Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

March 17, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

58:22

15 Days That Shook The World | Ep. 973

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	The Trump administration lays out a highly restrictive set of guidelines for daily life.
	The stock market collapses and San Francisco shuts everything down.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
	You have a right to privacy protected at ExpressVPN.com slash Ben.
	Okay, so, here is the dealio, the dealio, gang.
	Right now, we are trying to figure out exactly what the plan is.
	I mean, seriously, like the entire US government is trying to figure out what the plan is.
	The entire world is trying to figure out what the plan is.
	This is because We can quarantine all we want, but once the quarantine ends, once people are out and about, then is this thing just going to crop up again?
	And we don't know the answer to that question.
	So right now everything is shut down.
	The shutdown is basically because we are trying to, as we've explained on the show before, flatten the curve.
	The goal being That yeah, everybody eventually is going to get coronavirus, it'll become part of our sort of seasonal flu, daily life is sort of the theory, but if we can flatten that curve so that it doesn't all hit at once, so the wrecking ball doesn't hit our healthcare system all at once, then you won't have a massive excess of cases above that dotted line that I've shown you before, the dotted line being the number of ICU beds and respirators and ventilators available for people who actually need them.
	So the idea is we can slow transmission to a certain extent, Then eventually, there will be enough beds available because people won't all be getting this at once.
	But here is the problem.
	Let's say that we lock everything down for just a couple of weeks.
	Let's say we lock everything down for a couple of months.
	And then all the young people go out, and they hang out together, and then they infect one another, and then all the old people get it.
	Well, you may have delayed it a little bit, but unless you have radically increased the number of ICU beds and ventilators, then you've not actually bought anything.
	You've not actually achieved anything.
	Because the line is still where it was before.
	All you've done is basically delay a little bit the onset of the tsunami that is going to hit.
	So the question right now is, what is going to stop this thing?
	Now, the evidence is sort of interesting and mixed on what is going to stop this thing.
	So in China, if we believe the Chinese statistics, the Chinese have actually stopped this thing dead.
	They locked everybody down for about three months.
	And now there are very few new cases.
	According to the Chinese government, we have seen industries start to reopen.
	We're seeing people in the streets again.
	In Hong Kong, same thing.
	Lots of people out in the streets again.
	Unclear whether business has reopened at this point in South Korea or not.
	So the question is going to be, now that people are back out and about, whether they are starting to reinfect each other and whether you see the caseloads rising again.
	If not, then there is a hope that this thing is just shut down Temporarily.
	And if it's shut down temporarily, then we can weather this thing.
	If, however, there is no shutdown that is temporary.
	If, however, it turns out that the minute we get out of our hidey holes and we start associating with one another, we're going to reinfect each other again.
	And then it's going to hit all the old people anyway.
	And we have not significantly increased the number of beds.
	We haven't bought ourselves any time at all.
	And if the vaccine takes 12 to 18 months, and the idea is that we're supposed to shut down the entire world economy for 12 to 18 months, that is simply unsustainable, which is why it's fascinating to see the differences between how the United States and the UK and Denmark are treating this thing.
	So I mentioned this yesterday.
	The United States is right now basically pursuing a policy of everybody stay home, which is based on best available information.
	Everybody staying home is going to slow the transmission of the disease.
	The UK was pursuing a policy originally of herd immunity, Let everybody who's under the age of 60 walk around freely, go about their business, get the coronavirus, develop an immunity to coronavirus, and then, once it's passed through the population, there's not as much chance that all of those people are going to pass it on to the old people.
	The problem is, it turns out that a lot of the people were still visiting with old people.
	Grandma and grandpa were still getting it, and this is why the UK is now imposing American-style restrictions.
	Meanwhile, in Denmark, they're trying the UK-style experiment.
	They're basically saying, everybody under the age of 70, go about your daily business, go enjoy your life, It will develop herd immunity.
	If you're over the age of 70, stay in your house.
	We're going to slip a rent check and some food under your door and just deal with it for like three to four months.
	It'll be interesting to see which one of these bears the most dividends.
	In the long term, it may actually be the Danish example.
	It may be Denmark.
	The reason being, again, if the goal here is not just to lower the curve, but to eradicate the passage of the disease generally, you do need herd immunity at a certain point.
	The benefits of a slow development of the disease over time toward herd immunity is that you Don't fill all the ICU beds at once.
	The downside is it means that you have to shut down the economy for extraordinarily broad periods of time.
	In Denmark, the hope is that if you can segment off people who are older, that you can get the best of both worlds.
	That all those old people will not get the disease and all the young people...
	We'll get it, but most of them will be okay.
	By most we mean nearly all of those people will basically be okay.
	These are the sort of trade-offs that public policy has to take into consideration because the economy shutting down is a major public policy consideration.
	Millions of jobs are going to be lost across the world this month and next.
	In the United States, hundreds of thousands of jobs are going to be lost this month and next.
	The reason being, you can't shut down the entire United States economy indefinitely without any sort of expectation as to when the economy is going to open without Inflating the currency.
	I mean, at a certain point, who's going to buy bonds?
	At a certain point, where is the money all going to be?
	And once you start inflating the currency so people can continue to pay for their food, well, what happens to everybody who has savings?
	All the people who are really wealthy don't actually have a lot of money anymore.
	Basically, all the wealth of a society dissipates when the economy stops dead this way.
	These are serious considerations that we're going to have to consider, and we're going to have to hear some more specific plans from our leadership as to how they expect that this thing is going to die out, or how we expect to increase the medical capacity of the system itself so that when we reopen the doors, when business reopens, we don't have exactly the same situation we had two weeks ago where business is open, but lots of old people are in danger of dying.
	We're going to get to more of this.
	We're going to break it down in just one second because data first here before opinion, data first.
	We'll get to all of that in just one second.
	First, let us talk about the fact that your car right now kind of valuable to you.
	And one of the things you don't want to be doing is heading out to that auto parts store.
	So you got a breakdown.
	You're not going to go to the auto parts store because a lot of these businesses are Why not check out rockauto.com?
	It's so much easier than walking into a store and then demanding quick answers to things like, is your Odyssey an LX or an EX, and what kind of parts do you need?
	Is it the specific exact part?
	Many of your parts right now are basically computer-based, and that means that you don't have the exact part at a local auto parts store, besides which it may be closed right now.
	So go check out RockAuto.com.
	The RockAuto.com catalog is unique, remarkably easy to navigate.
	RockAuto.com has everything from engine control modules and brake parts to tail lamps, motor oil, even new carpet, whether it's for your classic or daily driver.
	Get everything you need in a few easy clicks delivered directly to your door.
	RockAuto.com always offers the lowest prices possible, rather than changing prices based on what the market will bear, like airlines do.
	Why spend up to twice as much for the same parts?
	RockAuto.com is a family business serving auto parts customers online for just 20 years.
	Let me just give you a quick example.
	A Delphi FG 1456 fuel pump assembly for your 2005 to 2010 Honda Odyssey is $354 at Advance, which is a big chain store, versus $217 at RockAuto.com.
	So next time your car gives you trouble, instead of heading off to the auto parts store, which is probably closed, instead head on over to RockAuto.com right now to see all the parts available for your car or truck and write Shapiro in their How Did You Hear About Us box so they know that we sent you.
	As I say, the big questions right now involve exactly when we reopen the economy, if the economy is reopened, how exactly all of this shakes out.
	So here's the information that we currently have.
