The muddled and inconsistent information we got (and still get) from the government and public health experts about lockdowns and masks is a big reason people don’t trust it. But a recent review of 172 studies finds that wearing masks drastically reduces the risk of infection. The mask mandates that were implemented might have reduced infections by at least 230,000 in the U.S. Countries with early mask requirements had shorter outbreaks and fewer deaths. The point of a mask is not to filter out viruses. It’s 1) to stop the viral particles from traveling very far (which is why we wear them to protect others) and 2) to block the larger droplets in which the virus travels. Masks, in combination with social distancing (and shutting down when needed), are the key to slowing the pandemic.

OK. Off my soapbox. Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending July 5…

Missed From Previous Weeks:

1. Research shows that the surge in coronavirus cases across the U.S. started before any cases caused by the George Floyd protests could have incubated, so the uptick likely started with Memorial Day celebrations. In at least 14 states, numbers were on the rise.
2. The World Health Organization (WHO) expresses support for the George Floyd protests despite the pandemic, saying the agency rejects every kind of discrimination. At the same time, the WHO recommends protestors comply with safety guidelines as much as possible.
3. A federal judge orders the Department of Education to cancel student loan debt for over 7,200 students in Massachusetts alone. They had attended a branch of Corinthian College, which is no longer in existence.
4. A co-founder of Reopen Maryland, a lockdown protest group, tests positive for coronavirus and refuses to cooperate with contact tracers. He’s had a cough for months and only recently worsened.

Shootings This Week:

1. There were THIRTY-EIGHT mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring four or more people). Shooters kill TWENTY-SEVEN people and injure ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY more. Gun violence is at an extremely high level since the lockdowns started easing—it’s the worst since I started following it.
2. Some of the worst:

• • A gang-related shooting at the Lavish Lounge in Greenville, SC, leaves two people dead and eight injured.
  • An argument after a car hits a pedestrian in Atlanta escalates into a shooting and leaves two dead and 12 injured. Atlanta had six shootings resulting in four deaths and 22 people injured over the Fourth of July weekend, leading the governor to declare a state of emergency.
  • In Chicago, four men walk up to a group of people and begin shooting, killing four and injuring four. Three of the victims were children, including one who was killed.

Russia:

1. Remember how we found out last week that Russia placed a bounty on U.S. service members’ lives in Afghanistan? Well, it turns out that Trump received a written briefing on this in February and has continued to meet with Putin and hasn’t mentioned a word of dismay or disapproval about it.

• • In fact, Trump called Putin six times in just two months. How many other leaders does he speak with that often?
  • White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany continues to deny Trump was briefed, saying that it hasn’t been confirmed that Russia placed the bounties.
  • At the moment she’s saying this, administration officials brief House Republicans on the intelligence.
  • Taliban leaders confirm that Russia did, indeed, offer bounties on American troops’ lives.

2. Russians vote overwhelmingly in favor of changing the rules for Putin, allowing him to stay in power until 2036 should he continue to win the presidential elections.
3. Higher than normal radiation levels register in northern Europe, leading to speculation that Russia has had another leak. Putin denies it.

Fallout, Legal and Otherwise:

1. The Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney’s office charges Ghislaine Maxwell for recruiting and grooming underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse. Maxwell was Epstein’s former girlfriend and is now on suicide watch in jail.
2. According to reporting by Carl Woodward, several of Trump’s former top deputies think he’s often delusional in his dealings with foreign leaders and almost always unprepared for conversations with them.

• • They say strongman leaders outplay Trump all the time, and Trump is abusive to our allies.
  • They also say Trump never became any more skillful at dealing with leaders.
  • In his conversations with leaders like bin Salman and Kim Jong Un, Trump bragged about his own wealth and “genius” while trashing former U.S. presidents.

3. Senator Tammy Duckworth threatens to hold up the promotions of 1,123 senior military officers until she gets confirmation from Defense Secretary Mark Esper that he hasn’t blocked and won’t block Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s promotion to full colonel. There’s suspicion that the delay in getting the promotions list from the DOD is because Trump won’t approve it with Vindman’s name on it.
4. The Commerce Department blocks the release of a report on whether the department pressured the head of NOAA to support Trump’s false claim that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama.
5. Former national security advisor Michael Flynn posts a bizarre video of him including the QAnon slogan “Where we go one, we go all” in a bizarre fireside oath on the Fourth of July. He tags the video with a QAnon hashtag. You might remember he was deep into conspiracy theories by the time he joined Trump’s campaign.

Courts/Justice:

1. The Supreme Court rules that Trump can fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau even though it is supposed to be a non-political post confirmed by the Senate.
2. Mitch McConnell, who held up a record number of Barack Obama’s federal court confirmations, brags that there isn’t a single circuit court vacancy for the first time in at least 40 years. Most of these conservative judges are in their 30s and 40s and will shape the judicial system for decades to come. 70% of them are white and male.
3. Adding to the shakeup in U.S. Attorney offices, Rickard Donoghue, the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, steps down to take a higher position at the Department of Justice.

Coronavirus:

1. Some interesting and geeky COVID info found from autopsies:

• • COVID-19 and dengue fever affect similar cells. Dengue fever destroys platelet-producing cells, which causes uncontrolled bleeding. The coronavirus amplifies those cells, producing dangerous clotting.
  • The virus attacks the lungs the most ferociously.
  • Medical examiners found the virus in the lungs, brain, kidneys, liver, gastrointestinal tract, spleen, and blood vessel lining.
  • They found blood clots in the heart, brain, kidney, liver, and especially the lungs.

