What's The Worst Thing Trump Has Done?

 

The Trump Brand by Nancy Ohanian

Virtually everything Trump does is against the interests of the American people. It would be a Herculean effort, akin to cleaning out the Augean Stables, to even list the worst things he's done since occupying the White House. Perhaps the most consequential, though, is his mishandling of the pandemic. Over 223,000 Americans are dead because of him and more than eight and a quarter million Americans have been infected with COVID-19, more than in any other country. Even today the the most active cases in the world are in the U.S.-- more than the next worst-hit four countries (India, France, Brazil and Russia) combined. Same for critical cases-- U.S. is number one, with 15,274 cases, many if whom will die or be debilitated for life.

With daily cases spiking out of control again, our country truly is experiencing the Trump Pandemic. Yesterday, new cases surged beyond 70,000 for the first time in months. Texas, Illinois. Wisconsin and Florida are all experiencing extremely dangerous new numbers. And nationally, the U.S. crossed a new threshold-- over 25,000 cases per million residents. There are no large countries with those kinds of numbers. Trump keeps saying the pandemic will just go away. He'll certainly go away long before the pandemic, thank in large part to himself.

Trump's latest terrible, dysfunctional and deadly decision was to install two political operatives to ride roughshod over the scientists at the CDC. According to a team of AP reporters, their function is "to try to control the information it releases about the coronavirus pandemic as the administration seeks to paint a positive outlook, sometimes at odds with the scientific evidence." Neither has any public health experience.

I feel certain that it came as a surprise to no one that the NY Times advised its readers to vote against Trump, clearly stating that "Trump's re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II" and noting that his "ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds." And they were just getting started

The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. During Mr. Trump’s term, we have called out his racism and his xenophobia. We have critiqued his vandalism of the postwar consensus, a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a great many lives to establish and maintain. We have, again and again, deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow Americans. Yet when the Senate refused to convict the president for obvious abuses of power and obstruction, we counseled his political opponents to focus their outrage on defeating him at the ballot box.

Nov. 3 can be a turning point. This is an election about the country’s future, and what path its citizens wish to choose.

The resilience of American democracy has been sorely tested by Mr. Trump’s first term. Four more years would be worse.

But even as Americans wait to vote in lines that stretch for blocks through their towns and cities, Mr. Trump is engaged in a full-throated assault on the integrity of that essential democratic process. Breaking with all of his modern predecessors, he has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, suggesting that his victory is the only legitimate outcome, and that if he does not win, he is ready to contest the judgment of the American people in the courts or even on the streets.

The enormity and variety of Mr.Trump’s misdeeds can feel overwhelming. Repetition has dulled the sense of outrage, and the accumulation of new outrages leaves little time to dwell on the particulars. This is the moment when Americans must recover that sense of outrage.

...The repudiation of Mr. Trump is the first step in repairing the damage he has done. But even as we write these words, Mr. Trump is salting the field-- and even if he loses, reconstruction will require many years and tears.

Mr. Trump stands without any real rivals as the worst American president in modern history. In 2016, his bitter account of the nation’s ailments struck a chord with many voters. But the lesson of the last four years is that he cannot solve the nation’s pressing problems because he is the nation’s most pressing problem.

He is a racist demagogue presiding over an increasingly diverse country; an isolationist in an interconnected world; a showman forever boasting about things he has never done, and promising to do things he never will.

He has shown no aptitude for building, but he has managed to do a great deal of damage. He is just the man for knocking things down.

As the world runs out of time to confront climate change, Mr. Trump has denied the need for action, abandoned international cooperation and attacked efforts to limit emissions.

He has mounted a cruel crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration without proposing a sensible policy for determining who should be allowed to come to the United States.

Obsessed with reversing the achievements of his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, he has sought to persuade both Congress and the courts to get rid of the Affordable Care Act without proposing any substitute policy to provide Americans with access to affordable health care. During the first three years of his administration, the number of Americans without health insurance increased by 2.3 million-- a number that has surely grown again as millions of Americans have lost their jobs this year.

He campaigned as a champion of ordinary workers, but he has governed on behalf of the wealthy. He promised an increase in the federal minimum wage and fresh investment in infrastructure; he delivered a round of tax cuts that mostly benefited rich people. He has indiscriminately erased regulations, and answered the prayers of corporations by suspending enforcement of rules he could not easily erase. Under his leadership, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has stopped trying to protect consumers and the Environmental Protection Agency has stopped trying to protect the environment.

He has strained longstanding alliances while embracing dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, whom Mr. Trump treats with a degree of warmth and deference that defies explanation. He walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a strategic agreement among China’s neighbors intended to pressure China to conform to international standards. In its place, Mr. Trump has conducted a tit-for-tat trade war, imposing billions of dollars in tariffs-- taxes that are actually paid by Americans-- without extracting significant concessions from China.

Mr. Trump’s inadequacies as a leader have been on particularly painful display during the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of working to save lives, Mr. Trump has treated the pandemic as a public relations problem. He lied about the danger, challenged the expertise of public health officials and resisted the implementation of necessary precautions; he is still trying to force the resumption of economic activity without bringing the virus under control.

As the economy pancaked, he signed an initial round of aid for Americans who lost their jobs. Then the stock market rebounded and, even though millions remained out of work, Mr. Trump lost interest in their plight.

In September, he declared that the virus “affects virtually nobody” the day before the death toll from the disease in the United States topped 200,000.

Nine days later, Mr. Trump fell ill.

The foundations of American civil society were crumbling before Mr. Trump rode down the escalator of Trump Tower in June 2015 to announce his presidential campaign. But he has intensified the worst tendencies in American politics: Under his leadership, the nation has grown more polarized, more paranoid and meaner.

He has pitted Americans against each other, mastering new broadcast media like Twitter and Facebook to rally his supporters around a virtual bonfire of grievances and to flood the public square with lies, disinformation and propaganda. He is relentless in his denigration of opponents and reluctant to condemn violence by those he regards as allies. At the first presidential debate in September, Mr. Trump was asked to condemn white supremacists. He responded by instructing one violent gang, the Proud Boys, to “stand back and stand by.”

He has undermined faith in government as a vehicle for mediating differences and arriving at compromises. He demands absolute loyalty from government officials, without regard to the public interest. He is openly contemptuous of expertise.

And he has mounted an assault on the rule of law, wielding his authority as an instrument to secure his own power and to punish political opponents. In June, his administration tear-gassed and cleared peaceful protesters from a street in front of the White House so Mr. Trump could pose with a book he does not read in front of a church he does not attend.