	Right now, according to the New York Times, Benedict Cary writing, scientists tracking the spread of coronavirus reported on Monday that for every confirmed case there are most likely another five to ten people in the community with undetected infections.
	These often milder cases are, on average, about half as infectious as confirmed ones, but are responsible for nearly 80% of new cases, according to the report, which was based on data from China.
	The researchers modeled the virus's natural spread in China before the government instituted a travel ban and an aggressive testing policy.
	During that time, from December of last year through late January, about six in seven cases went undetected.
	That situation is analogous to the current state of affairs in the United States and other Western countries, where tests are not widely available, the researchers said.
	Jeffrey Shaman, epidemiologist at Columbia, he says if we have 3,500 confirmed cases in the United States, you might be looking at 35,000 in reality.
	The report is among the first to address two of the most pressing questions about the pandemic.
	How many people are walking around with unrecognized infections?
	And just how infectious are they?
	As American policymakers have begun taking more aggressive measures to slow transmission, such as canceling events and closing restaurants, access to tests for the virus has been difficult or nonexistent in much of the country.
	Those tests are going to be necessary in order for us to actually lock down people who may be walking around and carrying this thing without noticing it.
	Dr. Elizabeth Halloran, professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington says it's crucial to implement wide-scale testing and it's important to develop inexpensive tests so people can get tested whenever they need to be.
	This new analysis is drawing undocumented infections in China and mobility data, as well as a model of social interaction across the population to estimate the numbers of undocumented cases as well as infection rates.
	It found that after the Chinese government locked down the center of the outbreak on January 23rd and began widespread testing, the picture changed drastically.
	In time, testing identified some 60% of positive cases, up from 14%.
	The scientists said the number of undetected cases for every confirmed one could vary twofold from country to country.
	The unidentified cases in China that proliferated before the lockdown, although less contagious, did not necessarily cause milder cases in the newly infected, according to researchers.
	Okay, so this does...
	require us to ask the question with regard to China.
	So why exactly have we not seen a re-uptick of cases in China as the economy begins to open?
	Because as the New York Times reported earlier this week, I mean reported like late last week, China is starting to get back to work.
	More than six weeks after its leaders virtually shut down the world's second largest economy, factories are reopening, offices are starting to fill.
	Okay, if that's the case, then why haven't we seen a wild uptick in the number of cases in China?
	Unless they're not telling us something about how all of this works.
	Because, for example, the Washington Post, this is one of the most viewed pieces in the history of the Washington Post, and for good reason.
	It's a sophisticated and interesting take on exactly how infection models work.
	So we're going to show you how the Washington Post did this, because it's really interesting.
	So basically, they created a fake disease called simulitis.
	Okay, trying to simulate COVID-19.
	This one passes more easily than COVID-19, where a healthy person comes into contact with a sick person, the healthy person becomes sick in this particular model, and then there are recovered people.
	So what you're about to see, if you can actually watch the show, is you're about to see dots of three colors, right?
	You're going to see purple dots, those are people who have recovered from simulitis, which in this case is sort of a more viral version of coronavirus.
	You're going to see the sort of greenish gray dots.
	Those are healthy people.
	And then you're going to see the orange dots and those are sick people.
	And there are a bunch of different simulations that they have put out there.
	So simulation number one, this simulation is a free for all.
	Basically, everybody travels as they see fit.
	There are no travel lockdowns.
	Everybody is able to go and do exactly what it is that they want.
	We can play that and I can explain what's happening.
	So you can see there's this one sick person starts infecting people almost immediately.
	Now all the people are infecting all the other people.
	And what you see is very, very quickly the sickness spreads throughout the entire population.
	You can see on the top of the graphic, this is why you should subscribe at Daily Wire so you can actually see what we're talking about.
	You can see at the top of the graphic, this big bell curve and the bell curve quickly spikes all the way to the top of the chart before finally starting to drop off as people start...
	Recovering.
	Now, what these charts do not include is the number of people who die.
	So, those people are no longer infectious, obviously.
	But, it's a fairly good simulation of what exactly this stuff looks like if there are no restrictions in place at the time.
	So, this was able to spread quickly over an entire population in a bigger country, right?
	This is a very small country, right?
	You're only talking about a couple hundred dots.
	When you see that, what you're seeing is that the entire population is infected in a very short amount of time.
	But then, everybody is recovered.
	Right, so the question is, if you're looking for herd immunity, maybe you don't want to restrict everything, right?
	The theory here would sort of be the Danish theory, which is, okay, fine, so everybody gets sick and then everybody recovers.
	So you actually want this to happen as quickly as possible.
	Okay, then you have your second model of how to contain this thing, and this would be the attempted quarantine.
	Okay, so this is where you literally just wall off a portion of the population.
	And what you see is that within the portion of the population that is walled off, the infections happen really, really fast.
	Right?
	So let's say you wall off a nursing home and somebody in the nursing home has the infection.
	Everybody in the nursing home has the infection within about five seconds.
	Everybody outside the nursing home does not have the infection.
	Now, the problem is, as you will see in this particular model, is that as the door opens, right, as you start to get beyond the attempted quarantine, then some of the sick people are going to escape, and then they're going to start infecting the population, and then you get this sort of secondary spike where all of a sudden a lot of people are getting the infection, but you've seen that the curve has been flattened.
	So the idea here would be sort of what the United States is trying.
	Everybody stay home.
	Now that you are staying home, the curve is rising, but rising later.
	And so the idea is because the curve here is flatter, Then presumably, the number of beds that are built in the meantime are going to relieve pressure on the healthcare system.
	Now that only works if you actually raise the number of beds that are available.
	It only works if you actually pay for new ventilators.
	It only works if you build new hospitals.
	So all of that has to happen in this model in order for the effects not to be as bad as the first model where you just let everybody run around without any sort of restrictions.
	Okay, then there's the third model.
	The third model is moderate social distancing.
	In moderate social distancing, this happens when about a quarter of the population moves around and everybody else stays home or socially distances, right?
	So this is sort of what the United States has kind of right now, right?
	This is what we've been pursuing, which is basically a small percentage of the population is moving around.
	Some people are going to work.
	Most people are now staying home in major cities.
	And here's what that looks like over time.
	So you see that people are, one sick person will move around.
	Every person they hit gets sick, but they're hitting a lot fewer people because not that many people are moving around.
	And so the entire disease vector just moves a lot more slowly, like a lot more slowly.
	Yeah, people are getting the symptoms, but it's happening extraordinarily slowly over time.
	There are a lot of healthy people, a couple of recovered people, and very few sick people over time.
	The curve here is very flat.
	So that's what the United States is going for, again, in order to keep that number below the dotted line of the number of ICU beds over time.
	Now, the problem with this is it doesn't develop herd immunity.
	So if at a certain point people get back to work, then you immediately kick into chart number one, and then the number of cases spikes again.
	And this is the point I'm making.
	We don't know what's going to end this disease vector, right?
	There's a great hope that the summer ends the disease vector, that basically we get to summer, warmer weather, flu tends to die off in warmer weather, and then everybody gets back to work for a few months while we build some new ICU beds, By the time we hit fall, we don't have to shut down the economy again in the same way.
	But that is assuming some things like that this is going to kill the virus, which There's some fairly good evidence for that.
	In equatorial zones, it seems like the virus is being killed off faster.
	In hot areas, hot and humid, it seems to be killing off the virus, so we can all pray that that is the case.
	So that would be the idea behind a temporary, mostly lockdown, which is kind of what we in the United States are pursuing.
