Four more people have died from the novel coronavirus in Los Angeles County, officials confirmed Tuesday, March 24, including one person in Long Beach, which that city’s Health Department announced the day before.
In total, 11 people have died countywide from the coronavirus. The county on Tuesday also reported 128 more confirmed cases, bringing the total tally to 662.
One of the newly reported deaths was a Lancaster resident under the age of 18, said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, L.A. County’s Public Health director.
Ferrer said the news was “a devastating reminder that COVID-19 infects people of all ages.
“These are difficult numbers to report because behind these numbers,” Ferrer added, “are families and friends who are experiencing terrible loss.”
Tuesday’s countywide report came as state officials announced the total number of confirmed cases in California grew to 2,102, with 40 deaths, one of whom did not live in California. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, reported 44,183 cases nationwide, including 544 deaths. And the World Health Organization confirmed 375,498 cases globally as of Tuesday morning, including 16,362 deaths.
The county’s latest tally included 21 cases in Long Beach and six in Pasadena; Long Beach officials reported Tuesday that their city’s count had grown to 28. Pasadena, meanwhile, reported its tally grew to seven. Both Long Beach and Pasadena have their own health departments. The county’s totals for Long Beach has generally been about a day behind that city’s own updates.
One of the deaths reported Tuesday, for example, was initially announced Monday, March 23, by Long Beach officials; that person was a woman in her 50s with underlying health conditions.
The other two people the county confirmed had died were between the ages of 50 and 70 years olf; one, who had underlying health conditions, was a West Adams resident. The residence of the other is still being investigated.
About 42% of people countywide who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, have so far been between 18 and 40 years old, while 39% have been between 41 and 65.
Of the county’s 662 cases, 119 — or 18% — have resulted in hospitalization.
COVID-19, which stands for coronavirus disease 2019, is caused by a virus named SARS-CoV-2. Symptoms associated with the respiratory disease, which appear two-to-14 days after exposure, include fever, a cough and shortness of breath. While the death of the minor underscores the potential danger no matter a person’s age, most people — particularly healthy young adults — will experience mild symptoms; still, the disease can have severe symptoms and, as the rising death toll indicates, prove fatal, especially among the elderly and those with underlying health problems.
As of Monday, Ferrer said, more than 5,700 people in the county have been tested for COVID-19. About 10% of those have tested positive.
Ferrer said testing remains limited in L.A. County, but emphasized that the county’s capacity will expand soon.
“By the end of the week, we will have the capacity to have thousands and thousands of more test kits,” she said. “So that many, many more people, under orders from their physicians and clinicians, would be able to get tested.”
For now, Ferrer said, there is typically a long lag time between someone being tested and when results are available.
The county recommended to public health officials last week that they only test patients for COVID-19 “when a diagnostic result will change clinical management or inform public health response.”
The recommendation came as the county stopped trying to contain the virus in favor of slowing its spread.
Ferrer said Tuesday that the county’s limited testing strategy meant the only people who are tested are those who are determined to have “a good chance” of having the disease. So, she said, people who are waiting on testing results should act as if they have contracted COVID-19.
“If there’s a good chance you could be positive, you need to be isolating yourself at home,” she said, “and really keeping away from other people.”

In Torrance, meanwhile, five members of the Fire Department are self-quarantining at their homes after displaying symptoms that could indicate they were exposed to the novel coronavirus, city officials said Tuesday, March 24.
The cases, Assistant Fire Chief Carl Besanceney said, are suspected of involving community transmission.
During Tuesday’s briefing, Dr. Jonathan Sherin, the county’s Mental Health director, also emphasized the need to focus on social and emotional well-being at this moment — even as people are directed to maintain physical distance from others.
“For those in need of immediate help, it is very, very important that you reach out and express your feelings with someone you trust, whether it’s a family member, a friend or a mental health professional,” Sherin said. “We must all understand and embrace the notion that social distancing guidelines are only about physical distance.”

Here is a breakdown of the numbers released Tuesday:

  • Out of 662 cases, 21 were reported in Long Beach and six in Pasadena (The county’s total lags behind; the updated total for Long Beach is 28 and seven for Pasadena);
  • For the rest of L.A. County, the number is 635;
  • A total of 119 people have been hospitalized;
  • 11 have died; and
  • The highest number of cases in one neighborhood was 31, in both the L.A. city neighborhood of Brentwood and the city of West Hollywood.

