Today's News (2020/7/2): COVID-19 edition
Jul. 2nd, 2020 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdI fucking hate living in a failed state.
I don't mean Washington State; we're in a bad position, but frankly we wouldn't be if we didn't have the Federal government and its ruling party sabotaging us continually.
And while our case count is spiking upwards because of that, there's one hidden piece of very good news: positivity rate in testing continues to go down. That's what you want to see when you finally manage to get testing expanded enough. Yesterday's horrible count had a positivity rate down to 5.4%. That kind of thing is why our long-term positive rate keeps falling.
It's hard to see, but that's actually pretty good news.
----- 1 -----
Arizona GOP Rep. Calls For WH Coronavirus Task Force To Be Disbanded
By Summer Concepcion
July 2, 2020 12:34 p.m.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/andy-biggs-arizona-disband-white-house-coronavirus-task-force
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has a bone to pick with Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force as Arizona experiences a surge in COVID-19 cases.
In a statement issued Thursday praising the June jobs report, Biggs ripped Fauci and Birx by accusing them of “causing panic” by contradicting President Trump’s “goals and actions for returning to normalcy.”
“Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx continue to contradict many of President Trump’s stated goals and actions for returning to normalcy as we know more about the COVID-19 outbreak. This is causing panic that compromises our economic recovery,” Biggs wrote in the statement. “We can protect our most vulnerable from the COVID-19 outbreak while still protecting lives and livelihoods of the rest of the population.”
Biggs then called for the disbandment of the White House Coronavirus Task Force “so that President Trump’s message is not mitigated or distorted.”
Biggs’ criticism comes on the heels of Fauci warning during his Senate testimony on Tuesday that new coronavirus cases could rise to 100,000 per day.
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Jeffrey Lazarus
twitter.com/jlazarus001
1 July 2020
https://twitter.com/jlazarus001/status/1278532811960586240
The University System of Georgia is planning to put students in classrooms in 6 weeks, will not require students (or anyone) to wear masks, and are even forbidding instructors from requiring masks in their individual classes.
Meanwhile in Georgia:
[EMBEDDED IMAGE: graph showing exponential climb of COVID-19 cases in Georgia]
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Fact check: In jobs speech, Trump does more dishonest downplaying of the pandemic
By Daniel Dale
Updated 1:19 PM ET, Thu July 2, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/politics/fact-check-trump-pandemic-control-flames-jobs-speech/index.html
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump took a victory lap in the White House press briefing room on Thursday morning on the expectations-beating June jobs report -- and, as he has since January, dishonestly downplayed the coronavirus crisis.
Trump claimed that, just like in China and Europe, the situation in the US is "getting under control." He said health experts "continue to address the temporary hot spots in certain cities and counties." And he said "we have some areas where we're putting out the flames or the fires, and that's working out well ... I think you'll see that shortly."
Facts First: As government officials have confirmed this week, the pandemic situation in the US is worsening; it is not a matter of isolated outbreaks, and the problem is not being extinguished. The US set a single-day record on Wednesday for confirmed coronavirus cases, hitting 50,000 for the first time. As of Thursday, 37 states were seeing increases in the rate of confirmed new cases. And it's not just mild cases: Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Congress on Tuesday that hospitalizations were rising in 12 states.
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Angry Staffer
twitter.com/AngrierWHStaff
2 July 2020
https://twitter.com/AngrierWHStaff/status/1278718176562425856
“I would say that... If you want to see August 1st, then maybe you should stay indoors and isolate on July 4th.”
I’ve never heard a doctor speak this way before. I hope people are still taking this seriously.
[QUOTED TWEET]
John Berman
twitter.com/JohnBerman
2 July 2020
https://twitter.com/JohnBerman/status/1278666645280632832
JUST NOW: "Overwhelmed."
My friend/hero twitter.com/miguelmarquez with a brave/sensitive/crucial piece on a TX hospital inundated with COVID cases this morning.
