"(1230ET): New cases are being reported out of New York State and NYC are being reported faster than we can keep up, as the state ramps up testing.

NYC officials just announced that the total number of confirmed cases in the city has climbed to 7,530. An hour ago, Gov. Cuomo put the number at 6,211.

By our count, this puts the new total cases in New York State at 11,675.

Last night, de Blasio described NYC as the "epicenter" of the US outbreak."

"The Fed is reopening its most controversial and despised crisis-era bailout facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility. The Wall Street Journal describes the PDCF as “an overnight loan facility for primary dealers (that) provides round-the-clock backup source of funding to banks.”

The WSJ’s description grossly understates the facility’s real purpose which is to transfer the toxic bonds and securities from failing financial institutions and corporations (through an intermediary) onto the Fed’s balance sheet.

The objective of this sleight of hand is to recapitalize big investors who, through their own bad bets, are now either underwater or in deep trouble. Just like 2008, the Fed is now doing everything in its power to save its friends and mop up the ocean of red ink that was generated during the 10-year orgy of speculation that has ended in crashing markets and a wave of deflation."

"Update (0850ET): Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte blamed the Italian people earlier this week when he said he would extend Italy's nationwide lockdown until April 3, claiming that too many were still violating the lockdown despite stiff penalties.

As the country's death toll passes the death toll from mainland China (or the 'official' death toll at least), whispers about even restrictive measures appear to have just been validated: Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Friday effectively declared martial law Friday morning in Italy's worst-hit region of Lombardy, claiming that he will now be bringing in the Army to enforce the lockdown, something that the region's governor swiftly confirmed."

"The World breathed a sigh of relief Thursday night when China reported no new domestically-transmitted cases of the coronavirus for a second straight day. "

We think the swiftness of the FDA in allowing drugs to be used is quite remarkable. These are never before seen changes to the bureaucratic process.

"During the task force briefing, President Trump announced authorizing to the FDA to relax regulations to speed up clinical trials for several anti-viral remedies to treat coronavirus. Specifically citing a therapeutic drug known as chloroquine President Trump noted trials are underway and could be made available for treatment “almost immediately.”

We are going to get some readers upset. Not that we matter much in the world but this is our opinion. Nature has published a Paper on the proximal origin of Sars-CoV-2. We think the paper is misleading. The authors propose that there are 2 reasons for believing that Sars-CoV-2 is not genetically engineered.  The first reason is that the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein is not optimal. Well, whatever does optimal mean? They do not explain. But they go on and say that the receptor-binding domain has high affinity for the human ACE2 receptor. Ok, this is high enough affinity to cripple Northern Italy and probably Iran's healthcare system so, what more do you need?

The author's do comment is that the Sars-CoV-2 spike protein does not resemble any known spike protein in the NCBI GenBank database related to this family of coronavirus. They discuss the furin cleavage site of the spike protein (S1-S2 junction) and note that this particular cleavage site is not found in other B'betacoronaviruses. So, they note that this is a novelty for this family of coronaviruses. This particular site was noted in India for resembling a segment of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

The author's second argument or reason is that the Sars-Cov-2 virus backbone does not resemble any other backbone in the NCBI GenBank database. Their reasoning is that if someone were to manufacture this virus they would start off with an already known virus that has the good fortune of showing up in a public database. Keep in mind that while many of the viruses in the database were categorized recently the came from old material dating back 20-years to Sars. Who knows what those backbones would look like after 20-years of mutation?

In their conclusion, they go on to state, " it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here".

We call BS. This is merely expert conjecture and not science.  We will let you be the judge. For you conspiracy theorists, The Open Society Foundations have contributed to the Wellcome Trust.

What is not being said in the media, is that both Italy and Iran have signed on to the Chinese One Belt and One Road initiative. For a long period (years), Italy has had a sizable number of Chinese leather workers in Northern Italy making shoes and handbags. Today that number is around 100,000. So, supposing many went home for Chinese New Year (January 25th) and then came back to Italy to work?  We will let you connect the dots.

"The Italian governor of Lombardy is warning citizens to “stay home” because soon hospitals “will no longer be able to help those who get sick” with the Chinese coronavirus."