Here is the breakdown for different age groups:

  • Ages 0 to 17: 10 cases;
  • Ages 18 to 40: 268 cases;
  • Ages 41 to 65: 250 cases; and
  • Over age 65: 107 cases.

Breakdown by community:

(LA County’s total has lagged behind in counting Long Beach and Pasadena, which operate their own health departments)
  • Long Beach: 28; and
  • Pasadena: 7.
  • Agoura Hills 3;
  • Alhambra 5;
  • Altadena 5;
  • Arcadia 4;
  • Athens 1;
  • Baldwin Hills 3;
  • Bellflower 3;
  • Beverly Hills 12;
  • Beverlywood 7;
  • Boyle Heights 5;
  • Brentwood 31;
  • Burbank 2;
  • Calabasas 4;
  • Canoga Park 2;
  • Canyon Country 1;
  • Carson 8;
  • Castaic 2;
  • Century City 6;
  • Century Palms/Cove 1;
  • Cerritos 2;
  • Claremont 1;
  • Cloverdale/Cochran 2;
  • Compton 1;
  • Covina 3;
  • Crestview 7;
  • Culver City 7;
  • Del Rey 3;
  • Diamond Bar 2Downey 1;
  • Downtown 3;
  • Duarte 1;
  • Eagle Rock 2;
  • East Hollywood 1;
  • East Los Angeles 3;
  • Echo Park 2;
  • El Segundo 2;
  • Encino 12;
  • Exposition Park 1;
  • Florence 1;
  • Gardena 1;
  • Glendale 10;
  • Glendora 1;
  • Granada Hills 5;
  • Hancock Park 7;
  • Harbor Gateway 1;
  • Harvard Heights 1;
  • Hawthorne 6;
  • Highland Park 1;
  • Hollywood 19;
  • Hollywood Hills 8;
  • Hyde Park 1;
  • Inglewood 5;
  • Koreatown 5;
  • La Canada Flintridge 2;
  • La Mirada 3;
  • La Puente 1;
  • La Verne 2;
  • Lake Balboa 2;
  • Lakewood 3;
  • Lancaster 8;
  • Lawndale 2;
  • Lincoln Heights 1;
  • Lomita 9;
  • Los Feliz 2;
  • Lynwood 2;
  • Manhattan Beach 11;
  • Mar Vista 6;
  • Melrose 26;
  • Miracle Mile 7;
  • Monterey Park 3;
  • Mt. Washington 1;
  • North Hollywood 10;
  • Northridge 2;
  • Norwalk 1;
  • Pacific Palisades 9;
  • Palmdale 2;
  • Palms 6;
  • Paramount 2;
  • Park La Brea 8;
  • Pico 1;
  • Pico Rivera 1;
  • Playa Vista 4;
  • Porter Ranch 1;
  • Rancho Palos Verdes 3;
  • Redondo Beach 7;
  • Reseda 4;
  • San Dimas 1;
  • San Fernando 2;
  • San Gabriel 1;
  • San Pedro 2;
  • Santa Clarita 7;
  • Santa Monica 16;
  • Santa Monica Mountains 2;
  • Sherman Oaks 10;
  • Silverlake 5;
  • South El Monte 1;
  • South Gate 1;
  • South Park 1;
  • South Pasadena 3;
  • South Whittier 2;
  • Stevenson Ranch 2;
  • Studio City 7;
  • Sun Valley 2;
  • Sunland 1;
  • Sylmar 1;
  • Tarzana 9;
  • Temple 1;
  • Torrance 5;
  • Tujunga 1;
  • University Park 1;
  • Valley Glen 9;
  • Van Nuys 4;
  • Venice 8;
  • Vermont Knolls 1;
  • Vermont Vista 3;
  • Vernon Central 1;
  • Walnut 1;
  • West Adams 3;
  • West Covina 1;
  • West Hills 4;
  • West Hollywood 31;
  • West Los Angeles 4;
  • West Vernon 4;
  • Westchester 3;
  • Westlake 1;
  • Westwood 6;
  • Whittier 3;
  • Wholesale District 1;
  • Willowbrook 1;
  • Wilmington 4;
  • Wilshire Center 1;
  • Winnetka 2;
  • Woodland Hills 8; and
  •  Under Investigation 62.

