In the early days of the pandemic, a doctor at a University of Washington lab, Dr. Helen Chu, was the first to find community spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. She was studying the flu and in late January she requested permission to test her samples for the coronavirus as well. She couldn’t get federal or state approval. A month later, her team began testing without approval and found a positive test in a local teenager. Once the state approved further testing, the FDA put a stop to it. Part of this was because of privacy and permission issues, but part of it was the inability of our government to see the value of testing. And because of that, we still don’t have a solid test nor a test strategy to help us move forward.

Here’s what happened in politics during the week ending April 26…

Shootings This Week:

1. There were 6 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 5 people and injure 24 more.
2. For the first time in over six decades, Miami goes six weeks straight without a homicide.
3. After last week’s mass murder in Nova Scotia, Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promises gun safety legislation.

Russia:

1. The Senate Intelligence Committee releases another report confirming the findings by our intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in our 2016 elections to help elect Trump. They confirm that Putin directed the efforts.

• • The committee is chaired by Republican Senator Richard Burr, who praised our intelligence community’s strong tradecraft and analytical reasoning.
  • This is the fourth of five reports to be released by the committee.
  • The bipartisan committee approved the report unanimously.
  • The report says that the officials who wrote the original intelligence community assessment of Russia’s meddling were not subject to political pressure.
  • This report contradicts the report issued by House Republicans in 2018, which claimed there were significant failings in the intelligence agencies and that they couldn’t conclude Putin favored Trump.

2. After an appeals court ruled that the DOJ must hand over documents from the Mueller investigation to Congress, the DOJ asks for a stay while it takes the case to the Supreme Court.

Courts/Justice:

1. Attorney General Bill Barr threatens to take legal action against governors who impose strict stay-at-home measures to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. States and the Trump administration are all struggling to define a safe approach to reopening. (Tip: The CDC has a plan.)

Coronavirus:

1. Church leaders and televangelists encourage churches to continue holding religious gatherings despite the social distancing guidelines, and now at least 30 pastors across the Bible Belt have died from COVID-19. 
Church services and funerals have been the vector for several outbreaks across the U.S.
2. The Navy recommends that Captain Brett Crozier be reinstated to his post as commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is holding it up.
3. There are currently 26 Navy warships with confirmed coronavirus cases aboard.
4. Trump suggests to a very uncomfortable Dr. Deborah Birx that we could treat COVID-19 with ultraviolet light, either through the skin or injection. He goes on to muse about injections or cleaning the lungs with disinfectant.

• • Heat and humidity studies are inconclusive and show no evidence that heat will slow it down the way it does the flu.
  • It turns out that the leader of Genesis II, a group peddling a bleach-based coronavirus cure, wrote to Trump to tell him about how it can kill 99% of the pathogens in the body. 30 supporters of the group wrote to Trump as well.
  • Just days before Trump suggested disinfectant as a cure, the FDA banned Genesis II from selling its bleach cure.
  • After this whole exchange, Trump says he has a very good “you know what,” pointing to his head and apparently forgetting the word for “brain.”
  • Dr. Deborah Birx defends Trump, saying that he just wanted to “talk that through.” Tip: When the president wants to just throw shit out to see what sticks, he should do it in private, not in public.

5. Polling data comes out that shows Biden ahead of Trump as the presidential favorite. The data also shows that the American people generally don’t approve of Trump’s response to the pandemic. The campaign team shows the data to Trump to get him to stop his daily briefings.
6. After the kerfuffle over UV light and disinfectant, Trump plans to stop appearing at daily press briefings and have fewer, shorter briefings instead. Trump has fought this, saying that the briefings get good ratings.
7. The manufacturer of Lysol issues a statement warning not to use Lysol internally: “As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).”
8. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) launches a series of audits on the administration’s coronavirus response. They’ll oversee the administration of relief packages as well as the overall response to the pandemic, including testing, medical supply distribution, and nursing home infections.
9. Dr. Anthony Fauci says that we should be able to double the number of coronavirus tests completed in the next few weeks.
10. The FDA approves a new at-home coronavirus test kit.
11. There’s one cruise ship still out at sea with passengers, and the plan to dock it gets scuttled because of the weather. There are no infections on board. I don’t know why they wouldn’t just stay there.
12. Hydroxychloroquine is linked to higher rates of death for VA patients hospitalized with COVID-19. VA researchers look at people who received HCQ, people who received HCQ plus an antibiotic, and people who didn’t receive HCQ. Death rates are nearly double for patients receiving HCQ alone or in combination with other drugs.
13. The FDA issues a warning against using hydroxychloroquine unless specifically prescribed by your doctor.
14. Dr. Rick Bright, director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), claims he was removed from his position and demoted for resisting Trump’s efforts to push hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. He’ll file a whistleblower complaint. He says that science, not politics or cronyism, needs to lead the way in solving this crisis.
15. Hospitals in New York are testing plasma treatments on their sickest patients. This involves transfusing them with blood plasma from patients who’ve recovered from the disease.
16. Thousands of email addresses and passwords are stolen from the NIH, WHO, CDC, and Gates Foundation, all of which are targets of a conspiracy theory that alleges these groups are profiting off any vaccines or treatments for COVID-19 and that they’ll implant us with tracking devices through the vaccine.

• • Neo-Nazis and white supremacists publish the information extensively across the web, calling for a campaign to harass the exposed individuals.
  • The Gates Foundation is the target of a conspiracy theory that Bill Gates is trying to control the world through his response to the coronavirus. Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation has pledged $150 million to fight the virus, holds no patents for vaccines, and won’t be inserting microchips into any of us.

17. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says the curve in the state is “on its way down” and some hospitals can start performing elective procedures again. The state’s peak was pretty much as predicted.
18. Missouri sues China for its role in the pandemic, saying the country’s communist regime covered up information about the pandemic and didn’t do enough to stop the spread.
19. People are avoiding regular doctor visits due to fears around the pandemic, and that means that kids are falling behind on their vaccines. This puts them at risk for measles, whooping cough, and more.
20. Even though Trump says one preventable death is too many, he pushes states to reopen. In reality, until there’s a vaccine or cure, reopening means trading some lives for economic gain. On the other hand, people will start dying from other things caused by the shutdown, so it’s a balancing act.
21. A day after Mike Pence says that Veterans Affairs isn’t seeing an increase in coronavirus numbers, the department has its largest one-day increase and now has over 6,000 cases. The number of COVID-19 deaths in the VA has been rising steadily since March 22, and is at 391. There are 1,895 VA employees who’ve tested positive and 20 have died from COVID-19.
22. The VA has been deploying teams of employees to help out with nursing homes on the East Coast.
23. The State Department strips references to the World Health Organization from its coronavirus fact sheets, and Mike Pompeo tells department employees to cut the WHO out of initiatives the U.S. supports. The U.S. will try to reroute funds, but that might require congressional approval.

• • The Trump administration is delaying a UN Security Council resolution in response to the pandemic because it objects to language supportive of the WHO.
  • The White House is also imploring our allies to question the credibility of the WHO.
  • European officials complain that they can’t find common ground with the U.S. on this.

24. Millions of people across the globe are more vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic because of cuts to U.S. foreign aid under Trump. Those cuts have forced clinics to close and reduced available supplies for other clinics. Aid groups express concern about the absence of U.S. leadership.
25. Doctors start to notice that COVID-19 causes strokes in some younger adults (in their 30s and 40s). Several die or are left debilitated by it. Doctors see rapid clotting in some of these patients (that is, they go in to fix one clot and can see others already forming).
26. California is the first state to recommend testing for some people without symptoms or contact with people infected with the coronavirus.
27. Despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, scientists say that all available evidence indicates that the coronavirus originated in animals and was not produced or modified in a lab. The Trump administration has asked intelligence agencies to find evidence that it was created in a lab or escaped from one.
28. ER doctors worry because the number of visits to the ER is down drastically as people worry about catching the virus in an ER or taking a bed needed by a COVID-19 patient. Health officials change their warnings to remind people that ERs can still treat you safely.
29. West Point’s graduation was postponed because of the pandemic, but Trump wants the graduates to all come back in June so he can give a commencement speech. To the surprise of everyone at West Point, he announces he’ll definitely do that.
30. The day after a brief clash between CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins and Trump, the White House tries to force her to trade her front-row seat at the press briefings with someone in the back row. Both reporters refuse to move because the White House doesn’t determine the seating chart. Trump briefs the press for only 22 minutes after that and refuses to take any questions. It’s the shortest coronavirus briefing so far, during a week where we surpassed 50,000 deaths in the U.S. and are coming up on a million confirmed cases.
31. After Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston started requiring all staff to wear masks in March, new coronavirus infection diagnoses dropped by more than half. In early April, they mandated that patients must wear masks as well.
32. After CDC Director Robert Redfield says we could see an even more difficult second wave of COVID-19 in the fall that we need to prepare for, Trump expresses doubt that it’ll happen. That’s how every single pandemic in the past 100 years has played out, but looking at the news and social media, lots of folks believe him instead of history.

