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solarbirdSome of us never forgot there was, you know, a pandemic.
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As COVID-19 spreads in Spokane, Inslee visits and meets unmasked resistance
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
June 25, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/as-covid-19-spreads-in-spokane-inslee-visits-and-meets-unmasked-resistance/
SPOKANE — The rate of people being hospitalized for COVID-19 in Spokane has doubled in the past week, and the state’s second-largest city is “on the edge of a cliff,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday.
“Something has to change to rescue people and the economy,” Inslee said after visiting with civic leaders on Washington State University’s Spokane campus.
Inslee’s visit drew a few dozen protesters against his administration’s proclamation earlier this week requiring people to wear masks when in public. Inslee, who wore a mask during his press conference, said the way to battle the spread of the coronavirus is simple.
“You’ve just got to wear a little cloth on your face,” he said.
Demonstrators outside the building carryied signs that said “Inslee Must Go,” and “Freedom is the cure.” Some waved flags bearing the name of President Donald Trump.
Janice Tollett of Airway Heights said she won’t wear a mask and thinks the governor should just “open everything up and let the chips fall where they may.”
However, Inslee said he expects most Washington residents to wear masks, especially when shopping. Wearing a mask protects other people if the wearer has the virus without knowing it.
In announcing the rule Tuesday, Inslee noted that workers such as grocery cashiers deserve to be safe when interacting with customers.
“It is fair to protect the people who are serving you,” Inslee reiterated Thursday in Spokane.
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Virus cases surge among the young, endangering older adults
By TAMARA LUSH
and CARLA K. JOHNSON
June 24, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/virus-cases-surge-among-the-young-endangering-older-adults/
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Coronavirus cases are climbing rapidly among young adults in a number of states where bars, stores and restaurants have reopened — a disturbing generational shift that not only puts them in greater peril than many realize but poses an even bigger danger to older people who cross their paths.
In Oxford, Mississippi, summer fraternity parties sparked outbreaks. In Oklahoma City, church activities, fitness classes, weddings and funerals seeded infections among people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. In Iowa college towns, surges followed the reopening of bars. A cluster of hangouts near Louisiana State University led to at least 100 customers and employees testing positive. In East Lansing, Michigan, an outbreak tied to a brew pub spread to 34 people ages 18 to 23.
There and in states like Florida, Texas and Arizona, young people have started going out again, many without masks, in what health experts see as irresponsible behavior.
“The virus hasn’t changed. We have changed our behaviors,” said Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Younger people are more likely to be out and taking a risk.”
...
For months, older adults were more likely to be diagnosed with the virus, too. But figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that almost as soon as states began reopening, the picture flipped, with people 18 to 49 years old quickly becoming the age bracket most likely to be diagnosed with new cases.
And although every age group saw an increase in cases during the first week in June, the numbers shot up fastest among 18- to 49-year-olds. For the week ending June 7, there were 43 new cases per 100,000 people in that age bracket, compared with 28 cases per 100,000 people over 65.
With the shift toward younger people, some hospitals are seeing a smaller share of their COVID-19 patients needing intensive care treatment such as breathing machines.
“They are sick enough to be hospitalized, but they’re not quite as sick,” said Dr. Rob Phillips, chief physician executive of Houston Methodist Hospital. He said he still finds the trend disturbing because young people “definitely interact with their parents and grandparents,” who could be next.
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In 2 a.m. vote, NC lawmakers target coronavirus measure on wearing masks in public
By Will Doran
June 26, 2020 03:54 AM
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article243813917.html
A 2 a.m. vote Friday in the North Carolina Senate has some politicians questioning if it’s going to be illegal for people to wear face masks in public, starting in a little more than a month.
“We purposefully took out a provision that would have made it legal, and that just seems wrong to me in the middle of a pandemic,” Democratic Sen. Natasha Marcus of Mecklenburg County said.
The early-morning vote in the Senate came on the same day that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s statewide order making mask-wearing mandatory in public was set to go into effect. Republican Senate leader Phil Berger has strongly criticized that order, which will begin at 5 p.m. Friday.
The hours preceding the mask vote were also filled with numerous other contentious, partisan debates on various executive orders from the governor related to coronavirus and the reopening of bars, gyms, playgrounds, amusement parks and more.
The day’s schedule at the legislature began first thing in the morning Thursday and didn’t end until nearly 3:30 a.m. Friday.
“It sounds to me like we’re getting really silly here in the early hours of the morning,” Marcus said as the Senate passed the bill over her objections.
Sen. Chuck Edwards of Henderson County said he and some fellow Republicans have been talking about potential mask-related changes for the future but that there were no details ready to be made public yet.
“I can’t tell you specifically what we are doing,” he said.
The legislature adjourned Friday morning, but left open the possibility of taking more votes next month. If the mask issue doesn’t get resolved then, there could be at least a month when the legality of mask-wearing is unclear, since the legislature currently doesn’t plan to meet at all in August but does plan to come back Sept. 2.
It’s normally illegal to wear masks in public in North Carolina because of a 1950s law targeted at the KKK. But earlier this year lawmakers voted to suspend that law until Aug. 1, with public health experts advising people to wear masks to slow the spread of COVID-19.
On Thursday another plan — to extend permission for public mask-wearing until next February — surfaced at the legislature in a bipartisan agreement. It was proposed by the top Democrat in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Wake County Rep. Darren Jackson, and then backed by GOP leadership.
But hours later, the calendar turned from Thursday to Friday and the legislature was still in session. And Republicans in the Senate took that provision out of the bill, bringing it back to the current Aug. 1 deadline.
