Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, has reacted to a recent report which claims that he is not informed of the poor healthcare system in Nigeria.
The SGF noted that the report quoted him wrongly of his statement, hence described as misleading the claims.
Naija News understands that reports emerged two days ago with claims that Boss Mustapha, who is also the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, said he is unaware of Nigeria’s poor healthcare system until the outbreak of the global pandemic.
However, Boss Mustapha has debunked the claims during a PTF media briefing in Abuja on Friday, noting that he was truly was quoted out of context, adding that the viral report does not reflect his intent or what he actually said.
He noted that what he meant in his interaction with the National Assembly head was that being the head of the COVID-19 task force has exposed him of the state of the nation’s healthcare system.
His statement reads: “Yesterday (Thursday), I mentioned at the National Assembly that I became fully aware of the state of our medical system during the execution of this Task Force assignment. It has become clear that this has been taken out of context.
“I must clarify that I am aware and has indeed been a champion for the reform and transformation of the health care system. However, this PTF assignment has afforded me the opportunity to dig deeper, interrogate and x-ray the system better.
“So for anyone to think that I didn’t know the level of the deplorable state of our healthcare systems, is a complete misrepresentation.
“For the benefit of those who do not know me well, I come from rural Nigeria. I was born in a village almost 64 years ago that didn’t even have a hospital, it had small missionary dispensary probably with one midwife, no birth certificate was offered. So I don’t even have a birth certificate, I have the declaration of age.
“A lot of you sitting here are privileged to have been born in a better and more equipped medical facilities. So from birth I know the state of our medical, healthcare, I am not a foreigner.
“My statement was totally taken out of context because that was not the reflection of what I said. But having to serve in this committee gave me further insight into what is happening.
“Most of the things you see around as specialists, hospitals or clinics, you just see the buildings, you don’t know what is inside. But, being in this committee has given me opportunity of walking into these facilities, looking at what they have in relation to what they ought to have, my conclusion on that is that they don’t have what they ought to have.
He added: “I wanted to give this explanation so that most of you will not think I am an ajebota, no. I was born a rural Nigerian, I grew up in rural Nigeria, I went to school in rural Nigeria and I still live in rural Nigeria. Yola is my home, I’m just on a journey here in Abuja. At the end of my work or whatever I am doing here, I will return home which is rural Nigeria and I am going to live with the facilities in rural Nigeria.
“The truth of the matter is that this is not the time to be distracted with unnecessary controversies”.
The Chinese Government has replied Nigeria over accusation of maltreating Nigerians in China.
The Chinese Government has replied Nigeria over accusation of maltreating Nigerians in China.
The government said it did not discriminate against nationals of any country but treats foreigners living in the country the same way as its citizens.
Series of videos emanating from social media suggested that Chinese authorities were maltreating Nigerians in their country.
A tweet by the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria on its Twitter handle @china_emb_ng on Friday, quoted the Chinese Foreign Ministry as saying that the Chinese government was averse to discrimination against foreigners.
The embassy tweeted this after the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila met with its Ambassador to Nigeria, Zhou Pingjian on the disturbing allegation of ill treatment of Nigerians in China.
The Speaker had said that the maltreatment of Nigerians living in China negated the ideals of the cordial relationship between both countries.
The embassy, quoting the Chinese Foreign Minister, Zhao Lijian said: “China and African countries are united more than ever, demonstrating brotherhood in times of adversity.
“We treat all foreign nationals equally in China.
“We reject differential treatment, and we have zero tolerance for discrimination.”
In a statement on April 9, the foreign ministry said in response to questions bordering on the same allegation, that China was even now focusing on helping African countries overcome the coronavirus.
“Since the COVID-19 outbreak, China and African countries have been supporting each other in fighting the pandemic.
“We won’t forget the support voiced and provided by African countries and their people when we were at the most crucial stage of the fight.
“Now we are closely following the situation in Africa. The Chinese government and people are doing our best to help them,” Zhao said.
“We hope foreign citizens in China will continue to fully understand and cooperate with China’s epidemic control measures to prevent risks and protect the health and safety of themselves and others.