The full scope of his misconduct may take decades to come to light. But what is already known is sufficiently shocking:

He has resisted lawful oversight by the other branches of the federal government. The administration routinely defies court orders, and Mr. Trump has repeatedly directed administration officials not to testify before Congress or to provide documents, notably including Mr. Trump’s tax returns.

With the help of Attorney General William Barr, he has shielded loyal aides from justice. In May, the Justice Department said it would drop the prosecution of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn even though Mr. Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. In July, Mr. Trump commuted the sentence of another former aide, Roger Stone, who was convicted of obstructing a federal investigation of Mr. Trump’s 2016 election campaign. Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, rightly condemned the commutation as an act of “unprecedented, historic corruption.”

Last year, Mr. Trump pressured the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation of his main political rival, Joe Biden, and then directed administration officials to obstruct a congressional inquiry of his actions. In December 2019, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Mr. Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors. But Senate Republicans, excepting Mr. Romney, voted to acquit the president, ignoring Mr. Trump’s corruption to press ahead with the project of filling the benches of the federal judiciary with young, conservative lawyers as a firewall against majority rule.

Now, with other Republican leaders, Mr. Trump is mounting an aggressive campaign to reduce the number of Americans who vote and the number of ballots that are counted.

The president, who has long spread baseless charges of widespread voter fraud, has intensified his rhetorical attacks in recent months, especially on ballots submitted by mail. “The Nov 3rd Election result may NEVER BE ACCURATELY DETERMINED,” he tweeted. The president himself has voted by mail, and there is no evidence to support his claims. But the disinformation campaign serves as a rationale for purging voter rolls, closing polling places, tossing absentee ballots and otherwise impeding Americans from exercising the right to vote.

It is an intolerable assault on the very foundations of the American experiment in government by the people.

Other modern presidents have behaved illegally or made catastrophic decisions. Richard Nixon used the power of the state against his political opponents. Ronald Reagan ignored the spread of AIDS. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying and obstruction of justice. George W. Bush took the nation to war under false pretenses.

Mr. Trump has outstripped decades of presidential wrongdoing in a single term.

Frederick Douglass lamented during another of the nation’s dark hours, the presidency of Andrew Johnson, “We ought to have our government so shaped that even when in the hands of a bad man, we shall be safe.” But that is not the nature of our democracy. The implicit optimism of American democracy is that the health of the Republic rests on the judgment of the electorate and the integrity of those voters choose.

Mr. Trump is a man of no integrity. He has repeatedly violated his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Now, in this moment of peril, it falls to the American people-- even those who would prefer a Republican president-- to preserve, protect and defend the United States by voting.

COVID Pandemic Is Expected To Surge In The Lead-Up To The Election And The Inauguration-- And Trump And His Allies Are Making It Worse, Much Worse

 

"...And I Won't Lose One Voter" by Nancy Ohanian

Although the states that have been experiencing the most new cases over the last couple of months-- California, Texas, Florida, Georgia-- have peaked and are on the downtrend (for now), other states have started peaking like mad: Wisconsin, Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Utah... On Monday, CNN reported that Twenty-one states are reporting increased Covid-19 cases as experts warn of a fall surge. Madeline Holcombe and Dakin Andone wrote that "As of Sunday, the number of new coronavirus cases has increased by at least 10% or more compared to the week before in 21 states... Cases are rising in Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington state, Wisconsin and Wyoming." The conclusion is that "The US could see an explosion of Covid-19 cases in the fall and winter as people exercise less caution and spend more time indoors, where there is a greater likelihood of transmission."

The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) model predicts a "huge surge" expected to take off in October "and accelerate in November and December." By late December the daily death rate will have gone from the current rate of about 765 to 3,000.

Some Trumpist governors seem to be cheerleading for COVID, none more egregiously that Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who prematurely dropped restrictions on bars and restaurants as though he were determined to see Florida's hospital system collapse by winter. CNN reported that "the mayor of Miami warned that the governor's decision to fully reopen such establishments and to limit local governments' ability to enforce their own restrictions could have devastating consequences."

"I think it's going to have a huge impact," Mayor Francis Suarez told CNN Saturday about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' decision to allow restaurants, bars and other businesses to open at full capacity and to suspend fines for all outstanding penalties issued to those who didn't follow Covid-19 restrictions-- such as not wearing a mask in public. "You know, I just don't know how many people are actually going to do it now."

...Mandating mask wearing in public and slowly reopening has helped to keep the coronavirus case count down in Miami, Suarez said. He's concerned the changes in the state are coming as flu season ramps up and schools prepare for in-person learning to begin in mid-October.

"We'll see in the next couple of weeks whether (the governor's) right about his perspective. But if he's wrong about his perspective... it's going to be very, very, very difficult for him and it's going to be a very difficult time, because it's in the middle of flu season," Suarez said.

Over the weekend, Florida surpassed 14,000 COVID deaths and breezed through the 700,000 cases mark, 32,618 cases per million Floridians. The only European country with more cases than Florida is Spain (735,198) and Florida has more than double the cases per million numbers than any European country. In fact, there is no real country in the world with a worse cases per million number.

And it isn't just Trumpist governors like DeSantis, Kristi Noem (R-SD), Billy Lee (R-TN), Mike Parson (R-MO), Brian Kemp (R-GA) Greg Abbott (R-TX), Doug Ducey (R-AZ), Henry McMaster (R-SC) and Kay Ivey (R-AL)-- not to mention the Wisconsin state legislature-- who are driving up the numbers. On Monday morning NBC reported that Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was overheard on an airplane speaking with a colleague and saying that the newest crackpot Trump put on the White House coronavirus task force, Scott Atlas, is pushing out misinformation to the public. "Everything he says is false," complained Redfield. Atlas is a neuroradiologist with no background in infectious diseases or public health but is a political ally of Trump's and is willing to push policies and narratives designed to help Trump's reelection efforts, while killing Americans.

Redfield testified before Congress this month that he suspects that a face covering could protect him from Covid-19 better than any future vaccine. Most public health officials share the view that masks are essential to stop the spread of the virus. Still, Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on how useful wearing them may be.

"If every one of us did it, this pandemic would be over in eight to 12 weeks," Redfield said before offering a stark warning that contradicted the president's assertion that the country is "rounding the corner" on the pandemic.

"We're nowhere near the end," Redfield said.

