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Great Coronavirus Panic of 2020 -
Many of the various categories I’m following have now integrated effects from this pandemic, but I’m keeping them separate for clarity. Check numerous FR threads for more specific corona virus threads. On the good side, daily cases and deaths have clearly been decreasing since April 2, 2020. Better details here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3846751/posts

We are entering uncharted waters as far as this pandemic goes. . . . . .

New Jersey, Michigan, California, Illinois, and a host of liberal run cities are annoucing that there will be no full scale reopening until a corona virus vaccine is ready. Even at best guess this is still as much as 18 months out. These areas have some of the most stringent and harsh measures in the country.

In a surprise turn, China has endorsed an independent investigation of the corona virus origins by the WHO. China’s historical activities would strongly suggest that they think they can twist the “investigation” into a tool to exhonerate them, or at least throw enough mud around to get them out of the cross hairs. They may possibly try to include western nations support of ‘research’ at Wuhan.

China has reportedly drawn up a list of more Australian industries to target after slapping tariffs on barley and banning some beef imports amid mounting tensions over calls for a coronavirus inquiry. Wine, dairy, seafood, oatmeal and fruit exporters could be hit with new customs rules, quality checks or tariffs to make selling into China more difficult, according to a Bloomberg article which cited ‘people familiar with the matter’.
Each year Australian companies export about $1billion worth of dairy, $1.3billion of wine and $658million of seafood to China, meaning further tariffs could seriously harm the economy. (Daily Mail) China is strong arming Australia because it can, its economy isn’t as deep as the US but does show indications of what China may resort to under continued US pressure.

Economy -
According a new release from the Mortgage Bankers Association, some 4.1 million Americans, or 8 percent of mortgage holders, are now skipping payments. To what extent this may turn into a mortgage crisis similar to 2008 is still not clear.

Housing starts were at the slowest rate since February 2015, dropping 30% from March. Permits for new activity fell 20.8%. The housing market is a guide for the strength of an economy and is one of the leaders when an economy pulls out of a recession. Loss of sales reflect purchasers loss of jobs and job uncertainty.

After 58 years of selling home decor, Pier 1 Imports is closing its remaining 540 stores permanently, just months after filing for bankruptcy. The chain was already suffering financial troubles prior to the corona virus closures and it reports that the closure just pushed it to bankruptcy by interrupting attempted restructuring.

Workers are returning to Ford, GM and Chrysler plants. However, new and used car sales are very soft due to everyone else being unemployed or facing potential unemployment. Existing car loan repayments are in trouble due to failures to repay.

Food Supply -
Hog slaughtering capacity remains at about 75 percent, which is still leading hog farmers to euthanize over a hundred thousand hogs each day. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said that he didn’t expect current dislocation would cause long term damage to supply chains or the food supply, but it’s unclear if he’s making changes in anticipation of a second wave of COVID-19 later this fall or winter. All of the meat processing facilities owned by JBS and Smithfield Foods are operational, although some remain operating below maximum capacity. Nearly all Tyson Foods plants are operational.

The Trump administration installed a $19 Billion dollar relief program for farmers and ranchers in an effort to make sure the the nation’s food supplies are stable at the source.

China -
The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt will return to sea later this week before Memorial Day after a coronavirus outbreak sidelined the massive warship for nearly two months after more than 1,000 sailors tested positive, Navy officials said Tuesday. Tensions have been increasing in the region as China has taken the opportunity the corona virus lockdowns have created to more aggressively assert itself in disputed portions of the China Sea

Iraq -
Iranian supported militia elements are believed to have fired three rockets towards the US Embassy compound in Bagdad. No causalities or significant damage reported. Dozens of rockets have been fired by Kataib Hezbollah against US forces in Iraq in recent months. Four members of the US-led Coalition have been killed since December by these rockets.

Iran -
The U.S. Navy issued a warning on Tuesday to mariners in the Persian Gulf to stay 100 meters (yards) away from U.S. warships or risk being “interpreted as a threat and subject to lawful defensive measures.” This is clearly a warning to Iran who is the only violator of concern. Iran responded to the US warning of approaching its warships too closely by stating that they will continue their normal operations no matter what. The US warning may be seeking to cut off an potential situations if US warships intercept Iranian tankers currently en-route to Venezuela. Iran has promised to punish the US if it interferes with those ships.