“That is their way of contributing to the final victory over the epidemic,” he added.
Refrigerated tractor trailers serve as temporary morgues in New York City.
The US has become the first country in the world to record more than 2,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day.
Figures from Johns Hopkins University show 2,108 people died in the past 24 hours while there are now more than half a million confirmed infections.
The US could soon surpass Italy as the country with the most coronavirus deaths worldwide.
But experts on the White House Covid-19 task force say the outbreak is starting to level off across the US.
Dr Deborah Birx said there were good signs the outbreak was stabilising, but cautioned: “As encouraging as they are, we have not reached the peak.”
President Donald Trump also said he expects the US to see a lower death toll than the initial predictions of 100,000 fatalities, adding: “We’re seeing clear signs that our aggressive strategy is saving countless lives”.
What are the latest US figures?
The US now has at least 18,693 deaths and 500,399 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins, which is tracking the disease globally. About half of the deaths were recorded in the New York area.
Italy has reported 18,849 deaths while globally more than 102,000 people have died with the virus.
Researchers had predicted the US death toll would hit its peak on Friday and then gradually start to decline, falling to around 970 people a day by 1 May – the day members of the Trump administration have floated as a possible date to start reopening the economy.
“I want to get it open as soon as possible,” Mr Trump said at a Good Friday briefing at the White House. “I would say without question it’s the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make.”
However, no action would be taken until the government knew the “country [was] going to be healthy”, he said. “We don’t want to go back and start doing it over again.”
A city upended
By Nada Tawfik, BBC News, New York
The coronavirus has changed everything about life, and now it’s upending the rituals of death.
New Yorkers have been shocked by the grim scenes: ambulances constantly blaring down eerily deserted streets, body bags being forklifted into refrigerated trucks outside hospitals and now new trenches being dug on Hart’s Island for possible mass burials.
The remote cemetery, accessible only by boat, is a place regarded historically with sorrow because of its mass graves with no tombstones, just unclaimed bodies. The city’s morgues can only handle so much before temporary burials for Covid-19 victims, once an absolute worst-case scenario, become necessary.
Funeral directors talk openly about how scared and depressed the spiking death toll has left them. Even before this week’s record number of deaths, some families have had to wait a week or more to bury and cremate their loved ones.
Why might the outbreak start levelling off soon?
Dr Anthony Fauci, US infectious diseases chief, concurred that the country was “starting to see the levelling off and coming down” of cases and deaths. But despite the “important advance”, he added, mitigation efforts such as social distancing should not be pulled back yet.
A new projection by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington forecast 60,000 deaths by 4 August assuming that those restrictions remain in place. Last month, Dr Fauci estimated at least 100,000 deaths.
Also at the briefing, Dr Birx noted that the rate of increase appeared to be stabilising in hard-hit regions like New York, New Jersey and the city of Chicago.
She added that the US mortality rate was “significantly less than many of the other countries, when you correct them for our population”. But she emphasised the nation had yet to see the peak of the outbreak.
“We need to continue to do what we did yesterday, and the week before, and the week before that because that’s what, in the end, is going to take us up across the peak and down the other side.”
Media caption Drone footage shows mass burials in New York.
On Friday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the latest data showed the state was successfully “flattening the curve”, but also cautioned that it was too early to relax social distancing measures. “Even though it’s a grind, even though it’s difficult, we have to stay with it.”
The danger appears to be highest for America’s minority communities, which have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19.
Dr Jerome Adams, the US surgeon general, said the trend was “alarming, but not surprising” given that minorities in the US generally had more chronic health conditions such as asthma, hypertension and diabetes.
“As a matter of fact, I have been carrying an inhaler in my pocket for 40 years out of fear of having a fatal asthma attack,” continued Dr Adams, who is African-American.
But he caused controversy by urging minorities to stop drinking, smoking and taking drugs to reduce their risk. He was particularly criticised for his use of colloquial language, when he told them to respect social distancing guidelines.
“Do it for your abuela. Do it for your granddaddy. Do it for your Big Mama. Do it for your Pop Pop,” Dr Adams said. He later advised all Americans to avoid alcohol, tobacco and drugs.