“The suggestion that someone would get arrested for wearing a mask during a pandemic in NC is honestly laughably ridiculous,” tweeted Brent Woodcox, a Senate GOP lawyer, after Senate Democrats raised concerns over the decision.
In mid-April, the top prosecutor for Rocky Mount and Wilson said his office wouldn’t prosecute anyone for wearing a face mask to fight coronavirus. Robert Evans, the district attorney for Wilson, Nash and Edgecombe counties, told the Spring Hope Enterprise that in his opinion the state’s mask ban “has no application for those wearing protective masks to prevent the spread of disease in a pandemic.”
Lawmakers, however, appear to have believed it was not so clear. Later that month they passed the new law exempting people from the mask ban until Aug. 1. The News & Observer reported at the time that Republican Rep. John Bell, the House majority leader, “said that date could later be extended if the measures are still needed in late summer.”
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North Carolina's lieutenant governor says he will sue Gov. Roy Cooper over his coronavirus executive orders
By Jessica Campisi
June 25, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/25/politics/north-carolina-lieutenant-governor-lawsuit/index.html
(CNN)North Carolina's Republican lieutenant governor said Thursday that he plans to sue Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper for allegedly violating the state's Emergency Management Act with the executive orders he issued during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a letter to Cooper on Thursday, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest said the governor has "repeatedly ignored the law, enacting mandates that selectively target the businesses and citizens of North Carolina without concurrence from a majority of the Council of State."
Cooper has issued several executive orders since the onset of the pandemic. The most recent declaration was issued Wednesday, when Cooper ordered people to wear masks in public and extended the second phase of the state's reopening until July 17.
In his letter, Forest alleged that Cooper's declarations made it "impossible" for him and other members of the Council of State — a group of 10 elected officials including the state's attorney general and secretary of state — to "fulfill our oaths to uphold the laws of North Carolina."
"The Emergency Management Act requires that you seek and receive concurrence from the Council of State prior to exercising the most expansive statewide emergency powers of the Governor," Forest wrote in the letter.
...
In his letter, Forest asked Cooper to waive a requirement that would force him to be represented by the state's attorney general to avoid a conflict of interest.
"There's no room for politics during a pandemic," Dory MacMillan, the governor's press secretary, told CNN in an email. "The Governor will continue to be guided by science and the law as he works every day with public health experts to keep North Carolinians safe."
Forest is running against Cooper in the November gubernatorial election.
[SEE ALSO:
Dan Forest does North Carolina a favor with his embarrassing COVID-19 stunt
By the Editorial Board
June 26, 2020
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article243815237.html
Pity Dan Forest. North Carolina’s lieutenant governor is trailing incumbent Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper by double digits with Election Day just five page-turns away on the calendar. Despite frequent jabs from Republicans, the governor has strong favorability ratings, and nothing Forest does seems to move the needle.
He’s tried dabbling publicly in white nationalism, telling a church congregation that “[N]o other nation, my friends, has ever survived the diversity and multiculturalism that America faces today, because of a lack of assimilation, because of this division, and because of this identity politics.”
He’s tried the shock-and-awful route, claiming at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis that the governor lacked the authority to order bars to close and restaurants to shut down their dining rooms – and saying that such orders were a bad idea.
Inexplicably, Forest is still trailing.
And so this week, the lieutenant governor is making another reach for the headlines. In an email to the governor, Forest says that he wants to sue Cooper for issuing public health orders without the concurrence of the 10-member Council of State. Forest says that’s a violation of the Emergency Management Act, although Cooper and his office already have cited several statutes that allow the governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen to mandate quarantines and closures.
]
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Reopening Setback: San Francisco Delays June 29 Openings Of Salons, Museums Over Rising COVID-19 Cases
KPIX
June 26, 2020
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/06/26/reopening-setback-sf-june-29-openings-delayed-hair-salons-barbers-zoos-museums/
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Mayor London Breed announced the reopening of certain businesses set for Monday, June 29th will be delayed amid concerns about the rising numbers of coronavirus infections.
Hair salons, barbers, museums, zoos and tattoo parlors were among the businesses slated to reopen early next week.
“COVID-19 cases are rising throughout CA. We’re now seeing a rise in cases in SF too. Our numbers are still low but rising rapidly,” the mayor said in a series of tweets about the delayed reopening posted Friday.
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Birthday party leaves 18 in Texas family with coronavirus
June 25, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/birthday-party-leaves-18-in-texas-family-with-coronavirus/
CARROLLTON, Texas — A surprise birthday party that resulted in 18 people testing positive for the coronavirus has left a North Texas man horrified as his father continues to fight for his life in a hospital intensive care unit.
Ron Barbosa, who is married to a doctor and refused to attend the May 30 party for his daughter-in-law because of safety concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic, said those hospitalized included his parents, both in their 80′s, and his sister, who is also battling breast cancer.
Barbosa said his nephew, unknowingly infected with the virus, hosted last month’s gathering of 25 people that only lasted a few hours and followed the state’s latest health standards. During the party, he said the nephew interacted with seven relatives, who subsequently contracted the virus and spread it to 10 other family members, including two young children.
“When people started getting sick, we really let everyone have it,” Barbosa told WFAA-TV. “We knew this was going to happen, I mean, this whole time this has been going on we’ve been terrified.”
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday said Texas would halt its aggressive reopening as it deals with a surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations that has made the state a virus hot spot. Statewide, the number of COVID-19 patients has more than doubled in two weeks. Texas has reported more than 11,000 new cases in the previous two days alone.
