49 of 50 states have balanced budget requirements. States are experiencing a massive revenue shortfall due to the COVID pandemic. State budgets have core priorities of education, medical care, criminal justice and civil courts, transportation, infrastructure and recreation on public lands. State budgets also have short run fixed costs of pensions and debt upkeep as …
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COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Monday/Tuesday, May 25-26
This post is in: COVID-19 Coronavirus, Foreign Affairs
There’s a lot of talk about a second wave when many states aren’t even past their first one. The US is the horror movie hero who lets down their guard thinking the monster is dead. The monster is not only alive but actively gnawing on parts of the hero. https://t.co/n33jpJkNp7 — Ed Yong (@edyong209) May …
COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Monday/Tuesday, May 25-26Post + Comments (21)
Iran reopens its major Shia Muslim shrines, two months after they were closed to combat coronavirus https://t.co/yzBdrMGIau
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 25, 2020
At this point, the only people who think what Sweden has done was a good idea are people in the U.S. who have spent a career belittling Scandinavian countries. https://t.co/kb8IvgWq14
— Andy Slavitt @ ? (@ASlavitt) May 26, 2020
Italy's medical workers: 'We became heroes but they've already forgotten us' https://t.co/g20JjClnsR
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 25, 2020
Study shows 8,000 additional deaths in Mexican capital as coronavirus rages https://t.co/PNIg9sZ9UB pic.twitter.com/psnI6AVCv9
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 26, 2020
The White House moved up by two days a travel ban on foreigners who have been to Brazil over the past two weeks, as the South American country's daily death toll from the coronavirus surpassed that of the United States https://t.co/0iR8JvseDh pic.twitter.com/uuLfSi0rI9
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 26, 2020
With Brazil emerging as one of the world's most infected countries, President Jair Bolsonaro is deflecting all responsibility for the coronavirus crisis, casting blame on mayors, governors, an outgoing health minister and the media. https://t.co/Yl143u03rN
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 26, 2020
"Nobody should have to choose between taking a day off work due to illness or being able to pay their bills."
Canada wants to have a national sick leave plan in place as the country prepares for a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic https://t.co/Cjp9mRxAMX
— CNN (@CNN) May 26, 2020
I can't begin to get the math in this, but the #COVID19 warning seems apropos:
"pandemics are a fat-tailed phenomenon, w/an extremely large tail risk & potentially destructive consequences. These should not be downplayed in any serious policy discussion."https://t.co/sTdTr93GrS— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 25, 2020
There is a print in a colleague’s office at @JHSPH_CHS commemorating the eradication of smallpox. It’s signed Never Again! I want us to say that about pandemics. And mean it. 1/
— Caitlin Rivers, PhD (@cmyeaton) May 24, 2020
It really worries me that a thread of public discourse has shifted to whether shutting down was justified. That conversation distracts form the real question: why were we so vulnerable that doing so was our only plausible option? 3/
— Caitlin Rivers, PhD (@cmyeaton) May 24, 2020
We can do better next time. We can treat pandemic preparedness with the same gravity that we treat national security. We can invest, plan, innovate, stockpile. We can say never again and mean it. 5/5
— Caitlin Rivers, PhD (@cmyeaton) May 24, 2020
Fujifilm research into COVID-19 drug spills into June, dashing hope of May approval https://t.co/m37hlHqGmf pic.twitter.com/q2BEjoAkZV
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 26, 2020
Could a second wave of coronavirus trigger new stay-at-home orders? States can't agree.https://t.co/ym87QHNlN9
— POLITICO (@politico) May 25, 2020
Interesting that Trump’s net approval on handling Covid continues to get worse. https://t.co/GfKzi665vb pic.twitter.com/mHsHmjOSip
— Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz) May 25, 2020
Misery loves company… British epidemiologist, concerning Boris Johnson’s Steve Bannon, Dominic Cummings:
I spent this weekend refining our contact tracing analysis. One of the things that’s always stood out is that for these targeted measures to work, we need public adherence to isolation/quarantine to be very high. But I fear it’s now going to be far more difficult to achieve this.
— Adam Kucharski (@AdamJKucharski) May 24, 2020
I fear many usually sensible people will feel the same way as your Dad now. All the sacrifices people have made, all the hardships, all the deaths … everything undone in that Press Conference. Cummings and Johnson could well have another 60,000 deaths on their hands…
— Bluestocking Mum ⚫️ In total #lockdown for 12 wks (@Bluestockingmum) May 24, 2020
Cummings' lockdown easing strategy = manipulate public into defiant, rules flouting behaviour.
Media is filled with story from 2 months ago. People are justifiably enraged and will start breaking lockdown soon. Who leaked this story and why now?!
Are we back to "herd immunity"? pic.twitter.com/TIqdwC58Nv— K Frackowski Jnr (@FrackowskiK) May 24, 2020
More Longer Pandemic Reads, Prior to the ‘Work’ Week
This post is in: COVID-19 Coronavirus, Excellent Links
Sent this around to my family yesterday because I found it so practical and helpful. https://t.co/2LCdNjhrc8 — Lizzie O'Leary (@lizzieohreally) May 24, 2020 This actually is a good, “sensible” at-this-point-in-time guide (with charts, for science!), if you want something not too depressing to share: … In particular, so-called superspreading events seem to be a major …
More Longer Pandemic Reads, Prior to the ‘Work’ WeekPost + Comments (31)
Dana Milbank, in the Washington Post:
… For the past couple of months, I’ve been juggling my day job with helping my wife, sister-in-law and brother-in-law to provide care in our homes for two elderly relatives with serious health conditions, cancer and diabetes among them. We removed them from their assisted-living facility when the first covid-19 case hit there. “GET THEM OUT!” their doctor demanded, and he was probably right. Cases there quickly grew to more than a dozen. Though our lives became a blur of doctors, quarantines and prescriptions, we figured that if we could keep them safe for a while, federal and state governments would fix the group-living problem with the necessary testing, equipment and infection control.
That didn’t happen. Now we’re sending them back to the facility, aware that it could be a fateful choice. But they would be no safer with us as the economy reopens: Kids return to their orthodontists, camps and schools, and we return to postponed appointments and eventually offices and mass transit.
Our struggle between two bad choices is nothing compared with what many Americans have had to confront. Some 40 million have lost their jobs (not to mention the nearly 100,000 who have lost their lives). More than 8 million are in the care of long-term facilities, home health-care agencies and the like. One in 5 U.S. households handles caregiving for family members, most of them old — and few of them have the luxury of juggling hours or taking time off to do it.
For frail seniors in the United States, there simply is no haven. The unspoken, if inherent, trade-off in reopening the economy without safeguards is the lives of our elders…
In an open letter, 77 American scientists say they're "gravely concerned" about the abrupt termination of a federal grant for coronavirus research in China — and are calling for a review of the decision.https://t.co/dODySfkjY5
— NPR (@NPR) May 22, 2020
Politics have superceded science in the US response to #Covid19. Nowhere is that clearer than in the silencing of @CDC. https://t.co/c3wnorxanR
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) May 20, 2020
COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Sunday/Monday, May 24-25
This post is in: COVID-19 Coronavirus, Foreign Affairs, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You
What is Japan’s secret? If only they’d tell us pic.twitter.com/2ON39IeSG1 — Pinboard (@Pinboard) May 25, 2020 Follow live updates: https://t.co/GG1FaUfHEk and subscribe to our newsletter: https://t.co/fDq9xEDP89 pic.twitter.com/pkmiZrPMSs — Reuters (@Reuters) May 24, 2020 I'm having trouble squaring polls showing 80% of Americans wear and support the wearing of masks with what I actually see on …
COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Sunday/Monday, May 24-25Post + Comments (22)
Qatar virus contact tracing app stirs rare privacy backlash and forces officials to offer reassurance and concessionshttps://t.co/w0yZMUNA0D
? Karim Jaafar pic.twitter.com/6DvWc0dIQU
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 25, 2020
… The apps use Bluetooth radio signals to “ping” nearby devices, which can be contacted subsequently if a user they have been near develops symptoms or tests positive, but the resultant unprecedented access to users’ location data has prompted fears about state surveillance.
Qatar’s version goes considerably further — it forces Android users to permit access to their picture and video galleries, while also allowing the app to make unprompted calls.
“I can’t understand why it needs all these permissions,” wrote Ala’a on a Facebook group popular with Doha’s large expat community — one of several such forums peppered with concerns over the app…
The government launched the “Ehteraz” app, meaning “precaution”, in April and on Friday it became mandatory for all citizens and legal residents to install it on their phones.
Non-compliance is punishable by up to three years in jail — the same term as for failing to wear a mask in public — in a state battling one of the world’s highest per capita infection rates…
As #SARSCoV2 resurges in China doctors say it's different: incubation time is longer, & patients remain infectious after recovery. This might force changes in China's #COVID19 control strategies. Caveat: they offer no genetic info that could support the idea of a changed virus. https://t.co/KKuwi2zDih
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 24, 2020
should be clear here: the message is that japan is a mysterious outlier, not that "no one knows what works against the virus." if nothing else, one common element in good responses: acting fast https://t.co/7yfozB5xWy
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) May 25, 2020
… An early grassroots response to rising infections was crucial. While the central government has been criticized for its slow policy steps, experts praise the role of Japan’s contact tracers, which swung into action after the first infections were found in January. The fast response was enabled by one of Japan’s inbuilt advantages — its public health centers, which in 2018 employed more than half of 50,000 public health nurses who are experienced in infection tracing. In normal times, these nurses would be tracking down more common infections such as influenza and tuberculosis…
While countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. are just beginning to hire and train contact tracers as they attempt to reopen their economies, Japan has been tracking the movement of the disease since the first handful of cases were found. These local experts focused on tackling so-called clusters, or groups of infections from a single location such as clubs or hospitals, to contain cases before they got out of control.
“Many people say we don’t have a Centers for Disease Control in Japan,” said Yoko Tsukamoto, a professor of infection control at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, citing a frequently held complaint about Japan’s infection management. “But the public health center is a kind of local CDC.”
The early response was also boosted by an unlikely happening. Japan’s battle with the virus first came to mainstream international attention with its much-criticized response to the Diamond Princess cruise ship in February that led to hundreds of infections. Still, the experience of the ship is credited with providing Japanese experts with invaluable data early in the crisis on how the virus spread, as well as catapulting it into the public consciousness.
Other countries still saw the virus as someone else’s problem, said Tanaka. But in Japan, the international scrutiny over the infections onboard and the pace at which the virus raced throughout the ship raised awareness and recognition that the same can happen across the country, he said. “For Japan, it was like having a burning car right outside your house.”
For a deep dive into how South Korea is actually performing its contact tracing (sans apps), read this. https://t.co/nwz5HWvN5j
— Mark Zastrow (@MarkZastrow) May 25, 2020
India among 10 worst-hit COVID-19 nations as cases jump; air travel reopens https://t.co/rAkoly2sxb pic.twitter.com/Ayu1Vpbuct
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 25, 2020
More patients than beds in Mumbai as India faces surge in virus cases https://t.co/yhmHozv2YS pic.twitter.com/NyS3nqaXLD
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 25, 2020
Russia's coronavirus infections pass 350,000 https://t.co/4CzJsoogtT pic.twitter.com/QVE5RHupT2
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 25, 2020
Today’s Russian papers are predicting a major economic crisis post-pandemic. One paper warns of “a wave of bankruptcies”. Another: “It looks like the end for small businesses and the middle class.” #ReadingRussia @BBCNews @BBCWorld pic.twitter.com/DWqjAtFWWO
— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) May 25, 2020
Let's check in with Sweden, the Control Group. How are they doing? pic.twitter.com/9HuvdWP07n
— #TestAndTrace Smith ? (@Noahpinion) May 25, 2020
Meanwhile, fewer than 8% of people in Stockholm have been infected, so herd immunity is not close to being achieved.https://t.co/TQYAcM2QrC
— #TestAndTrace Smith ? (@Noahpinion) May 25, 2020
Germany's confirmed coronavirus cases rise by 289 to 178,570: RKI https://t.co/DjX9ln4qSS pic.twitter.com/bNKh8ZnNve
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 25, 2020
“As a result, this nation of 16 million people has had only 30 deaths.
Each death has been acknowledged individually by the government, & condolences paid to the family.
You can afford to see each death as a person when the numbers are at this level.” https://t.co/oHbSMpPh2X
— Dr. Oni Blackstock (@DrOniBee) May 22, 2020
South African president warns coronavirus outbreak will get much worse, as he announces lockdown measures are to be eased https://t.co/Hn98euriIh
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 24, 2020
The world's deepest gold mine closes after an outbreak of coronavirus among workershttps://t.co/ewnEEr3LLV
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 24, 2020
Coronavirus: Chile's president says healthcare system 'very close to the limit' https://t.co/xaPChyB28K
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 25, 2020
National parks hope visitors comply with virus measures https://t.co/Y8itONIKs8 via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 25, 2020
The winner of this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is still waiting to return to his home in Norway. Thomas Waerner and his 16 dogs have been stranded in Alaska by travel restrictions and flight cancellations caused by the coronavirus pandemic. https://t.co/iFttfKyVxC
— AP West Region (@APWestRegion) May 25, 2020
COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Saturday / Sunday, May 23-24
This post is in: COVID-19 Coronavirus, Foreign Affairs, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You
pic.twitter.com/iz5EZLRjWY — Your Rideshare Driver (@ride_trips) May 22, 2020 Sunday's entire @nytimes front page is a partial list of Covid-19 victims. "The 1,000 people here reflect just 1% of the toll. None were mere numbers." pic.twitter.com/oh86xAUdRL — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 23, 2020 Coronavirus testing in the United States is disorganized and needs coordination at …
COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Saturday / Sunday, May 23-24Post + Comments (49)
Placentas from #COVID19-positive pregnant women show signs of injury, mostly abnormal blood flow between the mother & fetus The finding points to a new COVID complication & could help inform how pregnant women are monitored during the pandemic https://t.co/C7UULLQt7M pic.twitter.com/m7WtFkV20p
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 22, 2020
NEW hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine study with 96,032 coronavirus patients from 671 hospitals across six continents (!!!) finds exactly what everyone should expect by now:
– no benefit
– cardiac toxicity
– decreased in-hospital survivalhttps://t.co/f8L6ExaQ7L— Nsikan Akpan (@MoNscience) May 22, 2020
2/ NY State set criteria for reopening all schools and businesses a few weeks ago, and all trends point toward a late June or early July achievement of targets for cessation of most, if not all, #COVID19 #lockdown requirements, after 9 weeks (so far) of collective hardship.
MORE pic.twitter.com/VzKDLhBm55— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 23, 2020
More than 160 contenders in the race for a COVID-19 vaccine @AFP pic.twitter.com/QkjtC4R1dA
— AFPgraphics (@AFPgraphics) May 22, 2020
This is the kind of screwball mistake you expect from a 1st year public health grad student, not what is supposed to be the world's premier disease-fighting institution.
C.D.C. Test Counting Error Leaves Epidemiologists ‘Really Baffled’#COVID19 @CDCgov https://t.co/hYDEE5ojRw— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 24, 2020
The @CDCgov + 11 states mix results from #SARSCoV2 antibody tests and tests that measure viral mRNA. But Ab tests measure whether you have ever been exposed to the virus, while RNA tests tell if you have the virus right now. HUGE apples-&-oranges screw-up.https://t.co/b78lW1dfNn
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 24, 2020
Someone compared remdesivir’s effect on coronavirus to that of tamiflu on influenza, and there’s new evidence to support that hypothesis:
Antiviral drug remdesivir effective against #coronavirus according completed research on the drug: 1000 patients; 10 countries. Published in New Engl Jrnl of Medicine. Given by IV for 10 days, drug accelerated recovery of COVID patients compared w/ placebo https://t.co/BWnFzHRdmz pic.twitter.com/yaIeixkPbr
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 23, 2020
Muslims around the world begin marking a sombre Eid al-Fitr, many under #coronavirus lockdown, but lax restrictions offer respite to worshippers in some countries despite fears of skyrocketing infections https://t.co/8KrcNJdeI6 pic.twitter.com/Ek55yQc2Cq
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 24, 2020
China reports three new coronavirus cases after first day with none https://t.co/l8RPUPP7Dl pic.twitter.com/pYtHz1gqDd
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 24, 2020
India will organise special trains to get at least 3.6 million migrant workers stranded by the pandemic lockdown back home, authorities said Saturday as fresh coronavirus cases in the country hit a new daily high @AFP https://t.co/VjRPHwMcHO via @YahooNews
— AFP South Asia (@AFPSouthAsia) May 23, 2020
Coronavirus: Why reopening French schools is a social emergency https://t.co/colF4zL8Ei
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 24, 2020
Dozens of anti #COVID-19 lockdown demos were held across Germany, part of a growing movement that includes conspiracy theorists, extremists, anti-vaxxers and people concerned about a curtailment of civil libertieshttps://t.co/A8dOsVoC8p pic.twitter.com/dP7UBThHGm
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 23, 2020
Spain's far-right party Vox called for large demos as its leader alleged the country's leftist government "has been incapable of protecting its people, its elderly and its health care workers" during the #coronavirus crisis https://t.co/Uh3Zwpjf4c pic.twitter.com/OfrOdG9Lcf
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 23, 2020
ICYMI: Sun-seekers in Greece returned to the beaches with umbrellas placed four meters apart practicing social distancing pic.twitter.com/0rM4uSejgF
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 24, 2020
Citing a threat of the coronavirus from Mexico, the Trump administration banned hundreds of thousands of people from crossing the southern border. But in Mexican border cities, many are worried about the disease coming in from the other direction. https://t.co/isp2Gmsurk
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 23, 2020
Rest of World? to America??: Terrific, more for us!
New U.S. poll: "50% of respondents said they plan to get vaccinated for the virus, 'if and when a #coronavirus #vaccine becomes available,' 23% said they won't get vaccinated & 27% said not sure."https://t.co/KpGq4uPmNI
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 23, 2020
Anatomy of a shitshow. https://t.co/ggAZQs15oZ
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) May 23, 2020
Trump has not budged when it comes to stopping flights from Brazil, now the second-leading country in the world for #coronavirus cases. So many people are dying of COVID in Brazil, there aren't enough gravediggers to bury the dead https://t.co/7DZatakDOl
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 23, 2020
Every big industry's proposal to how to fire things back up despite the lack of any meaningful management of the pandemic is just the first act of a slightly different horror movie. https://t.co/7IpUM3ARhp
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) May 23, 2020
Florida man, at his finest. (From the photo, he fits each mask with a proper respirator — I wondered how anyone could breathe through a tanned snakeskin… )
"I took something that's very serious and turned it into a fashion statement," says the Florida craftsman who makes face masks to tackle the #coronavirus pandemic out of the skin of invasive pythons and iguanashttps://t.co/8bHS3jK4Ef pic.twitter.com/e1C9sX8zjs
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 23, 2020
Saturday-Service Open Thread: If Trump Loves ‘His’ Evangelicals So Much, Why Is He Trying to Get Them Killed?
This post is in: COVID-19 Coronavirus, Religion
Trump announcement: "Today I am identifying houses of worship…as essential places that provide essential services."He calls on governors to allow houses of worship to reopen now. — Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) May 22, 2020 Evergreen headline: "President Trump Makes Empty Threat" — Jack Shafer (@jackshafer) May 22, 2020 .@kwelkernbc: The president said he's going to override …
I want the White House opened to science.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 22, 2020
Only 18% of white evangelicals think religious services should be permitted without any restrictions. Only 42% of Americans support religious services with restrictions, 45% of Americans who identify w a religion oppose _any_ in-person religious services https://t.co/rcqyyXao1R
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 22, 2020
Trump pushing to open white evangelical churches is kind of an anti-GOTV program.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 22, 2020
NEW: Trump’s campaign is concerned about public & internal GOP polls showing a decline in his favorability among key religious voters, including white evangelicals. This is one of the reasons he’s been so adamant about reopening churches https://t.co/aR2PR1WLUx
— Gabby Orr (@GabbyOrr_) May 22, 2020
Trump can’t survive a significant drop in turnout among white evangelicals, or not again winning white evangelicals 80-16, like he did in 2016. If white evangelical turnout drops 5%-8%, and he wins only 70-25, it’s a Republican bloodbath & Biden wins over 400 electoral votes
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 22, 2020
Open Thread: Saturday Morning (Political) Cartoons
This post is in: COVID-19 Coronavirus, Open Threads
Saturday morning cartoons, with a side of links to some coronavirus podcasts, all courtesy of one of our jackals. I only know her by name, so as soon as she gets back to me with her nym, I will add it here. Hmm, I believe it’s a her, but now that I think about it, …
Open Thread: Saturday Morning (Political) CartoonsPost + Comments (108)
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