2. Dr. Anthony Fauci expresses concern that we’ll start seeing 100,000 new coronavirus cases per day unless we take drastic action.
3. As Fauci testifies again before the Senate, Rand Paul asks him why we should listen to experts. Paul says the experts keep getting it wrong and that they should stop pretending they know it all and embrace a little humility. It shocks me that this man studied any kind of science.

• • Experts have been very clear that they’re working with the best knowledge they have and that it’s rapidly evolving.
  • Experts have also given us guidelines, which some states have embraced and some have not. So it’s not like the experts are giving any ultimatums.

4. Having clear and consistent guidance on wearing masks, social distancing, and staying home is what some scientists credit for the success of some countries and states at controlling the pandemic.
5. Mike Pence extends federal support for testing in Texas for two weeks due to the high rate of infections there. Meanwhile, the federal government has provided little testing support to Arizona, which is having a major outbreak as well.
6. At long last, Pence says that Americans should all wear masks in public to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Even Republican Senators Lamar Alexander, Mitt Romney, and Mitch McConnell, as well as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), start to recommend masks.
7. Sweden’s Prime Minister orders an investigation into their lax lockdown policy. The country has the fifth-highest death rate per capita.
8. Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is hospitalized with COVID-19. Cane recently traveled to Arizona and Tulsa, OK, for Trump’s rally. It doesn’t appear they’re doing any contact tracing as people he was in close contact with at the rally were never notified.
9. The new messaging from the White House is that we need to learn to live with the coronavirus. Unless it kills us, I guess. Amid the rapidly rising number of cases, Trump again says the pandemic will just disappear.
10. A new prediction model from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) shows that if most everyone wears masks, we could prevent 20,000 to 30,000 deaths by October.
11. Scientists urge the WHO to take the airborne spread of the coronavirus more seriously.
12. More than 800 Georgia professors protest plans to reopen the Georgia Institute of Technology without requiring masks.
13. Jim Yong Kim led the WHO’s HIV response under George W. Bush and led the World Bank for parts of the Obama and Trump administrations.

• • On a conference call in May about infection containment strategies (like testing, contact tracing, and isolation), he was incredulous that the U.S. is so lacking in a coordinated strategy to deal with the pandemic.
  • He says the planned standard response to an outbreak is apparently “something that we’re just not going to do” He asks why we’ve given up on any attempts at containing the pandemic, and points out that we’re world’s richest nation and couldn’t stop the virus from paralyzing us as other countries have.

14. The Global Health Security Index, which rates countries’ readiness to handle an outbreak, rated the U.S. as the best-prepared country overall in 2019. But they didn’t take into account political inaction and political ineptitude. Experts criticize the U.S. for not having the political will to meet the moment.
15. San Quentin State Prison in California is having one of the largest coronavirus outbreaks, and a group of COVID-positive inmates starts a hunger strike in protest of the conditions there.
16. The WHO says the pandemic is speeding up and that the worst is yet to come.
17. Scammers advertise fraudulent COVID-19 testing as a way to get personal information. Go to an official site for testing!
18. The people who are testing positive for coronavirus now are largely younger. People in the 18 to 49 age group make up 35% of the hospitalized population, up from 27% before. More than half of known cases in California are now in this age group.
19. The CDC says that the coronavirus is spreading too rapidly and too broadly for us to contain it in the U.S. I guess that’s why the administration has given up and says we just need to learn to live with it. Good strategy.

Shortages:

1. Facing a scarcity of resources, some Arizona hospitals request approval to use “crisis standards” to determine who gets treated when they are overwhelmed with patients. This includes things like allocating resources to patients with the best chances of survival or the best outcome. These standards are rarely invoked. Medical facilities are delaying nonessential procedures to free up beds and personnel. ICU beds are nearly 90% full across the state.
2. The Strategic National Stockpile had more ventilators than it ended up distributing to medical facilities so far during the pandemic. They started with 16,660 ventilators and loaned out 10,640.
3. The U.S. has bought up nearly the entire world’s supply of the anti-viral drug remdesivir, which makes experts wonder what will happen when a vaccine becomes available. There won’t be more available until after September, except 10% of the production in August and September.

Exposures:

1. Pence changes his travel plans to Florida and Arizona because eight Secret Service agents who were there preparing for his trip test positive.

• • At least 15 agents tested positive a few weeks ago while preparing for Trump’s campaign rally in Yuma, AZ. They ended up having to drive back to DC.
  • Some agents complain that Trump and Pence trying to keep up a normal travel schedule is unnecessarily putting them at risk. According to the agents, it’s one thing to take a bullet to protect them; it’s another to get sick for no good reason.

2. Don Jr. has to miss the Fourth of July rally at Mount Rushmore because his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, tests positive after arriving.
3. Scientists find a new mutation of the coronavirus that came from Europe to the U.S. The new version is more infectious but doesn’t seem to be any deadlier or cause worse sickness. This is the form that is mostly infecting Americans right now.
4. Studies suggest that super-spreader events have been a large driver of coronavirus infections. They estimate that 10% of the people are causing around 80% of the infections.

