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Top health experts warned senators today that the U.S. still lacks the capacity to contain spikes in coronavirus infections, and that states that reopen too soon could face dire consequences. Just yesterday, President Trump said, “We have met the moment, and we have prevailed,” before running away from two female reporters. A strong point-counterpoint, no way to know whom to trust, really.
- In remote testimony before the Senate’s (mostly remote) health committee, Dr. Anthony Fauci cautioned that states and cities that skip past federal guidelines and reopen prematurely could trigger uncontrollable outbreaks. He emphasized that those states would not only invite avoidable suffering and death, but set back states further along the road to recovery. Fauci said the official death toll almost certainly represents an undercount, debunked the idea (which Trump promotes frequently) that the virus will simply “disappear,” and pushed back on a suggestion from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that schools should start reopening because the mortality rate in children is low.
- Other key moments from the hearing to know about: CDC Director Robert Redfield dodged questions about a set of guidelines for states that top White House officials buried, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) slammed Trump’s testing czar for misleadingly framing the country’s testing debacle as a success, and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) killed some time before his afternoon appointment to rob a stagecoach.
- Over in the (also remote) House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has unveiled Democrats’ $3 trillion coronavirus relief package, dubbed the HEROES Act, which is expected to come to a vote on Friday. It includes nearly $1 trillion for state and local governments, a second round of direct $1,200 payments, an extension of enhanced unemployment insurance through January, hazard pay for essential workers, $75 billion to ramp up testing and contact tracing, rent and mortgage relief, $25 billion for the Postal Service, and $3.6 billion to ensure safe elections. It does not include one of the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s top priorities, a “Paycheck Guarantee” program that would provide federal funding to cover payrolls for businesses, though it does propose a tax credit that encourages employers to keep workers on payroll.
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Somewhat under the radar, last month the Trump administration cut NIH funding to a research team pursuing a coronavirus cure, after it got tangled in one of Trump’s own baseless conspiracy theories.
- EcoHealth Alliance is an American nonprofit that’s spent the last 15 years cataloguing hundreds of bat-related viruses, for research that is now critical: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill even used it to test the effectiveness of the antiviral drug remdesivir. EcoHealth abruptly lost a $3.4 million grant because it conducted that work alongside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is at the center of the Trump administration’s baseless allegation that the coronavirus was either manufactured in, or released from, a lab.
- As in so many astonishingly dumb moments Trump has presided over, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) played a role here. The administration pulled EcoHealth’s funding 10 days after Gaetz appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight, and, with no evidence, connected EcoHealth’s NIH grant to China “birth[ing] a monster” virus. To summarize, Trump unleashed a conspiracy theory into the Fox News echo chamber to deflect blame for his failures onto China, then listened to the resulting echoes for advice on scientific grants, and now a critical research team has lost the funding it needs to continue its work.
Health experts offered testimony directly at odds with Trump’s urgent calls to relax public-health restrictions. Trump’s claim just yesterday that “all throughout the country, the numbers are coming down rapidly” has been refuted by an unreleased report from his own task force. A new poll shows that while many governors now enjoy bipartisan approval, some Republican governors face blowback for their efforts to reopen too quickly. Americans aren’t buying the line that the health crisis is over, and they’re not looking kindly on leaders who espouse it.
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This week on Hysteria Movie Club, the crew brings a 2020 perspective on the 1985 classic Back to the Future. Erin Ryan, Alyssa Mastromonaco, and Naomi Ekperigin go through the characters to determine who is the worst. Is it the hateful school principal, the helpless George McFly, or the Trumpian bully? Check it out and subscribe to the channel →
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The Trump administration has continued deporting migrants during the pandemic, effectively exporting coronavirus to Central America. While important components of the U.S. immigration system have been put on hold in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, the government has continued to charter deportation flights. Until recently, the U.S. wasn’t testing deportees without coronavirus symptoms, and has sent hundreds of immigrants with the virus into countries with fragile health care systems and minimal social safety nets. In Guatemala, deportees account for roughly 19 percent of the country’s known coronavirus cases. It’s revealing, if completely unsurprising, that while Trump halted asylum processing at the southern border for the stated purpose of limiting the spread of coronavirus, he hasn’t deemed it necessary to stop deportations for the same reason.
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- The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday on whether Trump can block subpoenas from House committees and prosecutors to private parties for his financial records. Some of the justices’ questions raised the possibility that the cases could be shunted back to the lower courts for reconsideration, which would (conveniently!) delay a final decision until after the election.
- A federal watchdog will investigate Interior Department official Tara Sweeney’s role in deciding that coronavirus relief funds for Native American tribes should be made available to certain corporations, including one in which she has a financial stake. The inspector general will also investigate allegations that Interior inappropriately leaked sensitive tribal data.
- The city of Wuhan, China, will test all 11 million residents over the next 10 days after detecting six new coronavirus cases. (Stares in the direction of Washington, DC...)
- The California State University system said it will cancel in-person classes at its 23 campuses for the fall semester, but that the vast majority of instruction will continue online.
- The DNC has taken the first step toward a virtual convention with a vote to give the party’s convention committee the authority to change the format, size, and date of the convention if necessary.
- Twitter said it plans to label tweets that contain misleading information about COVID-19, even ones that President Trump posts. No word on what it plans to do about tweets from President Trump that falsely accuse Joe Scarborough of murder, which isn’t one of today’s bigger news stories, somehow.
- Interpol has issued a red notice (an international wanted-person’s notice) for Anne Sacoolas, whom the U.K. has charged in the reckless-driving death of a teenager. The U.S. refused to accept an extradition warrant.
- Vladimir Putin’s press secretary has been diagnosed and hospitalized with COVID-19. Putin eased Russia’s lockdown on Tuesday as the country’s daily case growth reached a record high; Russia now has the third-highest number of confirmed cases worldwide. (Don’t worry, we’re still winning.)
- The leader of a small Florida protest against gym closures regrets protesting with push-ups and squats, which, as many astute observers noted, proved one does not in fact need a gym to work out.
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Trump’s failure to mandate safety rules for farmworkers not only threatens those workers’ lives, but puts the food supply at risk. The Trump administration has deemed millions of people working in fields and packinghouses “essential workers,” but isn’t doing much to protect them from the coronavirus, leaving state and industry leaders scrambling to provide protections. Labor conditions on farms are less actively regulated than in meat plants, where coronavirus outbreaks have already proven disastrous. The CDC’s guidelines for farmworkers aren’t mandatory, states and farmers have been inconsistent in providing resources, and advocates are worried that farms could see major outbreaks among a vulnerable workforce. As we’ve seen with meat plant closures, that could have serious consequences for the food supply. It’s another microcosm and indictment of Trump’s plan to send Americans to work without the capabilities to do so safely.
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Hasidic Jews in New York, whose communities have been hit hard by the coronavirus, have flocked to donate blood plasma.
A virtual telethon hosted by Tina Fey raised $115 million for New Yorkers impacted by COVID-19.
The Price is Right donated almost $100,000 to Planned Parenthood in a special episode featuring RuPaul. A beautiful MadLibs of hope.
Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have introduced a bill seeking a national moratorium on phone and internet shut-offs until the coronavirus crisis is over.
The world’s last Blockbuster is holding strong.
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