THIRD WORLD USA
Stark racial disparities emerge as families struggle to get enough food

The pandemic has left Black and Hispanic households much worse off than white families.


People line up for a Chicago food giveaway sponsored by the Greater Chicago Food Depository in May. | AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

By HELENA BOTTEMILLER EVICH
07/06/2020 

Nearly four in 10 Black and Hispanic households with children are struggling to feed their families during the coronavirus pandemic — a dramatic spike that is exacerbating racial inequities and potentially threatening the health of millions of young Americans.

The percentage of families who are considered food insecure has surged across all groups and is already much higher than during the depths of the Great Recession, according to new research by economists at Northwestern University based on Census Bureau data.

But Black and Hispanic households with children are now nearly twice as likely to be struggling with food as similar white families. The wide racial gaps have persisted week to week throughout the pandemic, according to the analysis, first shared with POLITICO. The gap between Hispanic and white households now also appears to be worsening.

The figures are based on weekly surveys conducted by the Census Bureau — a little-noticed data tool that’s giving a near real-time look at the economic fallout of the pandemic as well as the stark racial disparities emerging.

Economists who closely track the numbers have been deeply concerned by the rise in rates. They are particularly dismayed that the figures are so high even after Washington has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on additional unemployment insurance and other forms of aid.

“This is uncharted territory,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist and director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. “We’ve never seen food insecurity rates double, or nearly triple — and the persistent race gaps are just appalling.”

The high levels of food insecurity do not appear to be improving even as some states reopen. The report comes as Democrats on Capitol Hill are again trying to get a 15 percent increase in food stamp benefits into the next coronavirus aid package. Republicans, however, have repeatedly refused to include it.

When it comes to food insecurity, policymakers tend to pay special attention to households with children. Hunger among children can cause behavioral problems and lowered academic performance, which can lead to lifelong setbacks.

The government defines food insecurity as a household that’s either uncertain about or unable to get enough food to feed everyone under their roof at some point during the year because of a lack of money. During the pandemic, the Census Bureau has been asking households about their ability to access food and feed their households during the past seven days.

Economists at Northwestern have been analyzing the government’s weekly survey data and translating the figures so the findings can be compared to historical trends.


Cars line up to receive food during a donation drive in Baltimore. | AP Photo/Julio Cortez

The last time the government formally measured food insecurity nationally was in 2018. At that time, about 25 percent of Black households with children were food insecure. Today, the rate is about 39 percent, according to the latest analysis by the Northwestern economists, which is set to be published this week. For Hispanic households with kids, the rate was nearly 17 percent in 2018. Today, it is nearly 37 percent.

The rate for white households with children is significantly lower at 22 percent. Still, that is more than double what it was before the pandemic and much higher than it's been since the government began measuring food insecurity two decades ago.“There’s just appalling levels of food insecurity and it’s clear there’s a disproportionate impact,” said Geri Henchy, director of nutrition policy and early childhood programs, at the Food Research & Action Center, an advocacy group based in Washington. “It’s infuriating.”

When the earliest food insecurity estimates for children came out, about six weeks into the pandemic, the numbers were so high that anti-hunger advocates and some economists thought they had to be wrong. But the early numbers have since been backed up by other national surveys. 

In late April, one large national survey found that more than 17 percent of mothers reported that their children under the age of 12 were not getting enough to eat because the family couldn’t afford enough food — a 400 percent increase from the government’s last estimate in 2018.

Asking specifically whether children in the household are getting enough to eat, rather than asking generally about access to food for the household, is an important distinction. Even in food insecure households, adults tend to shield children from going without food by skipping meals themselves or making other sacrifices. That can make it difficult to suss out the direct effects of economic woes on young people.

But a few weeks ago, the Census Bureau added a specific question to its weekly survey to ask whether children in the household were “not eating enough” because the family couldn’t afford enough food in the past week.

As the results have been released, the numbers are alarmingly consistent: About 16 percent of households with kids were reporting that children were not eating enough in the previous week, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project to be released this week.

The racial disparities are stark, with 29 percent of Black households and 24 percent of Hispanic households reporting that children were not eating enough, compared with 9 percent of white households, according to the forthcoming report. For all groups, those levels are extremely high compared with before the pandemic.

Before Covid-19 hit, food insecurity rates had been falling across all groups over the past several years, although major racial disparities have persisted for decades. Black households with children have about double the rate of food insecurity compared to white households with children.

