49% Say The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Over

 

These charts are from a Gallup poll -- done between February 21st and 28th of a nationwide sample of 5,167 adults, with a margin of error of 2 points.

Concern About Monkeypox Grows As Cases Grow

The chart above is from the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between July 23rd and 26th of a nationwide sample of 1,500 adults, with a 3 point margin of error. About 45% say they are at least moderately concerned about a monkeypox epidemic. In late May, only 34% said they were concerned.

The Pandemic Is Getting Worse - Not Better!

This image of the pandemic in the U.S. is from The New York Times.
 

Hospitals Are At A Breaking Point & It's Going To Get Worse

The image above is from Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, and it should scare the hell out of Americans. Hospitals across the nation are in trouble. They are overwhelmed in trying to deal with this pandemic. And it's not going to get any better soon.

The nation is currently in the worst phase of the pandemic since it started, and some health officials are predicting we will have 350,000 deaths by the end of this year. We haven't started to feel the effects of the spreading caused by the travel and gatherings of the Thanksgiving holiday (which is expected to cause a huge spike in cases and deaths). And by the time the nation's starts to feel that holiday effect, people will begin to travel again for the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

You may be thinking that this is not important because of the news about vaccines being close to approved. That's a false hope in the short term. Only heal care workers will get the vaccine this year, if it's approved. And unless you live in a nursing home, you will probably not be able to get the vaccine until nearly Spring. 

It's going to be a long and deadly winter, and it's likely that the nation will be flirting with 500,000 deaths by the time the vaccine is widely available.

And while this crisis is happening, Donald Trump is doing NOTHING. He's too busy whining and lying about losing the election and playing golf. His lack of action shows he has surrendered in the war against COVID-19. He no longer cares.

Thanksgiving Was Likely A "Super-Spreader" Event

The United States is experiencing its worst period of the Coronavirus pandemic. In just the last two weeks, more than two million people have gotten sick with the virus, and thousands of people are dying daily. Hospitals across the country are worried that they will soon have more cases than they can handle.

That was bad enough, but then we had the Thanksgiving holiday. And millions of Americans traveled on the holiday and gathered in large gatherings with families. 

A recent Gallup poll showed that 61% of Americans had changed their holiday plans, and were staying home and having only a small dinner with immediate family. But that means 39% (millions of Americans) said they had no intention of changing their normal Thanksgiving holiday plans. These are the ones that flooded the airports and attended large gatherings. And they are the ones that have health officials worried.

Deborah Birx pointed out that the Memorial Day holiday resulted in a spike in the pandemic, even though the cases and deaths were far lower than currently. She said she's deeply worried about what could happen in the post-Thanksgiving period. Holiday travel and gatherings could result in much higher numbers of an already out-of-control pandemic.

And our current president is doing nothing. He's too busy whining about the election and playing golf to care about the sick and dying Americans. History will not be kind when it examines his presidency. 

It Ain't Just The Cities Anymore - COVID-19 Goes Rural

 

From DailyYonder.com:

Covid-19 spread in rural America at a record-breaking pace again last week, adding 160 counties to the red-zone list and bringing the total number of rural Americans who have tested positive for the coronavirus to more than 1 million.

Nearly 70% of the nation’s 1,976 rural (nonmetropolitan) counties are now in the red zone, a term used by the White House Coronavirus Task Force to designate localities where the spread of the virus is out of control. Red-zone counties have a rate of at least 100 new infections per 100,000 in population.

Number Of COVID-19 Cases In U.S. Is Rising Again

The chart above is from The New York Times. It shows the number of new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. over time. Note that the number of cases is rising again, and headed for a third peak -- a peak that is expected to be even higher than the previous two. This pandemic is far from over!

 

The United States Badly Needs Another "New Deal"

The United States is in deep trouble -- and it's not just from the Coronavirus pandemic. There were serious economic and racial problems that was affecting our democracy long before the virus showed up. The virus just made those problems easier to see.

The Roosevelt Institute has issued a report on how to fix our problems and save our democracy. I urge you to read the entire report. Here are 9 broad policies the report says should be instituted:

This report outlines a true New Deal for the COVID-19 era, with nine essential policies:

• canceling student, housing, and medical debts—and implementing structural change to address the accumulation of debt;
• creating a federal jobs guarantee;
• federalizing and expanding unemployment insurance;
• building a modern Reconstruction Finance Corporation;
• guaranteeing universal childcare;
• mandating sectoral bargaining;
• ensuring corporate accountability through federal chartering;
• reinvigorating antitrust law for real trust-busting; and
• rebalancing political power through institutional reform.