Watch and share. I don't know if people realize this is happening.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
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Anthony Fauci Issues a New Coronavirus Plea
By Amy Davidson Sorkin
July 1, 2020
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/as-trumps-hostility-to-masks-fuels-a-public-health-nihilism-fauci-issues-a-new-plea
On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci sat in a Senate hearing room that had been reconfigured for social distancing and listened, mask at hand, as Patty Murray, of Washington, described the consequences of America’s failure to manage its pandemic. The tally of cases was soaring in a majority of states, particularly in the South and West; Murray, speaking by video, quoted a C.D.C. official who had warned that there was “too much virus to control in the U.S.” Murray stated the obvious: “Our strategy hasn’t worked.” What, she asked, did the federal and state governments need to do to turn the numbers around?
“I am also quite concerned,” Fauci replied. He reeled off some of the statistics that Murray had alluded to—“surges” in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas alone, he said, accounted for half of the new confirmed cases, which now amount to more than forty thousand a day. Later in his testimony, in answer to a question from Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, Fauci said that he would not be surprised if the number of new cases reached a hundred thousand a day. (He declined to make a guess as to how many deaths that would amount to.) Perhaps, Fauci added, some states had reopened “too quickly”; even in ones where the governors and mayors had acted properly, he had seen “in clips and in photographs . . . individuals in the community doing an ‘all or none’ phenomenon”—by which he meant “either be locked down or open up in a way where you see people at bars, not wearing masks, not avoiding crowds, not paying attention to physical distancing.” To halt the pandemic, Fauci said, “I think we need to emphasize the responsibility that we have both as individuals and as part of a societal effort.”
Fauci is, of course, right about personal responsibility; everyone has a role to play in stopping the coronavirus. But he was less clear about how that rallying cry fits into any federal or even state-government public-health strategy. The great cause of confusion is that we have, at the moment, an all-or-none President, whose exercise of personal or political responsibility in dealing with this crisis is around the level of zero. At times, it sounded as though Fauci had pretty much given up on Donald Trump, and had no option left but to appeal directly to the American people. He could only hope that they would pay attention to his warnings rather than to Trump’s tweets mocking people who wear masks, or the clips and photographs of the people in the crowd, very few of them wearing masks, at the President’s indoor events. (At a rally in Tulsa, campaign workers reportedly removed labels encouraging social distancing from seats.)
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Why coronavirus cases in California are suddenly surging
Amy Graff
July 1, 2020
Updated: July 2, 2020 8:34 a.m.
https://www.seattlepi.com/bayarea/slideshow/Why-California-coronavirus-cases-going-up-204645.php
With coronavirus cases spiking to record levels and hospitals filling up, California has entered a new stage in the pandemic that officials are calling alarming.
In the past two weeks, cases have increased some 45% and hospitalizations 43%, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday. While the jump in cases is in part due to the state conducting more tests, the state's rate of positive cases went from 4.4% to 5.5% and this reveals that the surge in cases can't solely be explained by increased testing.
In Imperial County, the site of the state's most severe spread, that rate has skyrocketed to 23%. In Riverside County, intensive care units are at 99% capacity, and it's possible hospital beds in Los Angeles County could be full in two weeks.
To mitigate spread, about a dozen counties around the state rolled back their shelter-in-place orders and shuttered bars. In Los Angeles County beaches were closed ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.
While the pandemic is less severe in the Bay Area compared to Southern California, the region has still seen an uptick. In the past week, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Francisco all announced plans to pause further reopenings.
This is all a huge change compared to where California was in recent months, when the rate of spread was remarkably stable compared to other parts of the country and the state was focused on small, incremental steps toward reopening the economy. Now, California is moving backward, and Newsom is expected to announce new restrictions today.
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Tuscaloosa students held parties, bet on who got coronavirus first
Updated 7:31 AM; Today 7:22 AM
By The Associated Press
https://www.al.com/news/2020/07/tuscaloosa-students-held-parties-bet-on-who-got-coronavirus-first.html
Several college students in an Alabama city organized “COVID-19” parties as a contest to see who would get the virus first, officials said.
Tuscaloosa City Councilor Sonya McKinstry said students hosted the parties to intentionally infect each other with the new coronavirus, news outlets reported.
McKinstry said party organizers purposely invited guests who tested positive for COVID-19. She said the students put money in a pot and whoever got COVID first would get the cash.
“It makes no sense,” McKinstry said. “They’re intentionally doing it.”