	That's the policy that we're looking at right now.
	Then there's extensive social distancing.
	Extensive social distancing would be like San Francisco right now.
	This is one out of every eight people moving, meaning barely anyone is moving At all, and you can play that simulation as well.
	Again, all these simulations are courtesy of the Washington Post, which did an excellent job putting together what these graphics look like.
	For those who, again, can't see, what you are seeing here is a few sick people who are moving around and everybody else locking in place.
	And again, you're seeing the caseload grow extraordinarily slowly.
	And again, that is what you would really look for, right?
	So both the moderate case and the extensive social distancing, you see a bell curve that is much shallower and also backloaded.
	That bell curve is backloaded because, again, whatever increase is taking place is taking place a lot later over time.
	It's cumulative over time.
	So that is what the United States is looking for, is to lay this thing until summer and then hope, pray, that the hot weather kills the flu, or kills the Wuhan flu.
	And by the way, it's not racist to call it Wuhan flu.
	We'll get to that in a second.
	It originated in Wuhan.
	The Spanish flu is the Spanish flu.
	This is the Wuhan flu.
	Okay, so this is the model that the United States is pursuing.
	Okay, so bottom line, if you look at what these look like, okay, in terms of the bell curve, if you have the free-for-all, which is sort of what Denmark is positing, you have that steep bell curve, steep up, steep down, and then you're done.
	The attempted quarantine, you have a much shallower curve, and then you have a secondary curve that is much broader.
	The goal there would be to shut this thing down at least for the moment so you can get that ICU level just above this sort of orange double bell curve, just above the camel humps right there.
	And then you have moderate distancing, which is what the United States is trying in the short term, and depends how long we can keep that thing lasting.
	And the hope is that when you hit the end of that chart, by that point we have a vaccine, by that point we have the summer, and this thing gets killed off, and then extensive distancing is just a better variation of moderate distancing.
	So the United States is basically trying strategies 3 and 4, moderate distancing and extensive distancing.
	Denmark is trying strategy 1, and the idea would be that you wall off all of the oldies, and you make sure that they don't actually get hurt.
	All of this is reliant, again, on a couple of assumptions.
	Assumption number one, summer comes, the flu dies.
	Assumption number two, a vaccine is developed sometime in the near future.
	If neither one of those things happens, nothing we are doing right now is going to matter.
	Seriously, if we do not develop either more ICU beds, better medical capacity to handle people who are getting sick over the course of the next couple of months, or if the summer does not kill off the Wuhan flu, or if we get to the point where a vaccine is developed, if none of those three things happen, then no matter how much social distancing we go through right now, if this thing lives, everybody's gonna get infected, old people are going to die in increased numbers.
	So we are relying on a few things that are unknown, We just don't have the information for it.
	It's kind of best bet kind of stuff.
	And again, as a social matter, it's going to be, as a social science matter, it'll be fascinating to see whether Denmark has the best approach keeping their economy running while maybe everybody else is overreacting or whether we have the right approach and Denmark would unfortunately see some pretty bad effects from what they're doing.
	Also, what happens when we reopen our borders, right?
	The world, we are not walled off from the world.
	Are we just going to keep travel bans from every place on earth in place interminably?
	Or is the idea that we are going to gradually relax those travel bans?
	Again, policy is completely in flux right now.
	We'll get to more of this in just one second.
	We'll bring you the latest news and then the Trump response.
	They've issued some new CDC guidelines.
	We'll get to that in a second.
	First, you know, right now you might be thinking a lot about death.
	Well, this would also be a good time.
	You're sitting at home.
	You don't have a lot to do.
	Maybe what you should do is go check out PolicyGenius and get yourself some life insurance.
	Like now would be a great time to get yourself some life insurance.
	PolicyGenius makes finding the right life insurance a breeze.
	In minutes, you can compare quotes from the top insurers and find your best price.
	You could save $1,500 or more a year by using PolicyGenius to compare life insurance policies.
	Once you apply, the PolicyGenius team will handle all the paperwork and the red tape for free.
	PolicyGenius doesn't just make life insurance easy.
	They can also help you find the right home, auto, and disability insurance.
	So if you don't know what's just around the corner, nobody does.
	That's okay.
	This is why you need insurance.
	Go make sure that you, your family, are taken care of in case, God forbid, something should happen to you.
	It's bad enough if somebody dies, but it's that much worse if their stream of revenue and stream of income is completely cut off to their family.
	And it's just the responsible thing to do.
	If you've got a family, go get life insurance right now.
	Shop competitively and get the best possible deal at the best possible price from policygenius.com.
	Policygenius.
	Everybody gets the future wrong.
	Who could have predicted this crap?
	But it's better to get life insurance right.
	Policygenius.com.
	Go check it out.
	Right now, okay, so all of this has some pretty significant financial implications.
	We've gone through all the simulations.
	We've shown you how exactly all these various policies would work.
	No quarantine, partial quarantine, total quarantine, everybody staying home, right?
	We've gone through all of that.
	The financial ramifications of each of these makes a huge difference because the fact is that if we have no data on when the economy gets restarted, if the idea is we're just gonna stay in lockdown until there's a vaccine, which could take 12 to 18 months, the world economy is not, that's not a recession, that's a depression.
	Because the fact is, there are businesses operating on the margins right now that are going to go under, which is awful in and of itself.
	A lot of people are going to lose their livelihoods over the next couple of months.
	And the government is stepping in and taking measures along these lines.
	The Fed says that it's going to offer an additional $500 billion in overnight repo funding markets to prevent people, prevent creditors from going in and trying to repossess stuff, right, from calling in their loans.
	They're basically saying, guys, hold off.
	Everything's on hold.
	The federal government is going to pump into you to make sure that you don't experience as losses necessary for you to call in all of those mortgages, call in all of those car loans, call in all of those student loans.
	We're going to step in right now, and we're going to stopgap this thing for the moment.
	And that's good policy so long as it's a stopgap.
	It cannot be permanent because eventually, how are you going to fund this?
	There are only a couple of ways you can fund this, right?
	One is that you are betting that sometime in the future, taxpayer dollars will pay for this, and so you're selling off bonds.
	And then, who do you sell the bonds to?
	If the rest of the economy is shut down, who can afford to buy the bonds?
	Every single country on planet Earth right now is in the same situation the United States is in.
	So are we all going to sell our bonds to each other?
	Who exactly is the bond buyer at that point?
	Is the Chinese government going to buy American bonds?
	I mean, the Chinese government is already bankrupting itself.
	So do they have the money to buy American bonds?
	Maybe they buy American bonds in the hopes that America's economy recovers faster.
	But again, that is all dependent on the underlying condition being alleviated.
	If coronavirus is not alleviated over the next 12 to 18 months, There will be no bond market.
	Nobody is going to be buying into the future faith and credit of a country where the entire industry is shut down, and globally, nobody can afford to buy those bonds.
	Okay, which leaves the federal government with only a couple of other options.
	One of those is to actually pump, right, to actually inflate the currency, to basically helicopter cash everywhere.
	Just give everybody oodles of money.
	Okay, once that happens, sounds great, only one problem.
	Once you start helicopter cashing everything, Eventually, prices are going to rise because, again, it doesn't lower the cost of production of the goods that are still in production to simply helicopter cash everything.
	And what that means is that everybody who has savings is now worth less.
	Because the stock market is not going to rise on that basis.
	I mean, we know this because this is actually what FDR tried to do during the Great Depression.
