IBM a également annoncé avec le gouvernement américain la mise en place d’un consortium visant à employer le calcul intensif dans la lutte contre la pandémie de Covid-19. Mené par IBM, le « Covid-19 High Performance Computing Consortium » rassemble de nombreux acteurs tels que le Département américain de l’Energie, le MIT, trois laboratoires nationaux de recherche aux Etats-Unis ainsi que diverses entreprises technologiques.

IBM met à l’honneur 35 femmes exceptionnelles issues de 12 pays, alors qu'une nouvelle enquête mondiale démontre les bénéfices de la diversité pour l'IA - en notant que du travail reste à faire pour combler l'écart entre les genres.

IBM (NYSE : IBM) lance de nouveaux programmes, services et partenariats afin d’aider les entreprises à renforcer leurs capacités à utiliser les réseaux sociaux pour se saisir de nouvelles opportunités affaires.

IBM annonce aujourd’hui que son nouveau cloud pour les fabricants d’appareils électroniques fournira à la TV connectée de Philips de nouveaux services internet, afin de proposer une gamme de services plus interactifs à des millions de téléspectateurs dans plus de 30 pays en Europe, mais aussi au Brésil et en Argentine.

The 2009 IBM Cognos Partner Awards recognise Australian channel partners that meet or exceed assigned revenue targets , such as license sales and maintenance deals, and, create successful customer relationships through the delivery of IBM Cognos Performance Management based solutions for the IBM full fiscal year 2008, ended December 31st 2008.

Melbourne, Australia - 18 August 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the City of Melbourne today launched a new interactive online experience for this year’s Melbourne Spring Fashion Week (MSFW) to enhance the iconic event and help shoppers hunt down the best retail bargains. The launch of the experience signifies the beginning of a three-year partnership between the City of Melbourne and IBM as the Official Innovation and Technology Partner for MSFW.

IBM Australia partners with Australia’s first Pride Centre to connect LGBTIQ community in Australia

Tasmania’s St Virgil’s College has signed a two-year agreement with IBM to equip staff and students with Apple iPads and Mobile Device Management (MDM) software as part of its digital education delivery commitment.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a new collaboration with Thiess, one of the world’s largest contract miners, to use Big Data to improve machine availability and operational productivity utilizing predictive analytics and modeling technologies. This initial collaboration focuses on Thiess’ Mining haul trucks and excavators, and will help unify asset management and business operations.

Advancements in assistive image analytics and deep learning technology could in the future help doctors in the fight against preventable blindness.

The IBM Research findings achieve the highest recorded accuracy of 86 percent by using deep learning and pathology insights to identify the severity of diabetic retinopathy.

IBM Q Network to explore practical applications of quantum computing for business and science with University of Melbourne, JPMorgan Chase, Daimler AG, Samsung, JSR Corporation, Barclays, Hitachi Metals, Honda, Nagase, Keio University, Oak Ridge National Lab, and Oxford University.

IBM Security today announced a new capability from IBM Trusteer that helps banks identify fraudulent accounts before they are opened. The technology also protects consumers even if they are not a customer of the bank being targeted with the fake account.

IBM today announced that Victoria University has selected IBM to design and build the university’s first green data centre.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that the University of Melbourne, a world class research university, has selected IBM to design and install a high efficiency, high density cooling solution to support new IT initiatives such as Cloud and Research computing, in its new data centre, Data Hall 2.

Iwatani×宝塚歌劇団 真風涼帆さん初コラボ商品が誕生！真風さん監修のカセットこんろがもうすぐ発売！なんと、カセットこんろがおしゃれアイテムに！？「カセットフーマーベラス?すみれ」限定台数5,000台！詳細は近日公開予定。 #Iwatani #真風涼帆 #コスモこんろちゃん #...

Watson matched tumor board treatment recommendations in up to 96% of cases;reduced clinical trial screening time by 78%, studies find. Prostate cancer is latest add to Watson for Oncology; the tech will be available to support 80 percent of the incidence of cancer by year-end. Nine new adopters of Watson oncology offerings around the globe expands Watson's reach to 55 organizations worldwide.

A Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre study has demonstrated the potential for artificial intelligence to help reduce the time for clinicians to match lung cancer patients to relevant clinical trials.

EnergyAustralia, the country’s largest electricity distribution network, today announced an agreement with IBM for the implementation of an energy network monitoring and control solution.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it will establish a Natural Resources Solution Centre (NRSC) in Perth to help mining, LNG and petroleum companies accelerate the development and adoption of innovative technologies and business strategies.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced its role as the systems integration partner for the $100 million Smart Grid, Smart City initiative led by the EnergyAustralia consortium. IBM will play a pivotal role, as a member of the consortium, in the development of Australia’s first smart grid network, following the formal contract signing of the deal between EnergyAustralia and the Australian Government.

Matt Ridley on putting everything in perspective I love this guy… he always has a fresh perspective on things. Daily Photo – Carnival Row at Disney When I was at Disneyland in Anaheim, I thought this would make excellent subject-matter for an HDR shot. This mix of lights and textures usually comes out pretty cool. […]

A new IBM (NYSE: IBM) study of more than 1,700 Chief Executive Officers from 64 countries and 18 industries worldwide reveals that CEOs are changing the nature of work by adding a powerful dose of openness, transparency and employee empowerment to the command-and-control ethos that has characterised the modern corporation for more than a century.

IBM, (NYSE: IBM) today announced the findings of its 2016 Global Customer Experience Index (CEI) Study, which showed that Australia is above the global average when it comes to providing a good shopping experience for consumers, with a CEI rating of 43 percent compared with 40 percent globally. The results provided a snapshot of the Australian retail sector, revealing that some businesses are still struggling to provide a seamless cross-channel experience, personalisation and convenience for customers.

The war is over and Ginny returns to school, but it isn't easy to pretend like everything is the same as before.

[sequel to 'all your fumble words']

At the most recent MSRI board of trustees meeting on Mar 7 (conducted online, naturally), Nicolas Jewell (a Professor of Biostatistics and Statistics at Berkeley, also affiliated with the Berkeley School of Public Health and the London School of Health and Tropical Disease), gave a presentation on the current coronavirus epidemic entitled “2019-2020 Novel Coronavirus […]

After some discussion with the applied math research groups here at UCLA (in particular the groups led by Andrea Bertozzi and Deanna Needell), one of the members of these groups, Chris Strohmeier, has produced a proposal for a Polymath project to crowdsource in a single repository (a) a collection of public data sets relating to […]

This Thursday (4/9), eighteen authors (including yours truly!) will be doing live readings to celebrate International Unicorn Day!!! At 10:30am ET, I'll be on Facebook Live on my author page here: https://www.facebook.com/sarahbethdurst

And I may be wearing a unicorn onesie... 

Luke Skywalker discovers a powerful lesson that can be valuable to your own younglings.

Two StarWars.com writers debate Luke’s choice in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

