The commentary comes from Mikko Paunio’s article Dr. Fauci’s Hydroxychloroquine Denial.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

As an epidemiologist, I believe that America has been profoundly ill-served by the contribution of its public health authorities to the debate on the efficacy of treating vulnerable COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). It is a debate with a direct link to whether America’s schools should reopen next month. Even those who reject the World Health Organization’s misleading comparison of COVID-19 with the horrendous 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and its presumption that humans lack any immunity against SARS-CoV-2 would welcome improvements in our ability to treat patients with COVID-19, in order to reduce the risk in reopening schools.

Distinguished Yale epidemiologist Harvey Risch has written extensively on the meticulous research demonstrating the efficacy of the early administration of HCQ in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin and zinc. Conclusions from this research are based on criteria developed by British epidemiologist Sir Bradford Hill and Sir Richard Doll, two of the first scientists to discover the causal link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer, criteria that laid the foundations of modern epidemiology and that are used to this day to determine whether an observed association can be ascribed to causation.  

Far from exploring this potential breakthrough in the treatment of COVID-19, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were both dismissive, condemning early outpatient treatment with the HCQ triple therapy as ineffective and dangerous. Instead, these agencies state that the only permissible way to determine its efficacy and safety is with randomized clinical trials (RCTs). Virologist Steven Hatfill has described a circle of self-reinforcing media commentary based on flawed, fraudulent, and withdrawn studies and the FDA’s mistaken decision to withdraw its HCQ Emergency Use Authorization, costing thousands of American lives.  See The Real HCQ Story: What We Now Know

Demanding proof when time is short and when there is highly suggestive observational evidence has been condemned by Drs. George Fareed, Michael Jacobs, and Donald Pompan in an open letter to Dr. Fauci. They point out that the FDA has approved many drugs without RCTs—penicillin was so efficacious in treating pneumonia that there was no need for RCTs. Moreover, RCTs are not designed to test the efficacy of a therapy in high-risk outpatient settings before a patient is notified of the results of a test for COVID-19. It cannot be ethical for public health bodies to demand impossible standards of proof for potential lifesaving therapies.

To require an RCT for the HCQ triple therapy is indeed unethical; evidence supporting its use comes from large patient series, controlled trials, and even a natural experiment in the Brazilian state of Pará. In assessing ongoing patient outcomes, keep in mind that observations might be affected should the SARS-CoV-2 virus lose virulence. Spanish authorities report that fatality rates have fallen, even among elderly patients, which would be consistent with reduced SARS-CoV-2 virulence. This, too, should be considered by public authorities in assessing the risks associated with reopening schools.  See Death toll mounts as FDA denies HCQ for outpatient therapy

Yet rather than engage in proper debate, Dr. Fauci has resorted to name-calling. “The pushback has been furious,” Risch writes. Dr. Fauci “has implied that I am incompetent, notwithstanding my hundreds of highly regarded, methodologically relevant publications in peer-reviewed scientific literature.” Dr. Fauci’s position calls to mind that of English statistician Ronald A. Fisher, who in the 1950s vehemently argued against Hill and Doll and their finding that smoking causes lung cancer, on very similar grounds to those used by Dr. Fauci to dispute the efficacy of HCQ—that observational data cannot prove causality. This is an extraordinary position for America’s leading health official to adopt; by the same logic, Dr. Fauci would deny the evidence that tobacco smoking kills.  See  Hydroxychloroquine: A Morality Tale

Dr. Fauci has also waded into the debate on reopening schools, arguing that they should remain closed where the virus is circulating. While the effect of reopening schools on community transmission is uncertain, we know that keeping them closed harms children, especially those in poorer communities. This should not be a matter of politics, left or right. In Britain, chief medical officers have issued a statement on the benefits of school to children and the “exceptionally small risk” of children dying from COVID-19. In my country, Finland, Prime Minister Sanna Marin, a left-of-center Social Democrat, decided in May that Finnish children should return to school, despite opposition from the teachers’ union.

It would be a needless calamity for America’s schools not to reopen at the start of the new school year—and a calamity not to protect the vulnerable with the most efficacious therapies we have.