Barbosa’s mother, Carole, who stopped by the function to drop something off, tested positive for coronavrius June 6 and was admitted to the hospital a week later.
Barbosa said his father, Frank, who didn’t attend the get-together but later contracted COVID-19, was hospitalized June 17. He said his dad is currently “hanging on by a thread” in the ICU while on life support.
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Co-founder of ReOpen Maryland says he has tested positive for coronavirus
By Ovetta Wiggins
June 26, 2020 at 11:18 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/reopen-maryland-coronavirus-walters/2020/06/26/677caa02-b7b7-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html
A Maryland man who organized rallies to pressure Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to lift the state’s stay-home order says he has tested positive for the novel coronavirus and does not plan to provide names of people with whom he had contact to public health officials for contact tracing.
Tim Walters, a co-founder of ReOpen Maryland, said on social media this week that he has had a dry cough for months but it recently worsened. He then began to experience an excruciating headache, a fever and the inability to focus with one of his eyes, which led to vertigo.
Walters, 53, a diabetic who has had mini-strokes, said he went to a hospital emergency room Monday and was diagnosed with the virus.
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The Dudes Who Won’t Wear Masks
Face coverings are a powerful tool, but health authorities can’t simply ignore the reasons some people refuse to use them.
June 23, 2020
Julia Marcus
Epidemiologist and professor at Harvard Medical School
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/dudes-who-wont-wear-masks/613375/
Last week, the former Major League Baseball player Aubrey Huff announced on Twitter that he was no longer going to wear a mask inside any business. “It’s unconstitutional to enforce,” he wrote. “Let’s make this bullshit stop now! Who’s with me?” In a video that went viral the following day, he said his critics had tried to shame him for “threatening the lives of millions of innocent people” and insisted that he considered dying from the coronavirus preferable to “wearing a damn mask.”
Thousands of people responded to Huff. Many called him a social disgrace for disrespecting his community, abdicating his civic duty, and putting Grandma at risk. The anger toward mask naysayers is understandable, and shaming can feel relieving in the moment. Yet those responses did nothing to persuade Huff to wear a mask. Instead, they played right into his notions about the finger-wagging, “elitist” public-health experts who want to take away the freedoms of ordinary Americans.
During a health crisis, some people quickly accommodate a major shift in behavioral norms. But long-standing habits—such as not wearing a mask to the grocery store—are difficult to break, and until recently few American adults have been called upon to do so. Some have, though, and the parallels are instructive.
Americans are figuring out how to live with a deadly new virus now, just as gay men did in the early years of AIDS. Abstinence from sex wasn’t sustainable, and condoms became a ticket to greater sexual freedom. Likewise, Americans can’t abstain from human interaction forever, and widespread masking may be a ticket to more social and economic freedom. But trying to shame people into wearing condoms didn’t work—and it won’t work for masks either.
...
But even macho men like Huff, whose Twitter bio declares, “I support Toxic Masculinity,” aren’t immune to public-health advice: In his video, he appears to be wearing a seatbelt. Yet unlike a seatbelt, which directly benefits the user, masks primarily protect everyone else, particularly people who are older or have underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to the coronavirus. Huff seems to understand this; he just thinks those people should “stay the fuck home.” As Representative Tom Rice, a South Carolina Republican, told The Wall Street Journal after refusing to wear a mask on the House floor and contracting the coronavirus, “A mask doesn’t really protect you as much as it protects other people. I don’t think it would have made much of a difference.” The message seems to have gotten across that masks are mainly about protecting others; these men are simply choosing not to do so.
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American Airlines will book flights to full capacity
By DAVID KOENIG
June 26, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/american-airlines-will-book-flights-to-full-capacity/
DALLAS (AP) — American Airlines will start booking flights to full capacity next week, ending any effort to promote social distancing on its planes while the United States sets records for new reported cases of the coronavirus.
American’s move matches the policy of United Airlines but contrasts sharply with rivals that limit bookings to create space between passengers to minimize the risk of contagion.
American said Friday that it will continue to notify customers if their flight is likely to be full, and let them change flights at no extra cost. The airline said it will also let passengers change seats on the plane if there is room and if they stay in the same cabin.
Since April, American has limited bookings to about 85% of a plane’s capacity by leaving about half the middle seats open. However, the airline will start selling every seat it can beginning next Wednesday.
Delta says it is capping seats at about 60% of capacity and Southwest at about 67%, both through Sept. 30. JetBlue says it will leave middle seats empty through July 31 unless the person is traveling with a passenger in an adjoining seat.
United, Spirit Airlines and now American, however, are taking a different approach, arguing that other steps — including stepped-up cleaning procedures and requiring all passengers to wear face coverings — eliminate the need to block some seats. United CEO Scott Kirby has said social distancing is impossible on planes anyway; that even with empty middle seats, people are less than six feet away from each other.
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Oliver Darcy
twitter.com/oliverdarcy
26 June 2020
https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1276574780725121026
—twitter.com/PaulaReidCBS to Pence: "It really does sound like you're saying, 'Do as we say, not as we do.' You're telling people to listen to local officials, but in Tulsa you defied local health officials...How can you say that the campaign is not part of the problem?"
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
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Voices from the Pandemic
‘Heroes, right?’