Southern Iran is being infested for the second year in a row by a huge swarm of locusts described as the worst in decades. This second wave, spawned by last year’s swarm is estimated to be 20 times larger. It is deploying military assets to assist in the attempt to control the hundreds of billion locusts in that area. This infestation places more pressure on an already stricken Iranian economy that now could be facing limited famine/food shortages that will be difficult to compensate for under current sanctions.

Israel -
PA leader Abbas stated Tuesday that “The Palestine Liberation Organization & the State of Palestine are absolved, as of today, of all the agreements & understandings with the American and Israeli governments and of all the obligations based on these understandings and agreements, including the security ones”. It is a very strong statement and if he follows through portends serious consequences for the PA. His declaration is likely in response to Israel’s plans to annex portions of the west bank as allowed for by the US offered peace plan. Such annexation was essentially cleared when Abbas announced that the PA would have nothing to do with it. Abbas is treading on thin ice as much of the relative peace these past several years in the west bank has been due to economic benefits from cooperation with Israel. It is not certain that the Palestinians in the west bank are that willing to lose that income and benefits.

The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, on Monday congratulated the new Israeli government but also made clear that the EU will not accept an Israeli move to apply sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria. The EU has consistently been against any expansion of the territory of Israel beyond the 1967 borders. It has also been anti-semetic in its policies across the board, so no surprise here.

CW2/Civil Unrest -
The Oregon Supreme Court late Monday halted a rural judge’s order earlier in the day that had tossed out statewide coronavirus restrictions imposed by Democratic Gov. Kate Brown. The Supreme Court’s ruling stays Shirtcliff’s decision pending review by all the high court justices. Stay tuned. . . . .

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3847076/posts

We are entering uncharted waters as far as this pandemic goes. . . . . .

More confusing information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which just corrected earlier warnings, now saying that the coronavirus “does not spread easily” from “touching surfaces or objects.” The timely and accurate response to the corona virus by the CDC to date has been substandard ranging from confused warnings like this, to faulty test kits and testing.

(Times of Israel) “ An Israeli professor who made waves in early April for insisting that the coronavirus will play itself out after 70 days regardless of intervention levels says that he has been proved right, and that claims the virus will return in force for a second wave are just speculation.
“It’s very amusing that people talk about a second wave,” Isaac Ben-Israel, a prominent mathematician, chairman of Israel’s Space Agency, and a former general, told The Times of Israel. “How do they know there will be a second wave? And how do they know that it will come in the winter?” However, a public health expert disputed Ben-Israel’s claims and said he “has no clue about epidemiology and public health.”
Ben-Israel said that since he crunched figures on the pandemic some six weeks ago and publicized his theory that COVID-19 peaks after about 40 days and declines to almost zero after 70 days, he has been vindicated — and concluded that the “hysteria” he sees around him is “as contagious as biological diseases.”” This will be interesting to continue to monitor. Much worry/concern is being raised about a second wave of infections this fall.

Bloomberg reported yesterday a study describing the latest findings from doctors and researchers in northeastern China who are seeing the coronavirus manifest differently among patients in this new cluster, suggesting that the virus may indeed by changing in unknown ways and complicating efforts to stamp it out.

Peru has surpassed 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, the country’s Ministry of Health says. Peru is second to Brazil for the highest number of coronavirus cases in Latin America.(CNN)

Domestic Terror -
(Fox) The Naval Air Station Corpus Christi is in lockdown because of an active shooter, the U.S. Navy confirmed Thursday morning. A statement on NAS Corpus Christi’s Facebook page said: “NAS Corpus Christi is now in a lockdown status. There is an active shooter in the vicinity of the North Gate. If you are in or near the North Gate get out and away to safety. Execute lockdown procedures — remain indoors and away from windows.”

Economy -
H/T to WildHighlander57 for confirming yesterdays mortgage information (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3805130/posts?page=408#408). Here is more bad news. Levels of concern are rising in the banking industry as as much as $150 Billion in loans in the form of credit card, car payments and personal loans are not being made. Some are making arrangements for delayed payments and most banks have worked out plans to allow them to miss payments for as long as several months. Now banks are having to assess if they will be able to keep up the payments during the future economic turmoil and fallout from the corona virus lockdown.