Clinical evidence strongly supports the use of the HCQ triple therapy at an early stage for the elderly and those with comorbidities. I earnestly hope that Dr. Fauci reconsiders his opposition to HCQ and restores his hitherto considerable reputation.  See HCQ Proven First Responder to SARS CV2

Dr. Mikko Paunio, an epidemiologist, has held positions at the University of Helsinki, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the European Commission, the World Bank, and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in Finland.

Footnote:  Excerpt below from COVID-19, Orwell, and the media by Samar Razaq writing at the British Journal of General Practice.

The power of the numbers was immense; a nation paralysed despite being unable to put the numbers into any context. Telling patients that on average 10 000 people die every week in the UK2 (approximately 1500 every day) had little impact on them. The incessant 24-hour media coverage had everyone spooked by an invisible enemy, much like the Eurasian army that had spooked the inhabitants of London in Orwell’s novel.

As a degree of normality has begun to be restored, thanks to the persistently low prevalence levels of COVID-19, mundane chats with my patients often end up discussing the ‘second wave’. There seems to be a general preparedness among everyone for the ‘inevitable second wave’. Reading and hearing about the second wave often reminds me of Orwell’s masterful creation. There is a general agreement that there is no scientific consensus on what a second wave actually is; yet it is on the tongue of every doctor and patient I speak to. At what point does one declare that a second wave has begun?

The figure of 120 000 expected deaths in a winter peak makes the headlines,3 but the fact that the number could be as low as 1300 fails to get a mention in some news outlets.4 The Office for National Statistics reported a prevalence of 0.09% on 25 June 20205 (a non-significant rise from the 0.06% reported in the prior week due to overlapping confidence intervals).6 This was picked up by one media outlet as a cause for pessimism and a sign of a probable impending second wave.7 The prevalence dropped to 0.04% the following week.8 I noticed an amendment in the article a few days later, acknowledging this drop in terms of halving the number of cases.7 This received barely two lines hidden in the middle of the article, with no change to the pessimistic title of the article predicting the second wave. Data released on 17 July revealed a persistently low prevalence at 0.04%.9

Well-respected epidemiologists predicted, from the outset, that the societal, economic, and psychological harm from the unprecedented lockdowns were likely to be far greater than the perceived risk of death. However, such views were lost in the narrative of fear that predominated the early discussions on the matter and treated like an Orwellian Thoughtcrime.

As GPs we should reassure our patients and encourage their active participation in bringing forward other health worries that they may have been ignoring over the last few months.

It is important that as the collateral damage of the steps taken in the last few months to curb the virus becomes clearer and the lower than initially expected fatality rate emerges, a sense of responsibility is demonstrated by those charged with informing the public.

Postscript: This update from CDC (here)  H/T William Briggs (here)

Table 3 shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death. The number of deaths with each condition or cause is shown for all deaths and by age groups. 

Comment by William Briggs:

Six percent.

The other number of interest is the official coronadoom death total, which as of Sunday night is 167,558. Math is easy: 167,558 * 0.06 = 10,054. Rounded up, to be fair.

The remaining 157,504 died of other things—an average 2.6 other things!—with the presence of coronadoom. Some fraction of these poor people, considering false positives, died of just other things.

How many times, early on, did we scream, rant, and, yes, rave about juicing the numbers? The answer is a large positive number. Alas, the screams hit the ears of bureaucrats and politicians, our dumbest and evilest classes.

It must be recalled that many deaths were caused by the unnecessary lockdowns themselves. Lockdowns killed. This is not hyperbole or a guess. It is fact.

The map shows that in Canada 9108 deaths have been attributed to Covid19, meaning people who died having tested positive for SARS CV2 virus.  This number accumulated over a period of 210 days starting January 31. The daily death rate reached a peak of 177 on May 6, 2020, and is down to 6 as of yesterday.  More details on this below, but first the summary picture. (Note: 2019 is the latest demographic report)

Over the epidemic months, the average Covid daily death rate amounted to 5% of the All Causes death rate. During this time a Canadian had an average risk of 1 in 5000 of dying with SARS CV2 versus a 1 in 114 chance of dying regardless of that infection. As shown later below the risk varied greatly with age, much lower for younger, healthier people.

