Social Distancing: President Trump fired his chief of staff last night, but we’ll get to that. 

 Health authorities reported that 21 of the 3,500 people on board the cruise ship Grand Princess standing off the coast of California have tested positive for the coronavirus. Vice President Mike Pence said, “We will be testing everyone on the ship” and “We will be quarantining as necessary.”

 Passengers are required to stay in their rooms while the government finds a place to take them. “We are working literally hour by hour with the Department of Defense and the state of California to identify the military bases where we will do the testing of the remaining passengers,” Pence said.

  Although the Trump administration claims it has the situation under control, and Pence praises Trump’s “decisive leadership,” health authorities are decrying the lack of test kits. A New York health official wrote to the Centers for Disease Control that, “The slow federal action on this matter has impeded our ability to beat back this epidemic.” 

  Florida has reported the first two deaths on the East Coast. Both people had travelled out of the country.

  With both the virus and fear spreading, schools are beginning to close and events are dropping off the calendar. The annual South by Southwest music festival was cancelled yesterday by the City of Austin, Texas. The event was scheduled to run for a week starting March 13th. Last year 161,000 people attended the festival.

  With the greatest number of US fatalities in Seattle, the University of Washington is shutting classrooms and moving its 50,000 students to online classes. So is Seattle University, which has about 7,300 students.

  The Lake Washington Institute of Technology’s 6,000-student campus in Kirkland shut down for cleaning after several students and faculty members visited a nursing home near Seattle where residents have died of the virus. And in New York City, Yeshiva University canceled classes until March 10^th. 

  The Dow Jones closed down another 246 points yesterday and number crunchers are beginning to talk about the virus tilting the economy into a recession that would cost Donald Trump the election. Moody’s Analytics chief economist  Mark Zandi said he now sees a 40% chance of a US recession during the first half of 2020. 

Symptomatic: Health authorities around the world are still trying to get a grip on how easily the virus spreads and how it affects people who have it. Some people die and some barely know they have it.

  The Centers for Disease Control says the following symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure; fever, cough, and shortness of breath.

  The CDC says that if the disease gets worse a patient may experience difficulty breathing, pain or pressure in the chest, confusion, inability to arouse, and bluish lips or face.

 Mick We Hardly Knew Ye: President Trump’s Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is on his way to Northern Ireland to become the US envoy there just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

  Trump made the announcement via twitter just after arriving in Florida to spend the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Friday night is the time for burying news.

  Mulvaney is being replaced by Trump loyalist Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina. The President is seen as cleaning up and freshening his staff after the impeachment and bringing in new people to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

  Meadows will be Trump’s fourth chief of staff in just over three years.

QBVII: In what’s become a growing legal war with the press, Trump’s re-election campaign has filed its third lawsuit against a news organization, this time claiming he was libeled by CNN.

  Trump in recent days sued The NY Times and The Washington Post. All of the suits involve opinion pieces, which would make it hard for Trump to win, but that might not be the point.

  The CNN suit accuses the organization of publishing a libelous opinion piece on its website about Russia’s efforts to influence US elections. Campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis said in a statement, “The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory.”

The Obit Page: McCoy Tyner, a member of John Coltrane’s 1960s quartet and one of the most influential pianists in jazz history, has died at home in New Jersey at age 81. Along with Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea, he created the sound of modern jazz piano. — Hockey great Henri Richard, who played on 11 Stanley Cup championship teams with the legendary Montreal Canadiens in the 1950s and 60s, has died at age 84. His brother was Maurice “Rocket” Richard. 

Making a Point: First Lady Melania Trump tweeted a picture of herself checking out progress on the new White House tennis pavilion. It appears the President assumes he’ll get a second term to play tennis.

  Madeleine Aggeler writes for New York Magazine’s “The Cut” that, “We see the first lady wearing a hard hat, and taking part in her favorite activity in times of stress: pointing at things. During the testimony of Robert Mueller in front of the House Judiciary Committee back in July about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Melania shared pictures of herself pointing at plans for the White House Christmas decorations. Ahead of a state visit from French president Emmanuel Macron in 2018, she shared pictures of herself pointing at all sorts of things – chairs, fabric swatches, a white board on the Truman balcony.”

-30-