You can go here to read the entire policy, and a discussion of those broad policies. Here is the report's conclusion:

From the uncertain trajectory of COVID-19 itself to the economic despair in its wake, our country is being tested in ways that we could not have foreseen even a few months ago. There are a number of things our government can and must do to mitigate the pandemic and alleviate the suffering it has caused and exacerbated.

The solutions we highlight here are particularly important because they target not only the effects of COVID-19 but the broken economic system that has amplified them. Well before Americans even knew the term “COVID-19,” our country was already in deep despair, and too many were already suffering. In an emergency like the one we currently face, some policymakers will argue that we must deal with the most pressing problems at hand and save the rest for later. But the policies proposed here show that this is a false choice. We can address the pandemic while also dismantling systemic racism, strengthening democracy, diminishing outsize corporate power, creating better jobs, and building worker power. During the New Deal era, if government institutions were unable to meet the public’s needs, we updated them to meet the moment rather than curb the scale of our ambition.

In his address at the Democratic National Convention in 1932, FDR declared, “We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.” Through the New Deal, he was able to pull his country out of crisis, rewrite the rules of the economy, and foster broader prosperity. We must do the same today—for all.

"October Surprise" - An Unsafe Vaccine Rushed To Market?

Donald Trump is trailing badly in all of the presidential polls, and must do something radical if he is to get re-elected.

There are many who believe he will spring an "October Surprise" on the public. What could it be? Many are now thinking it could be a vaccine for the Coronavirus -- rushed to market before it can be shown to be safe or effective.

He would then try to pose as the "savior" of the American people by taking credit for the vaccine. The problem is that scientist or health official thinks a vaccine can be put on the market that fast. It would take months longer just to prove, with testing, that the vaccine is both safe and effective. No health official thinks a vaccine is possible before early in 2021 -- and maybe longer.

And a vaccine that's rushed to market before it's been properly tested could be very dangerous. It could have side effects that would harm many people, or it could be ineffective -- causing people to think they are safe and putting themselves in danger of infection by discontinuing safety measures.

That won't stop Trump though. He's already shown that he does not care about the heal of American citizens. We know that by his atrocious mishandling of the Coronavirus pandemic so far. He only cares about one thing -- his re-election. Because of this, it's entirely believable that Trump would rush an unproven vaccine to market.

Here's a part of how Greg Sargent reports this in The Washington Post:

We are now learning, via an extraordinary new report in the New York Times, that many scientists fear that Trump will attempt the ultimate “October surprise.” These scientists — which include some inside the government — worry that Trump will thoroughly corrupt the process designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of any new vaccine against the coronavirus.

It is the perfect Trumpian paradox that his long record of just this sort of corruption underscores why this scenario should be entertained with deadly seriousness — but also why it will likely fail.

As the Times reports, “experts inside and outside the government” fear that “the White House will push the Food and Drug Administration to overlook insufficient data and give at least limited emergency approval to a vaccine, perhaps for use by specific groups like front-line health care workers, before the vote on Nov. 3.”

Importantly, this is not just speculative. These insiders already see concrete grounds for fearing this is underway, and some are actively working to maintain the integrity of the process. Among the revelations:

• As part of the exhaustive process of approving vaccines, an independent advisory panel of outside experts is supposed to weigh in, and the FDA generally follows their advice. But under questioning from the Times, a senior administration official refused to confirm that any emergency approval will be vetted through that panel.
• One member of that FDA advisory committee says on the record that many people inside the process “are very nervous” about whether the administration will prematurely say a vaccine has been tested and is safe, and then “roll it out.” This expert says these people are right to be worried about this: “They should be.”
• Trump told supporters on Sunday night that he expects a vaccine to be available “far ahead of schedule” and “very, very early before the end of the year.” That’s at odds with his own health experts’ claim that the most realistic expectation is early 2021, and Trump also said the FDA has “been great, at my instruction.” His intentions are clear: At minimum, he will try to push up limited approval so it happens before the election, and then take credit for making that happen.
• Trump has explicitly tied the timing of the vaccine to his reelection needs. When he announced a campaign shake-up, he also said he’ll win in part because vaccines will “soon be on the way.”
• Jared Kushner is a “regular participant in meetings" overseeing the vaccine effort, the Times reports. Given the role of Trump’s son-in-law in steering reelection strategy and his lack of expertise, it’s hard to imagine Kushner is there to ensure quality control.
• People familiar with those conversations tell the Times that White House officials regularly ask about getting a vaccine by October. Trump’s campaign advisers privately refer to a vaccine before the election as “the holy grail.”