Closures:

1. At least 14 states slow down their reopening or backtrack on them.
2. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says Florida will not go back to any of the lockdown orders, even as Texas Governor Greg Abbot and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey put reopening on pause and even backtrack a little on opening. Florida did stop allowing people to consume alcohol at bars.
3. Abbot issues an executive order requiring Texans to wear face coverings in public, but only in counties with 20 more COVID-19 cases. A group of conservatives files a lawsuit to stop the order.
4. Some states start closing businesses back down, and those businesses lay off workers again.
5. Crowds pack beaches and parks to celebrate the Fourth of July, despite growing coronavirus cases. In some states, officials close beaches and parks and cancel fireworks displays.
6. And congratulations, Americans! You can’t travel to Canada, parts of Mexico, or the European Union now that the EU confirms it will block travel from America when it reopens.
7. Residents of Puerto Peñasco, a beach town in Mexico, block all southbound traffic from Arizona with their cars. The town’s mayor doesn’t want Americans visiting Mexico right now.

Numbers:

1. Daily new coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpass 50,000 for the first time. Daily cases have increased by 80% in two weeks.
2. Cases worldwide surpass 10,000,000 and deaths surpass 500,000.
3. Eight states post record single-day highs: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Montana, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Previously stable states like Ohio, Kansas, and Louisiana also see some of their highest daily numbers.
4. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 2,839,542 people in the U.S. are infected so far (up from 2,510,323 last week), with 129,676 deaths (up from 125,539 last week).
  • 11,240,740 people worldwide have been infected (up from 9,953,229 last week), with 530,581 deaths (up from 498,550 last week).

Healthcare:

1. Health scientists are monitoring a new H1N1 flu strain, which is popping up in people working on pig farms in China. It hasn’t yet made anyone ill, but scientists are concerned about another pandemic. In one year, H1N1 killed between 151,700 and 575,400 people worldwide (compared to COVID-19’s over 530,581 in half a year).
2. Oklahoma voters pass Medicare expansion, which would extend health benefits to nearly 200,000 low-income adults. This makes Oklahoma the fifth state where the voters overrode their Republican officials who have refused to expand Medicare under the Affordable Care Act. Why do voters keep electing people who go against their wishes?
3. The Supreme Court strikes down Louisiana’s restrictive abortion law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital because it puts a severe burden on access to legal abortion.

• • Chief Justice Roberts was the deciding vote. He ruled this way because of a precedent set in a Texas abortion case even though he thinks that the case was wrongly decided.

International:

1. Iran issues an arrest warrant for Trump for murder and terrorism charges over the killing of General Qasem Soleimani.
2. At the UN Security Council’s virtual meeting, the U.S. is the only country that refuses to express support for the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calls it “flawed.” Most diplomats on the call criticize the U.S. for leaving the agreement and criticize Iran for the moves it’s taken in violation of the agreement since.

Legislation/Congress:

1. House Republicans have skipped every House Intelligence Committee meetings since March.
2. Senate Republicans force changes to the National Defense Authorization Act, removing the requirement presidential campaigns report offers of foreign assistance in an election.

• • Trump, in turn, threatens to veto the act if it includes requirements to change the names of military bases currently named after Confederate soldiers.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Racial justice protests continue, though they’re quieter and the media isn’t as interested in them anymore. Sigh.
2. Cities around the country continue to amend their use-of-force policies, and they create unarmed response teams for certain types of 911 calls.
3. Mississippi will take down all their flags and create a task force to design a new one without the cross of the Confederate battle flag. The new design will be on the ballot in November.
4. With the recent toppling of statues honoring the Confederacy and slave ownership, the Department of Homeland Security creates the Protecting American Communities Task Force to protect historic landmarks from anarchists and rioters. How does this fall under their jurisdiction?
5. The Department of Housing and Urban Development under Ben Carson announces a plan to roll back protections for transgender people in need of HUD programs, including homeless shelters. At a time when people are experiencing economic pain and health concerns, HUD prioritizes putting people who are already in the most danger in even more danger. Got it.
6. The CEO of Reddit bans over 2,000 of their communities for promoting hate speech, and that includes the largest pro-Trump community, r/The_Donald. Reddit has long resisted moderating posts.
7. Twitch temporarily suspends the Trump campaign‘s channel for hateful conduct.
8. The mayor of Seattle disbands the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area, which had been set aside for protestors in a police-free zone.
9. At least 70 people have died in police custody after saying, “I can’t breathe.” Most were stopped for nonviolent infractions, and more than half were black. It’s a varied group of people who died, including a chemical engineer, a nurse, a doctor, an Iraqi war vet, and others.
10. A federal judge strikes down a Trump administration rule that would require asylum seekers who pass through multiple countries to reach the U.S. to apply for asylum in one of those countries first in order to be eligible for consideration here.

Climate/Environment:

1. The House Select Committee on Climate Crisis releases its vision for solving the problem of climate change. It calls for 100% clean energy by 2040, similar to what several states have enacted. The legislation is unlikely to pass this year.
2. The dust cloud from the Sahara that blanketed many of the Gulf states has largely moved on, but some haze remains and a second plume is on its way.
3. Energy companies have long been fighting for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, but abandon their efforts this week. The tunnel would’ve gone from West Virginia through Virginia and ended in North Carolina. Environmental, religious, and property rights activists joined in opposing the pipeline. Even though the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the pipeline last month, other court rulings related to the Keystone XL pipeline make the project seem too risky.