Rates for Hispanic households have varied somewhat. At some points in the wake of the Great Recession, for example, Hispanic families with children had higher rates of food insecurity than Black households with kids. But as the economy improved, the picture improved much faster for Hispanic families than for Black ones.

#FIREDEVOS
DeVos blasts school districts that hesitate at reopening

The Trump administration says local decisions closed schools, not federal health experts.


Education Secretary,  Betsy DeVos. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo

BILLIONAIRE FAMILY, RIGHT WING CALVINISTS,

REFORM CHURCH, DEVRY INSTITUTE, PROMOTER OF PUBLIC

FUNDING FOR PRIVATE AND RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS, PROMOTES CHARTER SCHOOLS ON THE TAXPAYERS BUCK

By NICOLE GAUDIANO

07/07/2020

President Donald Trump in a ramped-up push to reopen schools vowed Tuesday to “put pressure” on reluctant governors, while Education Secretary Betsy DeVos blasted education leaders who won’t accept risk and “gave up and didn’t try” to launch summer instruction.

But the result was intensifying tensions with teachers unions and leading school groups, including the PTA, which charged that the Trump administration in a "vacuum of leadership" has "zero credibility in the minds of educators and parents when it comes to this major decision." The dispute leaves the White House deeply at odds with many involved in making major decisions in the next few weeks about reopening schools.

The White House devoted most of the day to its suddenly energized drive to reopen schools that shuttered during the pandemic, insisting it’s OK to move ahead and that decisions last spring to close down came from states rather than health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The meetings and speeches appeared to hinge on a bet by the administration that parents are worried about the virus but still want their kids back in school, and would respond to broadsides aimed at school leaders and politicians


DeVos, who has been criticized for standing on the sidelines during the crisis, took a tough tone. During a call with governors, DeVos slammed the Fairfax, Va., district for its distance learning “disaster” in the spring and offering a choice of only zero or two days of in-person instruction moving forward, according to notes of a call, led by Vice President Mike Pence, with governors obtained by POLITICO. Earlier in the pandemic, DeVos had been more open to kids learning both online and during in-person classes.

“Education leaders need to examine real data and weigh risk. … Risk is involved in everything we do, from learning to ride a bike to riding a rocket into space and everything in between,” she said.

But a statement Tuesday night from teachers unions, the PTA, special education administrators and secondary school principals indicated that their relationship with the White House has hit a new low.

"Throughout this pandemic, the administration has failed to address the needs of students, especially those students who need the most support. They have failed to listen to families and public school educators who have been on the frontlines serving their communities," the statement read.

"Public school educators, students and parents must have a voice in critical conversations and decisions on reopening schools. The president should not be brazenly making these decisions."

Trump and DeVos praised Florida’s new reopening plan, which orders the state’s public schools to reopen in August for at least five days per week for all students. "We will put out the fires as they come up, but we have to open our schools,” Trump said, and he decried “political statements” that will keep schools closed.

“They think it's going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed. No way,” he said during a roundtable discussion at the White House. “So we're very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools, to get them open. And it's very important. It's very important for our country. It's very important for the well-being of the student and the parents.”

Trump had tweeted on Monday: "Corrupt Joe Biden and the Democrats don’t want to open schools in the Fall for political reasons, not for health reasons! They think it will help them in November. Wrong, the people get it!"

The push to reopen comes as parents agonize over whether it will be safe to send their kids back to school this fall and districts wrestle with whether and how to conduct classes. The reopening of schools is vital not just to getting the economy going, but to Trump’s reelection prospects. The campaign may be banking on the issue as a way to revive his appeal among disaffected suburban women, whose support will be key.

The Trump campaign is also seizing on former Vice President Joe Biden's support of teachers unions that are stalwarts of Democratic politics and challenging Biden’s commitment to helping parents get their kids back to school. The campaign’s “question of the day” on Tuesday for the presumptive Democratic nominee is “Will you side with union bosses who want to keep schools closed or parents who want their kids to keep learning?"

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar backed up DeVos, saying parents should expect schools to deliver a safe learning environment for their children, even during a pandemic.

“We must reopen,” he said during a White House event on reopening schools. “We’ve got to get people back to work, back to school, back to health care, because we can't stay locked in our homes forever. It's bad for our physical and mental and emotional health — us as adults, as well as for our kids.”

But Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association, said "the reality is no one should listen to Donald Trump or Betsy DeVos when it comes to what is best for students."

After Trump tweeted, “SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!,” García fired back on Monday, “You forgot to add the word ‘SAFELY.’” Biden, speaking to the NEA on Friday, pledged his administration will have a "teacher-oriented" Department of Education.