I don't keep my finger on the pulse of all the independent Kickstarter campaigns running at any given time. There's just too much unique content being produced month after month for me to sift through everything. I leave that to those who write previews and reviews for a living (I am an IT Consultant for a living; I write reviews as a hobby because I'm passionate about board gaming). The only way an independent Kickstarter campaign is going to be on my radar is if the designer/publisher reaches out to me to let me know the campaign is running or if it's created a bit of buzz already in the key circles that I frequent. I definitely wasn't closely monitoring Kickstarter campaigns four years ago when the original edition of Middara  was initially funded. It was an adventurous dungeon crawl that promised to be so much more than an ordinary dungeon crawl. With options to run in campaign mode for an ongoing narrative or crawl mode for one off gameplay, it could work as a long term project for committed game groups as well as a fun game for casual players. It was a long road from its 2015 campaign to its 2019 fulfillment with a lot of unhappy backers along the way who voiced frustration at the late fulfillment of the game. In early summer 2019, a few months after delivery of the original Middara  game was completed, Succubus Publishing launched their Middara: Unintentional Malum Triology  Kickstarter campaign. This offered a reprint of the original game (retitled Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1), expanding it to over 80 hours of content, as well as two new adventure expansions (Acts 2 and 3) and a host of other Kickstarter exclusive add-on and stretch goal content. It also promised a faster turnaround on delivery to backers. Suddenly Middara  and its designers (Clayton Helme, Brooklynn Lundberg, Brenna Moncur, and Ian Tate) were the talk of the town and my husband Chris and I had an intense discussion about backing the second campaign. We were torn - yes the game sounded really cool, but we already own one behemoth campaign dungeon crawl (I’m looking at you Gloomhaven). Did we really need another? We hemmed and hawed and let the decision hang in the air. And then then publisher decided for us, by sending us a review copy of Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1 (M:UMA1).

As soon as the box arrived at the end of June, I poured over all the components. So much stuff! Such a huge box! The artwork (conceived and illustrated by Stephanie Gustafsson, Alex Hansen, Hector Sevilla Lujan, Rhett Mason, and Jon Troy Nickel) is absolutely beautiful. The illustrations are well drawn, well detailed, and bursting with color.
The game could have an audience in the tween set if the drawings were a little less risqué, but as marketed to older teens and adults, everything is within decency standards.

The minis are of good quality; well sculpted. I do wish that at least the starting adventurer minis came pre-painted (I always wish that because I have no painting skills or supplies) especially when M:UMA1 is priced at $150. The components are sturdy and should hold up to regular usage. We haven’t sleeved our cards yet and because of the sheer quantity of them (hundreds) they’ll likely remain unsleeved. I especially enjoy the custom dice, separated by color to indicate which dice should be used during dice rolls.

After examining all the game contents, my interest was definitely on the upswing and Chris and I  set about assembling a crew to play the game in adventure mode. It’s daunting to find others willing to commit to 80+ hours of gameplay, but soon enough we had a happy foursome. One of the players, Craig, actually owned the original edition of Middara but hadn’t found the time to assemble a group and get it on the table. Our other player was his coworker and friend Matt.
Craig showed up for our first night of gameplay with a sweet surprise – he had ordered the fancy game mats and was happy to share them with us for our adventure.

In M:UMA1  adventure mode, players begin the first game by taking on the roles of young students preparing for their Magical Aptitude and Skill Test (MAST). We spent that first evening getting to know the four starting characters (called adventurers) and deciding who would role play each one. Every adventurer has their own unique backstory, motivations, starting equipment (armor, weapons, relics, consumables, etc.), and vivid personality.  I chose Nightingale because I saw myself in her and thought I would really enjoy playing her. Chris chose Rook, Craig took Remi, and Matt selected Zeke.
M:UMA1  adventure mode breaks down the overall campaign (called the adventure) into many sessions called encounters. We typically play one or two encounters each evening we get together, with each encounter lasting anywhere from one to two hours. To start an encounter, all players gather round the table and lay out their adventurer cards and equipment. The narrative is read from the Adventure book, or alternatively listened to on the Middara app. We all really love the app. It’s available on the Apple App store or Google Play store and allows players to hear the narrative bits of the story without requiring one of them to do the reading aloud. The voice actor Succubus Publishing hired is fantastic; she is an expressive reader who brings the characters alive. While the entire adventure in M:UMA1  is narrative driven and so every encounter advances the plot at least a little bit, there are some encounters that have several pages of story so using the app is really nice. After the narration is finished, the location boards are set up for the encounter, forming the terrain, similar to any other dungeon crawl. Directions for setup are given in the Adventure book with modifications in the Diagram book. Some elements of the terrain may have their details partially hidden, such as loot tokens (which hide the exact reward until a character performs an encounter adjacent to the token) and totem tokens (which hide what they represent until an adventurer comes within line of sight of the token). The starting spaces on the board for each adventurer and the monsters (called combatants) are specified in the Adventure book. Once everything is setup, the game begins; turn order for adventurers and monsters is driven by initiative cards that were shuffled and randomly laid out in a row during setup.
During the encounter, players spend their turns moving their adventurers around the terrain, following movement rules, as they work to complete the encounter goals. Usually this involves reaching the exit token, but other goals are possible. Since players typically get rewards (gold, equipment, experience points, etc.) each time their adventurer slays a monster, most will want to prioritize battling the monsters over making a quick run for the exit token. There isn’t a lot of analysis paralysis during game play as the best options for next steps on a player’s turn are usually fairly obvious. Combatants spend their turns completing actions as specified on their description cards. Those that are designated as adventurer opponents are called intelligent combatants and have intelligent combatant cards, while the ones that players control and that fight on behalf of adventurers are called command combatants. 