Anthony Almojera, on being a New York City paramedic and the injustices of covid-19
As told to Eli Saslow
June 21, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/21/paramedic-new-york-city-coronavirus/
Nobody wants to know about what I do. People might pay us lip service and say we’re heroes, but our stories aren’t the kind anyone actually wants to hear about. Kids in this country grow up with toy firetrucks, or maybe playing cops and robbers, but who dreams of becoming a paramedic? That’s ambulances. That’s death and vulnerability — the scary stuff. We’re taught in this culture to shun illness like it’s something shameful. We’d rather pretend everything’s fine. We look the other way.
That’s what’s happening now in New York. We just had 20,000-some people die in this city, and already the crowds are lining back up outside restaurants and jamming into bars. This virus is still out there. We respond to 911 calls for covid every day. I’ve been on the scene at more than 200 of these deaths — trying to revive people, consoling their families — but you can’t even be bothered to stay six feet apart and wear a mask, because why? You’re a tough guy? It makes you look weak? You’d rather ignore the whole thing and pretend you’re invincible?
Some of us can’t stop thinking about it. I woke up this morning to about 60 new text messages from paramedics who are barely holding it together. Some are still sick with the virus. At one point we had 25 percent of EMTs in the city out sick. Others are living in their cars so they don’t risk bringing it home to their families. They’re depressed. They’re emotionally exhausted. They’re drinking too much. They’re lashing out at their kids. They’re having night terrors and panic attacks and all kinds of outbursts. I’ve got five paramedics in the ground from this virus already and a few more on ventilators. Another rookie EMT just committed suicide. He was having trouble coping with what he was seeing. He was a kid — 23 years old. He won’t be the last. I have medics who come to me every day and say, “Is this PTSD I’m feeling?” But technically PTSD comes after the event, and we’re not there yet. It’s ongoing stress and trauma, and we might have months to go.
Do you know how much EMTs make in New York City? We start at $35,000. We top out at $48,000 after five years. That’s nothing. That’s a middle finger. It’s about 40 percent less than fire, police and corrections — and those guys deserve what they get. But we have three times the call volume of fire. There are EMTs on my team who’ve been pulling double shifts in a pandemic and performing life support for 16 hours, and then they go home and they have to drive Uber to pay their rent. I’m more than 15 years on the job, and I still work two side gigs. One of my guys does part-time at a grocery store.
Heroes, right? The anger is blinding.
One thing this pandemic has made clear to me is that our country has become a joke in terms of how it disregards working people and poor people. The rampant inequality. The racism. Mistakes were made at the very top in terms of how we prepared for this virus, and we paid down here at the bottom.
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One-third of Black adults know a COVID-19 victim
By Amy Goldstein
and Emily Guskin
June 26, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/one-third-of-black-adults-know-a-covid-19-victim/
Nearly 1 in 3 Black Americans know someone personally who has died of COVID-19, far exceeding their white counterparts, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll that underscores the coronavirus pandemic’s profoundly disparate impact.
The nationwide survey finds that 31 percent of Black adults say they know someone firsthand who has been killed by the virus, compared with 17 percent of adults who are Hispanic and 9 percent who are white.
Adding in those who know someone with symptoms consistent with COVID-19, slightly more than half of Black Americans say they know at least one person who has gotten sick or died of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Fewer than 4 in 10 white or Hispanic Americans say they do.
Taken together, the poll’s findings attest to sharp racial differences in the sense that the virus is close at hand, after nearly a half-year in which it has sparked the nation’s worst public health calamity in more than a century.
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Jane McManus
twitter.com/janesports
26 June 2020
https://twitter.com/janesports/status/1276557772444913668
Pence just casually announces the new projection for American dead as high as 240,000. This is the same man who once projected 60,000 tops by the fall.
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A Horrifying U.S. Covid Curve Has a Simple Explanation
A growing gap in case growth between Europe and the U.S. tells the tale: Declaring victory too soon is an excellent way to return to new heights.
By Max Nisen
June 26, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/coronavirus-a-horrifying-rise-in-u-s-covid-cases-is-explained
The alarming chart below has been making the rounds. It illustrates the poor job the U.S. has done in containing Covid-19 compared to the European Union, a bigger region of independent countries that suffered an earlier outbreak. Why the big difference? What is America doing wrong?
There are a lot of possible answers to those questions. A sluggish initial response and failure to ramp up testing let the virus spread far and wide in the U.S. And instead of coordinating a coherent and aggressive national response, President Donald Trump has consistently downplayed the threat of the infection and left decisions to insufficiently supported states. As a result, decisions over lockdowns and reopenings have been chaotic and have ignored the guidelines put forth by federal public health officials.
Amid all of this, one particular difference stands out between the American and European approaches. Many states were happy to reopen after simply "bending the curve" — that is, slowing upward growth and ensuring spare hospital capacity. These states went on to expand economic activity at an elevated plateau with lots of ongoing transmissions. In contrast, European countries mostly waited to reopen until they crushed the curve or reached its far slope, with substantially lower incidence or dramatic reductions in the viral spread. It's not the only explanation for a growing gap, but it's a compelling one.
- As COVID-19 spreads in Spokane, Inslee visits and meets unmasked resistance
- Virus cases surge among the young, endangering older adults
- In 2 a.m. vote, NC lawmakers target coronavirus measure on wearing masks in public [EDITOR: This headline is misleading. It's Republicans. As always.]
