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More Americans have now died from the coronavirus than in the Vietnam War, and the CDC has released new data illustrating that the confirmed death toll of 60,000 is a drastic undercount. Everybody say, “Good job, Jared Kushner, you really are the smartest inflatable car dealership man in the world."
- In the five weeks between March 8 and April 11, total deaths from all causes in seven states with serious coronavirus outbreaks were nearly 50 percent higher than normal. Those statistics, which themselves likely present a significant undercount, show an additional 9,000 deaths beyond what’s been reported in the official coronavirus death toll. (That’s probably a mix of coronavirus deaths, and death from ailments that are usually treatable.) And then there’s Florida, which appears to be trying to keep its data as fake as its Very Essential pro wrestling: State officials told medical examiners to stop releasing tallies of coronavirus deaths, after they showed a death toll 10 percent higher than Florida’s published count.
- As expected, President Trump has signed an executive order declaring meat processing plants “critical infrastructure,” to compel them to stay open. Labor unions are pushing back: Trump made sure the companies would be protected from lawsuits, but didn’t mandate safety measures to protect the workers who have to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in facilities that have already spawned lethal outbreaks. At least 20 of those workers have already died, and an estimated 6,500 are sick or have been exposed. On Sunday, the CDC and OSHA issued guidelines for physical distancing and other safety regulations at the plants, but those guidelines are voluntary and unenforceable, two words that famously strike fear into the hearts of big corporations.
- Meat plant employees aren’t the only workers facing an impossible choice. As certain Republican-controlled states begin to prematurely relax public-health restrictions, some governors have warned residents that they’ll be kicked off of unemployment benefits if they refuse to return to work—even if they’re worried about getting infected. As with every aspect of this crisis, the consequences of these reckless actions will fall along familiar lines of racial and economic inequality: The workers these governors are forcing back into hazardous conditions, and who stand to suffer the gravest consequences, are disproportionately minorities. In March, more than 80 percent of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Georgia were black, and it’s black communities that will be hurt if cases spike and the health system becomes further overwhelmed.
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Meanwhile, state and city governments really aren’t kidding about needing that federal aid.
- Some local governments have already started laying off or furloughing thousands of employees, and mayors and governors across the country, from both parties, are facing the prospect of dramatic cuts to their workforce. Between 300,000 and 1,000,000 public-sector employees could soon be out of a job or sent home without pay, threatening public services like education, sanitation, and emergency response.
- Laser-focused on the core issue of how to blame this all on China, the Trump administration has ordered intelligence agencies to find out whether China and the WHO hid what they knew about the coronavirus, and abruptly halted funding to a project studying how viruses spread from bats to people, after the work was linked to a lab in Wuhan. Neither intelligence analysts nor scientists have found any evidence to support the conspiracy theory that the coronavirus escaped a lab, but there are plenty of Trump tweets praising China and Xi Jinping for their handling of the virus, while U.S. intelligence was warning Trump and WHO was warning the world about the risk of a pandemic.
Amid these many federal failures, researchers have announced a promising success: A major study of the drug remdesivir found that it helped coronavirus patients recover more quickly, and might reduce the likelihood that severely ill patients will die. The FDA plans to approve an emergency-use authorization as early as next week. If the administration could just be as quick to listen to scientists when they deliver less-positive news, we’d be in solid shape!
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How are Donald Trump, Joe Biden and their allies handling messaging around China and the coronavirus? Why is this something that they're putting money behind? How are they doing? Watch Dan Pfeiffer break it all down with the latest 2020 ads →
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A provision in the CARES Act made spouses of undocumented immigrants ineligible for stimulus checks, even if they’re American citizens. The provision, which didn’t get any attention while Congress debated the legislation, prohibits payments to people who file their taxes jointly with spouses who use Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, which the government assigns to immigrants without legal status in lieu of Social Security numbers. An estimated 1.2 million American citizens are married to undocumented immigrants, and most of those couples file jointly because it’s an important step towards gaining spousal-eligibility for legal status. Those couples are barred from receiving stimulus checks, including bonus payments they would otherwise have received based on the number of children living in their homes. One affected U.S. citizen has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, seeking to overturn the provision.
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- Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI) announced that he’s exploring a third-party bid for the presidency. Good, yes, this election was looking far too simple, THANK you, Justin.
- The acting secretary of the Navy has ordered a wider investigation of the USS Theodore Roosevelt coronavirus outbreak, delaying a decision on reinstating Capt. Brett Cozier, as the Navy’s top admiral recommended.
- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a stern Twitter warning to “the Jewish community” after dispersing a crowded Hasidic funeral, which was apparently approved and coordinated by the NYPD. The tweet sparked an outcry that de Blasio was unfairly (and dangerously) scapegoating Jews, and then “Jews” started trending on Twitter, which is always good for the Jews.
- Joe Biden has still yet to address Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation publicly, but his campaign has advised surrogates to say that the incident she describes “did not happen,” indicating that aides are taking it seriously behind the scenes. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said she stands by Biden, citing his life’s work supporting women and his campaign’s vehement denial of the allegation. Other Democrats are frustrated by his silence.
- The FBI has released a cache of messages Roger Stone and Julian Assange exchanged during Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. The two discussed the origins of the hacked Hillary Clinton emails, and, in a Twitter DM, Stone assured Assange that “as a journalist it doesn’t matter where you get information only that it is accurate and authentic.”
- Frontline workers at some of the biggest corporations in the U.S. have organized a mass strike on May 1, against those companies’ failures to provide them with protective equipment. The businesses to boycott on Friday are: Whole Foods, Instacart, Walmart, FedEx, Target, and Shipt.
- JetBlue is the first major airline to require that all passengers wear masks. The mask policy will go into effect on Monday, rendering JetBlue’s legendary unlimited snack policy all but worthless.
- The digital release of Trolls World Tour has sent shockwaves through the movie industry, and frankly, it’s just much funnier if we don’t explain why.
- We regret to inform you that Elon Musk is back on his bullshit.
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Nearly three-in-five Americans say they will be either unwilling or unable to use the contact-tracing app Apple and Google are developing, which is gonna be a problem. The tech companies are working with public health authorities and researchers to develop an app that will notify users when they’ve come into contact with someone who’s tested positive for COVID-19. A bold new frontier in contact tracing! Here are the issues: Around one-in-six Americans don’t have smartphones, and that ownership rate goes way down among seniors, who face the greatest risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19.
Among Americans who do own smartphones, about half said they probably or definitely wouldn’t use the app, with higher resistance among Republicans and people who aren’t personally worried about getting sick. Much of the reluctance comes down to widespread distrust of Google, Apple, and tech companies in general: People are (reasonably) worried they won’t protect the privacy of health data. For the app to be an effective tool, around 60 percent of the population will need to be convinced otherwise.
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Remember that remdesivir study? From before? (Opening a trench coat) You wanna see a video of Dr. Anthony Fauci saying it has “a clear cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery”?
Pfizer said it will begin U.S. testing of its potential coronavirus vaccine as early as next week, and that the vaccine could be ready for emergency use by the fall.
An appeals court slapped down Oklahoma’s latest effort to ban abortions during the pandemic.
Ryan Cranney, an Idaho potato farmer, made his surplus potatoes free to the public, and wound up donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to potatoes to people from all over the country.
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