First-time filings for unemployment insurance totaled 2.44 million last week as the tail effects of the coronavirus shutdown continued to impact the U.S. jobs market. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 2.4 million claims. In the nine weeks since the coronavirus-induced lockdown has shut down large parts of the U.S. economy, some 38.6 million workers have filed claims.(CNBC)

Japan’s exports have fallen the most since 2009 as demand drops globally.

China -
The USS Theodore Roosevelt left Guam and entered the Philippine Sea on Thursday morning. According to the Navy “The ship will commence underway training and carrier qualifications to support the air wing’s return to operational readiness. During the underway, the ship will leave sailors ashore that are not required for these evolutions,” reads a statement from the carrier. “This will enable the ship to conduct training at sea while personnel left in Guam can support the recovery of the rest of the crew who remain in quarantine or isolation. During this transition, the ship will enforce strict cleaning protocols and maintain social distancing as part of the phased approach to returning the ship to operations.” It will also take time for a task force to be reconstituted. Since TR has been in Guam, the guided-missile cruiser and five guided-missile destroyers assigned to the CSG have been operating across the Pacific on other missions. Of the ships in the carrier strike group, TR and guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd (DDG-100) both saw outbreaks of COVID-19. Kidd is currently in port in San Diego with its crew in isolation while the ship is disinfected.

The US is looking to sell advanced torpedoes to Taiwan worth around $180 million, Beijing is urging the stop of all sales to prevent more damage to China-US relations.

N Korea -
There is still uncertainly about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He disappeared from his usual schedule of public events on April 12th and did not reappear until May 1 st , when he made several well-publicized public appearances. But since then nothing. This has spurred discussion that the images published on May 1 were not that of Kim but a body double. OSINT attempts to track Kim have been fruitless. Rumors still persist of a heart surgery in April that resulted in Chinese specialists being sent to NK.

Iran -
Venezuelan Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino says that the Venezuelan Navy and Venezuela Air Force will escort the Iranian tankers into Venezuela. This assumes the tankers are not intercepted first.

Israel -
As mentioned previously, Israel and Iran are engaging in cyberwarfare. Yesterday multiple Israeli website were the target of a cyberattack on Thursday, their homepages being replaced with an anti-Israel video and message in Hebrew and broken English: “The countdown of Israel destruction has begun since a long time ago.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s latest threat to renounce all agreements with Israel have been received by palestinians with skepticism, noting that he has been saying the same thing for the past five years.

Chile -
Violent food riots are breaking out in Santiago and other cities. Food shortages and mandatory closures has made it nearly impossible for them to work or buy food. Remember, the US is just 9 meals away from similar outbreaks.

CW2/Civil Unrest -
(CNSNews) — A report by Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF) estimates that in April 2020 there were 1,797,910 gun sales, an increase of 71.3% over the April 2019 sales. As the SAAF estimated, “April 2020 U.S. firearms unit sales [were] at 1,797,910 units, a year-over-year increase of 71.3% from April 2019. Likely single handgun sales (1,085,046) increased year-over-year by 83.1% whereas single long-gun sales (560,353) increased year-over-year by 51.7%.” Times of uncertainty drive folks to rediscover the Second Amendment.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker rescinded the rule that could have put defiant business owners in jail for up to a year. He first imposed it when his authority to close them during the pandemic was challenged. The rules were facing strong push back by citizens and business groups with even the legislature getting involved. Pritzker’s withdrawal of the rule means he likely did not have the votes to avoid public rejection from lawmakers – let alone their constituents.

More protests against government corona virus lock down rule and sluggish re-opening actions are planned across the nation as part of “Freedom Friday”.

More and more churches across the country are also planning to reopen their facilities and have in person services May 31, which also happens to be Pentecost Sunday, the general date that is looked to as the official start of the Christian Church. A coalition of 1200 clergy have issued a letter to CA Gov Newsom to allow churches to meet again. It seems that this group is in addition to the 3000 churches that have stated they will meet on May 31 no matter what.