Five former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who came together to speak about the coronavirus on Thursday said repeatedly that the United States is still struggling to deal with the pandemic because of one thing: mixed messages from leadership. “This is the first public health response where the ground rules weren’t set up that we would be driven by the best available public health science,” said Dr. Richard Besser, who served as acting director of the CDC in 2009. “So, when you have political leaders and public health leaders coming at this with very different messaging, [and] when you don’t see the political leadership supporting public health science, you lose trust. And the people question whether things are being done because they’re the right thing to do scientifically or whether they’re being done for political reasons, and that leads to an undermining of the efforts to control something that is truly controllable,” he added. Besser, who was also the former chief medical correspondent for ABC News, was joined by Drs. Julie Gerberding, Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan and David Satcher to speak with ABC News’ Linsey Davis. The former CDC directors, who worked under both Democratic and Republican administrations, also spoke about preventing the next pandemic and about the challenges Americans will face even once a vaccine is approved. They said the country’s best chance at stopping the virus is by working together. “Right now, one person a minute is getting killed by this virus in the U.S., and we need to focus on what the virus is doing and what we as a community are doing to stop it,” said Frieden, who was the CDC director from 2009 to 2017. “Because all of us can do things to make it less severe, whether that’s wearing a mask, washing our hands, watching our distance or supporting public health so that they can box in virus… and protect the most vulnerable. There’s a lot we can do,” he continued. “Progress is in our hands, but when it’s undermined, it makes it very difficult to make progress.” “This pandemic is not something that’s going to end abruptly,” said Satcher, who was the CDC director from 1993 to 1998. “The problem is going to be with us for a while in terms of COVID, so the question becomes: When are we going to get on top of it? When people take seriously the challenge.” The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is higher than anywhere else in the world with at least 159,000 deaths. Nearly 5 million Americans have been diagnosed with the virus. As 31 states see a rising number of daily deaths and 25 states see increasing rates of positive cases, President Donald Trump in recent weeks claimed the U.S. has the virus “under control” and that the country is in “really good shape.” “Every one of those falsehoods drives away our opportunity to improve our mitigation efforts… and it causes confusion in everyone’s mind,” said Koplan, who directed the CDC from 1998 to 2002.
CDC Data Shows 207,000 ‘Excess Deaths’ During Pandemic…
According to a New York Times analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there have been 207,000 excess deaths in the United States during the coronavirus pandemic, much higher than the current total of 161,000 confirmed deaths. While President Donald Trump’s supporters tend to believe that coronavirus deaths have been exaggerated, and Trump himself reportedly has said the same in private, there has been copious data all along showing the opposite, and even White House infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that the death toll is “almost certainly higher” than the reported totals. How much higher is the question, and the NYT analysis suggests a grim reality — one which isn’t confined to blue states:
Nationwide, 200,700 more people have died than usual from March 15 to July 25, according to C.D.C. estimates, which adjust current death records to account for typical reporting lags. That number is 54,000 higher than the official count of coronavirus deaths for that period. Higher-than-normal death rates are now widespread across the country; only Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and West Virginia show numbers that look similar to recent years.
Our analysis examines deaths from all causes — not just confirmed cases of coronavirus — beginning in mid-March when the virus took hold. That allows comparisons that don’t depend on the availability of coronavirus tests in a given place or on the accuracy of cause-of-death reporting. What it shows is that some places have seen staggering death tolls, while a few states have experienced fewer deaths, but enough to clearly differentiate this year from a typical one.
New York City, an early epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, has so far experienced the most extreme increase in deaths, which surged to seven times the usual number during the peak of its coronavirus outbreak. But as the pandemic has spread across the country, New York is not the only place where the death counts are far above normal levels.
Over time, the number of states with deaths at least 10 percent above normal levels has grown, and includes states in not just the Northeast, but also the South, West and Midwest.
Trump’s disastrous interview with Axios
https://youtu.be/zaaTZkqsaxY
- President Donald Trump’s interview with Axios on Monday evening tackled many issues, from the rising coronavirus death toll to the Black Lives Matter protests.
- Snippets of the 37-minute interview that originally aired on HBO have been trending on Twitter.