Background Updated from Previous Post

In reporting on Covid19 pandemic, governments have provided information intended to frighten the public into compliance with orders constraining freedom of movement and activity. For example, the above map of the Canadian experience is all cumulative, and the curve will continue upward as long as cases can be found and deaths attributed.  As shown below, we can work around this myopia by calculating the daily differentials, and then averaging newly reported cases and deaths by seven days to smooth out lumps in the data processing by institutions.

A second major deficiency is lack of reporting of recoveries, including people infected and not requiring hospitalization or, in many cases, without professional diagnosis or treatment. The only recoveries presently to be found are limited statistics on patients released from hospital. The only way to get at the scale of recoveries is to subtract deaths from cases, considering survivors to be in recovery or cured. Comparing such numbers involves the delay between infection, symptoms and death. Herein lies another issue of terminology: a positive test for the SARS CV2 virus is reported as a case of the disease COVID19. In fact, an unknown number of people have been infected without symptoms, and many with very mild discomfort.

August 7 in the UK it was reported (here) that around 10% of coronavirus deaths recorded in England – almost 4,200 – could be wiped from official records due to an error in counting.  Last month, Health Secretary Matt Hancock ordered a review into the way the daily death count was calculated in England citing a possible ‘statistical flaw’.  Academics found that Public Health England’s statistics included everyone who had died after testing positive – even if the death occurred naturally or in a freak accident, and after the person had recovered from the virus.  Numbers will now be reconfigured, counting deaths if a person died within 28 days of testing positive much like Scotland and Northern Ireland…

Professor Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, who first noticed the error, told the Sun:

‘It is a sensible decision. There is no point attributing deaths to Covid-19 28 days after infection…

For this discussion let’s assume that anyone reported as dying from COVD19 tested positive for the virus at some point prior. From the reasoning above let us assume that 28 days after testing positive for the virus, survivors can be considered recoveries.

Recoveries are calculated as cases minus deaths with a lag of 28 days. Daily cases and deaths are averages of the seven days ending on the stated date. Recoveries are # of cases from 28 days earlier minus # of daily deaths on the stated date. Since both testing and reports of Covid deaths were sketchy in the beginning, this graph begins with daily deaths as of April 24, 2020 compared to cases reported on March 27, 2020.

The line shows the Positivity metric for Canada starting at nearly 8% for new cases April 24, 2020. That is, for the 7 day period ending April 24, there were a daily average of 21,772 tests and 1715 new cases reported. Since then the rate of new cases has dropped down, now holding steady at ~1% since mid-June. Yesterday, the daily average number of tests was 45,897 with 427 new cases. So despite more than doubling the testing, the positivity rate is not climbing.  Another view of the data is shown below.

The scale of testing has increased and now averages over 45,000 a day, while positive tests (cases) are hovering at 1% positivity.  The shape of the recovery curve resembles the case curve lagged by 28 days, since death rates are a small portion of cases.  The recovery rate has grown from 83% to 99% steady over the last 2 weeks, so that recoveries exceed new positives. This approximation surely understates the number of those infected with SAR CV2 who are healthy afterwards, since antibody studies show infection rates multiples higher than confirmed positive tests (8 times higher in Canada).  In absolute terms, cases are now down to 427 a day and deaths 6 a day, while estimates of recoveries are 437 a day.

The key numbers: 

99% of those tested are not infected with SARS CV2. 

99% of those who are infected recover without dying.

Summary of Canada Covid Epidemic

It took a lot of work, but I was able to produce something akin to the Dutch advice to their citizens.

The media and governmental reports focus on total accumulated numbers which are big enough to scare people to do as they are told.  In the absence of contextual comparisons, citizens have difficulty answering the main (perhaps only) question on their minds:  What are my chances of catching Covid19 and dying from it?

A previous post reported that the Netherlands parliament was provided with the type of guidance everyone wants to see.

For canadians, the most similar analysis is this one from the Daily Epidemiology Update: :

The table presents only those cases with a full clinical documentation, which included some 2194 deaths compared to the 5842 total reported.  The numbers show that under 60 years old, few adults and almost no children have anything to fear.

