1. Nostalgia for Normalcy
A week ago, everything changed, right? We saw a "new" Donald Trump, a president who finally took the science seriously and whose more sober tone suggested, the pundits told us, that "this was a different Trump," and that he finally "gets it."
For the moment, Trump had dropped his loose talk about reopening the country by Easter Sunday and Joe Scarborough was so gobsmacked that he toyed with the idea of comparing his leadership style with FDR.
That lasted how long? By Saturday the mood had noticeably shifted.
 Even as the Surgeon General warned that this coming week "could be a national catastrophe comparable to Pearl Harbor or 9/11," Trump was back to suggesting that Americans might be able to get together for Easter services next Sunday. He also continued to suggest that conoravirus patients take an unproven drug. It's easy to dump on the commentators who imagined that Trump had pivoted last week. It was, yet again, the triumph of hope over experience. We've been here before, again and again and again and it always ends the same way. But let's not dismiss the hope too quickly. The eagerness to embrace the New Trump was, in some measure, a grasping for a sense of normality. We want so desperately to imagine that Trump can be a normal president who responds with a modicum of pragmatism, rational calculation, or at least a sense of self-preservation. As the shades close in, the sense of the normal feels like a powerful defense, because the alternative is too unnerving. So, even as Trump reverted to lashing out at critics, berating reporters, peddling hoaxes, joking about banging models, and trotting out Jared Kushner, pundits convinced themselves that even the most shambolic briefings were somehow reassuring. Less reassuring... The mounting evidence of the Administration's epic failures and incompetence. 
The country has adopted an array of wartime measures never employed collectively in U.S. history — banning incoming travelers from two continents, bringing commerce to a near-halt, enlisting industry to make emergency medical gear, and confining 230 million Americans to their homes in a desperate bid to survive an attack by an unseen adversary.
Despite these and other extreme steps, the United States will likely go down as the country that was supposedly best prepared to fight a pandemic but ended up catastrophically overmatched by the novel coronavirus, sustaining heavier casualties than any other nation. […]
The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak of the coronavirus in China on Jan. 3. Within days, U.S. spy agencies were signaling the seriousness of the threat to Trump by including a warning about the coronavirus — the first of many — in the President’s Daily Brief.
And yet, it took 70 days from that initial notification for Trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force that had outflanked America’s defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens. That more-than-two-month stretch now stands as critical time that was squandered. […]
This article, which retraces the failures over the first 70 days of the coronavirus crisis, is based on 47 interviews with administration officials, public health experts, intelligence officers and others involved in fighting the pandemic. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and decisions.
And this from the AP: A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.
And this from the NYT: And then there was the rest of the week.... |
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2. Friday Night Payback
Even in the middle of a deadly pandemic, he made clear on Saturday that he remained fixated on purging the government of those he believes betrayed him during the inquiry that led to his Senate trial.
The president’s under-cover-of-darkness decision late the night before to fire Michael K. Atkinson, the intelligence community’s inspector general who insisted last year on forwarding a whistle-blower complaint to Congress, swept away one more official deemed insufficiently loyal as part of a larger purge that has already rid the administration of many key figures in the impeachment drama. Mr. Trump made no effort at a news briefing on Saturday to pretend that the dismissal was anything other than retribution for Mr. Atkinson’s action under a law requiring such complaints be disclosed to lawmakers. “I thought he did a terrible job, absolutely terrible,” Mr. Trump said. “He took a fake report and he brought it to Congress.” Capping a long, angry denunciation of the impeachment, he added, “The man is a disgrace to I.G.s. He’s a total disgrace.” Mr. Trump’s hunt for informers and turncoats proceeds even while most Americans are focused on the coronavirus outbreak that has killed thousands and shut down most of the country. The president’s determination to wipe out perceived treachery underscores his intense distrust of the government that he oversees at a time when he is relying on career public health and emergency management officials to help guide him through one of the most dangerous periods in modern American history.
The Navy also relieved the captain of the USS Roosevelt, after he sounded the alarm about the coronavirus on his ship. “I thought it was terrible what he did,” Trump said during Saturday’s coronavirus press briefing. “To write a letter? I mean, this isn’t a class on literature.” He added, “He shouldn’t be talking that way in a letter.” The sailors under the command of Captain Brett Crozier disagreed. The result was one of the most dramatic displays of the week. WASHINGTON — It was a send-off for the ages, with hundreds of sailors aboard the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt cheering Capt. Brett E. Crozier, the commander who sacrificed his naval career by writing a letter to his superiors demanding more help as the novel coronavirus spread through the ship. The rousing show of support provided the latest gripping scene to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic: the rank and file shouting their admiration for a boss they viewed as putting their safety ahead of his career.