• • In a briefing, Trump says Redfield was totally misquoted by The Washington Post on that. When asked about it moments later, Redfield says, “I’m accurately quoted in The Washington Post.”

33. Trump says the U.S. (which has tested around 4.2 million people) has tested more than the rest of the world put together (they’ve tested around 18.5 million people).
34. Ben Carson has a council to focus on restoring black and Hispanic communities to full economic health following the pandemic.
35. It’s likely that the numbers for COVID-19 infections and deaths will rise quite a bit, based on the high number of excess deaths we have over the typical number of deaths for the past 6 weeks plus COVID-19 deaths.

• • For example, there were 15,400 more deaths than typical for the period between March 1 and April 4. 8,128 were from COVID-19. Some of the remaining 7,000 plus were deaths also likely from COVID-19.

Shortages:

1. People have criticized the Trump administration for delivering medical equipment to China in February, but it turns out that the shipment of nearly 18 tons of medical equipment from the U.S. to China came from charitable organizations. The State Department arranged transportation only.
2. The last COVID-19 patient being treated on the USNS Comfort is discharged. The hospital ship arrived at the end of March and treated 182 people. The ship was set up for up to 500 COVID-91 patients, but the stay at home orders slowed down the spread enough that not all beds were needed.
3. Medical employees at VA hospitals say they don’t have enough protective gear and that some of what they have is being diverted to the national stockpile.
4. A New York nurses union sues the state for not providing enough protection for front-line workers from the coronavirus.

Exposures:

1. Remember two weeks ago when the Supreme Court, Wisconsin GOP legislators, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court forced voters who hadn’t received a mail-in ballot to go vote in person? At least 40 of the people who either showed up to vote or worked the polls have tested positive for coronavirus

• • But still, GOP lawmakers in the state sue Governor Tony Evers to stop his stay-at-home orders, saying the orders have created immense frustration. Well, no shit. We’re all pretty frustrated.

2. The Santa Clara County medical examiner discovers that one county resident died from COVID-19 on February 6 and another on February 17, much earlier than we thought the first death occurred in the U.S. The examiner sent tissue to the CDC at the time but the CDC’s strict testing rules prevented testing until calls were made to federal authorities.

• • Washington state health officials found two COVID-related deaths on February 26, three days earlier than we previously thought the first death in the U.S. occurred.
  • The CDC believes that as more tissue is tested, we’ll find more deaths earlier than we thought.

• • Genetic analyses suggest that early COVID-19 cases on the East Coast came from Europe and not China. They also suggest that it was spreading around Seattle weeks earlier than we thought.
  • Accurate epidemiology modeling relies on knowing the start date

3. A man in Wuhan, China, tested positive for the coronavirus in February. Even though he doesn’t have any symptoms, he’s still testing positive. Several people appear to recover but continue to carry the virus. Some people have a lot of antibodies following their infections, but some have relatively few. In South Korea, there are reports of people becoming reinfected.
4. The Trump administration says the U.S. won’t participate in a global initiative to develop, produce, and distribute drugs and vaccines against the coronavirus. In a more normal administration, the U.S. would be a global leader in this effort.
5. There’s concern that the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January might have been a coronavirus spreader event. This could explain why certain areas around San Francisco saw early cases and deaths.
6. Mike Pence says the coronavirus will ebb in the summer months and much of the pandemic will be behind us.
7. Tyson Foods suspends operations at its largest pork processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa after a number of their employees test positive for coronavirus. They previously had to shut down a different hog slaughterhouse in Iowa for the same reason.
8. Smithfield Foods has one of the country’s biggest outbreaks at a processing plant in South Dakota. A big issue is that their employees speak 40 different languages. However, the CDC provides information packets in most languages.

• • According to the CDC, in March workers were promised extra money if they showed up for work during the pandemic.
  • Smithfield Foods blames “living circumstances in certain cultures” for one of the largest COVID-19 clusters at one of its plants. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem says that 99% of the spread was happening outside the plant.

9. Nursing homes and jails continue to be trouble spots for COVID-19 outbreaks, but New York and New Jersey order nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients who have been discharged from the hospital even though they’re still recovering. California had a similar directive, but ended it in late March. Some nursing homes reopen empty wings to serve COVID-19 patients.

Closures:

1. As some states consider reopening, public health officials warn that that states shouldn’t open up unless they have the ability to test, to detect new outbreaks, and to quash them by contact tracing. States must also have hospital capacity to handle flare-ups.

• • Here’s an interesting model of when states are predicted to be able to start relaxing restrictions.

2. Tennessee plans to reopen by May 1.
3. South Carolina also has plans to lift some restrictions this week. They don’t meet the guidelines either, but their rates are fairly low.
4. New Jersey announces a blueprint to opening the state back up, but they have yet to see their peak.
5. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp starts reopening businesses in the state. Mayors and health officials criticize the decision, and even Trump, who it could be argued egged Kemp on, says it’s too soon. #ThrewHimUnderTheBus

• • Kemp opens gyms, fitness centers, bowling alleys, body art studio, barbers, cosmetologists, hair designers, nail care artists and massage therapists.
  • Theaters, private clubs, and restaurant dine-in services can resume next week.
  • The state has an increase of around 4,000 cases this week, with over 140 deaths, and definitely doesn’t meet the federal guidelines for beginning to reopen.
  • Members of Kemp’s coronavirus tax force were taken by surprise with his announcement, including those tasked with informing the public.
  • Georgia ranks close to the bottom of states as far as testing rate.
  • It’s kind of amazing that Georgia is the home of the CDC.

6. Six Republican governors in the Southeast form a coalition to plan their reopening, similar to others formed in the Northeast, Midwest, and West.
7. South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee announce limited easing of restrictions of businesses, recreation, and social gatherings. None of these states have met the federal guidelines for beginning to open. Some even continue to have upward trends in COVID-19 cases and deaths.
8. Some mayors in these states say they’ll keep their orders in place.
9. Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman gives a wild interview with Katy Tur and says she wants to reopen the city’s casinos and assume that everyone is already a carrier. Her rationale is that competition will destroy any businesses that spread the virus. She says we’ll learn the facts afterward.
10. Some countries, like Ghana are also opening back up, and Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro participated in anti-lockdown protests. Wait a minute! Is he protesting himself? Just like Trump.
11. European countries begin to slowly reopen. Austria is already planning to open bars and restaurants in a few weeks, while Spain and Italy are taking it slower.
12. With deaths in Italy decreasing over a few days, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte releases a plan to manage the outbreak there, including:

• • Continuing with social distancing, masks, and gloves until there’s a remedy or vaccine.
  • Girding up the healthcare system.
  • Creating hospitals specifically for COVID-19.
  • Antibody testing and contact tracing.

13. On the other hand, Netherlands bans large events until at least September.
14. New Zealand starts to lift its strict lockdown after a highly successful response by the government led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. She has an 80% approval rating over her handling of the crisis.
15. The U.K. Parliament votes unanimously to hold the rest of their sessions virtually over web conferences. The U.S. House, on the other hand, scraps a plan to just vote on handling their business remotely due to Republican opposition.
16. The United Automobile Workers union issues a statement saying that May is too early to start reopening automobile plants because it’s not safe enough yet for workers.
17. Air Canada suspends flights to the U.S. until May 22.
18. Wimbledon is canceled for the first time since World War II.
19. Some California counties open their beaches with social distancing guidelines still in place. A heatwave brings large crowds to the beaches, making it impossible to enforce social distancing.
20. The never-ceases-to-amaze-me Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, defends reopening by saying that “there are more important things than living.”
21. After a phone call with the head of the company that owns luxury gyms like Equinox and SoulCycle, Trump proposes reopening gyms.

Protests:

1. Kentucky has a spike in coronavirus cases the week after protests broke out against the state’s stay at home restrictions. Also in Kentucky, a pastor files a lawsuit against Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, which asserts that not allowing religious gatherings on Easter Sunday violates the constitutional right to religious freedom.
2. A mother in Idaho sparks a protest when she’s arrested for refusing to leave a playground with her children. Turns out it was a publicity stunt for her group, Idahoans for Vaccine Freedom (obvs an anti-vaxx group). Even Ammon Bundy got involved in the protest.
3. The protests popping up across the country against social distancing restrictions aren’t spontaneous, grassroots protests. They’re being pushed by a group of conservative individuals and organizations largely funded by Republican large donors.