Tuscaloosa Fire Chief Randy Smith confirmed the incidents to the City Council Tuesday.
The department thought the parties were rumors but Smith said after some research, the department found out the parties were real.
“We did some research. Not only do the doctors’ offices confirm it but the state confirmed they also had the same information,” Smith said.
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For Black Americans, Wearing A Mask Comes With Complicated Anxieties
By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Likhitha Butchireddygari
30 June 2020
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/for-black-americans-wearing-a-mask-comes-with-complicated-anxieties/
Over the past few months, mask-wearing in public has become the norm. In some states, it’s even required. But for Black Americans — and young Black men in particular — wearing a mask can feel like a catch-22. Public health experts now say masks are crucial for preventing the spread of the virus, which has disproportionately affected Black people. But putting on a mask can be an intense source of anxiety for many Black people — particularly Black men — who worry that they’ll be harassed or profiled while they’re wearing one.
“Almost immediately after mask-wearing became widespread, there were anecdotal reports of Black men being followed and asked to leave stores because they were wearing masks,” said ReNika Moore, director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program.
A new study underscores just how widespread this kind of profiling could be. Researchers at the University of North Carolina found that in a survey experiment, non-Black respondents who scored high in racial resentment — a measure that’s designed to assess negative attitudes toward people of color — were much likelier to perceive a young Black man as threatening or untrustworthy if he was wearing a homemade mask or a bandanna, compared to a white man around the same age.
“There’s no doubt at this point that masks keep people safer from COVID-19,” said Marc Hetherington, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina and one of the authors of the study. “But certain types of masks may also be putting young Black men in danger of harassment or profiling.”
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T. Greg Doucette
twitter.com/greg_doucette
1 July 2020
https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1278565827747471361
701: Seattle, WA: police are back to using pepper spray, two weeks after the Seattle City Council voted 9-0 to ban the use of pepper spray
1 July 2020
[twitter.com/MichaelReports]
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
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Gov. Inslee will require Washington businesses to turn away customers without coronavirus facial coverings
By Joseph O’Sullivan
Seattle Times staff reporter
July 2, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/inslee-will-require-businesses-to-turn-away-customers-who-enter-without-coronavirus-facial-coverings/
OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee Thursday announced several new restrictions intended to dampen a rise in new coronavirus cases, including a statewide order to take effect next week barring businesses from serving customers who don’t wear facial coverings.
In a news conference, the governor also announced other new restrictions. Inslee put a two-week pause on any county advancing to a broader phase in the his four-part reopening plan. And he tightened restrictions on bars opening back up under the third phase of that plan.
Thursday’s announcement came as Washington reported 716 new coronavirus cases — the state’s highest daily total since the beginning of the pandemic — including three more deaths.
The update brings the state’s totals to 34,151 cases and 1,342 deaths, meaning about 3.9% of people diagnosed in Washington have died, according to the state Department of Health (DOH). The data is as of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
So far, 584,989 tests for the novel coronavirus have been conducted in the state, per DOH. Of those, 5.8% have come back positive since testing began.
Inslee pointed to virus modeling showing that the transmission rate of the virus — meaning the number of people a sick person goes on to infect — has increased in Western Washington.
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ALT-immigration
twitter.com/ALT_uscis
2 July 2020
https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/1278831283792158722
This twitter.com/RepAndyBiggsAZ from Arizona, wanting to disband the White House coronavirus task force or at least give the boot to fauci. Unbelievable
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
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CBS Evening News
twitter.com/CBSEveningNews
2 July 2020
https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/1278822478383644672
Despite warnings that the economy could take another hit due to spiking COVID-19 cases, Pres. Trump touted the latest job numbers as evidence the pandemic is under control.
This as twitter.com/POTUS plans a large event Friday at Mt. Rushmore, where masks will be optional.
Here's twitter.com/weijia
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
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USDA Uses Faulty Data to Approve Speeding Up Meatpacking Lines
More than 1,100 Hogs Slaughtered Every Hour as Pandemic Cuts a Deadly Swath Through Workforce
By Sarah Okeson
1 July 2020
https://www.dcreport.org/2020/07/01/usda-uses-faulty-data-to-approve-speeding-up-meatpacking-lines/
Team Trump may have used unsuitable data to analyze safety so plants could skirt a rule regulating meat packing.
