Coronavirus Update
July 27, 2020
Driving the Day:
By the Numbers
Monday, July 27, 2020 7:30 AM
Number of US cases reported: 4,234,140
Number of US deaths: 146,935
Total Number of Tests in US: 51,491,494 (many not include all the labs)
What to Watch For
Today: President Trump will participate in greeting Terry Sharpe, the “Walking Marine,” at 11:00 AM. in the South Portico. Trump will then travel to Morrisville, NC to tour the Bioprocess Innovation Center at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies and hold a coronavirus briefing at 3:30 PM. Vice President Pence will travel to Florida for a roundtable on vaccine research and a press briefing at the University of Miami. Senate Republicans plan to unveil their Covid relief bill at around 4:30 PM.
Wednesday: Trump will travel to Texas, where he will hold a fundraiser in Odessa and tour a Double Eagle Energy oil rig in Midland.
Friday: Trump will meet with the National Association of Police Organizations leadership.
Must Read Stories
The US Saw Four Straight Days Of More Than 1,000 Deaths As The CDC Warns That Even Thousands Of Non-Hospitalized Covid patients Are Facing Long-Term Illnesses
CNN: US tops 1,000 Coronavirus Deaths 4 Days In A Row As Experts Urge The Country To Shut Down: As more Covid-19 records get broken, debates on whether to send kids back to school or to shut down the economy again are coming to a head. More than 1,000 people died every day for four straight days last week due to Covid-19. That brings the total US death toll from the virus to more than 146,000 as of Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. And researchers project up to 175,000 deaths linked to the virus by August 15, according to an ensemble forecast published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With overwhelmed hospitals and lengthy delays in testing, some local leaders — including Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — said a second stay-at-home order might be possible. That kind of drastic measure is supported by more than 150 prominent medical experts, scientists, teachers, nurses and other experts who signed a letter urging leaders to shut the country down and start over to contain the rampant spread of the virus.
NBC: CDC: One-third Of Covid-19 Patients Who Aren’t Hospitalized Have Long-term Illness: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged Friday that a significant number of COVID-19 patients do not recover quickly, and instead experience ongoing symptoms, such as fatigue and cough. As many as a third of patients who were never sick enough to be hospitalized are not back to their usual health up to three weeks after their diagnosis, the report found. “COVID-19 can result in prolonged illness even among persons with milder outpatient illness, including young adults,” the report’s authors wrote.
Trump Isn’t Even Trying To Address The Pandemic
Washington Post: One Question Still Dogs Trump: Why Not Try Harder To Solve The Coronavirus Crisis?: Both President Trump’s advisers and operatives laboring to defeat him increasingly agree on one thing: The best way for him to regain his political footing is to wrest control of the coronavirus. In the six months since the deadly contagion was first reported in the United States, Trump has demanded the economy reopen and children return to school, all while scrambling to salvage his reelection campaign. But both allies and opponents agree he has failed at the one task that could help him achieve all of his goals — confronting the pandemic with a clear strategy and consistent leadership. Trump’s shortcomings have perplexed even some of his most loyal allies, who increasingly have wondered why the president has not at least pantomimed a sense of command over the crisis or conveyed compassion for the millions of Americans impacted by it. People close to Trump, many speaking anonymously to share candid discussions and impressions, say the president’s inability to wholly address the crisis is due to his almost pathological unwillingness to admit error; a positive feedback loop of overly rosy assessments and data from advisers and Fox News; and a penchant for magical thinking that prevented him from fully engaging with the pandemic.
The Unemployment Lifeline Ran Out For Millions Of Americans This Weekend Because Senate Republicans Didn’t Act And The New White House “Plan” Is Totally Unworkable
FROM THIS WEEKEND: Buzzfeed: The $600 Unemployment Benefits Are Expiring This Weekend Because Senate Republicans Didn’t Do Anything: After this weekend, the unemployment subsidy expires. Congress plans to pass another coronavirus aid bill but is moving at a snail’s pace. Republicans spent the entire week debating among themselves on a proposal. Bipartisan talks have not yet even begun. The Senate left Washington on Thursday and won’t return until Monday, after the benefits expire. At the least, a temporary lapse in unemployment aid is all but certain. This is happening right as millions of people are being exposed to the threat of eviction. When the coronavirus pandemic first caused a spike in unemployment, state and local governments enacted moratoriums on evictions and shutting off utilities. But now those have expired in about half the states in the country. The eviction ban in Illinois ends in late August. In Florida, it expires Aug. 1. A steady stream of moratoriums lapsing is scheduled to continue throughout the month of August. Over 30 million people are drawing unemployment and will be left with state benefits only, which tend to be less than half of the federal amount.
NPR: State Unemployment Agencies Could Take Months To Adapt To WH Proposal, Memos Show: Ancient state unemployment systems that struggled to handle the first round of COVID-19 relief payments could take months or more to adopt a White House proposal for modifying the benefits, according to memos obtained by NPR. Such a lag could mean that the roughly 30 million people currently collecting pandemic-related unemployment benefits would see their income drop from a weekly average of $900 to an average of $300 per week. The proposal would cut emergency unemployment benefits to roughly 70% of a person’s lost wages — a more complicated calculation than the current, flat $600. Critics have warned since March that such a proposal would undermine efforts to speed relief to millions of people out of work due to the coronavirus. The potential delays are so significant that the U.S. Department of Labor told Congress in May that it “strongly” opposed such a change because states would find it “exceedingly difficult if not impossible to implement.”
Trump Continues To Go Against The Wishes Of Voters And His Own CDC To Try To Force Schools To Reopen Even As His Own Son’s School Will Remain Closed For Safety
Buzzfeed: Trump Made School Reopenings An Election Issue. The Voters He Needs Just Don’t Agree With Him: Jeanenne and her granddaughter don’t agree on a lot when it comes to politics. Jeanenne is a lifelong Republican; Elise plans to cast her first-ever vote in November for Joe Biden. But when it comes to one of the central questions facing the country, whether and how America’s schools should reopen in the fall, they agree: Maybe. But probably not. Not yet. “I just don’t see how it will work,” Elise said. Jeanenne supports Donald Trump, but on this issue, she sees things differently than the president, who has doubled down on a hardline demand for schools to reopen despite the continuing coronavirus pandemic — under the threat of losing federal money. “It’s fine and good to say, ‘Yes, we’re going to open up,’ and I can understand that,” said Jeanenne, who used to work in schools. “But you haven’t spent time in classrooms. It just takes one person being sick.” Even as Trump has worked to turn school reopening into another black-and-white issue, many Republican voters, like Jeanenne, have failed to fall in lockstep behind him.
Washington Post: CDC Director Concedes Schools In ‘hot Spots’ Face Tougher Call On Reopening: The leader of the nation’s premier public health agency Friday amplified President Trump’s call for schools to reopen, releasing new documents edited by the White House that gloss over risks and extol the benefits of in-person learning. Still, Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there should be exceptions for “hot spots,” and he used a metric that would include parts of at least 33 states. The mixed messaging was another indication of how public health officials at the CDC have been squeezed between Trump’s demand for a normal school year and an out-of-control virus.
New York Times: As Trump Calls for Schools to Fully Reopen, His Son’s School Says It Will Not: The school attended by President Trump’s son will not fully reopen in September out of concern over the coronavirus pandemic despite the president’s insistence that students across the country be brought back to classrooms in the fall. St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, a private school in Washington’s Maryland suburbs, said in a letter to parents that it was still deciding whether to adopt a hybrid model for the fall that would allow limited in-person education or to resume holding all classes completely online as was done in the spring. The school will decide early next month which option to follow. “We are hopeful that public health conditions will support our implementation of the hybrid model in the fall,” said the letter signed by Robert Kosasky, the head of school, and David Brown, the assistant head. “As we prepare to make a decision the week of Aug. 10 about how to best begin the school year,” they added, “we will continue to follow guidance of appropriate health officials and refine both our hybrid and distance learning plans.”
Trump Plans To Go Ahead With Opening In-Person Campaign “Community Centers” In Hard Hit Minority Neighborhoods As His Administration’s Failures Are Making The Inequality Of The Pandemic Worse
ABC: Trump Campaign Moving Forward With Opening Centers In Communities Of Color Amid Pandemic: President Trump’s re-election team is moving forward with plans to open over a dozen retail properties for voter outreach in communities of color—communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus as the pandemic surges around the country. The team is looking to resume its previously announced plans to open “community centers” across battleground states like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina –places where there have also been significant spikes in COVID-19 cases. Public health experts such as Dr. Shad Marvasti, director of Public Health and associate professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix told ABC News it would be irresponsible to open these centers during the height of the pandemic. “Right now it’s not advisable to have any type of activity that’s not necessary, where people are interacting indoors, particularly in communities of black and brown that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19,” Marvasti said. “They are getting hospitalized and dying at much higher rates than white Americans. I think it’s irresponsible to expose them by having yet another touch point of people interacting in close settings which we know is higher risk in terms of transmitting the virus.”
Politico: Trump’s Fragmented Pandemic Response May Undermine Push To Address Racial Disparities: In late April, a coronavirus research team from the Centers for Disease Control fanned out across two predominantly Black counties in Georgia, going door to door in face shields asking for samples of blood with little prior warning. The plan backfired. Community advocates said they fielded call after call from scared Black residents who were reminded of the Tuskegee syphilis study conducted on African Americans from 1932 to 1972. Fewer than one in four households approached took part in the antibody research, which may have diminished its accuracy and value, the CDC revealed this week. The episode was emblematic of the federal government’s ongoing failures to address the huge racial and ethnic disparities that have persisted throughout the coronavirus pandemic. In 20 interviews across multiple states, health workers, civil rights advocates and state and local officials told POLITICO that efforts by the CDC and the broader Trump administration to mitigate the impact of the virus on communities of color are falling short. They cited cultural misunderstandings and asserted that mixed messages from the White House have made it harder for counties to get a handle on the disease.
Worth Watching
Texas and Florida highlight the failures of GOP governors to adequately address the pandemic:
Washington Post: Coronavirus ravaged Florida, as Ron DeSantis sidelined scientists and followed Trump
Houston Chronicle: As COVID cases exploded, workers on Texas’ $295 million contact tracing deal did little to no work
Other News
Trump’s Failures
Axios: Trump goes all in on vaccines and therapeutics
Buzzfeed: An Elite Group Of Scientists Tried To Warn Trump Against Lockdowns In March
CNN: US tops 1,000 coronavirus deaths 4 days in a row as experts urge the country to shut down
NBC: CDC: One-third of COVID-19 patients who aren’t hospitalized have long-term illness
New York Times: FEMA Sends Faulty Protective Gear to Nursing Homes Battling Virus
Politico: Azar blames testing delays on states
Politico: U.S. testing czar: Everyone who ‘needs’ a covid test can get one
Washington Post: America’s global standing is at a low point. The pandemic made it worse.
Washington Post: One question still dogs Trump: Why not try harder to solve the coronavirus crisis?
Trump and the GOP Not Looking Out For You
Buzzfeed: The $600 Unemployment Benefits Are Expiring This Weekend Because Senate Republicans Didn’t Do Anything
Daily Beast: Donald Trump Golfs With Brett Favre as a Thousand People a Day Die From COVID-19
NPR: State Unemployment Agencies Could Take Months To Adapt To WH Proposal, Memos Show
Economic Impact
Axios: Small businesses are drowning in coronavirus expenses
Politico: Kudlow suggests extension of federal eviction ban is in works
Reuters: U.S. Republicans to unveil coronavirus aid proposal as time runs out on jobless benefits
Education
Buzzfeed: Trump Made School Reopenings An Election Issue. The Voters He Needs Just Don’t Agree With Him.
The Guardian: Texas childcare facilities thrown into chaos amid coronavirus crisis
New York Times: As Trump Calls for Schools to Fully Reopen, His Son’s School Says It Will Not
Washington Post: CDC director concedes schools in ‘hot spots’ face tougher call on reopening
Inequality
ABC: Trump campaign moving forward with opening centers in communities of color amid pandemic
Politico: Trump’s fragmented pandemic response may undermine push to address racial disparities
In The States
Houston Chronicle: As COVID cases exploded, workers on Texas’ $295 million contact tracing deal did little to no work
Los Angeles Times: This county knew coronavirus could ravage its farmworkers. Why didn’t officials stop it?
Washington Post: Coronavirus ravaged Florida, as Ron DeSantis sidelined scientists and followed Trump
Personal Narratives
New York Times: ‘You Do the Right Things, and Still You Get It’
Polling
Axios: The president’s pandemic cues
Politico: Poll: Support for Trump’s handling of coronavirus pandemic hits new low
Science And Technology
Axios: It’s not over when the vaccine arrives
Trump Tweets
We do more testing than any country in the World, by far, over 55 million tests. Fake News @CNN says we should do more testing. But even if we did 100 times more, they would then say it is still not enough. They are totally discredited, just want Sleepy Joe to win in November! [@realDonaldTrump, 7/26/20]
The 2020 Election will be totally rigged if Mail-In Voting is allowed to take place, & everyone knows it. So much time is taken talking about foreign influence, but the same people won’t even discuss Mail-In election corruption. Look at Patterson, N.J. 20% of vote was corrupted! [@realDonaldTrump, 7/26/20]
Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th. We will make it later in the season! [@realDonaldTrump, 7/26/20]
Crazy Nancy Pelosi said I made a mistake when I banned people from infected China from entering the U.S. in January. Tens of thousands of lives were saved, as she danced in the Streets of Chinatown (SF) in late February. Biden agreed with her, but soon admitted that I was right! [@realDonaldTrump, 7/26/20]