Media caption US surgeon general shows his inhaler while discussing the impact of coronavirus on people of colour
In Friday’s briefing, Mr Trump also said he had seen the drone images of coffins being stacked in a mass grave on New York’s Hart Island. Officials there say the island, which has been used to bury people with no next of kin for over 150 years, is now burying bodies at five times the normal rate.
Earlier in the day, Dr Fauci told CNN that officials are currently discussing whether to adopt immunity certificates for Americans who have safely survived the coronavirus and have antibodies in their blood to prove it.
The certificates might “have some merit under certain circumstances”, he said, adding that antibody tests would be available next week.
Stay at home for Easter, Vice-President Pence tells people
Meanwhile, in Washington lawmakers are considering a “Covid-19 heroes fund” to provide direct payments to workers on the front line of the pandemic.
A Paisley man who is recovering from coronavirus has called on young people not to underestimate the impact the virus can have.
Calum Wishart said when news of the pandemic first broke his “naive arrogance” led him to believe he would be OK because he is only 25-years-old.
But within days of the lock-down Mr WPPPishart started displaying symptoms of the virus and was hospitalised.
He described it as “the most horrendous experience”.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said: “I had the completely wrong attitude.
“I would not say I was hugging strangers or anything like that, I think I just underestimated the real impact of it.
“I had the perspective that because I was young it would not affect me, that it would be like a kind of flu.”
Mr Wishart said he had a “massive dose of reality” when the gravity of his situation became clear after being rushed to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and put on oxygen.
He continued: “It started off as a slight fever and from there it escalated.
“The next few days was just on and off oxygen and not being able to do anything.”
The loss of his freedom of movement was the biggest impact and now, out of hospital and into self-isolation, he is using his time to try and make younger people aware that coronavirus can strike anyone.
Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, says he is not aware if medical doctors and other health practitioners managing COVID-19 patients in Nigeria are paid any hazard allowance.
Ehanire, who met with the leadership of the national assembly in Abuja on Thursday, said what the doctors are doing is their routine job.
The meeting was between the lawmakers and the members of the presidential task force on COVID-19 to discuss ongoing trends on the pandemic in the country.
Femi Gbajabiamila, the speaker, had asked the minister if the medical personnel handling coronavirus cases are paid any hazard allowance, to which he responded: “I am not aware of it.”
He added: “It is the standard job they do every day; it is the standard job.”
An apparently furious Gbajabiamila told the minister it is not enough to say he is not aware, and “you dropped the ball”.
ConcourseNews learnt that while Nigerian medical doctors earn a monthly hazard allowance of N5,000, it is yet to be increased even in the face of the pandemic.
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State has announced the death of a patient suspected to have contracted COVID-19 in the state.
In a statement issued on Thursday by his Chief Press Secretary, Olisa Ifeajika, the governor disclosed that the case, which was the second, after the first confirmed on Tuesday, was awaiting the outcome of the test conducted on it when the patient passed away.
He stated that the deceased had underlying health issues and had visited Lagos in the past two weeks, adding that the patient, with severe symptoms, presented himself late to the hospital.
According to Okowa, the symptoms on the patient included difficulty in breathing, which prompted immediate and necessary attention to him by medical professionals.
“Shortly after the specimen was taken, he passed away. However, his test results came back positive today (Thursday).
“In order to mitigate against the spread of the virus, we are fast-tracking our contact-tracing to ensure that all those that came in contact with the deceased patient are properly isolated and tested immediately,” Okowa said.
The governor also asked health workers “to protect citizens and residents of our state, families and friends of individuals that are exhibiting the primary symptoms of COVID-19, do not keep it from the authorities.”
He also reiterated that his administration will be transparent to the people of the state by keeping informed of new developments on the pandemic.
DETROIT — Greg Bowens stopped counting when seven people he knew well had died of COVID-19. New names kept coming up on his social media feed, day after day.
“How is it possible that I would know this many people who had died?” Bowens, a 55-year-old public relations professional and founder of the Grosse Pointe/Harper Woods NAACP Branch, recalled thinking to himself.