Budget/Economy:

1. The U.S. has added 7.5 million jobs back in since the shutdowns started lifting two months ago, 4.8 million of those in June. Twenty million jobs were lost due to the shutdowns. While this is positive news, more stimulus from the government might be needed. For now, Trump isn’t on the stimulus package bandwagon.
2. The unemployment rate dropped from 13.3% in May to 11.1% in June, but those numbers still contain the pandemic discrepancy. I don’t know why BLS hasn’t been able to address that yet.
3. 1.4 Million Americans applied for first-time unemployment insurance last week.
4. The Congressional Budget Office predicts unemployment levels to stay above pre-pandemic levels for at least a decade. The office also predicts a federal deficit this year of $3.7 trillion.
5. Senate Democrats successfully push Republicans to approve extending the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses to August 8.
6. Goldman Sachs estimates that a national mask mandate could save the U.S. economy $1 trillion. Wearing masks is hugely politicized, and I’m not sure if Republican leaders can turn that around with their late entry into embracing masks.
7. The update to NAFTA (called the USMCA) goes into effect, changing some of the trade rules between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in the areas of automotive manufacturing, agriculture, and intellectual property.
8. Fed Chair Jerome Powell tells the House Financial Services Committee that the economy is “extraordinarily uncertain.”
9. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, on the other hand, touts the 18% increase in retail sales after businesses start to reopen and says that nearly 80% of businesses are partially open. This is before businesses start closing back down due to the surge in coronavirus cases.

Elections:

1. Several former George W. Bush officials form a new super PAC to rally disenchanted Republicans to help elect Joe Biden. This makes at least three high-profile Republican PACs that are working on getting Biden elected.
2. Now that the RNC changed their national convention from North Caroline to Jacksonville, FL, to avoid distancing and mask requirements, Jacksonville institutes a mask requirement.
3. Before Trump’s rally in Tulsa, the campaign removed the social distancing stickers placed on seats to keep people at a safe distance.
4. Trump holds a Fourth of July re-election rally at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. There’s no social distancing and masks are handed out but not required, but at least it’s outside so that’s safer.

• • Instead of a unifying speech celebrating the nation on the anniversary of its birth, Trump doubles down on the culture wars and gives a bleak speech about the state of America and the enemy within — people who don’t like Confederate statues and protestors fueling a “left-wing revolution. Except he calls them marauding bands of looters, angry mobs, and anarchists who threaten our heritage by tearing down our monuments to the side that lost the Civil War.
  • He paints a grim picture of the results of his 3-1/2 years in office, which is a weird way to run a re-election campaign.
  • He claims that 99% of coronavirus infections are harmless. In reality, 81% are mild but can still result in lasting damage to the lungs; 19% are serious, requiring hospitalization; and nearly 5% are critical.

Miscellaneous:

1. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry joins the chorus of military leaders decrying Trump’s politicization of our armed forces and his threats to use them again U.S. citizens.
2. I don’t mind a good conspiracy theory that doesn’t have any consequences, but the latest conspiracy theories connecting 5G with the coronavirus are causing real-world problems. People are harassing and threatening telecom engineers in real life and doxxing them online. Believers are also damaging 5G equipment and setting towers on fire.

• • How many more people will end up in jail because they believe a dumbass conspiracy theory?
  • Celebrities who were duped by these conspiracies include Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, M.I.A., and Wiz Khalifa.

3. And my favorite story of the week, an online troll starts rumors that Antifa protestors will gather at Gettysburg on the Fourth of July to burn flags – they’ll even give kids little flags to throw into the fire.

• • Hundreds of homegrown militia members, skinheads, bikers, and far-right groups converge on Gettysburg armed to the teeth only to find there is no one there but themselves.
  • Rumors like this have been going around for weeks, mostly about Antifa busing in protestors to some small town. Armed vigilantes have lined the streets to protect towns from these non-existent boogeymen.
  • How many times do these conspiracy theories need to fall flat before people stop falling for them?

Polls:

1. 87% of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction we’re headed.

What a week. Locusts, Saharan dust clouds, ongoing protests, more police brutality, an out-of-control pandemic, and bounties on U.S. soldiers. And really, what a year. Who can remember all the way back to January when Australia was on fire, the Senate was starting an impeachment trial, the U.S. assassinated an Iranian general, Iran accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, Kobe freaking Bryant died, Puerto Rico got whacked by a 6.4 earthquake, and Brexit finally happened. All before the pandemic shut everything down and took all our focus away from the things that came before. You’d think that’d be enough for one year, but who knows what else 2020 is cooking up?

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending June 28…

Shootings This Week:

1. There were 23 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 15 people and injure 94 more.
2. One of the worst shootings this week happened in Charlotte, NC, where nearly 200 rounds were fired into a crowd of about 400 at a block party, killing 4 and injuring at least 5 people.

Russia:

1. A federal appeals court panel rules two-to-one that Michael Flynn’s case should be dismissed since the Justice Department no longer wants to prosecute. The full court of appeals could decide to take it up, though.
2. Russia holds a WWII victory parade despite the pandemic. The parade had been postponed but was rescheduled to the day before the Russian people vote on whether to let Putin essentially be president for life. OK. Not for life, but at least until 2036.
3. According to U.S. intelligence, a Russian military intelligence unit has been offering bounties to Taliban militants for killing U.S. forces and their allies in Afghanistan.