Update May 20, 2020

It is really quite difficult to find cases and deaths broken down by age groups.  For Canadian national statistics, I resorted to a report from Ontario to get the age distributions, since that province provides 69% of the cases outside of Quebec and 87% of the deaths.  Applying those proportions across Canada results in this table. For Canada as a whole nation:

In the worst case, if you are a Canadian aged more than 80 years, you have a 1 in 400 chance of dying from Covid19.  If you are 60 to 80 years old, your odds are 1 in 5000.  Younger than that, it’s only slightly higher than winning (or in this case, losing the lottery).

As noted above Quebec provides the bulk of cases and deaths in Canada, and also reports age distribution more precisely,  The numbers in the table below show risks for Quebecers.

While some of the risk factors are higher in the viral hotspot of Quebec, it is still the case that under 80 years of age, your chances of dying from Covid 19 are better than 1 in 1000, and much better the younger you are.

Helen Braswell explains at Stat Four scenarios on how we might develop immunity to Covid-19
Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

As the world wearies of trying to suppress the SARS-CoV-2 virus, many of us are wondering what the future will look like as we try to learn to live with it.

Will it always have the capacity to make us so sick? Will our immune systems learn — and remember — how to cope with the new threat? Will vaccines be protective and long-lasting?

STAT asked a number of experts to map out scenarios of how we might come to coexist with this new threat. In a time of uncertainty, the scenarios they sketched were actually hopeful, even if the relief most envisage is not immediately around the corner.

Vineet Menachery, a coronavirus researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston laid out four possible scenarios for how humans might interact with SARS-2 over time — in other words, what kind of immunity we might expect.

As Menachery sees it, the possibilities for the future when it comes to Covid-19 and human immunity break down as follows:

• sterilizing immunity,
• functional immunity,
• waning immunity, and
• lost immunity. 

Please remember: These are educated guesses, based on what’s known about the way the immune system works in general, and how it responds to other coronaviruses.

Sterilizing immunity

Sterilizing immunity would be a best-case scenario. It describes an immune system that is armed against a foe, able to fend it off before infection can take hold.

Diseases that we think of as “one-and-done” infections induce such a robust and durable immune response in a single encounter that we cannot be reinfected. In general terms, measles fits into this category, although there are rare reports of people contracting measles more than once.

The bad news is that viruses that infect via the mucus membranes of the nose and throat, like SARS-2, typically don’t induce sterilizing immunity.

But Florian Krammer, a professor of vaccinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, does believe some people will develop sterilizing immunity after a bout of Covid-19.

Malik Peiris, a coronavirus expert at the Hong Kong University who was one of the co-discoverers of SARS-1, said,  “Of course, what we’d all like is immunity that protects the individual — protects from infection and protects from transmission. We may not achieve that, because protecting from infection of the upper respiratory tract and then transmission is quite a challenge.”

Functional immunity

Functional immunity, on the other hand, may be within reach. In fact, it’s the scenario Menachery sees as most likely.

Under this scenario, people whose immune systems have been primed to recognize and fight the virus — whether through infection or vaccination — could contract it again in the future. But these infections would be cut short as the immune system’s defenses kick into gear. People infected might not develop symptoms or might have a mild, cold-like infection.

“I’m a believer that if you’ve gotten Covid-19, then your likelihood of dying from a second Covid-19 case is very low, if you maintain immunity,” Menachery said.

Peiris agreed. “It won’t have the impact it has now. … It becomes manageable.”  “The fact that somebody may get reinfected is not surprising. But the reinfection didn’t cause disease,” said Peiris, who knows about the case but was not one of the authors reporting it.

Christian Drosten, who is another co-discoverer of SARS-1, describes a future that fits into this category.

“I clearly expect lasting and relevant immunity that is almost sterilizing immunity against SARS-2 in almost every person infected with SARS-2,” Drosten, director of the Institute of Virology at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital, said via email.

“It may be possible to become infected again, without any change in the virus. The resulting infection will be mild or asymptomatic, with significantly lower levels of virus replication and onward transmission.”

Drosten’s last point would be a big bonus. If people who are reinfected don’t generate high levels of SARS-2 viruses in their respiratory tracts and therefore don’t contribute much to the spread of the virus, Covid-19 may become, over time, not just less dangerous, but also less common.