Meanwhile, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten tweeted on Tuesday that, to minimize the risk of spreading Covid-19, schools need "double the staff and double the space to teach in person. But with state budgets facing massive cuts as a result of the pandemic, we need federal funding to #ReopenSafely," she wrote.

The White House hosted events throughout Tuesday on safely reopening, culminating with the roundtable discussion with Trump, first lady Melania Trump, administration officials and teachers, administrators and students from around the country. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) wrote an op-ed published in USA Today advocating liability protections for schools in any upcoming emergency relief package and underlining GOP support for helping parents with child care problems.

Last spring, DeVos, in a slight departure from Trump, suggested through a spokesperson that schools may have to stick with virtual learning if they’re not ready to fully reopen. But on Tuesday, during the panel discussion at the White House, she praised Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran for issuing a “very comprehensive” plan to reopen in August for at least five days per week for all students.

“There may be other states and other communities that want to look at that, but again, with the expectation that students are together and that families will be able to count on a five-day school week if that’s the right answer for them,” she said.

During the later panel discussion with Trump, DeVos said too many students "were trapped in schools that don't meet their needs" even before the virus, and that this is the time to reopen and rethink education — a common refrain for the school choice advocate.

"This moment demands actions," she said. "Not excuse-making or fearmongering."

The White House is leaning on CDC reopening guidance and a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics that details the importance of in-person learning and “strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school.”

CDC Director Robert Redfield said during another White House panel discussion that reopening plans should minimize the risk of Covid-19 while providing students the critical services, academic resources, and social and emotional support they need. And plans should anticipate that Covid cases "will in fact occur."

"The CDC encourages all schools, all schools to do what they need to reopen," he said, adding that the agency’s guidance viewed as a recommendation to reopen. "Nothing would cause me greater sadness than to see any school district or school use our guidance as a reason not to reopen."

TRUMP WHISPERER

Trump’s intel briefer breaks her silence

In rare public remarks, the veteran intelligence officer tip-toed around the complexities of her job.

Beth Sanner, a career CIA officer, discussed briefing techniques, offering a window into how she approaches briefings with the president

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

By NATASHA BERTRAND
07/06/2020 

A career CIA officer explained in rare public remarks on Monday what she’s learned about adapting intelligence briefings to the unique style of a particular “customer” — in her case, President Donald Trump.

Beth Sanner, a senior official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who also serves as Trump’s primary intelligence briefer, never mentioned the president by name during an event hosted by the non-profit Intelligence & National Security Alliance on Monday.

But the unusual core challenge of her job — delivering intelligence to Donald J. Trump — was unavoidable as she discussed her own briefing techniques in detail, explaining that while she strives to be competent and fearless, she also tries not to be off-putting and aims to tailor briefings to a customer’s particular style.

“Is this someone who reads? Someone who likes a story? Operates on visuals?” Sanner said. “You figure out before you go in what that person needs from you.”

Sanner’s comments offered a window into how she approaches briefings with the president, as questions swirl about why Trump—who is not known to read Presidential Daily Brief, a classified document outlining key national security threats—was apparently never “orally” briefed on intelligence showing that Russia was paying bounties to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan as early as 2018.

The White House’s claim that it was Sanner who made the call not to brief Trump on the issue — articulated both by the president’s top foreign policy aide and his chief spokesperson last week — has thrust the agency veteran into an uncomfortably public position.

“The president's career CIA briefer decided not to brief him because it was unverified intelligence,” national security adviser Robert O’Brien said last week.


Sanner never made any reference to the controversy on Monday. But she showed no sign of being cowed by the controversy, either, outlining for an audience of more than 1,000 virtual attendees at the 'New IC: Empowering Women & Engaging Men' program her philosophy of the job of briefing powerful decision makers.

“Be calm in your confidence, do your homework, and have that first briefing be where you hit the things they need from you,” she said. “Watch your audience and pivot—when they’re done, you’re done. Ultimately, it’s about listening to be heard. You have to really hear people and then adjust yourself.”

Sanner’s style isn’t unique—presidential briefers have traditionally tailored briefings to a particular leader’s preferences. But her advice to “pivot” away from issues the customer doesn’t want to discuss could explain why Trump wasn’t told, at least orally, about the Russia bounty intelligence—Trump’s singular resistance to hearing anything negative about Russia has led even his most senior Cabinet officials to tiptoe around issues related to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin, former officials have said.

