| | |  | BY RENUKA RAYASAM | With help from Myah Ward THIS IS AMERICA — Breonna Taylor, a Black emergency room technician, was shot in her Louisville apartment six-and-a-half months ago, just a couple of weeks after the United States recorded its first official Covid death in Washington State. Since then, despite continued protests by racial justice advocates and multiple alarms from public health advocates, little has changed. Police reform has stalled. And on Wednesday a grand jury declined to bring charges against officers in Taylor’s death. Instead, one officer was charged with “ wanton endangerment” because the shots he fired passed into a neighboring apartment. Meanwhile, Black, Latino and Indigenous people continue to be disproportionately represented in the country’s more than 200,000 Covid deaths. Blacks accounted for 21.5 percent of deaths where the victim’s race is known, even though they account for 12.4 percent of the population, according to APM Research Lab . They are 3.4 times more likely to die from Covid than white people accounting for age, according to the study. It’s no surprise that the virus has devastated communities of color, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco told the Nightly this week. They are more likely to be exposed to Covid because they work in frontline low-wage jobs. In addition people of color are more likely to have underlying health conditions such as hypertension. They’re also less likely to have insurance or other means of accessing health care. Your host spoke with Bibbins-Domingo about why health disparities are at the root of the pandemic — and what they mean for vaccination efforts. This conversation has been edited. As a public health researcher, did the data about how Covid affects minorities surprise you? No. We already had these deep, deep health disparities. We saw in our own city that all admissions to our hospital were Latino, even though the city is only 15 percent Latino. If anything has surprised me is, maybe I was naive to believe this, [but] I had hoped that the recognition of how intertwined we are because we share so many spaces, would mean we would have to pay attention to the high transmission in our poor minority communities. It’s six months into the pandemic and we are still talking about this disproportionate burden. What should be done now to address these disparities? It requires starting right now to recognize that the issues of the disparities of Covid-19 are not the issues that are on the side. But they are front and center into why this pandemic has been so devastating. We actually have to be doing more testing [in Black, Latino and Indigenous communities] where there’s more transmission. We also need to keep transmission under control in these environments. In communities, that might be additional financial support for when people have to take off work to isolate. Some public health experts are predicting deaths will skyrocket once flu season hits and cold weather forces people indoors. What are you worried about? There’s a high level of mistrust that will continue to develop over time because of sheer and unrelenting inattention to this issue. I would like to see steps being taken now to partner with community leaders in Black, Latino and Indigenous communities to get ahead of this. Our rates of flu vaccination are extraordinarily low in this country. They are even lower in minority communities. That’s one of those things where it should be clear what we can do. But there’s so many reasons why that is not going to happen. Why? We say we want people to get vaccinated and it’s really terrible that people are hesitant about being vaccinated. The reality is that a lot of mistrust is well founded. There should be really targeted efforts, in partnership with local community leaders, to say, ‘We are walking with you and developing plans together with you.’ Really understand why people won’t get flu shots and how can we overcome that. Are you worried about the lack of diversity in Covid vaccine trails? I am. I think all of us are. I think some trials have made a much more concerted effort. It is not the case that communities of color don’t want to participate in trials. When you don’t study them in a diverse population, you both have less assurance of the range of responses, both good and bad, that you might see. And you also continue to feed the narrative: that we studied this but now we want to give it to you. We can’t really assure you that we studied this in people like you. That doesn’t help with mistrust.
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Sheree Barbour holds her fist in the air as people protest the grand jury decision in the Breonna Taylor case in Denver. The death of Taylor, who was shot and killed by officers executing a search warrant in Louisville, has sparked protests across the country. | Getty Images | Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. Well, at least I didn’t try to interview a senator with a pacifier. Reach out rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.
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| | BECOME A CHINA WATCHER: Should China-based apps in caught in political crosshairs be concerned by the Tik-Tok developments? Join the conversation and gain expert insight from informed and influential voices in government, business, law, and tech. China Watcher is as much of a platform as it is a newsletter. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | WOLF OF WALL STREET — Wall Street can deal with whoever wins the presidential election this fall. What investors can’t stomach — and are increasingly nervous about — is a rapid descent into banana republic-style chaos , in which the result is either unclear for months or President Donald Trump loses but refuses to leave office, writes chief economic correspondent Ben White. The fears kicked up to a higher level this week after Trump said he would not necessarily commit to a peaceful transition should he lose on Nov. 3. “We’re going to have to see what happens,” the president said about handing over power. “You know, I’ve been complaining about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster.” They were Trump’s sharpest comments to date about contesting the election, coming just as Americans start voting and less than six weeks before Election Day. Though Trump has repeatedly complained about the potential for widespread voter fraud — despite multiple studies suggesting such fraud is extremely rare — his latest warning came against a backdrop of rising angst nationwide about a polarizing fall. Trump’s aggressive chatter now runs the risk of damaging what he sees as one of his greatest achievements: a lofty stock market. The rising uncertainty about a post-Election Day fight is already spurring increasingly aggressive bets on Wall Street for a surge in volatility in the coming weeks. Major stock indices have lost close to 10 percent since hitting Covid-era peaks at the start of September.
| | NEW PACKAGE, OLD PROBLEMS — Speaker Nancy Pelosi has directed her committee chairs to assemble a scaled-back coronavirus relief package as a basis for potential talks with the White House, according to Democratic sources. But an agreement still seems out of reach, and the House could vote on the new proposal next week even without GOP support, Heather Caygle, John Bresnahan and Sarah Ferris write. Pelosi and House Democratic leaders met this afternoon to decide on what course they will take. “We are still striving for an agreement,” Pelosi told her leadership team, according to a source familiar with the meeting. “If necessary, we can formalize the request by voting on it on the House floor.” The move comes after Pelosi refused, for weeks, to consider passing another relief bill during a lengthy standoff with Republicans and with rising demands from centrist Democrats that the House take more action before the election. Putting the bill on the floor would also be a win for Pelosi’s deputy, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has been pushing the idea for weeks. House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) confirmed the plan later today, saying a vote, if it were to happen, would likely occur next week before the chamber leaves for recess. “I think the contours are already there,” Neal told reporters of drafting the smaller package. “I think it’s now about [the] time frame and things like that.”