Waning immunity

Waning infection, the third scenario, is a variation of functional immunity. In this scenario, people who have been infected or vaccinated would lose their protection over time. But even if immunity wanes, reinfections would be less severe, Menachery said.

“You will never get as sick as you were the first time,” he said.

This is the pattern seen with the four coronaviruses that cause about 15% of what we consider common colds — OC43, 229E, NL63, and HKU1. People can be reinfected with these viruses after a relatively short period of time.

Thirty years ago, British scientists reported that a year after deliberately infecting a small number of volunteers with 229E, two-thirds became reinfected when again exposed to the virus. “However, the period of virus shedding was shorter than before and none developed a cold,” they wrote.

Krammer believes the overall picture will be mixed. Some people will have sterilizing immunity, but most will fit into either the functional or waning immunity categories. The net outcome: less of the type of disease that prompted most countries to take the extraordinary steps of locking down this spring.

Lost immunity

Lost immunity describes a scenario in which people who have been infected would lose all their immune munitions against the virus within some time frame. A reinfection after that point would be like a first infection — carrying all the same risk of severe disease now seen with Covid-19.

None of the experts who spoke to STAT felt this was a possibility.

“I can’t imagine this being a situation where I get infected and then in 10 years, I get infected again and I have zero immunity,” Perlman said.

If these experts are correct, and the worst-case scenario is off the table, humans can expect to see a waning of the threat SARS-2 poses to people over time. Our immune systems will know how to deal with it. It could become the fifth human coronavirus to cause common colds.

This is your brain on Pandemic Panic.

Just Say NO!

Kira Davis explains in her article I Am Sick To Death Of COVID Supremacists.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

But leaving all that aside, and leaving aside my personal feeling that masks are more of a placebo than anything, I am willing to lean on my previously stated understanding of national compromise and don the mask. I’m even willing to admit that I might be wrong about my feelings on masks. I will concede all of that. The problem is that the other side of this debate isn’t willing to concede a single inch. All or nothing is a dangerous game, especially when it is only one side that agrees to it. Reasonable people who are forced into unreasonable acts can only be stretched so far. When they snap they will retreat to “nothing” and then that’s when real problems start. We can already see that happening.

As Edit0r-at-Large for a major online publication, I am not only tasked with staying abreast of the statistics and data connected to COVID, my writers are having daily, extended conversations about the information regarding the virus, transmission and fatality rates and recovery rates. In fact, we report factual statistics most corporate media sites have never published at all. There is a constant distillation of the issue going on behind the scenes here every single day.

I say this to explain that while I’m no Expert Scientist™, I am informed. I also believe that my willingness to compromise demonstrates an ability to reason effectively. So it has become infuriating, to the point of feeling untenable, that the “lockdown indefinitely” crowd has become so unhinged as to label people like me morons, “deniers” and pro-murder because we find the reaction to this virus outsized and dangerous.

But Kira, you can’t compromise on DEATH! Why do you hate the elderly????

Can’t we? We compromise on death every day, pandemic or not. We calculate the risk to drive our vehicles, attend events, get on airplanes. We use a complicated equation based on what facts we know, our fears and our goals. If this virus had the fatality rate we were promised in the beginning, extended lockdowns might…might…be defensible. But we are looking at a virus with a 99.6% survivability rate.  For the elderly that rate is certainly different. The solution is not to quarantine the healthy. We’ve never done that. Ever.

The solution is to quarantine the sick, encourage healthy habits and safe interactions among the healthy, and GET THE HELL ON WITH LIVING WHILE WE’RE STILL ALIVE.

We are shutting down schools when the total number of child fatalities in the entire nation stands somewhere between ten and two, depending on how you count COVID deaths. Even the Mayo Clinic says nearly all children who get the virus will never even show symptoms or only experience mild symptoms.

But Kira, the teachers and the staff are more vulnerable. Why do you hate teachers???

There are many teachers and staff who feel just fine about returning to the classroom. In K-12 education, teachers tend to skew younger and have a much lower risk. Of course, that shifts quite a bit when it comes to college professors. Invite those who feel comfortable to return to campus with the students. Those who don’t feel comfortable should Zoom in to the classroom, ideally one supervised by aides and subs. The unions are always begging for more hires. This seems like a no-brainer.