Texas Is Stil A Hotspot For COVID-19 Cases And Deaths

The number of cases and deaths in Texas during July were figured from the numbers posted on The COVID Tracking Project.

Republicans Believing Trump Are Fueling COVID-19 Outbreak

The Coronavirus epidemic in this country has moved into a lot of red (GOP-controlled) states -- states that reopened before getting real control over the virus. Why is it raging through red states? It looks like it's because Republicans just don't take the epidemic seriously.

Only 38% say they are very concerned about the virus (compared to 83% of Democrats). And only 41% say they weal a face mask when outside their home (compared to 83% of Democrats). Why the difference? It's because the Republicans are listening to Donald Trump's lies, and believing them. Others know that Trump is lying.

The charts are from Axios.com, and were compiled from Axios/Ipsos polling.

Dr. Fauci Is Right - We Need To Stop This Nonsense

The chart above (from Axios.com) shows the hospitalizations of patients with COVID-19. Note that the hospitalization rates are rising in most states (those in orange). This means we do NOT have control of the virus in this country. We not only have cases rising, but many of those cases are serious -- requiring hospitalization.

Trump is still in denial. He wants us to believe the virus is under control, and will just disappear one day. That is not true. We are still in the first wave, and the virus is out of control. It is out of control because the Trump administration and too many Republican governors refuse to do what is necessary to get the virus under control.

I understand why Dr. Anthony Fauci is getting exasperated with the failure of both federal and state governments to do what is necessary. And he is right. We must stop the nonsense and take the necessary actions.

Max Boot, in The Washington Post, has some ideas on how to "stop this nonsense". He suggests:

Stop smearing scientists for telling the truth. Fauci, the government’s top expert on infectious disease, has been the most prominent victim of a White House smear campaign that has included distributing a fact-challenged “background” sheet attacking him. Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, even penned a diatribe against Fauci in USA Today — which the newspaper concluded was “misleading.” On Sunday, Trump echoed Navarro by telling Chris Wallace that Fauci is “a little bit of an alarmist.” Trump also has attacked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and retweeted Chuck Woolery, the former host of “Wheel of Fortune,” accusing “everyone” — including “the CDC” — of “lying” about covid-19.

Stop listening to people who don’t know what they are talking about. That Trump is retweeting Woolery, listening to Navarro’s deep thoughts on the coronavirus, and allowing his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to masquerade as an “expert” in supply chains (among other areas) demonstrates his disdain for expertise and, ultimately, the truth itself. The one person at the White House with real medical knowledge is Deborah Birx, but, the New York Times reports, her over-optimistic estimates have been discredited by events. Fauci isn’t an “alarmist"; he’s a realist. Yet it’s been more than two months since he briefed the president.

Stop the happy talk. Trump’s first public comment on the disease was on Jan. 22, when he said: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.” About 140,000 deaths later, Trump is still delusional. On Sunday, he compared covid-19 to “the sniffles,” and said “I’ll be right eventually” about its disappearance. How many more will die before Trump will admit he’s wrong?

Stop denying resources for testing. As cases have spiked, so have delaysfor test results. There is no way to stop the pandemic without faster testing. Yet The Post reports that the administration “is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill.”

Stop blocking mask mandates. CDC Director Robert Redfield says we could bring the virus under control in four to eight weeks if everyone would wear a mask. Yet Trump refuses to issue a national mask mandate. He told Wallace, “I want people to have a certain freedom.” His efforts to sabotage public health are copied by governors such as Brian Kemp (R) of Georgia, who is suing Atlanta’s mayor and City Council members to overturn that city’s mask mandate.

Stop massaging the numbers. Trump has repeatedly said that if we didn’t test so much, we wouldn’t have so many cases. That’s like saying you can’t be pregnant if you don’t take a pregnancy test. Suspicions are growing that Trump is acting on his spurious logic by massaging case numbers: The administration recently ordered hospitals to stop reporting their data to the apolitical CDC and go instead to the Department of Health and Human Services, where Trump loyalists are in control. In a similar vein, the state of Georgia is recoloring its coronavirus maps to hide exponential case growth, and a scientist in Florida (also run by a Republican) says she was fired because she refused to manipulate coronavirus figures.

Stop pretending that schools can reopen in hot zones. Trump says “schools have to open,” yet a South Korean study finds that children over age 10 can spread the disease just as adults do. Israel blamed a resurgence of the virus on its decision to open schools prematurely — and case counts in Israel are nowhere near as high as in Texas and Florida.

Stop trying to divert us from the failing war on the coronavirus by launching a war on demonstrators. The Trump administration has dispatched federal agents, wearing uniforms without name tags and driving cars without markings, to crack down on protests in Portland, Ore. To listen to Trump, the city is under the control of violent anarchists — “it’s worse than Afghanistan,” he said Monday. In fact, Portland is largely peaceful, but the heavy-handed federal intervention is inflaming the situation. Gov. Kate Brown (D) tweeted: “Trump is looking for a confrontation in Oregon in the hopes of winning political points in Ohio or Iowa.”

Trump Wants To Cut Testing/Tracing Funds Out Of New Bill

it is beyond doubt that Donald Trump has badly mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. He tried to claim it was a hoax and ignored it. That didn't work. Then he refused to provide the needed testing until forced to do so, and even then did not provide the amount of tests needed to control the virus.

As the virus continued to rage across the country, he then demanded the states reopen their economies. That just made things worse, because it gave the virus a new impetus. Now he's trying to blame the growing number of cases and deaths on the testing. He says if we didn't test so much, we wouldn't have so many cases.

Of course that's the height of stupidity. The virus doesn't care whether you test or not. It's going to spread. The testing doesn't create new cases. It's the only way to find out where the virus is, so it can be traced and controlled.

But Trump doesn't care about the health and lives of Americans. He is just worried that the spread of the virus makes him look bad, and hurts his chances of being re-elected. That's why he is now doubling-down on his stupid testing theory. He is trying to get all funding for testing and tracing cut out of the new stimulus bill being considered by Congress right now.

Here is part of how Erica Werner and Jeff Stein describe Trump's new stupidity in The Washington Post:

The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday.

The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said.

The administration’s posture has angered some GOP senators, the officials said, and some lawmakers are trying to push back and ensure that the money stays in the bill. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal confidential deliberations, cautioned that the talks were fluid and the numbers were in flux.

The negotiations center around a bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is preparing to unveil this coming week as part of negotiations with Democrats on what will likely be the last major coronavirus relief bill before the November election. . . .

The two political parties are far apart on a number of contentious issues, such as unemployment insurance, but the conflict between Trump administration officials and Senate Republicans on money for testing and other priorities is creating a major complication even before bipartisan negotiations get under way. Some lawmakers are trying to reach a deal quickly, as enhanced unemployment benefits for millions of Americans are set to expire in less than two weeks.

One person involved in the talks said Senate Republicans were seeking to allocate $25 billion for states to conduct testing and contact tracing, but that certain administration officials want to zero out the testing and tracing money entirely. . . .

President Trump has repeatedly questioned the value of conducting widespread coronavirus testing, arguing that if there were fewer tests conducted, the number of infections would be lower. Coronavirus infections and deaths are on the rise in many states.

The administration is also seeking to zero out $10 billion in new funding for the CDC in the upcoming bill, while slashing spending for the Pentagon and State Department related to foreign aid, the person said. Trump has been skeptical of State Department spending and foreign aid generally, but it was unclear why the Trump administration would seek to block money for the Pentagon for a variety of coronavirus-related expenses such as reimbursing contractors for providing paid leave to employees. . . .

At the same time they push cuts in testing and CDC funds, administration officials are trying to use the spending package to fund priorities that appear not directly related to the coronavirus — including a new FBI building, which has been a longtime priority for Trump, according to people involved.

We're In A Recession - And Trump Is Making It Worse

The nation is now in a deep recession. It didn't have to be this way.

If Donald Trump had listened to those who warned him about the Coronavirus, and acted before it got to the United States and began to spread, the recession (and the public health crisis) could have been avoided.

But he didn't act. He called it a hoax, and even after the virus reached this country, he delayed acting for several months. When he did act, it was not enough.