	During the Great Depression, there was an attempt by FDR to basically set wages, set prices, top down government control, lengthen the Great Depression by eight years.
	If you do not alleviate the underlying condition here, the Great Depression is even less understandable because there was no great underlying condition that led to the Great Depression.
	Here, you actually have an underlying condition, coronavirus, presumably when that is healed in some way, then you are going to see an uptick in the economy.
	But if there is no prospect of an uptick, then there will come a point where everybody is just going to have to adopt the Danish solution.
	There will come a point where the economy can no longer afford to operate on this basis, and that's going to be dangerous, and it's going to be terrible, and we're going to have to make some very, very difficult public policy decisions as to which sectors are allowed to go back to work, what is the risk factor for people who are older in our society, right?
	We hope we never get to that.
	The great hope is that by summer, by May, this thing starts to die down.
	And again, many scientists are suggesting that that may be exactly what happened.
	That perhaps we get to the point pretty quickly, you know, hopefully, as we say, by May, that this thing starts to drop off a little bit in terms of its virulence and that the government has gotten it under control.
	But if it does not, then all of the measures the government is taking right now in order to contain this thing are not going to have a lot of long-term effect and the economy is going to stay down for the count.
	That is the great fear.
	So, we can all take these measures, right?
	We can all stay home.
	Government can pump.
	We can do that for a marked period of time.
	We cannot do that interminably.
	We cannot do it forever.
	The government cannot just print money or borrow money on the basis of revenue that's never going to arrive based on lowered economic projections.
	Now, again, most economists believe that we're gonna come out of this fairly quickly, meaning that there'll be a rough, rough Q2.
	The Q2 in the United... I mean, Goldman Sachs is projecting that Q2 in the United States, we're gonna see a 4% GDP loss, which is just astonishing.
	And then afterward, we'll see, they hope, an alleviation and a 2% GDP gain, that we'll see a U-shaped recovery, and by the end of the year, we'll have gone through the year with a slight loss.
	The stock market today is sort of assuming there's not going to be tremendous amounts of new information available.
	The stock market is up slightly today.
	At this point, it dropped 3,000 points yesterday.
	It is up and down and up and down because nobody knows where the actual bottom is.
	Nobody knows where exactly this thing is going.
	With that said, everybody is shutting down, and there's not gonna be any new information for a couple of weeks.
	Now, here's the thing.
	You're gonna see a lot of statistics in the next couple of weeks about the number of cases rising.
	That's good.
	That's a good thing.
	That's what you want.
	The reason you want that is because the cases already exist.
	It's not that seeing the number of cases that are in the system means there are more new cases.
	It means we're now finally testing, which is something that is deeply necessary at this point.
	Okay, in just a second, we're gonna get to the latest measures being taken by states and localities.
	We're going to get to the new White House guidelines.
	We're going to get to all of that in just one second.
	First, let's talk about one reality.
	You're going to be using the mail an awful lot in the near future, but do you really want to schlep over to the post office?
	There are lines there, okay?
	And forget about the length of the lines.
	Social distancing, man.
	That seem like a good idea to you?
	To go out to the post office and schlep a bunch of packages there?
	Seems like a bad idea to me.
	This is why you should be using stamps.com, beyond all the other reasons like saving tons of time and money.
	Stamps.com is completely online.
	Plus, if you save five cents off every first-class stamp and up to 40% off shipping rates, you are doing really well.
	Simply use your computer to print official U.S.
	postage 24-7 for any letter, any package, any class of mail, anywhere you want to send it.
	Once your mail is ready, just hand it to your mail carrier or drop it in a mailbox.
	It is indeed that simple.
	Think about how much time and money you could have saved on letters and packages over the years, and think about the fact that they're telling you to stay home.
	You can stay home and still use Stamps.com.
	Stamps.com is a no-brainer.
	It saves you time.
	It saves you money.
	And it saves you the hassle of having to be out in public at a time when you're not really supposed to be out in public.
	Right now, my listeners get a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and the digital scale.
	No long-term commitment.
	Just head on over to stamps.com.
	Click on the microphone at the top of the homepage.
	Type in Shapiro.
	That is stamps.com.
	Enter code Shapiro.
	Go check it out right now.
	Okay, so the San Francisco Bay Area is the first place in the nation that has essentially told people to shelter in place.
	is the first place in the nation that has essentially told people to shelter in place.
	This is going to become very quickly, I think, the standard for the United States.
	This is going to become very quickly, I think, the standard for the United States.
	One of the things that happens in these situations is you don't want to be the public leader who gets left behind.
	One of the things that happens in these situations is you don't want to be the public leader who gets left behind.
	You don't want to be the outlier.
	You don't want to be the outlier, right?
	Right?
	Denmark is taking enormous amounts of flack for exactly the policies I was talking about before.
	Denmark is taking enormous amounts of flack for exactly the policies I was talking about before.
	The UK was taking an enormous amount of flack for the policies that I was talking about before.
	How would you like to be the mayor who says everybody go about your business and then you get an outbreak in your city?
	And by the way, that's a real possibility, right?
	I mean, during the Spanish flu, there was a widespread difference, 1918 to 1920.
	Huge difference in death rates between Philadelphia, where everybody just went about their business, and St. Louis, where these shelter-in-place orders were basically put in place, and the death rate was half of that in Philadelphia.
	Well, now, six Bay Area counties have announced shelter-in-place orders for all residents on Monday, directing everyone to stay inside their homes and away from others as much as possible for three weeks.
	In a desperate move to curb the rapid spread of coronavirus across the region, the directive was set to begin at midnight on Tuesday, and involves San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa, and Alameda counties, a combined population of more than 6.7 million people, and it's going to stay in place until at least April 7th.
	The three other Bay Area counties, Sonoma, Solano, and Napa, did not issue similar mandates.
	Also, Santa Cruz County announced a shelter-in-place order for its 275,000 residents.
	In all likelihood, this is going to become sort of the common standard across America.
	We've already seen shutdowns of basically all businesses in the city of Los Angeles.
	Restaurants are closed except for takeout.
	Movie theaters are closed.
	Retail stores are closed.
	We are seeing that in D.C.
	We are seeing that in New York.
	I mean, we've never seen anything like this, truly, in the history of the United States.
	I mean, even during World War II, the stores were open.
	This is astonishing stuff.
	Businesses that do not provide essential services must send workers home.
	Must.
	According to these orders.
	Among those remaining open are grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants for delivery only, and hardware stores as well.
	Most workers are ordered to stay home.
	Exceptions are just healthcare workers, police, fire, other emergency responders, and utility providers such as electricians, plumbers, and sanitation workers.
	BART will run for essential travel.
	Airports are not closing either, although the fact is that domestic airline travel is basically dead at this point.
	So, you know, the airline industry is in serious trouble.
	They're just going to have to shut down.
	They're just going to have to shut down.
	Meanwhile, there's controversy over in Ohio where Governor Mike DeWine has postponed a primary election and the idiotic Democratic Party and idiot Tom Perez have said, we're going to go ahead with our primary today anyway.
	Well, good luck with that.
	I mean, seriously.
	I mean, the governor, there's been talk about, you know, a judge said you can't shut it down and DeWine said, I am shutting it down.
	And people are like, well, this is a constitutional crisis.
	No, the negotiations between executive branches and the judiciary are ongoing.
	It is not a violation of American governance for a governor to say, listen, I'm not going to pay attention to that court order.
	And then the thing gets elevated.