John Bolton, who wrote a tell-all memoir after quitting the job of national security adviser last September, has described the president as virtually impervious to absorbing new information and prone to off-topic rants.

Trump’s unique characteristics have forced the intelligence community to adapt to his style, minimizing text and increasing the use of graphics, other officials have said.

And while the briefer has some discretion in what to highlight, those judgment calls typically depend, as Sanner’s comments suggested, on the crises of the moment and what most interests the president that day.

But other top officials — notably the national security adviser, director of national intelligence, and CIA director — ultimately hold more sway in what intelligence and issues get highlighted for the president, experts say.

Sanner did allude, however, to the trepidation inherent in briefing a customer as powerful as the president of the United States.

“I think that fear, for us, is the most debilitating thing we face in our lives,” she said. “And if every time I went in and talked to the president I was afraid, I’d never get anything done. You are there because you're good—so let that fear go.”

FDA official casts doubt on 'challenge trials' for Covid vaccine

“It’s not a no, it’s a 'We’ll see what you submit,'" said Peter Marks.

COVID VACCINE RUSHED TO MARKET FOR PROFIT

PROFIT OVER HUMAN HEALTH AND SAFETY
A patient receives a shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for Covid-19 at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle in March 2020. | Ted S. Warren/AP Photo


By SARAH OWERMOHLE

07/08/2020

A top FDA official overseeing vaccine approvals raised doubts Wednesday about the possibility of intentionally infecting people with the coronavirus to see whether vaccines work, saying that could represent “ethical heartburn” because there's still no easy way to treat the potentially severe disease.

Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, also defended the FDA’s recent guidance requiring Covid-19 vaccine candidates must be at least 50 percent more effective than a placebo.

“I think we got to the perfect spot there,” Marks said at an industry event, adding that FDA has received criticism from all corners. “If you go much lower than 50 percent, then you go to bounds of very little efficacy … but 70 to 80 percent might mean there isn’t a vaccine until herd immunity occurs naturally."

The ethical debate: Typical vaccine studies enroll tens of thousands of healthy volunteers in separate vaccine and placebo arms under the assumption that a certain amount of each group will come in contact with the virus. Human challenge trials are controversial since test subjects are intentionally infected, but the idea has gained traction as the pandemic rages on and multiple vaccine-makers are trying to line up trial participants.

Thirty-five House members, including former HHS chief Donna Shalala, wrote to HHS in April urging the agency to consider human challenge studies. The World Health Organization in May published guidance that green-lighted ethical versions of the trials. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, told POLITICO last month that the option was on the table, but he hoped researchers would not need to use that approach.

Challenge studies have typically been used for mild diseases with known treatments like a common cold or diarrhea, Marks said Wednesday during an Alliance for a Stronger FDA event. There are still too many questions about how Covid-19 affects people, he added. It’s not clear why some people get severely ill while others show no symptoms, or why some have lung problems while others develop blood clots.

“If something bad happens, you don’t have a perfect fix for it,” Marks said. Still, he didn't rule out the option of a challenge trial.

“It’s not a no, it’s a ‘We’ll see what you submit,’” Marks said.

The pressure is on: President Donald Trump has promised a vaccine would be available by the end of the year even as health officials try to hedge expectations. Multiple potential Covid-19 vaccines are hurtling through clinical trials, with several expected to start the final, sweeping phase III trial by the fall. Two are expected to begin this month — one for a Pfizer candidate and another for a candidate developed by NIH and Moderna.

The speed of vaccine development and recent FDA stumbles, including the hasty emergency use authorization — and subsequent reversal — for hydroxychloroquine have raised alarms with current and former officials concerned the agency would be pressured to approve a candidate on sparse data.

Marks said that safety has been top of mind as vaccine trials go at record speed.

“At the end of the day, we’ll have to be able to look at the public and say corners were not cut,” Marks said.

Zachary Brennan contributed to this report.

Tulsa health official: Trump rally ‘likely’ source of virus surge

“In the past few days, we’ve seen almost 500 new cases,” Dr. Bruce Dart said.

COVID-TRUMP (MOVE OVER TYPHOID MARY)

CORONAVIR-USA

IT WAS A SUPER SPREADER EVENT BY THE SUPER SPREADER IN CHIEF

President Donald Trump at the June rally in Tulsa, Okla. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

07/08/2020 07

OKLAHOMA CITY — President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa in late June that drew thousands of participants and large protests “likely contributed” to a dramatic surge in new coronavirus cases, Tulsa City-County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said Wednesday.

Tulsa County reported 261 confirmed new cases on Monday, a one-day record high, and another 206 cases on Tuesday. By comparison, during the week before the June 20 Trump rally, there were 76 cases on Monday and 96 on Tuesday.

Although the health department’s policy is to not publicly identify individual settings where people may have contracted the virus, Dart said those large gatherings “more than likely” contributed to the spike.

“In the past few days, we’ve seen almost 500 new cases, and we had several large events just over two weeks ago, so I guess we just connect the dots,” Dart said.

Trump’s Tulsa rally, his first since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S., attracted thousands of people from around the country. About 6,200 people gathered inside the 19,000-seat BOK Center arena — far fewer than was expected.

Dart had urged the campaign to consider pushing back the date of the rally, fearing a potential surge in the number of coronavirus cases.

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said the campaign went to great lengths to ensure that those who attended the rally were protected.

“There were literally no health precautions to speak of as thousands looted, rioted, and protested in the streets and the media reported that it did not lead to a rise in coronavirus cases,” Murtaugh said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the President’s rally was 18 days ago, all attendees had their temperature checked, everyone was provided a mask, and there was plenty of hand sanitizer available for all.

“It’s obvious that the media’s concern about large gatherings begins and ends with Trump rallies,” he said.

Although masks were provided to rally goers, there was no requirement that participants wear them, and most didn’t.

REMEMBER ME

Shepard Smith joining CNBC as evening news anchor

Smith announced his departure from Fox News last fall after more than two decades at the network.


The addition of Shepard Smith to CNBC’s lineup comes after a New York Times report that the head of NBCUniversal is weighing a rightward turn for the network’s primetime slate. | Richard Drew/AP Photo

 OH JOY AH WELL I HOPE THEY ARE ALL BRAIN DEAD LIKE 

JOE KERNAN ON CNBC SQUAWK BOX 

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO POLITICO 07/08/2020

Shepard Smith, the former Fox News anchor who left the network abruptly last October, will join CNBC, where he will host an hourlong evening newscast beginning in the fall.

CNBC said in a news release on Wednesday that the new show, titled “The News with Shepard Smith,” would air Monday to Friday at 7 p.m. beginning later this year, but that Smith would join the network effective Monday. Smith will have the title of chief general news anchor, chief breaking news anchor and executive editor of his show.

Smith announced his departure from Fox News last fall after more than two decades at the network, stepping down from his role as the network’s chief news anchor and managing editor of the breaking news division. He also anchored “Shepard Smith Reporting” in the 3 p.m. hour for six years.

In his final months at Fox, Smith drew the ire and mockery of President Donald Trump for his unsparing coverage and criticism of the Trump administration, relative to more favorable coverage elsewhere on the network. Smith had also clashed with another personality at the network, engaging in an on-air feud with opinion host Tucker Carlson.

“I am honored to continue to pursue the truth, both for CNBC’s loyal viewers and for those who have been following my reporting for decades in good times and in bad,” Smith said in the press release.

The addition of Smith to CNBC’s lineup comes after a New York Times report that the head of NBCUniversal is weighing a rightward turn for the network’s primetime slate.

In a news release, CNBC Chairman Mark Hoffman called Smith’s forthcoming newscast the “perfect bridge between CNBC’s daytime investor-focused news programming and the network’s aspirational business-oriented entertainment programs in primetime.”

“We aim to deliver a nightly program that, in some small way, looks for the signal in all the noise,” Hoffman said. “We’re thrilled that Shep, who’s built a career on an honest fight to find and report the facts, will continue his pursuit of the truth at CNBC.”

THIRD WORLD USA

Why the U.S. still hasn't solved its testing crisis

The nation has conducted more than 4 million tests in the past week, more than ever before.

A healthcare worker administers a coronavirus test in Tampa, Florida. | Octavio Jones/Getty Images

By DAVID LIM and ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN

07/05/2020 

The United States still doesn’t have a handle on testing six months into the coronavirus pandemic.

The nation has conducted more than 4 million tests in the past week, more than ever before. But big jumps in testing capacity have been effectively erased by record-breaking increases in new infections as states reopen their economies. The supply chain problems that hampered testing early on never entirely went away and still threaten the ability of labs to conduct testing for everyone asking.

The renewed testing crisis threatens federal and state officials’ ability to quell an outbreak that public health experts say could spin out of control in the coming months.

Here are five reasons the U.S. still doesn’t have enough testing to safely reopen:
The supply chain is still a problem.