Now he is busy making both the recession and the pandemic worse by demanding the states reopen their economies. Many states did what he wanted and reopened, but it was too soon -- before the virus had been controlled. That has resulted in the Coronavirus raging across the country. And it means the recession will be much longer in length (because the economy can't be fixed until the virus is controlled).

Here's how former Labor Secretary Robert Reich describes the mess Trump has put the nation in:

Trump and businesses demanded America “reopen” to revive the economy. But we’ve  reopened too soon, before Covid-19 is under control. So we’re needing to close or partly close again, which will prolong the economic downturn and wreak even more havoc on millions of Americans’ livelihoods.

It never should have been a contest between public health and the economy, anyway. The economy has always depended on getting public health right. And we still haven’t.

Trump has downplayed the risks. He got in the way of governors trying to keep people safe. And now all of us are paying the price.

Brace yourself. The wave of evictions and foreclosures in the next 2 months will be unlike anything America has experienced since the Great Depression. And unless Congress extends extra unemployment benefits beyond July 31, we’re also going to have unparalleled hunger.

Eviction protections for federally subsidized properties run out at the end of July. In some states that enacted their own moratoria on evictions, renter protections are already running out. One study estimates that 19 to 23 million renters, or 1 in 5 people who live in renter households, are at risk of eviction by September 30th.

The people most likely to be evicted are Black and Latinx people, single mothers, people with disabilities, formerly incarcerated people, and undocumented people. This is systemic racism playing out in real time.

Meanwhile, delinquency rates on mortgages have more than doubled since March.

Unemployment itself is different than what we saw back in March and April. Today’s layoffs are permanent, the result of businesses throwing in the towel or permanently slimming down.

In the public sector, loss of state tax revenue is running up against state constitutions that bar deficits. This is putting vital public services on the chopping block – schools, childcare, supplemental nutrition, mental health services, low-income housing, healthcare – at a time when the public needs them more than ever.

In April and May alone, states and localities furloughed or laid off some 1.5 million workers, about twice as many as in the entire aftermath of the Great Recession a decade ago. These cuts will be just the tip of the iceberg if the federal government doesn’t provide more fiscal aid for states and localities.

Let me remind you: Expanded unemployment benefits are set to expire by July 31, leaving at least 21 million unemployed Americans with a 60% income reduction and no stimulus check to fall back on. 

To make matters worse, over 16.2 million households have lost employer-provided health insurance. The Census Household Pulse Survey shows large losses in income in coming months, along with high food and housing insecurity.

So what’s Trump’s and Mitch McConnell’s response to this looming catastrophe?

Do nothing. 

Don’t extend supplemental unemployment benefits beyond July 31, when they’re due to expire. 

Don’t help states and cities. 

Reject the HEROES Act, passed by the House of Representatives to keep struggling families afloat and the economy from going into a tailspin.

Trump has even asked the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act. If the Court agrees, 23 million Americans will lose their health insurance, and the richest 0.1 percent of households with annual incomes of over $3 million will receive tax cuts averaging about $198,000 per year.

This is lunacy. The priority must be getting control over this pandemic and helping Americans survive it physically and financially. Extra unemployment benefits must be extended. 

The HEROES Act must be signed into law. Moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures must be extended. If it’s necessary to go back to sheltering in place to contain this pandemic, we must be willing to do so.

This shouldn’t be controversial. It’s the bare minimum of what our government must do to prevent an even worse economic and human catastrophe. 

Anything less is indefensible.

COVID-19 Pandemic Continues To Grow In Texas

The charts above use figures from The COVID Tracking Project. They show the new cases and deaths each day for the first half of July in Texas. The COVID-19 problem in Texas continues to grow.

The United States Is Still Unable To Control COVID-19

(This map is from The New York Times.)

Most of the world's developed nations acted early and responsibly to control the spread of the COVID-19 spread -- and they have been successful. But one developed nation has not been successful -- the United States. The U.S. government delayed action, badly mishandled the response, and then tried to reopen the economy far too soon. The result is that the virus continues to rage across the country, and there is little hope of controlling it anytime soon.

Here is part of how Griff Witte, Mary Beth Sheridan, Joanna Slater, and Liz Sly describe the situation in The Washington Post.

When the United States began shutting down this spring, a virus that emerged months earlier as a mysterious outbreak in a Chinese provincial capital had infected a total of fewer than 200,000 people worldwide.

So far this week, the planet has added an average of more than 200,000 cases every day.

