Music: Marcos Valle — ‘Lost in Tokyo Subway’
How Trump is undermining efforts to find a cure for Covid-19 by cutting vital coronavirus research
60 Minutes: Peter Daszak is a scientist whose work is helping in the search for a COVID-19 cure. So why did the president just cancel Daszak’s funding? It’s the kind of politics which might seem ill-advised in a health crisis. President Trump is blaming China’s government for the pandemic. The outbreak was first detected in the city of Wuhan. The administration has said, at times, the virus is man-made or that, if it’s natural, it must have leaked out…
What needs to go right to get a coronavirus vaccine in 12-18 months
A coronavirus vaccine is coming, but when? Francesco Carta fotografo/Moment via Getty Images By Marcos E. García-Ojeda, University of California, Merced I, like many Americans, miss the pre-pandemic world of hugging family and friends, going to work and having dinner at a restaurant. A protective vaccine for SARS-Cov2 is likely to be the most effective public health tool to get back to that world. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, cautiously estimates that a…
Could BCG, a 100-year-old vaccine for tuberculosis, protect against coronavirus?
Shutterstock By Kylie Quinn, RMIT University; Joanna Kirman, University of Otago; Katie Louise Flanagan, University of Tasmania, and Magdalena Plebanski, RMIT University This week, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced it will donate A$10 million to help fund an Australian trial testing whether a very old vaccine, BCG, can be used against a new threat, COVID-19. So what is the BCG vaccine and what might its place be in the fight against coronavirus? The ABCs of BCG The BCG…
CEOs in Iowa who came to meet Pence in masks were told to remove them
The Intercept reports: Mike Pence was unmasked in Iowa on Friday, attending two events without covering his face, even though public health officials say masks slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus and one of the vice president’s aides tested positive for Covid-19 just before he departed Washington. Two days later, the recklessness of that behavior came into sharper focus as Bloomberg News reported that Pence had decided to self-isolate at his home in Washington over the weekend — skipping…
William Barr is undermining the rule of law
Jonathan Kravis writes: Three months ago, I resigned from the Justice Department after 10 years as a career prosecutor. I left a job I loved because I believed the department had abandoned its responsibility to do justice in one of my cases, United States v. Roger Stone. At the time, I thought that the handling of the Stone case, with senior officials intervening to recommend a lower sentence for a longtime ally of President Trump, was a disastrous mistake that…
Almost 2,000 former DOJ officials call for Attorney General William Barr to resign over Flynn case
ABC News reports: Nearly 2000 former Justice Department officials have signed onto a letter calling for Attorney General William Barr to resign over what they describe as his improper intervention in the criminal case of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn. Last week, the DOJ moved to drop charges against Flynn who had pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the former Russian ambassador during the presidential transition. The letter, signed mostly by former…
During the pandemic, mutual aid is suddenly getting mainstream attention
Jia Tolentino writes: We are not accustomed to destruction looking, at first, like emptiness. The coronavirus pandemic is disorienting in part because it defies our normal cause-and-effect shortcuts to understanding the world. The source of danger is invisible; the most effective solution involves willing paralysis; we won’t know the consequences of today’s actions until two weeks have passed. Everything circles a bewildering paradox: other people are both a threat and a lifeline. Physical connection could kill us, but civic connection…
Music: Marcos Valle — ‘On Line’
Trump’s call to arms: Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do to get me reelected
Politico reports: President Donald Trump wants to draft every American to go to war. Encouraging the public to transition out of isolation and into the world, the president is increasingly deploying battlefield rhetoric in asking everyday Americans to confront a raging coronavirus pandemic that has already infected 1.3 million people in the U.S. and killed nearly 80,000 — and this week clawed into the inner circle of his White House. “The people of our country should think of themselves as…
As Trump clamps down on coronavirus communications, voices of experts give way to those of politicians
Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s oscillations over the fate of his coronavirus task force have tapped into a growing fear within the nation’s public health community: That at a critical juncture in the pandemic fight, the government’s top health experts might still be seen, but increasingly not heard. The Trump administration in recent weeks has clamped down on messaging, largely shifting its focus to cheerleading a restart of the nation’s economy even as states and businesses clamor for guidance on…
The four men responsible for America’s COVID-19 test disaster
Tim Dickinson writes: Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control, flanked Donald Trump at the podium in the White House briefing room. It was February 29th, the day of the first reported U.S. death from the coronavirus, and the president fielded an urgent question: “How should Americans prepare for this virus?” a reporter asked. “Should they go on with their daily lives? Change their routine? What should they do?” In that moment, America was flying blind…
A global challenge demands global cooperation
Helen Branswell writes: Forty years ago, the world celebrated the vanquishing of a formidable foe, smallpox, which had maimed and killed millions for centuries. On May 8, 1980, the World Health Organization declared that smallpox had been eradicated. That milestone, reached while the Cold War still raged, is an example of what the public health world can achieve when it works together — and is particularly resonant in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The campaign against smallpox took 21…
The challenge of containing an outbreak of Covid-19 inside ‘a small, crowded place’ — the White House
The New York Times reports: Trump continues to reject guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to wear a mask when meeting with groups of people. But a senior administration official said the president was spooked that his valet, who is among those who serve him food, had not been wearing a mask. And he was annoyed to learn that Ms. Miller tested positive and has been growing irritated with people who get too close to him, the…
The economy is in free fall but Wall Street is thriving
By Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica, May 10, 2020 Ten weeks into the worst crisis in 90 years, the government’s effort to save the economy has been both a spectacular success and a catastrophic failure. The clearest illustration of that came on Friday, when the government reported that 20.5 million people lost their jobs in April. It marked a period of unfathomable pain across the country not seen since the Great Depression. Also on Friday, the stock market rallied. The S&P 500…
Trump asking justices to bar demands for his tax and other financial records
The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump is hoping to persuade a Supreme Court with two of his appointees to keep his tax and other financial records from being turned over to lawmakers and a New York district attorney. The justices are hearing arguments by telephone Tuesday in a pivotal legal fight that could affect the presidential campaign, even with the coronavirus outbreak and the resulting economic fallout. Rulings against the president could result in the quick release of personal…