A badge of honor.  Via David Ignatius The crisis aboard the Roosevelt has been building for weeks, as the virus spread among the ship’s roughly 4,800 officers and sailors. Coronavirus test kits were rushed to the ship, and it sought refuge in Guam. But moving infected sailors off the ship was complicated, for logistical, political and readiness reasons. As of Friday, Modly said about 140 members of the Roosevelt’s crew had tested positive for covid-19. One of the surprising aspects of the Roosevelt drama is how closely Modly became involved in matters that would normally be handled by uniformed officers. Appointed undersecretary with White House support in 2017, Modly has been an aggressive communicator since becoming acting secretary in November, following the firing of Richard Spencer, who had clashed with Trump over the treatment of Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher. Modly has sent out 18 communiques, which he calls “Vectors,” to Navy personnel that mix command advice with folksy references to sports heroes includer pitcher Bob Feller and quarterback Tom Brady.
All the best people. |
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3. The Wisconsin Sh*t Show
MADISON - Get ready for the pandemic election. Republicans stalled Gov. Tony Evers' move to push back Tuesday's election, quickly adjourning a special legislative session to deal with voting issues because of the coronavirus pandemic. During Saturday's proceedings, the state Assembly and state Senate each gaveled in and out within seconds and recessed until Monday. The move came as pressure mounted on the Democratic governor to act on his own by using emergency powers to block the election. A source close to Evers said the governor was reluctant to do that over concerns that a postponement would quickly be blocked by conservatives who control the state Supreme Court. With only a few lawmakers present, the Legislature did not take up Evers' effort to extend the election date to May 19 and convert entirely to mail-in voting. As the Legislature made its move, the virus remained unabated. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Wisconsin has more than doubled this week, climbing to over 2,000 on Saturday. Milwaukee County accounts for around half the cases.
Meanwhile, Trump has made it clear that the GOP will oppose any attempts to expand vote by mail nationally. Via Politico: President Donald Trump’s political operation is launching a multimillion-dollar legal campaign aimed at blocking Democrats from drastically changing voting rules in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
The public health crisis is already injecting a huge X-factor into the election, with impossible-to-predict effects on voter turnout, and officials in both parties acknowledge the fights over voting laws could affect the outcome of the election.
Exit take: A federal judge has extended the deadline for absentee ballots, but the WI GOP (following Trump's line), is appealing the ruling to the US Supreme Court. However the court rules, Wisconsin's election on Tuesday is going to be an epic mess.... |
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4. The Problem Is Not The Media This Time
Make sure you read Cathy Young's brilliant, in-depth analysis of the media and its critics in the Bulwark.
"As America’s death toll from the coronavirus pandemic skyrockets while Donald Trump continues his displays of aggrieved narcissism, a large segment of conservative opinion—mostly but not entirely pro-Trump or anti-anti-Trump—has turned its attention to a familiar whipping boy: According to a Washington Examiner headline, “No institution has failed the public worse than the news media.”
Young recognizes that there is a genuine problem of "progressive groupthink and left-wing bias in the mainstream media."
"It’s an issue I have written about on plenty of occasions over the past three decades, and it has gotten worse in recent years with the rise of clickbait and the simultaneous rise of a cadre of “woke” journalists who consciously embrace social justice activism as part of their work."
But, she writes, despite occasional lapses (which she documents), "the coverage of the coronavirus pandemic was not one of those cases."
But there is a world of difference between such introspection and using cherry-picked “headlines from the left” to deflect criticism of Trump’s negligence or of coronavirus denialism on the right. Some mainstream media outlets may have run regrettable “nothing to see here” articles in late January and early February; many mainstream journalists may have been insufficiently diligent and willing to ask questions. But this does not begin to compare to the dismal record of the president and the right-wing media, such as Trump’s insistence on downplaying the pandemic well into March when the full scope of the looming disaster was already clear, or the drumbeat of coronavirus trutherism from conservative outlets and pro-Trump pundits like former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, The Federalist’s Sean Davis, activist Candace Owens, and far too many others. (Some of them are still pushing it: After songwriter Adam Schlesinger died of COVID-19 complications on April 1 at the age of 52, Owens started a rumor—apparently based on misreading a Google search results—that he had been battling pancreatic cancer and that the media were covering it up, presumably to stoke fear that the disease is killing healthy people in their prime.)
Read the whole thing in the Bulwark.
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5. Held Hostage
Also in this weekend's Bulwark, Philip Rotner writes that America is being held hostage to Trump's bogus narratives.
Trump rolled out his new narrative during an extraordinary March 31 briefing. He called the virus a “plague.” He stopped distancing himself from the more dire estimates of the health professionals on his task force and embraced them like a long-lost lover. Without his leadership, 2.2 million people “and even beyond” would surely die: “You would have had people dying all over the place . . . you would have seen people dying on airplanes, you would have seen people dying in hotel lobbies, you would have seen death all over,” he explained. Things are so bad that, in this new reality, the best-case scenario, if we do everything right, is 100,000 to 240,000 deaths. In other words, he reset the bar so low that if “only” hundreds of thousands of Americans die, he is the hero. And if “only” 90,000 Americans die, he’s the greatest leader since Perecles. What this misses, of course, is the fact that Trump’s incompetence and refusal to accept any reality counter to his preferred narrative are largely responsible for the number of Americans who will die, whatever that number winds up being between now and when a vaccine is deployed. In other words: Trump will claim credit for fixing a crisis that he helped create. He is, as always, an arsonist masquerading as a fireman.
Read the whole thing. |
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1. For The Museum of Disinformation
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1. Viktor Orbán's American Apologists
Damon Linker, writing in The Week, notes that by those "who find themselves on the losing side of political and cultural disputes, there are, broadly speaking, two options: Keep playing the liberal game in the hope of a better outcome down the line — or sign up for a more radical political program aimed at toppling the prevailing order and replacing it with one in which the dissenters might be given a greater share of ruling power."
This is a choice that conservative intellectuals have confronted in recent years, with right-wing anti-liberal movements on the rise at home and across the liberal-democratic world tempting them with the promise of new and expanded horizons. None of these ascendant nationalists and populists has managed to generate more support from American conservatives than Hungary's Viktor Orbán. While those on the center-left and center-right have warned that Orbán and his Fidesz Party were playing with anti-Semitic fire in their unhinged attacks on Jewish financier George Soros, taking direct aim at civil liberties by shutting down opposition news outlets and a prominent university in the capital city of Budapest, and making repeated gestures toward favoring single-party rule, many conservatives swooned — far more than most of them have for President Trump.
Read the whole thing.
On March 31, over a 24 hour period, 1,049 Americans died from COVID-19.
That's the official number for now—as we're seeing in Italy, the real number may be higher, because it's not clear that deaths are being tabulated as caused by COVID-19 unless there is either pre- or post-mortem testing for the virus.
But let's just pretend that the 1,049 number is right. Put in the context, that makes it one of the deadliest single days in U.S. history. But put it in another context and you'll see that this isn't some crazy one-off, like most of the other bloodiest days in American history—it's part of a trend that is increasing. |
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This the geometric progression I kept shouting about weeks ago: The number of deaths per day doubles roughly every three of four days.
Doubling. That's the key to understanding how virality functions. We will soon be at 2,000 deaths per day.
Just try to get your head around that.
This New York Times piece does a nice job trying to hold some of the people from Conservatism Inc. who worked to prevent Americans from taking COVID-19 seriously. But honestly, it's not enough. When this is all over, there should be a reckoning—a very real, very thorough reckoning—for all of the people who made this pandemic worse by pushing disinformation and lies in the service of making it harder for the country to quickly respond to the crisis.
But why wait? Let's talk about Rush Limbaugh, because what this man has said over the last month ought to mark him for the rest of his life.- February 24: "Folks, this coronavirus thing, I want to try to put this in perspective for you. It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. You think I’m wrong about this? You think I’m missing it by saying that’s -- Yeah, I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks."
- February 25: "Why couldn’t the coronavirus get Donald Trump reelected? What if the United States comes up with a dramatically great policy to deal with it—and the number of cases in the United States dwindles, goes down, or does not expand like the cases around the world? Then why wouldn’t that be beneficial to Trump? Notice: Here we are in February, and they’ve already got this virus ruining the economy by November, in time to take out Trump. This is proof they’ve got nothing. They know they can’t beat the guy, folks.... Donald Trump has survived every coup attempt, every assault on him, that has been made up and now the coronavirus, they're trying to lay it at his feet and make him responsible for it and they're doing irresponsible news reports claiming that the coronavirus is gonna destroy the US economy by when? November! Isn't it magical? The coronavirus is the new Russians..."
- March 9: "Democrats out the wazoo are showing up at Trump rallies. This is why they want these rallies stopped. This is why -- it’s not because of public safety, not because of public health."
- March 11: "This coronavirus, they’re just — all of this panic is just not warranted. This, I’m telling you, when I tell you — when I’ve told you that this virus is the common cold. When I said that, it was based on the number of cases. It’s also based on the kind of virus this is. Why do you think this is “COVID-19”? This is the 19th coronavirus. They’re not uncommon. Coronaviruses are respiratory cold and flu viruses. There is nothing about this, except where it came from, and the itinerant media panic..."
- March 13: "We're shutting down our country because of the — the cold virus, which is what coronaviruses are. This is COVID-19, the 19th version of the coronavirus. We're shutting it — can you imagine our enemies watching this? You think the Chinese are not laughing themselves silly over how easy this has been?"
- March 27: "We didn't elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don't know. And how do we know they're even health experts? Well, they wear white lab coats, and they've been in the job for a while, and they're at the CDC and they're at the NIH, and they're up, well — yeah, they've been there, and they are there. But has there been any job assessment for them? They're just assumed to be the best because they're in government. But, these are all kinds of things that I've been questioning."
There was another moment on March 11 where Limbaugh claimed that "medical professionals" weren't overly concerned and then did a little rant against the very idea of suppression and mitigation protocols: [A]s I’ve watched any number of other experts speak, you know what I’ve observed, ladies and gentlemen? Is that medical professionals seem the least panicked of anybody.The people that seem the most panicked are politicians, followed by media. . . . Has anybody ever contained the spread of the common cold? Has anybody ever contained the spread of the flu? No. It’s a guaranteed failure, and when the failure is announced, guess what? It’s more panic. “We have lost the ability to contain the spread of COVID-19!” Well, you can’t contain the spread of anything else, either. These diseases run their course. But when you announce that your objective is to contain the spread, you are. I’m sorry, folks, that’s a political decision, and it’s guaranteed to fail, by design. Have we contained the spread of cancer? Have we contained the spread?
"The spread of cancer?" AYFKM? I can't believe I have to say this to a guy who has cancer, but cancer is not an infectious disease. How on God's earth can Limbaugh talk like this—tell people that suppressing the spread of COVID-19 is impossible because we haven't been able to stop "the spread of cancer"—and not be looked at as a dangerous and irresponsible crank.
Or worse, actually.
Because I suspect that Limbaugh does understand the difference between an infectious disease and cancer. I suspect that he's just lying about it to his audience for profit. Either way, this man has blood on his hands. |
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 |  | | Important developments in the coronavirus pandemic. | | Presented by Slack | | |
| | | The Post's coronavirus coverage linked in this newsletter is free to access from this email. | | | The latestThis newsletter usually opens with the U.S. death toll, but today let's spend a moment on the day toll: The early days of the spread of the coronavirus in which crucial opportunities to respond were squandered by systemic federal government failures, as chronicled in several new stories. Seventy days elapsed from the first time the White House was formally notified of the outbreak in China on Jan. 3 until President Trump began to treat the virus “as a lethal force that had outflanked America’s defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens,” according to Washington Post reporting based on 47 interviews with administration officials, public health experts, intelligence officers and others. Twenty-one days in February were lost as the administration relied on a coronavirus test known to be flawed and prevented private labs from deploying better ones, blinding doctors and scientists as the virus spread across the country. Read our deep dive into scientists' alarm and exasperation during that period. Eighteen months ago — long before the outbreak — “the Trump administration received detailed plans for a new machine designed to churn out millions of protective respirator masks at high speed during a pandemic,” we report in another story. It was never built, and the U.S. government is now so desperate for masks it has asked 3M to stop sending them to Canada and other countries, prompting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to warn the United States would be “hurting itself as much as Canada” because essential goods and services flow both ways. Eleven days from now, the country will need 32,000 ventilators, far more than are in the government stockpile, according to an estimate by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Because U.S. officials played down the virus for so long, Ford and General Motors only recently overhauled their factories to make the machines, and the bulk of their production won't come on line until May. Read more here. These cumulative problems mean “the United States will likely go down as the country that was supposedly best prepared to fight a pandemic but ended up catastrophically overmatched by the novel coronavirus, sustaining heavier casualties than any other nation,” we write in our story on the 70 lost days. Other numbers: The U.S. has suffered more than 7,800 deaths and more than 290,000 confirmed infections from the virus. The jobless rate jumped to 4.4 percent in March, its sharpest one-month rise since 1975. Millions of Americans have been laid off or furloughed, more than 60,000 stores have shuttered, and analysts say many of them will never open again. A week after Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill, key Democrats are already talking about another one. And new signs of dysfunction: After a behind-the-scenes debate between officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and White House officials, Trump unenthusiastically announced the agency's recommendation that Americans start wearing face coverings in public. Even as he shared the guidance, Trump said he would not follow it himself. Read more about that here.
COVID-19
Tech Impact BriefingApril 03, 2020
We made it to the end of another working week in these pandemic-distorted times. The headlines steadily get more grim, both in terms of people affected by the coronavirus and jobs disappearing from the economic upheaval. What becomes clear every week is just how far the ripples of the dislocation extend. It’s now hard to think of any companies that will be completely unscathed by what is sure to be a deep recession. As the past week has demonstrated, even Zoom Video has hit some bumps from the surge in demand for its service. Amazon is grappling with worker unrest. Netflix may face a shortage of new TV shows later in the year.
One thing is certain: This will lead to a completely reshaped business landscape. We’ll be tracking every detail of the transition.
And now onto the news...
Job Losses Mount
It’s hard to say how many of the 701,000 jobs that were lost in March came out of the tech industry. But whatever the number, it has grown a little bit in the past few days.
- On Friday, Minted, which sells art and other goods through an online marketplace, said it would cut 147 jobs, or 31% of its workforce.
- Bustle, a digital media company that has grown through a series of acquisitions in recent years, closed one of those acquired publications—the Outline—and laid off 24 employees.
- Wonolo, an on-demand staffing agency, cut 13% of its North American staff and more in the Philippines.
- Disney is furloughing some employees “whose jobs aren’t necessary at this time.”
Power Shift in the Valley The economic slump accompanying the pandemic has rewritten the rules by which venture capitalists invested in startups. After years where entrepreneurs had the upper hand, the VCs now have the power. As Mitchell Green of Lead Edge Capital, told The Information: ‘If you need to raise money, you’re kind of screwed. ...Over the last decade, companies have had the upper hand because there’s so much money. Now, if you are forced to raise capital, [investors] will have the upper hand and be able to get good prices.’
Airbnb Puts a Number on Its Value Decline Airbnb cut its internal valuation 16% to $26 billion, the Financial Times reported, reflecting how the company’s business has shrunk due to the coronavirus pandemic. The internal number, known as a 409a valuation, determines at what price stock is issued to employees. For Airbnb, which is reportedly looking to raise fresh funds, the reduction is an indication of the new reality the company faces.
Tech Lobbies on ‘Essential Workers’ Overseas
Tech companies are growing increasingly worried about their global supply chains and are calling on governments around the world to standardize policies and declare many types of technology industry employees “essential workers” amid the coronavirus pandemic, The Information reported. While some countries declared certain tech industry employees as essential—such as IT and call center workers—there are no clear rules in countries such as Malaysia, India and Brazil. Technology trade groups have said they have heard anecdotes about tech workers in the U.S. being pulled over by police on the way to work. Some companies are providing notes to employees stating that they are “essential” to avoid commuting trouble.
Pandemic-Driven Rescheduling - Disney rearranged its movie release schedule, the Hollywood Reporter said. The studio postponed “Jungle Cruise” by a year and films such as “Mulan” and “Black Widow” by several months. One movie, Artemis Fowl, will be released first on Disney’s streaming service Disney Plus, a sign of how the pandemic is upending longstanding Hollywood convention.
- Amazon is planning to postpone its annual summertime Prime Day sales event from July to at least August, according to Reuters.
- Apple is extending the closure of its retail stores and work-from-home arrangements for corporate employees through early May, Bloomberg reported.
Tech Help Google plans to use some of the vast trove of data that it collects on people’s whereabouts to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, by helping public health officials track whether people are following social distancing rules. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() 
By Kate Clark For years, entrepreneurs have called the shots in Silicon Valley’s startup ecosystem as an abundance of capital chased a limited supply of good ideas. READ STORY →
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By Zoë Bernard Before the coronavirus pandemic forced Vanessa Sussman to work from home, it never bothered her that colleagues didn't turn on their cameras during meetings over video calls. But now, given the deluge of Zoom calls she has been participating in for work, it seems slightly rude to Sussman, a vice president of communications at financial firm Morningstar. READ STORY →
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By Tom Dotan Zoë breaks down the new strange world of video conference etiquette. We discuss how the new remote lifestyle has raised questions about the proper way to interact over video chat. And she explains why an etiquette coach said you technically don't have to wear pants when you're on a Zoom conference (or any video conference for that matter). LISTEN → The ride-hailing businesses of Uber and Lyft have shrunk by about half in recent weeks compared with a year ago as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to people at the companies with knowledge of the figures. The overall contraction could worsen for both companies as the pandemic’s toll grows and more people stay indoors. For now, the value of fares Uber and Lyft collect from passengers has fallen by more than 50%. At Uber, the impact on ride-hailing revenue could be somewhat smaller because Uber has been paying drivers a lower share of passenger fares than it did last year. Taking that change into account, Uber’s revenue from passenger rides, after paying drivers, is likely to be less than $450 million a month. That compares with about $800 million in monthly passenger revenue that Uber generated in last year’s first quarter. Take advantage of this special offer to start your subscription to The Information and then continue reading the full story.
EXCLUSIVE TRAVEL REAL ESTATE Airbnb plans to halt all of its marketing, pause most hiring, and likely withhold employee bonuses as it tries to conserve cash amid a slide in bookings, CEO Brian Chesky told employees in a video conference call Thursday, a person familiar with the matter said.
EXCLUSIVE MEDIA/TELECOM E-COMMERCE Publishers are bracing for a pullback in advertising amid the Covid-19 pandemic. And one big shoe has already dropped: Amazon and Walmart have temporarily suspended commerce marketing deals with digital media firms such as BuzzFeed, two people familiar with the situation said.
EXCLUSIVE APPLE COVID-19 By Nick Bastone and Wayne Ma Normally, Apple’s hardware teams meet in person at the company’s Cupertino, California, headquarters to review upcoming products, often bringing key components of their devices to show colleagues.
TRUE VALUE ENTERPRISE STARTUPS By Kevin Dugan and Martin Peers No matter how the pandemic ends, one thing is certain: Zoom Video has become a household name as people flock to it to connect with work colleagues, family and friends.
EXCLUSIVE ASIA GOOGLE By Alex Heath and Jessica Toonkel YouTube is planning to release a rival to TikTok, the hugely popular video-sharing app, by the end of the year, according to two people familiar with the matter. |
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Officials say protective gear ordered for Berlin police was intercepted in Thailand and diverted to US APRIL 4, 2020 by Guy Chazan
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Businesses call for more support after stringent requirements stop many from securing crucial funds APRIL 3, 2020 by Daniel Thomas and Chris Giles
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More than 10m Americans register for unemployment benefits in two weeks APRIL 3, 2020 by Darren Dodd
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Radical reforms are required to forge a society that will work for all APRIL 3, 2020 by The editorial board
Decades of bad choices have relentlessly favoured the interests of the private sector MARCH 29, 2020 by Rana Foroohar |
Help wanted: If it wasn’t apparent before, Covid-19 has underscored the critical role child care plays in society. “It’s child care that allows every other industry to work,” says Hannah Matthews at the anti-poverty nonprofit Center for Law and Social Policy. Yet, as stay-at-home orders bring city after city to a standstill, it’s become painfully clear how fragile the system truly is. Essential workers on the front lines of the pandemic, from nurses and EMTs to grocery and utility workers, are struggling to find backup child care now that schools and daycare centers have closed. Parents working from home are also now facing the challenge of how to literally do two jobs at once. Cities and communities across the globe are scrambling to come up with alternatives. Some are supporting existing child-care centers through incentives; others are opening emergency facilities staffed by government employees and volunteers. But who qualifies for those services varies from place to place, leaving many workers in the lurch. Meanwhile, in the U.S., private daycare centers that are allowed or even urged to stay open for emergency workers — despite the lack of clear social distancing guidance — are barely staying afloat as paying clients pull their kids out in droves. Nonprofits, tech startups, and university students have also stepped in to fill the gaps. Some parents, though, are finding that in desperate times, leaning on their neighbors is the most viable option of all. Today on CityLab: What Emergency Child Care Looks Like During a Pandemic -Linda Poon More on CityLabTo prevent a housing disaster, leaders in nine U.S. cities called on state and federal officials to give more support to tenants as the Covid-19 crisis deepens.
-KRISTON CAPPS AND SARAH HOLDER Despite Covid-19’s spread in New Orleans, police have recently increased arrests for nonviolent crimes. Louisiana’s top court could put a stop to that.
-BRENTIN MOCK Manufacturing takes more of a beating in recessions than other sectors. Still scarred from the 2008 financial crisis, it now faces a downturn that could be even worse.
-SHAWN DONNAN, JOE DEAUX, READE PICKERT, AND
KEITH NAUGHTON (BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK) What We’re Reading- Big cities won’t snap back to normal after the pandemic recedes (The Atlantic)
- Cast adrift by the virus, the newly homeless seek a place to recover (The City)
- Women are using code words at pharmacies to escape domestic violence during lockdown (CNN)
- Can community health centers survive the coronavirus fight? (U.S. News)
- Delivery apps offer restaurants a lifeline—at a cost (Wired)
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE-- Officially, both parties’ conventions are still on. But the spread of coronavirus has raised the distinct possibility that one or both parties will have to find an alternative to an in-person convention. -- Experts say that taking care of a convention’s business online is feasible, but it will require advance planning. -- The Democrats have more to worry about from a canceled in-person convention, both because their convention is scheduled for several weeks earlier than the Republican confab and because Democrats need to get their message out more urgently, given that the GOP currently holds the White House. Virtual conventions: suddenly a possibilityWill there be Democratic and Republican conventions this summer? The coronavirus pandemic, and the social distancing needed to combat it, are putting these quadrennial festivities in doubt -- an unprecedented situation that is leaving party officials, politicians, and the media in a quandary, with a fast-ticking clock. Officially, both parties’ conventions remain on. The Democratic National Convention had been scheduled for July 13 to July 16 in Milwaukee. The Republican convention is later -- Aug. 24 to Aug. 27 in Charlotte -- but both confabs face a seemingly endless list of uncertainties. “While we continue to closely monitor this fluid situation, the Democratic National Convention Committee will remain focused on planning a safe and successful convention in Milwaukee four months from now,” Joe Solmonese, CEO of the Democratic National Convention Committee, told Sabato’s Crystal Ball in a statement. “As we prepare these plans, we will remain in constant communication with the local, state, and federal officials responsible for protecting public health and security -- and will continue to follow their guidance as we move forward.” Meanwhile, Blair Ellis, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Convention, told the Wall Street Journal, “We recognize and will take additional steps to ensure the safety and health of all attendees in light of the spread of COVID-19 and will continue to communicate with federal, state and local health experts in our planning. We have fantastic partners in Charlotte and beyond helping us plan a successful convention.” For his part, President Donald Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity, “No way I’m going to cancel the convention. We’re going to have the convention, it’s going to be incredible.” Political observers, however, aren’t so sure. The Rev. Leah D. Daughtry, who headed the 2008 and 2016 Democratic conventions, told Sabato’s Crystal Ball that canceling the in-person convention is “a rising possibility, especially now that the Olympics are postponed for a year. It will be difficult to justify gathering 50,000 people in one place when the very next week it would have been the Olympics and they’ve been canceled.” If some positive event occurs, such as a very early vaccine or drastically improved testing, “then maybe an in-person convention can be pulled off successfully,” said Colorado State University political scientist Kyle Saunders. However, he added, “I have to think a convention is unlikely if we are assessing things today.” Among the countless factors to consider are whether hotels near the convention site will be open and staffed. That’s unclear for now. Daughtry estimated that the final date to move ahead or cancel the Democratic convention is probably around June 1. That’s about three weeks before the final delegates are due to be elected by voters, due to coronavirus-driven primary election delays. (See the updated primary calendar here.) There also needs to be time for local, congressional district, and state committees to choose some of the individuals to fill the delegate slots secured by each candidate. In this regard, the Democrats have a complication the Republicans don’t -- the ongoing primary contest between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Due to the rash of delayed primaries, Biden may not officially reach the nomination threshold of 1,991 delegates until June, not long before the convention is supposed to be held. State and local delays in naming the people to fill the delegate slots could add extra time to the process. If Sanders were to exit the race early and concede the nomination to Biden, that would make it easier to plan a remote convention, since it would rule out a second ballot that includes voting by “superdelegates,” experts say. Superdelegates are lawmakers and other senior Democrats who, under the current rules, don’t vote unless no candidate wins a simple majority of delegates in the first round. If Sanders remains in the race until the convention, that could add wrinkles to the planning for a remote convention. How can you build a remote convention?A remote convention could be structured around a series of events on broadcast and social media, Saunders said.“You could do speeches and floor votes, with watch parties at local and state party headquarters,” Saunders said. “That could be a unifying, positive event that builds party rapport and purpose -- if the parties could find a way to pull it off.” The official business conducted at the convention -- the certification of the delegates, the passage of convention rules, and the nomination of the presidential and vice presidential candidates -- can probably be redesigned to be handled online, with appropriate planning, experts said. That said, “I’ll preface everything I say with, ‘I don’t know,’” said Josh Putnam, a political scientist who specializes in delegate selection rules and presidential elections. “There’s no clear language that covers anything like this. This is not something we deal with every four years.” Daughtry said the biggest obstacle is that the rules currently do not allow for proxy voting; for now, all votes must be cast in person. To fix that, Putnam said, the DNC could meet remotely and change the rules to allow remote voting for conventions. This would require a simple majority vote of the DNC membership. Alternately, or in conjunction, the DNC could vote on a permanent bylaw, which would need a two-thirds vote to pass. “I don’t think it’s a tremendous obstacle to change the rules -- you just have to be up-front and transparent about it,” Putnam said. Here are the key pieces of official business that need to be conducted at a Democratic convention. They would all need to be done remotely if the in-person convention is canceled: -- Certification of the delegates: This is the process the party uses to confirm which individual occupies which delegate slot. Sometimes the choice of a delegate is contested due to procedural complaints; certification is the process for resolving these disputes. -- Approving the rules of the convention: These are the rules that govern how the convention is run -- for instance, how long the nominating and seconding speeches will go. Typically, the rules are hashed out by the DNC the weekend before the convention starts, with delegates voting on the rules package on the first day of the convention. -- Electing the officers of the convention: The convention begins with temporary officials, including the chair, which is filled temporarily by the DNC chair. The delegates need to vote to approve the formal officers for the duration of the convention; this typically occurs on the first evening of the convention. The permanent convention officials are empowered to conduct subsequent business at the convention. -- Nomination of the presidential and vice presidential candidates: These nominations are the high point of any convention, when the candidates experience their formal coming-out party on the national stage. The voting is traditionally done through a roll call of state delegations that is by turns dramatic and hokey. All of these would have to be done remotely if there is no in-person convention. In theory, a convention could be made to be delegates-only, without families, donors, and other hangers-on (members of the media, who make up a significant chunk of the out-of-town visitors to any convention city, could also in theory be relegated along with everyone else to a livestream). But even a gathering that small would not significantly reduce health concerns. “Would even the 5,000 delegates and staff want to get on a plane and stay in a hotel and eat at restaurants and gather in the arena?” Daughtry said. “I have older parents. I would think five times before doing that. I’m not sure what I’d bring home.” The Republicans have the luxury of several additional weeks to plan, and the GOP has a smaller universe of delegates to consider. Still, the GOP will have to grapple with many of the same questions as the Democrats will, sooner or later. What would be the consequences of a 2020 without conventions?A convention provides the party holding it with several benefits. It allows a chance to unify the party after a divisive primary season. It allows a chance for officials to woo donors who will be providing financial support down the stretch. And it provides an opportunity for party members to network and be trained for the fall campaign. But the biggest impact is probably in the realm of publicity. For both parties -- and especially for the party out of power, as the Democrats are this year -- the convention offers four days of saturation coverage of the nominee and the party’s platform. The biggest challenge for a party losing its chance to mount a convention “is the loss of the nation’s attention for four days, to allow the nominee to lay out the party’s agenda and platform,” Daughtry said. Historically, this concentrated dose of media attention has prompted a “convention bounce” in the polls. Broadly speaking, both parties tend to get a bounce in the first set of polls after their convention. On average, these bounces tend to be short-lived, and they largely cancel each other out by the time the fall campaign starts. However, modest cycle-to-cycle differences in impact can make a difference. As a general rule, whoever is ahead after the second convention tends to win in November, said Christopher Wlezien, a University of Texas-Austin political scientist and co-author of the book, The Timeline of Presidential Elections. With the possibility of only one party convention being held in 2020 -- or none -- “it’s all going to be different this year,” Wlezien said in an interview. “The question is how different. The parties are not going to punt entirely -- they will substitute something fractional. So you might get some of the effects you’d normally get, but I’d assume they’d be less.” Logic would suggest that the out-party -- this year, the Democrats -- has the most to lose from the absence of a convention. That could be especially true if Trump continues to hold daily briefings on the coronavirus pandemic, sucking up most of the media oxygen. But Biden, having served as vice president for eight years, is better known than many past out-of-power-party nominees, meaning the Democrats’ downside risk could be more modest. And Republicans could suffer from the lack of a convention, too. The GOP has “a sitting president who prides himself on creating an award-winning show,” Daughtry said. The inability to leverage that expertise could be a disappointment for the party. Potentially, the elimination of traditional conventions could produce a “more dynamic” fall campaign, in which new methods of campaigning and a different landscape of events produces unexpected ebbs and flows of public opinion, Wlezien said. How much the media covers a non-convention convention will make a difference, he added. On the other hand, public opinion in the Trump era has been highly stable. This leads some observers to suggest that the presence or the absence of conventions will ultimately be a blip by Election Day. “I don’t think it would have any effect on the outcome of the election,” said Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz. “This is going to be a referendum on Trump, and nothing that happens at a party convention is going to change how Americans view him.” Could 2020 be the end of conventions as we know them?For decades, political elites have wondered whether four-day political convocations -- which for decades have been more pomp than circumstance -- would be able to survive in a time of narrowed attention spans and an ever-more fractured media landscape. Now, with the possibility that conventions could go online in 2020, might the entire idea of conventions be changed forever? It’s possible, said Saunders of Colorado State. If a retooled online convention “worked and was successful, it could well kill off the traditional conventions forever. They would still happen, but as ‘internet events,’” he said. Daughtry agreed that it’s possible. “I love the pageantry, but after this, there will be some questions,” she said. “What you need to get done you can do in three hours. The rest is a show. So the question people will ask is, why are we doing this for four days? Can we do it in one day? Is the time and expense worth it?” Still, don’t count conventions out entirely, observers say. While there will be a temptation to kill off the conventions, the chance to earn loads of free media will be hard for the parties to pass up. “The question is whether the media wants to cover these events in the future,” Putnam said. In all likelihood, he said, it’s like the movie Field of Dreams: “If you build it, the media will come.” Wlezien said he expects conventions to follow the course of workplaces after the coronavirus pandemic eases. “When people get used to working using (the teleconferencing software) Zoom, will we not have offices any more?” he said. “I think the answer is that we’ll still have offices. But we might have a few more days off working at home. For conventions, political elites seem to want them.” Jo Ann Davidson, a Columbus, Ohio-based Republican official and former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives who was a key planner of the 2008 and 2016 Republican conventions, said that because political people love conventions, they will be hard to give up. “I think it would be an extreme change,” Davidson said. Then again, she added, thanks to coronavirus, “people will be dealing with lots of extremes they haven’t ever gone through before.”
We Conclude with this courtesy of Hoag Hospital:
| COVID-19 Update - April 3, 2020 |
| The challenge we face today in our community is substantial, but we face it together. If each one of us does our part, we can keep our community, our loved ones and ourselves safe.
At Hoag, "doing our part" means showing up to the hospital every day. For the public at large, it means staying home.
Please know that Hoag physicians, nurses and staff have been working diligently to care for our patients. We ask that you support our efforts by taking necessary measures to "flatten the curve." Your personal commitment and effort will slow the spread of the coronavirus, protect the community's most vulnerable populations, reduce the impact on our health care resources and keep our valued staff and their families well.
The only way to flatten the curve and decrease the number of COVID-19 cases we are seeing in Orange County is to continue practicing social distancing. Not a partial commitment, but rather a full commitment.
Each person who self-isolates reduces their risk of infecting others dramatically. In 30 days' time, a single individual who does not practice social isolation runs the risk of infecting 406 people with coronavirus. By reducing physical contact by 75%, that individual's infection risk plummets to 2.5 people.
The difference this can make to the health care system, nursing homes, families with elderly or immune-compromised individuals is vitally important.
While you are doing your part to stop the spread, know that Hoag is well-trained and well-staffed to address this pandemic locally. Should you or a loved one become sick, we are here for you.
And we are here for all of our patients, to provide incomparable care not just to those with COVID but to all urgent conditions in the safest and most effective manner available anywhere.
Unprecedented times test our strength and our commitment to one another. I have no doubt that if we each do our part, we will emerge stronger than ever as neighbors, as a county, and as a nation.
Hoag remains here for you. Please, stay home for us. | | | | Be well, | 
Robert T. Braithwaite
President and CEO |
| | The Vital Importance of Social Distancing | | How a reduction in social contact can reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
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