- North Carolina's [Republican] lieutenant governor says he will sue [Democratic] Gov. Roy Cooper over his coronavirus executive orders [EDITOR: The Lt. Governor (Dan Forest) is running against Governor Cooper this year, to replace him]
- Reopening Setback: San Francisco Delays June 29 Openings Of Salons, Museums Over Rising COVID-19 Cases
- Birthday party leaves 18 in Texas family with coronavirus
- Co-founder of ReOpen Maryland says he has tested positive for coronavirus
- The Dudes Who Won’t Wear Masks
- American Airlines will book flights to full capacity
- How can you say that the campaign is not part of the problem?
- "Heroes, Right?"
- One-third of Black adults know a COVID-19 victim
- Pence raises US death projection to 240,000. Trump administration has continually raised the projection over time.
- A Horrifying U.S. Covid Curve Has a Simple Explanation
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As COVID-19 spreads in Spokane, Inslee visits and meets unmasked resistance
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
June 25, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/as-covid-19-spreads-in-spokane-inslee-visits-and-meets-unmasked-resistance/
SPOKANE — The rate of people being hospitalized for COVID-19 in Spokane has doubled in the past week, and the state’s second-largest city is “on the edge of a cliff,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday.
“Something has to change to rescue people and the economy,” Inslee said after visiting with civic leaders on Washington State University’s Spokane campus.
Inslee’s visit drew a few dozen protesters against his administration’s proclamation earlier this week requiring people to wear masks when in public. Inslee, who wore a mask during his press conference, said the way to battle the spread of the coronavirus is simple.
“You’ve just got to wear a little cloth on your face,” he said.
Demonstrators outside the building carryied signs that said “Inslee Must Go,” and “Freedom is the cure.” Some waved flags bearing the name of President Donald Trump.
Janice Tollett of Airway Heights said she won’t wear a mask and thinks the governor should just “open everything up and let the chips fall where they may.”
However, Inslee said he expects most Washington residents to wear masks, especially when shopping. Wearing a mask protects other people if the wearer has the virus without knowing it.
In announcing the rule Tuesday, Inslee noted that workers such as grocery cashiers deserve to be safe when interacting with customers.
“It is fair to protect the people who are serving you,” Inslee reiterated Thursday in Spokane.
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Virus cases surge among the young, endangering older adults
By TAMARA LUSH
and CARLA K. JOHNSON
June 24, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/virus-cases-surge-among-the-young-endangering-older-adults/
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Coronavirus cases are climbing rapidly among young adults in a number of states where bars, stores and restaurants have reopened — a disturbing generational shift that not only puts them in greater peril than many realize but poses an even bigger danger to older people who cross their paths.
In Oxford, Mississippi, summer fraternity parties sparked outbreaks. In Oklahoma City, church activities, fitness classes, weddings and funerals seeded infections among people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. In Iowa college towns, surges followed the reopening of bars. A cluster of hangouts near Louisiana State University led to at least 100 customers and employees testing positive. In East Lansing, Michigan, an outbreak tied to a brew pub spread to 34 people ages 18 to 23.
There and in states like Florida, Texas and Arizona, young people have started going out again, many without masks, in what health experts see as irresponsible behavior.
“The virus hasn’t changed. We have changed our behaviors,” said Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Younger people are more likely to be out and taking a risk.”
...
For months, older adults were more likely to be diagnosed with the virus, too. But figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that almost as soon as states began reopening, the picture flipped, with people 18 to 49 years old quickly becoming the age bracket most likely to be diagnosed with new cases.
And although every age group saw an increase in cases during the first week in June, the numbers shot up fastest among 18- to 49-year-olds. For the week ending June 7, there were 43 new cases per 100,000 people in that age bracket, compared with 28 cases per 100,000 people over 65.
With the shift toward younger people, some hospitals are seeing a smaller share of their COVID-19 patients needing intensive care treatment such as breathing machines.
“They are sick enough to be hospitalized, but they’re not quite as sick,” said Dr. Rob Phillips, chief physician executive of Houston Methodist Hospital. He said he still finds the trend disturbing because young people “definitely interact with their parents and grandparents,” who could be next.
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In 2 a.m. vote, NC lawmakers target coronavirus measure on wearing masks in public
By Will Doran
June 26, 2020 03:54 AM
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article243813917.html
A 2 a.m. vote Friday in the North Carolina Senate has some politicians questioning if it’s going to be illegal for people to wear face masks in public, starting in a little more than a month.
“We purposefully took out a provision that would have made it legal, and that just seems wrong to me in the middle of a pandemic,” Democratic Sen. Natasha Marcus of Mecklenburg County said.
The early-morning vote in the Senate came on the same day that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s statewide order making mask-wearing mandatory in public was set to go into effect. Republican Senate leader Phil Berger has strongly criticized that order, which will begin at 5 p.m. Friday.
The hours preceding the mask vote were also filled with numerous other contentious, partisan debates on various executive orders from the governor related to coronavirus and the reopening of bars, gyms, playgrounds, amusement parks and more.
The day’s schedule at the legislature began first thing in the morning Thursday and didn’t end until nearly 3:30 a.m. Friday.
“It sounds to me like we’re getting really silly here in the early hours of the morning,” Marcus said as the Senate passed the bill over her objections.
Sen. Chuck Edwards of Henderson County said he and some fellow Republicans have been talking about potential mask-related changes for the future but that there were no details ready to be made public yet.
“I can’t tell you specifically what we are doing,” he said.
The legislature adjourned Friday morning, but left open the possibility of taking more votes next month. If the mask issue doesn’t get resolved then, there could be at least a month when the legality of mask-wearing is unclear, since the legislature currently doesn’t plan to meet at all in August but does plan to come back Sept. 2.