The Bill Lee Pandemic

Today, Tennessee reported 879 more COVID cases, bringing the state's total to 194,611-- 28,497 cases per million Tennesseans. Bill Lee and Trump have now killed 2,420 Tennesseans so for and there were 31 new deaths reported today, 7th worst in the U.S. But Gov. Lee is far from done. This afternoon, The Tennessean reported that he's done a Big Trumpy-- ending all coronavirus restrictions on all businesses. Public health officials, from Fauci on down have warned governors that this is a prescription for an out-of-control pandemic, likely starting in October and driving up death rates in November and December.

Fortunately, the county health departments in the state's 6 largest cities-- Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Clarksville and Murfreesboro-- will be free to ignore the sociopath and continue to set their own regulations. And speaking of sociopaths, Lee told the GOP-controlled state legislature that "I want the economy to move forward. I don't want any business to have any reason to not function as fully as they possibly can. I'm advocating for that in our big six counties, as well." There are now no limits to sizes of gatherings in bars, restaurants or anywhere else. I would urge all DWT readers to avoid Tennessee like the plague.

Trump Continues Making The Pandemic Worse-- And His Moron Base Loves It

Lena Sun's report for the Washington Post over the weekend backs up fears that many have that Trump is trying to get control over coronavirus stats so that he can manipulate them for his campaign. "Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services," she wrote, "have sought to change, delay and prevent the release of reports about the coronavirus by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because they were viewed as undermining President Trump’s message that the pandemic is under control. Michael Caputo, the top HHS spokesman, said in an interview Saturday that he and one of his advisers have been seeking greater scrutiny of the CDC’s weekly scientific dispatches, known as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report [MMWR], for the past 3½ months. The adviser, Paul Alexander, has sent repeated emails to the CDC seeking changes and demanding that the reports be halted until he could make edits."

Alexander, is a smart-ass and aggressive shit bag who has accused the CDC of undermining Trumpanzee. Sun wrote that his emails "are the latest evidence of how the nation’s top public health agency is coming under intense pressure from Trump and his allies, who are playing down the dangers of the pandemic ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election. 'Most often, the MMWRs are [issued] for purely scientific reasons,' Caputo said Saturday. 'But in an election year, and in the time of covid-19, it’s no longer unanimously scientific. There’s political content.'... MMWRs are written by career experts for scientists and public health specialists and are considered among the most authoritative public health reports because they provide evidence-based information on a range of health topics. The reports are independent scientific publications that undergo rigorous vetting, often with multiple drafts to check data and methodology. The reports are closely held; few individuals at the CDC have access until just before publication.

[A] report about the spread of the coronavirus at a Georgia sleep-away camp was also delayed, the former official said. That report, issued July 31, suggested that children of all ages are susceptible to coronavirus infection and may spread it to others-- a finding likely to intensify an already fraught discussion about the risks of sending children back to school.

“That report gave them a lot of grief,” the former official said. “But you can’t change facts.” The report likely was delayed, the former official said, to avoid being released around the same time Trump was calling for schools to reopen in person. The changes that were sought were not included, the former official said.

The tone of Alexander’s emails is harsh, this person said, because the CDC ignored his requests. In one email, Alexander wrote to CDC Director Robert Redfield asking that the agency modify two already published reports that Alexander said mistakenly inflated the risks of coronavirus to children and undermined Trump’s push to reopen schools.

“CDC to me appears to be writing hit pieces on the administration,” Alexander wrote in an email. “CDC tried to report as if once kids get together, there will be spread and this will impact school reopening... Very misleading by CDC and shame on them. Their aim is clear.”

The interference by HHS political appointees in the MMWR process has infuriated career scientists, who have been frustrated for months over the inability to allow scientists to fully share and explain information.

There was a similar report by a team of reporters in yesterday's NY Times noting that meddling from the Trumpist Regime is "turning widely followed and otherwise apolitical guidance on infectious disease, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, into a political loyalty test, with career scientists framed as adversaries of the administration.

The political involvement "undermines the credibility of not only the MMWR but of the CDC. And the CDC's credibility has been tarnished throughout COVID already," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University who sits on the external editorial board of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports.

"The MMWR had an unblemished reputation as being accurate, objective and science-based, free from political influence," he said.

The meddling from Washington has concerned Redfield, who often pushed back when Caputo called to pester him about the morbidity reports, according to a former senior government health official with direct knowledge of the conversations.

Over the weekend-- Friday, Saturday and Sunday-- the U.S. reported 117,755 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total caseload to 6,708,458. That's 20,267 cases for every million Americans. To put that in perspective, these are the dozen worst hit (non-postage stamp sized) countries in western Europe:

• U.S.- 20,267 cases per million residents
• Spain- 12,334 cases per million residents
• Sweden- 8,555 cases per million residents
• Belgium- 7,972 cases per million residents
• Portugal- 6,279 cases per million residents
• Ireland- 6,261 cases per million residents
• France- 5,836 cases per million residents
• Switzerland- 5,443 cases per million residents
• U.K.- 5,422 cases per million residents
• Netherlands- 4,789 cases per million residents
• Italy- 4,761 cases per million residents
• Denmark- 3,431 cases per million residents
• Germany- 3,117 cases per million residents

The U.S. has had close to 200,000 confirmed COVID-deaths. The 12 European countries combined have had 175,654 deaths. The U.S. population is just over 331 million. The population of the 12 European countries comes to over 392 million-- more people, fewer deaths. Why? Trump. On Friday ABC News reported that Trump is choreographing scenes that willed to illness and death. "Amid a raging pandemic," wroteWill Steakin and Ben Gittleson, President Donald Trump has repeatedly choreographed a scene experts warn could lead to illness or even death: Thousands of supporters jammed together, mostly without masks, cheering for a candidate who mocks precautions against the novel coronavirus and has vowed to ignore his own health advisers. Fighting for reelection amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Trump enters the final stretch of the election increasingly ridiculing and ignoring coronavirus-related restrictions while holding packed campaign rallies across the country. Health experts, meanwhile, warn a bad flu season colliding with the coronavirus could be a devastating double threat to the country.

“We need to hunker down and get through this fall and winter, because it’s not going to be easy,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's foremost infectious disease expert, said Thursday.

Asked during an interview with CBS News on Wednesday if it was frustrating to see Trump hold massive rallies with little-to-no mask-wearing, Fauci said, "Yes, it is."

With flu season approaching, the president’s response to the virus has again reverted to mocking health precautions and holding packed rallies with thousands of mostly maskless supporters that float local state guidelines.

The president has worked to shift focus to the economy and violent protests in the streets, looking to portray the pandemic as a thing of the past despite cases still rising in nearly two dozen states and health officials warning the fall season could be crucial to combating the COVID-19.