Exploring the terrain and battling intelligent combatants are governed by an extensive set of rules (60+ pages!) provided in the rulebook. It took us at least three encounters before we really understood most of the basic rules and even now, we find ourselves frequently checking the summary poster we printed out as a giant player aid. There’s just too much information to memorize it all, especially when the information is subject to change due to errata. Which brings me to one of the few complaints I have about this game -the large volume of errata. You either have to remember to frequently check the long list of corrections and changes (to the 1.0 rulebook and to the text printed on various components such as equipment cards, combatant cards, etc) and update gameplay as you go along,  or dedicate a session to reviewing all the changes and corrections and marking up the components with the correct text in one sitting. We started off trying to do the former but it was so frustrating that we switched to the latter and it took me at least an hour.  For the rulebook errata, you can take a shortcut to getting the updates in place (if you don’t mind the ink and paper expense) by printing out the updated 1.08 rulebook from the Succubus website. Another note on the rules- deciding which rule set to play under has become a complicated issue that players will need to come to agreement on as Succubus has compiled and released an entirely new version of the rules (v1.1) that changes several of the fundamental aspects of the game. This was done in response to the feedback from players who have extensively played through the game using the original 1.0 rulebook with errata corrections. The major overhaul is meant to strengthen aspects of the game that felt too weak and weaken aspects that seemed overpowered, but not all players agree on the changes. Also, the 1.1 changes are still in Beta release and so they are subject to change as they continue to be finalized. Our little group likes to keep things simple, so we opted to stick to the 1.08 rule set, at least for now.
Theme is really important to me, so I was very happy to discover that Middara’s theme is well implemented across all components and the gameplay thus far in M:UMA1 . This is where the game really shines over its competitors. Its narrative is extremely detailed and offers so much depth in the characters. More so than Gloomhaven. More so than any other board game I’ve played. An experienced  screenwriter could easily adapt the storyline into a fantastic adventure film for the big screen and I’d go see it. My two year stint playing through the Pathfinder Skull and Shackles Adventure Card Game is a distant second in plot development, and even then, that game only had such a rich narrative track because we employed a user written storyline that we found on BGG (the publisher offered little in the way of quality narrative for the game). I come back to the table each week to play M:UMA1 , not just for the fun of fighting monsters and gaining rewards, but also to find out what happens next in the story. Bonus: as the plot unfolds, adventurers grow in skill and discipline and new content becomes available.
At the time of this writing, we've played through all of Chapter 1 and are partway through Chapter 2 (about 10 distinct sessions). Once we are finished with M:UMA1  in adventure mode (we estimate it will take us over a year, meeting weekly) there are plenty of scenarios and special content for us to replay M:UMA1  in crawl mode.  In fact, a large portion of the Kickstarter promo box is content exclusively for use with crawl mode and I’m excited about eventually digging into that.
Based on my experience with M:UMA1  so far, I highly recommend the game. Not only is the game worthwhile on its own merits, but the friendship building that comes from playing a year+ long adventure with others is wonderful. You can make a full afternoon or evening out of each session, sharing a meal together before sitting down to play the game. Although I was given a review copy of Act 1, I like Middara so much that I’ll be purchasing Acts 2 and 3 myself (or putting them on my Christmas list). You can pre-order the entire trilogy or any part of it on the Succubus Publishing website once the publisher reopens wave 2 pre-orders.
-------------------------------------------------
Publisher: Succubus Publishing
Players: 2-4 (We played with 4)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 1 - 3 hours per encounter
Game type: narrative driven, dungeon crawl, campaign, action points, role playing, cooperative, dice rolling, grid movement
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Starfighter Chapter 3 is officially finished! The comic will take a brief hiatus and return on Feb 14th! For no other reason than it's Valentine's day and I am a romantic, HAHA- but for real, Thisbe and I have to prep the book for print and do a whole bunch of other things that need to happen and take time, so we'll have our hands full. I know I said I was aiming for a Valentine release for the print, but the book Chp3 will actually be coming out later-- I will be sure to make BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS when it's available!