• • The Convention of States, which promoted the protests through Facebook ads, is funded by Robert Mercer’s family foundation (you might remember him as the guy who owned companies involved in the Russia investigation). Cabinet members Ken Cuccinelli and Ben Carson have both supported the group in the past. The Convention of States’ purpose is to reduce federal power.
  • A vast majority of Americans support the social distancing measures.

• • The Koch network, which funded or launched some of the conservative groups supporting the protests, declines to support or assist with the protests.

4. An attorney pulls a knife on a news team covering an anti-lockdown protest in Huntington Beach, CA, and then forces them into their news van and orders them to erase any footage in which he appears. He’s now in jail for kidnapping and exhibiting a deadly weapon. He claims he wasn’t protesting, just watching. He didn’t want people to associate him with the protest.
5. Healthcare workers in Denver block people protesting the lockdowns. While they silently block traffic, people in the cars yell at them and call the virus a hoax.
6. 60% of Americans oppose these protests.

Numbers:

1. There are more than 1,000 cases of coronavirus in the Navajo Nation, with more than 40 deaths.
2. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 939,053 (up from 735,086 last week) people in the U.S. are infected so far (that we know of), with 52,189 (up from 32,922 last week) deaths.
  • 2,834,750 people worldwide have been infected, with 205,326 deaths.

Healthcare:

1. So far, 12 states have tried to restrict abortion access using the pandemic as an excuse. They’ve had mixed results.

• • Texas authorities withdraw from their push to include abortion in the list of nonessential medical procedures to be suspended during the pandemic. As this has gone through the courts, chaos ensued with facilities unsure of whether to cancel procedures or allow them. Texas residents have traveled to nearby states to have the procedure.
  • A federal court rules that Arkansas can enforce its ban on surgical abortions during the pandemic. Medical abortions are still allowed.
  • A federal judge rules that all abortions can resume in Oklahoma, granting a preliminary injunction stopping the states abortion ban.

International:

1. Where’s Kim Jong Un? No one really knows, but there are reports that he’s had heart surgery, which caused him to miss a major national event.
2. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his opposition leader Benny Gantz agree to form a national emergency government. The deal is supposed to help them handle the coronavirus crisis, but could break the year-long political deadlock in Israel. I’ve lost count of the number of elections they’ve held over that year.
3. Tehran launches its first military satellite, so Trump directs the Navy to “shoot down and destroy” any Iranian gunboats that harass our ships. He issues the directive in a morning tweet, so who know if it’s binding.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Trump suspends the issuance of new green cards while we deal with the pandemic, temporarily halting immigration to the U.S. He says it’s to protect U.S. jobs for U.S. workers.

• • White House adviser Stephen Miller says that this temporary ban will become permanent as part of a bigger strategy to reduce immigration.
  • Specifically Miller wants to stop family-based migration. Just another way this administration finds to separate families.

2. Betsy DeVos orders higher education institutions to withhold emergency funds from DACA recipients.
3. The CARES Act blocks relief aid not only to tax-paying immigrants with no legal status, but also to U.S. citizens who are married to a non-citizen and file joint tax returns using a TIN instead of an SSN.

• • California Governor Gavin Newsom establishes a relief fund for migrants and authorizes payments of up to $500 for workers denied aid by the administration due to their legal status.
  • A man sues Trump for discriminating against Americans who are married to immigrants.

4. The Trump administration is rewriting parts of the ACA to get rid of protections for LGBTQ patients against discrimination by health workers and staff.
5. A judge orders the swift release of migrant minors still being held in detention centers partly because the continued detention violates the Flores Agreement and partly because congregate living (like detention centers) are hotbeds of coronavirus outbreaks.

Climate/Environment:

1. Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas get hit by flooding and a series of tornadoes that kill at least seven people, destroy several homes, and leave thousands without power.
2. The Supreme Court rules against the Trump administration’s interpretation of the Clean Water Act, ruling that a wastewater treatment plant in Hawaii can’t pollute nearby waterways. The Trump administration had been arguing that there was a loophole in the act that allows them to get around the rule. The plant wanted to discharge the pollutants into groundwater.
3. And by the way, Happy Earth Day.

Budget/Economy:

1. The demand for food assistance from food banks has soared, but the USDA let tons of food rot instead of rapidly reconfiguring the supply chain to redirect the food to federal programs. Farmers lost their typical markets with the shutdown of restaurants and other institutions, but the USDA took more than a month to start buying up extra produce.
2. Even though Europe lost jobs during their shutdowns, jobs haven’t disappeared. That’s because the governments are paying a percentage of lost wages. They also aren’t losing healthcare coverage because they have national health services.
3. Another 4.4 million Americans filed jobless claims last week. Over the past five weeks, 26 million people have filed new claims.
4. The Fed warns large companies not to apply for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans under the Small Business Administration. A few large companies were awarded those loans already, but some announce they’ll return the loans.
5. The Senate passes another relief bill to provide $484 billion for things like expanding aid to small businesses and more money for hospitals and testing. This replenishes the PPP, which ran out of money last week.
6. Some retailers and grocers increase worker pay by a few dollars an hour to make up for the risk they’re taking by being in public every day.
7. Oil prices continue to tank after hitting $0.00 earlier in the week. Oil prices were still recovering following the oil glut caused by the Russia/Saudi pissing match.
8. Workers in more than half of U.S. states will receive more in unemployment benefits under the CARES Act than they would through wages if they continued working. In only 15 states are wages the same or more than the relief amount.
9. Trump signs a new $500 billion relief bill into law, but pushes back against funding the United States Postal Service unless it raises its shipping rates 4 times (so that package you’d normally send for $8 would be $32, if Trump has his way).

• • The USPS expects to run out of funds in September.
  • Congress approved a $10 billion line of credit for the USPS earlier this month.

10. Global economist and Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz says the U.S. handling of the coronavirus crisis makes us look like a third-world country.
11. While governors are requesting federal aid with their economic shortfalls as a result of the pandemic closures, Senator Mitch McConnell says they should just declare bankruptcy. In doing so, he drops a dog-whistle to the pension trope, indicating that he’s referring to Democratic states like CA, IL, and NY.

• • States don’t currently have the ability to declare bankruptcy.
  • Republican Rep. Peter King responds:

“To say that it is ‘free money’ to provide funds for cops, firefighters and healthcare workers makes McConnell the Marie Antoinette of the Senate.”

• • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo isn’t having any of that either:

“New York state puts much more money into the federal pot than it takes out. Okay? At the end of the year, we put into that federal pot $116 billion more than we take out. Okay? His state, the state of Kentucky, takes out $148 billion more than they put in. Okay?… Senator McConnell, who’s getting bailed out here? It’s your state that is living on the money that we generate. Your state is getting bailed out. Not my state.”

• • Here are a few resources about that:
    • Wallethub
    • USA Today

12. The Trump Organization requests rent release from the Trump administration for the Trump International Hotel.

Elections:

1. Republicans believe that Trump’s erratic handling of the coronavirus pandemic along with his rambling press briefings are behind his low polling numbers. GOP Senators in Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina and Maine who tied their boat to Trump are also trailing in polls. His recent comments about disinfectant and UV light were a breaking point for many.
2. Politico obtains a memo sent out by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to GOP campaigns. The memo urges candidates to blame their opponents for not being tough on China, to reject the notion that calling the coronavirus the “Chinese virus” is racist, and to blame the virus on China. You can read it in its entirety.
3. Unsurprisingly, prominent scientists and climate experts endorse Joe Biden for president.

Miscellaneous:

1. It’s now legal in New York to get married via Zoom.
2. When a reporter reminds Trump that he held campaign rallies and February and March, Trump responds by saying he hasn’t left the White House in months. I’m not sure he fully understands public records.

Polls:

1. Voters trust their own governors more than Trump to determine when and how to reopen businesses.
2. 54% of Americans rate Trump’s response to the pandemic as poor.
3. 61% of Americans support stay-at-home orders as well as other efforts to slow the spread.
4. 70% say the top priority should be slowing the spread, even with the economic pain.
5. 60% say Trump isn’t listening to the experts closely enough.

This is the week that the president of the United States incited his base to get out and protest his own guidelines for social distancing. Who does that? Someone who says one thing and means another. “Be safe out there [wink, wink] but go gather in groups, get close, and don’t wear masks. And oh, yeah… bring your guns.” We’re more than a month into the shutdown, and the White House still has no clear, coherent strategy to contain the virus and reopen the economy and get us out of this in one piece.

Here’s what happened in politics during the week ending April 19…

Shootings This Week:

1. There were 4 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 5 people and injure 12 more.
2. A gunman in a small town in Nova Scotia, Canada kills at least 22 people, including a Mountie. He also injures at least 3. The rampage started when the shooter got in a fight with his girlfriend.
3. March was the first March since 2002 without a school shooting in the U.S.

Russia:

1. The World Health Organization calls the massive amount of disinformation being spread about the coronavirus pandemic an “infodemic.” One big player in this, according to analysts, is Putin. For more than a decade, his agents have blamed outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics on American scientists and have undermined trust in vaccines.

• • The State Department accuses Russia of spreading the infodemic using thousands of social media accounts.
  • Please make sure you’re getting your information from reliable sources. Your life—all our lives—depends on it.

2. A federal judge denies Roger Stone’s request for a new trial.
3. Michael Cohen might be released on house arrest due to the COVID-19 crisis in congregate living spaces like prisons.

Courts/Justice:

1. The Supreme Court will hear all cases in May over teleconference. Finally we’ll have live audio of Supreme Court shenanigans.
2. The Senate will pause confirmation of judicial appointments until the pandemic subsides.

Coronavirus:

1. Trump puts a 90-day hold on U.S. payments to the World Health Organization pending review after he criticizes their response to the pandemic and accuses them of being too favorable to China. He accuses the WHO of pushing disinformation from China.

• • The U.S. is the WHO’s biggest funder.
  • The WHO says China has been transparent and open.
  • Experts warn that this will be devastating for worldwide polio eradication efforts. Even Trump’s own officials warn against cutting funding to the WHO.
  • The CDC’s Robert Redfield says the CDC will continue to work with the WHO.
  • House Democrats say that the pause in funding for the WHO is illegal just like stopping aid approved by Congress to Ukraine was.
  • Remember on February 24^th when Trump said what a great job the WHO was doing? That was before he needed a scapegoat. Here’s a good timeline of events regarding Trump and the WHO.
  • More than a dozen U.S. health experts and researchers working at the WHO kept the Trump administration informed about the discovery and spread of the coronavirus as it was happening in Wuhan, China.
  • Ireland quadruples its contribution to the WHO after Trump’s announcement.

2. The Trump administration shifts priorities from fighting the pandemic to reopening the economy.
3. Trump continues to take advice on this from Fox News anchors, most notably Laura Ingraham. Ingraham also urged Trump to push hydroxychloroquine as a cure, against the advice of medical experts and the FDA.

• • A chloroquine trial in Brazil is halted after heart complications appear in patients.
  • The CIA felt it necessary to warn its employees against taking hydroxychloroquine unless prescribed by a doctor.

4. The federal government pledges up to $483 million to Moderna to speed up the creation of a COVID-19 vaccine.
5. Trump declared a national emergency one month ago and announced several public-private partnerships. Here are the promises fulfilled and unfulfilled:

• • Target didn’t partner with the government to open testing sites; Walmart opened two; Walgreens opened two; and CVS opened one.
  • The Google project to coordinate and direct screening and testing online wasn’t a Google project and only started up in a few California counties. Google’s sister company, Verily, has six testing sites coordinating with California’s state government.
  • Apple did release a screening tool in coordination with the CDC, but it doesn’t do what was promised.
  • The home testing promised through a partnership with LHC Group didn’t happen. The company is focused on obtaining personal protective equipment instead.
  • The government did waive interest on student loans from government agencies.
  • Trump waived health regulations to allow healthcare providers more flexibility to respond to the pandemic.
  • Trump promised to waive state medical licensing to allow medical personnel to work across state lines, but as it turns out he doesn’t have the authority.
  • Trump promised to purchase “at a very good price” large quantities of oil for storage in the strategic reserve. Congress didn’t fund it.
  • He promised an additional 1.4 million tests within a week and 5 million within a month, though he doubted we’d need that many. Roche and Thermo Fisher Scientific were able to distribute millions of tests. But these are the lab tests that analyze samples; the hold up was that we didn’t have enough kits to collect the samples.
  • Leaders of diagnostic testing labs, like Quest and LabCorp, requested three things from the government to get their testing up to speed: funds for facilities, prioritization of who to test, and supply chain support. They still haven’t received those.

6. Dr. Birx says that several of our testing labs are still only operating at 10% of their capacity and that the government doesn’t know where all the labs and testing machines are located.
7. Tump holds his longest coronavirus press briefing so far, at nearly two and a half hours. In the middle of it, he runs a campaign ad about his handling of the pandemic (which violates election rules).
8. Taking a page from previous presidents facing a crisis, California Governor Gavin Newsom calls on the experience of the four living former CA governors: Pete Wilson, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jerry Brown. They’re part of an 80-member task force to help bring the state back toward economic growth and recovery. The group brings a very mixed bag of backgrounds and political ideologies.
9. The WHO warns that they haven’t seen any evidence yet that having antibodies to the coronavirus makes you immune to it. Antibody tests are still not that reliable.
10. Here are a few predictions for how the pandemic will look over the next year:

• • States will end the lockdowns, but not at the same time and in a halting manner as we adjust for more or fewer cases.
  • We still don’t now how immunity will work or when there will be a vaccine.
  • We’re likely to have treatment before a vaccine, and keeping the virus in check will rely on testing and contact tracing. We need to triple our testing.

11. An average of 146,000 people in the U.S. has been tested per day so far this month.
12. Germany announces a goal of testing every resident for antibodies.
13. Jobs traditionally held by women have been deemed the most essential during the pandemic.
14. Coronavirus cases are starting to plateau in some big cities, but they’re just starting to pick up in more rural areas. Some are seeing increases of 53% (Oklahoma) to 205% (South Dakota).
15. Clinical trials in Chicago for the anti-viral drug Remdesivir are showing promise, but nothing concrete yet.
16. The FDA authorizes a saliva test out of Rutgers University to check for the coronavirus.

Shortages:


1. Trump offers to donate ventilators to Russia, which they say they’ll accept if they need them. Russia previously loaned us equipment. The administration also offers help to Italy, Spain, and France.
2. By waiting so long to stock up on protective and medical equipment, the Trump administration is paying a higher price for each item. N95 masks are now eight times more expensive than they were in January and February. They’ve also entered agreements with questionable companies, like Panthera Worldwide LLC, which hasn’t had an employee since May 2018 and has no history of procuring medical equipment.
3. Hospitals begin to experience ventilator shortages. 70% of healthcare facilities report a shortage of drugs for treating coronavirus symptoms.
4. Senior government officials say that when Jared Kushner was given the responsibility of acquiring medical equipment, he overlooked smaller companies that have a track record of meeting emergency needs. Instead, he tapped his friends to help out, favoring larger corporations and costing weeks in response time.
5. Trump moves to assert more control over HHS Secretary Alex Azar by installing former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo in a communication role in the department. Trump and Azar have clashed from the beginning over the pandemic.
6. Trump might be discouraging mask use by the general public, but the NSC secures a personal stash of 3,600 masks for the White House staff to use.

Exposures:

1. 

African Americans and Latinos are dying from COVID-19 at much higher rates than their white counterparts, and African Americans are coming down with the disease at roughly twice the rate of white Americans. There are many contributing factors, including lack of access to healthcare, working in essential jobs, living with multiple generations in one house, lack of paid sick leave, and lack of trust in the medical profession.
2. One of the biggest outbreaks now in the U.S is in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where workers at a Smithfield meat processing plant are testing positive. Many of the workers are immigrants or refugees and don’t advocate for themselves, and the story is only coming out now because of a grad student who is the child of a couple who works there.

• • Union representatives say that Smithfield ignored their requests for PPE and they encouraged sick workers to continue coming in. They implemented temperature testing for workers coming on to their shifts but allowed workers with a fever to work.
  • Workers are forced to make a choice between putting their health at risk by coming into work or not being able to pay their bills. They begin quarantining themselves from family to keep them safe and bringing in their own masks.
  • People who are here on visas can’t quit because they’re afraid to apply for unemployment under Trump’s new immigration rules about public assistance. And people who live with a non-citizen aren’t eligible for CARES Act relief.
  • Workers found out about the high number of cases from news reports, not from company management.
  • Smithfield finally closes the plant this week, with 644 confirmed cases related to the plant. At least one has died. They closed for three days last week.

• • Smithfield accounts for half the cases in South Dakota.
  • Instead of issuing a stay at home order, as requested by the Sioux Falls Mayor, Governor Kristi Noem approves tests for hydroxychloroquine in the state.

3. A JBS meat processing plant in Minnesota just across the border from South Dakota has 19 confirmed cases so far.
4. On top of meatpacking plants, workers in food warehouses and grocery stores are also getting sick. More than 40 grocery workers have died from COVID-19 so far.
5. Nearly 7,000 COVID-19 deaths are traceable to nursing homes, either through people who live there or people who work there. Even with facilities locked down and visitors banned, it’s not controlled.

Closures:

1. Last week, the CDC and FEMA issued recommendations for a phased reopening of the economy, with instructions for schools, child-care, camps, parks, religious organizations, and restaurants. This week, Trump and Dr. Deborah Birx release the official guidelines, with much of the CDC’s recommendations ignored. Their recommendations are more vague than the CDC’s and include no testing strategy or requirements.

• • So far, the U.S. has tested about 3.3 million people or around 1% of our population.
  • Experts say we need to incorporate contact tracing with testing. South Korea and Singapore have been successful in mitigating the pandemic by finding and isolating infected people and who they’ve been in contact with. It requires a huge number of health workers to do contact tracing.
  • Trump isn’t enthusiastic about testing, calling it “interesting.” He also told governors to develop their own state contact tracing programs.

2. The Trump administration guidelines to a phased approach to opening require a state to have a 14-day decrease in new cases and robust testing for healthcare workers and hospitals to have enough supplies to handle a crisis before moving to the first phase.

• • In phase one, states can open larger venues like theaters, churches, ballparks, and arenas, but smaller venues like schools and bars stay closed. Social distancing is still in place, and workers should come back to work in waves. People should continue to maintain physical distance and not gather in groups of more than 10 when they can’t be distant. People with compromised health should remain at home.
  • In phase two, nonessential travel resumes, but vulnerable individuals still stay home. Telework should continue where possible, and common areas in workplaces should stay closed. Schools and bars can open carefully.
  • In phase three, visits to nursing homes and hospitals can resume, vulnerable individuals can go out with precautions, and keep washing your hands! People should still minimize time spent in crowds.

3. Trump says it’s the president’s decision whether or not to open the states back up, not the governors’. He says he has “total authority.” But the governors were the ones who instituted the stay at home orders, and Trump has also said he’s only playing backup to the governors.

• • The next day he reverses course and says he’s fine with them making their own decisions.

4. Governors create regional coalitions to determine how best to re-open in each area. So far the Northeastern states have banded together, the Pacific states have a coalition, and seven Midwestern states are coordinating on reopening.
5. Governors say they can’t start re-opening until they get more test swabs (health experts say we need to triple our testing before we can re-open). Trump defends our testing capacity but also promises to increase production by over 20 million per month (for context, if we produce 20 million swabs a month, we wouldn’t be able to test everyone in the U.S. until the end of summer 2021.
6. These states still don’t have statewide stay at home orders: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. But to be clear, most do have some restrictions in place and schools are closed.
7. Local officials in South Dakota urge Governor Kristi Noem to declare a public health emergency. The declaration would bring in federal funding set aside for coronavirus aid. Noem has left decisions completely up to cities and counties in the state, though she still won’t let Sioux Fall’s mayor implement a stay at home order.
8. Florida opens its beaches, and within minutes of opening, they are crowded with beachgoers. Governor DeSantis urges people to stay six feet away from each other and to avoid gathering.
9. A federal judge rules that Kansas can’t limit religious gatherings. I could understand this if the governor was ONLY limiting religious gatherings, but she’s limiting ALL gatherings. 80 cases and six deaths in Kansas trace back to religious gatherings.
10. Dr. Fauci says that May 1 is overly optimistic for reopening, and that it will result in an increase in cases especially since we don’t have adequate testing and tracing in place. Several states have pushed their reopening date back to the middle of May.

Protests:

1. Anti-lockdown protests erupt across the county. Protestors largely ignore social distancing guidelines and many don’t wear masks. In an apparent misunderstanding of how infectious disease spreads, they argue that you should quarantine sick people and let healthy people roam free.
2. Trump goads the protestors on by tweeting and retweeting calls to “LIBERATE” certain states, openly encouraging the protests while at the same time issuing guidance that wouldn’t allow states to open up and calling for social distancing rules. He not only encourages protestors to liberate Virginia but to protect their Second Amendment rights.

• • Governors criticize Trump for encouraging illegal and dangerous acts that would worsen the spread of the coronavirus and reverse the results of the shutdowns.
  • Fox News not only urges the protestors on but highlights individual organizers on their shows. Looking at the timing of Trump’s tweets, they appear to align with Fox News segments.
  • It’s notable that more people died of COVID-19 on the day of the protests than actually showed up to protest. The vast majority of the American public thinks we should maintain social distancing practices.

3. The protests turn out to be staged by far-right groups. They primarily protest Democratic governors, even though Republican governors have instituted the same kind of closures.

• • Three far-right, pro-gun activists from the Midwest are behind several of these protests. The purpose of the groups these guys run is to discredit groups like the NRA for being too compromising on gun safety. And they run groups based all across the country.
  • The protests draw militia groups, like the Three Percenters, and hate groups, like the Proud Boys. It’s a wild mix of hate groups, militia groups, anti-vaxxers, and religious fundamentalists, along with a few citizens who are just tired of the shutdown and were spurred on by these groups to join in.
  • Even some Republican state lawmakers participate in the protests.

Numbers:

1. The Navajo Nation now has over 1,000 cases and 41 deaths. They make up a disproportionate number of deaths in their states.
2. New York’s death toll passes 10,000 people. They adjust their numbers to start including presumed cases, which causes a spike in U.S. death numbers.
3. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 735,086 people in the U.S. are infected so far (that we know of), with 32,922 deaths, up from 529,951 infections and 20,608 deaths last week.
  • 2,278,484 people worldwide have been infected, with 162,447 deaths, up from 1,734,868 infections and 109,916 deaths last week.

Healthcare:

1. A federal appeals court allows medical abortions (those performed by ingesting pills) in Texas. State officials have been trying to ban the procedure during the pandemic by calling it non-essential.
2. The same court rules that pregnant women who are near the cutoff for being able to have an abortion can get one.
3. A federal judge blocks an Arkansas order to suspend surgical abortions during the pandemic. Same for Alabama’s attempt to halt abortions. In Alabama’s case, the judge says that choice is between a provider and a patient.

International:

1. More than 2,000 protestors in Israel keep their social distance (6 feet apart) while protesting Benjamin Netanyahu and what they consider his eroding of democracy. Police and organizers mark off 6-feet distances so protestors know where to stand.
2. Mark Green, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) resigns, and on his way out, he says that foreign assistance is important, especially in times of challenge, and we need those tools and that leadership. He adds that he’s aiming his message at all of us, but especially at the Republican Party, of which he is a member.

• • USAID strengthens health systems, farming systems, and democracy abroad.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Trump threatens to adjourn the House and Senate if the Senate doesn’t confirm his nominees for various openings in his administration. No president has ever done this.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

1. Last year, smugglers sawed through new sections of Trump’s border wall 18 times in one month.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Franklin Graham says he’s being harassed because he’s forcing workers at his New York field hospital to sign a pledge saying they’re Christian and they oppose same-sex marriage.
2. Mt. Sinai Health Systems, which is teaming up with Graham, says they’ll then force the same workers to sign a pledge that they won’t discriminate against patients.

Climate:

1. Fires have been burning inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, raising radiation levels to 16 times normal. Russian authorities arrest a 27-year-old man for arson. The fires destroyed several tourist sites and abandoned villages.
2. The South gets hit with violent storms, with tornadoes, flash floods, and hail. At least 34 people die and 16 states report power outages.
3. A judge cancels a permit required for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, putting another wrench in its completion. The permit was halted for environmental review of the effects on endangered species.
4. Virginia becomes the first southern state to enact a 100% clean energy law. The two utility companies must be 100% carbon-free by 2050, and nearly all coal-powered plants are to close by 2025.
5. The EPA moves to weaken regulations on mercury and other pollutants put out by oil and coal plants.

Budget/Economy:

1. Economists predict the U.S. debt will exceed the GDP this fiscal year for the first time since WWII.
2. China’s economy shrank by 6.8% for the first quarter this year compared to the first quarter last year. This was their first decline since they started keeping records. They’ve reopened factories and people are getting back to work, but with closures continuing around the world, they should still see limited improvements this quarter.
3. Employment dropped by over 700,000 jobs in March, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.4%. Retail sales dropped 8.7%, the biggest drop on record.
4. Oil prices crash to below $0.00 a barrel. Even though Russia and OPEC agreed to a deal to temporarily halt their oil wars, the glut is too much to be quickly reabsorbed by demand.
5. We’ve already gone through most of the stimulus package funds for small businesses.
6. People start receiving their stimulus money. Most are spending it on food and gas.
7. The lines for food banks in the U.S. continue to grow as people needing food assistance has more than doubled in places.
8. The Trump administration is working on ways to cut wages for migrant workers who are here on guest-worker visas. At the same time, the administration is giving coronavirus relief aid to the farmers who employ them.
9. Trump threatens to veto the $2 trillion relief package if it includes any funding for the United States Postal Service. Like Congress isn’t having enough trouble reconciling their differences in this bill. The USPS warns it’ll run out of cash in September.
10. Republicans added a provision to the coronavirus relief package passed last month that removes the limit on how much a pass-through business owner can deduct against non-business income. This will cost taxpayers about $90 billion, but it’ll save millionaires billions, thank God.
11. Trump announces the formation of the Great American Economic Revival Recovery Groups, coalitions of industry leaders to help plan a great economic recovery. Some members say they’ve been on one phone call so far, and otherwise it’s mostly been dormant and there’s no mechanism to send in ideas. Several of the people he listed haven’t confirmed they’ll participate and some are nervous about tying their names and companies to Trump.

• • After granting the WWE “essential business” status, Trump names the chair, Vince McMahon, to one of these advisory groups.

12. The trade war with China hits home as new export restrictions hold up U.S. orders for PPE and other equipment.

Elections:

1. Elizabeth Warren endorses Joe Biden for president, saying that empathy matters and that he can help restore Americans’ faith in good government.
2. Bernie Sanders also endorses Biden and tells his supporters that refusing to back Biden is irresponsible.
3. Biden announces a series of task forces on healthcare, education, the economy, climate change, criminal justice reform, and immigration to develop a party platform that can unify the left.
4. After the GOP forced Wisconsin’s primaries to go ahead in the age of COVID-19, Jill Karofsky, a liberal challenger to a sitting conservative judge, wins a seat on the state’s Supreme Court.
5. Top Republicans report that Trump’s campaign secretly pays his son’s significant others (Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle) $15,000 per month each through the campaign manager’s private company.
6. Biden releases a healthcare policy that indicates he’s willing to move closer to Sanders on Medicare for All.
7. The Treasury orders that Trump’s name be printed on all the stimulus checks going out to American citizens, marking the first time a president’s name appears on an IRS payment.

• • Why is this under Elections? Because it’s a blatant move to put Trump’s name on something good and improve his chances of re-election.
  • Trump originally wanted to sign each check. As it is, IRS officials say adding his name could delay the checks, but others dispute that.
  • The IRS refused to comply with a similar request giving George W. Bush credit for the economic rebates in 2001. They refused because they’re supposed to be non-partisan.

8. Republicans think that blaming China for the pandemic is a winning strategy going into the elections, but they can’t keep Trump on message. It’s a double-edged sword since we’re also reliant on China for medical devices.
9. A Texas judge rules that the state must allow any registered voter who’s worried about the coronavirus register to vote by mail.
10. Maryland will send all voters ballots to vote by mail, complete with postage paid, for the June primary.

Miscellaneous:

1. SNL Comedian Michael Che’s grandmother dies from COVID-19, and to honor her, he pays the rent for all 160 units in the housing authority apartment building where she once lived.
2. Sean “Diddy” Combs holds a dance-a-thon fundraiser that brings in over $4 million for healthcare workers.
3. Trump says he didn’t pick Mitt Romney to be part of a bipartisan task force to reopen the country because he still holds a grudge against him and he doesn’t really want his advice. All Senate Republicans except Romney are on the task force.
4. Car crashes are down by 60% since the coronavirus lockdowns were implemented, and we’ve saved over $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars because of it.

Polls:

1. 65% of Americans say Trump was too slow to take action to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
2. 66% are worried that restrictions will be lifted too quickly.
3. 73% think the worst is yet to come with the pandemic.
4. 52% of Republicans think it’s not OK for elected officials to criticize Trump’s response.

Around the beginning of March, while expressing understanding of the severity of the pandemic, Trump also downplayed it by tweeting, “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”

No. Think about this. Already we’re up to 20,608 deaths in less than two months, and that only includes confirmed COVID-19 cases. Those flu numbers are estimates based on post-season data (so confirmed PLUS estimated cases). We haven’t even hit the worst of it. This is not the flu.

Here’s what happened in politics during the week ending April 12…

Shootings This Week:

1. There were 6 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 2 people and injure 24 more.

Legal Fallout:

1. After being criticized by members of both parties for firing Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, Trump says Atkinson did a terrible job and gave a fake report to Congress, referring to the whistleblower account of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky.
2. Both Democratic and Republican Senators request a more comprehensive explanation from the White House of Trump’s firing of Atkinson.
3. Two weeks ago, Atkinson told Senator Chuck Schumer that the past six months have been “a searing time for whistleblowers.”
4. The Trump family was hoping to move a lawsuit against them into arbitration after trying to get a racketeering claim dismissed. The lawsuit stems from the Trumps using their name to promote a multi-level marketing scheme.

Coronavirus:

1. Remember how last week Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly reassigned Captain Brett Crozier of the USS Teddy Roosevelt for raising alarms about the coronavirus infections on board? Well, this week, Modly resigns amid calls from military and laypeople alike for Crozier’s reinstatement.

• • Trump blames Crozier for infecting his crew by making a port stop in Vietnam, even though that type of visit would’ve needed to be negotiated at a higher level than Crozier in the DOD.
  • Nearly 600 sailors from the ship test positive by the end of the week, the investigation is complete, and the Navy considers reinstating Crozier.

2. The latest modeling suggests there will be just over 80,000 deaths in the U.S. in the first four months of the pandemic. That’s down from the previous modeling, but up from the numbers the White House has been quoting.

• • The modeling also predicts we won’t need so many hospital beds or so much medical equipment.
  • Dr. Fauci says the numbers are looking better because of the preventative measures we’ve taken. Attorney General William Barr says those measures are draconian.

3. States request the ability to use their Medicaid funds more freely to expand medical services in response to the coronavirus. The federal government hasn’t acted on it yet.
4. Doctors see significant heart problems on top of the lung issues associated with COVID-19. Patients are dying of cardiac arrest, some without having any of the expected breathing problems.
5. Trump continues with the misleading and false statements in his coronavirus briefings, which are supposed to be making us a more informed public.

• • He disputes the findings of a Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General report outlining the supply and equipment shortages many of our hospitals are facing. Trump says the report is politically motivated, though it came out of his own administration. He calls it a “fake dossier.”
  • Trump blames the slow start of coronavirus testing on obsolete tests. The contaminated tests were created in early 2020, so they’re not obsolete.
  • He says that passengers are being tested before they get onto airplanes, but there’s no evidence of that kind of testing.
  • Trump criticizes what he calls Obama’s slow handling of the H1N1 pandemic, saying they didn’t even know about it and that 17,000 people died. The CDC estimates that 12,469 people died in the first year of H1N1, but the range does go up to 18,000. So 17,000 is possible but not likely.
  • Here’s a timeline of Obama’s response to H1N1:
    • Less than two weeks after the first case is confirmed, he declared a public health emergency.
    • Two days later, he requested $1.5 billion. Congress gave him $7.7 billion. The FDA approved the CDC’s test at that time as well.
    • Three days after that, the CDC distributes tests in the U.S. and abroad.
    • He declared a national emergency in October to prepare for the potential surge of H1N1 patients during the fall flu season.
    • There was a vaccine by October, but there were delays in distributing it.
  • Trump calls the pandemic a plague, but says there’s a light at the end of the tunnel… on a day when a record number in the U.S. die from COVID-19. And on a day that’s not even going to be the worst.
  • Trump says he never saw the memos written by top advisor Peter Navarro way back in January warning that the coronavirus outbreak was likely to become a full-blown pandemic, threatening the health of millions of Americans and threatening the U.S. economy. The memos are pretty spot-on and explicit about what could happen and what needed to be done.

6. Trump criticizes the WHO for not having treated the pandemic aggressively enough and announces he’s putting a “very powerful hold” on U.S. funding to the WHO. But then he says he won’t do it.

• • The WHO directly responds to Trump’s criticisms. The Director-General asks Trump not to politicize the pandemic and to work together with the rest of the world to stop it. Trump hasn’t bothered to replace U.S. leadership positions at the WHO, so we don’t really even have a seat at that table anymore.
  • The Director-General has walked a fine line, complimenting both China and the U.S. probably because they’re the biggest funders of the agency.
  • The WHO says it activated its Incident Management Support Team on New Year’s Day, just a day after a cluster of cases was publicized in Wuhan, China. Five days later, it notified all member countries. Five days after that, it issued comprehensive guidance to all countries. It raised its highest level of alarm by late January.

7. Massachusetts hospitals receive approval to launch the first U.S. tests for the anti-viral drug Favipiravir. The drug is used in Japan to treat the flu and other viral infections.
8. Trade adviser Peter Navarro disagrees with Dr. Fauci on the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients and they have a heated disagreement in the Situation Room over it. He supports his qualifications by saying he’s a “social scientist.”

• • Trump and his family trusts hold shares in a company that produces Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine.

• • This kind of overconfident thinking is precisely why we’re in the position we’re in. We might think we know more than the experts, but we don’t. We just don’t.
  • But hey, Rudy Giuliani and Dr. Oz both think it works, so…

9. A doctor at a nursing home in Texas gives hydroxychloroquine to dozens of his elderly COVID-19 patients. The FDA hasn’t approved this treatment.
10. The CDC removes their dosing recommendations for hydroxychloroquine and replaces them with this: “There are no drugs or other therapeutics approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to prevent or treat COVID-19.”
11. Representative David Perdue (R-GA) joins the ranks of lawmakers who made suspicious trades after being briefed on the spread of the coronavirus.
12. FoxNews spent a few weeks downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus and saying Democrats were overhyping it to hurt Trump. They said closing down the economy would be worse than the disease. Then they said that there aren’t really that many people dying from it because people who are dying from other issues are being listed as COVID-19 deaths. (Aha! I’ve been wondering where that talking point came from.)

• • According to Dr. Deborah Birx, “So those individuals will have an underlying condition, but that underlying condition did not cause their acute death when it’s related to a COVID infection.”
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci warns against believing and spreading these “conspiracy theories.”

13. Prisoners riot in the Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas because they don’t feel like they’re getting the COVID-19 medical care they need.
14. After refusing to allow top health officials to discuss the pandemic on CNN for several days, Pence allows the CDC’s Robert Redfield and Dr. Fauci to appear on news shows. It turns out that Pence was doing it to twist CNN’s arm so they would start airing Trump’s coronavirus briefings again.

• • CNN and a few other media outlets stopped airing the briefings because they were too long and too full of misinformation.
  • Even the Wall Street Journal editorial board, which has been supportive of Trump, criticizes his coronavirus briefings for becoming more about him and his war with the press than about educating the public about the national emergency.

15. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York is set up as a popup field hospital to handle overflow, but the latest projection shows that those beds might not be needed.
16. Some ER doctors have their hours, pay, and benefits cut as hospitals have less revenue. Medical workers are even being furloughed.

• • Most elective surgeries have been suspended, and those tend to be more lucrative.
  • When the patients who come to the ER are in the hospital for longer stays with more intensive care, it cuts down on the number of patients they can accommodate.
  • Hospitals are redirecting resources to care for COVID-19 patients.
  • So it’s not that hospitals are empty, they just aren’t making as much money.

17. People are afraid to get treated for COVID-19 because of concerns about the costs of care. Some people have even been getting charged for testing, which is supposed to be free.
18. The FDA orders InfoWars’ Alex Jones to stop selling coronavirus remedies that don’t work. He’s been claiming that some of the products sponsored by his show—like toothpaste, mouthwash, and colloidal silver—can kill the virus. He later takes some of those products off his site.
19. New York and New Jersey both hit one-day high numbers of deaths from coronavirus infections. They still predict their cases are plateauing in the two states. New York has more cases than Spain.
20. Despite early travel restrictions, it took Trump six weeks from the time the first coronavirus case was identified in the U.S. to take aggressive action against the pandemic. Decisions were hampered by Trump’s mistrust of the experts, who he views as part of the Deep State, and by the administration trying to control the economic message.

• • In early January, the National Security Council office that tracks pandemics warned that the virus would spread through the U.S. and recommended school and work closures.
  • In the middle of February, public health experts again urged working from home and other social distancing measures. Unfortunately, that went public before it went to Trump, and the stock market dropped. So Trump replaced Alex Azar with Mike Pence to lead the coronavirus response. This caused health experts to avoid sending strong messages to Trump.
  • Trump avoided recommending social distancing until March.
  • At the end of January, trade adviser Peter Navarro warned of a potential half-million deaths and economic losses in the trillions.
  • When Alex Azar warned Trump on January 30 about the severity of the pandemic, Trump called him alarmist.
  • Trump did shut down travel from China at the end of January, though.
  • A plan to establish a surveillance system in five cities was delayed for weeks, as was effective testing.
  • One big hurdle is that the White House couldn’t agree on how to handle the response, with most advisers and cabinet members concerned over the economy.

21. Four sources say that U.S. intelligence was warning of a contagion in Wuhan, China, back in November 2019 and issued a report on it. The Pentagon denies the existence of this report.
22. Dr. Fauci confirms that Trump rebuffed health officials’ initial requests for social distancing and says that the slow response to the pandemic by the U.S. government cost lives. Afterward, Trump retweets a call to fire Fauci.
23. Pence says that the CDC is going to loosen restrictions on self-isolation for people exposed to people with COVID-19 infections. If they are asymptomatic and have a normal temperature, they don’t have to self-isolate.

Shortages:

1. After arguing that New York wouldn’t need anywhere close to the number of ventilators they requested, Trump says that the state might not have enough to treat all the patients who need them. Governor Cuomo says that if things keep going the way they are, they’ll run out next week.
2. California Governor Gavin Newsom says he’s secured 200 million N95 respiratory and surgical masks per month, which California will share with other states. He doesn’t say where he’s getting them from.
3. California lends 500 ventilators back to the national stockpile to be shared with four other states and two territories.
4. The federal government ends support for coronavirus testing sites, leaving state and local governments to their own devices. Meanwhile, everyone who visits the White House gets a test that gives positive responses within 5 minutes and negative responses within 13 minutes.
5. New York ramps up mass-grave burials for people who have no next of kin or whose families can’t afford a funeral.
6. Several states, including Massachusetts, Kentucky, New York, and Colorado, accuse FEMA of commandeering their shipments of medical supplies and equipment. Just last week, Trump was pushing governors to obtain their own medical supplies and saying they were too slow.
7. Hospitals and clinics also report that the Trump administration is seizing their orders for PPE and other equipment.
8. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) negotiated a deal with South Korea to obtain coronavirus tests with the help of his Korean American wife. They spent three weeks procuring 500,000 tests. Once he obtained the tests, he was so worried that the federal government would try to commandeer his shipment that he had the Maryland Army National Guard and state police officers escorting and guarding it.
9. The Department of Health and Human Services placed its first order for N95 masks on March 12. More than seven weeks after our first known case and more than two weeks after our first known death. They ordered $4.8 million worth of masks.
10. Private and public corporations partner with the White House and FEMA to secure the medical supplies of which we’re expecting shortages. They say that all the supplies they secure are going to the areas that need them, but it turns out that half of the supplies go to medical centers and the other half go to the corporations so they can turn around and sell them.
11. Trump and Joe Biden have a phone conversation about the pandemic.

Exposures:

1. Meatpacking plants across the country report employees with coronavirus infections. Some of the plants close temporarily, but others remain open.

• • In a Smithfield meat processing plant in Sioux Falls, SD, more than 190 employees have tested positive so far.
  • In a JBS SA beef facility in Colorado, up to 50 employees test positive with one death so far.
  • In a Cargill plant in Pennsylvania, there are 160 cases with one death so far.

2. At least five grocery store employees have died from COVID-19, and several chains report positive tests among their employees. Some grocery companies are trying to get supermarket employees designated as first responders so they can qualify for priority testing and access to masks and gloves.
3. Facilities that house groups of people, like prisons and nursing homes, become hotspots for coronavirus outbreaks. Nursing homes don’t have the facilities to handle all the bodies.
4. The Navajo Nation sees a surge in cases, with 426 cases so far and 20 deaths. This is a reservation of 150,000 residents. They’re awaiting emergency funds from a $40 million relief package for Native Americans, none of which has been distributed yet.
5. After being hospitalized over the weekend for COVID-19, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is moved to the ICU. He requires oxygen for breathing problems but is not on a ventilator. He’s released from ICU after three days, but he remains hospitalized until the end of the week.
6. Folk Singer John Prine dies from complications from the coronavirus.
7. Hundreds of American and Southwest airlines employees test positive for the coronavirus.
8. Infection rates and deaths for African Americans are disproportionately higher than for white Americans, in part due to their mistrust of our medical system and to a medical system that treats black patients differently.
9. Multiple cases of COVID-19 are traced back to a church conference in Kansas City.
10. Several people in New York City are dying at home—up to 280 a day—making the number of COVID-19 deaths likely much higher than reported.
11. Up to 150 members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family have been infected with the coronavirus.
12. Several countries and New York see spikes in the daily death rates from COVID-19 this week. Spain has a few days of decreasing deaths, though.
13. Doctors report a high number of false-negative results with the coronavirus tests.
14. South Korea warns that people appear to be getting reinfected.

Closures:

1. As Wuhan, China starts to loosen up its lockdown and reopen businesses and public transportation, locals worry that they’re not reporting the numbers correctly and it might be too soon.
2. Cities and counties, following CDC guidelines, request that residents wear face coverings or masks when they go out in public, as an extra step to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
3. South Carolina is the 42nd state to impose a stay-at-home order. And while they’re just beginning, other states extend their orders until the end of the month.
4. Wyoming finally declares a state of emergency, the last state to do so.
5. In Idaho, lawmakers and some law enforcement complain that the restrictions infringe on individual liberties.
6. Jerry Falwell reopens his Liberty University and accuses two journalists who cover the opening with trespassing. He says there are warrants for the journalists’ arrest and that he’ll sue the New York Times and ProPublica.
7. Trump pushes to reopen most of the country by May 1 to give the economy a chance to recover. Whether or not each state reopens and how they do it is up to the states, though Trump says it’s up to him. And then he says it’s up to governors.
8. Trump says he’ll reopen the economy “based on a lot of facts and a lot of instincts.”
9. Austria issues a plan to start reopening. The country had over 12,000 cases and 204 deaths.
10. The WHO warns that lifting stay at home orders too early might spark a “deadly resurgence” of infections.
11. At the same time, state and local governments start extending their “safer at home” orders as coronavirus cases continue to grow. Some also issue mandatory face mask requirements for workers and require employers to provide the masks.
12. A plan to reopen the economy and continue to fight the pandemic emerges not from the federal government, but from a coalition of governors, former state officials, disease specialists, and nonprofits. The strategy is to ramp up testing, employ contact tracing to identify potential infections, and focus social restrictions on the infected and their contacts.

• • Experts also say states must have adequate resources at hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients, must be able to test everyone who’s symptomatic, and must see a 14-day decline in new cases.

13. While most churches have moved services online, some continue to gather for worship services in defiance of social distancing orders. The courts have been mixed in supporting bans on religious gatherings. The DOJ indicates that they’ll take action against authorities who try to enforce bans on religious services.
14. The GOP-led legislature in Kansas overturns the Democratic governor’s order that churches not hold gatherings.
15. It’s not just churches in the U.S. defying limitations on public gatherings. Muslim clerics in Pakistan push their congregants to attend services at mosques.

Numbers:

1. The world now has nearly 2,000,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and more than 100,000 people have died.
2. China has its first day with no deaths from the coronavirus.
3. New York has more COVID-19 cases than any country.
4. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 529,951 people in the U.S. are infected so far (that we know of), with 20,608 deaths, up from 312,237 infections and 8,501 deaths last week.
  • 1,734,868 people worldwide have been infected, with 109,916 deaths, up from 1,133,758 infections and 62,784 deaths last week.

International:

1. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praises a new report from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ Investigation and Identification Team, which finds that Syrian government forces under Bashar al-Assad were the responsible party for the chemical attacks against Syrian citizens in 2017. Pompeo says the Syrian government committed war crimes. Chemical warfare is prohibited under the Geneva Protocol. 

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. The Trump administration starts releasing undocumented migrant detainees who could be at a high risk of contracting the coronavirus. At least 19 detainees have tested positive, as have guards and medical workers at detention facilities.

Climate:

1. Low atmospheric temperatures cause a large hole to open up in the ozone layer above the Arctic. It’s expected to close back down on its own. The hole is not related to curbed emissions from the COVID-19 lockdowns around the world.
2. The Trump administration proposes opening 2.3 million acres of public lands to hunters and fishers in wildlife refuges.

Budget/Economy:

1. Trump replaces the acting DOD inspector general, who would’ve led the group overseeing the spending of trillions of dollars in the relief package. Glenn Fine held that position since before Trump took office.
2. Larry Kudlow says the small business rescue program is off to a bad start after the Small Business Administration becomes overwhelmed with all the requests for relief.
3. Another 6.6 million workers filed unemployment claims for the first time last week. The total number of new filers for the past three weeks is 16 million.
4. Even though Congress passed a new law guaranteeing sick pay for most people affected by the coronavirus shutdowns, the Trump administration issues a rule that lets small businesses choose whether to do so.
5. Senate Democrats propose a bill to give essential workers additional hazard pay.
6. On a call with business leaders, Trump says Ivanka created 14 million jobs, so that would be just under 10% of the workforce. It’s not clear where he got that number.

• • An advisory board she’s on says they helped create 6.5 million training opportunities, but not necessarily jobs.
  • The U.S. economy hasn’t even added half that many jobs during Trump’s term, even before COVID-19 cost us nearly 8 million jobs.
  • However, Ivanka does help make sure the interest rate for loans to small businesses under the small business relief program increases from 0.5% to 1% after bankers appealed to her personally.

7. Whole Foods workers protest for gloves and masks, paid sick leave, and hazard pay.
8. The International Labour Organization predicts the pandemic will wipe out 6.7% of workers’ hours this year, or the equivalent of 195 million jobs. More than 80% of workers are already affected.
9. Economists estimate the unemployment rate to be around 12% or 13%.
10. The Labor Department, whose job is to protect workers, limits the scope of worker assistance programs and is not working to protect workers from the current health risks. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia thinks that unemployment insurance is too generous, so he’s restricted qualifications for unemployment and made it easier for businesses to not pay family leave benefits.
11. The White House continues to reject relief aid for the United States Postal Service, going as far as to threaten to veto the $2 trillion relief bill if it includes anything for the USPS. Trump says the USPS should charge more, apparently misunderstanding “the public good.” The USPS employs around 600,000 people.
12. Senator Josh Haley (R-MO) proposes that the U.S. government pay 80% of workers wages, similar to how several European countries are handling the economic crisis.
13. Trump creates a second coronavirus task force focused on getting the economy back up and running.
14. Farmers dump eggs and milk, and plow under vegetable crops, destroying tens of millions of tons of perfectly good food that they can’t sell because the supply chain has changed. The increase in food eaten at home isn’t enough to offset the food served at schools, businesses, and restaurants.

• • Weird. You’d think we’d be eating about the same. My guess is we’re wasting less.
  • Many are donating what they can to food banks.

Elections:

1. As a cautionary action to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Wisconsin’s governor Tony Evers issues an executive order suspending in-person voting for the following day’s primary elections and extending the due date for mail-in ballots to June. As is becoming the norm, Republican legislators sue to stop it.

• • This is after the GOP shot down Evers’ proposal to postpone the vote and after they sued to cancel the extension for mail-in ballots.
  • The Supreme Court blocks a lower court’s decision to allow the extension.
  • The Wisconsin Supreme Court overturns Ever’s executive order.
  • So the vote goes on, with voters waiting in lines for more than 2 hours with their masks and social distance, and despite the state’s “stay at home” orders.
  • Wisconsin’s Speaker Robin Vos (R) defends the decision to hold elections, saying it’s incredibly safe to go out. He says this while wearing gloves, a mask, and a protective gown to work at a polling site.
  • The number of polling sites was reduced due to the number of mail-in ballots that were requested and due to the number of volunteers who back out citing health concerns. This led to bigger crowds and longer lines.
  • Voters who were interviewed felt they had to choose between their health and their right to vote. Keep an eye out for increasing Wisconsin coronavirus infections in the coming weeks.

2. 72% of Americans support mail-in ballots for November if coronavirus isn’t contained by then. 79% of Democrats do and 65% of Republicans do.

• • Trump himself said that if we let everyone vote, there will never be a Republican president again. He always says the quiet part out loud. But the fact is absentee voters vote for both Democrats and Republicans.
  • Trump continues to make inaccurate claims about fraud involved with mail-in ballots, saying that fraud is rampant. When asked about his own mail-in vote recently in Florida, Trump says it’s OK for him to vote by mail. He also repeats his claims of voter fraud in California from 2016, though none has been found (he says that a Judicial Watch case proved it, but it just found inactive voters in the database, not fraudulent voters).
  • Multiple studies, including several years of research under George W. Bush, have found no widespread voting fraud.

3. And the biggest news of the week, Bernie Sanders suspends his presidential campaign, leaving only Joe Biden standing as the last Democratic presidential candidate. Bernie says that not only does he not see a path to enough delegates but that he wants to focus his energy on the pandemic and helping the economy recover.
4. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issues an executive order to allow voters to vote by mail in their upcoming primary election.

Miscellaneous:

1. Kayleigh McEnany replaces Stephanie Grisham as White House press secretary. In her entire time as press secretary, Grisham never gave one press briefing but took plenty of time to send out super-snarky (and not often honest) tweets.
2. Trump signs an executive order encouraging the U.S. to mine for minerals on the moon and objecting to any attempts to use international law to prevent it.

Polls:

1. 55% of Americans think that the federal government is doing a bad job in preventing the spread of coronavirus. 80% think the worst is yet to come.