After briefly pausing rallies following the debacle in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June, Trump has ramped up his campaign schedule to now holding multiple packed, outdoor rallies a week in airport hangars that often skirt local coronavirus restrictions.

At a rally last week in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, the president in one breath urged supporters to wear masks over the Labor Day weekend while in the next repeatedly attacking his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, for wearing them, despite his own administration’s recommendations and the president himself in July tweeting a photo of himself in a mask calling it “patriotic.”

“Did you ever see a man that likes a mask as much as him?” Trump asked his supporters. "It gives him a feeling of security. If I was a psychiatrist, I'd say this guy has some big issues."

...Trump’s approach to the virus clashes with warnings about the seriousness of preventing spread entering the fall season.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has for months warned about the coronavirus and the seasonal flu striking at the same time this fall and winter.

"I'm asking you to do four simple things: wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands, and be smart about crowds," Redfield said in an interview with WebMD last month. "If you do those four things it will bring this outbreak down. But, if we don't do that… this could be the worst fall from a public health perspective we've ever had."

On Thursday, the president told reporters that even if "the experts" recommended a "lockdown," he would not listen, although enacting social distancing restrictions is largely a call for state and local officials.

"Whether expert or not, we're not doing any more shutdowns," Trump said.

Hospitals across the country are bracing for the looming double threat of a bad flu season combined with the coronavirus that could put significant strain on the health system.

“Flu season can hit really hard,” Leslie Gomez, a nurse in the Emergency Department at Sharp Chula Vista told ABC News. “And COVID-19 has been devastating so I’m worried that these two forces will combine and cause a really difficult fall and winter.”

As the president has taken a growing dismissive tone toward the virus, some of his supporters continue to follow his lead-- questioning the seriousness of COVID-19 and rejecting masks.

Trump Has Been Trying To Manipulate Pandemic Statistics to Help His Election Campaign

First he tried, with some success, to get control of the reporting apparatus. Then he forced FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn to lie about a treatment's efficacy-- Hahn has since apologized to the American people. And his newest stunt is to change the testing guidelines to make himself look better by making it look like there are fewer cases. Unfortunately, that will be deadly.

Washington Postreporters Amy Goldstein and Lena Sun wrote yesterday that "An abrupt shift this week in government testing guidelines for Americans exposed to the novel coronavirus was directed by the White House coronavirus task force, surprising and dismaying many public health experts. The new guidance, introduced this week without any announcement in a posting on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eliminated advice that everyone exposed to the virus through close contact with an infected individual get tested to find out whether they are positive, regardless of whether they have symptoms. Several leading infectious-disease experts say they feared the change will increase public confusion and further spread of the disease. The CDC estimates that 40 percent of those infected with the coronavirus have no symptoms but may spread it to other people."

In its new form, the testing guidance says that, for people who have been within six feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes, “you do not necessarily need a test.” The previous federal guidelines had urged tests for people who had been exposed, whether they had developed symptoms of not.

The new iteration says exposed people without symptoms still might warrant a test if they are especially vulnerable to the virus or if one is recommended by their source of medical care or by state or local public health officials.

...Former CDC Director Tom Frieden said that reducing testing among individuals exposed to an infected person could be detrimental.

“Not testing asymptomatic contacts may allow the spread of disease,” he said. There’s a big difference between not testing asymptomatic college students and not testing contacts” of an exposed person.

...Frieden said that, because testing materials and labs’ capacity have been stretched thin, it makes sense to set priorities for who needed to get tested the most. “But that’s not what they’re saying,” he said. “They’re saying don’t test asymptomatic people.” He noted that people who are asymptomatic are able to spread the virus to others before they develop symptoms. “[W]e don’t know what proportion of all spread comes from people who are asymptomatic,” Frieden said. “We know it’s not negligible.”

The new version of the guidance also says that someone who has been in a place with high covid-19 transmission and has attended a public or private gathering of more than 10 people without widespread mask-wearing or physical distancing does “not necessarily need a test” unless that person is a vulnerable individual, or the person’s health-care provider or state or local public health departments recommend a test.

CNN reported yesterday that the change in guidelines came "as a result of pressure from the upper ranks" of the increasingly fascist regime and the decision was made when Fauci was not around. "It's coming from the top down."

Fauci said he is "concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is."

[T]he new directive also lines up with a trend in policy and rhetoric from the White House. President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested the US should do less testing.

Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease specialist and associate dean of Emory University School of Medicine, said on CNN Newsroom on Wednesday that the CDC has not provided evidence to explain the changes.

"I mean, the evidence that I'm aware of as of today is that close to 40% of the cases of the infections are asymptomatic and asymptomatic people transmit the infection," Del Rio said.

"So, not testing-- I mean, if you have been in contact with somebody for a few minutes, that's okay. But if you have been in contact for 50 minutes and that people doesn't have a mask, I think you need to be tested regardless if you have symptoms or not. We know especially young people going into the house and then transmit inside the household. So, the guidelines baffle me and I really don't understand them."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo accused the Trump administration of using the CDC as a political tool for the campaign.

"The only plausible rationale is they want fewer people taking tests because, as the president has said, if we don't take tests you won't know that people are covid positive and the number of covid positive people will come down," Cuomo told reporters Wednesday. "It fosters his failed policy of denial," he said of the President.

Although most of the states that are currently having the most cases also have Trump-puppet governors only one of them, Tennessee, is in the top 15 states administering tests. The 15 states with the most new cases Tuesday and Wednesday along with the number of tests per million residents (anything less than a quarter million is failure):

• Texas +12,856 (178,258 tests per million residents)
• California +11,277 (274,162 tests per million residents)
• Florida +5,893 (209,503 tests per million residents)
• Georgia +4,337 (237,406 tests per million residents)
• Illinois +3,837 (302,357 tests per million residents)
• Tennessee +2,749 (307,333 tests per million residents)
• North Carolina +2,631 (202,230 tests per million residents)
• Missouri +2,336 (162,817 tests per million residents)
• Ohio +1,898 (174,663 tests per million residents)
• Virginia +1,828 (190,194 tests per million residents)
• Michigan +1,794 (290,513 tests per million residents)
• Indiana +1,767 (199,433 tests per million residents)
• Mississippi +1,705 (198,965 tests per million residents)
• South Carolina +1,542 (188,889 tests per million residents)
• Arizona +1,045 (196,073 tests per million residents)

UPDATE: Oops! NEVERMIND!