That was before Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services started releasing official data showing the racial breakdown of cases and deaths on April 2. That data showed that, although just 14% of the population of Michigan is Black, 33% of coronavirus cases and 41% of deaths were in the Black community. It was little surprise to Bowens and other African Americans in Detroit, who had been witnessing the people around them falling sick and dying for several weeks.
The metro area’s first high-profile African American death was Marlowe Stoudamire, a well-connected business consultant, on March 26. Then there was a popular high school basketball coach. School district employees. A city bus driver who had taken to social media to complain about a passenger coughing on him. One woman lost her aunt the same day she rushed her mother and grandmother to the emergency room. Her grandmother died a week later. Her mother is on a ventilator and is expected to recover.
The state’s data is incomplete, as 30% of cases do not list the person’s race. But a nearly complete data set from Washtenaw County showed a similar trend, with African Americans accounting for 49% of hospitalizations but only 12.3% of the population.
In Michigan, it’s not just Detroit. And it’s not just poverty. Though Detroit is 80% Black with a poverty rate of roughly 35% ― more than triple the national average ― other, more affluent suburbs with substantial African American populations are also getting hit hard.
“Black people who are middle class and upper-middle class are getting this and dying,” said Bowens. “And the only thing that folks in Southfield, Detroit, Eastpointe, Harper Woods and other places have in common is that they’re Black.”
It’s also not just Michigan. Though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t release coronavirus data by race, city and state data indicates that COVID-19 cases are heavily concentrated in the Black population. In Chicago, 23% of residents are Black but account for 58% of COVID-19 deaths. In Milwaukee, Blacks are roughly one-quarter of the population and roughly one-half of COVID-19 cases. In Louisiana, 7 out of 10 COVID-19 victims have been Black. Coronavirus hot spots include a number of cities with large nonwhite populations, such as New Orleans and Detroit, as well as the majority-minority New York City boroughs of Queens and the Bronx.
Though just 14% of the population of Michigan is Black, 33% of coronavirus cases and 41% of deaths were in the Black community.
‘We Haven’t Dealt With Social Inequality’
Sociologists and epidemiologists say that nearly every condition that increases patients’ vulnerability to coronavirus — from asthma to diabetes to HIV — appears at higher rates in the Black population.
“We haven’t dealt with social inequality in America, whether in education or job or incomes,” said Hedwig Lee, a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies racial disparities in health. “We knew that groups with pre-existing health vulnerabilities would have a higher risk of death. But still, it’s sobering to see the numbers.”
African Americans have twice the rate of heart disease, stroke and diabetes compared to Caucasians. They suffer from heart failure, asthma and hypertension at higher rates and earlier in their lives. Over decades, these disparities have compounded a life expectancy that is four years shorter for Black Americans than for whites.
“We know that differences in education and job opportunities lead to chronic health problems in the long term, but the coronavirus is showing that they lead to health problems in the short term, too,” Lee said.
The Black community may also have vulnerabilities that make its members uniquely susceptible to COVID-19. African Americans are less likely to have jobs that allow them to work from home and more likely to use public transportation. Black families are more likely to live in multi-generational households, potentially exposing elderly relatives to the virus. Black neighborhoods are more likely to be “health care deserts” — neighborhoods without doctors or medical clinics — which may have limited access to tests in the early days of the pandemic.
“A lot of people have service work jobs, and they make small wages,” said Pastor Barry Randolph, who leads the Church of the Messiah in Detroit’s Islandview neighborhood and has seen dozens of his parishioners fall victim to the virus. “People are living together in the same house to be able to stay afloat, and there’s children and maybe seniors, and everybody’s in the house, and so if it affects one, it’s going to affect everybody.”
Residents of the Bronx, which is majority Black and Latino, appear to have roughly the same likelihood of catching COVID-19 as the rest of New York City but twice the chance of dying.
Compounding Vulnerabilities
So far, the data emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic indicates that, although African Americans are slightly more likely to contract the virus, they are much more likely to die of it. In Milwaukee, for example, African Americans make up half of coronavirus cases but 81% of deaths. Residents of the Bronx, which is majority Black and Latino, appear to have roughly the same likelihood of catching COVID-19 as the rest of New York City — but twice the chance of dying.