It’s normally illegal to wear masks in public in North Carolina because of a 1950s law targeted at the KKK. But earlier this year lawmakers voted to suspend that law until Aug. 1, with public health experts advising people to wear masks to slow the spread of COVID-19.
On Thursday another plan — to extend permission for public mask-wearing until next February — surfaced at the legislature in a bipartisan agreement. It was proposed by the top Democrat in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Wake County Rep. Darren Jackson, and then backed by GOP leadership.
But hours later, the calendar turned from Thursday to Friday and the legislature was still in session. And Republicans in the Senate took that provision out of the bill, bringing it back to the current Aug. 1 deadline.
“The suggestion that someone would get arrested for wearing a mask during a pandemic in NC is honestly laughably ridiculous,” tweeted Brent Woodcox, a Senate GOP lawyer, after Senate Democrats raised concerns over the decision.
In mid-April, the top prosecutor for Rocky Mount and Wilson said his office wouldn’t prosecute anyone for wearing a face mask to fight coronavirus. Robert Evans, the district attorney for Wilson, Nash and Edgecombe counties, told the Spring Hope Enterprise that in his opinion the state’s mask ban “has no application for those wearing protective masks to prevent the spread of disease in a pandemic.”
Lawmakers, however, appear to have believed it was not so clear. Later that month they passed the new law exempting people from the mask ban until Aug. 1. The News & Observer reported at the time that Republican Rep. John Bell, the House majority leader, “said that date could later be extended if the measures are still needed in late summer.”
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North Carolina's lieutenant governor says he will sue Gov. Roy Cooper over his coronavirus executive orders
By Jessica Campisi
June 25, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/25/politics/north-carolina-lieutenant-governor-lawsuit/index.html
(CNN)North Carolina's Republican lieutenant governor said Thursday that he plans to sue Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper for allegedly violating the state's Emergency Management Act with the executive orders he issued during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a letter to Cooper on Thursday, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest said the governor has "repeatedly ignored the law, enacting mandates that selectively target the businesses and citizens of North Carolina without concurrence from a majority of the Council of State."
Cooper has issued several executive orders since the onset of the pandemic. The most recent declaration was issued Wednesday, when Cooper ordered people to wear masks in public and extended the second phase of the state's reopening until July 17.
In his letter, Forest alleged that Cooper's declarations made it "impossible" for him and other members of the Council of State — a group of 10 elected officials including the state's attorney general and secretary of state — to "fulfill our oaths to uphold the laws of North Carolina."
"The Emergency Management Act requires that you seek and receive concurrence from the Council of State prior to exercising the most expansive statewide emergency powers of the Governor," Forest wrote in the letter.
...
In his letter, Forest asked Cooper to waive a requirement that would force him to be represented by the state's attorney general to avoid a conflict of interest.
"There's no room for politics during a pandemic," Dory MacMillan, the governor's press secretary, told CNN in an email. "The Governor will continue to be guided by science and the law as he works every day with public health experts to keep North Carolinians safe."
Forest is running against Cooper in the November gubernatorial election.
[SEE ALSO:
Dan Forest does North Carolina a favor with his embarrassing COVID-19 stunt
By the Editorial Board
June 26, 2020
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article243815237.html
Pity Dan Forest. North Carolina’s lieutenant governor is trailing incumbent Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper by double digits with Election Day just five page-turns away on the calendar. Despite frequent jabs from Republicans, the governor has strong favorability ratings, and nothing Forest does seems to move the needle.
He’s tried dabbling publicly in white nationalism, telling a church congregation that “[N]o other nation, my friends, has ever survived the diversity and multiculturalism that America faces today, because of a lack of assimilation, because of this division, and because of this identity politics.”
He’s tried the shock-and-awful route, claiming at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis that the governor lacked the authority to order bars to close and restaurants to shut down their dining rooms – and saying that such orders were a bad idea.
Inexplicably, Forest is still trailing.
And so this week, the lieutenant governor is making another reach for the headlines. In an email to the governor, Forest says that he wants to sue Cooper for issuing public health orders without the concurrence of the 10-member Council of State. Forest says that’s a violation of the Emergency Management Act, although Cooper and his office already have cited several statutes that allow the governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen to mandate quarantines and closures.
]
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Reopening Setback: San Francisco Delays June 29 Openings Of Salons, Museums Over Rising COVID-19 Cases
KPIX
June 26, 2020
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/06/26/reopening-setback-sf-june-29-openings-delayed-hair-salons-barbers-zoos-museums/
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Mayor London Breed announced the reopening of certain businesses set for Monday, June 29th will be delayed amid concerns about the rising numbers of coronavirus infections.
Hair salons, barbers, museums, zoos and tattoo parlors were among the businesses slated to reopen early next week.
“COVID-19 cases are rising throughout CA. We’re now seeing a rise in cases in SF too. Our numbers are still low but rising rapidly,” the mayor said in a series of tweets about the delayed reopening posted Friday.
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Birthday party leaves 18 in Texas family with coronavirus
June 25, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/birthday-party-leaves-18-in-texas-family-with-coronavirus/
CARROLLTON, Texas — A surprise birthday party that resulted in 18 people testing positive for the coronavirus has left a North Texas man horrified as his father continues to fight for his life in a hospital intensive care unit.
Ron Barbosa, who is married to a doctor and refused to attend the May 30 party for his daughter-in-law because of safety concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic, said those hospitalized included his parents, both in their 80′s, and his sister, who is also battling breast cancer.
