NY Times:
As Trump Demanded Schools Reopen, His Experts Warned of ‘Highest Risk’
A briefing packet for federal emergency response teams details the steps schools should take to reopen safely.
The 69-page document, obtained by The New York Times and marked “For Internal Use Only,” was intended for federal public health response teams to have as they are deployed to hot spots around the country. But it appears to have circulated the same week that Vice President Mike Pence announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would release new guidelines, saying that the administration did not want them to be “too tough.” It is unclear whether Mr. Trump saw the document, nor is it clear how much of it will survive once new guidance is completed.
(The cover page of the document is dated July 8, 2019, an obvious typographical error since the novel coronavirus did not exist then.)
What is clear is that federal health experts are using a road map that is vastly different from what Mr. Trump wanted.
Reid Wilson/The Hill:
COVID-19 surge pushes US toward deadly cliff
The coronavirus is spreading at ever-faster rates in a broad array of states, putting the U.S. on the precipice of an explosion of illness that threatens to overwhelm the nation's health care system.
The painful economic lockdowns imposed in March gave the country time to flatten the epidemiological curve and contain the virus. But that window of opportunity, which came at great economic cost, is quickly slamming shut. Health experts say all signs point to a deadly summer and fall unless government leaders implement a much more robust national strategy.
The breadth of the spread is staggering. Forty-three states have seen the number of cases confirmed on an average day increase in the last two weeks. The number of patients in hospitals has risen over the same period in 29 states. More than 80 percent of intensive care beds are occupied in Alabama, Arizona and Georgia.
The same models that predicted surges in Phoenix, Houston and Miami now show a new and broader round of cities as the likely next epicenters. The number of confirmed cases is likely to rise substantially in places like Atlanta, Kansas City, Mo., Tulsa, Okla., and Greenville, S.C.
Remember, when testing can’t keep up with cases, the case load will appear to drop even as hospitalization surges. Deaths, in turn , will lag for a month or more. And the deaths, alas, are starting to rise as the hospitals become overwhelmed.
As a result, this week will be worse than last week. That’s especially true as other states catch up to AZ, FL and TX rather than NY, MA and CT.
Trying to manage a novel pandemic is hard You can be forgiven for making mistakes. You can't be forgiven for not trying.
Wired:
Larry Brilliant on How Well We Are Fighting Covid-19
Three months ago, the epidemiologist weighed in on what we must do to defeat this new threat. We went back to ask: How are we doing, and what comes next?
Because we pulled out of the World Health Organization?
We haven’t pulled out of the World Health Organization. [laughs] It’s not even clear how you pull out of the World Health Organization. Distancing ourselves is probably a better word. It just makes us look like clowns. WHO is stronger than ever. The rest of the world has rallied to its side. The Trump Administration was not in the meetings where WHO was raising $8 to $12 billion just to help plan for the vaccination program. America’s money has been replaced by other countries donating it. And with it will come the inevitable soft power that comes with funding.
How influential is it that for months the president has resisted wearing a mask?
It’s incredibly influential. It is the reason why people can go to Palm Beach and accuse those who are wearing masks of stealing your God-given right to breathe oxygen. It’s the conspiracy theory that masks are impregnated with some secret virus that’s going to make you impotent. Most important, he gives license and cover to the governors in Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Arizona. They have been given permission and encouragement from Trump to say things like “It’s going to disappear in April, the virus is going to disappear when it’s hot.” Excuse me? We are now in the middle of the summer and this puppy is exploding.
[Note: Days after this interview, Texas governor Greg Abbott reversed course and issued a statewide mask order. Also on July 1, President Trump said “I’m all for masks,” though he did not wear one publicly.]
ABC:
Ideological divides among partisans deepen: ABC News polling analysis
Conservatism among Republicans is at its highest level in polls back 22 years.
On average in 2001 and 2002, 50% of Republicans called themselves conservatives. On average this year, 71% do so, up 21 percentage points, with a 10-point rise in just the past three years. Far fewer Democrats are liberals, 43%, but that’s up 12 points from its low in 2000 and 2001, and just off its peak of 46% in 2019.
Perry Bacon Jr/FiveThirtyEight:
How Biden Is Winning An Identity Politics Election So Far
After the election, some (usually white) liberal and Democratic-leaning voices said that Democrats needed to abandon “identity politics” or face more defeats like Clinton’s. Other liberal voices (often Black) said that Trump had successfully tapped into the racist views of many white Americans. Both of those perspectives implied that debating issues of identity and race was bad for Clinton and good for Trump, and in the future it would be good for the GOP and bad for Democrats.
Never mind all that, at least for now. America is talking about identity and race, and so are both presidential candidates. And all that racial talk seems to be helping Democrats, not Republicans. Joe Biden led Trump by about 6 percentage points in national polls on May 25, the day a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd. Biden leads Trump by an average of nearly 10 points now, after weeks of race and racism dominating the national discussion.
Whatever you think of them, they’re real and raising money. That they are targeting R Senators does not suggest they’re just turning arounf and targeting Ds in 2022. Maybe they’ve burned a bridge or two too many.
Eric Levitz/New York:
Democrats Are on Pace for a Down-Ballot Blowout
The GOP’s abysmal polling in the congressional generic ballot has garnered less attention. In today’s Suffolk poll, voters favored a Democratic Congress over a Republican one by 14 points. In 538’s polling average, Democrats boast a nine-point lead on the question of which party’s congressional candidates voters intend to support. In 2018, Democrats won the House “popular vote” by roughly eight points, the party’s best showing since the Watergate scandal, and a margin large enough to turn more than 40 districts blue. Thus, current national polling suggests Democrats are poised to consolidate their midterm gains and make further inroads into Republican territory this fall. And as the New York Times’s Nate Cohn notes, surveys of discrete swing-district House races are consistent with that story:
Jordan Weissmann/Slate:
Bail Out the Bars
It isn’t safe to reopen watering holes, nightclubs, and concert venues. Congress should pay to keep them closed.
The United States has a long history of bailing out critical industries in times of crisis: railroads, automakers, airlines, banks. At various times, Washington has swooped in to salvage them all.
And now it may be time for another targeted bailout. For the sake of public health, and public morale, Congress needs to save America’s drinking establishments. We need a national bar rescue.