The novel coronavirus — once concentrated in specific cities or countries — has now crept into virtually every corner of the globe and is wreaking havoc in multiple major regions at once.

But the impact is not being felt evenly. Poorer nations throughout Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia and Africa are bearing a growing share of the caseload, even as wealthier countries in Western Europe and East Asia enjoy a relative respite after having beaten back the worst effects through rigorously enforced lockdowns.

And then there’s the United States, which leads the world in new cases and, as with many nations that possess far fewer resources, has shown no sign of being able to regain control.

Nearly all the countries struggling with a surge share something in common: After weeks or months of trying to suppress the virus, they reopened their economies, only to find that the virus came roaring back. Now they are using a more limited arsenal to contain the spread, with little success.

“Let me be blunt: Too many countries are headed in the wrong direction,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared in Geneva this week. “The virus remains public enemy number one, but the actions of many governments and people do not reflect this.”

The severity of the toll on the United States was evident in new infection figures released Tuesday, with multiple states — including Oklahoma and Nevada — hitting record highs. Florida has now reported more cases in the past week — nearly 78,000 — than most European nations have in their entire struggle with covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

Former CDC Directors Blast Trump For Politicizing Science

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) was created to protect the health of the citizens of this country. And it has been very effective in doing that -- until now. That's because all previous presidents have followed the guidance of the scientists in that agency. Sadly, Trump is different. If the CDC guidelines don't say what he wants, he demands the agency change. He is demanding the agency, which depends on good science, deny that science to please him.

The following op-ed in The Washington Post was written by four former CDC directors (Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan, David Satcher, Richard Besser) who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents. They write:

As America begins the formidable task of getting our kids back to school and all of us back to work safely amid a pandemic that is only getting worse, public health experts face two opponents: covid-19, but also political leaders and others attempting to undermine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As the debate last week around reopening schools more safely showed, these repeated efforts to subvert sound public health guidelines introduce chaos and uncertainty while unnecessarily putting lives at risk.

As of this date, the CDC guidelines, which were designed to protect children, teachers, school staffers and their families — no matter the state and no matter the politics — have not been altered. It is not unusual for CDC guidelines to be changed or amended during a clearance process that moves through multiple agencies and the White House. But it is extraordinary for guidelines to be undermined after their release. Through last week, and into Monday, the administration continued to cast public doubt on the agency’s recommendations and role in informing and guiding the nation’s pandemic response. On Sunday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos characterized the CDC guidelines as an impediment to reopening schools quickly rather than what they are: the path to doing so safely. The only valid reason to change released guidelines is new information and new science — not politics.

One of the many contributions the CDC provides our country is sound public health guidance that states and communities can adapt to their local context — expertise even more essential during a pandemic, when uncertainty is the norm. The four of us led the CDC over a period of more than 15 years, spanning Republican and Democratic administrations alike. We cannot recall over our collective tenure a single time when political pressure led to a change in the interpretation of scientific evidence.

The CDC is home to thousands of experts who for decades have fought deadly pathogens such as HIV, Zika and Ebola. Despite the inevitable challenges of evolving science and the public’s expectation of certainty, these are the people best positioned to help our country emerge from this crisis as safely as possible. Unfortunately, their sound science is being challenged with partisan potshots, sowing confusion and mistrust at a time when the American people need leadership, expertise and clarity. These efforts have even fueled a backlash against public health officials across the country: Public servants have been harassed, threatened and forced to resign when we need them most. This is unconscionable and dangerous.

We’re seeing the terrible effect of undermining the CDC play out in our population. Willful disregard for public health guidelines is, unsurprisingly, leading to a sharp rise in infections and deaths. America now stands as a global outlier in the coronavirus pandemic. This tragic indictment of our efforts is even more egregious in light of the disproportionate impact we’ve witnessed on communities of color and lower-income essential workers. China, using the same mitigation tools available to us and with a far larger population, has had just a tiny fraction of the 3.1 million cases reported here. The United States now has more cases and deaths than any other country and the sixth-highest rate of any large country in the world — and we are gaining on the other five. The United States is home to a quarter of the world’s reported coronavirus infections and deaths, despite being home to only 4.4 percent of the global population.

Sadly, we are not even close to having the virus under control. Quite the opposite, in fact.