*THE COMIC ISN'T OVER, IT WILL RESUME ON FEB 14TH!*

*THE PRINT RELEASE OF CHP 3 IS NOT SET YET, I WILL MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT WHEN IT'S AVAILABLE*

Chapter 4 will be the next and last chapter of Starfighter, if I can do this properly!

As always, thank you all so much for your love and support! I am really happy to share this chapter with you, it's been a lot of fun!

SEE YOU SOON! -Hamlet

I'll be a guest at Nijicon, an east coast con all about m/m romance, Oct 18th and 19th in Valley Forge, PA!

I'll also be on a panel but I'm not quite sure when that will be just yet!

I hope to see you there! This will be my last con of 2014--! -Hamlet

I’ll be at Fanime! San Jose, CA, May 22nd - 25th!

I’ll be in the artist alley! I hope to see you if you’re attending! Come say hello~ -Hamlet

I'll be in Germany for the Animuc Convention in April!

I'll be at Fanime in San Jose in May!

This will be our only convention in California this year!

See you there! <3 -Hamlet

This is our second time at AnimeNYC! If you're there, feel free to stop by table H21 and see us in the Artist Alley!

See you there! -Hamlet

Kam až má sahat pomoc státu podnikatelům, živnostníkům a firmám? Očekávání jsou rozsáhlá, bude to velká zkouška odolnosti vlády. Protože podnikání je dobrovolná aktivita spojená nejen s profitem, ale i s rizikem.

Prostřednictvím amerického Programu ochrany mezd pro malé podniky získal uhelný průmysl v USA více než 31 milionů dolarů. Ozývají se rozhořčené hlasy z řad environmentalistů. Administrativa Donalda Trumpa podle nich využívá finanční pomoc na záchranu odvětví, které mělo potíže již před krizí.

Americké ministerstvo financí v pondělí uvedlo, že si v současném čtvrtletí půjčí rekordní 3 biliony dolarů (v přepočtu asi 75 bilionů korun), aby mohlo pokrýt obrovské náklady spojené s koronavirovou krizí. Peníze vláda potřebuje na testování, zdravotní péči, pomoc pro firmy a domácnosti a na opatření, která mají pomoci v boji s nemocí a zmírnit ekonomické dopady.

Istrie patří k nejoblíbenějším částem Chorvatska. Jako skoro všude na světě se tam hoteliérský a restaurační byznys letos v březnu úplně zastavil, což si ještě nedávno nikdo nedokázal představit. Teď se ale blíží oživení. „Ani přinejmenším ale neočekáváme, že zopakujeme výsledky loňského roku,“ říká v rozhovoru šéf turistického sdružení celé oblasti Denis Ivošević.