L.A. Moves Homeless to Rec Centers as 30 in New York Shelters Test Positive for Coronavirus

Homeless man in New York (Mario Tama / Getty)
Mario Tama / Getty
3:14

The City of Los Angeles is proceeding with plans announced last week by Mayor Eric Garcetti to move thousands of homeless residents to recreation centers in residential communities during the coronavirus crisis.
Meanwhile, in New York, 30 residents of homeless shelters have tested positive for coronavirus, after a single case was reported last week, according to the New York Post, which notes that one sick person was sent from a hospital to a shelter.
The Post reports:
The number of homeless individuals in New York City’s crammed shelter system infected with the coronavirus exploded to 30 from just a single case reported last week – with one being referred from the equally stressed public hospital network.
One of the homeless people who tested positive was sent to a shelter by a public hospital because the person exhibited only mild symptoms and was not deemed sick enough to be admitted, a Department of Homeless official said.
One of the reasons behind L.A.’s policy is that local officials want to reduce crowding in existing shelters, creating “social distance” and reducing opportunities for coronavirus to spread inside.
But as Breitbart News reported earlier this week, L.A. is not just relocating residents of existing shelters. It is also picking up new homeless residents from the streets, who are driven to the recreation shelters in shuttle buses.
Those who are picked up are asked a set of “screening questions” and subjected to a temperature check before being admitted to the recreation centers.
Inside the shelters — which Breitbart News was not permitted to photograph — beds are spaced six feet apart.
Some advocates for the homeless support Garcetti’s plan, thankful that something is finally being done to move people off the streets of L.A., where the homeless population has exploded to roughly 60,000.
But others (including some homeless people) worry that moving the homeless into centers with hundreds of beds will expose them — inadvertently — to additional health risk.
Communities are also worried about exposing locals to potentially infected people, and that the “temporary” use of recreation centers could become permanent.
One suggestion — made last year, before the pandemic — would be to care for the homeless on unused federal property in the city, perhaps in emergency tents.
State officials do not know how many homeless people are infected with coronavirus, the Los Angeles Times reported last week.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Photo: file



LA County Sheriff Orders Closure of Gun Stores, Releases 1,700 Inmates

Men wearing neon-colored jail clothes signifying immigration detainees walk down a hall at the Theo Lacy Facility, a county jail which houses convicted criminals as well as immigration detainees arrested by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), March 14, 2017 in Orange, California, about 32 miles (52km) southeast of …
ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty
2:01
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has released 1,700 inmates from county facilities and is ordering gun stores in the county closed.
Fox 11 reports the gun store closures are part of the coronavirus stay-at-home order while the release of the inmates is an attempt to slow the spread of the virus in county facilities.
Villanueva is the Director of Emergency Operations, which means “all FEMA requests go through him, and all National Guard requests go through him.”
He said, “When we’re communicating the shelter in place or the safer at home, there’s a lot of anguish, however, the people who have to enforce it are public safety, and we were totally out of the process, we were not involved,”
Villanueva defended his decision to close gun stores, by intimating that all the first-time gun buyers emerging amid the virus crisis create a perilous situation: “I’m a supporter of the 2nd amendment, I’m a gun owner myself, but now you have the mixture of people that are not formerly gun owners and you have a lot more people at home and anytime you introduce a firearm in a home, from what I understand from CDC studies, it increases fourfold the chance that someone is gonna get shot.”
F’OX LA’s Bill Melugin tweeted there is an effort underway to add gun stores to Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) “essential” business list, which would prevent the sheriff from enforcing the shut down.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkinsa weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.



YOU'VE NEVER HEARD PELOSI OPEN HER FAT MOUTH ABOUT AMERICA'S HOMELESS CRISIS!