That’s what makes it hard to plan for schools. Any parent with a young child knows that classrooms, cafeterias and school buses are petri dishes for the common cold and the flu, even in normal times. And although children are at lower risk for serious illness and death from covid-19, the same is not true for the adults who work in schools, nor for the families children and school staffers go home to each evening. We must pay careful attention to safer school policies, including those the CDC released, to do everything we can to reopen our schools — and our economy — as safely as possible. This cannot happen equitably without additional federal and state resources to ensure that every school district — no matter the Zip code — can take the necessary measures to protect children, teachers and staffers. Black, Latino and Native American communities have suffered disproportionately during the first six months of the pandemic. We cannot let this same tragedy unfold this fall in our schools. The CDC’s guidance is a call for all of our nation to work together so as many schools as possible can reopen as safely as possible. This will mean wearing masks correctly, increasing distance — including by closing bars and restaurants in many places — and tracking and stopping the spread of the virus by supporting patients and protecting contacts.

Trying to fight this pandemic while subverting scientific expertise is like fighting blindfolded. How well and how quickly we adhere to the advice of public health experts at the CDC will determine whether, how soon and how safely our schools can reopen.

It is not too late to give the CDC its proper role in guiding this response. But the clock is ticking.

In The Midst Of The Pandemic, Our Gun Problem Gets Worse

The chart above uses figures from FBI.gov. It shows the number of firearms background checks have been done through the NICS system in each of the last 12 months. Note the red trend line. The trend for these checks has gone up significantly in the last year.

This is only the number of checks done, not the number of guns sold. The number of guns sold is likely even higher -- since there are still many loopholes in the background check law.

One might expect that the number of mass shootings might have gone down with the social distancing because of the pandemic. Sadly, that is not the case. So far this year (according to the Gun Violence Archive), there have been 284 mass shootings in this country. That's is well above one mass shooting for every day this year (actually about 1.479 per day) -- above the rate for last year.

There has also been 21,559 gun deaths this year. That means we are well on our way to having 40,000 gun deaths this year.

The COVID-19 virus is not the only epidemic in this country. We must not forget the gun violence epidemic has not abated. We need to control both!

Growth Of COVID-19 Cases In Each State In The Last Week

These numbers are from The COVID Tracking Project.

The first number for each state is the number of cases they had on 6/13/20. The second number is the number of cases on 6/20/20 (one week later).

Alabama..........24601 -- 29549
Alaska..........654 -- 743
Arizona..........34458 -- 49798
Arkansas..........11547 -- 15142
California.........145643 -- 169309
Colorado..........28822 -- 30187
Connecticut.........44994 -- 45715
Delaware..........10229 -- 10681
District of Columbia..........9709 -- 9984
Florida..........73552 -- 93797
Georgia..........56801 -- 63809
Hawaii..........706 -- 789
Idaho..........3353 -- 3871
Illinois..........132732 -- 137104
Indiana..........39543 -- 42061
Iowa..........23717 -- 25496
Kansas..........11047 -- 12059
Kentucky..........12445 -- 13630
Louisiana..........46283 -- 49385
Maine..........2757 -- 2938
Maryland..........61305 -- 63956
Massachusetts..........105395 -- 106936
Michigan..........65836 -- 67545
Minnesota..........30712 -- 32467
Mississippi..........19348 -- 20641
Missouri..........15810 -- 17590
Montana..........588 -- 698
Nebraska..........16513 -- 17591
Nevada..........10946 -- 12931
New Hampshire..........5251 -- 5486
New Jersey..........166605 -- 168834
New Mexico..........9526 -- 10260
New York..........382630 -- 387272
North Carolina..........42676 -- 51389
North Dakota..........3058 -- 3251
Ohio..........40848 -- 44262
Oklahoma..........8073 -- 10037
Oregon..........5377 -- 6750
Pennsylvania..........78462 -- 81266
Rhode Island..........15947 -- 16337
South Carolina..........17955 -- 23786
South Dakota..........5833 -- 6225
Tennessee..........29541 -- 34446
Texas..........86011 -- 107735
Utah..........13981 -- 17068
Vermont..........1125 -- 1147
Virginia..........53869 -- 57443
Washington..........25171 -- 27601
West Virginia..........2259 -- 2486
Wisconsin..........22518 -- 24539
Wyoming..........1050 -- 1179

Virgin Islands..........72 -- 74
Puerto Rico..........5690 -- 6463
Guam..........185 -- 222