States that had reopened their economies have seen some of the largest rises in cases and is have moved once again to impose restrictions. Now, of course, liberals and their media allies were quick to assign blame. Presumptive democratic president ial nominee joe biden actually emerged from his basement this week to hold his first News Conference in three months, and he pointed to President Trump. Month after month as other leaders in other countries took the necessary steps to yet the virus under control to get the virus under control, donald trump failed us. Month after month as many of us urged him to step up and do his job, he failed us. Gerry others denounced the mostly red states that have been hit by the virus recently for acting foolishly by opening too soon. Democratic new York Governor Andrew Cuomo sternly lectured these reprobates for their stupidity and ma bignity. This was not a smart policy, to rush reopening. It did not help the economy. Its the exact opposite. If. Gerry we call it chutzpah in new york. That is the same mr. Cuomo whose state still leads the nation in cases by huge multiples. In fact, new york has among the very worst records on the entire planet. Thanks in part to at least a reckless decision to move Covid Patients from hospitals to Nursing Homes where, tragically, thousands of them died. The left, of course, who have lionized the new york government despite his states terrible record joined in heaping insults on the red states. Heres former congresswoman donna shalala. Its a disaster. Its a catastrophic failure of leadership of our governor, of our president. You know, the president loves the red states on the electoral map. Likes to pull it out, likes to show people. Well, now it is the coronavirus map that is getting redder and redder and redder. Look at it. And thats what american carnage looks like. Gerry american carnage, you can almost hear them salivating, cant you . Well, we can see where the american carnage has actually been. The number of deaths in Southern States is nowhere near that in the norths predominant northeast tristate region where the governors are demanding anyone visiting from states with rising infection rates must selfquarantine for two weeks. Governor cuomo and new jerseys phil murphy also rescinded plans for indoor dining, the move devastated restaurants that had spent thousands to prepare and brought an angry reaction from congressman Jeff Van Drew who tweeted this is governor murphy forcing businesses to die. Well, is this all really necessary . Are the numbers that bad . Lets take a look. While its true the cases nationwide are rising, the number of deaths is trending lower, significantly. Is it possible that the virus is becoming less fate aal . On the show back in may, you may recall, a british physician suggested just that. Its as though the virus adapting to us and wanting to sort of live with us for a long time like the sars virus has and like the mers virus. These coronavirus have an evolutionary law of their own. Gerry the centers for Disease Control recommendations count probable as well as confirmed cases in the totals. How many of these new cases are simply probable . The evidence also suggests the new cases are mostly among much younger people than was true earlier, and theyre much less likely to get seriously sick and, indeed, arent getting seriously sick from the virus. The rising hospitalizations may be skewed because indications anyone admitted for any reason who tests positive is counted as a coronavirus hospitalization. Of course, the cries from liberals in the media are getting louder for a return to mandatory limits on what we can and mostly what we cant do. Those rules have crushed the economy, remember, driving down First Quarter gdp by 5 and causing almost 40 Million People to join the unemployment rolls in two months, something unseen since the great depression. Conversely, the positive effects of the recent lifting of restraints has shown the importance of getting back to some sort of normality. A whopping 4. 8 million jobs were added last month on to have top of the 2 the. 5 million in may 2 the. 5 million in may, and unemployment fell to 11. 1 down from mays 13. 3. Consumer confidence has soared above expectations. But, of course, all of that is at risk if the reopening stalls. Can we afford to go much longer with restrictions . And how should washington respond to keep us from possibly facing another depression . We begin this week with the increase in coronavirus cases and what that might mean. Dr. Chris hell is an op thalamic surgeon in texas. Shes also president of the American Association of physicians and surgeons and comes to us from san antonio. Thank you very much for joining us. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Gerri the headlines are lurid out of texas right now. A surge in coronavirus cases, surge in hospitalizations, Governor Abbott locking down the economy in many respects once again. Is all this necessary . Its really not necessary and, in fact, its contributing to problem. You know, march 13th, it was friday the 13th when Governor Abbott declared texas, you know, a disaster zone, and we battened down. We battened down to reallocate, to reassess what was going on. We sent a lot of our resources to new york. New york got ventilators. They got ppe. And so when theyre now bashing us and skewing data, its really disheartening because we battened down then. And one of the things we did before the virus was even here, i think we had 26 cases in the entire state of texas by the end of march, but we hunkered down for them. And it was important initially so we could learn about the virus. But while we were hunkered down, it was wreaking terrible havoc on us. I was unable to operate from march 19th to may 7th because they prohibited it in order to preserve hospital bed capacity before we even had any cases gerry tell us, whats your sense of whats going on . We do get these pictures of huge increase in hospitalizations, there was talk about possibly the Hospital System in houston being overwhelmed. Whats actually going on, do you think . Okay. So one of the things is we actually lost bed capacity when we lost theyve had massive furloughs and layoffs of health care workers. So while we have a lot of licensed beds, we