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With help from Myah Ward
FAILING GRADES — Echoing arguments President Donald Trump has made in recent speeches and interviews, and advanced by Vice President Mike Pence in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, Tea Party-affiliated doctors held a call with reporters today to argue that rising infections in Texas, Arizona, Florida, Alabama and other states that moved early to lift stay-at-home orders are no cause for alarm.
“Most of the case numbers are because of increased testing and increased access to testing,” Simone Gold, a California-based emergency physician, said. “It’s not a public health catastrophe.”
Alabama physician David Williams agreed, pointing to testing criteria that’s been broadened to include people with no symptoms or known exposure.
“We have universities sending their football teams and companies sending their entire workforce to get tested because of the irrational fear of this virus,” he said. “Of course you’re going to find some positives.”
That’s not the whole story. Testing rates have massively improved since the shortages early in the pandemic, and the recent increase has contributed in part to the rise in detected cases. But the argument advanced by conservative advocacy groups and the White House, that the recent spikes in coronavirus cases in more than a dozen states are solely a product of increased testing, doesn’t explain the Sun Belt spikes. Here’s why:
Case counts are rising more quickly than the testing increase in many states. Arizona has seen cases spike 122 percent over the last two weeks, while hitting only 87 percent of its testing target. And Alabama is seeing a 93 percent increase in cases even as it reaches only 73 percent of its testing goals.
The positivity rate — the percentage of people testing positive — is also on the rise. The World Health Organization says governments will know they’re doing enough to root out the virus in their communities when they achieve a sustained rate of 5 percent or less of tests coming back positive. In many states, that percentage is far higher and continues to go up, indicating the virus is spreading faster than testing.
“You have states like Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona, where you see cases rising, and a high rate of Covid positivity — over 7 percent,” Marta Wosińska, the deputy director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, told reporters on a call today. “In Arizona, it’s 16 percent and increasing. So it’s not just increased testing we’re seeing.”
Hospitalizations are also up, which means more people are sick. Officials are sounding the alarm about health system capacity — particularly ICU beds — as both cases and hospitalizations hit record rates in some states, increases that cannot be explained by a rise in testing alone.
If more testing means more cases, why are some states seeing fewer cases as they test at record rates? “New York and New Jersey and Rhode Island are all testing well above their targets, yet they’re seeing fewer cases and their ICU availability is looking better than before,” Wosińska said.
Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. Scratching my head trying to figure out what to do with the roselle hibiscus pods and red noodle beans we got in our CSA haul this week. Reach out with cooking and coronavirus tips: rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.
A message from PhRMA:
America’s biopharmaceutical companies are sharing manufacturing capabilities with each other so that once a treatment or vaccine is ready, they can get it to millions of people fast. And there’s no slowing down. America’s biopharmaceutical companies will continue working day and night until they beat coronavirus. More.
| FIRST IN NIGHTLY |
LATINO CASES ON THE RISE — Coronavirus infections and hospitalizations have rapidly increased among Latinos in the last two months, outpacing other racial and ethnic minorities, national political reporter Laura Barrón-López writes. Latinos also make up a disproportionate share of the cases in almost every state, more than four times higher than their share of the population in some states.
But while the number and severity of cases among Latino patients has worsened, health experts say that the state-by-state mortality rate among Latinos lags noticeably behind their infection rates. That’s been seen in several states at this stage of the pandemic — higher caseloads but falling death rates. To date, African Americans have had the highest death rates.
Public health officials have offered two potential reasons for the gap: There is a lag in the reporting of deaths — it can take from weeks to as long as a month for death rates to catch up to infections. And the younger age of Latino patients, on average, could make them more likely to survive the disease.
Without targeted contract tracing, language resources, enforcement of protective equipment at essential jobs — and an encouragement of those with uncertain legal status to seek help — the disease is likely to become more lethal as states begin to reopen. “As many industries keep reopening we have more people who are going to be exposed because of their jobs,” said Carlos Rodriguez-Diaz, associate professor at George Washington University School of Public Health.
Latinos between 35 and 44 have a coronavirus mortality rate nearly eight times higher than white people in that age group. Black people in the same age range have a mortality rate nine times higher than white people. Latinos between 25 and 34 and between 45 and 54 have a coronavirus mortality rate at least five times higher than white people, according to new Harvard analysis of National Center for Health Statistics data on reported coronavirus deaths from February to May 20.
Employment, housing, access to care and high rates of uninsured are all thought to contribute to the rates of transmission and mortality.
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Workers in Paris prepare the Eiffel Tower for reopening on June 25. | Getty Images
| AROUND THE NATION |
DESERT STORM — Senior national correspondent Bryan Bender emails us from Scottsdale, Ariz.:
I live in one of the biggest hotspots in the country. And this time it isn’t because of the triple-digit temperatures that blanket much of Arizona each summer.
The spread of Covid-19 has been off the charts here for weeks now. Today was another record day with 2,519 new cases, while daily hospitalizations saw the highest jump on Wednesday to 1,667, compared to 1,582 the day before. Hospital capacity is nearly at a breaking point: 85 percent of inpatient beds and 84 percent of ICU beds are now in use.