• • Twenty American troops were killed there in 2019, though it’s not clear which killings received a bounty payout.
  • Trump continued to meet with Putin after being briefed on this, and even tried to get Russia re-admitted back into the G7.

4. Four Russian reconnaissance aircraft enter the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone and are intercepted by U.S. fighter jets.
5. A federal judge denies Roger Stone’s request for a delay in serving his prison sentence and orders Stone to report to prison on July 14. The delay was requested in consideration of the coronavirus pandemic.

Courts/Justice:

1. House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler says he’ll subpoena Attorney General Bill Barr for testimony about the DOJ’s role in overriding prosecutors in the Roger Stone case, the DOJ’s dealings with Rudy Giuliani, and the removal of U.S. attorneys. Nadler also invites former SDNY U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman to testify.
2. Federal prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky testifies about the politicization of the DOJ. He says:

• • Prosecutors in the Roger Stone case were heavily pressured by the highest levels of the DOJ to give Stone a break.
  • Bill Barr poses a threat to the rule of law.

3. John Elias, who works in the DOJ’s antitrust division, also testifies to Congress. He says:

• • Barr ordered them to investigate mergers between marijuana companies because he doesn’t like the industry.
  • The investigation into the pact between California and automakers on emission limits did not appear to be initiated in good faith.

4. Former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and former deputy attorney general Donald Ayer also testify. Ayer says that Bill Barr has polarized the DOJ, but Mukasey says he hasn’t. But even Mukasey says that Trump maybe used politics to sway the DOJ and help his friends.
5. A bipartisan group of professors and faculty at Barr’s old law school write a letter saying that Barr has “failed to fulfill his oath of office to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States.’” They also say he has “undermined the rule of law, breached constitutional norms, and damaged the integrity and traditional independence of his office and of the Department of Justice.”
6. The House Judiciary Committee will subpoena Barr if he refuses to appear to testify.
7. The Supreme Court rules that a Sri Lankan farmer seeking asylum can’t challenge his deportation order in federal court. It’s not clear what this means for future asylum cases, but it seems that once an asylum seeker is denied asylum by immigration officials, they don’t have the recourse of a hearing before a judge.
8. Trump’s Solicitor General Noel Francisco announces his resignation as of the end of the court’s term this year. Francisco has defended Trump and the Trump administration in cases at the Supreme Court level. He argued for the Muslim Ban, to end the ACA, for extreme abortion restrictions, and to end DACA.
9. The head of the DOJ’s civil division announces his resignation. Barr had offered this position to former SDNY U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman to entice him away from the SDNY office and its ongoing investigations.
10. The head of the DOJ’s criminal division also announces his resignation.
11. Trump says he had nothing to do with Berman’s firing, but the White House later admits he signed off on it (only the president could fire Berman).
12. The Senate confirms Trump’s 200th lifetime federal judge.

Coronavirus:

1. Trump clarifies that he doesn’t kid when asked if he was joking about slowing down coronavirus testing. So I guess he did try to slow it down.
2. Joe Biden accuses Trump of slowing down testing because Trump thinks he’ll look bad if more Americans get sick. Biden also reminds us that if Trump gets his way with the ACA, lingering symptoms from COVID-19 will be considered pre-existing conditions that can prevent you from being insured.
3. More than two dozen public health officials have resigned in recent weeks over threats against their lives, protests at their homes, and just plain resistance to their recommendations about stopping the spread of the coronavirus. So much of this is over whether or not we should wear masks.

• • During a pandemic, we need to hear from doctors and scientists; but this pandemic is super politicized, and people are viewing safety measures as political issues rather than health issues. Ugh.
  • Attacks against public health officials have been particularly bad in California (where one county has seen four officials resign), Colorado, Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Public health officials spend their careers trying to help people, and they’re being demoralized and threatened by the minority of Americans who think they’re trying to take away their freedoms.

4. Hospitalizations in seven states hit a new high — Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Fatalities increased in the U.S. for the first time in over two weeks.

• • Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, and Missouri all report one-day highs in new coronavirus cases, with TX and CA hitting more than 5,000 each in one day. The seven-day rolling average in TX is up 70% from the previous week.
  • In 33 states and territories, the rolling average for new cases is higher than last week.
  • At the beginning of the week, most states continue with their reopening plans, but by the end of the week, some states put those plans on pause and some states take a few steps back.

5. Even countries that seemed to have a handle on the pandemic start seeing spikes in cases (Australia, Germany, Portugal, and South Korea).
6. The USDA finds a toxic substance in hand sanitizer manufactured by Mexican company Eskbiochem.
7. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, halts funding for lung treatments for severe COVID-19 infections. BARDA is shifting funds to vaccine development.
8. A judge in Brazil orders President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a mask in public. Bolsonaro has called COVID-19 “a little cold” and even joined protestors in a rally against lockdown restrictions. Oh, and Brazil has the second-highest number of coronavirus infections and deaths, right behind the U.S.
9. Doctors Without Borders has been working with the Native American population in New Mexico to help with the pandemic. Now they’re also working in Florida assisting with migrant farmworkers. I never thought we’d need an international medical relief organization to help inside our borders.
10. The White House will funding and support from 13 drive-thru testing sites despite the increase in cases. The administration tells states to take over their own testing.

• • I guess they think the pandemic is over because the white House also ends its COVID-19 screening tests for visitors. Eight staffers plus a few Secret Service agents tested positive just last week.