Barbosa said his nephew, unknowingly infected with the virus, hosted last month’s gathering of 25 people that only lasted a few hours and followed the state’s latest health standards. During the party, he said the nephew interacted with seven relatives, who subsequently contracted the virus and spread it to 10 other family members, including two young children.
“When people started getting sick, we really let everyone have it,” Barbosa told WFAA-TV. “We knew this was going to happen, I mean, this whole time this has been going on we’ve been terrified.”
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday said Texas would halt its aggressive reopening as it deals with a surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations that has made the state a virus hot spot. Statewide, the number of COVID-19 patients has more than doubled in two weeks. Texas has reported more than 11,000 new cases in the previous two days alone.
Barbosa’s mother, Carole, who stopped by the function to drop something off, tested positive for coronavrius June 6 and was admitted to the hospital a week later.
Barbosa said his father, Frank, who didn’t attend the get-together but later contracted COVID-19, was hospitalized June 17. He said his dad is currently “hanging on by a thread” in the ICU while on life support.
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Co-founder of ReOpen Maryland says he has tested positive for coronavirus
By Ovetta Wiggins
June 26, 2020 at 11:18 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/reopen-maryland-coronavirus-walters/2020/06/26/677caa02-b7b7-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html
A Maryland man who organized rallies to pressure Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to lift the state’s stay-home order says he has tested positive for the novel coronavirus and does not plan to provide names of people with whom he had contact to public health officials for contact tracing.
Tim Walters, a co-founder of ReOpen Maryland, said on social media this week that he has had a dry cough for months but it recently worsened. He then began to experience an excruciating headache, a fever and the inability to focus with one of his eyes, which led to vertigo.
Walters, 53, a diabetic who has had mini-strokes, said he went to a hospital emergency room Monday and was diagnosed with the virus.
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The Dudes Who Won’t Wear Masks
Face coverings are a powerful tool, but health authorities can’t simply ignore the reasons some people refuse to use them.
June 23, 2020
Julia Marcus
Epidemiologist and professor at Harvard Medical School
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/dudes-who-wont-wear-masks/613375/
Last week, the former Major League Baseball player Aubrey Huff announced on Twitter that he was no longer going to wear a mask inside any business. “It’s unconstitutional to enforce,” he wrote. “Let’s make this bullshit stop now! Who’s with me?” In a video that went viral the following day, he said his critics had tried to shame him for “threatening the lives of millions of innocent people” and insisted that he considered dying from the coronavirus preferable to “wearing a damn mask.”
Thousands of people responded to Huff. Many called him a social disgrace for disrespecting his community, abdicating his civic duty, and putting Grandma at risk. The anger toward mask naysayers is understandable, and shaming can feel relieving in the moment. Yet those responses did nothing to persuade Huff to wear a mask. Instead, they played right into his notions about the finger-wagging, “elitist” public-health experts who want to take away the freedoms of ordinary Americans.
During a health crisis, some people quickly accommodate a major shift in behavioral norms. But long-standing habits—such as not wearing a mask to the grocery store—are difficult to break, and until recently few American adults have been called upon to do so. Some have, though, and the parallels are instructive.
Americans are figuring out how to live with a deadly new virus now, just as gay men did in the early years of AIDS. Abstinence from sex wasn’t sustainable, and condoms became a ticket to greater sexual freedom. Likewise, Americans can’t abstain from human interaction forever, and widespread masking may be a ticket to more social and economic freedom. But trying to shame people into wearing condoms didn’t work—and it won’t work for masks either.
...
But even macho men like Huff, whose Twitter bio declares, “I support Toxic Masculinity,” aren’t immune to public-health advice: In his video, he appears to be wearing a seatbelt. Yet unlike a seatbelt, which directly benefits the user, masks primarily protect everyone else, particularly people who are older or have underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to the coronavirus. Huff seems to understand this; he just thinks those people should “stay the fuck home.” As Representative Tom Rice, a South Carolina Republican, told The Wall Street Journal after refusing to wear a mask on the House floor and contracting the coronavirus, “A mask doesn’t really protect you as much as it protects other people. I don’t think it would have made much of a difference.” The message seems to have gotten across that masks are mainly about protecting others; these men are simply choosing not to do so.
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American Airlines will book flights to full capacity
By DAVID KOENIG
June 26, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/american-airlines-will-book-flights-to-full-capacity/
DALLAS (AP) — American Airlines will start booking flights to full capacity next week, ending any effort to promote social distancing on its planes while the United States sets records for new reported cases of the coronavirus.
American’s move matches the policy of United Airlines but contrasts sharply with rivals that limit bookings to create space between passengers to minimize the risk of contagion.
American said Friday that it will continue to notify customers if their flight is likely to be full, and let them change flights at no extra cost. The airline said it will also let passengers change seats on the plane if there is room and if they stay in the same cabin.
Since April, American has limited bookings to about 85% of a plane’s capacity by leaving about half the middle seats open. However, the airline will start selling every seat it can beginning next Wednesday.
Delta says it is capping seats at about 60% of capacity and Southwest at about 67%, both through Sept. 30. JetBlue says it will leave middle seats empty through July 31 unless the person is traveling with a passenger in an adjoining seat.
United, Spirit Airlines and now American, however, are taking a different approach, arguing that other steps — including stepped-up cleaning procedures and requiring all passengers to wear face coverings — eliminate the need to block some seats. United CEO Scott Kirby has said social distancing is impossible on planes anyway; that even with empty middle seats, people are less than six feet away from each other.