A scramble is on to turn the tide of the virus without going back into lockdown. But there are serious doubts the new steps announced this week are binding enough to get the job done.
Republican Gov. Doug Ducey announced a series of enhanced guidelines Wednesday, including requiring businesses to institute social distancing measures and granting municipalities the authority — if they choose — to make citizens wear masks in public places.
Yet that falls short of an appeal to Ducey from nearly 1,000 medical providers to “issue a statewide mandate requiring universal masking in public for those 2 years old and above.”
What happened in a state that had relatively few cases a month ago?
Swapna Reddy, a professor at Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions, who has been advising local authorities on the public health crisis, said the state gave up the fight too quickly.
“We were a little bit later than some other states in initiating the lockdown, but we did initiate a statewide lockdown,” Reddy said. “It appears like we did a pretty good job of flattening the curve and really controlling the spread here.”
But the reopening lacked one major element that other states, including nearby California and Colorado, banked on: a phased approach. “It felt in many cases and to many people like a bit of a light switch here,” Reddy said.
And there were few requirements — just recommendations.
“I've certainly been to plenty of businesses that have taken the recommendations very seriously, and they don't deviate from it,” Reddy said. “And I've been to places where it's more or less like those recommendations don't exist. That's the danger of having a recommendation and not a requirement. You have this kind of hodgepodge of compliance.”
Will the new steps be enough to turn things around?
“None of us want to lock down again,” Reddy says. “Our only chance is to change course really, really quickly and for people to comply and for us to enforce. And a changing mindset is really, really important at an individual and community level.”
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego told me today that the city council will vote Friday on whether to mandate face masks for residents going to essential businesses and public spaces. “This is the needed step to allow cities to protect residents as Covid numbers rapidly rise in Arizona,” she said.
Another test comes next week, when Trump is scheduled to attend Tuesday’s Students for Trump Convention at Phoenix’s Dream City Church.
“City officials have been in touch with staff from the president’s team,” Gallego said, “and will continue to be, to update them on city policy.”
Cover me — California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced today he will require masks in most public settings statewide in an effort to slow the spread of Covid-19 as new cases rise by thousands daily in the state, California reporters Carla Marinucci and Victoria Colliver write. The California Department of Public Health released updated guidance today that requires Californians to wear a face covering in most indoor settings, as well as outdoors when social distancing isn't possible. Any workers who engage with the public will be required to wear a mask. So will riders of public transit and anyone visiting a health-related office. California is the 11th state and the first on the West Coast to mandate masks beyond essential workers, according to the National Governors Association.
| THE GLOBAL FIGHT |
EUROPE’S UNFORTUNATE TITLE — While Covid deaths in the U.S. have continued to rise, when looked at on a per capita basis, many European countries have far higher numbers, with the U.S. ranking below nations like Belgium, Spain and the U.K.
| ON THE ECONOMY |
THE JOBLESS HOTSPOTS — Hilton announced earlier this week that it was laying off 22 percent of its workforce. BP said it would lay off 10,000 workers by the end of the year because of the pandemic-related oil crash. Airlines, prohibited by federal aid rules from laying off workers until Sept. 30, are furloughing workers for now, but could cut those jobs come fall. State and local governments and universities facing budget crunches are also shedding workers.
Your host Slack chatted today with POLITICO’s Megan Cassella , who has been covering the employment crisis, about when the jobs will come back, whether filing for unemployment has become easier and how the pandemic’s economic hit could linger long after the health crisis subsides. This conversation has been edited.
Can you help us make sense of the jumble of employment numbers? The May jobs report showed that companies were rehiring some workers, but today we learned that another 1.5 million people filed for unemployment last week.
The continued high level of new unemployment claims — this is the 13th straight week of claims in the millions — is concerning, given that every state has now begun to reopen its economy. That means the new unemployment claims are less likely temporary furloughs due to a shutdown, and more likely to be permanent layoffs due to a company downsizing or closing its doors for good. Even though the overall number of unemployed Americans went down in May, the number unemployed due to permanent job loss went up. The bigger picture is that the lower jobless rate and the boost in consumer spending both suggest the U.S. economy has likely already bottomed out, and it's now on its way back up from the bottom. But it also has a long way to go before things start to get back to normal. And there's no guarantee that these upward trends will continue in a steady line.
Have states improved their unemployment claims process?
It has gotten better. But many Americans still face significant delays, not only in applying but also receiving their checks. Yesterday, hundreds of people lined up outside Kentucky's state capitol building for hours in an attempt to talk to a real person about their stalled unemployment claims. Several states have also reported seeing some fraudulent claims filed, and as they work to root that out, it's led to some laid-off workers seeing payments delayed.
Which states have had the most job losses? In some states this may feel like more of an economic crisis than a health crisis.
In April, the last time we had comprehensive state-level data, political battleground states of the industrial Midwest were among the hardest hit — Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania.