have less staffed beds. Now, we have reserved beds that we can use. We have not had to go into our contingency plan. But if you look at the number ifs, there are several things contributing to that. One, we have a backlog of patients that we were not able to take care of, and these patients are now worse. So theyre occupying about 70 of the hospital beds, the ic, and so forth. In the icus, we have about 30 of the patients that carry the diagnosis of covid. And you so beautifully covered this. Every patient thats coming into the hospital is getting tested. So, for example, a woman that comes in to have a scheduled csection to have her baby, if she happens to be covidpositive even though shes asymptomatic, shes characterized as a covid patient. So if you look at the cases, the issue is that the cases are resolved, and define a case. A case is a result of absolute increased testing. If you look at the testing, its a great reflection of our ability to test. What does a test mean . Does that mean a patient is in the icu, or does that mean its an asymptomatic patient . If does it mean that patient has been tested twice and multiple tests represent one patient . Gerry so this picture, this picture of potentially the media portrays of potentially millions of texans now at risk from getting really sick and perhaps even dying, thats all overdone, is it . Its all overdone. If you look at our deaths, im in a county of over two Million People, and we have had 110 deaths since the beginning of this. And over the last couple of weeks, we had 109, it went to 110. I looked this morning, we have 111. What weve got to track is the death. Because the way the financial reimbursement is, you know, you get admitted, you get discharged, theres evidence that shows these admissions are for about one and a half days. There is financial incentive to list someone with covid and then discharge them for these poor hospitals that are going out of business gerry financially advantageous for a hospital to record a patient as a covid patient. Yes. Medicare is reimbursing 20 more, and theres Insurance Companies that pay more for a covid diagnosis. And, sadly, if you die, you get a tremendous amount of money for the hospital. But were doing a great job in texas. Weve learned about this. Our doctors that are taking care of the backlog, our doctors in the icu are doing a prejob. Are death tremendous job. If you look at our death rate compared to new york and new jersey with all the cases we have and the few deaths we have, they need to take a look at us and also thank us for this. But theres financial incentive. You cant look at admissions, patients are going in, theyre going out. Were treatmenting them better. You treating them better. Sadly, we dont want anyone to die, but youve got to look at whats happening with deaths. Gerry dr. Kristin held, weve got to finish, but thats absolutely fascinating, and you give as a very clear picture cutting through some of the media stuff weve had to put up with. Have a great july 4th weekend. Up next, ill ask a top economist on the need to remove the economic restrictions and how that could bring about the economic recovery. Devin, did you know geico is now offering an extra 15 percent credit on car and motorcycle policies . Ok . Thats 15 percent on top of what geico could already save you. So what are you waiting for . Dj khaled to be your motivational coach . Yo devin remember to brush in a circle motion. Thank you. Dj. Khaled. Tiny circles, devin. Do another one. Another one. Is this good . Put in that work, devin. Dont give up. Geico. Save an extra 15 when you switch by october 7th. Gerry well, lets look now at the Economic Impacts of the virus and its aftermath. To discuss that is david henderson, Research Fellow at the hoover institution, he also served in president Ronald Reagans council of economic advisers. Professor, thanks for joining us. We are seeing a renewed lockdown in large parts of the country, particularly in the south and the west. Is this wise . I think its not wise. I mean, i certainly understand closing bars [laughter] when people drink, they lose a lot of perspective. More general closings, no. For example, in Southern California Eric Garcetti closing the beaches . From everything we know and, unfortunately, we dont know enough, but it seems like being out in the sunlight actually helps kill the virus x. So to lock people up and prevent them from going to the shore on the long weekend is just cruel. Gerry and this comes right as we see thursdays employment report showing another month in june of strong job growth, unemployment down. Just as we thought we were coming out of this, were at risk of going into it again. We are, but i think the risk there is a little small because there arent a lot of jobs on beaches, you know, stuff like that. Restaurants were gradually a making their way anyway my wife and i, for example, have not yet been willing to go inside a restaurant. So, you know, i dont think that is i think that growth will continue. I think the major thing though that will help growth is if they let that 60 6perweek 600 perweek federal unemployment number expire this month. If they do that, the numbers in september will be great. Gerry right. That seems to be, frankly, a disincentive for people to go back to work. A strong disincentive. There are about 20 Million People who would make more being up employed than being employed. Gerry overall most of the country went into rockdown in march and april lockdown, most of it came out in may and june. Do you think overall that the kind of nationwide lockdown we had with the dramatic impact that it had on gdp and unemployment, do you think it was the right thing to do . I dont think it was at all. From what we understand now, around 80 or more of the deaths have been of elderly people. And so protect the vulnerable. But, i mean, i think 11 people under age 14 have died from this. So it made no sense to close schools. Keep schools open. That way were closer to herd putinty. I love the governor of south dakota for being so forthright in defending her decision not to lockdown. Gerry we have got to take a quick break, but when we come back, i want to discuss further the risks we could face in delaying the complete reopening of the u. S. Economy and what