	Again, in emergency situations, this sort of stuff tends to go by the wayside.
	DeWine tweeted, Meanwhile, the Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, said that he's going to seek a remedy through the courts to extend voting options so every voter who wants to vote will be granted that opportunity.
	Frankly, I'm shocked the DNC decided to go forward with this thing anyway.
	Okay, meanwhile, the White House announced all sorts of new guidelines yesterday.
	Sorry, quick note.
	First, There are no shortages, okay?
	So you don't have to rush over to the grocery store or the pharmacy.
	These things will be stocked.
	NBC's Nightly News with Lester Holt was pointing out that the supply chains are still in place.
	The good news is nobody's starving, thank God.
	Okay, the fact is that capitalism, amazing solutions to stocking the shelves.
	Here is Lester Holt reporting last night on NBC News.
	So there will be food.
	There's not a reason to stock up.
	Just come back tomorrow.
	In Maryland today, trucks loaded with supplies headed to a slammed Costco.
	The same in Florida.
	Pinched public stores getting resupplied.
	In California, the Northgate Gonzalez Market, one of many shoppers now opening early, just for older shoppers 65 and up.
	We're going to have exclusive for seniors.
	And tonight, at an Aldi, there is enough toilet paper.
	Okay, so that of course is good news.
	The White House yesterday came out and announced some new guidelines.
	President Trump said that this outbreak could last until July or August.
	Originally, the media reported that Trump was going to keep all these restrictions in place until July or August.
	The fact is, we do not know how long these restrictions are going to last.
	In reality, do you think the American people are going to simply shelter in place all the way until July or August?
	It is currently March 17th.
	Do you really think the American people are going to shelter in place for four months?
	And that is something it's just not going to happen.
	Realistically speaking, it's not going to happen.
	Here's President Trump suggesting the outbreak could last until July or August.
	Then Dr. Anthony Fauci said, well, the restrictions aren't going to last until July or August, but the outbreak could.
	It seems to me that if we do a really good job, we'll not only hold the death down to a level that is much lower than the other way, had we not done a good job, but...
	But people are talking about July, August, something like that.
	So it could be right in that period of time where I say it washes through.
	Other people don't like that term, but where it washes through.
	Okay, so that of course is a fairly accurate take.
	Some people are even suggesting that by early May, as the summer kicks in, we may see an alleviation of the virus itself.
	President Trump finally acknowledging the economy could be headed into recession.
	Look, the fact is that the early handling of this by the Trump administration was not good.
	As I've said for about a week, Trump wised up late last week, and he has now been taking a very serious tack on all of this, which is correct.
	Here's Trump yesterday announcing the economy could be headed into recession.
	The stock market took another hit today.
	Is the U.S.
	economy heading into a recession?
	Well, it may be.
	We're not thinking in terms of recession.
	We're thinking in terms of the virus.
	Once we stop, I think there's a tremendous pent-up demand, both in terms of the stock market and in terms of the economy.
	And once this goes away, once it goes through and we're done with it, I think you're going to see a tremendous, a tremendous surge.
	Okay, President Trump also suggested that the best thing for the stock market is to get through the crisis, which of course is true and does speak to what exactly are the financial measures that are being taken.
	This is why the suggestion that the Fed lowering its rate to zero was going to jog the economy is idiotic.
	Until this whole thing is actually solved, there isn't going to be no jog to the economy.
	Right now, it is just a matter of get through it.
	Get through it until either a vaccine is found or until the summer kills off this Wuhan virus.
	Here's President Trump.
	Stocks continue to fall today.
	Will the White House support negative rates?
	The best thing I can do for the stock market is we have to get through this crisis.
	That's what I can do.
	That's the best thing we can do.
	That's what I think about.
	Once this virus is gone, I think you're going to have a stock market like nobody's ever seen before.
	And of course, I think there's truth to that as well.
	I mean, the fact is that when we do come out of this, this will have been a very good time to buy stock.
	But not a lot of people have tons of disposable income, considering that their businesses are being shut down.
	President Trump did say that we now recommend that nobody gather in groups of 10.
	So, so much for your holiday party, gang.
	And if you have a family of 12, then I guess two of them are out on the doorstep.
	Here's President Trump.
	My administration is recommending that all Americans, including the young and healthy, work to engage in schooling from home when possible, avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people, avoid discretionary travel, and avoid eating and drinking at bars, restaurants, and public food courts.
	If everyone makes this Change or these critical changes and sacrifices now we will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus and we're going to Have a big celebration all together.
	Okay, and again, all of that is true.
	All that we need is one of three things to happen.
	We need a massive increase in the number of ICU beds and ventilators.
	We need this Wuhan virus vaccine right now.
	Or we need the summer to kill off the flu.
	Now, again, even if the summer kills off the flu, we are still going to need that increase in ICU beds.
	We are still going to need that increase in vaccine.
	The reason being that there could be a second wave of this.
	What people don't realize about the Spanish flu, there are actually three waves of the Spanish flu.
	Wave number two was the one that killed the most people.
	President Trump, in another piece of good news, he suggests that a vaccine candidate for phase one has begun.
	In actuality, there are actually several candidates for a phase one vaccine.
	There's one here.
	I believe there's one in Germany.
	I believe there's one in Israel.
	Here is President Trump.
	I'm also pleased to report today that a vaccine candidate has begun the phase one clinical trial.
	Thank you.
	This is one of the fastest vaccine development launches in history.
	Not even close.
	We're also racing to develop antiviral therapies and other treatments.
	And we've had some promising results, early results, but promising to reduce the severity and the duration of the symptoms.
	And I have to say that our government is prepared to do whatever it takes, whatever it takes we're doing.
	Okay, the acting DHS secretary added that a domestic travel shutdown is on the table.
	That, of course, makes perfect sense considering that nobody is flying anyway.
	I mean, the airlines have taken a massive hit.
	Here's the acting DHS secretary announcing that we may shut down the airlines.
	As you heard the president say, it's certainly something that we continue to look at, certainly in the task force.
	There are no immediate plans for any domestic travel restrictions.
	But as I often say, we like to keep all options on the table.
	And again, as the virus continues to evolve and our medical strategy continues to evolve, then that's certainly something that we'll take a look at.
	Deborah Birx is heading up the president's coronavirus response.
	She also says we're looking at the best responses from everywhere.
	Look, the entire federal government is on this thing.
	So are all the state governments.
	Again, the big question is going to be what's the end date here?
	What's the end date?
	Because the fact is that we're already seeing this in countries around the world.
	People are already coming out of isolation, especially free countries where you're not going to have people with machine guns in the streets telling people to get back in their homes.
	Thank God, it's a good thing.
	That means that the number of people who are going to stay in place, especially if the numbers don't dramatically skyrocket and freak everybody out, that eventually people are going to go back out in the streets.
	Here's Deborah Burke saying we're looking at good responses from everywhere.
	I think we're looking at all the experience that has been gained around the world with...
	We spend every day reviewing what has happened in China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, and across the world to really see how people have responded.
	There's a China model, there's a South Korea model.
	We're taking the best of each of those models and working on seeing how we adapt them.
	Yeah, well, so all of that is true.
	It's funny, the media have been playing this thing very oddly in some areas.
	For example...
	They've been saying that the federal response was following the state response.
	Yes, because states are built for this.
	I mean, this is what federalism is built on.
	Localism, the ability of states to declare national emergencies or state emergencies is far greater than the capacity of the federal government to declare such emergencies.