"When we hear stories about the homelessness in California and elsewhere, why don't we hear how illegal aliens contribute to the problem?  They take jobs and affordable housing, yet instead of discouraging illegal aliens from breaking the law, politicians encourage them to come by lavishing free stuff on them with confiscated dollars from this and future generations."  JACK HELLNER

The population of illegals nudges up crime rates, pushes down Americans’ wages, and boosts housing prices. But business groups welcome the extra population because it provides more workers, customers, and renters to businesses. NEIL MUNRO

“Currently, the U.S. admits more than 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants every year, with more than 70 percent coming to the country through the process known as “chain migration” whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. In the next 20 years, the current U.S. legal immigration system is on track to import roughly 15 million new


Gallup also noted “three percent of the world’s  adults — or nearly 160 million people — say they would like to move to the U.S.”  NEIL MUNRO

“In the U.S. the remittances that come of illegal immigration drive down U.S. wages, particularly of those on the lowest-skilled parts of the ladder,  and as money flows out from local communities, leaves them underinvested and run-down. 

Nobody can live two places at once. Illegal immigrants live here but their money lives in Mexico. And it's often untaxed.” MONICA SHOWALTER

Furthermore, the much-quoted estimate of 11 million undocumented aliens in the U.S. may be woefully short of the truth. A new study by Yale University suggests the true number of illegals is probably in the 20-to-30 million range, more than enough to kill the two-party system at one stroke, if they eventually receive the citizenship amnesty promised by Democrats. JAMES DELMONT

“About 70 percent of illegal alien households are on welfare … plus this is a bloc of voters that seems unusually susceptible to the racial divisions that the Democrats advance,” Brooks said. “You have to look at the big picture in all of this, and to me, we should not be importing as much foreign labor as we are. We should be helping the least among us earn more and importing foreign labor that suppresses wages is not the way to do that.” MO BROOKS


In Bernie Sanders’ State of Vermont, "that giant sucking sound" is not jobs moving to Mexico — it is jobs being concocted in Montpelier.  Of course, Governor Scott shields illegal immigrants working in Vermont, and Vermont provides driver's licenses to them.  The capital city also grants non-citizen residents the right to vote.  It is no surprise that Vermont is #1 in the country for illegal northern border crossings.

Democrats Stuck $300 Mil in to Coronavirus Relief for Refugee Resettlers

 
Daniel Greenfield


America is facing a potential 20% unemployment rate. So of course Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats went all in on migrants.
The Church World Service had been urging supporters to push for a huge sweepstakes bid in their calls to Democrats.
CALL YOUR SENATORS & REPRESENTATIVE TODAY:
Click “Call Me” on the right to be connected to your 2 Senators and 1 Representative
Sample Script: “I’m your constituent from [CITY/TOWN], and [as a person of faith] I urge you to support immigrant and refugee communities as you negotiate Coronavirus / COVID-19 legislation. It is imperative that you support provisions that would:
Ensure recently-arrived refugees and Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders don’t fall through the cracks and receive financial relief by providing $350 million for the Migration and Refugee Assistance account for the State Department and $642 million for the Refugee Entrant Assistance account for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Nearly a billion for your local Taliban migrants and assorted refugee resettlers. How much did they actually get?
The Pelosi porker contains, among many other items, $300 million for Migration and Refugee Assistance.
The question is will Republicans let this happen?

In the next two decades, should the country’s legal immigration policy go unchanged, the U.S. is set to import about 15 million new foreign-born voters. About eight million of these new foreign-born voters will have arrived through the process known as “chain migration,” whereby newly naturalized citizens are allowed to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country. JOHN BINDER


Washington, D.C. (March 24, 2020) – A new analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies reveals the negative impact of the foreign student program on the United States economy, contradicting the pro-foreign-student lobby, which has argued for years that the presence of such students is a huge (currently they say $45 billion-a-year) boost to the American economy. There may be non-economic reasons for a reasonably sized foreign student program, but economic reasons do not exist.

David North, a Center fellow and author of the analysis, said, “The idea that the foreign student population provides an economic boost for the U.S. is a myth. Foreign students do indeed bring in billions of dollars, but those billions are outbalanced by hidden billions in U.S. tax, endowment, and other funds spent by educational institutions subsidizing those, and other, students.”