Today, CDC Director Robert Redfield walked back the new Trumpanzee campaign testing guidelines. "Testing," he said, "is meant to drive actions and achieve specific public health objectives. Everyone who needs a COVID-19 test, can get a test. Everyone who wants a test does not necessarily need a test; the key is to engage the needed public health community in the decision with the appropriate follow-up action." A post in Popular Science this morning blasts the Trumpist regime's monkeying around with COVID statistics to help Trump's reelection campaign, claiming that all Redfield has done is further confuse a situation that the Trump Regime has made needlessly confusing to the American people.

If You Saw A Rabid Dog You Might Shoot It, But You Can't Shoot Someone Who Refuses To Wear A Mask

I doubt Senor Trumpanzee and his Death Cult are going to be happy about this, but in a JAMA interview yesterday, CDC Director, Dr. Robert Redfield said and wrote that universal masking would stop the pandemic. "I really do believe that if the American public all embraced masking now... rigorously... over the next 4-8 weeks we could bring this epidemic under control.

Covering mouths and noses with filtering materials serves 2 purposes: personal protection against inhalation of harmful pathogens and particulates, and source control to prevent exposing others to infectious microbes that may be expelled during respiration. When asked to wear face coverings, many people think in terms of personal protection. But face coverings are also widely and routinely used as source control. For instance, if given the choice between having surgery performed by a team not wearing some covering over their mouths and noses vs a team that does, almost all patients would reject the former. This option seems absurd because it is known that use of face coverings under these circumstances reduces the risk of surgical site infection caused by microbes generated during the surgical team’s conversations or breathing. Face coverings do the same in blocking transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

Early in the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that anyone symptomatic for suspected coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) should wear a face covering during transport to medical care and prior to isolation to reduce the spread of respiratory droplets. After emerging data documented transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from persons without symptoms, the recommendation was expanded to the general community, with an emphasis on cloth face coverings that could be made more widely available in the community than surgical masks and to preserve personal protective equipment such as N95 respirators to the highest-risk exposures in health care settings. Now, there is ample evidence that persons without symptoms spread infection and may be the critical driver needed to maintain epidemic momentum.

While community use of face coverings has increased substantially, particularly in jurisdictions with mandatory orders, resistance continues. Some have raised concerns that homemade face coverings made from household fabrics may be inferior compared with commercially manufactured products. Cloth face coverings can substantially limit forward dispersion of exhaled respirations that contain potentially infectious respiratory particles in the 1- to 10-μm range that includes aerosol-sized particles, and recent research of household textiles’ performance when used as source control suggests cloth face coverings may be able to do so with acceptable efficiency and breathability. Others may think it is premature to promote community masking until research has been completed that measures the effectiveness of cloth face coverings to prevent exposure specifically to SARS-CoV-2. Laboratory studies will be difficult and costly because they require capacity to safely manage this biosafety level 3 pathogen. Any type of community-based randomized trial will be complex to deploy in the right setting (a community with active infection) at the right time (when infections are increasing) to produce actionable results quickly. In the absence of such data, it has been persuasively argued the precautionary principle be applied to promote community masking because there is little to lose and potentially much to be gained. In this regard, the report by Wang et al provides practical, timely, and compelling evidence that community-wide face covering is another means to help control the national COVID-19 crisis.

Other than to walk in the lonely Griffith Park hills in my neighborhood, I haven't been out of the house without an N-99 mask since February. [And when I walk in the hills I wear a surgical mask.] In February, when I first started going to stores to stock up, with my mask-- and other paraphernalia-- on, people looked at me strangely, some giving me aggressive looks, others just running away from me (which was even more than I could have hoped for). But I told Roland that it wouldn't be more than a month or so that everything would change and the aggressive looks would be directed at people not wearing masks. I've since seen two men beaten up for not wearing masks on lines in front of two different grocery stores. I don't like violence or vigilantism but I'd be lying if I were to tell you these two assholes didn't deserve what they got.

All the videos you can see of Trumpist imbeciles idiots-- some elected officials-- screaming about not wearing masks makes my blood boil. They're prolonging the pandemic and endangering the rest of us. I suppose that eventually they will be shot down like rabid dogs as a last ditch effort to save the country. I won't be shooting anyone; nor will I cry.

America isn't the only country with violent right-wing anti-social idiots refusing to wear masks. Last week, in Bayonne, France, near the Spanish border, two men in their 20s murdered a bus driver who asked passengers to wear masks on the bus, which is the law. Both assailants were arrested as were others on the bus who didn't help the driver. In the U.K. masks will become mandatory in all indoor businesses as of July 24, which will bring England into line with Scotland and other European nations like Spain, Italy and Germany. Those who fail to comply with the new rules will face a fine of up to £100, which is not an effective deterrent  Foolishly the new rule does not apply to retail staff. A far right-wing member of Parliament from southern England, notorious racist, Sir Desmond Angus Swayne, described the rule as a "monstrous imposition" that would make him less likely to go shopping. That probably makes retailers happy since the only thing Swayne is known for-- other than his racism-- is that he's a thief and has been caught repeatedly stealing money on his expenses.

Yesterday, L.A. Times reporters Rong-Gong Il and Maura Dolan wrote that Masks offer much more protection against coronavirus than many think. They noted that many people have been led to believe that masks don't protect the wearer; they protect other people from the wearer's germs. And many selfish people don't care about protecting others, only themselves. Well, as anyone with two brain cells to rub together figured out, by April, the government-- hoping to protect the mask supply-- was lying and that masks do protect the weare. "If you're unlucky enough to encounter an infectious person," they wrote, "wearing any kind of face covering will reduce the amount of virus that your body will take in. As it turns out, that's pretty important. Breathing in a small amount of virus may lead to no disease or far more mild infection. But inhaling a huge volume of virus particles can result in serious disease or death."

That's the argument Dr. Monica Gandhi, UC San Francisco professor of medicine and medical director of the HIV Clinic at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, is making about why-- if you do become infected with the virus-- masking can still protect you from more severe disease.

"There is this theory that facial masking reduces the [amount of virus you get exposed to] and disease severity," said Gandhi, who is also director for the Center for AIDS Research at UC San Francisco.

The idea of requiring mask-wearing in public has become an increasingly pressing and politicized issue as California and the rest of the nation see a surge in new cases as the economy reopens.

...[E]xperts say masks are essential for people to wear when they go out in public, such as to shop or go to medical appointments, and to get exercise like heading to the beach or park.

California has mandated face coverings in public settings since June 18, and a growing number of communities say they will ticket people who disobey the rules. But there remains resistance to the government mandating wearing masks in some corners of the state, including Orange County.

Some leaders in Orange County have pushed back against requiring students to wear masks should they return to classrooms in the fall.

In policy recommendations approved by the Orange County Board of Education on Monday, a document stated that "requiring children to wear masks during school is not only difficult-- if not impossible to implement-- but [is] not based on science. It may even be harmful." Individual districts will have the final say on how schools open.

Some health experts were appalled by that language.

"This anti-mask rhetoric is mind-blowing, dangerous, deadly and polarizing," said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine and an infectious diseases specialist at UC San Francisco. "There is no evidence that it is dangerous."

In fact, wearing masks can help prevent children from being infected and suffering serious consequences of infection, such as multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a rare condition that has been seen in children who have been infected with the coronavirus. "Kids not only transmit, but they can get sick as well," Chin-Hong said.

While children are less likely to develop severe illness from the coronavirus than adults, they can still be infected, be contagious and transmit the virus to other people, Gandhi said.

Wearing a mask at school would not only reduce their ability to transmit the virus to other classmates, teachers and administrators, but also protect the students from getting infected with a large dose of virus from infected people.

Transmission rates for coronavirus have been rising across the state. Nearly 1,000 of San Francisco's nearly 4,600 cases have been diagnosed in just the last two weeks, said Dr. Grant Colfax, the city's director of public health.

In San Francisco, nearly half of all those who have tested positive in the city are Latinos, he said, even though Latino residents make up just 15% of the city's population. Overall, the city has seen 7.8 new infections per 100,000 residents over the last seven days, far above its goal of no more than 1.8 new infections per 100,000 people.

"This, again, indicates that the virus is spreading throughout the city, particularly ... in the southeast part of the city,” Colfax said.

For every one person who contracts the virus, another 1.25 people on average are now infected, he said. “We really need to drive that down to 1 or below as quickly and as soon as possible.”

The transmission rate also rose above 1 in L.A. County in June, but has fallen back to 1. “The virus currently rages on in our community," Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.

The reason why masks are so important in controlling the spread of the coronavirus is that it can be widely spread by people who are not visibly sick-- either because they haven't yet shown signs of illness, or they will spend the entire course of their infections with little or no symptoms at all.

...Masks don't filter out all viral particles, Gandhi said. But even cloth face masks filter out a majority of viral particles.

And even if a person wearing a mask gets infected, the mask-- by filtering out most of the viral particles exhaled by the infected person-- probably leads to less severe disease, Gandhi said.

The idea that a lower dose of virus when being infected brings less illness is a well-worn idea in medicine.

...So what happens if a city dramatically masks up while in public?

If Gandhi is right, it may mean that even if there's a rise in coronavirus infections in a city, the masks may limit the dose people are getting of the virus and result in them more likely to show less severe symptoms of illness.

That's what Gandhi said she suspects is happening in San Francisco, where mask wearing is relatively robust. Further observations are needed, Gandhi said.

There's more evidence that masks can be protective-- even when wearers do become infected. She cited an outbreak at a seafood plant in Oregon where employees were given masks, and 95% of those who were infected were asymptomatic.

...The protective effects are also seen in countries where masks are universally accepted for years, such as Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Singapore. "They have all seen cases as they opened ... but not deaths," Gandhi said.

The Czech Republic moved early to require masks, issuing an order in mid-March, Gandhi said; that's about three months before Gov. Gavin Newsom did so statewide in California. But in the Czech Republic, "every time their cases would go up ...their death rate was totally flat. So they didn't get the severe illness with these cases going on."

By May, the Czech Republic lifted its face mask rule. "And they're doing great," Gandhi said.

Israel is in the midst of a disastrous second wave they brought on themselves. On Sunday, Israel reported 1,206 new cases, 23rd highest in the world and Monday it was another 1,962 (17th highest in the world) bringing the national total to 40,632-- 4,418 cases per million Israelis, even worse than hard-hit European countries like the U.K. and Italy. Writing from Jerusalem yesterday, Noga Tarnopolsky noted that "Of 1,400 Israelis diagnosed with COVID-19 last month, 657 (47 percent) were infected in schools. Now 2,026 students, teachers, and staff have it, and 28,147 are quarantined.



NPR: Daniel, in Israel, it's been a little bit more of a complicated picture. School shut down because of the virus, and then it reopened. They did go back in May, and now it's out again. What happened?

Daniel Estrin: Well, what happened in Israel is quite a cautionary tale, I think. At first, the Israeli health professionals here urged the government, yes, let school resume again, but only let kids under the age of 9 go back to school, and keep it in small groups. And they said data around the world show that younger kids have a very low rate of infection and transmission.

But instead of just letting the younger kids go back to school, there were these last-minute negotiations. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools wanted the older kids to go back to religious studies, and so they did. And then 11th- and 12th-graders also went back to school. And so very, very quickly, everyone was back. And then very quickly after that, there was a heat wave, so the government said, well, kids don't need to wear masks anymore during this heat wave. And then we just saw big outbreaks in schools, and a lot of schools shut down for several weeks...

I think the lessons to be learned from Israel are listen to the health experts. The government here did not follow the health experts' guidelines to just open the younger grades and to have kids in small groups. They opened very fast, and there was no coherent policy. So listen to your health experts. Have a coherent policy.

This video is for Trump supporters because I have never met an intelligent Trump supporter. There may be intelligent Trump supporters-- though I doubt it-- but I never met one. So this is for you, who are, after all, Americans too:

Many People Hope Trump Gets COVID-19 And Dies, But Even If He Doesn't His Mishandling Of The Pandemic Will Kill His Reelection Bid

Killer by Nancy Ohanian

The pandemic is getting frighteningly worse in Africa. Although South Africa has been steadily climbing up the daily case reports ladder-- and is now generally in the number 4 slot after the U.S., Brazil and India-- I had never seen Cameroon or Ghana among the top 30 before this week. On Tuesday Cameroon reported 2,324 new cases and Ghana reported 891. Both countries are dangerously spiking, as is Egypt (1,057 new cases on Tuesday). On Wednesday South Africa was again #4 (with 8,810 new cases), Egypt and Ghana were holding steady with, respectively, 1,025 and 854 new cases, while Ethiopia reported 928 news cases and Cameroon... didn't report at all. On Thursday, South Africa reported 13,674 new cases, Egypt +950, Ghana +641 and Cameroon continued to avoid reporting.

Meanwhile in the U.S., it was all just going from bad to worse. There were 55,442 new cases on Tuesday, 61,848 new cases on Wednesday and 61,067 new cases yesterday. These were the on day new case reports among the 10 most dangerously spiking states on Thursday:

• Texas (8,312 cases per million Texans)
• California (7,677 cases per million Californians)
• Florida- 8,935 (10,835 cases per million Floridians)
• Arizona- 4,057 (15,480 cases per million Arizonans)
• Georgia- 2,837 (10,052 cases per million Georgians)
• North Carolina- 2,059 (7,596 cases per million North Carolinians)
• Alabama- 2,212 (10,029 cases per million Alabamans)
• Louisiana- 1,843 (15,487 cases per million Louisianans)
• South Carolina- 1,782 (9,845 cases per million South Carolinians)
• Tennessee- 1,605 (8,433 cases per million Tennesseeans)

Dr. Fauci-- no doubt angering Trump again-- announced that this mostly Trumpist states should shut down again. "What we are seeing," he told the Wall Street Journal is exponential growth. It went from an average of about 20,000 to 40,000 and 50,000. That’s doubling. If you continue doubling, two times 50 is 100… Any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down."

And if that wasn't enough to drive Trump crazy-- already flipping out over two Supreme Court rulings that went against him-- another Republican senator announced he doesn't feel safe going to the Trump convention in Jacksonville, this time Moscow Mitch. Oh, and a new poll of North Carolina voters show Biden beating Trump 50-46% and Democrat Cal Cunningham beating Republican incumbent Thom Tillis 47-39%.

On Wednesday both Trump and Pence ordered the CDC to change the guidelines for opening schools next month. Just hours later the director, Dr. Robert Redfield, went on Good Morning America to publicly refuse: "Our guidelines are our guidelines, but we are going to provide additional reference documents to aid basically communities that are trying to open K-through-12s. It’s not a revision of the guidelines; it’s just to provide additional information to help schools be able to use the guidance we put forward... Right now, we’re continuing to work with the local jurisdictions to how they want to take the portfolio of guidance that we’ve given to make them practical for their schools to reopen."

Louisiana was hit in the very first spike and New Orleans had a terrible time of it. But, thanks to a Democratic governor who stood up to the right-wing Death Cult neanderthals in the state legislature, they started getting it under control. Now Trumpist goons all over this very red state have decided to flaunt the rules and invited the plague back into their state. The plague has graciously accepted their invitation. Louisiana, which has a total of 71,994 cases, the 13th most in the country, is spiking terribly. On Wednesday they reported 1,888 new cases, bringing the number of cases per million residents to 15,090 (the 5th worst in the U.S.). On Thursday there were 1,843 new cases, which brought the cases per million up to 15,487. By the end of the week Louisiana will replace Massachusetts, another early hard hit state-- but one that is generally being careful about following medical protocols-- as the 4th hardest hit state. Gov. John Bel Edwards warned that the state has been "going in the wrong direction" for the last 3 weeks, losing all the gains they had made in flattening the curve since the pandemic peaked in April.

However, unlike that previous peak which had an epicenter in the New Orleans metro area, Edwards said Louisiana is facing a “statewide epidemic” in which no one region is driving case growth and hospitalizations.

The Louisiana Department of Health said the top five places for COVID-19 outbreaks in the state are bars, industrial settings, restaurants, food processing, and colleges and universities.

The governor said he joined a phone call Wednesday morning with 20 hospital CEOs and medical directors from around the state. He said “nearly every” one of the call participants reported sustained increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations.

As of Wednesday, Louisiana reported 70,151 total cases and 3,231 deaths since the virus’ outbreak was first discovered in early March. While black people accounted for more than half of those cases, Edwards said Wednesday that newer cases tended to trend whiter and male.

Total patients hospitalized with COVID-19 have rebounded, reaching 1022 Wednesday, the highest level since May 18.

Those hospital health leaders also said they were having issues with staffing, testing, and access to COVID-19 treatments like Remdesivir.

Edwards, along with Louisiana Office of Public Health Assistant Secretary Dr. Alexander Billioux, stressed that individuals who are exposed to the virus should be quarantined for a full 14 days, even if they receive a negative coronavirus test result in that time.

Of the 10 worst-off parishes (above), Trump won all but 3: Calcasieu (64.7%), Jefferson (55.3%), Lafayette (64.6%), Ouachita (61.4%), Rapides (64.8%), St Tammany (73.1%) and Tangipahoa (64.8%).

And then there's the news about Tulsa, where Trump brought the plague with his disgusting (and failed) rally. CNN: "The city of Tulsa is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases, a little over 2 weeks after President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in an indoor arena there. Dr. Bruce Dart, Executive Director of the Tulsa Health Department, said in a press conference on Wednesday there are high numbers being reported this week, with nearly 500 new cases in two days and trends are showing that those numbers will increase. There had been a 20% decline in new Covid-19 cases the week of June 28 through July 4. The Tulsa Health Department reported 266 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number in the county to 4,571. There are 17,894 cases in Oklahoma and 452 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases in the United States. When asked if the cases in Tulsa are going up due to the rally on June 20, Dart said that there were several large events a little over two weeks ago. 'I guess we just connect the dots,' Dart said."

In a statement to CNN, Leanne Stephens of the Tulsa Health Department said, "Our epidemiologists and contact tracers are inundated with following up with Tulsa County residents who are confirmed positive as the numbers have been extremely high in recent days. Yesterday, we set a new single day case high and you can see on our website where the trends are moving."

This coronavirus has a lengthy incubation period -- the time between when someone gets infected to when they start showing symptoms (if they get symptoms at all).The incubation period is about three to 14 days, with symptoms typically appearing "within four or five days after exposure," according to Harvard Medical School.

Neither Oklahoma nor Tulsa has a mask mandate. Asked why, Mayor Byrnum, a Trumpist, said: "I think that the thing that citizens need to understand is that when we put that kind of mandate in place, we will be putting it there because we had no other choice but to do that to protect their ability to get medical care over the long term of this pandemic." On Wednesday, Oklahoma reported 673 new cases and on Thursday 603 new cases, which brought the number of cases per million Oklahomans to 4,674 and the total number of cases in the state to 18,496.

If Americans Don't Pull Together To Fight The Pandemic, Millions Will Die

This-- above-- was an anti-lockdown protest by right-wing haters/idiots in Suffolk County a few days ago, where there have been 42,050 confirmed cases (4th worst county in New York State) and 1,709 deaths. I know these people. I grew up among them. Believe me, there are no Einsteins in this crowd. In 2016, New York went for Hillary 58.8% to 37.5%. Suffolk County was a very different story. Trump won 328,403 (52.5%) to 276,953 (44.3%). Listen to those ugly voices; that's not Alabama; that's eastern Long Island. They don't get it yet; no idea what a pandemic is.

