Last week Trump said, “This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” In January, Trump said there were no worries at all. It’s under control, and we have one person coming from China. A month later, he said we’re only at five people and that will drop to zero. It will disappear one day—like a miracle. It’ll be gone by April. Trump accused Democrats of being hysterical about the severity of the pandemic and mocked HHS Secretary Alex Azar for being alarmist. We’re in for a bumpy ride, my fellow Americans.

Here’s what happened in politics (which was mostly sucked up by COVID-19) for the week ending March 30…

Shootings This Week:

1. There were just 3 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 1 person and injure 11 more.

Healthcare/Coronavirus:

1. I don’t remember hearing about it at the time, but the first recorded case of coronavirus in the US was January 21.
2. Trump activates the National Guard in New York, California, and Washington State.
3. The Justice Department brings a fraud case against a website that claims to be distributing vaccines for the coronavirus on the World Health Organization‘s behalf. A federal judge issues a restraining order blocking the site.
4. The DOJ considers using anti-terrorism laws to prosecute people who threaten to spread the coronavirus on purpose.
5. In July 2018, four months before we started hearing of a pandemic, the Trump administration eliminated the position for a U.S. epidemiologist in China. She trained Chinese epidemiologists who track, investigate, and contain outbreaks of disease.
6. Over the past two years, the Trump administration cut CDC operations in China by two-thirds, with most of the cuts at the CDC’s Beijing office.
7. Dr. Anthony Fauci says there’s only so much he can do to correct Trump’s misstatements during his coronavirus briefings. Fauci recently had to correct Trump on the use of an anti-malarial drug for COVID-19. Trump says it’s a game-changer, but Fauci says it’s all anecdotal so far.
8. After Trump touts hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19, a man dies from eating a fish parasite treatment that contains chloroquine phosphate.
9. A study in China finds that the drug is ineffective for treating COVID-19.
10. Last week, Fauci went viral when he smirked and covered his face when Trump mentioned the “Deep State Department” during a press briefing.
11. Fauci pushes for virtual news conferences so the members of the task force don’t all have to be so close together.
12. New York begins testing trial drugs approved for other uses.
13. States begin expanding drive-through testing.
14. Mayor Bill de Blasio says that New York hospitals are already being deluged with coronavirus patients. Even so, playgrounds and parks are still open while Governor Cuomo works on plans to minimize crowds in public places.
15. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro gives a speech saying the country should end mass isolation and open schools. He calls COVID-19 a little flu or cold.
16. Scientists say the coronavirus is not mutating quickly, which means that a vaccine could be very effective.
17. Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio is very proactive about trying to flatten the curve, and says that’s the best way to bring the economy back.
18. The U.K. puts out a call for 250,000 volunteers to help with things like driving patients to appointments, picking up medicines, and checking in on isolated people.
19. The CDC hasn’t held a press briefing on the coronavirus in two weeks.
20. Several news stations stop carrying Trump’s coronavirus briefings live because they are too full of misinformation and can’t be fact-checked in real-time.
21. A study by UnitedHealth Group shows their self-administered coronavirus test is as effective as the current one administered by medical practitioners.
22. The UN’s resolution on the pandemic stalls when the U.S. insists that it calls out China for being the origin of the virus.
23. G20 leaders call an emergency meeting to develop a plan for the pandemic.
24. A group of far-right news sites starts criticizing Dr. Fauci. Trump tries to downplay any tension between the two, but at the same time, he bristles against the medical consensus on the pandemic. Some groups are even calling Fauci an agent of the deep state.
25. WHO officials praise both China’s and the United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic.
26. The Trump administration maintains that there are plenty of ventilators and thus no need for the “do not resuscitate” conversations that we’re hearing about and no need for doctors to have to decide who to treat and who gets a ventilator.
27. Scientists who model the spread of coronavirus have to update their models to account for the number of people who believe the virus is a hoax. This was not something they thought they’d have to include in the mix.
28. Trump continues to try to shift the blame for the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. to our governors; specifically, he calls out Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

• • Whitmer has been critical of the federal response and the failure to deliver the supplies that Michigan needs. Michigan has one of the fastest-growing outbreaks in the U.S.
  • Whitmer says that vendors have been told not to send her state the supplies they order.
  • Trump accuses her of not doing anything.
  • Republicans in Michigan echo Whitmer’s criticisms and requests.
  • Whitmer praises Mike Pence, with whom she has a good working relationship.