“COVID-19 is a perfect storm for people dealing with a lot of adversity,” said David R. Williams, a Harvard University professor who researches race and health.
This striking disparity follows a nearly identical pattern of other health conditions: Even when Blacks and whites suffer from diseases at the same rates, African Americans have higher mortality rates. Black people with diabetes, for example, are more likely to die of complications than white people with diabetes. African Americans are roughly 30% more likely to be diagnosed with hypertension than whites but up to 300% more likely to die of a stroke. The same goes for mental illness: Though Blacks suffer from major depression less than whites, their condition is more likely to be severe, disabling and untreated.
Think about the phrase ‘I can’t breathe’ in reference to COVID-19 and consider where we’ve heard that before.
Hedwig Lee, Washington University sociologist
Much of this disparity can be explained through differential access to health care. Williams noted that African Americans are less likely to have health insurance and pay higher copays and deductibles even when they do. Black patients are less likely to receive preventative screenings and wait longer for care after testing positive for cancer, HIV and diet-related diseases. They are also more likely to receive care from doctors who aren’t board certified.
“African Americans lack access to health care, and when they do get it, they get worse care,” he said.
Stress also plays a role. Over the last decade, numerous studies have documented that anticipating racial discrimination triggers a nervous system response that increases minorities’ vulnerability to chronic disease.
“Vigilance around being discriminated against creates wear and tear in the body,” Lee said. “That affects mental and physical health and immune function in ways that could lead to higher risk of getting COVID-19 and having complications.”
Policies such as educational and housing segregation and mass incarceration likely contributed to the higher COVID-19 deaths rates among African Americans.
A Familiar Pattern
COVID-19 is just the latest episode in a decades-long trend of deliberate neglect of the health of America’s Black population. Williams pointed out that in 1950, Blacks had roughly the same rates of coronary disease as whites and better cancer survival rates. But as mortality improved among whites, it stagnated among African Americans.
“This is the result of a set of social policies working as designed,” Williams said, noting that many of the cities with major COVID-19 outbreaks — Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee — are not just heavily Black but also heavily segregated. “Racial differences are linked to opportunity at the neighborhood level. African Americans are not doing poorly because of their genes, they’re doing poorly because of the policies we’ve created that constrain their access to resources.”
Former Detroit Health Department Director Abdul El Sayed said he hopes the coronavirus will encourage America to face up not only to its inequitable history and social policies but also to the fallacy of its ethos of rugged individualism.
“We have to get away from this behavioral agency frame, which says that the reason that some people suffer more than others is because of choice,” said El Sayed. “Oftentimes we frame the narrative from a position of privilege, and the thing that privilege allows you to do is have a choice. And the thing about poverty is it takes the choices away.”
Bowens believes state and local governments must be more proactive and direct in their communication with African American communities. He wrote an opinion article calling on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to customize COVID-19 messaging and tactics, like using cellphone providers to deliver text messages and working with churches and urban radio stations.
This is the result of a set of social policies working as designed.
David R. Williams, Harvard professor
Solving the COVID-19 racial gap will also require a dedicated effort to document the disparity. Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told reporters on a conference call Monday that the CDC collects information on the race of COVID-19 victims but does not release the data to the public.
Other reports indicate that local health agencies are systematically underreporting deaths due to coronavirus, which is likely to have a racial dimension as well: Lee noted that patients who don’t seek care, are denied tests or are turned away from emergency rooms may not show up in the death statistics.
“We know racial and ethnic minorities are likely to be treated differently by the health care system, especially during high-stress situations where people have to make quick decisions, which is what’s happening right now,” she said.
Understanding the racial effects of the coronavirus requires acknowledging the unique vulnerabilities of the Black community and why those vulnerabilities exist.
“Black people are dying now because of COVID-19, but before, they were dying because of other conditions,” she said. “Think about the phrase ‘I can’t breathe’ in reference to COVID-19 and consider where we’ve heard that before.”
Hip-hop artiste, Azeez Fashola, popularly known as Naira Marley, has pledged to make an audio-visual work to campaign against the spread of the coronavirus.