The rule regulates how fast pigs can be slaughtered.
The USDA Office of Inspector General recently released a report with the claim about faulty data as COVID-19 cases soar in meatpacking plants.
At least 102 meatpackers have died, according to the Food & Environment Reporting Network. More than 30,000 meatpackers tested positive for COVID-19, including 170 workers at Quality Pork Processors Inc. in Austin, Minn. And 1,031 positive cases were counted at Tyson Foods pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa, where at least five workers have died.
“The inspector general’s report provides an additional reason why the rule eliminating the maximum line speeds cannot stand,” said Adam Pulver. He is attorney for Public Citizen which is representing unions in a lawsuit over the rule.
Team Trump’s lack of concern about workers who process pigs into the bacon and pork chops is akin to Trump’s no-testing policy for COVID-19.
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Do Americans Understand How Badly They’re Doing?
In France, where I live, the virus is under control. I can hardly believe the news coming out of the United States.
July 2, 2020
Thomas Chatterton Williams
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/america-land-pathetic/613747/
I returned to Paris with my family three months after President Emmanuel Macron had ordered one of the world’s most aggressive national quarantines, and one month after France had begun to ease itself out of it. When we exited the Gare Montparnasse into the late-spring glare, after a season tucked away in a rural village with more cows than people as neighbors, it was jarring to be thrust back into the world as we’d previously known it, to see those café terraces overflowing again with smiling faces.
My first reaction was one of confused frustration as we drove north across the river to our apartment. The city had been culled of its tourists, though it was bustling with inhabitants basking in their reclaimed freedom. Half at most wore masks; the other half evinced indifference. We were in the midst of a crisis, I complained to my wife. Why were so many people unable to maintain even minimal discipline?
Glued as I am to the news from the U.S.—where I was born and grew up and travel frequently— I couldn’t shake the feeling that France was also opening up recklessly early. But I was wrong to worry. As Donald Trump’s America continues to shatter records for daily infections, France, like most other developed nations and even some undeveloped ones, seems to have beat back the virus.
The numbers are not ambiguous. From a peak of 7,581 new cases across the country on March 31, and with a death toll now just below 30,000—at one point the world’s fourth highest—there were just 526 new cases on June 13, the day we masked ourselves and took the train back to Paris. The caseload continues to be small and manageable.
America, however, is an utter disaster. Texas, Florida, and Arizona are the newest hubs of contagion, having apparently learned nothing from the other countries and states that previously experienced surges in cases. I stared at my phone in disbelief when the musician Rosanne Cash wrote on Twitter that her daughter had been called a “liberal pussy!” in Nashville for wearing a mask to buy groceries.
That insult succinctly conveys the crux of the problem. American leadership has politicized the pandemic instead of trying to fight it. I see no preparedness, no coordinated top-down leadership of the sort we’ve enjoyed in Europe. I see only empty posturing, the sad spectacle of the president refusing to wear a mask, just to own the libs. What an astonishing self-inflicted wound.
On June 26, a day when the U.S. notched some 45,000 new cases—how’s that for “American carnage”?—the European Union announced that it would loosen some travel restrictions but extend its ban on visitors from the United States and other hot-spot nations. On Tuesday, it confirmed that remarkable and deeply humiliating decision, a clear message that in pandemic management, the EU believes that the United States is no better than Russia and Brazil—autocrat-run public-health disasters—and that American tourists would pose a dire threat to the hard-won stability our lockdown has earned us. So much for the myth that the American political system and way of life are a model for the world.
I don't mean Washington State; we're in a bad position, but frankly we wouldn't be if we didn't have the Federal government and its ruling party sabotaging us continually.
And while our case count is spiking upwards because of that, there's one hidden piece of very good news: positivity rate in testing continues to go down. That's what you want to see when you finally manage to get testing expanded enough. Yesterday's horrible count had a positivity rate down to 5.4%. That kind of thing is why our long-term positive rate keeps falling.
It's hard to see, but that's actually pretty good news.
