“Flattening the curve through social distancing has worked in restraining Covid-19’s growth, according to new research published in Health Affairs.”
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“The goal of flattening the curve was to prevent local health systems from becoming overwhelmed, which could have led to even higher fatalities than the US has already seen (about 90,000, as of Monday morning). Even New York City, the hardest-hit place in the country, has not seen its hospitals overrun in any kind of systemic way.
Take together the reduced spread through social distancing and the medical system being able to meet the Covid-19 need, and there is solid evidence that flattening the curve has worked.”
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““In principle, the measures also bought time to develop a more effective testing and contact tracing infrastructure, although we will see whether that actually has been achieved as states start to reopen.””
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/15/tara-reade-left-trail-of-aggrieved-acquaintances-260771?fbclid=IwAR3kGrjsDmbid1zOGrBBok-RlspT-uiqIZ0qqzCk7uLMbZscRYQ-U_JuP1I
“After announcing that the Justice Department was dropping the criminal case against Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, Attorney General William P. Barr was presented with a crucial question: Was Mr. Flynn guilty of lying to the F.B.I. about the nature of phone calls he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States?
After all, Mr. Flynn had twice pleaded guilty to lying about them.
“Well, you know, people sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes,” Mr. Barr said in an interview with CBS News. Then he went even further and described the infamous calls during the Trump presidential transition as “laudable.”
Mr. Trump and his allies now accuse the F.B.I. of framing Mr. Flynn, which is part of the president’s broader campaign to tarnish the Russia investigation and settle scores against perceived enemies ahead of the November election.
Their revisionist narrative is in stark contrast to the view held three years ago not only by top F.B.I. management but also by senior White House officials. Mr. Flynn, the officials said then, had lied to Vice President Mike Pence and other aides about the nature of his calls to the ambassador, had lied repeatedly to F.B.I. agents about the calls, and might have made himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail.”
“Truth decay encompasses four trends, each of which is relevant to what we’re experiencing now.
The first is increasing disagreement about facts and data. An example in this context would be the disagreement about the safety of vaccines and whether people will take them once they’re made and distributed.
The second trend is the increased blurring of the line between fact and opinion. This is caused a lot by commentary in cable news or social media, places where facts and opinion are mixed together and make it really hard to determine what’s real and what’s someone’s opinion or analysis.
The third trend is the increasing volume of opinion compared to fact. You’re just seeing a lot more opinion out there. If you’re looking for facts, you have to work pretty hard to dig through all that commentary before you can actually find the raw facts you might be looking for.
Finally, declining trust in key institutions that provide information. We’re experiencing this now with the government and the media.
Put together, people are not sure what’s true what’s not, and they don’t even really know where to turn to find factual information they’re looking for.”
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“Dr. Anthony Fauci, for example, seems to be the guy providing the media and the public with the necessary facts about the coronavirus right now. But because the president undercuts him and disagrees with a lot of what he says, he’s become somewhat of a polarizing figure. If you’re a Trump fan, you might not be a Fauci fan, and vice versa.
At such a crucial time, how is the expertise of someone like Fauci or other public health experts not innately trusted?”
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“people like to confirm their own beliefs. They don’t necessarily want to hear information that disagrees with their views, and it leads people to reject information from experts that doesn’t fit their narrative.”
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“I’m skeptical this moment will lead to only facts coming from the top and an extra effort from the bottom to seek facts. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, millions have fallen ill, and yet there doesn’t seem to be a change. The US isn’t rising to the moment.”
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“this is a national failure because it prevents us from making progress on the big issues that our country needs to confront if we want to continue being a prosperous nation and maintain the position we have in the world.”
“United Airlines would be cutting 15,000 airport staff and baggage handlers’ hours from 40 to 30 a week, converting them from full- to part-time status. The announcement came after a grim earnings report showing the company had suffered a net loss of $1.7 billion in the first quarter of this year.
United has also received $5 billion from the U.S. Treasury through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act’s Payroll Support Program, including a $3.5 billion grant and another $1.5 billion loan. The company has also applied for another federal loan made possible by the CARES Act. ”
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“The CARES Act overall included $50 billion in support, split evenly between loans and grants, for passenger airlines. A condition of accepting this federal support—and indeed the stated purpose of this support—was that the airlines retain staff at the same pay rates.
The quickly passed law, however, does not specify anything about minimum hours or income, allowing airlines to cut hours while still ostensibly complying with the letter of the law.”
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“The cuts initiated by United are also a good example of the contradictory conditions placed on airline bailout funds. These companies were required to not furlough staff during a time of near-zero demand for air travel. At the same time, the CARES Act also requires these airlines to keep performing a minimum number of flights to destinations they served prior to March 1, 2020. The Department of Transportation is responsible for setting these minimum service requirements.
The result has been airlines burning fuel and cash putting nearly empty planes in the air just so they can access federal support.”
“President Donald Trump’s tariffs are crimping supply chains for chemicals used to manufacture disinfectants and cleaning products—items that are needed to combat COVID-19 and that will be in even higher demand as the economy reopens.
In a letter sent last week to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the American Chemistry Council, an industry group, highlighted dozens of items that are subject to the Trump administration’s tariffs. The list sent to Lighthizer includes various chemical building blocks used to manufacture everything from soap to detergent, and surface cleaners to bleach.”
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“The Trump administration took action in March to exempt medical equipment—including face masks and personal protective equipment (PPE)—from its tariff regime. But those exclusions did not apply to chemicals, like isopropyl alcohol and the dozens of other items on the council’s list that are not strictly defined as medical equipment but remain crucial to many products used by health care workers.