- Many have been praising reporter Jonathan Swan for his unflinching interviewing of the president.
Axios reporter Jonathan Swan cornered President Donald Trump on multiple issues in a wide-ranging interview aired on HBO on Monday evening. Clips of the interview have been circulating online and trending on Twitter. They show Swan pressing the president on the coronavirus crisis, the 2020 elections, foreign policy, and the anti-racism protests, among other topics. Many users have created memes of Swan reacting to Trump’s answers and applauded the reporter for his unwavering questioning of the president.
- On the coronavirus crisis taking 1,000 lives a day (7:20):
Trump: Right now, I think it’s under control.
Swan: How? 1,000 Americans are dying a day.
Trump: They are dying. That’s true. It is what it is. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can. It’s under control as much as you can control it. This is a horrible plague that beset us.
Swan: You really think this is as much as we can control — 1,000 deaths a day?
Trump: First of all, we have done a great job. We’ve gotten the governors everything they needed. They didn’t do their job. Many of them didn’t and some of them did. … But the governors do it. We gave them massive amounts of material.
—Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) August 4, 2020
- On the seriousness of the virus (8:35):
Swan: Even some of your own aides wonder whether you will stick to that message until Election Day. Whether in a week or two, you won’t say, ‘Right, we got to reopen again. We can’t do this stuff anymore.’ That you’ll get bored of talking about the virus and go back to that sort of cheerleading.
Trump: No, I never get bored. I never get bored of talking about this. It’s too big of a thing.
Swan: So will you stick to that message?
Trump: It should’ve been stopped by China. It should’ve been stopped by China, and it wasn’t.
Swan: But now it’s here and you’re the president.
Trump: I think I’m very consistent. No, this is a very serious thing. We have 140,000 people at this moment. This is a very, very serious situation, and what you have to do is handle it the best it can be handled. And again, I’m working with the governors.
- On addressing inadequate coronavirus testing (10:00):
Trump: There are those that say you can test too much. You do know that.
Swan: Who says that?
Trump: Just read the manuals. Read the books. Read the books.
Swan: Manuals? What manuals? What books?
Trump: Let me explain. What testing does is it shows cases, it shows where there may be cases. Other countries test, you know when they test? They test when somebody’s sick. That’s when they test. And I’m not saying they’re right or wrong. Nobody’s done it like we’ve done it. We’ve gotten absolutely no credit for it but we’ve come up with so many different tests. The only thing that we have now is some people have to wait longer than we’d like them to.
Swan: It’s a big problem. … When, do you think, you’ll have it for everyone? What day?
Trump: I think you’ll have that relatively soon.
Swan: What does that mean?
Trump: I would much rather get back to you because I don’t want to have you write ‘in one month,’ I didn’t make it, I missed it by a day and it’s a headline.
Swan: OK. That’s fine.
- On the US’s coronavirus death toll versus the rest of the world’s (13:14):
Swan: You’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the US is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, et cetera.
Trump: You can’t do that.
Swan: Why can’t I do that?
Trump: You have to go by the cases.
Swan: … Well look at South Korea, for example: 51 million population. 300 deaths. It’s crazy.
Trump: You don’t know that. You don’t know that.
Swan: You think they’re faking their statistics? South Korea? An advanced country?
Trump: I won’t get into that because I have a very good relationship with the country. But you don’t know that.
- On intelligence reports of Russia paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers (16:27):
Swan: You had a phone call with Vladimir Putin on July 23. Did you bring up this issue?
Trump: No, that was a phone call to discuss other things. And frankly, that’s an issue that many people said was fake news. … But we had a call talking about nuclear proliferation, which is a very big subject. … We did not discuss that, no.
Swan: It’s because you don’t believe the intelligence, is that why?
Trump: … If it reached my desk, I would’ve done something about it. It never reached my desk. … I have so many briefings on so many different countries. But this one didn’t reach my desk.
Swan: Even if you don’t believe this particular piece of intelligence, and there is dispute in the intelligence community about it, your former head of forces in Afghanistan said, and this was when he was working for you, that Russia is supplying weapons to the Taliban. Isn’t that enough to challenge Putin over the killings of US soldiers?
Trump: Well, we supplied weapons when they were fighting Russia, too.
Swan: But that’s a different era.
Trump: I’m just saying we did that too. … I have heard that, but, again, it’s never reached my desk.
- On uncertainty around accepting the results of the 2020 election and mail-in voting (22:22):
Swan: What does that actually look like as the sitting president? I mean, it’s unprecedented.
Trump: Hillary Clinton never accepted them. She still doesn’t accept them.
Swan: She conceded on election night. She grumbled about it.
Trump: Grumbled? Grumbled? She wrote books about it. Don’t use the word “grumbled.”
Swan: … What does that look like, not accepting?
Trump: We have a new phenomena, called mail-in voting.
Swan: New? It’s been here since the Civil War. … It’ll be bigger this year because of the pandemic.
Trump: Bigger? Not bigger, massively bigger. So they’re going to send tens of millions of ballots to California, all over the place … You got millions of ballots going, nobody even knows where they’re going. You look at some of the corruption having to do with universal mail-in voting. Absentee voting is OK.
Swan: It’s the same thing.
Trump: … You could have a case where this election won’t be decided on the evening of November 3. This election could be decided two months later.
Swan: Absolutely. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with the proper mailing count?
Trump: Lots of things will happen during that period of time, especially when you have tight margins. … Right now we have to live with it, but we’re challenging it in many courts
Two German schools shut again after new cases
Two schools in northeast Germany have closed due to coronavirus infections, state authorities announced on Friday. Both schools, the Ostsee elementary school and the Goethe High School, are in the state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. This was the first German state to re-open for classes, at the beginning of this week following the summer holidays. In one of the schools, the Goethe High School, a teacher tested positive for the virus but had not yet given any lessons to students, the district of Ludwigslust-Parchim, where the school is located, announced on its website. The school will remain shut until next Wednesday and all 55 teachers will be also be tested, local authorities said.
“Safety first! We will continuously inform parents, teachers and students about new developments,” Mayor Stefan Sternberg said in a statement on the district’s official website.
In the second school, the Ostsee Elementary School in the district of greater Rostock, a student tested positive for Covid-19, according to local authorities. Rostock district said in a press release that all students and staff will be quarantined.
“The students will not be going to school for a limited amount of time. Our safety concept has the aim of reacting precisely and locally to any possible infection without having to resort to large scale school closures,” Mecklenburg-West Pomerania’s Education Minister Bettina Martin said in a statement published by state authorities.
On Thursday the German government voiced concern over a recent spike in infections across the country, and urged citizens to follow pandemic rules like social distancing, mask wearing and sanitizing more closely.
US Approaches 5 Million Confirmed Cases of COVID-19
The US has recorded more than 4,880,000 cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began, according to the latest tally from John Hopkins University The country often records more than 40,000 new cases daily — and sometimes more than 60,000. That means the US is on track to soon surpass 5 million total cases.
Here’s a look at new daily cases for the past two weeks:
30 Positive For COVID-19 After Funeral: All wore masks and social distaced
https://cbsloc.al/2XDakml
https://w3.cdn.anvato.net/player/prod/v3/anvload.html
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — It’s human nature to want to gather and grieve together when someone you lose someone close to you, but the COVID-19 pandemic is making that more difficult. Kathleen Keen and her husband learned that first hand. They were at a funeral for a friend’s father in northern Minnesota in Mid-July. Shortly after, both she and her husband tested positive for COVID-19. What’s more is that they weren’t alone — 29 of the 35 people at the service tested positive.
Everyone wore masks and socially distanced until they got to the social hour after the service.
“It was in this fellowship hall and I remember looking at the windows and wishing I could open them. Like, ‘This is not good that everyone is packed together in this room,’” Keen said. “I don’t regret making the choice to be there for my friend. I wish this virus wasn’t happening.” Keen hopes her story can act as a warning about how serious COVID-19 can be, and how important it is to take safety precautions, especially if you’re going to be in a crowd.
Trump: We are going a different way on stimulus
President Trump announced that he planned to sign executive actions that the White House is drafting to address expired unemployment insurance and to suspend payroll taxes, as congressional negotiations for coronavirus aid continue to drag on. Speaking to reporters Thursday, Trump said the orders could be signed Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. He said a legislative deal was still possible, however. “Probably tomorrow afternoon. They’re being drawn now,” Trump said when asked when the executive orders would be signed. “We’ll see what happens. It’s possible we’ll make a deal, but it’s also possible we won’t. But I would say probably tomorrow afternoon or maybe the following morning.” The president is traveling to Ohio, where he is expected to sign a long-awaited “Buy American” order requiring the government to buy essential medicines and medical supplies from U.S. manufacturers. In a tweet before leaving the White House, Trump said he had instructed the White House to “continue working on an Executive Order with respect to Payroll Tax Cut, Eviction Protections, Unemployment Extensions, and Student Loan Repayment Options.” Trump has pressed repeatedly for a payroll tax cut, a move backed by outside economic adviser Stephen Moore, a Washington Examiner columnist, but among lawmakers, the cut is less popular. A federal moratorium on evictions expired at the end of July, exposing tenants of more than 12 million rental units to eviction should they miss a payment. A $600-per-week supplement to unemployment benefits that passed as part of the CARES Act in March has also expired. Negotiations on a potential fourth stimulus bill have been underway for nearly two weeks; however, Democrats and the White House remain “trillions” of dollars apart, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday. Meadows said Thursday that Trump would take executive actions on unemployment aid and evictions if a deal could not be reached by the end of the week. “At this point, either we’re going to get serious about negotiating and get an agreement in principle, or it becomes extremely doubtful that we’ll be able to make a deal if it goes well beyond Friday,” he said. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said on Thursday that Democrats were to blame for the lack of progress and that the chamber would be in session Monday. “The only thing that gets an outcome is the speaker and the president of the United States reaching an agreement,” McConnell said on Fox News on Wednesday. “And once they do that, I believe that the majority of my members will support it, but not every single one of them. I’ve been clear about that from the beginning.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci says chance of coronavirus vaccine being highly effective is ‘not great’
- White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci that the chances of scientists creating a highly effective vaccine — one that provides 98% or more guaranteed protection — for the virus are slim.
- Scientists are hoping for a coronavirus vaccine that is at least 75% effective, but 50% or 60% effective would be acceptable, too, he said.
- The FDA has said it would authorize a coronavirus vaccine so long as it is safe and at least 50% effective.
White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that the chances of scientists creating a highly effective vaccine — one that provides 98% or more guaranteed protection — for the virus are slim. Scientists are hoping for a coronavirus vaccine that is at least 75% effective, but 50% or 60% effective would be acceptable, too, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a Q&A with the Brown University School of Public Health. “The chances of it being 98% effective is not great, which means you must never abandon the public health approach.” “You’ve got to think of the vaccine as a tool to be able to get the pandemic to no longer be a pandemic, but to be something that’s well controlled,” he said. The Food and Drug Administration has said it would authorize a coronavirus vaccine so long as it is safe and at least 50% effective. Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA’s commissioner, said last month that the vaccine or vaccines that end up getting authorized will prove to be more than 50% effective, but it’s possible the U.S. could end up with a vaccine that, on average, reduces a person’s risk of a Covid-19 infection by just 50%. “We really felt strongly that that had to be the floor,” Hahn said on July 30, adding that it’s “been batted around among medical groups.” “But for the most part, I think, infectious disease experts have agreed that that’s a reasonable floor, of course hoping that the actual effectiveness will be higher.” A 50% effective vaccine would be roughly on par with those for influenza, but below the effectiveness of one dose of a measles vaccination, which is about 93% effective, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public health officials and scientists expect to know whether at least one of the numerous potential Covid-19 vaccines in development worldwide is safe and effective by the end of December or early next year, though there is never a guarantee. Drug companies Pfizer and Moderna both began late-stage trials for their potential vaccines last week and both expect to enroll about 30,000 participants.
Fauci has previously said he worries about the “durability” of a coronavirus vaccine, saying if Covid-19 acts like other coronaviruses, it may not provide long-term protection.
Health officials say there is no returning to “normal” until there is a vaccine. Fauci’s comment came a day after the World Health Organization cautioned about the development of vaccines, reiterating that there may never be a “silver bullet” for the virus, which continues to rapidly spread worldwide. The phase three trials underway do not necessarily mean that a vaccine is almost ready to be deployed to the public, the agency said. “Phase three doesn’t mean nearly there,” Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s emergencies health program, said during a virtual panel discussion with “NBC Nightly News” Anchor Lester
Will advise Trump to sign aid executive orders – Mnuchin
EPA-EFE/KEVIN DIETSCH
United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday he will recommend President Donald Trump to proceed with signing executive orders on the matters of unemployment insurance, evictions, student loans, and a payroll tax, aimed at combating the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Mnuchin explained he made this decision after today’s 90-minute negotiations on the aid package between him, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuch Schumer did not make “any progress.” Pelosi also previously commented the White House and Democrats are “still far apart” on reaching a new stimulus deal to support the economy. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said President Trump should sign executive orders unilaterally addressing coronavirus stimulus spending after negotiations with congressional Democrats stalled again on Friday.
Why it matters: Friday was viewed as a self-imposed deadline to negotiate a new relief bill. But after an intense week of negotiations on Capitol Hill, White House and Democratic leadership failed to reach a deal on delivering much needed aid to Americans and businesses.
- Trump’s team has already drafted a series of orders that would implement a payroll tax holiday, address the housing crisis, provide more aid for student loans and make more money available for enhanced unemployment benefits.
- Trump is expected to sign the orders over the weekend.
- Meadows: “At this point I’m extremely disappointed we came up here today just to hear same thing over and over again the same thing as the last two weeks.”
- Mnuchin: “The chief and I will recommend to the president based upon our lack of activity today to move forward with some executive orders — again, we agree with the Speaker, this is not the first choice.”
- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: “It was a disappointing meeting. We reiterated in very strong terms our offer. We’ve come down $1 trillion from our top number … Unfortunately, they rejected it. They said they couldn’t go much above their existing $1 trillion and that was disappointing.”
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Democrats view these talks as an “opportunity” to deliver for the American people, “but we can’t have it be a missed opportunity to do that by settling for something so low, so beneath meeting the needs of the American people.”
What’s next: All leaders said they are willing to continue negotiations if the opposing party is open to compromise, but several lawmakers are wary that they’ll be able to find common ground.
US job cuts up 54% in July – Challenger
The number of job cuts in the United States in July was 54% higher than in June, according to a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. published on Thursday. There were 262,649 dismissals in July, representing a 576% surge on an annual basis.
The year-to-date figure reached 1,847,696, rising by 212% from the 592,556 recorded in the same timeframe last year. The market conditions caused 77,092 layoffs, followed by 63,517 dismissals due to the coronavirus pandemic, while 60,831 people lost their jobs in July because of the demand downturn. This year, 1,074,904 cuts in total have been attributed to COVID-19.
“The downturn is far from over, especially as COVID cases rise around the country. Consumers are buying fewer goods and services, businesses are closing, and bankruptcies are rising,” Senior Vice President of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Andrew Challenger noted.
July’s job cuts brought the total so far this year to 1.848 million, up 212% from the same period in 2019. The year-to-date layoffs are just 109,180 away from the record 1.957 million job cuts announced in 2001.
The weak labor market data raises the risk of a sharper slowdown in job growth in July. The Labor Department will publish its closely watched, and broader, monthly employment report on Friday. According to a Reuters survey of economists, nonfarm payrolls likely increased by 1.6 million in July, down from the record 4.8 million jobs created in June.
According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, COVID-19 was cited as the reason for 63,517 job cuts in July. The respiratory illness has been blamed for 1.075 million layoffs so far this year. The balance of job cuts in July were attributed to market conditions, a downturn in demand and bankruptcies.
Several retailers including J.C. Penney and Lord & Taylor have filed for bankruptcy since March. Job cuts remained concentrated at bars, restaurants, hotels and amusement parks. The automotive sector cut 83,853 jobs. Hiring announcements totaled 246,507 in July, almost matching layoffs.
“It is clear that many job losses are now permanent, and it will be challenging for many workers to find new jobs and feel safe taking jobs that are public-facing,” said Challenger.