11. Ringle, Wisconsin, will host the Herd Immunity Fest in July, with 15 bands playing the three-day concert. Performers are antsy to get back on stage, but most concerts across the country are still canceled.
12. Follow-ups with COVID-19 patients find that many of them still have respiratory complaints one month after recovering. Their chest X-rays are still abnormal, and nearly half have measurable breathing abnormalities. Some also have kidney and neurological issues. PTSD, anxiety, and depression are common.

• • They still don’t know the effects of COVID-19 on the brain or on fetuses carried by infected mothers.
  • Some survivors of serious COVID-19 infections face massive medical bills despite the Trump administration’s promise to protect patients from pandemic expenses. This is partially because healthcare providers and insurers don’t associate lingering health symptoms with the virus in their billing classifications. Some insurers, like Cigna, waive these fees for patients as long as they’re billed correctly.

13. German, British, Spanish, and French citizens say Trump has done a poor job managing the pandemic. They say Angela Merkel has done the best job. Italians say that China has been more helpful to them than Europe.
14. There are currently 16 vaccines in human trials in around 200 vaccines in various stages of development.
15. Some sheriffs in certain states (Washington and Arizona come to mind) not only refuse to enforce wearing masks, but they also encourage people to ignore mask-wearing rules. A few of them have tested positive.
16. The coronavirus task force holds its first briefing in two months. Dr. Anthony Fauci appeals to the American people to take responsibility not to get infected and not to infect others, and he reminds us that every outbreak has a global effect.

• • He says he’s never seen a disease that is so inconsistent in whether certain groups of people sick or how severely they get sick.
  • He appeals to our altruism: “If we want to end this outbreak, really end it with a vaccine hopefully putting the nail in the coffin, everyone has to realize that we are part of the process. We can be either part of the solution, or part of the problem… We are all in it together and the only way we’re going to end it is by ending it together.”
  • During the briefing, Mike Pence refuses to recommend people wear masks.

17. Dr. Fauci is cautiously optimistic about a vaccine, predicting we could have one by the end of the year or by early 2021.
18. Despite Trump’s claims, Dr. Fauci says he’s never been told to slow down testing. On a call with governors, Dr. Deborah Birx encourages them to expand their testing.
19. Dr. Fauci testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He says that the Trump administration told the National Institutes of Health to cut off funding to a long-running research project on bat coronaviruses like the one causing our current pandemic. Coincidentally, a reporter asked Trump about the research grant and the conspiracy theory that the current virus escaped from the lab. Two days later, NIH announced the end of funding. This was the only U.S. research group still working in China on the origins of COVID-19.
20. Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow says there’s no second wave coming—there are just hotspots. Thanks, Dr. Kudlow! Real health experts say the second wave will likely come in the fall. Kudlow also says we just have to live with the surges in infections and that there will be no more shutdowns… as some states are starting to shut things back down again.
21. The CDC adds more demographic groups to the list of people who are most at risk for COVID-19, including younger people who are obese or who have other health problems, people with a BMI of over 30 (it was previously over 40), and being pregnant.
22. The CDC is studying whether a mask can protect the wearer from other people. We already know that wearing a mask protects other people from the wearer.
23. Departments of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says the window is closing for us to get this pandemic under control.

Shortages:

1. Nursing homes, which are one of the hardest-hit institutions, see staffing shortages as their workers choose to take unemployment checks rather than come back to work. Some need to stay home to take care of their now stuck at home children, and some are concerned about the concentration of coronavirus infections in nursing homes.
2. In both Florida and Texas, some hospital systems stop including information about ICU capacity. Several are reaching 100% capacity. Houston expects its ICUs to reach an unsustainable surge capacity by July 6. Arizona hospitals are also reaching capacity.

Exposures:

1. More young people test positive for coronavirus across the southern states that were some of the first to reopen. Experts trace clusters of new cases in Mississippi to fraternity rush parties. In Texas, the majority of cases in several counties are people under 30. In Florida, the median age for new infections is 37, and more than 62% of them are under 45 years old.
2. Health experts say they can trace back the spike in coronavirus in many states to around Memorial Day when states started loosening their lockdowns and people started to feel freer to gather and go out. They don’t see the same association with the racial justice protests.

• • They say that the clusters of cases that are popping up around the country can mostly be traced back to parties and other social gatherings where people don’t tend to wear masks. Which is why so many of the new cases involve people under 30.
  • Most of the protestors are wearing masks and are spread out outside, which experts say helps slow the spread.

3. In Massachusetts, more than 17,000 people who protested took advantage of free testing sites last week. 2.5% of them tested positive, which is consistent with ongoing statewide testing. In Minnesota, 1.5% of protestors who were tested are positive, and in Seattle, fewer than 1% are. It’s possible that more infections will show up, though.
4. All of the Trump campaign staffers who went to his Tulsa rally are quarantining since they all interacted with the eight staffers who tested positive for the virus. Several Secret Service agents were also told to quarantine after two agents who were at the rally tested positive.
5. Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, suggests that the actual number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. could be 10 times the confirmed number of cases, making it more than 20 million people infected. This assessment comes from looking for antibodies in blood samples.
6. Mike Pence cancels re-election events in Florida and Arizona because of the surge in cases. And he finally admits that wearing a mask is a good idea. But then he attends a church service where a 100-member choir sang without masks. 😱
7. Tennis great Novak Djokovic and his wife test positive for coronavirus after he played a series of exhibition matches he organized. There was no social distancing enforced at the matches, and three other players also test positive afterward. In his apology, he says “Unfortunately, this virus is still present…” Um, duh.
8. In 16 states that recommend, but don’t require wearing masks, cases are up 84% over the past two weeks. In 11 states that require masks, new cases have fallen by 25% over the same period.