Over the weekend, the U.S. will pass the 90,000 pandemic death mark. Most people don't personally know anyone who has died. Only about 2,000 people a day are dying. As of Friday morning there were just 263 deaths per million people in the U.S. population. Other countries have been hit much worse:

• Belgium- 773 per million
• Spain- 587 per million
• Italy- 519 per million
• U.K.- 495 per million
• France- 420 per million

But the whole world has just experienced a little over 300,000 deaths. Americans don't really see it as that big a deal, at least not yet. And especially not in places like Suffolk County. Their neighbors, parents, spouses and children have to start dying-- and probably in large numbers-- before it penetrates their thick, thick skulls that this pandemic isn't some TV reality show with a happy ending. I wouldn't care if they all die-- in fact-- the gene pool would be better off without them-- but they seem to insist on dragging the rest of us down with them. Otherwise they'd all just be drinking bleach like their idol suggested they do.

Yesterday Wall Street Journal reporter Harriet Torry wrote that the coronavirus lockdowns have triggered record drop in retail sales. Does that surprise you? It shouldn't. Sales, output, taxes are all down, down, down. None of this should surprise anyone who's been awake:

Retail spending fell a record 16.4% in April from March, the Commerce Department reported. And in a separate report, the Federal Reserve said industrial production fell 11.2% in April, its steepest monthly fall on record, as the coronavirus response closed factories, sapped demand, froze supply chains.

The drop in U.S. retail sales, a measure of purchases at stores, gasoline stations, restaurants, bars and online, eclipsed a revised 8.3% drop in March sales, which was the steepest month-over-month decline in records dating to 1992.

Retail sales dropped in every major category in April except at nonstore retailers, a category that includes internet merchants such as Amazon.com Inc. Sales at nonstore retailers grew 8.4% month-over-month. Grocery stores saw a 13.2% decline in sales, while receipts at bars and restaurants were down 29.5% from the prior month.

Sales were weak across a range of categories, but nonessential businesses were particularly hard hit. Sales at furniture stores dropped 58.7% and electronics fell 60.6%. Clothing sales plummeted 78.8% from March. Social distancing, business closures, travel restrictions and other disruptions that started in mid-March have taken a particularly heavy toll on retail stores and restaurants, many of which remain closed or are opening gradually as states begin to reopen their economies.

“April is the ugliest month of data that we’re going to get,” said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors. “This is giving us an indication of how much we have to do just to get back to where we were.”

Consumer spending is the main driver of the U.S. economy, accounting for more than two-thirds of economic output, and retail sales account for about a quarter of all consumer spending. In March, when widespread closures started midway through the month, spending on clothing, electronics, sporting goods, furniture and motor vehicles all fell by double digits.

Workers also are losing jobs in record numbers because of the coronavirus pandemic, another factor hitting consumer spending. And declining consumer sentiment has economists worried about how quickly people will return to spending, as the economy opens back up.

...Some retailers are also unlikely to weather the pandemic and face permanent closures.

That falloff in sales and productivity is going to lead to fiscal catastrophes up and down the economic chain. NY Times reporter Mary Walsh explained it yesterday so that even their Suffolk County readers might have a shot at understanding it. No sales = no tax revenues = cuts in state budgets. "In February," she wrote, "Ohio was running a $200 million budget surplus. Then the coronavirus pandemic struck, wiping out the surplus-- and then some. Tax revenue plummeted and public health expenses skyrocketed. By the end of April, there was a $777 million hole, a nearly $1 billion swing in two months. Gov. Mike DeWine ordered immediate budget cuts to close the gap, and he had little choice. The pandemic, he said, 'does not exempt us from balancing our budget, which we are legally obligated to do.' Ohio is hardly alone. Every state is grappling with a version of the same problem, and all but one-- Vermont-- have balanced-budget laws in place. And for most, the new fiscal year starts on July 1, leaving them just a few weeks to come up with a plan and desperate for help."

Three Dollar Bill by Nancy Ohanian

State and local governments need a bailout-- urgently. Otherwise they will be forced to stop funding healthcare programs and start laying off teachers and police. Republican ideologues are salivating at the prospect. Walsh wrote that some Republicans-- including President Psychopath-- "have suggested that Democrat-controlled states are seeking a bailout for poor and costly decisions that predate the pandemic, particularly their enormous unfunded pension obligations. Miss McConnell has suggested the blue states declare bankruptcy.

Stay-at-home orders and frozen economic activity have slashed state sales- and income-tax revenue, while at the same time, costs are going up. Services that are going largely unused, like airports and public transit, must be maintained; while spending has increased on medical equipment, screening programs, hospitals, nursing homes and countless newly unemployed people who need Medicaid.

States and large cities can tap a new Federal Reserve lending program set up in response to the coronavirus crisis. For the first time, the Fed will buy debt from, or lend to, states and cities. The central bank issued rules and pricing guidelines on Monday, suggesting the program will be open for business this month. Because the program is considered a backstop, it will charge higher interest rates to most borrowers, so not to outbid regular investors.

This isn't going away; it's going to get much worse-- much, much worse. A lack of competent leadership guarantees that. The Lancet is the world's premier-- and oldest-- weekly medical journal. It has been criticized for having taken a political stand several times in recent decades, including yesterday when it criticized the Trump regime for a inconsistent and incoherent national response to the pandemic. In an editorial, The Lancet noted that "The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the flagship agency for the nation's public health, has seen its role minimised and become an ineffective and nominal adviser in the response to contain the spread of the virus... Regarded as the gold standard for global disease detection and control," the CDC has been been reviled by anti-science Republicans eager to defund it.

The Trump administration further chipped away at the CDC's capacity to combat infectious diseases. CDC staff in China were cut back with the last remaining CDC officer recalled home from the China CDC in July, 2019, leaving an intelligence vacuum when COVID-19 began to emerge. In a press conference on Feb 25, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned US citizens to prepare for major disruptions to movement and everyday life. Messonnier subsequently no longer appeared at White House briefings on COVID-19. More recently, the Trump administration has questioned guidelines that the CDC has provided. These actions have undermined the CDC's leadership and its work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

...The Trump administration's further erosion of the CDC will harm global cooperation in science and public health, as it is trying to do by defunding WHO. A strong CDC is needed to respond to public health threats, both domestic and international, and to help prevent the next inevitable pandemic. Americans must put a president in the White House come January, 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics.