This is such a simple message. We have to reopen schools, but we have to do it safely. People in the WH and state houses are ignoring the second part. The virus has to be controlled first.
Here is the key concept, that you need to control the virus to open the schools. The coronavirus task force reliance on the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines to justify opening all schools could only do so by ignoring this key AAP concept:
- It is critically important to develop strategies that can be revised and adapted depending on the level of viral transmission in the school and throughout the community and done with close communication with state and/or local public health authorities and recognizing the differences between school districts, including urban, suburban, and rural districts.
Science:
School openings across globe suggest ways to keep coronavirus at bay, despite outbreaks
Data about the outcomes are scarce. “I just find it so frustrating,” says Kathryn Edwards, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine who is advising the Nashville school system, which serves more than 86,000 students, on how to reopen. Her research assistant spent 30 hours hunting for data—for example on whether younger students are less adept at spreading the virus than older ones, and whether outbreaks followed reopenings—and found little that addressed the risk of contagion in schools.
When Science looked at reopening strategies from South Africa to Finland to Israel, some encouraging patterns emerged. Together, they suggest a combination of keeping student groups small and requiring masks and some social distancing helps keep schools and communities safe, and that younger children rarely spread the virus to one another or bring it home. But opening safely, experts agree, isn’t just about the adjustments a school makes. It’s also about how much virus is circulating in the community, which affects the likelihood that students and staff will bring COVID-19 into their classrooms.
Here’s why you can’t ignore reality:
WJTV: 36 COVID-19 cases connected to outbreak in Mississippi Legislature; 26 are lawmakers
Texas Tribune: Houston convention center operator cancels in-person Texas GOP meeting
CNN: Summer camps close after Covid-19 outbreaks among campers and staff
Derek Thompson/Atlantic:
COVID-19 Cases Are Rising, So Why Are Deaths Falling?
The gap between soaring cases and falling deaths is being weaponized by the right to claim a hollow victory in the face of shameless failure. What’s really going on?
The gap between spiking cases and falling-then-flatlining deaths has become the latest partisan flashpoint. President Donald Trump has brushed off the coronavirus surge by emphasizing the lower death rate, saying that “99 percent of [COVID-19 cases] are totally harmless.” On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Americans against “[taking] comfort in the lower rate of death” just hours before Trump tweeted triumphantly: “Death Rate from Coronavirus is down tenfold!”
In the fog of pandemic, every statistic tells a story, but no one statistic tells the whole truth. Conservatives seeking refuge in today’s death counts may find, in a matter of days, that deaths are clearly resurging and their narrative is rapidly deteriorating. But liberals, too, should avoid the temptation to flatly reject any remotely positive finding, for fear that it will give succor to the president.
What follows are five possible explanations for the case-death gap. Take them as complementary, rather than competing, theories.
1. Deaths lag cases—and that might explain almost everything.
And note also that deaths are now rising in the hard hit states… as predicted.
31% approval on coronavirus for Trump, and note the drop with Republicans over time.
Mark Joseph Stern/Slate:
Why Gorsuch Keeps Joining the Liberals to Affirm Tribal Rights
On Monday, for the second time this year, Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the Supreme Court’s liberals in a 5–4 decision bolstering the rights of American Indians under 19th-century treaties. The court’s decision in Herrera v. Wyoming is not earth-shattering, but it is noteworthy, rejecting an old theory of state sovereignty in favor of American Indian treaty rights. And coming on the heels of Washington State Department of Licensing v. Cougar Den—in which Gorsuch joined the liberals to affirm states’ obligations to the tribes they displaced—Herrera reveals a court shifting left on tribal disputes. Thanks to the conservative justice’s vote, American Indian plaintiffs are enjoying an unusually good term at the Supreme Court. What’s behind this curious alliance?
The most obvious answer is that Gorsuch is simply more sympathetic to tribal rights than his conservative colleagues. And if that is indeed the case, then it should come as no surprise. As a judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Gorsuch consistently ruled in favor of tribes’ right to govern their own affairs and rely upon promises made by the state and federal governments. For that reason, multiple tribes endorsed Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Alvin Not Afraid Jr., chairman of the Crow Tribe Executive Branch, told the Senate that Gorsuch “has consistently demonstrated not only a sound understanding of Federal Indian Law principles, but a respect for our unique and closely held cultural values.” John Dossett, then general counsel of the National Congress of American Indians, wrote that Gorsuch “appears to be both attentive to the details and respectful to the fundamental principles of tribal sovereignty and the federal trust responsibility.”
Want more detail of what the recent SCOTUS cases were about? The pre-decision piece below has you covered.
Tim Ryan/Courthouse News:
All Eyes on High Court as Ruling Looms in Trump Taxes Case
The final case the court has yet to decide does not come with the same significant political implications of the other disputes but raises intriguing questions of criminal jurisdiction and the historical legacy of the U.S. government’s mistreatment of Native Americans.
In the case, Jimcy McGirt seeks to dodge his 1997 rape convictions on the grounds that a broad swath of eastern Oklahoma is tribal land, for legal purposes. McGirt, who is a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, says because Congress never did away with the boundaries of a tribal reservation when it granted Oklahoma statehood, his case should have been tried in federal, rather than state court.
What if Al Gross wins and Lisa Murkowski switches parties?
Bloomberg:
The Fight Over a Coronavirus Vaccine Will Get Ugly
Once Covid-19 shots become available, there will be arguments about who gets them, and an even bigger battle with anti-vaxxers who refuse them.
If these [other] dilemmas [rationing, etc] are political dynamite, they may end up looking trivial next to what’s sure to be the biggest showdown: the standoff between scientific rationality and conspiracy theories. Early in the pandemic, there were hopes that the balderdash of anti-vaxxers would become untenable and their movement would atrophy. Instead, it’s booming.
Humans have always spun conspiracy theories, especially at times of calamity. The anxiety that comes with loss of control primes people to seek simple explanations with compelling story lines and an obvious culprit. Unsurprisingly, the Covid-19 epidemic has been accompanied all along by an “infodemic.”
See thread:
Jen Rubin/WaPo:
The Supreme Court deals a blow to Trump’s delusions of untrammeled power
If one views this as a question of absolute power and the imperial pretensions of a president, the two cases represent a stunning rebuke to Trump. If one expected to get a peek at the documents before the election, the cases may disappoint. The latter, however, is far less critical than the former.
German Lopez/Vox:
Why Arizona is suffering the worst Covid-19 outbreak in the US
Arizona’s governor claimed “it’s safe out there.” Then coronavirus cases skyrocketed.
To put it another way: As bad as Arizona’s coronavirus outbreak seems right now, the state is very likely still undercounting a lot of cases since it doesn’t have enough testing to pick up all the new infections.
The state also leads the country in coronavirus-related hospitalizations. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one in five inpatient beds in Arizona are occupied by Covid-19 patients — about 42 percent more than Texas and 65 percent more than Florida, the states with the next-highest share of Covid-19 patient-occupied beds. With hospitalizations rapidly climbing, Arizona became the first in the country to trigger “crisis care” standards to help doctors and nurses decide who gets treatment as the system deals with a surge of patients. Around 90 percent of the state’s intensive care unit beds are occupied, based on Arizona Department of Health Services data.
While reported deaths typically lag new coronavirus cases, the state has also seen its Covid-19 death toll increase over the past several weeks
This is the result, experts say, of Arizona’s missteps at three crucial points in the pandemic. The state reacted too slowly to the coronavirus pandemic in March. As cases began to level off nationwide, officials moved too quickly to reopen in early and mid-May. As cases rose in the state in late May and then June, its leaders once again moved too slowly.
“What you’re seeing is not only a premature opening, but one done so rapidly there was no way to ensure the health care and public health systems didn’t get stressed in this process,” Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist based in Arizona, told me.