Closures:

1. Major League Baseball plans to open spring training camps on July 1 and to open the season on July 23 or 24. This is despite current coronavirus infections in league players.
2. Some states make it a statewide mandate that people wear masks in public, taking the choice away from localities (which have been erring on the side of chance as opposed to science).
3. The Kentucky Derby is rescheduled for September 4-5 and will have a live audience.
4. Public health experts predicted a surge in coronavirus infections when states began opening back up in May, and we’re seeing that surge now.
5. Governor Greg Abbott says Texas is experiencing a massive outbreak, and health officials there say their infrastructure is overwhelmed.
6. Texas suspends reopening the state after hospitals in the state are inundated with COVID-19 cases. Texas Governor Greg Abbott urges all Texans to wear a mash, wash their hands, and social distance. This is a surprise coming from the governor who previously wouldn’t allow localities with high COVID-19 numbers to require the wearing of masks in public. Abbot expresses regret for allowing bars to reopen. He didn’t realize how fast the virus could spread.
7. Abbot also postpones unnecessary medical procedures to free up more hospital beds, and he recommends that Texans stay home as much as possible.
8. California closes bars again in some counties with the highest increases in new infections. Texas and Florida ban consuming alcohol on premises at bars as they hit record high numbers of new cases. Florida closes down some beaches as well.
9. The European Union is reopening their borders after months of shutdowns, but say they’ll likely continue to block Americans because of the failure of the U.S. to contain the pandemic.
10. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut require travelers entering from states with high infection rates to quarantine for two weeks. Those states include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah, and Texas. Massachusetts requires a 14-day quarantine no matter what state you come from.
11. New Jersey’s governor says amusement and water parks can open starting July 2. Nope, nope, nope. Not going there.
12. American Airlines and United Airlines end social distancing on all flights and will fully book them. Again, nope.

Numbers:

1. The U.S. has its highest daily coronavirus infections since the beginning of the pandemic, with more than 40,000 cases in just one day. Coronavirus cases are up 30% from the beginning of June.
2. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 2,510,323 people in the U.S. are infected so far (up from 2,255,119 last week), with 125,539 deaths (up from 119,719 last week).
  • 9,953,229 people worldwide have been infected (up from 8,796,835 last week), with 498,550 deaths (up from 464,292 last week).

Healthcare:

1. The Trump administration tells the Supreme Court that the ACA must fall because the individual mandate was removed. AFAIK, there’s no plan to replace it should the court strike down the ACA. At the same time, Republican legislators, who’ve voted dozens of times to strike down the ACA, are encouraging constituents who’ve been affected by COVID-19 to take advantage of the ACA.

International:

1. Trump backtracks on comments he made that indicated a possible meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration previously took the side of Maduro’s opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, who claims to be the legitimate leader of the country. Even Trump’s allies in Congress took issue and restated their support for Guaidó.

Legislation/Congress:

1. The House approves a bill establishing statehood for the District of Columbia. It’s doubtful it’ll get past the Senate.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

1. A federal appeals court rules that the Trump administration can’t use military funding to pay for its border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
2. Environmental groups accuse the Trump administration of destroying hundreds of ancient saguaro cacti in the process of trying to build the border wall. This includes the path of destruction through the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which is an international reserve. Saguaros are protected under Arizona law. Customs and Border Patrol say they’ve relocated 1,104 cacti. What a waste of resources…

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Trump suspends certain immigration visas, including work visas used to hire skilled workers, due to the high level of unemployment in the U.S. from the pandemic. Tech companies and others worry that this will hold us back from economic recovery by pushing investment abroad and reducing job creation. The order also includes visas for dependent spouses, managers at multinational companies, exchange students, and non-farm seasonal workers.
2. Protests against police brutality and for racial justice continue across the country. This is going on five weeks now. And yet, instances of excessive use of force by police against black people also continue, even with police in the spotlight and being filmed. It’s almost like they don’t care…
3. Protestors attempt to remove the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square.
4. The police officer who killed Breonna Taylor in a no-knock warrant is fired, and the other officers involved are placed on leave.
5. Democrats in the Senate block a police reform bill saying it doesn’t go far enough. The House passes their police reform bill. Last week’s blog lists several differences between the House and Senate bills. You can read more here.
6. In arguing against statehood for the District of Columbia, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) claims that Wyoming deserves to be a state because it’s a “well-rounded working-class state” and D.C. doesn’t deserve to be a state because it’s just lobbyists and federal workers. He ignores the D.C. working class, including its large African American population.
7. The Republican platform for 2020 continues to include banning same-sex marriage and banning transgender members of the military. It also includes support for conversion therapy. The platform is the same as the 2016 platform because the pandemic prevented them from gathering to rewrite it. So let’s just go with the same hate platform from last time.
8. Several active-duty military members are also members of online networks that Boogaloo Bois frequent. Some members of the Boogaloo movement actually are active-duty military. No conflict of interest there.
9. Trump retweets a video of Trump supporters trolling protestors and, in the first seconds of the video, you can hear one of his supporters yell, “White Power!” Trump thanks them for their enthusiasm. His spokespeople later say he didn’t hear the shout.
10. In New York City, prosecutors file charges against an officer who put a man in a banned chokehold.
11. Police officers killed Elijah McClain almost a year ago in Aurora, CO. Just this week, Colorado Governor Jared Polis appoints a special prosecutor to determine whether charges should be filed against the officers. McClain was unarmed, an introvert, and slight of build. He played his violin at an animal shelter because he wanted to soothe the animals. Real tough guy.
12. In a protest against McClain’s killing, where people play their violins in remembrance, police arrive in riot gear with tear gas to disperse parts of the crowd.
13. Three white men are finally formally indicted for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.
14. Three officers in North Carolina are fired for making violent, racist remarks about Black people.
15. Cities continue to divert funds from their police departments to other assistive services.