29. U.S. State Department documents show that on February 7, the U.S. provided 17.8 tons of respirators and other medical equipment to China to help with their response to the coronavirus.

• • We were likely sending help to the source of a pandemic to help stop the spread.
  • They seem to be returning the favor, though, because this week the U.S. receives 80 tons of medical equipment from China.

30. According to Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), Senators offered the Trump administration congressional funding on February 5 to start getting ahead of the spread of coronavirus. At the time, officials said they didn’t need any emergency funding and could manage it with their existing funding. Here’s what Murphy tweeted at the time:

“Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren’t taking this seriously enough. Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.”

• • This kind of goes against the argument that we couldn’t do anything about the coronavirus earlier because of the impeachment hearings.

31. The former director of the CDC calls for an investigation into the testing failures that put us so far behind. State and local healthcare organizations abandon attempts to test and tell people with symptoms to self-quarantine at home.
32. The Trump administration ignored the National Security Council’s 2016 pandemic playbook, which provided a color-coded, step-by-step plan for dealing with a crisis like this.

• • According to the playbook, the administration should’ve begun securing medical and protective equipment in January.
  • The playbook details the roles and responsibilities of each agency for each of four threat levels.
  • An NSC spokesman says the document is dated. How dated can it be?

33. Disaster experts say that all the open positions in the federal government, along with the high turnover in this administration make it harder to handle the pandemic.
34. Five government officials say that after weeks of downplaying the virus, the Trump administration is now trying to move quickly to catch up. Shifting responsibilities and Trump’s whims are slowing the process down, though. They say there’s no longterm strategy or focus. Up until now:

• • No one at the White House has devised a strategy to obtain medical supplies longterm.
  • The Trump administration is competing with states for medical supplies.
  • They’re still sorting out which teams are responsible for which parts of the response.
  • There’s still no strategy to make testing widely available.

35. FEMA finally takes over the emergency responsibilities that Health and Human Services had been trying to handle.
36. Trump continues to claim that the Obama administration acted very late during the H1N1 pandemic. If I haven’t already mentioned it, Obama declared a national health emergency 12 days after the first case was identified (and days before the first death). Test kits were approved and shipped out just two weeks after the virus was identified.
37. Health experts are still predicting that COVID-19 could cause between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths in the U.S.

Shortages:

1. Trump says that nobody in their wildest dreams thought we’d ever run out of ventilators. Medical experts have been saying since at least 2011 that the U.S. didn’t have enough ventilators to see it through a pandemic.
2. The Trump administration reaches out to other countries (including China) to see if they’ll sell us things like hand sanitizer, respirators, masks, gloves, gowns, biohazard bags, and inhalers.
3. The White House cancels its announcement of a deal with GM and Ventec Life Systems to produce up to 80,000 ventilators. The deal was going to cost the government more than $1 billion.
4. Authorities refuse to ship the nearly 1.5 million N95 respirators sitting in an Indiana warehouse because they’re expired.
5. Tesla promises to donate hundreds of ventilators to New York. He’s purchased 1,255 of them so far. Not all of the ventilators were the kind we need right now, but hospitals were able to retrofit them.
6. Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers West finds 39 million N95 masks that they’ll give to state and local governments and to medical facilities.
7. After New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asks the federal government for thousands of ventilators, Trump says he doesn’t believe the state needs 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators. The projections say otherwise. New York is still two weeks out from expected peak usage.
8. The Trump administration sends 170 ventilators to California, but they‘re all broken. The state is repairing the ventilators to distribute them to hospitals.
9. At a press conference, Trump suggests that healthcare workers are stealing masks and selling them illegally.
10. Some states ask retired medical personnel to return to work to help contain and treat patients during the pandemic. 40,000 volunteer to help New York.
11. Ford, 3M, and General Electric team up to product respirators, face shields, and ventilators.
12. Trump says that Ford, GM, and Tesla are already making ventilators, but they aren’t, and it will take several months to ramp that up.
13. Companies and individuals are doing what they can to help:

• • Gap and Ralph Lauren repurpose factories to start producing medical masks and gowns.
  • Creative Americans are sewing face masks to help protect medical workers and laypeople.
  • Prisma Health develops a device that lets one ventilator support up to four patients.
  • Apple donates 10 million face masks.
  • Pornhub donates 50,000 surgical masks.
  • Crocs donates shoes to healthcare workers.
  • Dyson is building 15,000 ventilators.