     Life really is like a box of chocolates. The really good kind is usually around 200 calories, and you can never consume just one. That becomes problematic, especially in a generation where one of anything is never enough.
     After my minor heart surgery in 2008, I became afraid to do anything but sit on the couch. Everything I did, from my job to my relationships, was settled and done by sitting, not acting. Now, three years later and over 110 pounds over weight, I feel like a new age rendition of The Blob. To conquer my weight gain, I have decided to train for a five mile swim of the Hoover Damn in October of this year. Going from couch to athlete will be a hard struggle, which I know will change my life forever. 
Being an active swimmer / water polo player and all around athlete in high school, weight was never an issue. Now, almost seven years later, I feel like I need an oxygen tank just to walk to my car some mornings. Motivation since high school has been a battle. How do you motivate yourself when you hate yourself? For almost two months now, I have been eating right and holding myself accountable for this mess I have caused myself. Almost eight pounds lighter than when I started, I feel triumphant. Eight pounds is not cause for celebration just yet, but I have this sense of accomplishment and energy—so much energy! I feel like I can do anything. My motivation will be to endure a five mile swim in less than ten months to change my life forever. 
     For your reading pleasure, (because we all love drama) I will be blogging every day about my struggles. Who knows what ten months will bring me, but weight loss is a life change and is hard to do. Follow me on my quest toward health, and I'll teach you the true skinny on being fat.

How CEOs Are Ruining America

Today, America’s wealthiest business moguls – like Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase – claim that they are “patriots before CEOs” because they employ large numbers of workers or engage in corporate philanthropy.

Rubbish.

CEOs are in business to make a profit and maximize their share prices, not to serve America. And yet these CEOs dominate American politics and essentially run the system. 

Therein lies the problem: They cannot be advocates for their corporations and simultaneously national leaders responsible for the wellbeing of the country. This is the biggest contradiction at the core of our broken system.

A frequent argument made by CEOs is that so-called “American competitiveness” should not be hobbled by regulations and taxes. Jamie Dimon often warns that tight banking regulations will cause Wall Street to lose financial business to banks in nations with weaker regulations. Under Dimon’s convenient logic, JPMorgan is America. 

Dimon used the same faulty logic about American competitiveness to support the Trump tax cut. “We don’t have a competitive tax system here,” he warned.

But when Dimon talks about “competitiveness” he’s really talking about the competitiveness of JPMorgan, its shareholders, and billionaire executives like himself.

The concept of “American competitiveness” is meaningless when it comes to a giant financial enterprise like JPMorgan that moves money all over the world. JPMorgan doesn’t care where it makes money. Its profits don’t directly depend on the wellbeing of Americans.

“American competitiveness” is just as meaningless when it comes to big American-based corporations that make and buy things all over the world. 

Consider a mainstay of corporate America, General Electric. Two decades ago, most GE workers were American. Today the majority are non-American. In 2017, GE announced it was increasing its investments in advanced manufacturing and robotics in China, which it termed “an important and critical market for GE.” In 2018, over half of GE’s revenue came from abroad. Its once core allegiance to American workers and consumers is gone.

Google has opened an Artificial Intelligence lab in Beijing. Until its employees forced the company to stop, Google was even building China a prototype search engine designed to be compatible with China’s censors.

Apple employs 90,000 people in the United States but contracts with roughly a million workers abroad. An Apple executive told The New York Times, “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible” – and showing profits big enough to continually increase Apple’s share price.

American corporations will do and make things wherever around the world they can boost their profits the most, and invest in research and development wherever it will deliver the largest returns. 

The truth is that America’s real competitiveness doesn’t depend on profit-seeking shareholders or increasingly global corporations. The real competitiveness of the United States depends on only one thing: the productivity of Americans. 

That in turn depends on our education, our health, and the infrastructure that connects us. Yet today, American workers are hobbled by deteriorating schools, unaffordable college tuition, decaying infrastructure, and soaring health-care costs. 

And truth be told, big American corporations and the CEOs that head them – wielding outsized political influence – couldn’t care less. They want tax cuts and rollbacks of regulations so they can make even fatter profits. All of which is putting Americans on a glide path toward lousier jobs and lower wages. How’s that for patriotism?