Commercial labs across the country are still having trouble getting adequate stocks of reagents, the chemicals they use to prepare samples for testing. Disposable pipette tips, which labs use to transfer samples from transport containers into testing machines, are emerging as another issue, said Julie Khani, president of the American Clinical Laboratory Association.

“There are labs that are going to be faced with stopping collecting of samples altogether, or limiting samples to high-risk populations for example,” Khani said. “These are the really difficult challenges that are facing laboratories. We’re doing everything we can do to avoid that.”

And 22 percent of the nation’s public health labs said in late June that they had a week’s supply or less of reagents and other crucial testing components.

Disruptions in any part of the long supply chain for testing materials can quickly lead to bottlenecks, labs and public health experts warn. And some states say federal efforts to distribute testing supplies have sometimes created more work.

The Trump administration has on multiple occasions sent Washington state testing supplies that were badly packaged, unlabeled, incompatible with the state’s equipment or otherwise unusable, the state’s health secretary, John Wiesman, wrote in a letter this week to Health and Human Services testing czar Brett Giroir.

In one case, the federal government sent 250,000 testing swabs packaged in bulk that the state then had to sterilize and repackage, Wiesman wrote in the letter, obtained by POLITICO. Though the letter thanks the administration for the supply distribution effort and says things are much better than the severe shortages the state experienced earlier this year, it notes that ongoing supply problems “threaten to limit our overall testing capacity at a critical time in the pandemic response."
Reopening has increased demand

Samples are piling up faster than labs can analyze them, which is lengthening turnaround times for results — complicating efforts to contain the virus.

But the soaring rates of new infections across the country are just one part of the equation. Part of the rising demand is the result of a recent push to test residents of prisons and nursing homes, who are especially vulnerable if the virus starts spreading in their facilities, Giroir told reporters Wednesday. Some businesses are also conducting mass testing of their workers and hospitals are testing people undergoing elective surgeries.

And if states’ reopening plans reach the point where travel returns to a normal volume, that could drive up the need for tests ⁠— potentially pitting visitors against residents in places like Hawaii. “We can complete between 5,000 and 7,000 tests per day, which we feel is adequate in terms of managing the disease,” Hawaii Gov. David Ige told POLITICO. “But reopening will create a real dilemma and testing challenge for us once we get anywhere close to a normal volume of tourism.”

In recent weeks, federal officials have said they are exploring a strategy called sample pooling to help preserve testing supplies while expanding capacity. The strategy combines samples from multiple people and tests them as a group. If the result comes back positive, each person in the group is tested individually.

“My assessment is that the data is very strong that pools of at least five and up to 10 are going to be highly validatable and can be put into use,” Giroir said. “By the time the universities get back, I think pooling will be very mature.”

China and some other countries have already used pooling to screen large numbers of people. In late May, the city of Wuhan tested millions of its citizens this way to help stamp out cases before they caused a second wave of infections.

But pooling isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, says Scott Becker, CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories. The approach works best in areas where coronavirus prevalence is low, the number of samples in a pool is limited and high-quality labs conduct the testing, he said. “I am concerned as I was with [antibody tests] that the policy and the regulatory side may be getting ahead of quality,” Becker added.

THE VACCINE RACE THE NEW COLD WAR

The Dangerous Race for the Covid Vaccine

The international competition for a coronavirus vaccine harkens back to the golden age of Edison and the Wright Brothers. But excesses of national pride and one-upmanship are threatening to overwhelm the common good.


Illustration by Elzo Durt

LONG READ FEATURE ARTICLE

By ELIZABETH RALPH 07/07/2020
Elizabeth Ralph is deputy editor at Politico Magazine.


Michael Piontek believes his native Germany is putting too much money on one vaccine.

The reason is Donald Trump.

In June, Germany paid a whopping sum for a large stake in German drugmaker CureVac, which was developing a Covid-19 vaccine. Piontek was shocked. “Why CureVac?” he thought. The company’s vaccine is based on promising but untried and untested technology and its manufacturing capacities are limited

But, months earlier, the American president had insulted German pride by musing about paying CureVac to relocate to the United States. The offer, first reported in the German press under the headline “Trump vs. Berlin,” set off outrage in the Bundestag, elicited cries of “Germany is not for sale!” and led the government to shell out 300 million euros for 23 percent of the firm—an unprecedented move.

Piontek, whose biotech firm is also developing a Covid-19 vaccine, says Germany would have done better to invest in multiple companies with different approaches. “Betting on one horse,” he says, is a mistake.

