POLITICO NIGHTLY: Soon: Anyone who wants a test, can get a test

 

BY RENUKA RAYASAM With help from Myah Ward WHICH TEST IS BEST — The country crossed 6 million Covid confirmed infections today, and President Donald Trump often complains that the country tests too much. His newest Covid adviser said today that healthy people shouldn’t get tested. Top administration officials pressured the CDC into issuing similar guidance against testing asymptomatic people who have been exposed. The problem throughout the pandemic, however, is that the country hasn’t always been testing enough, according to most scientific experts, and that test results are too slow to be useful. Trump’s own administration seems to want to test more, too: Health agencies are paying Abbott Labs $750 million for 150 million new rapid tests to be deployed in high risk areas like nursing homes. The FDA has approved dozens of different Covid tests. The proliferation of new tests is making ubiquitous testing a possibility in the near future, but we’re not there yet. There are two broad types of diagnostic tests that have received emergency authorization from the FDA: PCR tests, which detect a virus’ genetic material, and antigen tests, which detect proteins on the virus’ surface. (There are also antibody tests, which tell whether someone was infected with a virus, but let’s focus on detecting a current infection.) PCR tests are highly accurate, but require a central lab to analyze the sample, whether a nasal swab or saliva. The spit test the NBA used in its bubble is a PCR test that needs to be sent to a lab. But it doesn’t require swabs and uses fewer reagents, sidestepping supply chain problems that have dogged labs. It’s also potentially easier to collect saliva than nasal swabs. Accuracy is the tradeoff for speed. Antigen tests can be analyzed wherever the sample, a nasal or throat swab, is taken, usually within an hour or less. Some studies have shown up to 50 percent false negatives for antigen tests. (Remember when Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine falsely tested positive for Covid and had to skip a meeting with Trump?) Faster, less accurate tests should be the first line of defense against Covid-19, says Daniel Larremore, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder who has been modeling Covid . An accurate PCR test that delivers results weeks after infection isn’t useful for an asymptomatic patient. Catching half of those infections with a quick antigen or spit test would do a lot of good, and preserve more reliable tests for those who have already tested positive or have symptoms, he said. The $5 Abbott test the administration is buying is an antigen test. Unlike two other antigen tests that have received FDA approval, it doesn’t require a specialized machine, which should make it more widely accessible. The at-home pregnancy test model for coronavirus isn’t here yet, though the Abbott test is a step in that direction. The FDA-approved tests for Covid all require a doctor's note and a trained professional to carry them out. Ongoing studies are trying to figure out how accurate the tests are if there’s some kind of user error, like a person who leaves the sample in their hot car for a couple of hours. And one company, e25, is working on a paper-strip spit test that would pretty much be the pandemic’s version of a home pregnancy test. It has yet to receive FDA approval. The Abbott test — or any other rapid test — has other drawbacks aside from inaccuracy: Not all results will get reported to authorities, though the administration is still requiring results to be reported. And the cost, even of $5, could further widen testing disparities between wealthy and poor communities. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. Finally caught up on this excellent podcast and might be convinced that the CIA wrote the Scorpions’ “Wind of Change.” Reach out rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.   BEIJING IS WATCHING, ARE YOU? China has long been a nation of involved and cynical election-watchers, at least when it comes to American presidential campaigns. As the United States races toward election day, how do Chinese citizens believe each candidate would impact relations between the two nations? 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.     FIRST IN NIGHTLY RNC TRUMP V. TWITTER TRUMP — For one week, the Republican Party sent out a parade of people to make the case that the president, insulter-in-chief, has a heart. Within days, Twitter Trump had returned. At the RNC, everyone from little-known Americans to first lady Melania Trump insisted the Trump who lashes out on social media and in press conferences is not the compassionate man they see “when the cameras are off,” as Vice President Mike Pence put it. But over the weekend, Trump went right back to his bare-knuckle approach, White House reporter Meridith McGraw writes. He insulted his niece and boosted a video from a white nationalist user who falsely blamed “Black Lives Matter/Antifa” for a violent 2019 incident. He mocked and retweeted profane jokes about the Portland mayor and retweeted a video of Trump supporters in Portland shooting paintball guns and pepper spray at racial justice protesters in the city, saying it “cannot be unexpected.” And at a briefing this evening, Trump dished out numerous incendiary claims about violence in “Democrat-run cities” for nearly 30 minutes. He alleged the violence is caused by “left-wing indoctrination,” insisted “the violent rioters share Biden talking points” and proclaimed “paint is not bullets” when asked about the protesting Trump supporters in Portland, where one Trump supporter was shot and killed over the weekend. The dichotomy highlights the challenge facing the GOP with nine weeks left in the campaign: How to make Trump seem more palatable to voters who may largely agree with his policies but are turned off by his tactics, while still letting Trump rile up his base. Joe Biden waves as he arrives at New Castle Airport in Delaware. Biden traveled to Pittsburgh today and spoke on the protests against racism and police violence in Kenosha, Wis., and Portland, Ore. | Getty Images FROM THE HEALTH DESK DEMS RED OVER RED ZONES — Senior Trump administration officials privately warned seven states in June about dangerous coronavirus outbreaks that put them in the highest risk “red zone” while publicly dismissing concerns about a second wave of Covid-19, according to White House documents House Democrats released today. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released eight weeks of previously confidential reports obtained from the White House coronavirus task force that Democrats said showed the administration acting over the summer to willfully cover up public health risks for political gain, health care reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein writes. “Rather than being straight with the American people and creating a national plan to fix the problem, the president and his enablers kept these alarming reports private,” Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the subcommittee’s chair, said in a statement. “As a result of the president’s failures, more than 58,000 additional Americans have died since the Task Force first started issuing private warnings, and many of the Task Force’s recommendations still have not been implemented.” White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah said the administration began a public health messaging campaign in July to states with large outbreaks “to warn the public to follow mitigation practices to bring down the number of cases.” “The notion that we are trying to hide information from the public is absurd,” she said. TALKING TO THE EXPERTS PICKING THE LOCKDOWN — A second lockdown, which some economists and epidemiologists have argued for in recent weeks, is a bad idea, argues Harvard’s James Stock, an economist who is working with a team that includes epidemiologist Michael Mina to model how to avoid a surge in deaths without another economic shutdown. Nightly’s Myah Ward talked with Stock about why he believes stringent adoption of measures like face masks, social distancing and limits on group gatherings, as well as other mitigation efforts like testing and contact tracing, are enough to suppress the virus. This conversation has been edited. What were the economic costs of the first lockdown? Because we failed to pursue a strategy where we actually fully suppressed the virus, people are just afraid. And as long as people are afraid, we’re going to see slow economic activity. And that’s exacerbated by the lockdown. The lockdowns are part of the story, but really it’s our failure so far to suppress the virus that prevents people from wanting to go out and engage in economic activity. We’re big supporters of opening up almost all of the economy, but the key word there is almost. You can’t just open up bars. You can’t open up sporting events and things like that. The really high-contact activities have to be shut down until we have this thing totally under control. What would you say to the economists and epidemiologists who advocate for another lockdown? To me, that just sounds like giving up. To say it’s easier somehow for the politicians to tell everybody that you have to stay at home than to tell them that you need to wear masks. Or to tell Congress that it’s easier to shut down the economy again and see the unemployment rate go up to 15 percent or 18 percent, or whatever it is, than it is for you to pass a measure where you support $100 billion in testing. I don't see that as being an effective solution. It’s not a realistic solution, and it’s an extremely costly solution. How does your research apply to school reopenings? Some districts have schools where you can get more social distancing, and others are in these old buildings, virtually crammed together with bad ventilation. But by and large, if the virus level is low and you have these other measures in place, then you don’t need to have school closings. I view that as a really costly lockdown. That’s kind of like closing malls and people not flying, but this is even more costly in ways that are difficult to measure. And it's not necessary if you do the other things. Right now, I am on the side of, I really would like the kids through grade six to be in school in-person. I understand why people are hesitant about that. ASK THE AUDIENCE Nightly asks you: Send us pictures of your Covid-19 work or study space. Send your photo to nightly@politico.com. We'll include select photos in our Friday edition. COVID-2020 ‘DO I LOOK LIKE A RADICAL SOCIALIST?’ Biden today blamed Trump for the violence that has accompanied mass protests for racial justice, accusing the president of “long ago” forfeiting “any moral leadership in this country.” In a speech in Pittsburgh, the Democratic presidential nominee portrayed Trump as having lost control of a country rocked by a series of converging crises and being guilty “for years” of fomenting racial tensions that have led to violence, which he also denounced. “Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?” Biden said. “I want a safe America, safe from Covid, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops. And let me be crystal clear: safe from four more years of Donald Trump.” The speech came a little more than a week after a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, seven times in the back as he leaned over into his car, sparking protests and violence in the city. Partisan goggles — Are we a country that’s failed disastrously to respond to a global pandemic, or a country that’s overrun by protests and violence on the streets? Democrats and Republicans painted wildly different pictures of America at their party conventions this month. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, Scott Bland breaks down the biggest takeaways from the past two weeks — and what they tell us about what's next. Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast NIGHTLY NUMBER 350,000 The number of students in Miami-Dade Public Schools, Florida’s largest school district, where the first day of classes today was hampered by technology issues that prevented teachers and students from logging in to their online courses. PARTING WORDS PANDEMIC PRIMATE PERIL — Pandemic shortages have become familiar to us over the five months, whether in PPE, tests or toilet paper. But a new shortage has scientists and researchers worried: monkeys. “Nationally, there is basically a big shortage,” Koen Van Rompay, an infectious-disease scientist at the California National Primate Research Center, told The Atlantic. The problem has three sources: a limited pool for a huge number of Covid-19 research projects, a huge downturn in the number of monkeys coming from China, and previous shortages being made worse.   JOIN TOMORROW - A PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW ON THE INTERSECTION OF SPORTS AND ACTIVISM: Last week, sports leagues across the country took an unprecedented stand against police brutality and racial injustice. Join POLITICO Playbook co-authors Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman for a virtual interview with Milwaukee Bucks Senior Vice President Alex Lasry and Bucks Assistant Coach Vin Baker to discuss the NBA's newly established social justice commission, the league's commitment to turn its arenas into voting locations in the upcoming election and how the current debate in America is bigger than basketball. REGISTER HERE.     Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam   FOLLOW US

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The real threats to American law and order are Trump's craven enablers Robert Reich

 

tRump's DEATH TOLL!

THEGUARDIAN.COM

The real threats to American law and order are Trump's craven enablers | Robert Reich

TomDispatch

 

At the Guardian, Robert Reich on Trump's need to distract the nation from his handling of the pandemic via "riots" and other actions protesting the police -- and it's now announced that he'll be going to Kenosha on Tuesday to meet with the police there. Tom

"One week ago, Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, police department, fired at least seven shots at the back of a Black man named Jacob Blake as he opened his car door, leaving the 29-year-old father of five probably paralyzed from the waist down.

"After protests erupted, self-appointed armed militia or vigilante-type individuals rushed to Kenosha, including Kyle Rittenhouse, a white 17-year-old who traveled there and then, appearing on the streets with an AR-15 assault rifle, allegedly killed two people and wounded a third.

"This is pure gold for a president without a plan, a party without a platform, and a cult without a purpose other than the abject worship of Donald J Trump.

"To be re-elected Trump knows he has to distract the nation from the coronavirus pandemic that he has flagrantly failed to control – leaving more than 180,000 Americans dead, tens of millions jobless and at least 30 million reportedly hungry.

"So he’s counting on the reliable Republican dog-whistle. “Your vote,” Trump said in his speech closing the Republican convention Thursday night, “will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans, or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists, agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens.”

“We will have law and order on the streets of this country,” Vice-President Mike Pence declared the previous evening, warning “you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.”

"Neither Trump nor Pence mentioned the real threats to law and order in America today, such as gun-toting agitators like Rittenhouse, who, perhaps not coincidentally, occupied a front-row seat at a Trump rally in Des Moines in January.

"Pence lamented the death of federal officer Dave Patrick Underwood, “shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California”, earlier this year, implying he was killed by protesters. In fact, Underwood was shot and killed by an adherent of the boogaloo boys, an online extremist movement that’s trying to ignite a race war.

"Such groups have found encouragement in a president who sees “very fine people” supporting white supremacy.

"The threat also comes from conspiracy theorists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the recently nominated Republican candidate for Georgia’s 14th congressional district and promoter of QAnon, whose adherents believe Trump is battling a cabal of “deep state” saboteurs who worship Satan and traffic children for sex. Trump has praised Greene as a “future Republican star” and claimed that QAnon followers “love our country”.

"And from people like Mary Ann Mendoza, a member of Trump’s campaign advisory board, who was scheduled to speak at the Republican convention until she retweeted an antisemitic rant about a supposed Jewish plan to enslave the world’s peoples and steal their land.

"Clearly the threat also comes from hotheaded, often racist police officers who fire bullets into the backs of Black men and women or kneel on their necks so they can’t breathe. Needless to say, there was little mention at the Republican convention of Jacob Blake, and none of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor.

"And the threat comes from Trump’s own lackeys who have brazenly broken laws to help him attain and keep power. Since Trump promised he would only hire “the best people”, 14 Trump aides, donors and advisers have been indicted or imprisoned.

"Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W Giuliani – who ranted at the Republican convention about rioting and looting in cities with Democratic mayors – has repeatedly met with the pro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach, whom American intelligence has determined is “spreading claims about corruption … to undermine former Vice President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party”.

"In addition, federal prosecutors are investigating Giuliani’s business dealings in Ukraine with two men arrested in an alleged campaign finance scheme.

"Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, who had been a major Trump campaign donor before taking over the post office, is being sued by six states and the District of Columbia for allegedly seeking to “undermine” the postal service as millions of Americans plan to vote by mail during the pandemic.

"Not to forget the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who spoke to the Republican convention while on an official trip to the Middle East, in apparent violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits officials of the executive branch other than the president and vice-president from engaging in partisan politics.

"You want the real threat to American law and order? It’s found in these Trump enablers and bottom-dwellers. They are the inevitable excrescence of Trump’s above-the-law, race-baiting, me-first presidency. It is from the likes of them that the rest of America is in serious need of protection."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/29/the-real-threats-to-american-law-and-order-are-trumps-craven-enablers

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Robert Slager

Dropping Some Truth Bombs on a Fine Monday Morning ...

There is absolutely no evidence that Jacob Blake was brandishing a knife as he walked to his car in Kenosha. The fact that the local police union is pushing that false narrative is the exact reason Black Lives Matter exists.

When 100 million snowflakes join together it creates an avalanche.

Bernie Sanders understands that his progressive dream dies forever if Donald Trump is given four more years to stack the federal courts with conservative judges and make more Supreme Court picks. Bernie is not trying to re-litigate his 2016 grievances with the DNC. He's trying to save progressive values for the next generation. If you believe in what he spent his entire life fighting for so should you.

LeBron James has grown from being a spoiled prima donna into one of the most powerful civil rights leaders in the country, a transformation of majestic proportions.

Chad Boseman was more than just an actor. He created a character that touched the hearts of people of color throughout the world, especially children. The Black Panther showed them they could be as smart, as brave, as strong and as dignified as anyone else on the planet. Wakanda forever.

Donald Trump is so terrified of winding up in prison that he is willing to incite a civil war to prevent that from happening.

The protests will not end until this country addresses the issue of police brutality and racial injustice. No amount of intimidation will change that.

Doubling-down when you know you're wrong doesn't make you right. It makes you arrogant.

No one travels across state lines with an AR-15 to protect a stranger's business. They do that because they want to shoot someone.

I would crawl through a mile of broken glass to vote Donald Trump out of office.

"President Trump, you bring no peace. You bring no respect to our Democracy. ..."

Speaking at a news conference, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler asked, "Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence?"

"It's you who have created the hate and the division. It's you who have not found a way to say the names of Black people killed by police officers even as people in law enforcement have. And it's you who claimed that White supremacists are good people," he continued. "Your campaign of fear is as anti-democratic as anything you've done to create hate and vitriol in our beautiful country."

Addressing Trump personally, Wheeler lamented that "for four years we've had to live with you and your racist attacks on Black people."

"We learned early about your sexist attitudes toward women. We've had to endure clips of you mocking a disabled man. We've had to listen to your anti-democratic attacks on journalists. We've read your tweets slamming private citizens to the point of receiving death threats, and we've listened to your attacks on immigrants," he said.

"We've listened to you label Mexicans 'rapists.' We've heard you say that John McCain wasn't a hero because he was a prisoner of war. And now, you're attacking Democratic mayors and the very institutions of Democracy that have served this nation well since its founding."

"President Trump, you bring no peace. You bring no respect to our Democracy. You, Mr. President, need to do your job as the leader of this nation and I, Mr. President, will do my job as the mayor of this city," he said.

"And we will both be held accountable, as we should."

Trump is trying to frighten us into believing that the only way to stop all the awful things he’s doing to us is to re-elect the person who did it to us in the first place. That’s called convoluted logic. And he’s depending on you not realizing what he and the RNC are doing.