science pretty much like he does climate science.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has banned public gatherings of over 250 people, and Seattle public schools will be closing immediately, for at least two weeks. School districts in multiple states are closing, and school officials are figuring out how to get free school lunches to kids from food-insecure families. (CBS News / CNN)

St. Patrick’s Day parades are being cancelled all over the place. Among the many places calling off parades are New York City, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, Denver, and even Dublin, Ireland. People will instead be encouraged to drink too much at home, pour green dye into their toilets, and act like assholes online. I can say that, my last name’s Kelley, damn it! (Forbes)

CDC Director Robert Redfield said the US won’t do drive-through coronavirus testing as other countries have done, because “We’re trying to maintain the relationship between individuals and their healthcare providers.” America! (Julian Borger on Twitter)

It’s a Very Good Thing Matt Bevin is the former governor of Kentucky.

Joe Biden announced a team of grownup public health experts who’ll be advising his campaign. The team includes former FDA commissioner David Kessler; Dr. Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center; and bioethicist, oncologist, and Obamacare architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. It’s a noticeable contrast to Trump’s fretting about the “foreign virus.” (Andrew Solender on Twitter)

Alex Jones is selling a quack-cure toothpaste he says will kill coronavirus, and will probably get told to knock it off just like Jim Bakker was. But in the meantime, there’s money to be made off his loyal audience of gullible idiots. (Media Matters)

A shortage of lab materials is contributing to the slow pace of coronavirus testing. (Politico)

Senate Republicans will block an emergency bill that would provide paid leave and free coronavirus testing, as well as other steps to strengthen the social safety net, because it’s too generous to poor people. We’ll have a closer look at this shortly. (Politico)

There’s one good coronavirus advisory in the world, and it’s in Rochdale, England.

[NBC News / CNN / ABC News / NPR / NYT / CBS Sports / Politico / CBS Sports / CBS News / CNN / Forbes / Andrew Solender on Twitter / Media Matters / Politico / Julian Borger on Twitter / Politico]

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