Climate/Environment:

1. West Asia and East Africa have been fighting a plague of locusts, and an estimated 450 billion locusts have been killed since January. The locusts start their migration again this week, which could lead to food shortages and starvation.
2. A dust cloud out of Africa hits gulf states, covering several areas in a thick, dusty haze. This happens every year (except not usually the thick, dusty haze part), and is thought to bring nutrient-rich soil to the U.S. But this year is the biggest in 50 years. It’s thicker and lower than normal and can exacerbate respiratory issues.
3. The EPA issues a rule that adds 172 perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals (PFAs) to a list of pollutants businesses are required to report when releasing into waterways. But at the same time, they’re creating exemptions for polluters by playing around with the percentages.
4. California passes the country’s first electric truck standard, which should help put more electric trucks on the road. The goal is to add 350,000 electric trucks by 2035 and phase out diesel trucks by 2045.
5. The Vatican urges Catholics to divest their investments from weapons and fossil fuels because they have a duty to protect human rights and because of the dangers of climate change.

Budget/Economy:

1. Economic advisor Kevin Hassett steps down again. Hassett was the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors for two years. He left in 2019 and returned to the administration to help with the response to the coronavirus pandemic. I guess his work here is done?

• • Hassett was pivotal to getting Trump to support economic stimulus and relief packages for those affected by the pandemic. Which is weird, because he’s also pretty cavalier about the seriousness of the pandemic.
  • In addition to losing Hassett in the middle of a recession, the administration is also losing Tomas Philipson, who took over at the CEA after Hassett left last year.

2. The Trump administration is looking at another $3 billion in tariffs on products from Europe and on aluminum from Canada. European products that might fall under the tariffs include purses, leather, olives, and gin, with hikes on existing tariffs for aircraft and dairy products.

• • Stocks fell everywhere on the news and then fell again over fears of having to reinstate lockdown measures. Tariffs might not be the best tool to use on a pandemic economy.

3. Cities and counties hit hard economically by the pandemic shutdowns put a halt to new and ongoing infrastructure projects.
4. New home sales rose by 16.6% in May despite the unemployment rate and surge in coronavirus infections. Mortgage interest rates are historically low.
5. New unemployment claims were over 1 million for the 14th week in a row. Continuing unemployment claims finally fell below 20 million for the first time in two months.

Elections:

1. Voter turnout in Kentucky was off the charts between mail-in and in-person voting. Kentucky closes their polls down at 6:00 PM after opening significantly fewer polling places. So when a bunch of voters waiting in line to vote got locked out of their voting center at 6:00, Senate primary candidate Charles Booker steps in and gets a judge to order the doors back open so everyone can vote. People were waiting in hour-long lines just to park.

• • Booker’s race against Amy McGrath is still too close to call by the end of the week.

2. Trump holds another re-election rally in Yuma, AZ, where he again calls COVID-19 the Kung flu and the China flu. He brags about his “big, beautiful wall”(about 220 miles have been completed, and about 215 of those miles just replaced existing wall) and then tells a group of students that the election could be stolen by fraud. He complains about the removal of Confederate statues.
3. Then Trump holds another reelection rally at a shipyard in Wisconsin where he predicts a rosy economy.
4. Trump claims that Joe Biden is trying to get out of debating him, but Biden has officially committed to participating in at least three debates and says he’s eager to debate Trump.
5. The Democratic National Committee announces that they’ll conduct as much business remotely as possible during the nominating convention in Milwaukee this August. They’re calling it a “Convention Across America,” moving it to a smaller venue, and are waiting for public health officials to complete a pandemic assessment before finalizing their plans.

Miscellaneous:

1. The Trump family sues to stop Trump’s niece Mary from publishing her tell-all book about the dysfunctions of the Trump family.
2. Trump signs an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services to bolster partnerships among state and local foster care organizations to provide better service to foster children during the pandemic. In hindsight, the administration’s earlier decision to allow faith-based organizations to discriminate against gay parents probably wasn’t helpful during a pandemic.

Polls:

1. Trump’s disapproval rating hits a high of 58%, with 49% strongly disapproving. That’s a record not just for him, but for any president polled before him.
2. Joe Biden is ahead of Trump in presidential polling by 8 percentage points.
3. 34% of women want to postpone pregnancy later or have fewer children than they had planned before the pandemic.
4. 80% of voters have a positive view of people who wear masks.
5. 89% of Americans say they wear a mask when out. Only 11% say they don’t. Most of that 11 % must live in my neighborhood.