The first step toward fixing this broken system is to stop buying CEOs’ lies. How can we believe that Jamie Dimon’s initiatives on corporate philanthropy are anything other than public relations? Why should we think that he or his fellow CEOs seek any goal other than making more money for themselves and their firms? We can’t and we shouldn’t. They don’t have America’s best interests at heart — they’re making millions to be CEOs, not patriots.

Big American corporations aren’t organized to promote the wellbeing of Americans, and Americans cannot thrive within a system run largely by corporations. Fundamental reform will be led only by concerned and active citizens.

I’m sorry you will not be president, but I understand and appreciate your decision to end your...

Trump’s Failed Coronavirus Response

The Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been a deliberate disaster from the beginning. But don’t take my word for it – just look at the facts.

Here’s the timeline: 

In 2018, he let the pandemic-preparedness office in the National Security Council simply dissolve, and followed up with budget cuts to HHS and CDC this year. That team’s job was to follow a pandemic playbook written after global leaders fumbled their response to Ebola in 2014. Trump was briefed on the playbook’s existence in his first year - had he listened, the government would’ve started getting equipment to doctors two months ago.

The initial outbreak of the coronavirus began in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019.  

By mid-January, 2020, the White House had intelligence reports that warned of a likely pandemic.

On January 18th, HHS Secretary Azar spoke with Trump to emphasize the threat of the virus just as US Diplomats were being evacuated from Wuhan.

Two days later, the virus was confirmed in both the US and South Korea.

That week, South Korean officials immediately drafted medical companies to develop test kits for mass production. The WHO declared a global health emergency. But Trump … did nothing.

As Hubei Province went on lockdown, Trump, who loves any excuse to enact a racist travel ban, barred entry of any foreigners coming from China (it was hardly proactive) but took no additional steps to prepare for infection in the United States.

He said, “We pretty much shut it down, coming in from China,”

He didn’t ramp up production of test kits so we could begin isolating the virus.

By February, the US had 14 confirmed cases but the CDC test kits proved faulty; there weren’t enough of them, and they were restricted to only people showing symptoms. The US pandemic response was already failing.

Trump then began actively downplaying the crisis and baselessly predicting it would go away when the weather got warmer.

Trump decided there was nothing to see here, and on February 24th, took time out of his day to remind us that the stock markets were soaring.

A day later, CDC officials sounded the alarm that daily life could be severely disrupted. The window to get ahead of the virus by testing and containment was closing. 

Trump’s next move: He compared Coronavirus to the seasonal flu…and called the emerging crisis a hoax by the Democrats.

With 100 cases in the US, Trump declined to call for a national emergency.

Meanwhile, South Korea was now on its way to testing a quarter million people, while the US was testing 40 times slower.

When a cruise ship containing Americans with coronavirus floated toward San Francisco, Trump said he didn’t want people coming off the ship to be tested because they’d make the numbers look bad.

It wasn’t until the stock market reacted to the growing crisis and took a nosedive that Trump finally declared a national emergency.

By this time, South Korea had been using an app for over a month that pulled government data to track cases and alert users to stay away from infected areas.

Over the next weeks, as the virus began its exponential spread across the US, and Governors declared states of emergency, closing schools and workplaces and stopping the American economy in its tracks –  Trump passed on every opportunity to get ahead of this crisis.

Trump’s priority was never public health. It was about making the virus seem like less of a nuisance so that the “numbers” would “look good” for his reelection.

Only when the stock market crashed did Trump finally begin to pay attention…and mostly to bailing out corporations in the form of a massive $500 billion slush fund, rather than to helping people. And then, with much of America finally and belatedly in lockdown, he said at a Fox News town hall that he would “love” to have the country “opened up, and just raring to go” by Easter.

At every point, Trump has used this crisis to compliment himself.

This is not leadership. This is the exact opposite of leadership. 

Donald Trump is getting nervous. Internal polls show him losing in November unless the economy comes...