The strange fate of CureVac shows just how much national pride is defining the lines of the global race for the Covid-19 vaccine. While scientists try to collaborate across national boundaries, national leaders are caught up in an old-fashioned game of one-upmanship—a competition that is driving, and in some cases complicating, the most consequential medical challenge of the 21st century. Public health experts say we should be worried.


Top: CureVac main shareholder Dietmar Hopp, left, and CureVac CEO Franz-Werner Haas, right, during a news conference with German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier on June 15, 2020. Below: The CureVac headquarters in Tubingen, Germany. | AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, Pool; Matthias Hangst/Getty Images
In China, where a vaccine victory could turn a country that started the virus’ spread into the savior of the world, the virologist and major general leading the country’s vaccine project has been hailed as a “goddess” on social media. “If China is the first to develop this weapon with its own intellectual property rights, it will demonstrate not only the progress of Chinese science and technology, but also our image as a major power,” she said on state TV in March.

In June, following fears that the U.S. could get first access to a vaccine produced by French pharma giant Sanofi, President Emmanuel Macron announced that Sanofi would be dramatically ramping up operations in France to put “Sanofi and France at the heart of excellence in the fight … to find a vaccine.” Invoking the “genius of Louis Pasteur,” Marcon hailed France as “a great vaccine country.”






The world is waiting on a coronavirus vaccine. We're tracking the global competition, the research and development, the rollout plan and how effective the vaccine will be.
Full coverage »



Meanwhile, across the English Channel, Britain is celebrating the news that its own Oxford scientists are “sprinting fastest” to develop a vaccine, in the words of an April 27 New York Times article—though the news site Irish Central took pains to point out that the lead scientist is Irish, not English.

And then there’s Trump, who stood in the Rose Garden in May and stated definitively that “America is blessed to have the most brilliant, talented doctors and researchers anywhere in the world. And now we’re combining all of these amazing strengths for the most aggressive vaccine project in history. There’s never been a vaccine project anywhere in history like this.”

President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 29, 2020. | AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Some think the contest recalls the antagonistic days of the Cold War—“a sputnik moment,” says biotech investor Brad Loncar. Others see parallels to the dash to invent a marketable light bulb—an American discovery that stunned Europe and put the United States on the map as a center of innovation. As coronavirus cases mount around the world and economies continue to limp through lockdowns, nations are not just competing for first access to the vaccine, they’re also hoping to claim victory in a race that would affirm their national identities, resourcefulness and power—proving that their character, systems and intellect are superior.


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“This national-type race is something that has been around for maybe 200 years at least,” says Naomi Rogers, a history of medicine professor at Yale University. “It’s an incredible coup to have somebody in your country develop something that has such incredible global significance. It’s hard not to feel that their discovery … was the result of the special training that they received in that country, the special resources that they were able to access in that country.”

“It’s an incredible coup to have somebody in your country develop something that has such incredible global significance. It’s hard not to feel that their discovery … was the result of the special training that they received in that country, the special resources that they were able to access in that country.”
Naomi Rogers

Visible, prominent scientific achievements “reflect across a country’s political system, its economic system, its educational system,” says Jason Schwartz, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health, becoming “a beacon for how countries view themselves and … how they want to be viewed around the world.”

In eras of great power competition, like today, these victories take on special significance, no matter how minuscule the achievement or how tangible the benefits. “It’s like the difference between the Soviet and American [Olympic] medal count during the Cold War,” when competition was intense, and during the 1990s, “when nobody really cared,” says James Carafano, a national security expert at the Heritage Foundation.


The American, Soviet and Norwegian flags are raised at an Olympic medal ceremony in Austria on Feb. 4, 1964. | AP File Photo

Today, eyes are on the not-quite-cold-war rivalry between China and the United States, who have been trading blame for the current pandemic. Beijing is gunning to eclipse the U.S. as the world leader in biotech and has put the full weight of the state behind the country’s vaccine candidates. Of the 10 vaccines currently in clinical trials globally, five are from China, according to the World Health Organization. “For China, it would be awesome to be first,” says Carafano, even if the benefits are ephemeral—so much so that Chinese hackers have, according to the FBI, been attempting to steal U.S. vaccine research to get there.

Meanwhile in the U.S., months out from a presidential election, Trump is relying on the government’s Operation Warp Speed to deliver a Covid-19 vaccine by January 2021—a feat that “will be one of the greatest scientific and humanitarian accomplishments in history,” according to the administration. Warp Speed is pouring billions into vaccine candidates around the world, except in China.

