Politics slows flow of US virus funds to local public health

By MICHELLE R. SMITH, LAUREN WEBER, HANNAH RECHT and LAURA UNGAR

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Minneapolis Health Commissioner Gretchen Musicant poses for a portrait while visiting a COVID-19 testing event at Incarnation-Sagrado Corazon Church, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020, in Minneapolis. As the coronavirus began to spread through Minneapolis this spring, Musicant tore up her budget to find money to combat the crisis. It was not until Aug. 5 — months after Congress approved coronavirus aid — that her department finally received $1.7 million, the equivalent of $4 per Minneapolis resident. (AP Photo/Craig Lassig)

As the novel coronavirus began to spread through Minneapolis this spring, Health Commissioner Gretchen Musicant tore up her budget to find funds to combat the crisis. Money for test kits. Money to administer tests. Money to hire contact tracers. And yet even more money for a service that helps tracers communicate with residents in dozens of languages.

While Musicant diverted workers from violence prevention and other core programs to the COVID-19 response, state officials debated how to distribute $1.87 billion Minnesota received in federal aid.

As she waited, the Minnesota Zoo got $6 million in federal money to continue operations, and a debt collection company outside Minneapolis received at least $5 million from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, according to federal data.

It was not until Aug. 5 — months after Congress approved aid for the pandemic — that Musicant’s department finally received $1.7 million, the equivalent of $4 per Minneapolis resident.

“It’s more a hope and a prayer that we’ll have enough money,” Musicant said.
KHN-AP Series: Underfunded and Under Threat

Since the pandemic began, Congress has set aside trillions of dollars to ease the crisis. A joint Kaiser Health News and Associated Press investigation finds that many communities with big outbreaks have spent little of that federal money on local public health departments for work such as testing and contact tracing. Others, like in Minnesota, were slow to do so.

For example, the states, territories and 154 large cities and counties that received allotments from the $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund reported spending only 25% of it through June 30, according to reports that recipients submitted to the U.S. Treasury Department.

Many localities have deployed more money since that June 30 reporting deadline, and both Republican and Democratic governors say they need more to avoid layoffs and cuts to vital state services. Still, as cases in the U.S. top 5.4 million and confirmed deaths soar past 170,000, Republicans in Congress are pointing to the slow spending to argue against sending more money to state and local governments to help with their pandemic response.

“States and localities have only spent about a fourth of the money we already sent them in the springtime,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday. Congressional Democrats’ efforts to get more money for states, he said, “aren’t based on math. They aren’t based on the pandemic.”

Negotiations over a new pandemic relief bill broke down last week, in part because Democrats and Republicans could not agree on funding for state and local governments.

KHN and the AP requested detailed spending breakdowns from recipients of money from the Coronavirus Relief Fund — created in March as part of the $1.9 trillion CARES Act — and received responses from 23 states and 62 cities and counties. Those entities dedicated 23% of their spending from the fund through June to public health and 7% to public health and safety payroll.

An additional 22% was transferred to local governments, some of which will eventually pass it down to health departments. The rest went to other priorities, such as distance learning.

So little money has flowed to some local health departments for many reasons: Bureaucracy has bogged things down, politics have crept into the process, and understaffed departments have struggled to take time away from critical needs to navigate the red tape required to justify asking for extra dollars.

“It does not make sense to me how anyone thinks this is a way to do business,” said E. Oscar Alleyne, chief of programs and services at the National Association of County and City Health Officials. “We are never going to get ahead of the pandemic response if we are still handicapped.”

(AP Graphic)

Last month, KHN and the AP detailed how state and local public health departments across the U.S. have been starved for decades. Over 38,000 public health worker jobs have been lost since 2008, and per capita spending on local health departments has been cut by 18% since 2010. That’s left them underfunded and without adequate resources to confront the coronavirus pandemic.

“Public health has been cut and cut and cut over the years, but we’re so valuable every time you turn on the television,” said Jan Morrow, the director and 41-year veteran of Ripley County health department in rural Missouri. “We are picking up all the pieces, but the money is not there. They’ve cut our budget until there’s nothing left.”

POLITICS AND RED TAPE

Why did the Minneapolis health department have to wait so long for CARES Act money?

Congress mandated that the Coronavirus Relief Fund be distributed to states and local governments based on population. Minneapolis, with 430,000 residents, missed the threshold of 500,000 people that would have allowed it to receive money directly.

The state of Minnesota, however, received $1.87 billion, a portion of which was meant to be sent to local communities. Lawmakers initially sent some state money to tide communities over until the federal money came through — the Minneapolis health department got about $430,000 in state money to help pay for things like testing.

But when it came time to decide how to use the CARES Act money, lawmakers in Minnesota’s Republican-controlled Senate and Democratic-controlled House were at loggerheads.

Myron Frans, commissioner of Minnesota Management and Budget, said that disagreement, on top of the economic crisis and pandemic, left the legislature in turmoil.

Then following the police killing of George Floyd, the city erupted in protests over racial injustice, making a difficult situation even more challenging.

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz favored targeting some of the money to harder-hit communities, a move that might have helped Minneapolis, where cases have surged since mid-July. But lawmakers couldn’t agree. Negotiations dragged on, and a special session merely prolonged the standoff.

Finally, the governor divvied up the money using a population-based formula developed earlier by Republican and Democratic legislative leaders that did not take into account COVID-19 caseloads or racial disparities.

“We knew we needed to get it out the door,” Frans said.

The state then sent hundreds of millions of dollars to local communities. Still, even after the money got to Minneapolis a month ago, Musicant had to wait as city leaders made difficult choices about how to spend the money as the economy cratered and the list of needs grew.

“Even when it gets to the local government, you still have to figure out how to get it to local public health,” Musicant said.

Meanwhile, some in Minneapolis have noticed a lack of services. Dr. Jackie Kawiecki has been providing help to people at a volunteer medical station near the place where Floyd was killed — an area that at times has drawn hundreds or thousands of people per day. She said the city did not do enough free, easy-to-access testing in its neighborhoods this summer.

“I still don’t think that the amount of testing offered is adequate, from a public health standpoint,” Kawiecki said.

A coalition of groups that includes the National Governors Association has blamed the spending delays on the federal government, saying the final guidance on how states could spend the money came late in June, shortly before the reporting period ended. The coalition said state and local governments had moved “expeditiously and responsibly” to use the money as they deal with skyrocketing costs for health care, emergency response and other vital programs.

New York’s Nassau County was among six counties, cities and states that had spent at least 75% of its funds by June 30.

While most of the money was not spent before then, the National Association of State Budget Officers says a July 23 survey of 45 states and territories found they had allocated, or set aside, an average of 74% of the money.

But if they have, that money has been slow to make it to many local health departments.

As of mid-July in Missouri, at least 50 local health departments had yet to receive any of the federal money they requested, according to a state survey. The money must first flow through local county commissioners, some of whom aren’t keen on sending money to public health agencies.

“You closed their businesses down in order to save their people’s lives and so that hurt the economy,” said Larry Jones, executive director for the Missouri Center for Public Health Excellence, an organization of public health leaders. “So they’re mad at you and don’t want to give you money.”

The winding path federal money takes as it makes its way to states and cities also could exacerbate the stark economic and health inequalities in the U.S. if equity isn’t considered in decision-making, said Wizdom Powell, director of the University of Connecticut Health Disparities Institute.

“Problems are so vast you could unintentionally further entrench inequities just by how you distribute funds,” Powell said.

‘EVERYTHING FELL BEHIND’

The amounts eventually distributed can induce head-scratching.

Some cities received large federal grants, including Louisville, Kentucky, whose health department was given $42 million by April, more than doubling its annual budget. Because of the way the money was distributed, Louisville’s health department alone received more money from the CARES Act than the entire government of the city of Minneapolis, which received $32 million in total.

Philadelphia’s health department was awarded $100 million from a separate fund from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Honolulu County, where cases have remained relatively low, received $124,454 for every positive COVID-19 case it had reported as of Aug. 9, while El Paso County in Texas got just $1,685 per case. Multnomah County, Oregon — with nearly a quarter of its state’s COVID-19 cases — landed only 2%, or $28 million, of the state’s $1.6 billion allotment.

Rural Saline County in Missouri received the same funding as counties of similar size, even though the virus hit the area particularly hard. In April, outbreaks began tearing through a Cargill meatpacking plant and a local factory. By late May, the health department confirmed 12 positive cases at the local jail.

Tara Brewer, Saline’s health department administrator, said phone lines were ringing off the hook, jamming the system. Eventually, several department employees handed out their personal cell phone numbers to take calls from residents looking to be tested or seeking care for coronavirus symptoms.

“Everything fell behind,” Brewer said.

The school vaccination clinic in April was canceled, and a staffer who works as a Spanish translator for the Women, Infants and Children nutritional program was enlisted to contact trace for additional coronavirus exposures. All food inspections stopped.

It was late July when $250,000 in federal CARES Act money finally reached the 11-person health department, Brewer said — four months after Congress approved the spending and three months after the county’s first outbreak.

That was far too late for Brewer to hire the army of contact tracers that might have helped slow the spread of the virus back in April. She said the money already has been spent on antibody testing and reimbursements for groceries and medical equipment the department had bought for quarantined residents.

Another problem: Some local health officials say that the laborious process required to qualify for some of the federal aid discourages overworked public health officials from even trying to secure more money and that funds can be uneven in arriving.

Lisa Macon Harrison, public health director for Granville Vance Public Health in rural Oxford, North Carolina, said it’s tough to watch major hospital systems — some of which are sitting on billions in reserves — receive direct deposits, while her department received only about $122,000 through three grants by the end of July. Her team filled out a 25-page application just to get one of them.

She is now waiting to receive an estimated $400,000 more. By contrast, the Duke University Hospital System, which includes a facility that serves Granville, already has received over $67.3 million from the federal Provider Relief Fund.

“I just don’t understand the extra layers of onus for the bureaucracy, especially if hundreds of millions of dollars are going to the hospitals and we have to be responsible to apply for 50 grants,” she said.

The money comes from dozens of funds, including several programs within the CARES Act. Nebraska alone received money from 76 federal COVID relief funding sources.

Robert Miller, director of health for the Eastern Highlands Health District in Connecticut, which covers 10 towns, received $29,596 of the $2.5 million the state distributed to local departments from the CDC fund and nothing from CARES. It was only enough to pay for some contact tracing and employee mileage.

Miller said that he could theoretically apply for a little more from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but that the reporting requirements — which include collecting every receipt — are extremely cumbersome for an already overburdened department.

So he wonders: “Is the squeeze worth the juice?”

Back in Minneapolis, Musicant said the new money from CARES allowed the department to run a free COVID-19 testing site Saturday, at a church that serves the Hispanic community about a mile from the site of Floyd’s killing.

It will take more money to do everything the community needs, she says, but with Congress deadlocked, she’s not sure they’ll get it anytime soon.

___

Smith is a writer for The Associated Press, and Weber, Recht and Ungar are writers for KHN. AP writers Camille Fassett and Steve Karnowski contributed to this report.

This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and KHN, which is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

US Report: Nursing home cases up nearly 80% in COVID-19 rebound

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR



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FILE - In this June 25, 2020, file photo, residents at the Southern Pines nursing home are separated and wear face coverings during their daily bingo game in Warner Robins, Ga. A new report says COVID-19 cases in U.S. nursing homes jumped nearly 80% earlier this summer, driven by rampant spread across the South and much of the West. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — COVID-19 cases in U.S. nursing homes jumped nearly 80% earlier this summer, driven by rampant spread across the South and much of the West, according to an industry report released Monday.

“The case numbers suggest the problem is far from solved,” said Tamara Konetzka, a research professor at the University of Chicago, who specializes in long-term care. She was not involved with the study.

Long-term care facilities account for less than 1% of the U.S. population, but more than 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

The situation is a politically sensitive issue for President Donald Trump, who is scrambling to hold on to support from older voters as polls show disapproval of his administration’s response to the pandemic.

The White House announced in late July the release of $5 billion for nursing homes, while launching a program to equip each of some 15,000 facilities with a fast-test machine to screen residents and staff for the coronavirus.

Monday’s study from the American Health Care Association found there were 9,715 coronavirus cases in nursing homes the week starting July 26, a 77% increase from a low point the week of June 21. The group is the industry’s main trade association.

Weekly deaths, rose to 1,706 the week of July 26, an increase of nearly 25% from a low point the week starting July 5.

Nursing homes in Sunbelt states had more time to prepare than facilities in the Northeast that were hit in late winter and early spring, with grim results. But Konetzka and other researchers have been warning that once a community anywhere experiences an outbreak, it’s only a matter of time before the coronavirus enters its nursing homes. A leading theory is that staffers who don’t yet know they’re infected unwittingly bring the virus in. Inside, the coronavirus encounters an ideal environment in which to spread among frail older people living in close quarters.

“As the virus surges in Sunbelt states, there’s no reason to think it won’t affect nursing homes in the same way it did in states that surged earlier,” said Konetzka. “We have learned some things about how to minimize the effect in nursing homes, but providers need the tools to implement those best practices. This is the critical role of federal policy that has not been fulfilled— securing supply chains for (personal protective equipment) and rapid testing.”

The industry analysis illustrates the march of the virus across the U.S.

As of the week of May 31, fewer than one-third of the weekly coronavirus cases were from nursing homes in Sunbelt states. But by the week starting July 26, that share was 78%.

Deaths followed a similar pattern. Nursing homes in states across the South and parts of the West accounted for 28% of deaths the week of May 31. That share was 69% by the week starting July 26.

The Trump administration says it’s executing on its plan to provide fast-test machines to nursing homes and make sure that all facilities have the protective equipment they need. But Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said states and nursing homes also have responsibility to safeguard residents. She called on nursing homes to step up their game.

“The reality is that (a) facility’s infection control practices is the number one factor leading to the spread of COVID within these facilities,” Verma said in a statement. Inspectors “have seen staff forgetting to wash their hands, congregating in break rooms, and wearing (protective equipment) improperly. All the testing in the world is for naught if staff don’t adhere to the basic, longstanding infection control practices that the federal government has had in place for years.”

Mark Parkinson, head of the nursing home trade group that produced the study, said the problem is bigger.

“The data indicate that this virus is spread by asymptomatic carriers and that even perfect infection control wouldn’t have stopped it,” he said. “The challenge with this virus is that because it is spread by asymptomatic carriers the prior infection control procedures didn’t work.”

Parkinson said that about 10% of facilities still report lacking an adequate supply of N95 masks, considered standard for hospital personnel.

He said the administration’s effort to distribute fast-test machines could be a “game changer,” but added “there’s still a long way to go.” Distribution is expected to be completed by the end of September.

In the meantime, Parkinson said it can still take three days, and sometimes more, to get results. “We continue to be plagued with a testing problem,” he said.

Guidelines call for nursing homes to test all residents at least once, and staffers on a regular basis.

Health and Human Services spokeswoman Mia Heck said, “We are prepared to exert our full authority to make sure the most vulnerable are being tested.”

The nursing home association is urging states struggling with the latest coronavirus surge to enact mandates for people to wear masks, saying it would indirectly benefit residents cloistered in such facilities. “There’s a direct link between COVID in the community and COVID in the building,” Parkinson said.

The Right Wing Has A New Theory For Why The Pandemic Will End Soon: T Cells

Right-wing commentators and Trump’s new science adviser, Scott Atlas, say new studies signal good news for ending the pandemic. Scientists say that’s a dangerous leap.

Stephanie M. LeeBuzz Feed News Reporter
Posted on August 14, 2020,

Fox News / Via foxnews.com
President Donald Trump's new science adviser, Scott Atlas, on Laura Ingraham's show.

How the immune system responds to the coronavirus is a mystery that scientists are working furiously to unravel — but their findings are being weaponized to make unfounded claims that the pandemic isn’t a big threat.

That became clear this week, when President Donald Trump unveiled his newest science adviser on the coronavirus task force, neuroradiologist Scott Atlas. A senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, he has steadily promoted unscientific views about the virus on Fox News and elsewhere, and has said there is “zero excuse to not have the schools open in person.” On Monday, Rush Limbaugh said Atlas was “countering Fauci” and cited the new adviser’s baseless theory that “we could well be burned out of COVID” by October. The reason: “prior immunities.”

Also on Monday, an unlicensed ophthalmologist and cryptocurrency investor, James Todaro, went viral on Twitter with a similarly misleading screed. Todaro, who was in the viral “America’s Frontline Doctors” video shared by Trump and removed from social media platforms for spreading misinformation about hydroxychloroquine, falsely claimed that “T cell immunity” meant many regions were already safe from infection and that lockdowns and mask-wearing were likely useless.

But infectious disease experts say these claims grossly distort the underlying science and what it means for public health guidelines — which, right now, is nothing.
If you have tips related to this story, you can reach this reporter at stephanie.lee@buzzfeed.com or stephaniemlee@protonmail.com.

The apparent basis for these statements: a slew of recent studies finding that, in some places, 20% to 50% of people have immune cells that unexpectedly recognize the coronavirus. The newest of these studies suggests that these cells exist because they have responded in the past to similar viruses that can cause colds.

But the significance of this finding remains an open question, as it’s unclear what role, if any, these cells play in the body’s overall response to the coronavirus. And there is still no evidence that having these cells from a past cold will save you from getting COVID-19.

As T cells become yet another politicized flashpoint, scientists say the bottom line is that none of these findings make COVID-19 any less of a threat. The research should not be used, they warn, to argue against shutdowns and masks or for reopening workplaces and schools in a developed nation that has uniquely failed to control the virus. Most of all, they reject the leap of logic that the research means society is close to herd immunity — the point at which enough people are immune to a virus that it stops circulating.

“We’ve got 1,000 people dying a day in the country,” Shane Crotty, an immunologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology who has worked on several of the recent T cell studies, told BuzzFeed News. “There’s no change in what the virus is doing based on what I find out or anybody else finds out. The virus is doing its thing and we’re doing our best to understand it.”

The claim that T cells could mean the pandemic will end in two months, he said, is “a total misunderstanding and wishful thinking.”


Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images
Scott Atlas listens to US President Donald Trump during the Aug. 10 White House briefing.


Since the outset of the pandemic, Crotty and scientists around the world have been racing to untangle how the virus wreaks havoc on the body and how the body fights back.

The immune system employs different mechanisms to recognize and attack intruders. Perhaps the best-known of the bunch are antibodies, the proteins that latch onto and neutralize viruses and other invading substances. But in people who recover from the coronavirus, antibodies may only protect against reinfection for three months, recent research suggests.

Another weapon in the immune system’s armory is T cells, which come in an assortment of types and functions and are increasingly garnering scientific attention. In the Netherlands, Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the US, researchers have discovered that in some people, a specific subset of T cells recognized the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, when exposed to it. This was surprising, because these kinds of T cells, by definition, were not expected to recognize a virus they had never encountered before.

In their paper published last week in Science, Crotty and his team reported an explanation for why these cells reacted. Using human blood samples collected prior to the pandemic, they found cells that reacted to both SARS-CoV-2 and to four other coronaviruses that cause common colds. These coronaviruses, the researchers said, were apparently similar enough to the new one to make the T cells “cross-reactive.” (Crotty likened SARS-CoV-2 to “a pretty distantly related evil cousin.”)

The finding has led scientists to speculate that these cross-reactive T cells could be behind one of the pandemic’s biggest mysteries: why the virus causes severe illness in some people but mild or no symptoms in others. The latter patients might be better equipped to handle an infection, having fought off related viruses before. Children’s immune systems have to fight off a lot of colds, so maybe this is why they seem to be relatively spared by the new virus.

For now, however, this theory is just that: a theory.

“It could explain everything and it could explain nothing,” Crotty said. “Very truly, these cells may have no impact on the disease at all.” And even if this theory were borne out, it would have significant limits: As he noted, colds are caused by hundreds of viruses, not just the four identified in the study.

Either way, these cells are still just one piece of the immune system, a highly intricate machine with all kinds of T cells and antibodies working independently and together to stamp out pathogens. The big, yet-to-be answered questions are which of these elements actually protect people from getting sick and for how long.

“While T cells may offer some protection — and that’s not really known — T cells would probably not just prevent a person from being infected altogether,” said Angie Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University who is not involved with this research.

But uncertainty hasn’t stopped pundits from twisting the research to make a point.


Twitter


On July 23, before he was appointed to the White House’s coronavirus task force, Scott Atlas declared on Laura Ingraham’s show that lockdowns would not eradicate the virus, that the US outbreak was “not out of control,” and that “there is absolutely no reason to panic,” arguments he’d been making since the spring. That day, the nation’s case count passed 4 million.

“There’s a lot of great data coming out about immunity,” Atlas went on to say. “It’s probably not known to the public, but there is a lot of data that shows that people have immunity — even people that didn’t get the infection.” He added, “That’s probably due to this T cell immunity,” and concluded, “So I think people should be much more optimistic here.” The Fox News host responded enthusiastically, saying she’d been discussing T cells and what they could mean for herd immunity on the show for “well over six weeks.”

This week, Limbaugh cited Atlas’s theory to tell listeners that the pandemic was almost over. “We could see by early October COVID-19 turn inert or dormant largely due to some underappreciated T cell, prior immunities from exposure to coronavirus, meaning colds and so forth,” the conservative radio host explained. “Some people who have come down with a cold over the course of the summer miraculously end up less likely to get COVID-19, according to Scott Atlas. And people that get colds, that’s a large portion of the population.”

Atlas directed a request for comment to White House spokesperson Judd Deere, who said in a statement that Atlas is “a world renowned physician and scholar of advanced medical care and health care policy” who, “like all of the medical experts in the Administration, is working to carry out the President’s number one priority: protecting the health and safety of the American people.”

Deere added, “We are all in this fight together, and only the media would distort and diminish Dr. Atlas’ highly acclaimed career simply because he has come to serve the President.”

Around the same time Limbaugh was praising Atlas’s theory, a similar claim was gaining traction on James Todaro’s Twitter account. Todaro, an early and avid proponent of hydroxychloroquine, is an ophthalmologist who earned his medical degree at Columbia University. He has not practiced since 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile, and his Michigan medical license expired last year. He did not respond to a request for comment.

In his thread, Todaro claimed that Crotty’s studies and others were growing evidence of “T-cell immunity.” “All those runny noses from the common cold prepared our T cells to fight COVID-19,” he proclaimed. He calculated that if about “50% of people had T cell immunity prior to SARS-CoV-2,” and an additional 10% to 20% of people were newly infected, then 60% to 70% of the population would be immune — a threshold that he said reached “herd immunity.”

“It is likely that many of the hardest hit regions of the world (e.g. Lombardy, NYC, Madrid, London, Stockholm) are now at herd immunity,” he wrote. “Lockdowns & mask ordinances (mostly coming after the peak) likely had little effect, with the exception of perhaps prolonging the spread.”

That’s not at all what the T cell research suggests, however. Having these cells still means you can get infected, only maybe — maybe — not as badly as if you didn’t have them.

“Herd immunity implies immunity, not just fewer people getting severe disease,” said Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia. “That means they do not catch it, do not spread it, they have this immunity that stops them from getting it in the first place.”

Even if 50% of the population really were somehow immune to the virus, that wouldn’t change the number of people who have been hospitalized and killed by the pandemic. As of Friday, the death toll in the US had exceeded 167,000. “It doesn’t change anything from the public health side of things,” Meyerowitz-Katz said.

Nevertheless, Todaro’s 19-part thread has been retweeted more than 48,000 times. It has circulated among figures on the right, from a Minnesota state senator to an editor at the Conservative Review to an ex-lawyer who has been retweeted by Trump. Other retweeters included the World Health Organization’s director of epidemic and pandemic diseases, and a Scottish historian who shared it with his more than 1 million followers: “Interesting thread. And hopeful if true.”

Crotty is not a heavy Twitter user — he checks it about once a week — but he felt compelled to respond once he saw how far the misinformation was spreading. “It was just not understanding the science,” he said.

He banged out a series of counterpoints, explaining why Todaro’s claims were “dangerous” and unfounded. Nothing about his findings, he stressed, should change what the public should already be doing to stem transmission. “Wearing a mask is much more effective than hoping you and the people around you have pre-existing T cell memory. Wearing a mask stops infections.”

His debunk was retweeted more than 3,700 times, a mere fraction of Todaro’s reach.

Rasmussen, the Columbia virologist, worried that most people watching Fox News or coming across Todaro’s tweets would never see Crotty’s attempt to correct the record. As she put it: “They’re just going to look at, ‘Oh, here’s this big thread on T cell immunity. This sounds great. We don’t even need to worry about waiting for a vaccine.’”

And she pointed out that this isn’t the first time during the pandemic that seemingly credible sources have injected misinformation into the mainstream.

“We’ve seen this a few times: People essentially using the clout of their credentials or their affiliations with a prestigious university to get them onto TV basically and amplify these messages,” Rasmussen said. The overarching message, as she saw it, is “the standard Trump administration downplaying of the severity of the pandemic, saying that ‘this is not as a big of a deal as everybody makes it out to be.’ Which, of course, the epidemiological evidence of over 160,000 deaths suggests otherwise.”

During an interview on Wednesday, it was still dawning on Crotty that his research had suddenly, unwittingly, become another political flashpoint.

“2020,” the immunologist said. “The year when all kinds of unexpected things happen.”



Stephanie M. Lee is a science reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

Trump makes call for new White House doctor’s virus advice

By JILL COLVIN August 16, 2020

1 of 2FILE - In this Aug. 12, 2020, file photo Scott Atlas, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, speaks at a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington. Trump has announced that Dr. Scott Atlas, a frequent guest on Fox News channel, has joined the White House as a pandemic adviser.(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has found a new doctor for his coronavirus task force — and this time there’s no daylight between them.

Trump last week announced that Dr. Scott Atlas, a frequent guest on Fox News Channel, has joined the White House as a pandemic adviser. Atlas, the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center and a fellow at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution, has no expertise in public health or infectious diseases.

But he has long been a critic of coronavirus lockdowns and has campaigned for kids to return to the classroom and for the return of college sports, just like Trump.

“Scott is a very famous man who’s also very highly respected,” Trump told reporters as he introduced the addition. “He has many great ideas and he thinks what we’ve done is really good.”

Atlas’ hiring comes amid ongoing tensions between the president and Drs. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, and Deborah Birx, the task force’s coordinator. While Birx remains closely involved in the administration’s pandemic response, both she and Fauci have publicly contradicted the rosy picture the president has painted of a virus that has now killed more than 167,000 people in the United States and infected millions nationwide.

Atlas, the sole doctor to share the stage at Trump’s pandemic briefings this past week, has long questioned polices that have been embraced by public health experts both in the U.S. and abroad. He has called it a “good thing” for younger, healthy people to be exposed to the virus, while falsely claiming children are at near “zero risk.”

In an April op-ed in The Hill newspaper, Atlas bemoaned that lockdowns may have prevented the development of “natural herd immunity.”

“In the absence of immunization, society needs circulation of the virus, assuming high-risk people can be isolated,” he wrote.
Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak

In television appearances, Atlas has called on the nation to “get a grip” and argued that “there’s nothing wrong” with having low-risk people get infected, as long as the vulnerable are protected.

“It doesn’t matter if younger, healthier people get infected. I don’t know how often that has to be said. They have nearly zero risk of a problem from this,” he said in one appearance. “When younger, healthier people get infected, that’s a good thing,” he went on to say, “because that’s exactly the way that population immunity develops.”

While younger people are certainly at far lower risk of developing serious complications from the virus, they can still spread it to others who may be more vulnerable, even when they have no symptoms. And while their chances of dying are slim, some do face severe complications, with one study finding that 35% of young adults had not returned to normal health two weeks to three weeks after testing positive.

But Atlas’ thinking closely aligns with Trump’s perspective on the virus, which he has played down since its earliest days. While Trump eventually supported the lockdowns that once helped slow the disease’s spread, he has since pressured states to reopen schools and businesses as he tries to revive a battered economy before the November election.

Public health experts have long bemoaned Trump’s efforts to politicize the virus and have encouraged him to let doctors and scientists lead the nation’s response. But they questioned the decision to bring on Atlas, whose expertise is in magnetic resonance imaging and whose research has focused on factors impacting health care policy.

“I think he’s utterly unqualified to help lead a COVID response,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University law professor who specializes in public health. “His medical degree isn’t even close to infectious diseases and public health and he has no experience in dealing with public health outbreaks.”

“Its very clear to me,” Gostin added, “that the president brought on somebody who will just be a mouthpiece for his agenda and a ‘yes’ person.” Gostin expressed concern that Trump was sidelining other doctors, including Birx and Fauci, because he had soured on their advice.

“In the face of an epidemic that’s killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, that’s unforgivable,” he said. “You want clear independent advice from people with long experience in fighting novel pandemics and he has none of those credentials.”

Kavita Patel, a primary care physician and health policy expert who served in the Obama White House, said there’s little that can prepare a doctor for the crucible of a presidential staff, let alone working for the famously volatile Trump.

“I expect Dr. Atlas’ time will be marked with highs and lows and hopefully he will realize that the country really needs credible expertise and guidance, not partisan bias,” said Patel. “By being partisan or political while having such an important (role), doctors undermine their credibility and ultimately dilute the role of science.”

White House spokesman Judd Deere, in a statement, praised Atlas as “a world renowned physician and scholar” and dismissed questions about Atlas’ qualifications.

“We are all in this fight together, and only the media would distort and diminish Dr. Atlas’ highly acclaimed career simply because he has come to serve the President,” he said.

Deere declined to say how long Atlas, who is now a paid special government employee, has been advising the president, and insisted his addition would not diminish the roles of Fauci and Birx.

Paul E. Peterson, director of the program on education policy and governance at Harvard University and a senior fellow at Hoover with Atlas, praised Atlas as “a really brilliant guy” with “a tremendous knowledge base” about the virus. Peterson said Atlas is someone who conducts ”the most rigorous and careful research before he comes to a conclusion.”

Some colleagues have found Atlas abrasive. But Peterson, who has written several op-eds with Atlas advocating the reopening of schools and who appeared with Atlas at a White House event this past week, praised Atlas as “delightful to work with” and stressed the value of Trump having input from people with a variety of backgrounds.

“If you get a variety of people from one perspective or one kind of training out there, that’s not desirable,” he said. “It’s extremely important to have diversity on the advisory board.”

___

Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report

Campus-based Thai protest movement extends reach to streets

By JERRY HARMER August 16, 2020

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Pro-democracy activities display a LGBT flag during a protest at Democracy Monument in Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday, Aug, 16, 2020. Protesters have stepped up pressure on the government demanding to dissolve the parliament, hold new elections, amend the constitution and end intimidation of the government's opponents. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

BANGKOK (AP) — Anti-government protesters gathered in large numbers in Thailand’s capital on Sunday for a rally that suggested their movement’s strength may extend beyond the college campuses where it had blossomed.

Thousands of people assembled at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument, a traditional venue for political activities, where they heard speeches, watched skits and listened to music. Hundreds of police were also present, as well as a small contingent of royalists opposed to the protesters. There was no reliable estimate of the crowd size, though it appeared to be one of the biggest demonstrations in several years.

The rally ended after almost eight hours with about two dozen students who are facing arrest joining together on stage to repeat their demands and renew their commitment to the cause of democracy. They issued a call for the government to take action by next month or face another major protest rally.

The student-led movement had already declared three core demands: holding new elections, amending the constitution and ending the intimidation of critics of the government.

At the finale of Sunday’s rally, they spelled out three more points, which were also written on banners behind them: no coup d’etat, no national unity government and upholding Thailand as a democracy with the king as head of state under the constitution.

The reference to a national unity government was apparently a warning to all political parties against making a backroom deal instead of holding elections, and the reference to the king seemed to be meant as reassurance that they did not want to abolish the monarchy.

“It is clear that students from several generations are the driving force of change in Thai society,” said Narin Isariyasith, a 20-year-old student at Thammasat University.

“We have done this in the past, but Thailand still has no full democracy,” he said. “Dictatorship keeps coming back. And I think it is our duty to end this vicious cycle.”

As the army chief in 2014, current Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha led a coup ousting an elected government. He then served as prime minister in the military regime that succeeded it, and returned as premier after a general election last year. Laws guiding the 2019 election were widely seen as so heavily rigged in Prayuth’s favor that victory was all but guaranteed.

Protest leaders triggered controversy last week when they expanded their original agenda, publicly criticizing Thailand’s constitutional monarchy and issuing a 10-point manifesto calling for its reform.

Their action was virtually unprecedented, as the monarchy is considered sacrosanct in Thailand, and any criticism is normally kept private. A lese majeste law calls for a prison sentence of three to 15 years for anyone found guilty of defaming the royal institution.

The sensitivity of the issue was illustrated by the failure of most mainstream Thai media to report in any detail on the students’ manifesto about the monarchy. The issue was barely and only obliquely touched upon at Sunday’s rally.

Police have arrested several protest leaders and charged them with sedition for statements made at a small rally in July. They were released on bail and vowed to attend Sunday’s rally, in what appeared to be defiance of the terms of their release.

The activists who took the stage at the rally’s finale afterward walked to a nearby police station in what was believed to have been a bid to turn themselves in, but then quickly left unhindered, saying they had only sought to see copies of their arrest warrants. They were still waiting nearby after midnight as their lawyers discussed their legal standing with police.

Many young people at Sunday’s protest were undeterred.

A 10th grade student from Satriwithaya School, an elite secondary school for girls, said it was not the first protest she had attended. The 14-year-old, who gave her name only as Pang, was with friends at a table selling books and other items to raise funds for the protest movement.

“I came to this protest today because I want to express my standpoint in opposing the dictatorship, asking for equal rights and having a better future,” she said.

It has been unclear how the escalation of the activists’ demands to include the monarchy has affected the popularity of the movement, since it could alienate some followers or make them fearful that the authorities will crack down heavily on them.

The government may also be faced with a dilemma, since it is committed to defending the royal institution but likely wary of acting with too heavy a hand that might tilt public support to the protesters.

Prime Minister Prayuth’s government has done well in coping with the health aspects of the coronavirus, but its management of the economy had been lackluster even before COVID-19 battered it.

Royalists have responded to the student movement by defending the monarchy in online statements and petitions, and in person with a small presence adjacent to Sunday’s rally. They declared earlier that they were there to observe and bear witness to any insults to the monarchy.

___

Associated Press writers Busaba Sivasomboon contributed to this report.

ICE Guards Have A “Pattern And Practice” Of Sexually Assaulting Immigrants, A Complaint Says

ICE guards would take advantage of camera blind spots and tell women no one would believe them if they spoke out, a recently filed complaint states.

Adolfo FloresBuzzFeed News Reporter
 August 15, 2020

John Moore / Getty Images

Three immigrants allege Immigration and Customs Enforcement guards carried out a "pattern and practice" of sexual assault and harassment inside a Texas detention center.

The continued sexual harassment and assaults the immigrants allegedly experienced at the hands of ICE officers were detailed in a complaint filed with the El Paso County District Attorney, the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General this week. The allegations inside the El Paso Processing Center (EPPC) were first reported by ProPublica.

According to the complaint, ICE guards would take advantage of camera blind spots at the El Paso facility, offer women money in exchange for sexual favors, and warn them against reporting anything, saying no one would believe them. One immigrant man was thrown into solitary confinement after complaining about harassment, the complaint said.

The women spoke out despite feeling powerless, said Linda Corchado, director of legal services for Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which filed the complaint.

"Mapping out systemic patterns of abuse helps us all see that this is not singular, that in fact there are many more detained women who have become victimized by men in power," Corchado told BuzzFeed News. "I hope that many more women will speak out. Without them and their stories, how can we dismantle a system that has destroyed their lives? We need them."

In a statement, ICE said it has zero tolerance for any form of sexual abuse or assault against immigrants in their custody and takes all allegations seriously. The complaint is being investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).


"When substantiated, appropriate action is taken," ICE said.

In the complaint, a woman identified as Jane Doe 1 said an ICE guard took advantage of camera blind spots to forcibly kiss and touch her "intimate parts" in November.

Several days later, the unidentified ICE officer told her that if she "behaved," he would help with her release. When Jane Doe 1 refused, the ICE officer told her no one would believe her if she reported him.

About a month later, Jane Doe 1 noticed the ICE officer was watching women through a window while they used a bathroom. When she reported the incident to a captain, she said they "responded dismissively" and scared her from reporting further misconduct by the ICE officer.

Jane Doe 1 didn't see the officer for a few months until March 2020, when he was increasingly aggressive and intimidating toward her.

"She has lived in constant panic that he may do something against her again," the complaint states.

John Moore / Getty Images

Jane Doe 1 also says she was sexually assaulted two times by another ICE officer.

In May, the other ICE officer pulled her aside as she walked from the medical unit to her barrack and began to kiss and touch her intimate parts, the complaint states. About a month later, the ICE officer forcibly kissed her and touched her again. Jane Doe 1 told him she would report him if he didn't stop.

"Officer [redacted] reportedly told her that no one would believe her and that there was no evidence of the assault since he had assaulted her in a camera blind spot," the complaint states.

Corchado, of Las Americas, said Jane Doe 1 is set to be deported and fears her alleged harassers will not face consequences if she is removed from the US.

Immigrants filed 14,693 complaints against ICE between January 2010 and July 2016, according to figures obtained by the advocacy organization Freedom for Immigrants. At the time, the top five facilities with the most sexual assault complaints were all privately-run immigration detention facilities. ICE relies on a sprawling network of contracts worth millions of dollars with private for-profit companies and existing jails to detain immigrants.

The El Paso detention center the complaints stem from is run by private company Global Precision Systems, which contracts with ICE to operate EPPC. A spokesperson for Global Precision Systems, a subsidiary of Bering Straits Native Corporation, said they were unable to comment on "pending legal matters."

It's rare that the OIG investigates complaints filed by immigrants against Department of Homeland Security agencies. In 2017, BuzzFeed News reported that of at least 33,126 complaints of sexual and physical abuse against DHS between January 2010 and July 2016, just 225, or 0.07%, were investigated.

The OIG did conduct 570 investigations of sexual and physical abuse, but only 225 arose from a complaint. More complaints were submitted against ICE than any other DHS agency.In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, there were 374 sexual assault allegations. Of those, 48 were substantiated, 215 were unsubstantiated, and 29 remain open, according to ICE.

In May, BuzzFeed News reported on a woman who sued a private prison company alleging she was raped inside an ICE detention center in Texas, which resulted in her giving birth to her attacker's daughter. CoreCivic, the private prison company paid by the federal government to operate the Houston Processing Center where the woman was detained, denied the allegations.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuter

Another immigrant woman, identified as Jane Doe 2 in the complaint, reported six incidents of sexual harassment at the hands of an ICE officer. Between March and April, the officer repeatedly told the woman she was attractive and said she should "fool around" with him, but she refused his advances.

The guard also told Jane Doe 2 he could pay her a lot of money if she engaged in sexual acts with him, the complaint states. When Jane Doe refused, the officer reportedly told her "she had no rights in the facility and that no one would believe her."

For the three months Jane Doe 2 was detained at the El Paso detention center, she saw repeated instances in which male officers "freely and openly" made advances toward detained women. The ICE guards would also try to make sexual arrangements in exchange for necessities like soap or a clean uniform, the complaint states.

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Even after she was released in April, ICE guards allegedly continued to harass her via messages relayed to two women in detention whom Jane Doe 2 is still in contact with.

The complaint also includes allegations from a male detainee identified as John Doe who said he caught an ICE officer staring at him as he showered. His complaint prompted the ICE guard to "repeatedly rub his genitals and stare" at him, the complaint states. After being confronted by the officer after complaining to superiors, John Doe said he was placed in solitary confinement for five days.



Adolfo Flores is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in McAllen, Texas..

The Trump Administration Is Preparing To Treat Asylum-Seekers As Security Threats

If implemented, the rule would take effect for 90 days and block immigrants who've been in Mexico or Canada within the last two weeks from legal protections.

Hamed AleazizBuzzFeed News Reporter
August 14, 2020

Paul Ratje / Getty Images
A group of immigrants sit on the ground near US Border Patrol agents in Sunland Park, New Mexico, March 20, 2019.

BuzzFeed News has reporters around the world bringing you trustworthy stories about the impact of the coronavirus. To help keep this news free, become a member.

The Trump administration has drafted a new rule that would take effect immediately and treat those seeking protection from persecution at a US land border as security threats if they had been in Mexico or Canada within the last two weeks of their arrival, according to a draft obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The draft rule, if implemented, would block affected asylum-seekers from legal protections and be in effect for 90 days immediately after it’s issued.

The draft rule cites the effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus within the US, but would represent the latest attempt by the Trump administration to restrict asylum protections at the border.

In the time since the coronavirus caused a global pandemic, President Donald Trump has blocked green cards for certain individuals abroad and cut work visas. Separately, an order issued by the CDC has allowed border officials to quickly send back those coming to the border, including children who arrive on their own.

“The pandemic has allowed the Trump administration to accomplish what they had been working towards for years — a complete shutdown of asylum at the southern border. This regulation shows that they have no intention of walking it back willingly,” said Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “By layering their policy change with multiple bureaucratic tools, they are doing everything they can to insulate the asylum shutdown against legal challenges.”

Administration officials posted a notice for a rule in July that would allow Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials to block asylum for those coming from countries determined to be suffering from a spread of health emergencies, but it did not take effect immediately and was undergoing a formal process to become policy.

The draft of the rule obtained by BuzzFeed News states that the US cannot wait to implement an immediate block of asylum at land borders. DHS officials declined to comment.

This new rule would immediately make those who attempt to enter the US at a port of entry or who cross without authorization on or after the day the policy is issued ineligible for asylum and a separate protection known as “withholding of removal” if the individual has been in Mexico or Canada for any length of time in the 14 days prior to their arrival. The new rule, which does not apply to green card holders, would appear to work in unison with a separate order that also limits protections.

Since March, DHS officials have turned back thousands of immigrants at the southern border by using an order issued by the CDC that bars the entry of those who cross into the US without authorization. Administration officials argue that the policy is necessary to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the US and has been a key tool for border agents.

The new draft rule could also provide a backstop should a federal court step in and block the current policy of quickly turning around immigrants at the southern border.

The drafting of the rule comes as the coronavirus continues to spread in the US. As of Thursday, more than 5 million people in the US have contracted COVID-19, while more than 160,000 have died of the disease. But immigrant advocates believe the draft rule would be unnecessary as a form of protection against the coronavirus.

“The Trump administration is once again using COVID-19 as a pretext to accomplish their long-sought goal of destroying the United States’ asylum system,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a policy analyst at the American Immigration Council. “Public health experts agree that mass-deportation of refugees is not a valid response to COVID-19, and that it would be wrong to deport people to their deaths in the name of “public health.

Hamed Aleaziz is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

I Spent Two Terrifying Days Imprisoned In Belarus

A week of protests has followed a rigged election in Belarus, where President Alexander Lukashenko’s security state deployed violence and fear to cling to power.

Dan Peleschuk BuzzFeed Contributor
Reporting From
Kyiv, Ukraine
Posted on August 16, 2020

Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
A Belarusian law enforcement officer gestures next to an injured protester, Yevgeny Zaichkin, Aug. 9.

KYIV — “Bitch, God forbid you raise your fucking head.”

With those words, the hulking, masked officer slammed the door shut. Around 20 of us knelt in agony on the steel floor of the troop transport vehicle, our faces pressed against the seats, following his orders, as we began trundling to an unknown destination.

The hot August air was thick with sweat and fear. I wondered if I’d see my parents again.

For anyone on the streets of Minsk and other cities around the country, the sound of Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus has now become the roar of crowds demanding his ouster, fair elections, and a freer country.

But for me, and the thousands of others detained last week, it’s a combat boot striking the side of a human torso. Or the cries of a person buckled in pain.

Judging by the horrendous accounts of police abuse trickling out of Belarus, my experience was far from the worst. But two days in detention was enough to understand what kept Belarusians cowed and submissive for years — and why that’s now changing.


As anger bubbled across this post-Soviet nation of 9.5 million following last Sunday’s clumsily rigged election, which handed the former collective farm boss a sixth term, I was sucked into the dark heart of the brutal security apparatus that’s helped keep him in power since 1994.

Random detentions. Vicious beatings. Psychological abuse. Deployed freely in the days following Lukashenko’s deeply flawed election, these time-tested staples of an autocratic security state may actually mark its undoing.


Eager to watch the election unfold, I’d hoped to secure accreditation before arriving in Minsk last Saturday. Like the vast majority of my fellow foreign correspondents, my request was ignored. But with tickets already in hand, I traveled to Belarus anyway, intent on observing — at a reasonably safe distance, I figured — how events would play out.

I conducted no interviews, published nothing, and stayed mostly off social media. A tourist in a handsomely rebuilt showcase capital, I walked its regal boulevards and spotless sidewalks, watching and waiting for signs of unrest.

It finally came Sunday evening. After preliminary results handed Lukashenko an utterly unbelievable 80% of the vote, Belarusians flooded the streets of central Minsk, leading to clashes in several places between police and protesters, including outside my building. After briefly stepping out to watch the feared riot cops tighten their grip on the central boulevard, I quietly retreated back to my apartment.

The following evening was a nightmare.

By around 7 p.m., an eerie calm had gripped the city, as both residents and authorities anxiously anticipated more turmoil. Strolling toward a park near the previous night’s clashes — with no signs of building protests — I was approached by a group of black-clad riot police, known by their acronym “OMON.”


With balaclavas pulled over their faces, and their bodies covered by layers of fatigues and armor, their steely, violent eyes were the only sign a human resided underneath.

“Where are you going?” demanded one. “Why are your hands in your pockets?” barked another. Several more questions were hurled my way. They weren’t interested in answers; they were fishing for excuses to detain me.

Mere seconds after it emerged that I was an American who’d arrived from recently revolutionary Ukraine — a potential propaganda gift for an autocrat obsessed with alleged foreign meddling — I was manhandled into the windowless prisoner transport vehicle parked nearby.

Within half an hour, six or seven of us filled a space the size of a bathroom stall, our bodies awkwardly contorted around one another.

Driven to the Pervomaisk district police station, we were pulled into the courtyard and lined up facing the wall with our heads down, legs spread, and hands behind our backs, asked for our names and dates of birth. Some of those not standing rigidly enough received a fist to the side, or a kick in the knee.

When my turn came, I calmly stated I was an American citizen. “Who fucking cares,” the officer grunted.


Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
Law enforcement officers detain journalists, not including the author, who were on assignment in Minsk, Belarus, July 28.

Funneled into the gym, we were stripped of our belongings and cataloged again. Fate failed the young man who had a can of pepper spray: Riot officers beat him to the ground and continued pummeling him as he groaned in agony, shouting, “Why the fuck would you need this?”

His body absorbed the blows like a sandbag bursting at the seams.

Over the next few hours, the crowd inside the gym swelled to several dozen. As riot police returned to the streets, we were ordered by local guards — much less severe, though mostly disinterested in our comfort — to sit on a narrow wooden ledge along the wall, heads down and hands on our knees. I eventually convinced them to let me lie on the floor, since an old back injury left me grimacing in pain.

Later, I was allowed to stay on a wrestling mat on the other side of the gym. That helped police keep track of me as the lone American, perhaps sparing me from the beatings that befell others.

Occasionally, the guards would pass around two liter-sized bottles of water among the detainees. Some requests to visit the bathroom were granted, others ignored. Throughout the night, we were called one-by-one — many bloodied or limping in pain — to complete our arrest sheets. All were charged with the administrative offense of participating in an unsanctioned rally, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 days.

Sometime in the middle of the night, OMON burst into the gymnasium, visibly heated and full of hate from what must have been a night of street fights downtown. In Lukashenko’s police state, they are the tip of the spear — violence-craving, brainwashed goons who equate even the slightest dissent with treason. Their sole purpose is to strike fear into citizens’ hearts.

That night, they called the shots.

They forced us up, then down on our knees, hands behind our backs and heads pressed to the floor. We lay in fear as the officers paced around the room, amid a tirade of expletives and threats, like predators sniffing out their prey. The stomping of their boots reverberated across the hardwood court and echoed throughout the frigid gym, its windows agape as the cool air wafted in.

Again, those deemed not submissive enough were beaten or their heads were kicked into the “proper” position. After several more random assaults, they left, and over the next several hours the tension slightly dispersed as we gradually eased into various forms of semi-fetal positions.

Clutching my knees to my chest as tightly I as could, I shivered into a faint slumber.

Around noon the next day, after being booked and photographed, we were split into two groups. “American, go with them,” the chief officer shouted, pointing to the group assembling by the door and corralled by newly arrived riot police.


With my heart in my stomach, I simply stared at him in denial, pretending not to have understood. During my booking, I was able to sneak in two calls — to my parents in the US and to a journalist in Kyiv — but if I left that gym, my passport confiscated, I fear I’d never be found.

But knowing refusal meant a vicious beating, I complied, broken and meek.

Dragged outside and into an idling troop carrier, we were again forced onto our knees along the aisle, hands behind our backs and heads against the seats. Amid endless streams of profanity, including the dire warning to keep our heads down, another beating or two was meted out to a deeply unlucky detainee.

We pulled away, clueless as to where we were going. The OMON officers taunted us: “Is this the change you wanted?” referring to a Soviet-era rock song, “I Want Changes,” that’s become the anthem of the opposition movement.

As we drove, the young man pressed up against my right side — a bespectacled, seemingly harmless nerd — began gasping for air, then quietly crying in pain. “Hold on,” I whispered repeatedly through the side of my mouth. I told him to focus on breathing deeply, hoping he’d follow my lead.

“I can’t. Dammit, I can’t,” he responded, now practically weeping.

Sitting on my heels, praying the guards wouldn’t notice, I’d lost all feeling in my legs. Bent so far back, my feet felt as if they’d snap off. Between thinking of my parents and trying to picture my friends’ smiling faces, I mused over how a recent heartbreak seemed absurdly trivial. So did COVID-19, which I assumed I’d already contracted.

I just wanted to live, and for someone to find me.


Sergei Gapon / Getty Image
Belarus's law enforcement officers guard government buildings during a protest rally against police violence in central Minsk, Aug. 14.

An hour and a half later, we arrived at a detention facility in Zhodino, about 40 miles outside Minsk. As we idled in the courtyard the psychological torment began: “Welcome to the worst place on Earth,” one officer said, demonstratively chuckling.

Another said ominously, “This is where you’ll learn.”

Led through dark basement corridors reminiscent of a Cold War spy film, the barking of massive dogs and the crackling chatter of walkie-talkies pierced the dank air. “This can’t be real,” I repeated to myself.

After being strip-searched and processed, we were split up further and led toward a cell. When the door swung open, I was stunned: The 10-bed, 150-square-foot cell was already over capacity — and now there were 27 of us in total. Still, the men inside erupted into applause and offered their hands. “Hey, fellow political prisoners!”

The mood lightened, and for the first time, I understood that something had changed.

I scanned my fellow cellmates. Beaten faces and shirts stained orange from day-old blood. Knees split open, oozing from infection. Baton-shaped bruises across backs. Yet except for the youngest among them, who were between 18 and 20 years old, few were visibly afraid.

Over the next day-and-a-half in that musty, oxygen-deprived cell — packed with students, techies, small business owners, and blue-collar workers — inmates traded stories about how their arrest sheets had been fabricated to claim they’d been shouting slogans or inciting protests. Most had been picked off the street like me; some right front of their homes.


Angry but not radical, they referred to cops in street slang meaning “trash.” But they also waxed poetic about being fed up with economic stagnation and being treated like cattle.

Vasya, a middle-aged man who owns an auto parts store, complained of the inordinate level of taxes he pays, which finances the security apparatus that snatched him from a bus stop. For Artyom, a wispy-haired programmer resembling Rasputin, and who was serving a 10-day sentence for participating in an earlier protest, the experience was a turning point: “I’m no longer afraid,” he said. “After this, what’s left to fear?”

In short, not a single man believed the Lukashenko regime had any legitimacy left.

We cracked jokes, sang songs, celebrated the rare and sacred deliveries of bread and prison gruel. When things got too quiet, the more jovial among us would yell, “Long live Belarus!” — a long-favored chant of the opposition — which would solicit the bellowing response, “Live on!”

Human decency ruled: Whenever one man realized he’d spent a couple hours in bed, he’d offer his space to another sprawled across the cold floor or hunched over the crooked communal table. If someone hadn’t eaten, he’d be implored to do so. Today, these men are my heroes; facing the unknown, their priority was to maintain our collective spirit.

But mostly, we waited. Legally, a judge in Belarus has 72 hours to try a case before the suspect is released from detention. Those of us who hadn’t been sentenced gamed out various scenarios: What if time runs out? Will we be freed? With a broken pen and tiny scraps of paper snuck in, they traded relatives’ contact information.

At one point, a guard summoned three of our youngest cellmates and told them they were headed home. Shortly after, one of them returned saying he was told he’d receive a 15-day sentence in the morning. That sparked jeers. “So that’s how you sent him home, you fucker?” yelled one of my cellmates.

Through a crack in our door, we could see and hear the constant stream of new prisoners overwhelming a system not designed for such mass detentions. The unnerving clank of prison doors never seemed to cease. Communicating with our neighbors by banging on the wall and yelling through the window, we tried to feel out the situation by finding out how many had been sentenced.


Sergei Gapon / Getty Images
People detained during recent rallies of opposition supporters leave the Okrestina prison early morning in Minsk, Aug. 14.

Around midnight on the third day of my detention, a guard barged in.

“Peleschuk!” he shouted. “Where is he?” I slid off my cot and sauntered to the door, nodding to my cellmates — who had begged me to “tell the world” about everything I’d seen — as they wished me luck. I had no idea where I was going.

Led through several corridors crammed with prisoners’ belongings, I was shocked at the disarray: Hundreds of individual black plastic bags strewn across the floor, many torn open. Belts, phones, wallets, shoelaces scattered everywhere. Guards, meanwhile, darted back and forth, barely managing the influx of prisoners.

For all its terror, I realized Lukashenko’s fearsome police state is simply another part of the country’s bloated bureaucracy: mired in paperwork and run by hacks loyal only to a state paycheck.

Except, of course, for OMON: As long as these brutal punishers are patrolling the streets with state support, Belarusians will never truly be safe.

Eventually, I was led to a portly administrator who claimed I was being released with a warning, and that representative from the US Embassy had arrived to pick me up. I did not believe him; one of my greatest fears throughout my detention was becoming a political pawn, my face splashed across state media as an “agent provocateur” sent to stir unrest.

It wasn’t until I was led through the prison courtyard and into the administrative wing near the entrance that I exhaled. When I saw the consular officer sitting inside a small office, I knew I was free.

The next day, I picked up my passport from the police precinct (which required more wheel-greasing by the embassy) and booked a flight back to my base in Kyiv.

During my drive to the airport, I watched thousands of cheerful protesters line the city’s main boulevard, led by women in white clothing and accessories, such as flowers and flags. A direct contrast to the evils that mark Lukashenko’s police state, those are the faces now filling streets across the country in what amounts to the single biggest challenge to Belarusian authorities since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now safe in Kyiv, I have not yet unpacked my suitcase. I want the smell of prison to linger, to help me remember the much better men left behind, with no embassy to rescue them.

As I was writing this account, a friend from Minsk wrote me a birthday greeting. “Just like in a game of survival,” she said, “you’ve been born again.”

Judging the momentum building by the day against Lukashenko, the same just might be true for the Belarusian people.


MORE ON THIS
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Christopher Miller · Aug. 14, 2020

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An Arizona School District Canceled All Its Classes After Teachers Staged A Sickout Over Coronavirus Fears

The J.O. Combs Unified School District canceled all its classes, including virtual lessons, after many teachers said they would not return to classrooms citing coronavirus concerns.

Otillia SteadmanBuzzFeed News Reporter
Last updated on August 17, 2020

Ross D. Franklin / AP
Local teacher Lisa Vaaler joins other teachers as they hold a #Return2SchoolSafely Motor March protest in Phoenix, July 15.



A school district in Arizona that was set to open for in-person teaching on Monday was forced to cancel all classes after teachers staged a “sickout” to protest unsafe working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic.

"We have received an overwhelming response from staff indicating that they do not feel safe returning to classrooms with students," Gregory Wyman, superintendent of the J.O. Combs Unified School District, said in a letter to parents on Friday. "In response, we have received a high volume of staff absences for Monday citing health and safety concerns."

The district's governing board had voted to resume in-person education on Monday despite failing to meet the metrics recommended by the state, according to a statement from J.O. Combs School District staff members that was provided to BuzzFeed News.

"Any reopening to in-person school before the guideline metrics developed by the AZ Department of Health represent a serious disregard for the safety of both students and staff," the statement from staff members said.



After reviewing the district's pandemic plan, a majority of the staff members felt that it was unsafe for them and students to return to their campuses on Monday, their statement said.

The district announced Friday that all of Monday's classes, including virtual learning, would be canceled after at least 109 staff members called in sick, the Arizona Republic reported.

"Due to these insufficient staffing levels, schools will not be able to reopen on Monday as planned," Wyman said in his letter to parents.

Wyman also said he was unsure when classes would resume because the district could not predict how long the absences would last.

In their statement, the staff members of the school district said "the risk of infection is too high" until Pinal County meets the state metrics set by the Arizona Department of Health determining that it was safe to reopen.

The staff members also reported a lack of recommended sanitization supplies to clean school sites and the lack of essential supplies to safely reopen campuses.

"Until we receive the necessary supplies to maintain our inventory, we will remain at a higher risk of infection of our students and staff," their statement said.

They also said staff members had not received "adequate and clear procedures" about their responsibilities in handling students returning to campus and that there had been no staff training on COVID-19 policies and sanitization procedures.

The staff members urged the school board to approve Wyman's recommendation to continue virtual learning through the first quarter to allow time for the state metrics to be met, for back-ordered supplies to arrive, and for staff to be properly trained.


"Please know that we are acutely aware of how polarizing this issue is, and how challenging these ongoing developments are for our entire community," Wyman's letter said.


The question of whether to reopen schools for in-person education has become a political flashpoint across the country as parents, teachers, and school districts attempt to balance the safety of reopening with other priorities.

Teachers in New York City have also threatened to protest with a sickout if the city decides to reopen for in-person classes.



MORE-UFT@MOREcaucusUFT

If de Blasio won’t #closenycpublicschools to protect students and their families, teachers will #sickout https://t.co/VEloYt7cx309:01 PM - 14 Mar 2020
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In Arizona, officials have recommended that schools look at three benchmarks to assess how the virus is spreading in the community before deciding to reopen, including the number of new cases in the area, the percentage of people testing positive, and the number of hospitalizations. However, the state has not required schools to make decisions based on the benchmarks, the Arizona Republic reported.


The sickout protest in the J.O. Combs Unified School District comes after several teachers in the neighboring Queens Creek district resigned following a vote to resume in-person education there.


Sharon Tuttle, an organizer with Arizona Educators United, a grassroots group that has helped organize protests against reopening schools, told BuzzFeed News that teachers who resign could face fines or petitions to have their licenses revoked.

“We are just starting to see how this affects children, how contagious they are, and that they can get it,” said Tuttle, adding that the group is advocating for science-based metrics to determine when to reopen.

Tuttle said comparisons of teachers to other professions were "ridiculous."

“This is a horrible situation for everybody,” she said. “Everybody is uncomfortable, but it doesn’t mean you make bad decisions."


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Otillia Steadman is the world news operations manager for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Marijuana vending machines to debut in Colorado, Massachusetts

DISPENSARY WORKERS UNIONIZED

The machines will arrive in September in Massachusetts, where retail sales of recreational marijuana became legal in 2018. File Photo by 7raysmarketing/Pixabay/UP


Aug. 17 (UPI) -- Marijuana vending machines are rolling out in Colorado and Massachusetts to offer customers contactless buying at dispensaries in states where pot is legal.

Boston-based anna debuted the new machines at Strawberry Field dispensary in Pueblo, Colo., where customers can now buy flower, edibles and vape oils without interacting with a salesperson, the Denver Post reported. More machines will be installed in Aurora, a Denver suburb, later this year, the company said.

Local agents identify customers through drivers license and approve payment, then buyers pick up their product from the machine.

"It's about getting customers through faster with less contact," CEO Matt Frost told Masslive.com.

Frost, a former medical data analyst, said Massachusetts dispensary customers can wait in long lines which makes acquiring medical cannabis dangerous for those with compromised immune systems in an age of COVID-19.

"A self-checkout solution does lend itself well to these times," Frost said. "There's a bigger appetite for what we're doing now."

The machines are set to debut in September in Massachusetts, where retail sales of recreational marijuana became legal in November of 2018.

Along with the appeal of touchless buying, mechanizing the sale of marijuana might also be attractive to cannabis companies as 10,000 Massachusetts cannabis dispensary workers recently appealed to the National Labor Relations Board to authorize a mail-in election to unionize.

United Food and Commercial Workers unionized its first commercial dispensary in Massachusetts last fall.

"The legal cannabis industry is a newly regulated market that can offer local communities jobs with strong wages and benefits that can't be outsourced," UFCW said in a statement. "Jobs that pay better wages and provide better benefits -- like the ones we represent -- are vital to keeping our economy afloat and families out of poverty.

The anna machine is not the first pot vending machine to appear in Colorado. A vending machine with cameras to check customer IDs was introduced in Eagle-Vail in 2014. The Zazz machine was produced by American Green and installed in a dispensary in Avon, Colo.


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