Closures:

1. The number of states implementing stay at home orders except for essential travel for things like food and medicine rises from four to 26 this week. The holdouts are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.
2. Trump says he wants the country opened up by Easter, and pushes his case for Americans to return to work. Experts say that opening up too early will defeat the purpose of staying at home in the first place. Trump says more people will die if the economy goes into a depression; health experts say more will die if we lift the restrictions too soon.

• • And thus starts the isolation wars between the right and the left. The truth is, there’s no easy answer for how to move back to what we consider normal.
  • Governors push back on the idea and are still asking for more federal assistance.

3. The CDC issues travel advisories for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
4. Franklin Graham reopens Liberty University.
5. California suspends accepting inmates in state prisons for 30 days. Crowded conditions make prisons prime for outbreaks. Bill de Blasio releases 200 inmates who committed low-level offenses and have less than a year left to serve. He’s also working on releasing people in high-risk categories.
6. While gun stores are closed in several areas, a loophole in Los Angeles County’s lockdown orders allows gun stores to stay open. Lines are around the block. Tip: You can’t kill a virus with a bullet.
7. Communities near national parks and popular hiking areas ask visitors to stay away after too many people crowd into them. Leaders keep saying people can get out and walk and hike, so people flock to public hiking areas.
8. Parts of California shut down their beaches after too many people come to hang out there.
9. New York cancels all elective, non-critical surgeries to increase hospital bed capacity. Other states have already been doing this and using it as an excuse to stop abortions.
10. The White House asks people who leave the New York area to self-isolate for 14 days, claiming that 60% of new cases in the U.S. are coming out of NY. In some states, police are enforcing it.
11. Six of Trump’s top seven revenue-producing resorts and clubs shut down, putting him in the uncomfortable position of having to balance the interests of the American people with his own economic interests.
12. The Israeli government approves emergency measures allowing them to track cellphone data for people who are infected. They’ll use this for contact tracing.
13. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey says Alabama won’t order people to stay at home because “we’re not New York State” or “California.” Alabama has fewer cases of coronavirus, but their rate of increase is nearly that of New York.
14. An epidemiologist in a small town in Oklahoma saw the pandemic threat months ago and started mobilizing his town in mid-February. In the absence of a statewide order, other cities and towns in Oklahoma took it upon themselves to prepare.
15. The U.K. shuts down non-essential businesses and ends gatherings of more than two people for three weeks.

Exposures:

1. Nearly 200 members of the NYPD test positive for the coronavirus.
2. Representative Ben McAdams (D-UT) is in the hospital with low oxygen levels from COVID-19.
3. Famed playwright Terrence McNally dies from complications of COVID-19.
4. Amazon workers at six warehouses test positive for the coronavirus.
5. A group of people in Kentucky throw a coronavirus party, presumably in order to contract the virus and become immune. At least many of the did contract it.
6. An immigrant in ICE custody tests positive for the coronavirus.
7. The president of Harvard University and his wife test positive for the coronavirus.
8. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tests positive for the coronavirus. He’s working from home and says he has mild symptoms. His Health Minister also tests positive and his chief medical officer has symptoms.
9. Dozens of nursing homes face coronavirus outbreaks.

Numbers:

1. Deaths in Italy continue to climb, and Italian mayors crack down on people ignoring the stay at home orders.
2. Germany’s fatality rate is 0.5%, the lowest in the world. Their health experts say it’s because of their thorough testing program. They’re testing early and often.
3. The U.S. leads the world in the number of confirmed coronavirus infections. New York has around 5% of all coronavirus cases worldwide, and they’re doubling every three days.
4. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 124,665 people in the U.S. are infected so far (that we know of), with 2,191 deaths, up from 26,747 infections and 340 deaths as of last week.
  • 691,867 people worldwide have been infected, with 32,988 deaths, up from 307,280 infections and 13,049 deaths as of last week.

International:

1. The speaker of Israel’s Knesset resigns over backlash from his refusal to reopen parliament during a time when large gatherings are banned. Some people think the closure protects Netanyahu and the far right.
2. The DOJ unseals criminal charges against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on drug trafficking charges.
3. Homeland Security requests military forces to be deployed at the U.S.-Canada border. Canada says that would damage our relationship.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Protestors in Mexico briefly shut down a portion of the U.S.-Mexico border when they block traffic to try to stop people entering from the U.S. The protestors are afraid Americans will bring the virus with them.
2. Unaccompanied migrant minors in U.S. custody test positive for coronavirus.
3. Hate crimes against Asian Americans continue to rise, and many Asian Americans say they’re afraid to leave their homes.