Using rough estimations, but no rougher than those of the Institute of International Education (IIE), the source of the $45 billion figure, North found that if the students bring $45 billion or so with them, they then proceed to consume an estimated $119 billion in U.S. assets, for a net expenditure by U.S. institutions of about $74 billion a year.

Given the massive (if hidden) subsidies that foreign students receive while in school, and the even more hidden ones that many of them and their post-degree employers get through the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, the time has come to cut back on some parts of the foreign student programs.

The report suggests several reforms to the foreign student program:
  1. Stop issuing F-1 visas to those planning to attend the deeply subsidized community colleges.
  2. Similarly, stop issuing F-1 visas for ESL students — one can study English anywhere in the world.
  3. Demand that all schools teaching foreign students need to be accredited. (In lieu of accreditation a university, currently, may show DHS that three other institutions accept transfers from their school, an arrangement subject to some mutual back-scratching.)
  4. Repeal the current provision that a foreign graduate student does not have to wait a year before working legally; currently that rule applies only to undergraduates. Or better, terminate (or at least reduce sharply) the OPT program.
  5. Put the worst of the visa mills out of business.
  6. Demand that incoming foreign students have passed a secure oral test indicating that they have a decent command of the English language. 

Nancy Pelosi’s Coronavirus Plan Gives $300M to Foreign Refugees

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 23: U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) delivers a statement at the hallway of the Speaker’s Balcony at the U.S. Capitol March 23, 2020 in Washington, DC. Speaker Pelosi spoke on the 10th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and introduced the Take …
Alex Wong/Getty Images
1:21
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) plan to fight the coronavirus includes giving millions in American taxpayer funding to refugees living overseas.
Pelosi, along with House Democrats, blocked passage of a coronavirus relief package for American workers, citizens, and small businesses in favor of their own plan that increases taxpayer funding to foreign refugees.
Included in Pelosi’s plan is a designation of $300 million in American taxpayer money to foreign refugees:


(Text of House Democrats’ coronavirus plan)
In comparison, for example, Pelosi’s plan only gives about $100 million in additional funds for runaways and homeless youth in the U.S. and only an extra $15 million to the “Veterans Employment and Training” office to help respond to the health crisis.
Taxpayer money for foreign refugees is also about $100 million more than what Pelosi’s plan specifically designates for the emergency food and shelter program under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
Oppositely, President Trump’s State Department has halted refugee resettlement in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder


Study: More than 7-in-10 California Immigrant

Welfare

More than 7-in-10 households headed by immigrants in the state of California are on taxpayer-funded welfare, a new study reveals.

The latest Census Bureau data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) finds that about 72 percent of households headed by noncitizens and immigrants use one or more forms of taxpayer-funded welfare programs in California — the number one immigrant-receiving state in the U.S.
Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of households headed by native-born Americans use welfare in California.
All four states with the largest foreign-born populations, including California, have extremely high use of welfare by immigrant households. In Texas, for example, nearly 70 percent of households headed by immigrants use taxpayer-funded welfare. Meanwhile, only about 35 percent of native-born households in Texas are on welfare.
In New York and Florida, a majority of households headed by immigrants and noncitizens are on welfare. Overall, about 63 percent of immigrant households use welfare while only 35 percent of native-born households use welfare.
President Trump’s administration is looking to soon implement a policy that protects American taxpayers’ dollars from funding the mass importation of welfare-dependent foreign nationals by enforcing a “public charge” rule whereby legal immigrants would be less likely to secure a permanent residency in the U.S. if they have used any forms of welfare in the past, including using Obamacare, food stamps, and public housing.
The immigration controls would be a boon for American taxpayers in the form of an annual $57.4 billion tax cut — the amount taxpayers spend every year on paying for the welfare, crime, and schooling costs of the country’s mass importation of 1.5 million new, mostly low-skilled legal immigrants.
As Breitbart News reported, the majority of the more than 1.5 million foreign nationals entering the country every year use about 57 percent more food stamps than the average native-born American household. Overall, immigrant households consume 33 percent more cash welfare than American citizen households and 44 percent more in Medicaid dollars. This straining of public services by a booming 44 million foreign-born population translates to the average immigrant household costing American taxpayers $6,234 in federal welfare.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.