>>>This doesn't surprise me at all. I have not watched any FoxNews for a couple of weeks -- I wonder if the information being put out is the same or not...and if they're omitting things.
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>Latest scuttlebutt in medical circles:
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>- Daily new cases in China fell to 40 and then 19 on Monday, in a nation with 1 billion people.
>- Today it was considered safe enough for Xi to visit Wuhan in person for the first time since the outbreak.
>- Unofficial meta-analysis reduces COVID-19 mortality to as little as .05% across all reported nations with worst case now just under 2% though WHO still quotes 3.4%.
>- Unofficial reports from health professionals: the majority of Western deaths are in people with major other illness, mostly concomitant flu-like illness in which cases COVID-19 may be credited with some mortality it doesn't own. Equally, some mortality may not be reported.
>- Educated guess is that further mortality revisions will keep trending downwards especially with testing capability ramping up dramatically- witness 1 million distributed tests rising to 6 million over the course of this week in the US.
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>Of course these things are subject to change, especially if you're not confident in some reporting - interestingly, Chinese media (always aligned with rather than against their administration) has suggested that the virus actually started in the US and that Trump is hiding hundreds of deaths, while Iran blames the Zionists and some corporate US media says Pence or Trump are lying, failing or possibly making it worse as you'd expect from Pence after his previous antics caused AIDS in Indiana- so attempts to incite hate or panic are still dominating discourse.

Xinhua News media is (the largest one) and the 3 main newspapers are all run by the Chinese government - so of course they will be aligned with them.
In Iran there is a HUGE distrust of the government - they simply do not believe (rightfully) what their leaders say.
As for the USA -- Trump is a pathological liar and Pence is a man who does not believe in science. Trump has contradicted doctors in the SAME press conference - so no point in listening to Trump... & most of his administration are either yes-men or afraid of a presidential tweet attack storm if they use a brain and speak up.
So it seems to me best option is to listen to the doctors and Medical experts and sadly ignore much of anything that come from a political leader. Pathetic state of things that this is the case.

>Overall: people with $ to spare might consider a punt on some of those stocks worst affected by the panic, though you mght also want to consider shedding your toilet paper futures asap.

Yep -- good time to buy as long as you are buying something that won't go under all together.