it all might mean. Stay with us. Gerry im back with economy david henderson, professor, congress has actually passed some more measures in the last week extending the Paycheck Protection Program for another month. All of this, of course, is piling up huge amounts of federal debt. Do you think we are, do you think we do you think the economic response has been the right one . I dont. I think what theyre essentially practicing industrial policy because theyre singling out who should get these grants and who shouldnt. I call them grants, because if you look at the details, if you do certain things, walk through certain hoops, then you dont have to pay it back. I think the youre going to have the federal government do something, it would have been to have some kind of loan program where people can borrow, say, 6080 of their previous years Tax Liability and pay 3, 4, not 1 . And then businesses will have an incentive to say how badly do we need this, do you think well be in business in a few months. But what this does is essentially lock in place certain kinds of businesses. And as you can probably imagine, were going to have different businesses when we come out of this because therell be things people wont want to do as quickly, and we probably have major structural changes. We dont know which ones will last and which ones wont. Gerry again, were going to have a huge amount of government debt, huge amount of federal debt, the likes weve never seen before. What impact is that going to have over the next two, five, ten years . Well, just to put in perspective, the Congressional Budget Office in february projected wed reach debt held by the public as a percent of gdp equaling 100 in 2030 . Theyve now put that 2021, thats next year. We arent in uncharted territory. At the end of world war i, it was 120 of gdp, but then we cut Government Spending by 30 of gdp for a few years x. So we managed to get out of that. I dont see the same thing happening. So its uncharted territory, and when i dont know enough, i try not to say too much. [laughter] gerry there are people i was going to say, it doesnt matter that actually Interest Rates are low, the government can borrow what it likes, and we have this whole new theory on the left, sort of a postkeynesian theory that the government can borrow e what it likes. Even on the right people say deficits dont matter. Is that wrong . I think thats wrong. Dick cheney, of course, on the right was saying that when he was vice president. Gerry right. I think thats wrong. Also its true, Interest Rates are very low, its not hard to finance, but thats true until it isnt. Interest rates might jump up, which is why id like the fed to take at least half the debt and refinance it at, say, ten years and thirty years. Theyll pay a higher interest rate, but that would at least protect the long run. Gerry if we dont have another serious lockdown, another National Lockdown as some people fear we might in the fall, are you optimistic the economys going to continue to bounce back as it has done . Im optimistic that itll bounce back if, theres a big if, if they dont impose a lot of new regulation, if they dont make some of these programs permanent. And i fear they will, although i have a little bit of optimism that they wont. Gerry professor david henderson, thank you very much, indeed, for joining us. Have a great july the 4th weekend. Coming up, conservatives had high hopes and liberals had deep fears after President Trump made his two Supreme Court picks a few years ago, but those hopes and fears werent actually realized. Ill explain next. Liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. I wish i could shake your hand. Granted. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Gerry remember when President Trump got to name two Supreme Court justices . Remember when we were told by liberals, the media and even a few excited republicans it would mean a return to a truly conservative interpretation of the law . Maybe an end to activist judges discovering all kinds of imagined rules in the constitution and statutes to advance their Progressive Agenda . Well, thats a long time ago now. The current Supreme Court session comes to a close, weve had a glimpse of what supposedly conservative justices will do. This week chief Justice John Roberts sided with the courts liberals to block a mild effort to restrict abortion. Before that, neil gorsuch, mr. Trumps first pick further court, in an impressive piece of acrobatics, determined when Congress Passed the Civil Rights Act more than 50 years ago to bar gym e nation against women, it was also actually blocking discrimination against gays, transgenders and pretty much everybody else. These decisions may well pave the way to a whole new aassault on the rights of religious groups and others through the courts. Its strange, isnt it . When democrats pick their justices, they never disappoint. They dont hesitate to move the country aggressively to the left, but conservatives cant quite bring themselves to push the other way. Something about the air or in washington. Its ratchet effect, the steady, relentless drive to a progressive america in which conservatives are increasingly marginalized is what got Many Americans sufficient hi motivated to vote for donald trump in the first place. Perhaps they might be motivated to do it again. Be sure to follow me on twitter, facebook and instagram. Plan to tune in to fox business thursday, july 9th, as neil cavuto hosts a virtual town hall with real estate icon and pioneer barbara corcoran. Email us at investing in you foxbusiness. Com. Well be back next week on the wall street journal at large. I hope youre having a wonderful july the 4th weekend, thanks for joining us. Jack welcome to barrons roundtable where we get behind the headlines and prepare you for the week ahead. The three most important things investors should be thinking about right now, a record jobs report that millions are city out of work. Well look at whats next for the markets. Its been a tough time for utility stocks, but there are also some good opportunities. And why are money market funds not quite as safe as you think . On the round table tonight, ben levisohn, carlton english and jack howe. So, ben, it was a
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