• • For weeks, Trump has called the virus the Chinese virus. But then he switches his tune and says it’s not China’s fault and that he’ll no longer call the virus the Chinese or China virus.

• • Both he and his administration continue to blame China, though, and to call it the Chinese or Wuhan virus.
  • Trump pushes the G7 to call it the Wuhan virus in their official statement on the pandemic, causing the statement to stall.
  • So while other countries are focused on things like calling a temporary halt to all hostilities between nations, the U.S. is focused on making sure someone else gets the blame.

4. Cramped and crowded conditions in refugee camps around the world create the perfect environment for coronavirus outbreaks.
5. A pastor who leads a weekly bible study for Trump’s Cabinet members says in a blog post that gays and environmentalists, among others, have ignited God’s wrath, which is why we’re going through this pandemic.

Climate:

1. A federal judge strikes down the permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline that were affirmed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The judge says the permits violate the National Environmental Policy Act.
2. The oil and gas industry asks the Trump administration to ease some regulations to make the distribution of fuel easier. The requests cover regulations that mostly cover record-keeping and training, but the industry says they aren’t asking to ease safety regulations.
3. The EPA suspends enforcement of environmental regulations for the indefinite future while we grapple with COVID-19, allowing power plants, factories, and other facilities to determine for themselves if they can meet legal requirements on reporting air and water pollution.

Budget/Economy:

1. 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, the largest increase in new jobless claims in history. The unemployment rate increased two points from 3.5% to 5.5%.
2. After economists and advisors say this for a week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell finally agrees that we might be in a recession.
3. Behind the scenes, Democratic and Republican lawmakers are working together to hammer out an agreement on an enormous stimulus package. Both sides blame the other for blocking the package, when in reality, they’re negotiating for the best bill. I don’t know why they have to politicize it.
4. The stock market continues to fall despite stimulus attempts by the Fed but then soars after Congress passes their $2.2 trillion stimulus bill, bringing the market out of the bear market it had fallen into.
5. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) demands a last-minute recorded vote on the coronavirus relief package, forcing members of the House to get back on planes and travel to Washington D.C. at a time when states are restricting non-essential travel.

• • A recorded vote means that a majority need to be present to pass it.
  • Three Representatives have tested positive.
  • Massie receives backlash from members of both parties.

6. No one gets everything they want in the stimulus bill, but Democrats get increased aid for small businesses and workers, as well as more oversight over spending, and Republicans get the aid they wanted for businesses. The bill includes:

• • $150 billion for states.
  • $130 billion for hospitals.
  • Expanded unemployment benefits, which are extended to self-employed workers.
  • Around $1,200 for every American making less than $75,000.
  • Homeowner and renter protections.
  • Small business loans.
  • Oversight for funds paid to businesses.

7. Trump Organization businesses are banned from receiving funds from the stimulus package.
8. Trump doesn’t invite Nancy Pelosi to the signing ceremony for the coronavirus relief bill, despite her role in the negotiations. Apparently, they aren’t speaking.
9. The Trump administration halted the collection of defaulted student loan debt for the time being.
10. Some states order a moratorium on evictions of rental tenants. California enters a deal with major banks to protect homeowners from foreclosure.

Elections:

1. The stimulus bill passed by Congress includes $400 million to strengthen elections and promote vote-by-mail options. The original House bill called for ten times that,
2. Trump’s re-election campaign sends cease and desist letters to TV stations that are airing an ad critical of his response to the coronavirus pandemic.
3. A federal court of appeals overturns restrictions on accepting ballots in Arizona. Now voters who vote at the wrong precinct can still have their vote counted, and early voters can let someone else drop their ballots in the mail.

Miscellaneous:

1. Not liking their coverage so far, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis bans Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reporters from his press conference on the coronavirus response.
2. PG&E pleads guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter in the 2018 Camp fire in Northern California.
3. Trump appoints John Voight and Mike Huckabee, among others, to the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees.
4. Trump brags about the ratings of his coronavirus task force press briefings.

Polls:

1. 72% of Americans think their governor is doing a good job of handling the pandemic. 50% think Trump is.
2. 93% of Americans say they’re practicing social distancing measures.