| | Nightly asks you: As cooler weather arrives in much of the U.S., the Nightly crew has noticed that fall and winter holidays seem to be getting an early pandemic observance. Have you or your neighbors set up some early decorations for Halloween or Thanksgiving (maybe even Christmas)? Send us your photos at nightly@politico.com, and we’ll include select shots in our Friday edition.
| | THE ZOOM PANEL — On the latest edition of Four Square, Eugene Daniels, Tim Alberta, Ryan Lizza and Laura Barrón-López talk about Trump’s remarks on the peaceful transition of power, mail-in balloting and the battle over the SCOTUS nomination.
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| | | FIGHT FOR THEIR RIGHT TO PARTY — Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested today that Florida could create a “bill of rights” to protect college students who face expulsion for attending parties under the strict Covid-19 guidelines schools are attempting to enforce, Florida education reporter Andrew Atterbury writes. Calling the policies “incredibly draconian” at a public health event, the Republican governor said the state is exploring its options for students without going into much detail. The idea comes as school leaders in Florida and beyond threaten stiff penalties for breaking social distancing rules in an effort to keep coronavirus transmission low and campuses open throughout the full semester. “I personally think it’s incredibly draconian that a student would get potentially expelled for going to a party,” DeSantis said today. “That’s what college kids do.”
| | PAC IS BACK — The Pac-12 will play football starting later this year, after officials today reversed a decision to postpone the season because of the coronavirus pandemic. The decision by the conference, which includes colleges in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington, follows a similar move by the Big Ten last week and notches another win for Trump. He has urged sports to resume in a quest for normalcy as the pandemic drags on. The Pac-12 reversal means all of the nation’s five wealthiest and most powerful college football conferences are back in business. Competitors that didn’t cancel their seasons, however, have had to postpone planned games or lost players to infections with the virus continuing to spread. DIGITAL DIVIDE DEEPENS — With kids at home and classes online, students are extra reliant on technology. But that’s not an easy lift in lower-income, non-white districts that lack funding and resources. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, Nicole Gaudiano and Maya King explain how the pandemic — and decades of education policy — have exacerbated the digital divide.
| | | | ‘STILL HAVE A SHOT AT CHRISTMAS’ — Andy Blatchford writes from Ottawa: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave Canadians a coronavirus reality check Wednesday, warning that the second wave had arrived in much of the country. In a highly unusual step for a Canadian prime minister, Trudeau took over major TV networks to deliver his message to a population that has been watching Covid-19 case numbers bounce back in recent weeks. “We’re on the brink of a fall that could be much worse than the spring,” Trudeau said. “It’s all too likely we won’t be gathering for Thanksgiving [on Oct. 12], but we still have a shot at Christmas.” He added that back on March 13, the day Canada was first locked down, there were 47 new cases of the virus. Over the last week, the country has reported an average of 1,144 per day. Trudeau said while it’s already too late to change the near future, he urged Canadians to keep wearing masks, to get their fall flu shots and to download the government’s exposure notification app. In the meantime, Canadians, who flattened the curve months ago, must now wait to learn just how much Covid-19 has regained its strength. Theresa Tam, the country’s top doctor, warned the virus’ return, spurred mostly by increased social gatherings, has the potential to accelerate to an “uncontrollable growth trajectory” and far exceed the spring outbreak if there’s inadequate cooperation between the public and health authorities. “We will only learn about the spread happening now in another one to two weeks in the future,” Tam told reporters Tuesday. “The challenge we face now is to stay the course no matter how weary we may feel. We have done this before.”
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62 percent The proportion of people worried about taking a Covid-19 shot, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Two prominent groups of scientists who regularly advise the government today warned of “alarming” political interference in the work of scientists and public health experts, which they say contributed to the government’s coronavirus response. The president has repeatedly assured the country that a vaccine will be ready soon. But even with the record-breaking effort to develop coronavirus shots, public confidence in vaccines has plummeted nationwide. |
| | | HIGH ANXIETY — I was recently reading a book that a friend of mine wrote set in a fictionalized El Paso about the lives of three close friends. Every time I read about them stopping by each other’s houses or dropping the kids off at school or attending a family gathering, I felt increasingly unnerved. Six months into the pandemic, I realize how deeply ingrained Covid restrictions have become in our psyche. A colleague told me this morning she recently gasped when she watched characters hug on a television show. Since March even those of us who are relatively well off have been living with a constant, low level buzz of stress and anxiety: The heaviness that comes with the unyielding fear of getting sick — or getting others sick. We constantly weigh the pros and cons of every action. I no longer forget to leave home without a mask and wash my hands the second I return. That is, when I actually do leave the house. Most of our distractions — TV, movies and novels — are a time capsule from a not-so-long-ago era where such considerations didn’t exist. But pop culture is quickly starting to catch up. The late shows went remote months ago. The Emmys recently did too. Love in the Time of Corona is a recent miniseries starring Hamilton ’s Leslie Odom Jr. about people searching for love during quarantine. Pretty soon we might start seeing more and more masks, Zoom birthday parties and obsessive hand washing — not signaling a character quirk — chronicled on screens and pages. And maybe one day those will become a time capsule too.
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