Suspect shot by homeowner in Walker Co. charged with several crimes

While this crim is a ‘prowler’ alright, notice his current charges are theft & breaking into a vehicle, not burglary. Outside of Texas, shooting a thief just for thieving is a risky proposition that puts a person at the mercy of ‘prosecutorial discretion’. Apparently in that section of Alabama (and I know of many other areas) a prosecutor won’t bother charging a homeowner if a known miscreant gets his just desserts, but that’s relying on politics and not the law to keep yourself out of legal jeopardy.

WALKER COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC) – A suspect who was shot by a homeowner in Walker County has now been charged with breaking into multiple vehicles and stealing items.

Several people in the Boldo community called the sheriff’s office on January 31 to report a prowler near their homes.

While Deputies were en route to the scene, the prowler was shot by the homeowner in the leg. The homeowner recognized the man as Jimmie Sanders, due to Sanders staying in the vicinity recently. Sanders then ran from the scene.

Deputies were able to locate Sanders, who was taken to Brookwood Baptist Hospital in Jasper for treatment.

During the investigation, it was determined that Sanders had broken into multiple vehicles in the neighborhood and had stolen several items in the process.

Throughout the night and the next morning, Investigator Brad Curtis received many other complaints concerning vehicles that Sanders was believed to have broken into.

Sanders has been charged with numerous counts of theft crimes, as well as breaking and entering a Motor Vehicle. The investigation is ongoing and more charges are expected.

PREPARING FOR CORONAVIRUS:
Getting ready for the possibility of major disruptions is not only smart; it’s also our civic duty

This applies to all “prepping” as a general concept. The better you can look after yourself and yours, the less of a drain you are on emergency resources. The press wants to treat prepping as selfish, but it’s actually the opposite.

As the new human coronavirus spreads around the world, individuals and families should prepare—but are we? The Centers for Disease Control has already said that it expects community transmission in the United States, and asked families to be ready for the possibility of a “significant disruption to our lives.”

Be ready? But how? It seems to me that some people may be holding back from preparing because of their understandable dislike of associating such preparation with doomsday or “prepper” subcultures. Another possibility is that people may have learned that for many people the disease is mild, which is certainly true, so they don’t think it’s a big risk to them. Also, many doomsday scenarios advise extensive preparation for increasingly outlandish scenarios, and this may seem daunting and pointless (and it is). Others may not feel like contributing to a panic or appearing to be selfish.

Forget all that.

Preparing for the almost inevitable global spread of this virus, now dubbed COVID-19, is one of the most pro-social, altruistic things you can do in response to potential disruptions of this kind.

We should prepare, not because we may feel personally at risk, but so that we can help lessen the risk for everyone. We should prepare not because we are facing a doomsday scenario out of our control, but because we can alter every aspect of this risk we face as a society.

That’s right, you should prepare because your neighbors need you to prepare—especially your elderly neighbors, your neighbors who work at hospitals, your neighbors with chronic illnesses, and your neighbors who may not have the means or the time to prepare because of lack of resources or time……

Staying home without needing deliveries means that not only are you less likely to get sick, thus freeing up hospitals for more vulnerable populations, it means that you are less likely to infect others (while you may be having a mild case, you can still infect an elderly person or someone with cancer or another significant illness) and you allow delivery personnel to help out others.

Support the Constitutional Carry Bill in Louisiana

Maybe Louisiana and Tennessee will be added to the list of permitless carry states this year.

House Bill number 72 is the “Louisiana Constitutional Carry Act of 2020.” H.B. 72 says that you may carry a concealed firearm unless you are a prohibited person under state and federal law. This is commonly called constitutional carry or permitless carry. In short, if it was legal for you to get a permit and carry in public then the bill allows you to carry in public. If it was illegal for you to carry in public, then it remains illegal for you to carry in public.

The usual objection to constitutional carry is that we’ll have more accidents if untrained people carry in public. We have not seen more firearms accidents after constitutional carry when we look at the data. Where we have been able to measure it, we see people take more firearms classes once we remove the minimum state requirements to carry in public. The state permit acted as an artificial floor for training. Gun owners drove themselves to higher levels of training and competence when that floor was removed. It is past time for us to remove the firearms prohibitions that have their roots in the civil war.

Thomas Massie: If Voter ID Is a Tax on Voting Rights, Firearm Licensing Is a Tax on 2A Rights

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) used a Wednesday hearing to suggest that if Voter ID is a tax on voting rights, then firearm licensing is a tax on Second Amendment rights.

Massie made this point while cross-examining Voter ID opponents, contending that their arguments break down if they oppose issuance of ID’s for one constitutional right but look the other way when ID’s are required for the exercise of a a different right.

Fox News reported Timothy Jenkins, a witness in the hearing and board member of Teaching for Change, criticized Massie for bringing up licensing for gun rights during a discussion about licensing for voting rights.

Jenkins said:

Let me tell you this: that the whole business of being able to vote is not intermeshed with the business of bearing arms. You are taking the time that we’re trying to deal with a constitutional right to be a citizen and turning it into something else. Use another forum! We don’t have many opportunities to get a right to vote. We don’t have an opportunity to talk about the whole business of the way in which the Constitution has been distorted. And don’t take us off on some rabbit trail to talk about arms.

Jenkins also said, “Let the record show, that nobody has died because of their being deprived of bearing guns.”

Massie interjected:

What you’re saying, Mr. Jenkins, is absolutely incorrect. I had a staffer … who worked for me. She watched her husband be gunned down in front of her in a gun-free zone, because her firearm — she followed the law and left her firearm in the vehicle. So do not tell me, and do not tell her that nobody has ever died because they were deprived of their right to keep and bear arms.

In a separate but pertinent example, Breitbart News reported Carol Bowne applied for a license to possess a gun for self-defense in April 2015 and was stabbed to death on June 3, 2015, while waiting for the state of New Jersey to issue the license.

The Courier-Post reported Bowne sought state’s permission to have a gun so she could protect herself from a former boyfriend. It was he who was charged with stabbing Bowne to death as she waited for the state to grant her a license for gun ownership.

Gov. Bill Lee’s (Tennesee) permitless carry bill set to bolster penalties for stealing guns

Standing in a building that prohibits guns while surrounded by dozens of Republican lawmakers, Gov. Bill Lee announced Thursday plans to introduce legislation that would let Tennesseans carry handguns without first obtaining a permit while increasing penalties for illegal gun possession and thefts.

The governor’s sudden support for such legislation is a reversal from his previous public statements, a significant departure from his predecessor and a signal of Tennessee’s tilt toward the more conservative wing of the Republican Party.

“The Second Amendment’s clear and concise and secures the uninfringed right of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms,” Lee said inside the Old Supreme Court chamber at the state Capitol in Nashville. “Today, I’m announcing that we will be joining 16 other states in this nation by introducing a constitutional carry law in the state of Tennessee.”

Lee and his legislative colleagues presented the measure as one that would make Tennessee safer, a claim immediately met with pushback from critics.

The initiative would allow for both open and concealed carrying of handguns for people 21 and older. The permitless carry right would also be extended to military members who are 18 to 20.

The governor said the legislation is aimed at making theft of a firearm a felony, an offense that is currently a misdemeanor in Tennessee. It will also mandate a six-month incarceration sentence for the crime, up from the current 30-day requirement.

If approved, sentencing will be enhanced when a gun is stolen from a car, as well as for providing a handgun to a juvenile and unlawful possession of a handgun by a felon.

80-year-old Arkansas man shoots teen breaking into his home

HUGHES, Ark. — A burglary suspect is recovering after being shot while another is on the run after they tried to break into a man’s house twice.

Thieves broke into 80-year-old Fred Burkes’ home two nights in a row.

Early Monday morning, he heard noises and found two men taking his 55-inch flatscreen TV.

“They ran out the house,” Burkes said. “And then I looked again, and my TV was gone.”

Burkes boarded up his front door with a wooden board, hoping it would prevent a future break-in.

Neighbors say they saw two men circling the block just hours later. One neighbor said they were watching Burke’s house very closely.

Burkes says the thieves struck again around 2 a.m. on Tuesday. They climbed through a back window and he says they tried to get into his bedroom. Burkes says they started asking him where his money was.

He began pushing against the door to keep them out but when they started threatening him, he took action.

“I reach and got my shotgun …” Burkes said.

Burkes shot one suspect in his bedroom doorway while the other ran off.

Hughes police says both suspects are juveniles with histories of prior break-ins. The one who was shot is still recovering.

Burkes will not face charges but is sad local teens are resorting to crime.

“I don’t feel good at all,” Burkes said. “I’m 80 years old. If he had gotten in there, I don’t know what he would’ve done.”

His neighbors say they will be keeping an eye out for Burkes.

At this time, no charges have been filed in this case.

 

The Coronavirus Outbreak: How Democratic Taiwan Outperformed Authoritarian China.
Taiwan’s example proves that the free flow of information is the best treatment for the coronavirus outbreak.

The novel strain of coronavirus (officially dubbed COVID-19) that originated in Wuhan, China has spread to almost 30 countries, including regional neighbors like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, and countries as far away as the United States, Canada, and Brazil. As of February 26, more than 81,000 cases have been confirmed worldwide, and the death toll has surpassed 2,700, mostly in China. The epicenter of the virus crisis, China, has been suffering socially and economically not only on account of the virus, but also because of the Chinese government’s problematic policies.

The Chinese government has been working to tackle the coronavirus outbreak by using multiple measures to contain the spread of the virus as well as information about the outbreak. Most famously, the government imposed an extreme quarantine in Wuhan on January 23, which is still in place over a month later. Many cities in Hubei province and elsewhere in China have also implemented lockdowns or restrictions while cases of infection continue to increase.

Besides these measures in the physical world, the Chinese government has attempted to quarantine discussion of the epidemic in the realm of public opinion. From the first appearance of the new virus last December to the lockdown of massive cities in mid-January, the Chinese authorities chose to restrict public access to the information about the epidemic by silencing people, most famously the whistleblower Doctor Li Wenliang. In the early stages of the outbreak, the Chinese government issued a statement asserting that “the disease is preventable and controllable,” and announcements sent by Chinese officials to World Health Organization (WHO) office in Beijing claimed that there was no evidence of the disease being transmitted between humans.

But the Chinese scientists writing in The Lancet medical journal later revealed that the first patient known to have contracted the novel coronavirus had no link to the Wuhan seafood market that the Chinese government pointed to as the source of the outbreak. This would suggest that the virus all along was spreading via human-to-human transmission – and that the government was lying to the public from the very beginning of this catastrophe.

Chinese news outlet Caixin covered the story of Dr. Li Wenliang, who became famous after being detained for posting about the new virus online. Li later died of the coronavirus himself, inspiring rare public anger against China’s censorship system. “There should be more than one voice in a healthy society,” Li told Caixin. When his death was reported, Chinese social media platforms were flooded with netizens’ anger and calls for freedom of speech. It seemed for a moment that the Chinese media and civil society had won more space for free speech, granted by the Chinese government as a safety valve for the pressure building from the bottom up.

But in fact, the central government began tightening its media and online controls soon, after a short period of tolerance. In February 2020, two Chinese citizen journalists disappeared after continuously reporting stories about the outbreak and posted them online. The Chinese government then expelled three Wall Street Journal reporters, taking advantage of accusations of racism over an editorial headline. In the meantime, China’s top cyber regulator required online technology companies to “create a good online atmosphere” for fighting the virus, and many social media apps and accounts were removed because of their posts of so-called harmful content. The Chinese propaganda department guided the domestic media to cover only positive stories on the coronavirus crisis relief work being done by Chinese authorities. The central government even dispatched journalists to the center of outbreak to accomplish this mission.

Whether China is stepping up propaganda or strengthening media and cyber controls, its primary goal is to maintain regime stability and social control, not to contain the virus outbreak.

On the contrary, Taiwan, a country that has been excluded from the WHO for decades thanks to China’s political pressure, has demonstrated that the better way to contain the coronavirus is not to quarantine news about epidemic, but to make it easier and more convenient for people to access relevant information………..

Bloomberg Tries To Control Others Because He Can’t Control Himself

He’s an arrogant snob, but we already knew that.

There used to be a social stigma against believing and behaving as if one is entitled to tell perfect strangers how to speak, what to do, or how to live.

Sadly, that stigma is all but gone today. More people than ever are willing to use the force of government to compel their fellow citizens to comply with their own changing set of mandates.

I am fascinated by the causes that have compelled so many Americans to lose perspective on this fundamental principle of freedom.

Take Michael Bloomberg, please! What drives this man with the freedom to enjoy his wealth in 65 billion different ways, to spend his time trying to curtail the freedoms and choices of others, even down to the size soda they drink and the amount of salt they ought to be allowed to sprinkle on their spinach?

Coloradans know all too well that the former New York Mayor and Democratic Presidential Candidate spent boatloads of cash pushing state legislators to clamp down on their God-given right to defend themselves and their families. He has pushed freedom-sucking and blatantly biased “Red Flag” bills in numerous other states around the country.

Mayor Busybody simply can’t stop telling others what to do. It seems to be an obsession with him—or maybe, a compulsion too. I gained insight into this when I returned to a New York Times article from 2009 that described Bloomberg’s eating habits.

“He dumps salt on almost everything, even saltine crackers. He devours burnt bacon and peanut butter sandwiches. He has a weakness for hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and fried chicken, washing them down with a glass of merlot. And his snack of choice? Cheez-Its.”

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is about control. Controlling one’s out-of-control thoughts, feelings and behavior by attempting to control his external environment. Consciously or unconsciously, those afflicted do this in vain, to the point where they feel unable to control the compulsion as well (as in excessive hand-washing).

Most sufferers aren’t dangerous unless they have 65 billion dollars and a God-complex.

The Times went on to report this delicious insight:

“…he (Bloomberg) is known to grab food off the plates of aides and, occasionally, even strangers. (“Delicious,” he declared recently, after swiping a piece of fried calamari from an unsuspecting diner in Staten Island.)”

Behavior like this exhibits a staggering and extreme lack of boundaries. The Times seems to only snicker at this, but it’s painfully clear that Bloomberg has great difficulty respecting the basic boundaries of civil society. No wonder it’s so easy for him to help himself to your freedoms and your choices, when he can’t stop helping himself to your calamari.

As a rule of thumb, the most flawed and arrogant people are most likely to believe they know what’s best for everyone else and should be allowed to trample on our freedoms. Those who are secure and comfortable in their own skin do not have a need to control others. They have the basic self-confidence to tolerate and even enjoy the uncertainty of others’ choices and behavior. They reserve more extreme action for times in which there has been the actual commission of a crime.

These cultural underpinnings of freedom have been essential to what is America. Socialists have been systematically unraveling these norms in a big way. They have not only been more open about their ideology, they have been working feverishly to put it into practice and prepare more Americans to accept it.

How can we put an end to the presumptuousness of these troubled, would-be tyrants? First, we can return the stigma attached to telling other adults what to do and how to live.
 We can once again elevate the notion that the right to think one’s own thoughts, make one’s own choices, and live one’s own life is sacrosanct, regardless of how flawed, unpopular or even offensive those choices might be.

The imperative of Liberty requires that the individual take responsibility for his own successes and failures so he can learn from his mistakes. In protecting others’ freedoms, he protects his own. We used to know this but it has been unlearned.

As for Michael Bloomberg, he has begun to help our side more than he could have imagined. His off-the-scale ignorance and arrogance was hilariously exposed in his first Democrat primary debate.

If we play our cards right, Bloomberg could help us take a “Big Gulp” toward returning a sensible social stigma of proclaiming oneself as lord and master over the rest of us.

It’s a reasonable strategy, and it shouldn’t cost 65 billion dollars.

Coronavirus infects woman in Japan for the second time, a first in the country

Okay, this is either 1, when the woman was tested clear, it was a ‘false negative’, or 2, she was reinfected by someone, or 3, the bug has ‘crypto’ capability, the ability to hide within the body, then spring forth anew.

A woman in Japan tested positive for the coronavirus for the second time on Wednesday, as the country grips with 190 cases separate from the Diamond Princess cruise ship outbreak, according to multiple reports.

The tour bus guide in her 40s first tested positive in late January and was released from the hospital after recovering. She was readmitted after having a sore throat and chest pains, according to the local government.

It’s a first known case of a second positive test in Japan, which prompted Health Minister Katsunobu Kato to inform Japan’s central government of the need to review previous patient lists and monitor the condition of those previously discharged, according to Reuters.

“Once you have the infection, it could remain dormant and with minimal symptoms, and then you can get an exacerbation if it finds its way into the lungs,” said Philip Tierno Jr., professor of microbiology and pathology at NYU School of Medicine, according to the news organization.

The virus can reportedly spread without symptoms showing up, which forces officials to play catch up and makes it far more difficult to manage.

Health officials analyzed the implications of a patient testing positive after having an initial recovery. Second positive tests have been reported in China.

“I’m not certain that this is not bi-phasic, like anthrax,” Tierno Jr. said in regards to the disease being able to go away before reappearing.

MARINE CORPS TAPS TRIJICON VCOG AS NEW USMC SQUAD COMMON OPTIC

Trijicon VCOG

The U.S. Marine Corps this month selected Wixom, Michigan’s Trijicon to supply the service’s new Squad Common Optic.

The Marines describe the SCO as a “magnified day optic that improves target acquisition and probability-of-hit with infantry assault rifles.” Using a variable power non-caliber-specific reticle with an illuminated or nonilluminated aim-point, users can identify their targets from farther distances than the current RCO standard– the Trijicon ACOG 4×32.

“The SCO supplements the attrition and replacement of the RCO Family of Optics and the Squad Day Optic for the M27, M4 and M4A1 weapon platforms for close-combat Marines,” said Tom Dever, interim team lead for Combat Optics at Marine Corps Systems Command.

The glass selected for the SCO program is Trijicon’s VCOG 1-8×28. The waterproof (to 66 feet) optic has a 7075-T6 aluminum housing and a first focal plane reticle that allows subtensions and drops to remain true at any magnification.

Guns and behavior

Dear elected representative, I am Angie from TC High and we are learning more about guns and school shootings and speaking our opinions about it and I guess we are now writing to you. So I gotta start somewhere.

This gun situation needs to be brought up more in schools, anywhere it can influence a person to not do this type of thing. I remember in middle school we talked a lot about opioids and discussed almost every day. And have checkups on kids psychologically and do more studies to see the red flags for this behavior.

But don’t take away guns. It’s not the guns killing people; it’s the people killing people. The Second Amendment says we have a right to keep and bear arms so you can’t really take away our guns. Help the people who are thinking of doing this thing. We have to keep America safe if we want to have better lives and a better future.

Angie Maddasion

Traverse City

Today, February 27, 1917, Congress Heights District of Columbia

John Moses Browning, with executives of Colt’s Patent Firearms,  demonstrated his working model of the ‘Automatic Rifle‘ to U.S. government leaders and high ranking military officers.

And off we went to the races.

The production version, the Model 1918 was manufactured in sufficient quantity to outfit the U.S. army’s 79th Division for World War 1 combat use in September of that year.

 

Alleged burglar charged with murder after accomplices are shot down in attempted home invasion

Austin police have charged a man with murder after police said he and two of his accomplices tried to rob two roommates at their northeast Austin apartment on Feb. 18. That robbery left his alleged accomplices dead.

Octaviano R. Rodriguez, 30, along with Casaundra Hernandez, born in 1989, and Emilio Maisonet, born in 1990, attempted to rob a residence at the Creekside on Parmer Lane apartments located at 5401 E. Parmer Lane at around 10:30 p.m., according to Austin police.

The roommates in the apartment told police that Rodriguez, Hernandez and Maisonet knocked on their door and claimed to be with the City of Austin when one of the residents asked who they were. The affidavit said Rodriguez was wearing a hardhat and a construction vest.

The resident who opened the door told officers a man, who police identified as Rodriguez, forced his way into the apartment and put a pistol to the back of the resident’s head.

The other resident told officers he went to his bedroom to grab his handgun. He told officers that two or three people had entered the apartment and that the intruders fired a shot in his direction before he returned fire.

The resident who returned fire told police he saw Rodriguez flee the apartment. Additionally, the affidavit said one of the residents was able to identify Rodriguez in a photographic line-up.

According to the affidavit, officers heard Rodriguez screaming for help behind some bushes. Police said Rodriguez had a gunshot wound to the leg and was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Police said they found Hernandez, who was unresponsive and had multiple gunshot wounds in a breezeway in the complex. Police found a handgun underneath Hernandez’s body, according to the affidavit. Hernandez was pronounced dead at 11:05 p.m., according to the affidavit.

Police located Maisonet as well, who police said also had an apparent gunshot wound. According to the affidavit, Maisonet was pronounced dead at 10:48 p.m.

Rodriguez is being held at the Travis County jail on a $250,000 bond for a first-degree felony murder charge. According to the affidavit, Rodriguez “committed an act clearly dangerous to human life … which resulted in the unintended deaths of Casaundra Hernandez and Emilio Ortiz.”

Car owner’s boyfriend shoots suspected car burglar in Sand Springs

Police are piecing together a shooting investigation in Sand Springs from Tuesday night that landed a man in the hospital.

Officers were called to a neighborhood near 6th and Main around 7:30 p.m. after someone caught a man breaking into their car in a back alley.

Police say the homeowner went outside to start her car when she saw 28-year-old Brent Mikott Sloan sitting inside her car.

The homeowner’s boyfriend came out and chased after Sloan before getting in a fight with him.

He says while he was holding Sloan and waiting for police, Sloan lunged at him.

He shot Sloan in the knee.

Paramedics rushed Sloan to the hospital where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries.

Neighbors say they’ve had problems with car burglaries in the area.

Sloan is facing charges for auto burglary. The district attorney’s office will decide if charges will be filed against the shooter.

Trump Says Coronavirus Vaccine Coming Along ‘Rapidly, ‘ Appoints Pence to Head Task Force

As fears spread of a possible coronavirus outbreak in the U.S, President Trump addressed the nation in a Wednesday evening news conference at the White House to discuss how his administration was handling the virus threat — saying that a vaccine is being developed “rapidly” and “coming along very well.”

However, Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said later at the press conference that a vaccine would not be applicable to the epidemic for a “year to a year and a half,” due to delays from testing, development, production and distribution.

Northern California Confirms 1st Coronavirus Case of Unknown Origin

The nation’s first coronavirus case of unknown origin has been confirmed in Northern California, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed Wednesday.

“It is a confirmed case. There is one in Northern California,” CDC spokesman Scott Pauley told the Sacramento Bee.

The new case brings the number of infected in the United States to 60, which includes people who’ve been repatriated to the U.S. The CDC said the person contracted the virus without traveling outside the U.S. or coming into close contact with another infected patient, The Washington Post reported.

Transcript for the CDC Telebriefing Update on COVID-19

Audio recording media icon[MP3 – 6 MB]

Please Note: This transcript is not edited and may contain errors.

Welcome and thank you for standing by.  At this time, all participants are on listen-only mode until our question and answer session.  At that time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one.  Please be advised today’s conference is being recorded.  If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.  Now I would like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Benjamin Haynes.  Thank you.  You may begin.

Thank you.  And thank you all for joining us for today’s update on CDC’s COVID-19 response.  We are joined by the director of CDC’s national center for immunization and respiratory diseases who will give opening remarks.  I will now turn the call over.

Thank you for joining us.  The global novel coronavirus situation is rapidly evolving and expanding.  There are still a lot of news coverage about community spread in a few countries since the last time we talked.

This means that cases of COVID-19 are appearing without a known source of exposure.  Communities include Hong Kong, Italy, Iran, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.  Community spread is often a trigger to begin implementing new strategies tailored to local circumstances that blunt the impact of disease and can slow the spread of virus.

The fact this virus has caused illness – including illness resulting in death, and sustained person-to-person spread is concerning.  These factors meet two of the criteria of the pandemic.  The world moves closer towards meeting the third criteria.  Worldwide spread of the new virus.

The U.S. has been implementing an aggressive containment strategy that requires detecting, tracking, and isolating all cases.  As much as possible and preventing more introduction of disease notably at points of entry.  We’ve restricted travel into the United States while also issuing extensive travel advisories for countries currently experiencing community spread.  Our travel notices are changing almost daily.

We’ve also enacted the first quarantine of this scale in the U.S. And are supporting the state department and HHS in repatriating citizens from high-risk areas.  We are doing this with the goal of slowing the introduction of this new virus into the U.S. And buying us more time to prepare.  To date, our containment strategies have been largely successful.  As a result, we have very few cases in the United States and no spread in the community.  But as more and more countries experience community spread, successful containment at our borders becomes harder and harder.

Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in this country.  It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.  We will maintain for as long as practical a dual approach where we continue measures to contain this disease but also employ strategies to minimize the impact on our communities.

At this time, there’s no vaccine to protect against this new virus and no medications approved to treat it.  Non-pharmaceutical interventions or NPIs will be the most important tools in our response to this virus.  What these interventions look like at the community level will vary depending on local conditions.  What is appropriate for one community seeing local transmission won’t necessarily be appropriate for a community where no local transmission has occurred.  This parallel, proactive approach of containment and mitigation will delay the emergence of community spread in the United States while simultaneously reducing its ultimate impact.

To illustrate how this works, I’d like to share with you some of the specific recommendations made in the document I mentioned last Friday including some of the steps we would take here if needed.  This document is called Community Mitigation Guidelines to Prevent Pandemic Influenza United States 2017.  It draws from the findings of nearly 200 journal articles written between 1990 and 2016.

This document looked at what can be done at the individual and community level during a pandemic when we don’t have a vaccine or proven medical treatment for the disease.  We’re looking at data since 2016 and adjusting our recommendations to the specific circumstances of COVID-19.  But this posted document provides a frame work for our response strategy.  Based on what is known now, we would implement these NPI measures in a very aggressive, proactive way as he have been doing with our containment efforts.

There are three categories of NPIs.  Personal NPIs which include personal protective measures you can take every day and personal protective measures reserved for pandemics.  Community NPIs which include social distancing measures designed to keep people who are sick away from others.  And school closures and dismissals.  And environmental NPIs which includes surface cleaning measures.  NPIs routinely recommended for prevention of respiratory virus transmission include everyday personal protective measures.

These are preventive measures we recommend during influenza season.  These NPIs are recommended during a pandemic regardless of the severity level of the respiratory illness.  Personal protective measures reserved for pandemics include voluntary home quarantine of household members who have been exposed to someone they live with who is sick.  Now I’d like to talk through some examples of what community NPIs look like.

These are practical measures that can help limit exposure by reducing exposure in community settings.  Students in smaller groups or in a severe pandemic, closing schools and using internet-based teleschooling to continue education.  For adults, businesses can replace in-person meetings with video or telephone conferences and increase teleworking options.

On a larger scale, communities may need to modify, postpone, or cancel mass gatherings.  Looking at how to increase telehealth services and delaying elective surgery.  The implementation of environmental NPIs would require everyone to consistently clean frequently touched surfaces and objects at home, at school, at work, and at large gatherings.

Local communities will need to look at which NPIs to implement and when based on how transmission and disease is and what can be done locally.  This will require flexibility and adaptations as disease progresses and new information becomes available.  Some of these measures are better than none.  But the maximum benefit occurs when the elements are layered upon each other.

Some community level interventions that may be most effective in reducing the spread of a new virus like school closures are also the most likely to be associated with unwanted consequences and further disruptions.  Secondary consequences of some of these measures might include missed work and loss of income.  I understand this whole situation may seem overwhelming and that disruption to everyday life may be severe.  But these are things that people need to start thinking about now.

I had a conversation with my family over breakfast this morning and I told my children that while I didn’t think that they were at risk right now, we as a family need to be preparing for significant disruption of our lives.  You should ask your children’s school about their plans for school dismissals or school closures.

If ask if there are plans for teleschool.  I contacted my local school superintendent this morning with exactly those questions.  You should think about what you would do for childcare if schools or day cares close.  If teleworking is an option for you.  All of these questions can help you be better prepared for what might happen.

CDC and other federal agencies have been practicing for this since the 2019 influenza pandemic.  In the last two years, CDC has engaged in two pandemic influenza exercises that have required us to prepare for a severe pandemic and just this past year we had a whole of government exercise practicing similarly around a pandemic of influenza.

Right now CDC is operationalizing all of its pandemic response plans working on multiple fronts including specific measures to prepare communities to respond to local transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19.  Before I take questions, I want to address the issue of the test kits CDC is developing.

I am frustrated like I know many of you are that we have had issues with our test.  I want to assure you that we are working to modify the kit and hope to send out a new version to state and local jurisdictions soon.  There are currently 12 states or localities around the U.S. That can test samples as well as we are testing at CDC 400 samples were tested overnight.

There is no current backlog or delay for testing at CDC.  Commercial labs will also be coming online soon with their own tests.  This will allow the greatest number of tests to happen closer to where potential cases are.  Last, I want to recognize that people are concerned about this situation.  I would say rightfully so.  I’m concerned about the situation.  CDC is concerned about the situation.  But we are putting our concerns to work preparing.

And now is the time for businesses, hospitals, community schools, and everyday people to begin preparing as well.  Over the last few weeks, CDC has been on dozens of calls with different partners in the health, retail, education, and business sectors.  In the hopes that employers begin to respond in a flexible way to differing levels of severity, to refine their business response plans as needed.  I also want to acknowledge the importance of uncertainty.  During an outbreak with a new virus, there is a lot of uncertainty.  Our guidance and advice are likely to be fluid subject to change as we learn more.  We will continue to keep you updated.  I’d be happy to take a few questions now.

Brittany, we’re ready to take questions.

Thank you.  We’ll now begin our question and answer session.  If you would like to ask a question over the phone, press star, then one and record your name clearly when prompted.  If you need to withdraw your question, press star then two.  One moment as we wait for the first question.  Our first question comes from Lisa from PBS.  Your line is now open.

Good morning.  Thank you for doing this.  I have some more questions about the test kits.  Thank you for what you gave us the update on, but can you go into more detail about how they work?  Can any hospital now just kind of use a swab to get a sample and then send that to the CDC?  And then how long do you estimate it will take to have the kits replaced so that more localities can actually do the analysis and do you have enough money for this kind of field work and test analysis right now?

Okay.  I’m going to start from maybe the part of a patient perspective which is, you know, right now our focus is still on individuals with a travel history that would put them at risk for COVID-19.  Or people who are close contacts of someone who has COVID-19.  Those individuals when they are identified by a health care provider, the health care provider calls the health department.

The health department helps them triage those patients to make — and then the samples are worked with the health department.  Now, as we move forward, though, if we are looking at the trajectory of expecting that there likely will be community spread of this virus in the united states, the case definition may change away from narrowly around people with travel.

Again, that’s what we would anticipate doing as there is community spread.  If that happens, it will be more and more important that the clinicians have a full tool kit.  That’s why the availability of commercial kits would be so helpful.  So in the short-term, it’s the clinician calls the health department.  And either the health department already has the test kit themselves or if they don’t yet have it stood up, they send it to CDC.  Our turnaround at CDC is within a day.

There is a little bit of shipping time.  But that’s the process.  In terms of timing, I think at this point what I would say is we are working as fast as we can.  We understand the frustration of our partners in the health care sector, in health departments.  You certainly can imagine we want to resolve this as quickly as possible.  But we have to make sure that while resolving it, we keep to the highest level of quality assurance.  Because as important as speed is, it is more important that we make sure that our results are correct.

In terms of funding, there’s already been funds available that are helping us with the activities that we have now that is the diagnostic testing at CDC.  And we’ll continue to proceed focused on our priorities which as I’ve said are getting this test kit out to state health departments so they can be doing that themselves as an interim step to getting it commercially available would be a great advancement.  Next question.

Thank you.  And our next question comes from Craig from KNX 1070 news radio Los Angeles.  Your line is now open.

Thank you, doctor.  I appreciate your time.  Couple of questions.  There’s been a lot of talk about what’s being done to prepare for possible people who would be quarantined.  I’d like to know what that is.  And also is the Chinese government leveling with you?  Are they telling you the truth?  Have they given you the straight dope, so to speak, as to what you need to know about the coronavirus?

So in answer to your first question, I would say generally we are working on a daily basis with state and local health departments across the country on exactly those issues.  What are the local considerations for quarantine or isolation and how can they be resolved?  And in each location in the united states, it may end up being a slightly different answer.

Our focus is on the best health of the individual whom we are working with in terms of whether they need quarantine or isolation.  In terms of the Chinese government, there has been a WHO team on the ground in China as well in Wuhan.  There are data coming out from those efforts.  We have a lot of information from china.

Frankly, we have a lot of new information from all the other countries around the world now that are reporting community spread and we are as quickly as possible trying to synthesize that information.  It is providing us more data in terms of making our own estimations in the U.S. Of what we’re going to see.  Communities that are having community spread are certainly very informative in terms of what we might expect in the united states.

And I think that whole body of evidence is frankly coming really quickly at us.  That’s why we have a team of people here at CDC synthesizing it all.

Next question, please.

Thank you.  And our next question comes from Megan from STAT.  Your line is now open.

Hi there.  Thank you so much for taking my question.  I’m wondering if you could expand a little bit on whether you are reconsidering testing people with travel history to other countries now where they might be infected.  And I’m also wondering if you could say whether or not the agency has considered getting tests from another country that’s supplying tests to other nations as well.

So the answer to the first question is certainly, we’re considering what the spread of illness in other countries looks like and how it impacts the potential risk the Americans traveling abroad in those countries.  Those conversations are going on as we speak.  We obviously are working closely with the partners on those considerations.  And when there is new information in terms of case definitions, we’ll definitely publicize that broadly.

You know, as I said, we are still at the stage of containment, but we are already starting to plan for mitigation.  And part of the mitigation planning is the participation of community spread in the united states.  And as that happens, it would certainly dramatically impact how we’re considering who is on the case.  As you can imagine, the symptoms of novel coronavirus look a lot like other viral respiratory diseases that are circulating this time of year.

So it’s going to be difficult for clinicians to differentiate fully on the basis of those — solely on the basis of the symptoms.  In terms of diagnostic tests, what I would say is we’re working closely with FDA on this.  And obviously with the state and local health department partners.  And I think that we are rapidly moving towards getting those kits more available in the U.S.  In the systems that we have.

Really I think we’re close.  I just wouldn’t want to give an estimate of when until we’re there.  But I think we’re close.  And remember, a dozen states now have the kit and are testing and there’s tests available in the U.S.  So I think we’re making forward progress.

Thank you.  And our next question comes from Lena Sun from Washington Post.  Your line is now open.

Thank you.  I had a couple questions.  One is if a dozen states have the kit, then do they still need to send those tests to CDC for confirmation?  Which are the states that have the tests?  And more broadly, your comments today seem to represent a significant escalation in the sort of severity and urgency of the now.  At a briefing this morning for Congress, I believe some members were told that we now face a very strong chance of an extremely serious outbreak.  Is that the CDC’s feeling right now that we face an extremely strong chance of a serious outbreak?

Okay.  So let’s see.  The first question, it’s 12 state or local health departments.  And so it’s not 12 states total.  We are still as a point of part of how we roll out these tests, those tests that are positive still do come to CDC for confirmation.  I think that’s just part of a normal process to ensure we are keeping to the utmost quality control.

I don’t have a list of state or local health departments in front of me, but I think we can provide that.  In terms of a change in tone, I guess what I would say is as I look back on the scripts of the telebriefings that we’ve given over the past month, we have for a long time been saying — we have for many weeks been saying that while we hope this is not going to be severe, we are planning as if it is.

The data over the last week and the spread in other countries has certainly raised our level of concern and raised our level of expectation that we are going to have community spread here.  So I think that that’s perhaps the change of tone you’ve seen.  I think what we still don’t know is what that will look like as many of you know.  We can have community spread in the united states and have it be reasonably mild.

We could have community spread in the united states and have it be very severe.  And so that is what — that is what we don’t completely know yet.  And we certainly also don’t exactly know when it’s going to happen.  I think it would be nice for everybody if we could say, you know, on this date is when it’s going to start.

We don’t know that yet.  And so that’s why we’re asking folks in every sector as well as people within their families to start planning for this because as we’ve seen from the recent countries that have had community spread when it is hit in those countries, it has moved quite rapidly.  So we want to make sure that the American public is prepared.

Thank you.  And as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one.  Limit to one question and one follow-up.  Our next question comes from Eben from Fox news.  Your line is now open.

Thank you very much for doing the call today.  There has been some political back and forth now that democrats are accusing the president which essentially means the administration and everything that falls under that as being ill prepared for coronavirus, requesting too little of amount in terms of their request for $2.5 billion.  Do you feel that we are ill prepared from a financial standpoint?  I know you are a clinician and I don’t want you to get too much into politics, but do you have what you need to do your job?

I guess I’ll answer that two ways.  The first is HHS can provide information or answer questions about the funds that are available.  What I can say from my perspective is I’ve been at CDC for 25 years and that if you asked public health officials over the course of that time what they feared as an expectation, it was something exactly like this.

And so the idea that we might have a pandemic of influenza or a pandemic of a respiratory viral infection is something that we’ve known about and have been planning and preparing for.  That’s why we at CDC have been exercising with the state and local health departments.  That’s why the whole of government exercise last year, that’s why we’ve invested so much on the foundation we are now responding.  But that being said, we are never going to ever be able to be so completely prepared that we’re prepared for any inevitability.

We always are going to find that diseases surprise us and that there was some consideration that is slightly different from what we planned for.  So have we made a lot of progress in the 25 years I’ve been here?  Yes.  Are we better prepared today than we were 20 years ago?  Yes.  But are we completely prepared?  You know, diseases surprise us and therefore we need to be reacting to the current situation even if it differs from what we planned for.

You know, in general we are asking the American public to work with us to prepare in the expectation that this could be bad.  I continue to hope that in the end we’ll look back and feel like we are over-prepared, but that is a better place to be in than being under-prepared.

And just like the preparedness for a pandemic influenza provides such a strong foundation for this response, any preparedness we do as a country, at schools, businesses, within our families will always be helpful for whatever the next event is.  And so I don’t think in general that preparedness will ever go to waste.

Next question, please.

Thank you.  Our next question comes from Mike from A.P.  Your line is now open.

Hi.  Thank you for taking my call.  If I could ask a couple.  One is just the latest case count, it’s been a little confusing for some of us just to sort out exactly how many U.S.  Cases there are and how they’re being sorted out.  Second, if you could speak to your best and latest understanding of the severity of the disease.

Of course there’s some news today about the WHO mission coming back and statements about not finding a lot of undetected cases.  I was wondering if that’s related to CDC gearing up for these NPIs.  And lastly, talking about the exercising you’ve been doing, what was the weakness or weaknesses that kept coming up in the exercises that you’re most concerned about and you’re really trying to stay on top of now that we have a real time experience happening?  Thank you.

Okay.  So let me — so let me start by saying that I know the case counts can be confusing.  I will try to sort out what the numbers are as of today and try to explain why it perhaps is a little confusing.  There remain 14 confirmed U.S.  Cases.  We are separating out the cases among repatriated individuals.  So those are 14 U.S. Cases.  12 of those are travelers who returned from an area where disease is circulating.  Two of those are close contacts of another case.  That’s 14.

There are three novel coronavirus patients among people who are repatriated from Hubei that is in the repatriated flights.  And our website says 36 because we updated this yesterday, but in fact as of this morning, there are 40 positives among individuals repatriated from the “Diamond Princess.”  so these are Americans who were on board the “Diamond Princess”  repatriated back to the United States.  And that’s 40.

So that means just to go back that there are 14 confirmed cases picked up through the U.S. public health systems.  And 40 plus 3 makes 43 among individuals repatriated into the United States.  I do hope that helps.  In terms of the severity, I think that there are a variety of reports that give information about severity.  We’ve looked at severity among people, among reported people from Hubei.

We’ve looked at reported people from elsewhere in china.  And certainly the data coming out from Korea and Iran and Italy suggests also deaths which are concerning.  In terms of our messaging today, I really would say that it is more driven by the community spread in other countries than it is specifically from data from china.

And so I think it really is the spreading of COVID-19 through other countries that makes all of us feel that the risk of spread in the united states has — is increasing.  In terms of exercising, you know, there are always small and big things that we learn from exercising.  Maybe two specific things I’ll point out is that our exercising did show us that if we had a pandemic, there were going to be supply issues.

And I think that we are now across the whole of government thinking through and working on those supply issues.  One of them is enough protection for health care workers.  This is clearly a priority. The health care workers put themselves on the front line caring for ill patients and has to be a priority to make sure they are protected.  Another issue is the NPIs.  The non-pharmaceutical interventions.

We have worked across governmental sectors to get input into our planning guidance.  But it’s one thing to plan for those NPIs.  It’s certainly another thing to be able to implement them at a large scale.  And I think one of the reasons that we’re talking about this so proactively today is that we recognize that implementing NPIs at this level that we want to prepare the american people that their lives could be interrupted.  Next.

Thank you.  Our next question comes from Eric of ABC news.  Your line is open.

Thanks, Benjamin.  Thanks, Nancy for taking our questions.  I’m wondering like the chicken and the egg with the case definition and the testing.  If you’re telling us today it’s not a question of if but when there’ll be community spread and it’s very difficult to — for clinicians to know the difference between flu and COVID-19, how come you’re not widening the case definition to test more people?

So let me answer that two ways.  One is that we have more than one layer of surveillance.  I think I talked about this in a previous call, but maybe just to talk about it a little more.  There is a specific patient-under-investigation case definition that really does focus on travel because that is where the cases that are picked up through our public health systems are.  But we are also aware and concerned about the possibility for broader spread in the U.S.

That’s why the Secretary and we announced last week that we were going to be doing more community-based surveillance relying on the infrastructure of our influenza.  So we have already started that surveillance system.  We’re rapidly working within the next couple weeks to expand that more broadly.  As well, we have a variety of other more community-oriented surveillance systems that we’re working to stand up to be able to look for those cases in the community.  So this is proceeding in stages with the one surveillance but community surveillance also rapidly starting.

Brittany, we have time for two more questions, please.

Thank you.  And our next question comes from Lauren from San Antonio Express News.  Your line is now open.

Thank you for taking my call.  I wanted to ask about the 14-day incubation period that has been reiterated by many public health officials including the quarantine of the evacuees.  We’ve seen some isolated reports coming from other countries suggesting that it is possible that the incubation period has been longer in some individuals in other countries who have been quarantined for more than 14 days.  And I was wondering if you guys have any reason to suspect whether the incubation period may be longer than 14 days for those of Wuhan that have been released from their quarantine.

Thank you.  That’s actually a really important question.  And something we’re looking at closely.  Some of the reports that you’ve seen are reports in the media, not reports in peer reviewed literature.  And it impacts our ability to fully scientifically evaluate them.  As I’ve said in previous meetings, there are a team of — there are more than 50 modeling mathematical modeling groups in the United States all working with us to look at a variety of issues around this response to novel coronavirus.

One of the things they’re certainly analyzing is all of the available data on the incubation period.  And the data so far still supports using 14 days as the top window.  In terms of isolated reports elsewhere, there are a variety of possibilities.  One possibility is — there’s a variety of possibilities – what we’ll do is continue to synthesize and evaluate the available data trying to make a data-driven decision.  And if more data becomes available that suggests a longer incubation period, we will certainly be visible and public about that.  I think at this point, we’re still comfortable that 14 days is the appropriate top line for that.

Last question, please.

Thank you.  And our final question comes from Ben from CNN.  Your line is now open.

Hi, thanks so much for taking my question.  This morning while he was traveling in India, President Trump said that he thinks that the coronavirus is a problem that is going to go away.  He seems very optimistic about this and we’re trying to figure out exactly why he believes so strongly that to be the case.  And so my question for you is what information is your agency specifically giving the president and the White House about the current state of the coronavirus outbreak?

As you imagine, we brief the Secretary daily and the Secretary is the lead of the White House task force.  And Ddr. Redfield the CDC director is briefing them daily.  In terms of the course of this illness, we have a — again, a team of mathematical modelers working with us to try to predict the trajectory.  One hypothesis is that we could be hopeful that this could potentially be seasonal.

Other viral respiratory diseases are seasonal including influenza and therefore in many viral respiratory diseases, we do see a decrease in disease in spring and summer.  And so we could certainly be optimistic that this disease will follow suit. But we’re not going to know that until time keeps ticking forward.  We’re going to be, again, preparing as if this is going to continue, preparing as if we’re going to see community spread in the near term.

But I’m always going to be hopeful that that disease will decline either for the summer or that, you know, we’ll be over-prepared and we won’t see the high levels of transmission here in the U.S.

Thank you, doctor.  And thank you, all, for joining us for today’s briefing. Please visit CDC’s 2019 novel coronavirus website for continued updates.  And if you have further questions, please call the main media line at 404-639-3286 or email media@CDC.gov.  Thank you.

Thank you for your participation in today’s conference.  All participants may disconnect at this time.