- Arizona GOP Rep. Calls For WH Coronavirus Task Force To Be Disbanded
- University System of Georgia is planning to put students in classrooms in 6 weeks without masks (and will forbid requiring them) as COVID-19 cases climb exponentially in the state
- Fact check: In jobs speech, Trump does more dishonest downplaying of the pandemic
- “I would say that... If you want to see August 1st, then maybe you should stay indoors and isolate on July 4th.”
- Anthony Fauci Issues a New Coronavirus Plea
- Why coronavirus cases in California are suddenly surging
- Tuscaloosa students held parties, bet on who got coronavirus first
- For Black Americans, Wearing A Mask Comes With Complicated Anxieties
- Seattle, WA: police are back to using pepper spray, two weeks after the Seattle City Council voted 9-0 to ban the use of pepper spray
- Gov. Inslee will require Washington businesses to turn away customers without coronavirus facial coverings
- Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) wants to disband the White House coronavirus task force for going against Trump's message.
- POTUS plans a large event Friday at Mt. Rushmore, where masks will be optional.
- USDA Uses Faulty Data to Approve Speeding Up Meatpacking Lines
- Do Americans Understand How Badly They’re Doing?
----- 1 -----
Arizona GOP Rep. Calls For WH Coronavirus Task Force To Be Disbanded
By Summer Concepcion
July 2, 2020 12:34 p.m.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/andy-biggs-arizona-disband-white-house-coronavirus-task-force
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has a bone to pick with Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force as Arizona experiences a surge in COVID-19 cases.
In a statement issued Thursday praising the June jobs report, Biggs ripped Fauci and Birx by accusing them of “causing panic” by contradicting President Trump’s “goals and actions for returning to normalcy.”
“Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx continue to contradict many of President Trump’s stated goals and actions for returning to normalcy as we know more about the COVID-19 outbreak. This is causing panic that compromises our economic recovery,” Biggs wrote in the statement. “We can protect our most vulnerable from the COVID-19 outbreak while still protecting lives and livelihoods of the rest of the population.”
Biggs then called for the disbandment of the White House Coronavirus Task Force “so that President Trump’s message is not mitigated or distorted.”
Biggs’ criticism comes on the heels of Fauci warning during his Senate testimony on Tuesday that new coronavirus cases could rise to 100,000 per day.
----- 2 -----
Jeffrey Lazarus
twitter.com/jlazarus001
1 July 2020
https://twitter.com/jlazarus001/status/1278532811960586240
The University System of Georgia is planning to put students in classrooms in 6 weeks, will not require students (or anyone) to wear masks, and are even forbidding instructors from requiring masks in their individual classes.
Meanwhile in Georgia:
[EMBEDDED IMAGE: graph showing exponential climb of COVID-19 cases in Georgia]
----- 3 -----
Fact check: In jobs speech, Trump does more dishonest downplaying of the pandemic
By Daniel Dale
Updated 1:19 PM ET, Thu July 2, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/politics/fact-check-trump-pandemic-control-flames-jobs-speech/index.html
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump took a victory lap in the White House press briefing room on Thursday morning on the expectations-beating June jobs report -- and, as he has since January, dishonestly downplayed the coronavirus crisis.
Trump claimed that, just like in China and Europe, the situation in the US is "getting under control." He said health experts "continue to address the temporary hot spots in certain cities and counties." And he said "we have some areas where we're putting out the flames or the fires, and that's working out well ... I think you'll see that shortly."
Facts First: As government officials have confirmed this week, the pandemic situation in the US is worsening; it is not a matter of isolated outbreaks, and the problem is not being extinguished. The US set a single-day record on Wednesday for confirmed coronavirus cases, hitting 50,000 for the first time. As of Thursday, 37 states were seeing increases in the rate of confirmed new cases. And it's not just mild cases: Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Congress on Tuesday that hospitalizations were rising in 12 states.
----- 4 -----
Angry Staffer
twitter.com/AngrierWHStaff
2 July 2020
https://twitter.com/AngrierWHStaff/status/1278718176562425856
“I would say that... If you want to see August 1st, then maybe you should stay indoors and isolate on July 4th.”
I’ve never heard a doctor speak this way before. I hope people are still taking this seriously.
