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.