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Oliver Darcy
twitter.com/oliverdarcy
26 June 2020
https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1276574780725121026
—twitter.com/PaulaReidCBS to Pence: "It really does sound like you're saying, 'Do as we say, not as we do.' You're telling people to listen to local officials, but in Tulsa you defied local health officials...How can you say that the campaign is not part of the problem?"
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
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Voices from the Pandemic
‘Heroes, right?’
Anthony Almojera, on being a New York City paramedic and the injustices of covid-19
As told to Eli Saslow
June 21, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/21/paramedic-new-york-city-coronavirus/
Nobody wants to know about what I do. People might pay us lip service and say we’re heroes, but our stories aren’t the kind anyone actually wants to hear about. Kids in this country grow up with toy firetrucks, or maybe playing cops and robbers, but who dreams of becoming a paramedic? That’s ambulances. That’s death and vulnerability — the scary stuff. We’re taught in this culture to shun illness like it’s something shameful. We’d rather pretend everything’s fine. We look the other way.
That’s what’s happening now in New York. We just had 20,000-some people die in this city, and already the crowds are lining back up outside restaurants and jamming into bars. This virus is still out there. We respond to 911 calls for covid every day. I’ve been on the scene at more than 200 of these deaths — trying to revive people, consoling their families — but you can’t even be bothered to stay six feet apart and wear a mask, because why? You’re a tough guy? It makes you look weak? You’d rather ignore the whole thing and pretend you’re invincible?
Some of us can’t stop thinking about it. I woke up this morning to about 60 new text messages from paramedics who are barely holding it together. Some are still sick with the virus. At one point we had 25 percent of EMTs in the city out sick. Others are living in their cars so they don’t risk bringing it home to their families. They’re depressed. They’re emotionally exhausted. They’re drinking too much. They’re lashing out at their kids. They’re having night terrors and panic attacks and all kinds of outbursts. I’ve got five paramedics in the ground from this virus already and a few more on ventilators. Another rookie EMT just committed suicide. He was having trouble coping with what he was seeing. He was a kid — 23 years old. He won’t be the last. I have medics who come to me every day and say, “Is this PTSD I’m feeling?” But technically PTSD comes after the event, and we’re not there yet. It’s ongoing stress and trauma, and we might have months to go.
Do you know how much EMTs make in New York City? We start at $35,000. We top out at $48,000 after five years. That’s nothing. That’s a middle finger. It’s about 40 percent less than fire, police and corrections — and those guys deserve what they get. But we have three times the call volume of fire. There are EMTs on my team who’ve been pulling double shifts in a pandemic and performing life support for 16 hours, and then they go home and they have to drive Uber to pay their rent. I’m more than 15 years on the job, and I still work two side gigs. One of my guys does part-time at a grocery store.
Heroes, right? The anger is blinding.
One thing this pandemic has made clear to me is that our country has become a joke in terms of how it disregards working people and poor people. The rampant inequality. The racism. Mistakes were made at the very top in terms of how we prepared for this virus, and we paid down here at the bottom.
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One-third of Black adults know a COVID-19 victim
By Amy Goldstein
and Emily Guskin
June 26, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/one-third-of-black-adults-know-a-covid-19-victim/
Nearly 1 in 3 Black Americans know someone personally who has died of COVID-19, far exceeding their white counterparts, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll that underscores the coronavirus pandemic’s profoundly disparate impact.
The nationwide survey finds that 31 percent of Black adults say they know someone firsthand who has been killed by the virus, compared with 17 percent of adults who are Hispanic and 9 percent who are white.
Adding in those who know someone with symptoms consistent with COVID-19, slightly more than half of Black Americans say they know at least one person who has gotten sick or died of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Fewer than 4 in 10 white or Hispanic Americans say they do.
Taken together, the poll’s findings attest to sharp racial differences in the sense that the virus is close at hand, after nearly a half-year in which it has sparked the nation’s worst public health calamity in more than a century.
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Jane McManus
twitter.com/janesports
26 June 2020
https://twitter.com/janesports/status/1276557772444913668
Pence just casually announces the new projection for American dead as high as 240,000. This is the same man who once projected 60,000 tops by the fall.
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A Horrifying U.S. Covid Curve Has a Simple Explanation
A growing gap in case growth between Europe and the U.S. tells the tale: Declaring victory too soon is an excellent way to return to new heights.
By Max Nisen
June 26, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/coronavirus-a-horrifying-rise-in-u-s-covid-cases-is-explained
The alarming chart below has been making the rounds. It illustrates the poor job the U.S. has done in containing Covid-19 compared to the European Union, a bigger region of independent countries that suffered an earlier outbreak. Why the big difference? What is America doing wrong?
There are a lot of possible answers to those questions. A sluggish initial response and failure to ramp up testing let the virus spread far and wide in the U.S. And instead of coordinating a coherent and aggressive national response, President Donald Trump has consistently downplayed the threat of the infection and left decisions to insufficiently supported states. As a result, decisions over lockdowns and reopenings have been chaotic and have ignored the guidelines put forth by federal public health officials.
Amid all of this, one particular difference stands out between the American and European approaches. Many states were happy to reopen after simply "bending the curve" — that is, slowing upward growth and ensuring spare hospital capacity. These states went on to expand economic activity at an elevated plateau with lots of ongoing transmissions. In contrast, European countries mostly waited to reopen until they crushed the curve or reached its far slope, with substantially lower incidence or dramatic reductions in the viral spread. It's not the only explanation for a growing gap, but it's a compelling one.
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