Crooked Media - What A Day: For whom the death tolls

It’s Thursday, which in the Before Times meant it was almost the weekend, and which now means there’s another staggering unemployment number to wrap your head around. 
 

• There were 6.6 million new unemployment claims filed this week, meaning 16 million Americans have lost their jobs in three weeks. The Federal Reserve said it would inject $2.3 trillion into businesses and programs to support the economy, which does little for the 10 percent of the labor force that’s now out of work, but did goose the stock market. An interim coronavirus relief bill has stalled in the Senate after Democrats refused to let Mitch McConnell rush through a $250 billion increase in small business lending without conditions or additional funding for hospitals, states and cities, and food stamp recipients. With both the House and Senate out of session, nothing can pass without unanimous support, and McConnell would rather take his ball and go home than negotiate. 
   
• Dr. Anthony Fauci estimated that the final coronavirus death toll will be closer to 60,000, down from the White House’s initial projections of 100,000 to 240,000. That revised estimate reflects the impact of social distancing measures, and depends on all of us continuing to stay extremely at home. Fauci also said antibody tests will be available soon, which is great. What’s decidedly less great is that the federal government will inexplicably end funding for COVID-19 testing sites on Friday, just as case numbers in some areas are starting to surge. Some of those sites will continue to run under state management, but others will have to close. Remember when Trump said he liked the numbers being where they are? Seems like that might be relevant again!
   
• In New York state, hospitalization numbers have almost leveled off, but the death toll is still climbing. There were 799 deaths reported from Wednesday to Thursday, a record high for the third straight day, which brought New York’s total toll to 7,067. Some doctors, both in New York and around the world, want to shift away from using ventilators for COVID-19 patients when possible: Coronavirus patients placed on ventilators are dying at an unusually high rate compared to other respiratory-distress patients. The reason isn’t clear, but some physicians speculate that ventilators might make matters worse for certain patients, and they’re increasingly trying other measures first.

Demonstrating the administration’s commitment to providing the public with crucial health information, Vice President Mike Pence has blocked top health officials from appearing on CNN.
 

• Pence’s office said it will only allow Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, and other top experts to appear on the network if it resumes carrying the White House’s full daily briefings, without cutting away to provide fact checking. The catch here is that the coronavirus task-force briefings are insane two-hour propaganda circuses, at which Trump and Pence trumpet progress that hasn’t actually happened, and promote untested pharmaceuticals, among a variety of other lies. 
   
• Ultimately, the biggest information gap is one that health officials can’t address on CNN. A new Gallup poll found that people who get their news from Fox and other conservative sources are twice as likely to believe that COVID-19 is “less deadly than or as deadly as flu,” compared with consumers of “liberal” (lol) news sources like CNN and MSNBC. That false belief impacts behavior—and during a pandemic, every individual’s behavior impacts all of us.
   

With 16 million Americans out of work, and over 454,300 confirmed cases in the country, one individual’s behavior matters the most. Unfortunately that individual is Donald Trump, who today responded to a piece from the Wall Street Journal editorial board criticizing his briefings as useless and tone-deaf by pointing out that they forgot to mention his ratings are higher than the finale of The Bachelor. At least he really proved ‘em wrong.

Six Feet Apart with Alex Wagner (journalist and co-host of Showtime’s The Circus) offers a window into the hidden worlds of this pandemic through conversations with people on the frontlines. From the grocery store to the criminal justice system, this new series will delve into the impact of what’s likely to be the defining event of our lifetimes. New episodes come out every Thursday wherever you listen to podcasts → 

Low-income students are getting left behind in the transition to online learning, and the crisis could deepen educational inequality. School districts across the country have shifted to some form of distance learning, usually online, and not every student has the resources to participate. About 17 percent of students nationwide don’t have computers at home, and 18 percent lack broadband internet access. Low-income families and families of color are especially likely to face those obstacles. Lower-income students may also not have the physical space to focus on classwork or watch lectures, and their parents may not be able to stay home to help them. Some school districts are distributing devices to help close the digital gap, and working to expand internet access through whatever means possible.

• British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been moved out of the ICU, but remains in the hospital as he recovers from COVID-19. 
   
• The Biden campaign is set to announce two new policy proposals in an appeal to Bernie Sanders supporters: A plan to lower the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60, and another to forgive student debt for low- and middle-income borrowers. 
   
• A bipartisan group of senators has demanded that Trump explain why he fired Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general. To be fair, Trump has already made it clear why he fired Atkinson, it’s simply an unacceptable reason to have fired him, and may have been illegal, too!
   
• Food banks have seen a huge surge in demand during the coronavirus crisis, just as the charities face their own shortages. If you’re in a position to donate, you can help ease the strain through our Coronavirus Relief Fund → 
   
• Some Trump aides (and Attorney General Bill Barr, whom Trump considers an aide) are pushing to withdraw social-distancing guidelines (or as they put it “reopen the country”) in May. As we all learned from Trump’s previous Easter deadline, this is something that the Trump administration gets to negotiate with the virus, and is definitely worth discussing.
   
• A sailor from the USS Theodore Roosevelt with coronavirus has been admitted to the ICU in Guam. As of Thursday, 416 crew members have tested positive.
   
• Google has directed its employees not to use Zoom on company devices, either because of its security issues or because the guy who maintains Google Hangouts got sad.
   
• Saturday Night Live will return this weekend with a remotely-produced episode. It’s not clear how much of the show will be live, or how it will function without its cavernous wig vault.
   
• The New Yorker interviewed Fran Liebowitz about quarantining in New York, among other things, and it rules: “Last night, I was peeling a cucumber and I was infuriated. Like, why am I peeling this cucumber? Why am I not in a restaurant, where they know how to peel a cucumber, and where I’m not doing it?”

The Trump administration has expelled 10,000 migrants at the border since the coronavirus crisis began. Emergency public-health measures have given U.S. Customs and Border Protection broad authority to bypass immigration laws, which the agency has used to send thousands of migrants directly back into Mexico. Acting CBP commissioner Mark Morgan has defended the measures as necessary to prevent coronavirus from spreading among detainees in Border Patrol custody. The upshot is that the Trump administration has virtually overturned asylum law, denying migrants any kind of due process to seek protection. The expulsions have included nearly 400 children, who would normally be protected from rapid removal by U.S. anti-trafficking laws.

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Vietnam has donated 550,000 masks to five European countries.

Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) has reversed his past position on widespread absentee voting, and announced that New Hampshire will allow voters to cast mail-in ballots if coronavirus is still an issue in November. 

Another voting victory in New Hampshire today: A judge struck down a GOP-crafted law that made it much harder for college students to register to vote. 

Doctors in central Pennsylvania are setting up a drive-through testing site that accommodates a horse and buggy for the local Amish and Mennonite communities.

California saw its first daily drop in intensive care hospitalizations.

New York City restaurants are raising money to feed frontline health-care workers.