Multiple media outlets are now examining Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's role in (continuing) botched White House pandemic response efforts after a Vanity Fair article reported Kushner to be a major force behind the White House refusal to provide requested ventilators to New York.
“I have all this data about ICU capacity. I’m doing my own projections, and I’ve gotten a lot smarter about this. New York doesn’t need all the ventilators,” Vanity Fair quotes Kushner as saying.
New York is predicting it will have insufficient numbers of the lifesaving equipment in coming weeks, as a surge of new patients overwhelms hospitals; there is no word on whether Kushner is still standing by his own "data."
In today's other major pandemic news:
• There is now yet another debate between public health experts and the Trump White House, this time over where new "rapid" tests will first be distributed. This one also comes with suspicions that the preferred White House plan, delivering them first to rural and southern states instead of current COVID-19 hotspots, is politically tinged.
• Though not currently a hotspot, however, lax Republican-led response to the pandemic, poor health and healthcare, and widespread "food deserts" are combining to make Southern states a new likely pandemic epicenter: Twice as many Southerners between ages 40 and 60 are dying of the virus as elsewhere in the country—a rate unmatched anywhere else in the world.
• 6.65 million American workers filed new jobless claims last week, dwarfing last week's 3.28 million claims and bringing the total number of newly unemployed Americans to nearly 10 million in the first two weeks of widespread business closures and stay-at-home orders. Both numbers are many times larger than the previous all-time record set, 695,000, set in the 1982 recession.
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency is ordering 100,000 body bags as experts estimate at least that many, if not far more, U.S. deaths. 85 refrigerated trucks have also been requested to act as mobile temporary morgues.
• Even as states move to vote-by-mail plans for pandemic-impacted elections, the U.S. Postal Service is warning that it may be forced to suspend operations by June unless Congress provides relief.
• The captain of nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt was relieved from duty by acting Trump Navy Secretary Thomas Modly after the captain's four-page letter begging Navy superiors to provide quarantine quarters for his COVID-19 compromised crew became public.
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a new special House committee, overseen by Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, to act as administration watchdog in overseeing the implementation of the $2 trillion in pandemic response measures passed by Congress.
• Despite moves by leading Senate Republicans to deflect blame, the Senate acted only slowly and reluctantly when faced with clear evidence of the spreading pandemic. (Except, of course, the swift move of some Republican senators to sell stock before the pandemic crashed world markets.) Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is signaling no interest in further pandemic relief moves—but says the Senate confirmation of Trump-nominated judges will "continue apace."
• Profiteering has become rampant as hospitals and other health institutions scramble for desperately needed medical supplies.
• In a partial reversal, the administration will no longer require seniors and disabled Americans on Supplemental Security Income to file tax forms to receive their one-time $1,200 pandemic relief checks. The requirement remains for SSI recipients and for pension-reliant veterans.
• The conservative 5th Circuit has allowed Texas to declare abortion services "non-essential" during the pandemic, shuttering state clinics.
• Yet another government warning that went unheeded by the administration: A 2018 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference in which speakers and organizers warned that the United States was not prepared for a new pandemic—including predictions of the medical supply problems we now face.
• New security measures are being taken after Dr. Anthony Fauci's new prominence as pandemic expert, and frequent rebuttals of false Trump claims, have gained unwanted public attention.
• How accurate are the estimations of 240,000 U.S. deaths, touted as a new "best-case" scenario? It depends on many, many connected variables.
• About 30,000 Americans are stranded overseas as a result of international border closures.
• The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is calling on Trump administration officials to protect farm laborers, who are essential workers in the national food supply chain, during the pandemic.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren is urging CEOs to voluntarily reclassify "gig" workers as full employees, noting many of those workers are "experiencing serious health and economic vulnerabilities" during the crisis while companies are "failing to provide appropriate and necessary protections."
• The Democratic National Convention has been delayed until mid-August.
• 1.9 million guns were sold in March to pandemic-panicked Americans, a monthly sales number topped only by the rush on guns after the Sandy Hook Elementary School murders in 2013.
• Hate crimes against Asian-Americans are escalating, primarily due to rank stupidity among racists. Police say a 19-year-old Texas man who stabbed three members of an Asian-American family did so because he thought they were "infecting people with the coronavirus."
• Georgia Republicans are angry over the state's decision to mail absentee ballot applications to every voter, during the pandemic. State House Speaker David Ralston, who is objectively evil, called the move "extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives" because it "will certainly drive up turnout."
• Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is similarly upset, claiming "the left" wants vote-by-mail provisions in his home state to help Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and once again dismissing the pandemic's severity.
• The pandemic is exposing America's dependence on prison labor.
• Songwriter Alan Merrill has passed due to COVID-19 infection. His widow is now telling his story.
• CNN anchor Chris Cuomo describes his own experiences with the virus.
• A Kentucky college student is crafting plastic-shielded masks for deaf and hard of hearing Americans who rely on "speech reading, lip reading" or "facial expressions" in communicating.
• Fox News invited the wrong doctor to weigh in on Trump's testing claims.