	Of course, the thing should have started at the local and state level in terms of the initiation of lockdowns like this.
	For all of that, the president has now put out a document called 15 Days to Slow the Spread.
	Now, this does not mean that all these restrictions are going to end after 15 days.
	That is very unlikely.
	OK, the high likelihood at this point is that this thing is going to continue at least another month.
	If I had to put my thumb on it, I would think that it would be at least another four to six weeks minimum.
	OK, but with that said, the president has said there are 15 days to slow the spread because at the very least, you have to take one running punch at coronavirus by preventing the rapid spread to give the government time to catch up.
	So here are the guidelines.
	They say, listen to and follow the directions of your state and local authorities.
	If you feel sick, stay home.
	Do not go to work.
	Contact your medical provider.
	If your children are sick, keep them at home.
	Do not send them to school.
	Contact your medical provider.
	If someone in your household has tested positive for the coronavirus, keep the entire household at home.
	Do not go to work.
	Do not go to school.
	Contact your medical provider.
	If you're an older person, stay home and away from other people.
	If you're a person with a serious underlying health condition that can put you at increased risk, for example, a condition that impairs lung or heart function or weakens your immune system, stay home and away from other people.
	Even if you are young or otherwise healthy, says the White House, you are at risk.
	Your activities can increase the risk for others.
	It's critical you do your part to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
	And this, of course, has led to a fair bit of controversy between sort of young people and older people.
	There's an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today about how some young people are like, I just want to live my life, man.
	And if the oldies get it, then the oldies, okay.
	That is a fairly immoral point of view.
	You staying home for a couple of... Listen, the economy is going to take the hit anyway.
	You staying home for a couple of weeks from the bar and killing your social life for a couple of weeks to save grandma?
	Actually, that's something you sort of owe to grandma.
	Do your part to slow the spread of the coronavirus, says the White House.
	Work or engage in schooling from home whenever possible.
	If you work in a critical infrastructure industry as defined by the DHS, such as healthcare services and pharmaceutical and food supply, you have a special responsibility to maintain your normal work schedule.
	Avoid social gatherings in groups of more than 10 people.
	Avoid eating or drinking at bars, restaurants and food courts.
	Use drive-thru pickup or delivery options.
	Avoid discretionary travel, shopping trips and social visits.
	Do not visit nursing homes or retirement or long-term care facilities.
	And of course, wash your hands.
	Avoid touching your face.
	Sneeze or cough into a tissue or the inside of your elbow.
	Disinfect frequently used items and surfaces as much as possible.
	They also say that older people are particularly at risk.
	All states should follow federal guidance and halt social visits to nursing homes and retirement and long-term care facilities.
	And they recommend that all states shut down bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms, and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate.
	So this thing is going to be rough, obviously, and President Trump has gotten serious about it.
	The White House has gotten serious about it.
	I keep repeating it, but the reality is we are not going to know how successful any of this stuff was Until we get to the summer.
	We're just not going to know that.
	The statistics, by the way, the coronavirus map continues to add numbers to it.
	We had about 18 deaths in the United States from coronavirus.
	That doesn't sound like a lot considering that we are in a country of 330 million people or so.
	But the numbers are climbing.
	As I said before, that's a good thing.
	The fact that the numbers are climbing means that there's more tests that are now available.
	And there are drive-through tests that are being made available.
	With all of that said, Governor Andrew Cuomo is basically the tip of the spear in declaring this an emergency.
	He's been asking for literally tens of thousands of ICU beds from the federal government, which is something the federal government, I mean, takes time to generate that sort of stuff.
	Cuomo has a piece in the New York Times today, says, Dear Mr. President, the coronavirus pandemic is now upon us.
	Data from other countries show us clearly where we are headed.
	Every country affected by this crisis has handled it on a national basis.
	The United States has not.
	Okay, first of all, that is just not true, okay?
	Italy did not hand it on a national basis.
	They shut down northern Italy, then they finally shut down the entire country.
	They lagged.
	Okay, we are actually not lagging nearly as bad as Italy did.
	We're several days ahead of Italy in terms of our response.
	Cuomo says state and local governments alone simply do not have the capacity or resources to do what is necessary and we don't want a patchwork quilt of policies.
	Okay, but again, the federal government can declare the policies, but it's very difficult to actually effectuate those policies without the state and localities actually making that happen.
	And Cuomo says there is now only one question your team must answer for you.
	Can we slow the spread of the disease to a rate that our state health care systems can handle?
	The answer increasingly looks like no.
	That doesn't mean that we should not try.
	There are fewer options available at this late date.
	The federal government should move to implement them swiftly.
	You say that we need more tests, obviously, and there were screw-ups by the CDC throughout this entire process.
	Joe Biden falsely claimed that the president rejected WHO tests.
	That's not true.
	The CDC just screwed this thing up.
	They said they had the test and then they didn't actually have the test and somebody's head at the CDC needs to roll for that when all of this is done.
	Also, Cuomo suggests that we have to have closing of schools and businesses and those have federal implications.
	And we need to have consistency in those shutdowns.
	He says some things about the ability of businesses to simply cross state lines.
	That, I think, is a little bit exaggerated.
	With that said, the federal government is now engaging in commercial buying of paper, which is actually a very good thing.
	They need to do that because that is basically ensuring that those short-term loans that many small businesses are reliant upon don't get called in immediately.
	And then Cuomo's big ask is that the federal government actually mobilize the army in order to build new facilities.
	Cuomo says, you must anticipate without certain action, the imminent failure of hospital systems is all but certain.
	According to one projection, as many as 214 million people in our country could be infected over the course of the epidemic.
	Of those, as many as 21 million people could require hospitalization, which would crush the nation's medical system.
	New York State has just 53,470 hospital beds, only 3,100 of which are intensive care beds, which of course is not even close to the number that we need.
	Our country as a whole has fewer than 1 million staffed hospital beds, fewer proportionately than China, South Korea, or Italy.
	Okay, but we're also a little more spread out than South Korea or Italy, for example, and it is also true that we are obtaining the disease, at least by best available statistics, at a lower rate than some of those other countries.
	But do we need to build more hospitals?
	Absolutely.
	Do we need more beds created?
	Absolutely.
	Cuomo is calling.
	Okay, in just a second, we're gonna get to more on this.
	We'll bring you the latest from the coronavirus counts, which are escalating.
	power to retrofit and equip existing facilities to serve as temporary medical centers.
	That is probably a good idea.
	That is probably a good idea.
	So all of those resources are going to be brought to bear.
	Okay, in just a second, we're going to get to more on this.
	We'll bring you the latest from the coronavirus counts, which are escalating.
	They've not been escalating in China, and they've not been escalating in South Korea, which is really interesting because, again, life seems to be opening up there again, which, I mean, that means that the economy will recover once this stuff is over.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
	First, let's talk about a certain reality, and that is that if you want to keep yourself and your family safe, one thing that would be very useful at a time like this is, of course, owning a firearm.
	Owning a rifle is an awesome responsibility.
	Building a rifle is no different.
	Started in a garage by a Marine veteran more than two decades ago, Bravo Company Manufacturing builds a professional-grade product which is built to combat standards.
	That's because BCM believes the same level of protection should be provided to every American, regardless if they're a private citizen or a professional.
	The people at BCM assume that when a rifle leaves their shop, it will be used in a life-or-death situation by a responsible citizen, law enforcement officer, or a soldier overseas, so every component of a BCM rifle is hand-assembled and tested to a life-saving standard.
	The people at BCM Believe it's their moral responsibility as Americans to provide tools that will not fail when it's not just a paper target.
	And whenever there is a difficult situation you always worry about crime rates rising.
	Protecting yourself, protecting your family, it's an imperative.
	Go check out my friends at Bravo Company Manufacturing.
	Head on over to BravoCompanyMFG.com.
	You can discover more about their products, special offers, and upcoming news.
	That is BravoCompanyMFG.com.
	You should check out their awesome videos too.
	Meet the great people who make their products at YouTube.com slash BravoCompanyUSA.
	Again, that's YouTube.com slash BravoCompanyUSA.
	Okay, so here are the latest counts with regard to the coronavirus.
	So about 190,000 total confirmed cases across planet Earth right now.
	There are about 81,000 in China.
	That's been stagnant for quite a while and China's reopening life, which again, I keep saying this, that's actually really good news.
	I mean, that does suggest that once this thing is shut down to a certain extent, that it sort of dies out and is less transmissible.
	So that's a good thing.
	Italy is continuing to see an escalation.
	They've got 28,000 total cases in Italy with 2,158 deaths in Italy.
	But it seems that even in Italy, this thing may be leveling off just a little bit.
	Iran is reporting statistics that are completely false.
	They say they have 16,000 cases in Iran.
	That's probably off by maybe even an order of magnitude.
	Spain is starting to see an escalation.
	The United States has about 5,000 diagnosed cases again.
	You should expect that to spike.
	We only have 85 deaths so far and most of those are still in the nursing homes in Washington State.
	About 40 of those were in a nursing home in Washington State.
	So those are the current statistics that we are seeing.
	In just a second, we're going to get to the idiotic controversy of the day.
	We've given you all the information, but there's an idiotic controversy of the day.
	The idiotic controversy of the day is that the President of the United States labeled this the Chinese virus, which of course is the end of the world.
	We'll get to why this is Utterly uncontroversial, and actually, it's a good thing that Trump is saying this.
	We'll get to that in a second.
	First, gang, gotta tell you, Dailyware membership is the only way you should be viewing our content.
	You're missing all the best features.
	Right now, using promo code Shapiro, you get 10% off any member plan you choose.
	Become part of our community.
	What makes membership so great?
	Well, members get our articles ad-free, access to all of our live broadcasts and show library, the full three hours of the Ben Shapiro Show, select bonus content, access to the mailbag, and more.
	Plus, Our new all-access tier gets you into exclusive live online Q&A discussions with me, Andrew Klaven, Matt Walsh, Michael Molls, plus Dailyware writers and special guests.
	Don't forget, you also get the greatest of all beverage vessels right here before you.
	The leftist tier is Tumblr.
	You get all that plus 10% off when you use promo code Shapiro.
	I should also mention that thanks to coronavirus and the shutdown, we have been trying to ensure that we can all hang out together.
	All of our members last night, for example, we got together and we all talked movies.
	It was just me and Jeremy Boring and we hung out within a social distancing area and elbow bumped and then talked about movies and religion for an hour.
	I thought it was a lot of fun.
	It creates a sense of community.
	It makes you feel not quite as alone in this time when I think a lot of people are feeling isolated.
	So come join our community.
	It really is a lot of fun.
	Stop depriving yourself.
	Come join the fun.
	We'll hang out together through all of this.
	of this, you're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the United States.
	So the federal government has now proposed an $850 billion emergency fiscal package.
	That is a good idea because if it is targeted, again, at commercial paper, it's targeted at shoring up those small businesses that don't want to have their loans called in on them.
	That is a useful thing.
	It's not going to reactivate economic activity, of course.
	It would be idiotic to suggest economic activity is reactivated as coronavirus continues to plague the globe.
	Meanwhile, everybody is apparently a moron about labeling the coronavirus Wuhan flu or the Chinese virus.
	President Trump last night tweeted about the Chinese virus.
	And he tweeted this.
	The United States will be powerfully supporting those industries like airlines and others that are particularly affected by the Chinese virus will be stronger than ever before.
	And everybody was like, that's so racist.
	That's so it is not racist.
	Stop with this stupid crap.
	It originated in China.
	It is the fault of the Chinese government that it exited China's borders for a month.
	China sat on this thing and tried to jail people who talked openly about it.
	So don't give me this garbage that somehow it's racist against random Chinese people to point out that the virus originated in China.
	Not only is it not racist, it's a good thing that the president continues to call it the Chinese virus.
	Why?
	Because Chinese diplomats are now pushing conspiracy theories trying to blame this on the United States.
	Literally, they are trying to do this.
	Okay, a little bit earlier last week, A prominent Chinese diplomat tweeted a conspiracy theory that the coronavirus did not originate in Wuhan, but in the United States instead.
	Li Hianzhao, a deputy director general of the Information Department of China's Foreign Ministry, tweeted, So China is trying to throw off its responsibility for this whole thing.
	one of us, please read and retweet it.
	COVID-19, further evidence that the virus originated in the United States.
	So China is trying to throw off its responsibility for this whole thing.
	And honestly, in the aftermath of this, if it were not apparent before, you know, I've said many times over the course of years, I am not certain that the United States Nixon administration's decision to open China was actually a good idea.
	We may have been better off simply continuing to economically boycott China and then let the communist regime collapse in on itself the same way that we did with the USSR.
	Okay, right now the rest of the world needs to seriously consider whether we should be doing business with China.
	On an ongoing basis.
	This is just further proof.
	Forget all of their human rights violations for the moment.
	Forget the fact that they keep a billion Uyghurs in abject servitude and slavery and jail conditions just because they're Muslim.
	Forget the fact that China has repressed a billion people in a horrific system of communist depression that has resulted in the deaths of literally hundreds of millions of unborn babies.
	I mean, really, like forced abortion from the 1970s through 2015 was responsible for, if not hundreds of millions of babies, at least tens of millions of babies, and the forced sterilization of millions of women.
	This is an evil, evil regime.
	And the evil of the regime was shown for everybody to see when this virus was basically unleashed upon an unsuspecting world because the Chinese government wanted to uphold its credibility with its own citizenry.
	We're all going to have to decide.
	And I mean corporations, I mean governments, whether we want to continue to do business with an aggressive state that cares so little about the rest of the world that they are willing to silence their own citizens even if it means the rest of the world has to suffer death and privation and the entire world economy shutters to a halt.
	Okay, so yes, this should be labeled the Chinese virus.
	It is a Chinese virus.
	To pretend that it is not, that is a referendum on the regime.
	It's not a referendum on the people of China, who are great.
	It is not a referendum on Chinese people abroad, who are wonderful.
	It is a referendum on the Chinese government, which is a bag of garbage and has been a bag of garbage for decades.
	By the way, in breaking news, Mike Pence...
	is now asking construction companies to donate additional industrial masks to the medical community and forego additional orders of masks at this time, which makes sense.
	Construction isn't exactly ongoing.
	CNN is reporting 97 people have died and at least 5,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to the CDC.
	Again, those numbers are going to jump.
	The numbers jumping shouldn't scare you.
	It should be evidence that we're starting to finally get this thing under control via testing.
	You're going to see those numbers skyrocket in future days, and then we look for it to level off.
	Okay, time for a quick thing that I like, and then a couple of quick things that I hate.
	So things that I like today.
	So if you're looking for something creepy, but not too creepy to read, go check out The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.
	Perhaps the greatest American writer, his command of language is absolutely beautiful.