Trump’s tariffs are also affecting companies that need to purchase disinfectant wipes and other cleaning products. “According to the CDC guidelines…to prevent the spread of COVID-19 it recommends the use of EPA approved disinfectant wipes,” wrote Daniel Marquardt, principal owner of Hilo Industries LLC, a Virginia-based construction contractor, in a tariff exemption request filed last month. Hilo, like many other businesses across the country, needs to import tubs of disinfectant wipes that will be “used by our customers, employees, and their customers to enable them to work and patronize safely to help combat and control COVID-19,” Marquardt wrote.
But the tariff exemption process is opaque and slow—far from the ideal way to relieve the stress tariffs are causing. Sens. Tom Carper (D–Del.) and Pat Toomey (R–Pa.) have urged the Trump administration to move more quickly and issue more tariff exemptions in order to speed the response to the pandemic, but White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has laughed off those concerns as “fake news.””
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“the tariffs are making it more expensive for American businesses to make those purchases, and therefore leaving them unable to purchase as much as they might otherwise choose. Much of the Trump administration’s trade war has been a real-life lesson in what economists call a “deadweight loss”—that is, a market inefficiency that creates losses for some participants but no gains for anyone else—but rarely does it appear this obvious.”
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“The Trump administration has delayed tariff payments for three months as a way to boost liquidy for American importers, but that’s little help over the long term. Tariffs on products that are necessary components of disinfectants will only make it more difficult to achieve the reopening that Trump desperately seeks.”
“suddenly, politicians are canceling their bans. Instead, they’re banning the once praised reusable bags.
It’s because of COVID-19, of course.
Reusable bags already brought bacteria into stores. We’re supposed to wash them, but almost no one does. Studies found reusable bags crawling with dangerous bacteria. After plastic bags were banned in San Francisco, food poisoning deaths increased sharply.”
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“People think America is running out of room for landfills, but that’s not true.
“All America’s trash for the next century would fit in one landfill just 18 miles square,” says environmental economist Ross McKitrick. Landfills take up so little space that “if you look the air you wouldn’t even be able to see where landfills are.”
And modern landfills hardly pollute. They’re surrounded by layers of clay and plastic that keep nasty stuff in the garbage from leaking out.
But what about all that plastic in the ocean?
Plastic bags are sometimes eaten by animals. Some sea turtles mistake the bags for jellyfish and then starve. Islands of floating garbage have formed in the Pacific Ocean.
Green groups have convinced Americans that we are to blame.
But we aren’t! Even if you litter—and today, fewer Americans do—your litter is unlikely to end up in an ocean.
Almost all the plastic in oceans comes from Asia and Africa. Less than 1 percent comes from North America.”
“When you think of the U.S. manufacturing sector, you likely think of General Motors and U.S. Steel, faceless megaliths with armies of disciplined workers. But it’s more like Yellowstone National Park, an intricate ecosystem of small and specialized players, their fates closely intertwined. “If you look at anyone who is a node in a supply chain—a manufacturer, or sub-manufacturer, or raw materials extractor—each of those entities may be partnering with many different customers, as well as many different sub-suppliers beneath them,” says Karen Donohue, an expert on supply chains at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. “Their solvency is potentially dependent on the weakest link in both of those networks. And that’s what makes prediction difficult.” A 2018 survey by the consultancy Deloitte found that 65 percent of more than 500 procurement leaders from 39 countries had a hazy view, at best, of their supply chains beyond their most important suppliers.”
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“Professional Instruments’ primary customer is a small company in New Hampshire whose ultraprecision machine tools are crucial for manufacturing in the medical device, defense, consumer electronics, and automotive fields. “It’s almost impossible for someone to anticipate the knock-on effects of some businesses being closed down because they’re deemed nonessential, because they’re suppliers for companies that are deemed essential,” says the company’s recently retired former CEO, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive business matters. “You build a quarter-million-dollar machine, but if you can’t get one $150 component off the shelf, you can’t put it into production.””
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“Zoom out further, and the pandemic’s global nature becomes palpable. The future of the New Hampshire company is also uncertain, thanks in part to closures abroad. It has representatives in several countries (including South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, all of which have implemented lockdown measures) and customers in many more. “Representatives might need to come from the U.S. to help install the machines,” says the former CEO. “But with global travel being affected, how are you going to get that equipment installed? You still need those people to travel. These machines don’t install themselves.” In March the company opened a training center in China, but “whether that center will be utilized for some time remains to be seen.””
“The new rules aim to protect victims of sexual misconduct while also establishing fairer procedures for the accused. The department believes the new rules will “balance the scales of justice on campuses across America,” a Department of Education spokesperson said during today’s press briefing.”
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“Most notably, the government has abolished the single-investigator model, which previously permitted a sole university official to investigate an accusation of misconduct, decide which evidence to consider, and produce a report recommending an outcome. Under the new rules, the final decision maker must be a different person than the investigator, and a finding of responsibility can only be rendered after a hearing in which a representative for the accused is able to pose questions to the accuser—i.e., cross-examination.
Importantly, the new rules narrow the scope of actionable sexual harassment to exclude conduct that ought to be protected under the First Amendment. Obama-era guidance had defined sexual harassment as “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.” The new rules keep this definition but add that the conduct must be offensive to a reasonable person, severe, and pervasive. In practice, this should mean that schools will no longer initiate Title IX investigations that impugn free speech.”
“The new rules will also end the pernicious practice of universities initiating Title IX investigations in cases where the alleged victims are not interested in this course of action.. a formal complaint that results in adjudication can only be initiated by the victim or their parents/legal guardians.”
“In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against federal overreach during times of national crises.
“Whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties,” he said.”