[QUOTED TWEET]
John Berman
twitter.com/JohnBerman
2 July 2020
https://twitter.com/JohnBerman/status/1278666645280632832
JUST NOW: "Overwhelmed."
My friend/hero twitter.com/miguelmarquez with a brave/sensitive/crucial piece on a TX hospital inundated with COVID cases this morning.
Watch and share. I don't know if people realize this is happening.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 5 -----
Anthony Fauci Issues a New Coronavirus Plea
By Amy Davidson Sorkin
July 1, 2020
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/as-trumps-hostility-to-masks-fuels-a-public-health-nihilism-fauci-issues-a-new-plea
On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci sat in a Senate hearing room that had been reconfigured for social distancing and listened, mask at hand, as Patty Murray, of Washington, described the consequences of America’s failure to manage its pandemic. The tally of cases was soaring in a majority of states, particularly in the South and West; Murray, speaking by video, quoted a C.D.C. official who had warned that there was “too much virus to control in the U.S.” Murray stated the obvious: “Our strategy hasn’t worked.” What, she asked, did the federal and state governments need to do to turn the numbers around?
“I am also quite concerned,” Fauci replied. He reeled off some of the statistics that Murray had alluded to—“surges” in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas alone, he said, accounted for half of the new confirmed cases, which now amount to more than forty thousand a day. Later in his testimony, in answer to a question from Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, Fauci said that he would not be surprised if the number of new cases reached a hundred thousand a day. (He declined to make a guess as to how many deaths that would amount to.) Perhaps, Fauci added, some states had reopened “too quickly”; even in ones where the governors and mayors had acted properly, he had seen “in clips and in photographs . . . individuals in the community doing an ‘all or none’ phenomenon”—by which he meant “either be locked down or open up in a way where you see people at bars, not wearing masks, not avoiding crowds, not paying attention to physical distancing.” To halt the pandemic, Fauci said, “I think we need to emphasize the responsibility that we have both as individuals and as part of a societal effort.”
Fauci is, of course, right about personal responsibility; everyone has a role to play in stopping the coronavirus. But he was less clear about how that rallying cry fits into any federal or even state-government public-health strategy. The great cause of confusion is that we have, at the moment, an all-or-none President, whose exercise of personal or political responsibility in dealing with this crisis is around the level of zero. At times, it sounded as though Fauci had pretty much given up on Donald Trump, and had no option left but to appeal directly to the American people. He could only hope that they would pay attention to his warnings rather than to Trump’s tweets mocking people who wear masks, or the clips and photographs of the people in the crowd, very few of them wearing masks, at the President’s indoor events. (At a rally in Tulsa, campaign workers reportedly removed labels encouraging social distancing from seats.)
----- 6 -----
Why coronavirus cases in California are suddenly surging
Amy Graff
July 1, 2020
Updated: July 2, 2020 8:34 a.m.
https://www.seattlepi.com/bayarea/slideshow/Why-California-coronavirus-cases-going-up-204645.php
With coronavirus cases spiking to record levels and hospitals filling up, California has entered a new stage in the pandemic that officials are calling alarming.
In the past two weeks, cases have increased some 45% and hospitalizations 43%, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday. While the jump in cases is in part due to the state conducting more tests, the state's rate of positive cases went from 4.4% to 5.5% and this reveals that the surge in cases can't solely be explained by increased testing.
In Imperial County, the site of the state's most severe spread, that rate has skyrocketed to 23%. In Riverside County, intensive care units are at 99% capacity, and it's possible hospital beds in Los Angeles County could be full in two weeks.
To mitigate spread, about a dozen counties around the state rolled back their shelter-in-place orders and shuttered bars. In Los Angeles County beaches were closed ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.
While the pandemic is less severe in the Bay Area compared to Southern California, the region has still seen an uptick. In the past week, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Francisco all announced plans to pause further reopenings.
This is all a huge change compared to where California was in recent months, when the rate of spread was remarkably stable compared to other parts of the country and the state was focused on small, incremental steps toward reopening the economy. Now, California is moving backward, and Newsom is expected to announce new restrictions today.
----- 7 -----
Tuscaloosa students held parties, bet on who got coronavirus first
Updated 7:31 AM; Today 7:22 AM
By The Associated Press
https://www.al.com/news/2020/07/tuscaloosa-students-held-parties-bet-on-who-got-coronavirus-first.html
Several college students in an Alabama city organized “COVID-19” parties as a contest to see who would get the virus first, officials said.
