"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Trump Has Been Trying To Manipulate Pandemic Statistics to Help His Election Campaign
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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.
Governors Like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott And Brian Kemp Are Killing Their State's Residents For Trump's Politics
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Back To School With Betsy And Donald by Nancy Ohanian
The Wednesday Washington Post headline was likely chilling for many people: U.S. reports highest number of covid-19 deaths in one day since mid-May. Brady Dennis and Jacqueline Dupree reported that "As the United States reported its highest number of deaths from the novel coronavirus in a single day since mid-May, President Trump on Wednesday continued to press for the nation’s schools to bring children into classrooms, for businesses to open and for athletes to fill stadiums. 'We’ve got to open up our schools and open up our businesses,' Trump said at an evening news conference at the White House, adding that he wanted to see a college football season this fall. 'Let them play,' he said. The president also made his latest concerted push to get students back into U.S. schools, saying that '99.9 percent' of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic involve adults. He threatened to divert federal money from schools that don’t open, and warned of the intellectual damage that could result if children remain at home indefinitely." Speaking from painful first hand and very consequential experience, Trump added that "When you sit at home in a basement looking at a computer, your brain starts to wither away... all schools should be making plans to resume in-person classes as soon as possible." Unfortunately, many schools in the Trump states that were stampeded into unsafe, hasty openings are already re-closing down.
Mr Potato Head
On Wednesday, the country reported its highest number of deaths in a single day since mid-May, at nearly 1,500. The country has now seen its seven-day average of newly reported deaths remain above 1,000 for 17 consecutive days.
Georgia reported 105 deaths Wednesday, marking its second triple-digit day in a row. North Carolina reported an additional 45 deaths Wednesday, tying its highest daily number, from July 29. Texas reported 324 additional deaths from the disease. School systems around the country continue to take different approaches as the academic year begins. Some have already insisted they will stick to virtual learning for the time being. Others have adopted a hybrid model in which students attend in person only periodically. And some school systems have opened their doors to full-time instruction, with mixed results so far. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) has said the city’s public schools expect to welcome some 700,000 students who want in-person learning when campuses open in September. That represents the majority of the 1.1 million students in the school district, the largest in the country. New York City is poised to be the only one of the country’s 10 largest school districts to open schools for the start of the 2020-2021 school year. That became possible when the state-- once the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic-- dramatically lowered its infection rate through strict public health measures. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) announced last week that school districts could choose to reopen as long as the percentage of people who test positive for the virus in a region is under 5 percent. Other school systems continue to wrestle with the specter of outbreaks. At Etowah High School in Woodstock, Georgia, dozens of seniors packed together to pose side-by-side for a photo when classes began Aug. 3. Not a single smile was covered with a mask. Just over a week later, the students all have been sent home and the school is shut. In all, more than 900 students and staff in the Cherokee County School District had been ordered to quarantine as of Tuesday morning after 59 students and staff tested positive for the coronavirus, according to school officials. A third of those quarantined are from Etowah High School, which has had 14 confirmed cases. Cherokee County School District Superintendent Brian V. Hightower said in a message to the community this week that the high school will be shut until Aug. 31, and that the number of people who need to quarantine could “increase dramatically” as more positive test results come in. Meanwhile, at another Georgia school district, parents, teachers and students voiced conflicting beliefs on school safety and leadership in an emotional meeting late Tuesday. The Paulding County School District was shoved onto the national stage in the past week when at least two North Paulding High School students shared pictures and video that went viral of a crowded hallway of mostly maskless students. The students were suspended for posting the images, a decision that was later reversed for at least one of them. The school shuttered its doors this week for a third day for cleaning after six students and at least three staff members tested positive for the virus. During a school board meeting this week, some parents underscored the need for in-person learning as they try to maintain full-time jobs, and others asked the district to provide a data-driven agenda for in-person learning as well as mask mandates. The increasing loss of life and the wave of joblessness the pandemic has created have not stopped a rebound on Wall Street. ...The S&P’s climb upward, like other rallies in recent months, offers a stark contrast in economic signals. Joblessness remains at historically high levels, with more than 30 million Americans receiving some kind of unemployment assistance. The U.S. economy shrank by a stunning 9.5 percent from April through June, in what was the fastest quarterly rate drop in modern record-keeping. And corporations have suffered staggering losses as many American consumers are confined to their homes, have abandoned travel and have curtailed retail spending. In the latest reminder that the virus is altering the U.S. retail landscape, discount chain Stein Mart filed for bankruptcy Wednesday and announced plans to close most, if not all, its stores while it searches for a buyer for its e-commerce business. The Jacksonville, Florida.-based company said it had run out of cash to keep operating during the pandemic, despite a $10 million small-business loan from the government’s Paycheck Protection Program. In its bankruptcy filing, it said it owed between $500 million and $1 billion to as many as 10,000 lenders. “The combined effects of a challenging retail environment coupled with the impact of the pandemic have caused significant financial distress on our business,” Hunt Hawkins, the retailer’s chief executive, said in a statement. More than a dozen major retailers, including J.C. Penney, J. Crew and Neiman Marcus, have filed for Chapter 11 protection since the coronavirus crisis took hold. Lord & Taylor and the parent company of Men’s Wearhouse, Tailored Brands, filed last week. Other nations are also coping with economies rocked by the virus. The British economy has officially plunged into a record-shattering recession, according to data released Wednesday, shrinking by a fifth in the second quarter and posting the steepest decline of any Group of Seven nation. Alongside huge job losses announced a day earlier, Britain now finds itself with the worst economy and highest death toll in Europe from the coronavirus. Its death toll is behind only the United States, Brazil and Mexico. The official data released Wednesday by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that gross domestic product fell 20.4 percent in the second quarter compared with the first quarter. The downturn reflected losses across all sectors. “The recession brought on by the coronavirus pandemic has led to the biggest fall in quarterly GDP on record,” said Jonathan Athow, ONS deputy national statistician. A recession is when two consecutive quarters show contraction in gross domestic product. Britain’s first quarter in January, February and March was down 2.2 percent. This is Britain’s first recession in 11 years, since the global downturn in 2009. Meanwhile, the number of new daily coronavirus cases is rising in several major European countries, including Germany, France and Spain. Germany on Wednesday announced 1,226 new cases, the highest figure since early May. Speaking to the country’s public broadcaster, German Health Minister Jens Spahn cautioned that the rise in cases was attributable to clusters “in almost all regions of the country.”