Nevada and Hawaii have also been really brutally impacted because so much of their workforce works in travel and tourism. For the most recent week of initial claims, California and Massachusetts saw the biggest jumps in people applying for benefits, while Florida and Texas had the biggest decreases. We'll have a clearer picture when state-level data for May comes out on Friday morning.
What are some of the surprising long-term effects of stubbornly high unemployment?
The Brookings Institution put out a paper this week on what it calls the “baby bust”: Researchers are predicting 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births in the U.S. next year in large part because of the economic instability the pandemic has caused.
Are these jobs coming back?
As we adjust to life with social distancing measures, almost certainly some jobs will never come back. If a large number of jobs stay remote, that could reduce the need for office support staff or even lead to closures of some lunch spots, etc., near office hubs.
At the same time, new jobs will be created — we may soon need thousands of contract tracers to help track the spread of the disease.
If we see a second wave of the virus leading to more shutdowns, that of course will lead to another spike in jobless claims. One thing nearly all economists agree on is that this is a public health crisis first, and a full economic recovery is extremely unlikely as long as the coronavirus remains a threat.
| FOUR SQUARE |
THE ZOOM PANEL — Eugene Daniels, Tim Alberta, Alex Thompson and Laura Barrón-López discuss the disconnect between health officials and lawmakers on the pandemic, and Trump’s upcoming Tulsa rally, on the latest episode of Four Square.
| FROM THE HEALTH DESK |
HUNTING FOR A CURE — The Trump administration is rushing the production of a coronavirus vaccine. But it probably won’t be widely available until next spring or summer — and that’s if it’s even effective. Health care reporters Sarah Owermohle and Dan Diamond discuss the hard truths about a coronavirus vaccine in the latest POLITICO Dispatch. “The timeline has been accelerated, but there’s no promise that once something gets to Phase 3, the final phase of the study, that it’s going to be a vaccine that works,” Sarah said.
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| ASK THE AUDIENCE |
Nightly asks you: Show us what the Summer of Covid looks like in your area. Snap a photo and send it in an email to nightly@politico.com. We’ll select a few to use in Friday’s newsletter.
JOIN NEXT WEDNESDAY 1 p.m. EDT - THE SPEED OF SCIENCE POST-COVID-19: What does the future of science in a post-Covid-19 world look like? What lessons can we learn to accelerate medical research outside of the coronavirus? How can newly developed drugs and vaccines be distributed equitably? What can we do to minimize misinformation from flawed or inaccurate scientific studies published during a public health emergency? Join Patrick Steel, CEO of POLITICO, and Alexander Hardy, CEO of Genentech, for this critical and timely discussion. REGISTER HERE.
| NIGHTLY NUMBER |
13
The number of University of Texas football players who have tested positive for Covid-19, according to the university. Texas started voluntary preseason workouts four days ago.
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| PARTING WORDS |
BOOZE YOU CAN USE — Nightly’s Tyler Weyant writes:
Let’s face it: This pandemic has been draining. There are often nights when many of us sit quietly, doom scrolling through Twitter while nursing a beer or something stronger. And this makes today’s news, that an influential government panel suggested men should cut back their alcohol intake to one drink per day rather than two, all the more disheartening.
WHO has advised moderation as well, noting that excess consumption can exacerbate Covid vulnerabilities. And we’ve seen airlines take away alcohol from flights as a safety precaution. Overconsumption is certainly not something to be celebrated, and people who are fighting to maintain sobriety and recovery deserve our support. But for some of us, a “modest but meaningful increase” in the chance of an early death is a risk worth taking.
Walk through a suburban community and you may see neighbors carefully spaced and drinking gin and tonics out of Tervis tumblers. Stroll by D.C.’s Kalorama Park on a weekend afternoon and 20-somethings are mirthfully sipping from the equivalent of cocktail Capri Sun pouches. (Washington’s open container laws seem to be staying at home.)
These are not people checking dietary government websites before a get-together; they are merely attempting to retain some semblance of community and relaxation.
Yes, we need to monitor our health and make sure we aren’t overbending the elbow. But there will always be another map of coronavirus hotspots, another Facebook post from your cousin questioning the legitimacy of mask-wearing. And a good portion of us might read those and think, maybe that second beer isn’t such a bad idea. Maybe it might be nice to sit on the porch and share it with a friend. And, for your mental health’s sake, it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.
A message from PhRMA:
America’s biopharmaceutical companies are sharing their knowledge and resources more than ever before to speed up the development of new medicines to fight COVID-19. They’re working with doctors and hospitals on over 1,100 clinical trials.
And there’s no slowing down. America’s biopharmaceutical companies will continue working day and night until they beat coronavirus. Because science is how we get back to normal.
See how biopharmaceutical companies are working together to get people what they need during this pandemic.
And there’s no slowing down. America’s biopharmaceutical companies will continue working day and night until they beat coronavirus. Because science is how we get back to normal.
See how biopharmaceutical companies are working together to get people what they need during this pandemic.
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