Tuscaloosa City Councilor Sonya McKinstry said students hosted the parties to intentionally infect each other with the new coronavirus, news outlets reported.
McKinstry said party organizers purposely invited guests who tested positive for COVID-19. She said the students put money in a pot and whoever got COVID first would get the cash.
“It makes no sense,” McKinstry said. “They’re intentionally doing it.”
Tuscaloosa Fire Chief Randy Smith confirmed the incidents to the City Council Tuesday.
The department thought the parties were rumors but Smith said after some research, the department found out the parties were real.
“We did some research. Not only do the doctors’ offices confirm it but the state confirmed they also had the same information,” Smith said.
----- 8 -----
For Black Americans, Wearing A Mask Comes With Complicated Anxieties
By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Likhitha Butchireddygari
30 June 2020
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/for-black-americans-wearing-a-mask-comes-with-complicated-anxieties/
Over the past few months, mask-wearing in public has become the norm. In some states, it’s even required. But for Black Americans — and young Black men in particular — wearing a mask can feel like a catch-22. Public health experts now say masks are crucial for preventing the spread of the virus, which has disproportionately affected Black people. But putting on a mask can be an intense source of anxiety for many Black people — particularly Black men — who worry that they’ll be harassed or profiled while they’re wearing one.
“Almost immediately after mask-wearing became widespread, there were anecdotal reports of Black men being followed and asked to leave stores because they were wearing masks,” said ReNika Moore, director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program.
A new study underscores just how widespread this kind of profiling could be. Researchers at the University of North Carolina found that in a survey experiment, non-Black respondents who scored high in racial resentment — a measure that’s designed to assess negative attitudes toward people of color — were much likelier to perceive a young Black man as threatening or untrustworthy if he was wearing a homemade mask or a bandanna, compared to a white man around the same age.
“There’s no doubt at this point that masks keep people safer from COVID-19,” said Marc Hetherington, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina and one of the authors of the study. “But certain types of masks may also be putting young Black men in danger of harassment or profiling.”
----- 9 -----
T. Greg Doucette
twitter.com/greg_doucette
1 July 2020
https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1278565827747471361
701: Seattle, WA: police are back to using pepper spray, two weeks after the Seattle City Council voted 9-0 to ban the use of pepper spray
1 July 2020
[twitter.com/MichaelReports]
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
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Gov. Inslee will require Washington businesses to turn away customers without coronavirus facial coverings
By Joseph O’Sullivan
Seattle Times staff reporter
July 2, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/inslee-will-require-businesses-to-turn-away-customers-who-enter-without-coronavirus-facial-coverings/
OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee Thursday announced several new restrictions intended to dampen a rise in new coronavirus cases, including a statewide order to take effect next week barring businesses from serving customers who don’t wear facial coverings.
In a news conference, the governor also announced other new restrictions. Inslee put a two-week pause on any county advancing to a broader phase in the his four-part reopening plan. And he tightened restrictions on bars opening back up under the third phase of that plan.
Thursday’s announcement came as Washington reported 716 new coronavirus cases — the state’s highest daily total since the beginning of the pandemic — including three more deaths.
The update brings the state’s totals to 34,151 cases and 1,342 deaths, meaning about 3.9% of people diagnosed in Washington have died, according to the state Department of Health (DOH). The data is as of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
So far, 584,989 tests for the novel coronavirus have been conducted in the state, per DOH. Of those, 5.8% have come back positive since testing began.
Inslee pointed to virus modeling showing that the transmission rate of the virus — meaning the number of people a sick person goes on to infect — has increased in Western Washington.
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ALT-immigration
twitter.com/ALT_uscis
2 July 2020
https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/1278831283792158722
This twitter.com/RepAndyBiggsAZ from Arizona, wanting to disband the White House coronavirus task force or at least give the boot to fauci. Unbelievable
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
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CBS Evening News
twitter.com/CBSEveningNews
2 July 2020
https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/1278822478383644672
Despite warnings that the economy could take another hit due to spiking COVID-19 cases, Pres. Trump touted the latest job numbers as evidence the pandemic is under control.