He made the pledge in a letter of apology he wrote to the Lagos State Government for attending a crowded birthday party on April 4, 2020, contrary to the social distancing directive of the government to limit the spread of the COVID-19.
The state government had filed charges against him before the state Magistrates’ Court in Ogba, and he was billed to be arraigned on Wednesday alongside the candidate of the Action Democratic Party in the 2019 gubernatorial election in the state, Babatunde Gbadamosi, and his wife, Folashade, who also attended the party.
But the state applied to drop the charges.
The state Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Yakub Oshoala, said the government had noted the remorse shown by the defendants and was ready to withdraw the charges against them if they would tender a written apology to the government; sign an undertaking to henceforth comply with the social distancing and stay-at-home directives; and go into self-isolation for 14 days.
The defendants had, through their lawyers, Messrs Wale Akoni (SAN), Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN) and Mrs Damilola Ayinde-Marshal, accepted the conditions on Wednesday.
The chief magistrate, Mrs Yewande Aje-Afunwa, had adjourned till Thursday for the report of compliance with the given conditions.
At Thursday’s proceedings, the state Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Yakub Oshoala, told the court that the defendants had all tendered written apologies.
The defence counsel confirmed the position, consequent upon which the magistrate struck out the charges.
In his letter of apology, which was sighted by our correspondent, Naira Marley pledged to “join the Lagos State campaign against the spread of COVID-19 vide making a free audio-visual publication towards the campaign against COVID-19.”
“Thank you and I remain committed to the development of Lagos State,” he stated in the letter.
While striking out the four counts against Naira Marley and the Gbadamosis, the magistrate commended them for taking responsibility for their actions.
The government had filed four counts against Naira Marley and the Gbadamosis over their attendance of a birthday party organised on Saturday, April 4, 2020, by popular actress, Funke Akindele-Bello, aka Jenifa, in honour of her musician husband, Abdul Rasheed Bello, alias JJC Skillz.
Funke and her husband, who had earlier been arraigned on Monday, had pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 14-day community service, in addition to a fine of N100,000 each and an order that the state should put them in isolation for 14 days.
Bernie Sanders is ending his presidential campaign, he announced on Wednesday.
The Vermont independent senator’s 2020 bid started off strong. He narrowly missed first place in Iowa before picking up wins in New Hampshire and Nevada. All the while, his campaign continued to rake in millions in small-dollar donations and pack rallies full of supporters as he ascended to national front-runner status amid a crowded Democratic field.
Running as a progressive insurgent against Hillary Clinton in 2016, Sanders popularized ideas like “Medicare for All.” In 2020, however, a number of candidates backed similar policies, and he faced another prominent progressive in Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who was the first to propose canceling some student debt in April.
Sanders followed with a more far-reaching plan of his own in June. Warren surged above Sanders in the fall, right up until he suffered a heart attack in October. That — along with the high-profile endorsement by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., — revived his national polling numbers, and he remained in second place until Biden’s dismal fourth-place showing in Iowa, which propelled Sanders to front-runner status.
In his 2020 bid, the senator worked to broaden his support with Latino voters, and his coalition grew more diverse because of it. But despite years of outreach to increase his popularity among black voters, Sanders failed to earn their votes in large numbers. He also lost some of his white working-class supporters to Biden, a fracture of his coalition that cost him crucial votes in states like Michigan.
Sanders also stumbled with women voters, facing accusations of sexism in January after tensions between his and Warren’s campaigns spilled out into the open. The two progressives had largely remained allies while campaigning for the nomination, but a series of leaks to the media from aides and supporters of both senators accusing the other camp of dirty tricks and lying culminated in Warren saying in a statement that Sanders once told her he didn’t think a woman could win the presidency.
Sanders denied the claim, but he was hit with further criticism of his supporters — dubbed the “Bernie Bros” — after female union leaders in Nevada who spoke out against his candidacy said they were attacked by his fans.
His campaign officially stalled in South Carolina. Fueled by a crucial endorsement from Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., Biden won the Palmetto State decisively. The moderate wing of the party then consolidated around him — Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg both dropped out of the race and endorsed him — and Biden won 10 of 14 states on Super Tuesday.