But Kira, nearly 200,000 people are dead because of COVID. Why do you hate people???

I have made my case for my informed status on this issue. I know the numbers. We are far, far, far, far, far, far shy of the 3-5 million deaths Fauci and co. promised in the beginning of all this. Even with quarantine measures we were told millions would still die. In a population of 325 million, 174,000 is statistically negligible.

But Kira, you heartless monster! How can you say you don’t care about all those people who died?

And herein lies the rub, the very heart of this rant today. I have no belief whatsoever that those screaming at me about how little I care for the lives of others actually care for the lives of those others themselves. My opinion that a virus with a 99.6% survivability rate should not bring a successful society to a screeching halt does not denote my malice for my fellow Americans. Quite the opposite.

I care very much about the daily suffering I see as people lose their jobs, businesses, and even their mental stability to this ridiculous response.

I have been patient. I have been a good citizen. I have done everything asked of me. I have tried to be gracious to those who insult my intelligence and qualifications simply because I don’t see things their way. I have tried to understand that people are scared and that not everyone has all the information and I can’t force them to have it. I have chosen the path of acceptance for those who rage and seethe and hiss all day on social media about people like me, people who have the audacity to even suggest perhaps it’s time for citizens to be making these decisions for themselves. I have genuinely tried to be the bigger person. I don’t post memes insulting people who want to wear masks, even as many of my friends and family regularly and smugly post memes insulting those of us who have questions about it all.

But I’ve had enough. The fact that we even have the space or notion to argue about the responses to this virus tells me that indeed this virus is not the apocalypse we were told it would be. I will not be judged or labeled as heartless for a simple reading of the facts available to me. I will not be told I don’t care about people when all I do all day long is worry for people and pray for people and entreat God to protect our people. I will not be shamed as a murderer for thinking maybe it’s time to start living again.

The COVID supremacists have worked my last nerve.

Contrary to falsehoods and disinformation from the Democratic Convention videos, Trump has put the US Executive Authority  to good use, as documented in this publication from the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.

introduction

Over the first three years of his Administration, President Donald J. Trump used a combination of tax cuts, deregulation, energy dominance, and fair trade deals to build one of the most robust and resilient economies in American history. As a result of these growth-inducing policies, by January 20, 2020 – the day the Chinese Communist Party confirmed human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 – the United States economy was at full employment,1 real wages were rising,2 and black and Hispanic Americans were enjoying record low unemployment rates. 3.

Since that time, SARS-CoV-2 – hereinafter referred to as the China Virus – has taken a horrific toll. Over 160,000 Americans have died.4 As many as 18 million Americans are currently unemployed.5 Trillions of dollars of fiscal and monetary stimuli have been expended to combat the sharpest and deepest economic downturn in U.S. history. 6

Today, the U.S. economy is also in the midst of profound structural changes in sectors heavily impacted by the China Virus such as airlines and mass transit, casinos and gaming, K-12 and higher education, hospitality and leisure, oil and gas drilling, and sports and entertainment. These structural impacts could have long-lasting consequences.

Just how did this happen? And how is President Trump using the Defense Production Act (DPA) and related tools such as the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to protect the American people from the China Virus? This report seeks to answer these questions.

Table of Contents

• The Chinese Communist Party Causes a Global Pandemic
• Overview of the Defense Production Act.
• The Strategic National Stockpile and DPA Mission
• Executive Orders and Presidential Memoranda
• Using DPA Title I to Attack the China Virus
• Using DPA Title III to Attack the China Virus
• CARES Act and PPP Funding to Supplement DPA Efforts
• Patriotic Companies Answering the Call to Duty

Conclusion

The China Virus outbreak is an invisible enemy unlike any in modern history. The intentional shielding of the outbreak by the Chinese Communist Party and World Health Organization virtually ensured the outbreak of a global pandemic that has killed over 160,000 Americans and inflicted great damage on the American economy.

Using the DPA and other authorities, President Trump has moved quickly to protect the American people and defend our industrial base. His aggressive use of the DPA has not only saved American lives during this pandemic. It is helping to protect and secure America’s production and distribution of our essential medicines and critical medical equipment and supplies.