	And if you want to read something that's, if you're into, you know, watching the movie Contagion and freaking yourself out, the best pandemic story, of course, is The Mask of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe.
	So if you're in a very dark mood, read that.
	But otherwise, Edgar Allan Poe is just a master at what he does.
	And, you know, his writing is beautiful.
	So go check out some Edgar Allan Poe.
	Like, now's a good time to catch up on your classics reading.
	So if you don't remember all that stuff you were supposed to read in high school, now's a good time to catch up on all of that.
	Maybe we'll dedicate one of these sort of special Daily Wire episodes that we've been doing just for our listeners and our members.
	Maybe we'll dedicate one of those to book choices and discussing solid book choices over the course of the next several weeks when we are all home and those of us who do not have kids may have some extra time on our hands.
	If you have kids, basically you're just trying to keep yourself from not going insane at this point.
	Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
	Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, is an idiot.
	Like a full-stop moron.
	Okay, by the way, so is Mayor Garcetti of L.A.
	Mayor Garcetti of L.A.
	I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago.
	So, some of us took coronavirus pretty seriously a few weeks ago.
	Like, I told my wife several weeks ago to go out shopping because I thought this thing might get bad.
	But, with all of that said, Eric Garcetti, even at the time, Mayor of Los Angeles, he let the LA Marathon go on.
	No problem.
	20,000 people out sweating and coughing on each other.
	Just a genius move by Eric Garcetti, who also has allowed tens of thousands of homeless people to clog up the streets of Los Angeles, providing a public health risk that has been ongoing in this city for a long time.
	Okay, Bill de Blasio is of the same order, except more.
	He's just a full-scale idiot.
	I mean, a full moron.
	So yesterday, for example, look at the difference between them.
	I mean, it's just unbelievable.
	de Blasio says we have to be on war footing to tackle coronavirus.
	Okay, fair enough.
	Here's Bill de Blasio explaining that to Mika Brzezinski over at MSNBC.
	We need a national solution.
	This should be a reality where the United States is put on a war footing, where the federal government mobilizes all the resources necessary.
	We're going to need the United States military to come in with their substantial logistical and medical capacity.
	We're going to need the supply chain nationalized in some form right Okay, first of all, these are not mutually exclusive.
	Second of all, I do not think that mass numbers of the American military are building the border wall right now.
	Okay, first of all, these are not mutually exclusive.
	Second of all, I do not think that mass numbers of the American military are building the border wall right now.
	This sort of politicization is completely idiotic, but perfectly predictable, considering politics in this country never stops, even in the middle of a pandemic.
	That same idiot Bill de Blasio was filmed going into a YMCA to work out, despite the fact that I believe there is a current gym shutdown in New York City.
	You're not supposed to go to the gym because it is indeed a germ factory, and unfortunately coronavirus lives on metal for days on end, which is why you can ask people around the office.
	I advised them a couple, like a week ago.
	And I myself did this, to go out and get some gym equipment at home, have it delivered via Amazon, which by the way, thank God for Amazon.
	All you morons who were ripping on Amazon like five minutes ago, all you idiots who were like, Amazon's an evil, rapacious company.
	Guess who's keeping the country going right now?
	Amazon is about to hire 100,000 people because of all of the demand for people ordering online.
	Yes, a private company that has made your life better, still doing great work.
	That's the same company Bill de Blasio and AOC were raking over the coals five minutes ago.
	Anyway, Bill de Blasio, He was asked why he went to the gym to stay healthy and a bunch of people in New York were like, are you a moron?
	You just told everybody else they can't go to the gym and here you are going to the gym.
	Here's Bill de Blasio defending himself going to the gym when he's not murdering groundhogs.
	I did not for a moment think there was anything problematic because I knew the dynamics.
	And again, I have to stay healthy so I can make the decisions for the people of this city.
	Just unbelievable.
	He needs to stay healthy to make decisions for the people of the city by going to a gym that he's telling everybody else not to go to.
	What an absolute genius.
	Speaking of politicization, again, the politics of this country do not stop for five seconds.
	James Clyburn, who is the representative in South Carolina who endorsed Joe Biden and pretty much put him over the top there, put him on the path to the nomination.
	Yesterday, he was on Axios on HBO comparing President Trump and the Republicans to the Nazis because this crap just doesn't stop.
	It just doesn't stop.
	During his State of the Union address, Trump told 31 lies.
	Full of half of those lies, the Republican side of the aisle was standing up and cheering.
	They knew that was not true, but they cheered him on.
	I really believe that the people of Germany knew Hitler was lying, but they cheered him on.
	And before they knew it, they no longer had a chancellor, but a dictator.
	Anything that's happened before can happen again.
	So we're now, seriously, it's hilarious.
	The same people who are saying that Donald Trump is Hitler and Mike Pence is Goebbels or something.
	These same people are suggesting that Donald Trump needs to fully take over the entire United States economy and now shut down the entire country.
	Like, you're going to have to pick one.
	This idea that the Republican Party is Hitlerian is so hilariously ridiculous.
	But politics, again, does not stop, no matter the situation.
	Can't stop.
	Won't stop.
	Even Andrew Cuomo, who is going at it with President Trump over all of this, and Trump going right back at Andrew Cuomo over all this.
	I mean, this would be the time for cooperation and coordination.
	And if Cuomo asks for something, and Trump says, we don't have the federal resources right now, which is sort of what happened on a phone call yesterday.
	A bunch of governors were on the phone with Trump and they're like, can you get us ventilators?
	And Trump was like, you should first try and get the ventilators.
	We'll try to help, but we don't really have that great access either.
	I mean, it's not like we have a big stockpile of ventilators over here.
	We're ready to hand you.
	So you should be trying to get it yourself.
	This was promoted by the media without Trump saying that we'll try to help you.
	Because people still have an agenda, even in times of global pandemic.
	All of this crap has to stop.
	Put it aside for the moment.
	I think that Americans are.
	I just think that our politicians are not.
	Because when you're a professional politician, you're a hammer in search of a nail, and that just never stops.
	Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with two additional hours of content.
	Otherwise, we'll be back here tomorrow.
	Don't worry.
	We're getting through this together.
	It's going to be fine.
	Really, it will.
	I really believe that this thing will die out by summer.
	I've said before, I think that we're going to get on track.
	I look at China, I'm encouraged.
	I look at South Korea, I'm encouraged.
	I look at Hong Kong, I'm encouraged.
	I think that we're going to get this thing on track.
	It's just going to require some sacrifice by all of us, but we can stick through it together.
	It's temporary.
	It is not permanent.
	So just keep that in mind and hang out with us.
	We'll just hang out together.
	It'll be fine.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Colton Haas.
	Directed by Mike Joyner.
	Executive producer Jeremy Boring.
	Supervising producer Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.
	Assistant director Pavel Lydowsky.
	Technical producer Austin Stevens.
	Playback and media operated by Nick Sheehan.
	Associate producer Katie Swinnerton.
	Edited by Adam Siovitz.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.
	Hair and makeup is by Nika Geneva.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2020.
	Major U.S.
	cities shut down to stop the spread of the Wu Flu.
	But as we rush to save our lives, is coronavirus killing our Constitution?
	We will examine the surprising civics lessons of this pandemic.
	Then, former future Democrat governor of Florida and potential vice presidential candidate, Andrew Gillum, is found vomiting in a hotel room with a naked male prostitute and a bunch of meth.
	We will analyze, as it were, how the press lets him off the hook.

▲