Counting Sheep by Nancy Ohanian
Many of the deaths in the U.S. are in states run by Trumpist governors obsessed with opening up schools and businesses quickly and ignoring warning from scientists that they will kill people and the economy. These are the half dozen Trumpist governors who murdered the most people on Wednesday and ---> Thursday:
Meanwhile, CDC Director Robert Redfield old WebMD that if the public-- even in the most politically backward and primitive counties in idiot places like Georgia and Tennessee don't follow recommended coronavirus mitigation measures, the whole country will have the worst fall for public health in U.S. history. We should have let them goo when they seceded. "For your country right now and for the war that we’re in against Covid, I’m asking you to do four simple things: wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands and be smart about crowds... I’m not asking some of America to do it. We all gotta do it." Yesterday, during a panel for National Geographic Fauci stated flatly that "You can't run away from the numbers. You can't run away from the numbers of people who've died, the number of people getting hospitalized, the surges we're seeing... How long we're going to have to be doing this depends totally on us. If we keep running away from the reality of the need to do it, it could linger on and linger on." If you think it's odd that deaths are soaring but that the number of reported cases is flat. That;'s not a coincidence. Trump and his enablers are making sure there are far fewer tests being administered so that it looks like cases are going down. Tests are way, way down in states where Trump has complete control and where the GOP governors don't care about being labeled genocidal maniacs, especially Texas (-45%), Arizona (-36%), Florida (-27%) and South Carolina (-17%). Testing should be increasing gigantically now in any state interested in stemming the pandemic. Axios reported that The U.S. is cutting back on coronavirus testing. Nationally, the number of tests performed each day is about 17% lower than it was at the end of July, and testing is also declining in hard-hit states... Even as states with particularly bad outbreaks pull back on their testing, the proportion of tests coming back positive is still high-- which would normally be an indication that they need to be doing more tests. In Texas, 19% of tests are coming back positive, according to Nephron Research. In Florida, the rate of positive tests is 18%, and in Nevada, 17%." Not all the bad news is in the U.S., of course. AP reported that "Researchers at Imperial College estimate 6% of England’s population-- or 3.4 million people-- have been infected by COVID-19." The U.K. has the most deaths of any European country-- 41,347-- and their caseload has been rising again. On Tuesday there were 1,148 new cases and another 1,009 on Wednesday, bringing their total cases to 313,798, second only to Spain in western Europe-- and even worse than Georgia's 228,668 cases-- although Georgia has 21,537 cases per resident and the U.K. "just" 4,620 cases per resident.
Badly Handled School Reopenings Are Absolutely Deadly-- Wave II Starting Overseas?
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Leana Wen, who formerly served as Baltimore’s health commissioner and is now teaching emergency medicine at George Washington University, wrote an OpEd for the Washington Post Tuesday, Stop justifying school reopening based on false statements. Wen is furious that "people"-- meaning Trump and his sycophantic supporters like governors Brian Kemp (GA), Ron DeSantis (FL), Kevin Stitt (OK), Greg Abbott (TX), Doug Ducey (AZ), Mike Parson (MO), Bill Lee (TN), Chris Sununu (NH), Kristi Noem (SD), Kay Ivey (AL), Pete Ricketts (NE), Henry McMaster (SC) and Kim Reynolds (IA)-- keep saying that children don’t get sick from the coronavirus and don’t spread it. "These statements," she wrote, "are being used to justify school reopening, and they’re just not true.
First, children do get infected. In fact, a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association found that 338,000 kids have been diagnosed with covid-19 in the United States. More than 97,000 cases were diagnosed in the last two weeks of July. The majority of these infections were in states undergoing surges, suggesting that high levels of community transmission directly translates to infections among children. It is true that children tend to get less severely ill than adults, particularly when compared with older adults with underlying medical conditions. But some children do become very sick and require hospitalization. Among children admitted to the hospital, 1 in 3 end up being admitted to the intensive care unit-- a similar ratio as adults. Racial disparities seen in adult patients are also mirrored in children: The rates of hospitalization among Hispanic and Black children are nearly eight and five times higher, respectively, than the rate in White children. Even though the virus that causes covid-19 is transmitted through the respiratory system, that’s not all it affects. The virus can cause damage to multiple organs in children, just as it does to adults. There is even a rare but serious associated disease specific to children that we are just beginning to understand, the multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). In a New England Journal of Medicine study, 92 percent of children with this syndrome experience effects on their gastrointestinal system and 80 percent on their cardiovascular system. Some develop coronary artery aneurysms. There are case reports of children suffering from a toxic shock-like multi-organ failure, which has led to death.
Counting Sheep by Nancy Ohanian
It’s also true that children spread covid-19. The largest study involving children and transmission is one from South Korea that traced nearly 60,000 people. It found that children 10 and older transmit the virus at least as well as adults. Children under 10 appeared to transmit it about half as much-- though here the study was limited to only 57 younger children. Another study in JAMA Pediatrics found that children carry just as much virus in their nasal passages in adults; in fact, kids under 5 may carry 10 to 100 times more. That children can transmit to one another and to adults around them is also evident in a case report from a Georgia summer camp. After a teenage counselor developed symptoms, the camp was shut down. By then, 260 of 344 campers and staff for whom testing data is available had the infection. Among children ages 6 to 10, more than half were infected. More than half of the staff, too, tested positive. Some who support on-time school reopening point to European countries that have had few outbreaks after resuming in-person instruction. However, these countries undertook many safety measures, including enforcing social distancing and implementing regular testing. They also had far lower rates of covid-19 in the community than we do. A cautionary tale should be Israel, where rapid school reopening with few safeguards contributed to a resurgence across the country. One school had a superspreader event after which 154 students and 26 staff members tested positive. A month after reopening, nearly half of the country’s new infections were thought to have originated in schools.
Short answer: absolutely not-- completely false... another dangerous Trump lie
And countries that botched their school reopenings seem to have kicked off Wave 2. New cases are astronomical in Israel and Spain and rapidly on the rise in France, Germany and the U.K. These are the new cases for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in countries where Wave II seems to have started:
A new poll Morning Consult did for Politico indicates that most Americans understand the danger of rapid reopening on schools a lot better than DeVos, Trump and his band of criminal governors do. Among registered voters, the number opposing in-person elementary and high school openings rose from 53% in early July to 59% today.
Writing for the NY Times yesterday, Richard Fausset asked facetiously if 925 people quarantined for COVID-10 defines a successful school reopening. He starts off by describing Cherokee County as "a bucolic and politically conservative stretch of suburbs north of Atlanta." The county only gave Hillary 22.7% of its vote in 2016. Two years later-- the so-called "blue wave"-- and Cherokee County was all in on Brian Kemp-- 72.1% to 26.4% for Stacey Abrams. The county performance for the local congressional neo-fascist crackpot Barry Loudermilk was R+49. You got the picture? So they opened their schools idiotically and immediately, the kids started getting COVID-- in all 10 elementary schools. Over 900 in the first week (students and staff) and one of the high schools re-closed. Trump counties in rural and suburban Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana have been reopened for two weeks. "Students and teachers," wrote Fausset, "have immediately tested positive, sending others into two-week quarantines and creating whiplash for schools that were eager to open, only to have to consider closing again right away. All of this has only further divided communities where parents and teachers have passionately disagreed over the safety of reopening. 'This is exactly what we expected to happen,' said Allison Webb, 44, who quit her job as a Spanish and French teacher in the district because of her concerns about reopening schools, and who put her daughter, a senior, in the district’s remote-learning program. 'It’s not safe' to return to the classrooms now, Ms. Webb said. But to Jenny Beth Martin, who wanted schools to reopen-- even appealing directly to President Trump in a visit to the White House-- the district’s return has been a rousing success. 'I think that the opening plan is working,' said Ms. Martin, a district parent and co-founder of the national Tea Party Patriots, a conservative political group. 'They’re checking, they’re making sure when people have tested positive that they’re watching the exposure and spread.'"
Cherokee County had its own firestorm. A photo taken outside Etowah High School on the first day back showed scores of students crowded shoulder to shoulder, smiling and unmasked. A similar photo from Sequoyah High School was also posted to social media. Beneath the photo, a commenter wrote, “Most of these kids are gonna be sick in the next few days … was it really worth it to appease the anti-mask parents? At what cost?” The county’s reopening plan was unanimously approved by the school board on July 9. Families could choose online or in-person, five-days-a-week instruction, and masks would be encouraged, but not required, for the district’s 42,500 students. Opposition began to coalesce almost immediately. Ms. Webb, the foreign language teacher, organized a group on Facebook called Educators for Common Sense and Safety. The group started an online petition asking for, among other things, a mask mandate for students and a delayed start to allow time to rework schedules, classrooms and the curriculum “to be safe and engaging for our students.” It attracted more than 1,100 signatures. In mid-July, the group, which Ms. Webb said currently counts hundreds of members, picketed outside a board meeting. A former English teacher, Miranda Wicker, 38, became its spokesperson-- a necessity, she said, because current teachers lacked union protection and feared retaliation if they spoke out. “They’re terrified,” Ms. Wicker said. “They’re being asked, literally, to risk their lives.” ...Late last month, Ms. Martin was an organizer of a Washington news conference featuring people who identified themselves as doctors and who made misleading statements about the coronavirus, including unsupported claims that the drug hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment. Mr. Trump tweeted a video of the event, which was later removed from major social media platforms on the grounds that it was spreading misinformation. In early July, when the school board approved reopening, case tallies in Cherokee County, with about 260,000 people, had only begun to rise after remaining flat and relatively low-- an average of about 10 new confirmed cases a day-- for most of June. Since then, though, the numbers have climbed steadily, mirroring the state as a whole, with the county averaging more than 90 new confirmed cases daily over the past week. Sixty-four people in the county have died of Covid-19, including eight in the past week. ...Ms. Morrison said she and her husband do not wear masks either. “I feel like before we’re even born, God has a plan for when he’s going to take us to heaven,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
There Are Countries Where The Pandemic Is Worse Than In Trumpland
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Trump & Bolsonaro-- only one has COVID so far
Nearly 20 million people have been confirmed infected by COVID-19 so far. Around 720,000 have died. I watch the stats every day, which helps me see trends. Lately I've been obsessing over countries like Spain, France and Israel-- that already had their first wave, tamed it and have been reopening-- that are experiencing large numbers of new cases. These are reports for Tuesday to ---> Wednesday to ---> Thursday to ---> today:
All three botched their reopening badly-- just like Georgia, Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina, Illinois, Nevada, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Louisiana have. But there are other countries going through this nightmare that don't make it into the news-- countries beyond the big 4: US, Brazil, India and Russia. Yesterday, The Atlantic featured a look by Yasmeen Serhan, Where the Pandemic Is Only Getting Worse. The U.S. is doing terribly, something we discussed at great length last night, but Serhan wrote that much of the developing world-- a euphemism for the poorest countries on earth that are perpetually "developing"-- is doing much worse, perhaps even worse than Mississippi, Florida and Alabama! She pointed out the mega-pandemics in Brazil, India, South Africa, Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia. These countries have inadequate testing capacity, strained health-care systems, limited social safety nets and no resources-- and in some cases, no will-- to battle the catastrophic spread of the disease within their borders.
Perhaps the most worrisome picture is currently in Latin America, which despite being home to less than 10 percent of the global population, claims more than a quarter of known worldwide cases and nearly half of all recently recorded coronavirus deaths. The region’s failure to contain the spread hasn’t been for a lack of trying: While some Latin American leaders, including Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador, opted to downplay the severity of the coronavirus, Peru’s and Argentina’s presidents were lauded for their early efforts to contain it. But the lockdowns and social-distancing measures that worked to curb cases across East Asia and Western Europe haven’t succeeded in the region. In Latin America, “social-distancing measures were effective to reduce the transmission, but they were not effective to bend the curve,” Jarbas Barbosa, the assistant director of the Pan American Health Organization, a regional office of the World Health Organization in Washington, D.C., told me. To put it more visually: Rather than seeing its rate of infection fall, as have other regions whose countries imposed lockdowns, Barbosa said Latin America saw its line “plateau.” Of course, no country’s context is exactly the same-- each nation’s response was affected by a number of underlying factors, including the strength of its health-care system, the age and relative health of its population, and the resilience of its economy. Just as individuals with preexisting conditions are more vulnerable to the virus, so too, it would seem, are countries with underlying instabilities. Experts I spoke with highlighted two main reasons tried-and-true coronavirus responses that worked in richer nations have failed poorer ones. The first has to do with the fact that lockdowns are more difficult to enforce in developing countries-- particularly those with largely informal economies. Nearly 90 percent of India’s workforce is employed informally (in roles as disparate as street vendors, domestic workers, and construction laborers). Informal workers also make up as much as 86 percent of the employed population in sub-Saharan Africa and half of the employed population in Latin America (though the percentage varies from country to country). These jobs are low-paid, and many lack benefits such as sick leave or redundancy pay. Telecommuting isn’t an option: A day’s wage is almost always contingent on leaving one’s house. Enforced lockdowns of the kind declared in India and Peru left most workers jobless and, in the former country, stranded. Though larger economies such as Britain and the U.S. were able to cushion the financial blow of their shutdowns with hefty stimulus packages, low-and-middle-income countries have been able to offer only relatively modest support. As a result, informal laborers are often faced with the impossible choice of abiding by lockdown rules or feeding their families. “When you ask them to stay home, in many cases you’re asking them to starve,” Benjamin Gedan, the deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program and a former South America director on the White House National Security Council, told me. The second factor has to do with the fact that many of the worst-affected countries in the developing world are also some of the most densely populated. In cities such as São Paulo and Delhi, where swaths of the population reside in multigenerational households within crowded and often unsanitary informal neighborhoods, social distancing is virtually impossible. For some, access to clean water and other basics isn’t a given. Even with the rollout of mass testing and contact tracing seen in some countries, Gedan noted, “if you cannot physically distance, then you cannot contain the spread of this virus.” If there has been one silver lining, Barbosa said, it’s that the late arrival of the coronavirus to regions such as Latin America meant that many countries had time to shore up their health sectors. With some exceptions, he said, “we didn’t have in Latin America the situation that we saw in the north of Italy or in New York, where the services were totally overrun.” But a head start hasn’t made up for the fact that many health-care systems in the region lack sufficient resources, including life-saving medical equipment-- a global issue that is perhaps most acute in Africa, where some countries have only a handful of ICU beds and ventilators. Some have none at all. These issues weren’t a surprise to Matthew Richmond, a Brazil-based research fellow at the London School of Economics’ Latin America and Caribbean Centre. In mid-April, when Brazil had about 20,000 cases and just over 1,300 deaths, he warned that social and economic inequalities there would only exacerbate the situation. Speaking months later from his home in the southeast of the country, he told me his predictions have largely held up: Efforts to lock down have lapsed, and Brazil regularly records more than 1,000 deaths each day. Meanwhile, the government is pushing to reopen the country even as some of its most senior leaders, including Bolsonaro, have contracted the virus. In countries and cities around the world, the pandemic has had an outsize impact on people of minority backgrounds and those from poorer communities elsewhere, and Richmond has observed the same dynamic play out in São Paulo. “Even though the cases were quite high in the wealthier areas, the deaths were much lower than in the poor areas,” he said. “And that’s not even taking into account the very high level of undercounting of cases and deaths.” “There is certainly no sign that the situation is improving,” Richmond told me. “We get so used to seeing these terrible numbers and stories that [we’ve] become a bit desensitized to it.”
Third World countries with the most new cases from Tuesday to ---> Wednesday to ---> Thursday to ---> today:
Many Republicans Besides Just Louie Gohmert Are Public Health Threats
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I'm sure you know by now that Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert tested positive for COVID-19... in between chatting, maskless, with William Barr (also maskless) and boarding AirForce One for a flight to Texas with Trumpanzee, the reason he was tested. He was then rejected as a passenger. Louie, a general all-around neo-fascist three-ring circus, was one of the leaders of the House Anti-Masque Caucus. He's so anti-mask, in fact, that he now claims he got COVID by wearing a mask, which he rarely does. He was the last straw for Pelosi, who finally instituted a mask mandate on the chamber floor last night. Jake Sherman, who broken the story about the now COVID-infected Gohmert received an e-mail from a nameless Gohmert staffer: "Jake, thank you for letting our office know Louie tested positive for the Coronavirus. When you write your story, can you include the fact that Louie requires full staff to be in the office, including three interns, so that ‘we could be an example to America on how to open up safely.’ When probing the office, you might want to ask how often were people berated for wearing masks." Sherman wrote that most people in DC are taking masking up seriously, "but not everyone. And all it takes is one irresponsible person-- an armchair scientist who decides masks aren’t for them, or their entire office should work in person in the middle of a pandemic-- for many of us to get sick with a virus that could kill us. Members of Congress arrive here from all over America nearly every week. They can’t conduct their business from afar-- fair enough... The Capitol has superspreader written all over it. People are coming off planes, out of cars, and many of them can’t be relied upon to follow basic masking rules that are mandatory across the country. Gohmert went back to his office after he tested positive to talk to his staff!" As Mike Tillis reported for The Hill, that Steny Hoyer "hammered Gohmert and Rep. Gym Jordan (R-OH), another conservative Freedom Caucus member who refuses to wear a mask, saying they jeopardized the health of everyone around them. '[Gohmert] came into the room without a mask on. Jordan did the same. Totally irresponsible behavior, not for themselves-- clearly irresponsible for themselves-- but irresponsible to everybody else who was in that room. Everybody else they've come in contact with, Hoyer said." His point is that these anti-mask Republicans are a public health threat.
For members of a Republican Party that often touts the importance of personal responsibility, those lawmakers have exhibited "no personal responsibility or consideration for others," Hoyer charged. "Very frankly, too many Republicans have continued to act extraordinarily irresponsibly," Hoyer told reporters on a press call.
Reporting for the Washington Post Griff Witte, Ariana Eunjung Cha and Josh Dawsey wrote had Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) was one of the first governors to take medical advise and grok what the pandemic was all about. He moved a lot faster and a lot smarter than Cuomo or Newsom in shutting down his state. But when he tried mandating masks, the far right freaks flipped out. "The backlash," they wrote, "came instantly. An avalanche of abuse on social media. Calls from anguished citizens. Angry recriminations and threats. The next day, a chastened DeWine backed down. Asking people to wear a mask 'is offensive to some of our fellow Ohioans,' the Republican declared somberly. 'And I understand that.' It would be three months-- plus tens of thousands of cases and thousands of deaths-- before the governor would try again.
The catastrophe that DeWine averted in March with his early efforts have been erased by the lunatic fringe. The state is a COVID-hotspot now. Tuesday, the state reported 1,325 new cases, 11th worst in the country, and yesterday Ohio reported another 1,362 cases, bringing the state total to 87,893, which translates to a steadily increasing 7,519 cases per million Buckeyes. Many Republicans in this state run by Republicans refuse to wear masks.
The mask is the simplest and among the most effective weapons against the coronavirus in the public health arsenal. Yet from the start, America’s relationship with face coverings has been deeply fraught. Faulty guidance from health authorities, a cultural aversion to masks and a deeply polarized politics have all contributed. So has a president who resisted role modeling the benefits of face coverings, and who belittled those who did. The result, experts say, is a country that squandered one of its best opportunities to beat back the coronavirus pandemic this spring and summer. In the process, the United States fell far behind other nations that skipped the fuss over masks, costing lives and jeopardizing the recovery heading into the fall. “Some countries took out their masks as soon as this happened,” said Monica Gandhi, an infectious-disease specialist from the University of California at San Francisco, “and their rates of death are very low.” In a coronavirus response that has been full of missteps and unforced errors, delayed acceptance of universal masking, Gandhi said, may be the single biggest mistake the United States has made. In interviews, elected leaders, health specialists and mask advocates say it did not have to be that way-- and very nearly wasn’t. The country hit a tipping point on widespread mask use only this month, with a majority of states and the nation’s largest retailers all mandating them. But the science has long been pointing toward the efficacy of masks-- even if the guidance from health authorities wasn’t. ...In the last week of March-- as the official case count was approaching 100,000-- the CDC presented what was then considered a radical proposal to the White House, recommending routine masking by the public. Senior administration officials, particularly members of the vice president’s office on the coronavirus task force, pushed back, arguing it was unnecessary. The new guidance was somewhat of a compromise. It encouraged-- but did not require-- people to cover their faces in “public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.” On April 3, President Trump stood at the White House podium and issued the recommendation. “It may be good” advice, he offered. But he immediately undercut the guidance by announcing he would not be wearing a mask himself. “Somehow sitting in the Oval Office, behind that beautiful Resolute Desk” as he met with “presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens,” Trump said, “I don’t know, somehow I don’t see it for myself.” Initially, some Trump aides said they did not like the idea of him wearing a mask publicly because they believed it would be bad politically and make the president look weak. They thought it might lead others to panic or think the pandemic was worse than it was. There were also fears among some in the president’s circle that his supporters would rebel against anything that smacked of a government directive. Among some of Trump’s most ardent fans, anti-mask insurrections were already brewing. In dark corners of the Internet, mask conspiracy theories took shape. On the steps of state capitol buildings, activists shouted their objections to a masked attack on “liberty.” Some of the president’s advisers, including chief of staff Mark Meadows, expressed repeated skepticism of masks and whether they made a difference, campaign and White House officials said. Trump campaign masks were produced and presented to the president but never sold. Some aides were fearful of selling merchandise he did not wear and appearing to profit off a pandemic, officials said. “The President’s position has been consistent on this,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews said in a statement. “In late March, before there was even a recommended but not required guidance given by the CDC on mask-wearing, he supported facial coverings.” With little hope for progress at the White House, Howard had begun to make his data-based case for masks to the governors, focusing especially on Republicans who had shown a willingness to embrace a scientific approach to attacking the coronavirus. DeWine was at the top of his list. The 73-year-old Ohioan had won plaudits from public health experts for the speed with which he shut down gatherings, businesses and schools in March when the coronavirus began to spread in the state. Cases stayed low, even as the economic damage rippled. As pressure intensified on DeWine to reopen the state in late April, the governor seized on a mask requirement in stores and other businesses as a way to do so safely. Masks would not be “forever,” the governor announced April 27, “but if we want to get back to work, we have to protect our employees.” Within hours, as protests over the governor’s assault on “freedom” poured in, DeWine knew it had been a mistake that would need to be reversed. “After 40 years of representing Ohioans in many different jobs, I’ve got a pretty good ability to gauge these things,” he said in an interview. “And with the pushback we got, my instinct was that this was too far.” Unlike closing schools-- which could happen with the stroke of a pen-- requiring masks would involve getting “millions of Ohioans making individual decisions dozens of times a day.” And unlike in Asia-- where DeWine had traveled pre-pandemic and seen the widespread use of face coverings to ward off disease-- there was no culture of mask-wearing for public health benefits in the United States. The president’s unwillingness to set an example by wearing a mask didn’t help. “I would have liked to have seen the president do that,” DeWine said. Also unhelpful, the governor said, was guidance from some public health authorities that continued to be contradictory, even as the science behind masks became increasingly clear. Studies suggesting masks could be effective in curbing the risk of transmission continued to accumulate. But the WHO-- which has been criticized throughout the pandemic for being slow to respond to emerging data-- took until June 5 to issue a mask recommendation for the general public. Even then, it was tepid and full of asterisks, with the global health body insisting the change was consistent with its original guidance. U.S. officials have been more forthright in acknowledging their advice has shifted, arguing it was in response to shifting data. “If you acted on the best information you had at the time and then later you get new evidence that points in a different direction, does that mean what you did three months ago was wrong? Well, existentially, yes it was. But it was based on the evidence we had at the time,” Fauci said in an interview Friday. Once policy did shift, Fauci said, medical officials were united in getting behind the new recommendation. But other senior administration officials weren’t on board. “That was a problem,” he said. Trump was foremost among those who weren’t interested in promoting masks. When, in late May, he toured a Ford plant in Michigan where masks were required, he refused to put one on in front of the cameras. “I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it,” he said. Over Memorial Day weekend, he retweeted a mocking criticism of his election opponent, former vice president Joe Biden, for wearing a mask.
Videos began going viral as Americans squared off on what to do about customers in stores who refused to mask up. Social media groups devoted to casting doubt on their efficacy proliferated. Face coverings had become debate points in the U.S. presidential campaign and potent symbols in the culture war. Public health specialists could only shake their heads. The debate radiated through big cities and small ones as the coronavirus began a resurgence in June, with many areas that had dodged the first round of infection getting hammered this time. Joplin had no active cases at the start of June. Weeks later, the city of 50,000 in southwest Missouri had one of the nation’s fastest rising infection rates. For five hours in late June, the city council debated whether to mandate masks, only to defeat the motion by a single vote. Two weeks later, with hospitals hitting their capacities, the council voted again. This time, the mask mandate passed 6 to 3. Mayor Ryan Stanley was among those who changed his mind. He had initially thought that a mandate was unenforceable and that, in a deeply conservative, pro-Trump region, it would only encourage defiance. But when he visited local businesses the weekend after the requirement kicked in, he was astonished by what he saw. “We were getting 15 percent adoption before. I was crossing my fingers and hoping for 50 to 60 percent,” he said. “But now it’s at 90 to 95 percent. It’s certainly doing its job.” Stanley said mask opponents had been loud-- staging noisy demonstrations and dominating the debate. But they hadn’t actually been that numerous. Public opinion polls bear that out, with large majorities of voters overall favoring mandates, although Republicans are less supportive. Policies have begun to match those attitudes. A cascade of states-- including Ohio-- have instituted requirements in recent weeks, with DeWine identifying compliance as critical to the state’s hopes of bringing down infection rates and opening schools. Major retailers such as Walmart have as well, making shopping trips difficult without a mask. Evidence shows the mandates are working. “There were seat belts in cars for decades. There were lots of public service announcements, people saying, ‘Wear seat belts’” said David Keating, who worked with Howard to found the nonprofit advocacy group #Masks4All. “But it’s when the law started requiring it that seat belt usage soared.” Even the president has joined in-- though still somewhat tepidly. On a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center earlier this month, he wore a mask in public for the first time. Last Tuesday, he tweeted a photo of himself in a mask with the explanation that “many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance.” Trump wore a mask again on Monday while touring a biotechnology plant. But as recently as last week, he was barefaced while in public at his hotel in D.C., despite local rules that require a face covering. Political advisers and campaign officials say there has been a concerted effort around Trump-- from aides to family members to advisers to lawmakers-- to show that wearing a mask is the right thing to do. Aides have encouraged people to praise the president for wearing a mask, hoping that he will continue to embrace it, officials said. It had been clear for months-- as America’s coronavirus case count has climbed above 4 million and the death toll closes in on 150,000-- that masks are a public health imperative. But with grim polls showing Trump trailing in almost every key state, they have now become a political one, too. “He was basically on an island even among his own supporters,” said Brendan Buck, a longtime Republican operative who last worked for then-Speaker Paul D. Ryan. “It doesn’t take a genius to understand that this pandemic is why he’s losing so badly.”
I travel a lot and I've been wearing masks on planes for a couple of decades. When I got back from Thailand last January and understood that what was starting in Wuhan would soon be in the local Trader Joe's in my neighborhood. By the first week in February I had stopped going out without a hospital mask, even though I would invariably get bad vibes. By the end of February I stopped fooling around with the hospital masks, laughed at the cloth masks that do almost nothing and started wearing an N-99 (better than an N-95), along with wrap-around goggles and disposable latex gloves. In grocery stores there was a fantastic bonus-- people fled when they saw me walking down the aisles. About a month later half the people in my neighborhood were wearing masks. Then it became mandatory in L.A. and soon after mandatory in California. Unfortunately, it was too late for almost 9,000 dead Californians (almost half of whom are Angelinos). Too bad Newsom didn't have the guts to do what the 6 Bay Area counties did in mid-March. Today 11 governors of states with out-of-control pandemics still have not issued statewide mask mandates. Can you guess what they all have in common, besides lots of dead and dying constituents?
• Doug Ducey (R-AZ)- 168,273 cases (23,118 per million Arizonans) • Ron DeSantis (R-FL)- 451,423 cases (21,018 per million Floridians) • Tate Reeves (R-MS)- 55,804 cases (18,750 per million Mississippians) • Brian Kemp (R-GA)- 178,323 cases (16,795 per million Georgians) • Henry McMaster (R-SC)- 85,846 cases (16,673 per million South Carolinians) • Bill Lee (R-TN)- 100,822 cases (14,763 per million Tennesseans) • Kim Reynolds (R-IA)- 43,277 cases (13,717 per million Iowans) • Pete Ricketts (R-NE)- 25,157 cases (13,005 per million Nebraskans) • Kristi Noem (R-SD)- 8,641 cases (9,768 per million South Dakotans) • Kevin Stitt (R-OK)- 34,623 cases (8,750 per million Oklahomans) • Doug Burgum (R-ND)- 6,227 cases (8,171 per North Dakotans)
Why Sweden Failed The Test-- And Why Republican States Are Following Them To Perdition
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End of the Line by Nancy Ohanian
A few weeks ago we took a quick look at how the transformation of Sweden's Social Democratic party from a socialist to a neo-liberal monstrosity led to a catastrophic approach to the pandemic. Discounting the postage-stamp sized countries, Sweden has been the worst-hit of the Western European nations by the pandemic. It's the only European country whose people are suffering at a rate even approaching a modestly hit American state, say Kansas (8,090 per million residents) or Wisconsin (7,580 per million residents).
• Sweden- 7,737 cases per million Swedes • Spain- 6,700 cases per million Spaniards • Iceland- 5,654 cases per million Vikings • Belgium- 5,529 cases per million Belgians • Ireland- 5,222 cases per million Irishmen • Portugal- 4,796 cases per million Portuguese • U.K.- 4,356 cases per million Brits • Italy- 4,048 cases per million Italians • Switzerland- 3,897 cases per million Swiss • Netherlands- 3,039 cases per million Hollanders • France- 2,717 cases per million Frenchmen • Germany- 2,433 cases per million Germans • Denmark- 2,296 cases per million Danes • Austria- 2,201 cases per million Austrians • Norway- 1,668 cases per million Norsemen
And though Sweden has the 15th largest population among European countries, the Swedish COVID death rate ranks 5th, again, excluding the postage stamp-sized countries.
• Belgium- 846 deaths per million residents • U.K.- 669 deaths per million residents • Spain- 608 deaths per million residents • Italy- 580 deaths per million residents • Sweden- 559 deaths per million residents • France- 462 deaths per million residents • Netherlands- 358 deaths per million residents • Ireland- 355 deaths per million residents
And, for sake of comparison, the U.S. rate-- which is rising rapidly, far more rapidly than in any European country-- is 438 deaths per million residents. Yesterday 25 Swedish doctors and scientists signed an OpEd published by USA Today, Sweden hoped herd immunity would curb COVID-19. Don't do what we did. It's not working. Although they don't admit it, the U.S. states-- particularly Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and Missouri-- doing worst in this second spike of the first wave are almost all using Sweden as a model. It's a failed, discredited model and the Sweden scientists are warning other countries to steer clear of it.
Sweden has often been considered a leader when it comes to global humanitarian issues, regarded as a beacon of light in areas such as accepting refugees and working against global warming. In the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden has also created interest around the world by following its own path of using a “soft” approach-- not locking down, introducing mostly voluntary restrictions and spurning the use of masks. This approach has been perceived as more liberal and has shown up in “Be Like Sweden” signs and chants at U.S. protests. Wherever measures have been lenient, though, death rates have peaked. In the United States, areas that are coming out of lockdown early are suffering, and we are seeing the same in other countries as well. The motives for the Swedish Public Health Agency's light-touch approach are somewhat of a mystery. Some other countries that initially used this strategy swiftly abandoned it as the death toll began to increase, opting instead for delayed lockdowns. But Sweden has been faithful to its approach. Why? Gaining herd immunity, where large numbers of the population (preferably younger) are infected and thereby develop immunity, has not been an official goal of the Swedish Public Health Agency. But it has said immunity in the population could help suppress the spread of the disease, and some agency statements suggest it is the secret goal. An unnerving death rate Further evidence of this is that the agency insists on mandatory schooling for young children, the importance of testing has been played down for a long time, the agency refused to acknowledge the importance of asymptomatic spread of the virus (concerningly, it has encouraged those in households with COVID-19 infected individuals to go to work and school) and still refuses to recommend masks in public, despite the overwhelming evidence of their effectiveness. In addition, the stated goal of the Swedish authorities was always not to minimize the epidemic, but rather slow it down, so that the health care system wouldn’t be overwhelmed. Several authorities, including the World Health Organization, have condemned herd immunity as a strategy. "It can lead to a very brutal arithmetic that does not put people and life and suffering at the center of that equation,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies Program, said at a press conference in May. Regardless of whether herd immunity is a goal or a side effect of the Swedish strategy, how has it worked out? Not so well, according to the agency’s own test results. The proportion of Swedes carrying antibodies is estimated to be under 10%, thus nowhere near herd immunity. And yet, the Swedish death rate is unnerving. Sweden has a death toll greater than the United States: 556 deaths per million inhabitants, compared with 425, as of July 20. Sweden also has a death toll more than four and a half times greater than that of the other four Nordic countries combined-- more than seven times greater per million inhabitants. For a number of weeks, Sweden has been among the top in the world when it comes to current reported deaths per capita. And despite this, the strategy in essence remains the same. Learn from Sweden's mistakes It is possible that the Public Health Authority actually believed that the Swedish approach was the most appropriate and sustainable one, and that the other countries, many of which went into lockdown, would do worse. Perhaps this, and not herd immunity, is the main reason the authorities are desperately clinging to their strategy. Or perhaps an unwillingness to admit early mistakes and take responsibility for thousands of unnecessary deaths plays into this resistance to change. Nevertheless, the result at this stage is unequivocal. We do believe Sweden can be used as a model, but not in the way it was thought of initially. It can instead serve as a control group and answer the question of how efficient the voluntary distancing and loose measures in Sweden are compared to lockdowns, aggressive testing, tracing and the use of masks. In Sweden, the strategy has led to death, grief and suffering and on top of that there are no indications that the Swedish economy has fared better than in many other countries. At the moment, we have set an example for the rest of the world on how not to deal with a deadly infectious disease. In the end, this too shall pass and life will eventually return to normal. New medical treatments will come and improve the prognosis. Hopefully there will be a vaccine. Stick it out until then. And don’t do it the Swedish way.
Back To School With Betsy And Donald by Nancy Ohanian
Monday's and ---> Tuesday's reports showed the dozen worst one-day case increases in the U.S. almost exclusively in states were right-wing ideology has crowded out science:
