Four Must-Read Weekend Stories on Coronavirus
WaPo: Trump’s May days: A month of distractions and grievances as nation marks bleak coronavirus milestone
WaPo: Despite widespread economic toll, most Americans still favor controlling outbreak over restarting economy, Post-ABC poll finds
AP: Virus taking hold in rural, old plantation region of Alabama
Politico: Rising ICU bed use ‘a big red flag’
See below for a round up of key points from four must-read coronavirus stories from the weekend:
Washington Post: Trump’s May Days: A Month of Distractions and Grievances as Nation Marks Bleak Coronavirus Milestone
As coronavirus deaths passed 100,000, Trump put politics ahead of science and sidelined medical experts, putting even more lives at risk.
- “But critics inside and outside the government see May as another lost month in the administration’s attempts to contain the coronavirus. Trump grew more adrift than ever from governors and health officials, and was defiant and flippant as he encouraged Americans to resume normal routines, even when doing so violated his own administration’s public safety guidelines. He stoked a still-simmering culture war by refusing to wear a face mask in front of cameras, and mocked those who did for being politically correct.” [Washington Post, 5/31/20]
- “Meanwhile, officials at the state and federal level kept warning of more outbreaks in areas with relaxed guidelines and of a possible fall surge that could lead tens of thousands more Americans to die. Cash-strapped states have strained to build effective contact tracing and testing systems to keep pace with businesses reopening, and to prepare for a second wave. Trump’s claim of a vaccine coming at ‘warp speed’ remains by all accounts an ambition rather than a reality.” [Washington Post, 5/31/20]
- “‘He’s been over coronavirus for a long time,’ said one veteran Trump adviser who described the president as focused instead on his desire to have ‘a fistfight’ with former vice president Joe Biden, his presumptive Democratic opponent.” [Washington Post, 5/31/20]
Trump’s ‘lost month of May’ has had real consequences on the state of coronavirus in America — and those failures will make the pandemic worse in the months to come.
- “Trump’s shifting approach in May had tangible consequences. The White House’s coronavirus task force, which Trump toyed with disbanding in early May, is now mostly idle and has scaled back meetings to once a week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention became increasingly isolated from the rest of the government, trashed privately by the president and ostracized by the White House. The government’s top infectious-disease expert, Anthony S. Fauci, was largely kept out of the spotlight.” [Washington Post, 5/31/20]
- “Health experts saw a jarring disconnect between Trump’s handling of covid-19 and the urgent calls, including from inside his own government, to stop the spread of the virus to prevent a second wave. ‘Some people think, ‘Oh, we’re going back to how it used to be,’’ said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. ‘If we do that, we’re going to have a surge in covid in no time.’” [Washington Post, 5/31/20]
Washington Post: Despite Widespread Economic Toll, Most Americans Still Favor Controlling Outbreak Over Restarting Economy, Post-ABC Poll Finds
Trump continues to push for states to reopen, even as new coronavirus cases rise in communities across the country and a majority of Americans oppose doing so before the virus is controlled.
- “Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say the coronavirus outbreak has exacted a severe economic toll on their communities, but a majority of a divided country still says controlling the virus’s spread is more important than trying to restart the economy, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.” [Washington Post, 6/1/20]
- “Despite declines in the rate of new infections in some parts of the country, personal fears persist, with 63 percent of Americans overall continuing to worry that they or a family member will catch the coronavirus. That is not far below the 69 percent who two months ago said they were worried.” [Washington Post, 6/1/20]
- “More broadly, nearly 7 in 10 say they are worried about the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus infections in the fall, a specter that Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has warned could coincide with the start of flu season. Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to say they are worried about a second wave of infections, 88 percent versus 44 percent.” [Washington Post, 6/1/20]
AP: Virus Taking Hold In Rural, Old Plantation Region of Alabama
Coronavirus is now ravaging through rural communities across the country, disproportionately impacting people of color — all because governors chose to reopen their economies too quickly.
- “Initially spared as the disease ravaged cities, the county and other rural areas in the state are now facing a ‘perfect storm:’ a lack of access to medical care combined with poverty and the attendant health problems, including hypertension, heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease and diabetes, that can worsen the outcomes for those who become sick with the coronavirus, said Dr. Ellen Eaton.” [Associated Press, 5/29/20]
- “The problem can also be seen elsewhere in the rural Deep South, where a tally by John Hopkins University shows a heavy concentration of cases. Black people have suffered disproportionately in the pandemic. An Associated Press analysis in April of available state and local data shows that nearly one-third of those who have died are African American, with black people representing about 14% of the population in the areas covered in the analysis.” [Associated Press, 5/29/20]
- “Nearly a third of the state’s total cases came in the last two weeks as Gov. Kay Ivey loosened regulations meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus in order to revive the economy. The days since have included high school graduation ceremonies that drew thousands; packed beaches; reopened bars and churches; and plenty of bare faces unprotected by masks.” [Associated Press, 5/29/20]
Politico: Rising ICU Bed Use ‘A Big Red Flag’
As states continue following Trump’s lead to reopen their economies, new reporting shows that hospitals may struggle to manage the surge of new cases.
- “Intensive care units in Montgomery, Ala., are overflowing with Covid-19 patients, pushing them into emergency departments that are not primed to care for them. And Alabama’s capital city could be a harbinger for other parts of the country.”
- “ICU beds are also starting to fill up in places like Minnesota’s Twin Cities; Omaha, Neb.; and the entire state of Rhode Island, according to local health officials and epidemiologists tracking such data, a warning sign of possible health care problems down the road. The availability of ICU beds is one measure of a hospital’s ability to care for its most vulnerable patients — people with severe illness who require more staff to treat them and may need life-support equipment such as a ventilator to breathe. And it’s served as a metric for whether the local health care system is able to handle a coronavirus outbreak, albeit a constantly shifting one.”
- “But Paul Biddinger, director of Harvard’s School of Public Health Emergency Preparedness Research, Evaluation and Practice Program, says it’s ‘a big red flag that when you see increasing numbers of ICU patients with Covid. Our greatest fear about not being able to blunt the peak of illness, not being able to flatten the curve, is that … people will be exposed to the virus, become ill and potentially die because too many people became sick too quickly and it overwhelmed the health care system,’ Biddinger tells POLITICO.”