This as twitter.com/POTUS plans a large event Friday at Mt. Rushmore, where masks will be optional.
Here's twitter.com/weijia
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
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USDA Uses Faulty Data to Approve Speeding Up Meatpacking Lines
More than 1,100 Hogs Slaughtered Every Hour as Pandemic Cuts a Deadly Swath Through Workforce
By Sarah Okeson
1 July 2020
https://www.dcreport.org/2020/07/01/usda-uses-faulty-data-to-approve-speeding-up-meatpacking-lines/
Team Trump may have used unsuitable data to analyze safety so plants could skirt a rule regulating meat packing.
The rule regulates how fast pigs can be slaughtered.
The USDA Office of Inspector General recently released a report with the claim about faulty data as COVID-19 cases soar in meatpacking plants.
At least 102 meatpackers have died, according to the Food & Environment Reporting Network. More than 30,000 meatpackers tested positive for COVID-19, including 170 workers at Quality Pork Processors Inc. in Austin, Minn. And 1,031 positive cases were counted at Tyson Foods pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa, where at least five workers have died.
“The inspector general’s report provides an additional reason why the rule eliminating the maximum line speeds cannot stand,” said Adam Pulver. He is attorney for Public Citizen which is representing unions in a lawsuit over the rule.
Team Trump’s lack of concern about workers who process pigs into the bacon and pork chops is akin to Trump’s no-testing policy for COVID-19.
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Do Americans Understand How Badly They’re Doing?
In France, where I live, the virus is under control. I can hardly believe the news coming out of the United States.
July 2, 2020
Thomas Chatterton Williams
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/america-land-pathetic/613747/
I returned to Paris with my family three months after President Emmanuel Macron had ordered one of the world’s most aggressive national quarantines, and one month after France had begun to ease itself out of it. When we exited the Gare Montparnasse into the late-spring glare, after a season tucked away in a rural village with more cows than people as neighbors, it was jarring to be thrust back into the world as we’d previously known it, to see those café terraces overflowing again with smiling faces.
My first reaction was one of confused frustration as we drove north across the river to our apartment. The city had been culled of its tourists, though it was bustling with inhabitants basking in their reclaimed freedom. Half at most wore masks; the other half evinced indifference. We were in the midst of a crisis, I complained to my wife. Why were so many people unable to maintain even minimal discipline?
Glued as I am to the news from the U.S.—where I was born and grew up and travel frequently— I couldn’t shake the feeling that France was also opening up recklessly early. But I was wrong to worry. As Donald Trump’s America continues to shatter records for daily infections, France, like most other developed nations and even some undeveloped ones, seems to have beat back the virus.
The numbers are not ambiguous. From a peak of 7,581 new cases across the country on March 31, and with a death toll now just below 30,000—at one point the world’s fourth highest—there were just 526 new cases on June 13, the day we masked ourselves and took the train back to Paris. The caseload continues to be small and manageable.
America, however, is an utter disaster. Texas, Florida, and Arizona are the newest hubs of contagion, having apparently learned nothing from the other countries and states that previously experienced surges in cases. I stared at my phone in disbelief when the musician Rosanne Cash wrote on Twitter that her daughter had been called a “liberal pussy!” in Nashville for wearing a mask to buy groceries.
That insult succinctly conveys the crux of the problem. American leadership has politicized the pandemic instead of trying to fight it. I see no preparedness, no coordinated top-down leadership of the sort we’ve enjoyed in Europe. I see only empty posturing, the sad spectacle of the president refusing to wear a mask, just to own the libs. What an astonishing self-inflicted wound.
On June 26, a day when the U.S. notched some 45,000 new cases—how’s that for “American carnage”?—the European Union announced that it would loosen some travel restrictions but extend its ban on visitors from the United States and other hot-spot nations. On Tuesday, it confirmed that remarkable and deeply humiliating decision, a clear message that in pandemic management, the EU believes that the United States is no better than Russia and Brazil—autocrat-run public-health disasters—and that American tourists would pose a dire threat to the hard-won stability our lockdown has earned us. So much for the myth that the American political system and way of life are a model for the world.