Patriotic competitions, however, have dark sides. Friendly races can spur scientists to innovate better and faster, but experts in public health, biotech and national security see many ways today’s vaccine nationalism might backfire. It can scramble priorities and lead to bad bets, as Piontek fears. It can goad countries to cheat and take shortcuts, ultimately rolling back progress. A “me first” attitude can also undermine global health. “The danger in vaccine nationalism is that it’s not a race to the top, and of sharing, but it’s some sort of zero-sum game,” warns Ian Goldin, a professor of globalization and development at Oxford University. “That’s what we need to guard against.”


“The danger in vaccine nationalism is that it’s not a race to the top, but it’s some sort of zero-sum game.”
Ian Goldin

Loncar doesn’t see much of a way out. “One thing that the whole Covid-19 event has taught the world is how important biotech is to society,” he says. From now on, “governments are going to view their biotech industries as a component of national security.”

The “unprecedented” CureVac investment, he says, is just the beginning of a new era of global competition.

READ ON https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/07/vaccine-race-covid-national-pride-348072

Harvard, MIT file suit over Trump administration visa rule for international students

The suit says that "the effect — and perhaps even the goal — is to create as much chaos for universities and international students as possible."

The Harvard University campus. | Maddie Meyer/Getty Images


By JUAN PEREZ JR. POLITICO 07/08/2020 

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology filed suit Wednesday against DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in an attempt to halt a proposed federal policy that could deport international students taking online-only courses at U.S. colleges.

Harvard plans to teach its students online in the fall, though the school plans to invite up to 40 percent of its undergraduates back to campus. MIT plans a hybrid on-campus and online program for the 2020-21 academic year. The government's proposal is still being finalized, but could affect a swath of other schools struggling to reopen their doors while the coronavirus pandemic continues.

Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber said the school would file an amicus brief for the lawsuit, while also “exploring other legal and policy options.” Yale President Peter Salovey, meanwhile, said his institution was working to "understand the full implications of DHS’s guidance."

A trio of other major universities — Arizona State, Michigan and the University of Southern California — have expressed confidence that their plans for the fall won't affect foreign students.

ICE said the proposed policy is intended to “maximize flexibility for students to continue their studies, while minimizing the risk of transmission of COVID-19 by not admitting students into the country who do not need to be present to attend classes in-person.”

“The policy speaks for itself," White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday. "You don’t get a visa for taking online classes from, let’s say, the University of Phoenix. So why would you if you were just taking online classes generally?"

Responding to the lawsuit by Harvard and MIT, she said: “Perhaps the better lawsuit would be coming from students who have to pay full tuition with no access to in person classes to attend.”

Schools planning to offer entirely online classes or programs, or that don't plan to reopen for the fall 2020 semester, must submit their plans to ICE by next week. Institutions planning to reopen with adjusted calendars or a hybrid of in-person and remote classes must do the same by the beginning of August.

The colleges argued in their complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, that "ICE’s decision reflects an effort by the federal government to force universities to reopen in-person classes." The Trump administration has been pushing hard for both colleges and K-12 schools to fully physically reopen.

The suit says that "the effect — and perhaps even the goal — is to create as much chaos for universities and international students as possible."

Both schools argue the government's proposed policy violates the Administrative Procedure Act, and are asking a judge to issue a temporary restraining order and injunctions that bar the government from enforcing its planned policy or enshrining it as a required rule.

International students expressed shock as news of the Trump administration’s planned changes to policies for foreign scholars in the U.S. on visas filtered through group chats and Facebook posts this week.

“The announced changes are heartless, senseless, and damaging: they needlessly put international students at risk without serving any legitimate policy objective,” Princeton's Eisgruber said in a statement. “ICE’s announcement is policymaking at its worst: cruel, opaque, and arbitrary.”

Carly Sitrin contributed to this report

Congress wary on future aid as well-connected businesses rake in millions

The numerous anecdotes and controversies pouring out of the Paycheck Protection Program loan data are shaping lobbying efforts around the next economic relief package.


Sen. Ron Johnson is among the bipartisan group of lawmakers calling for tighter restrictions on future aid. | Samuel Corum/Getty Images


By ZACHARY WARMBRODT POLITICO 07/07/2020


The revelation that well-heeled businesses and nonprofits benefited from emergency small business loans is making it more likely that Congress will impose new limits on aid in its next rescue plan for employers and workers.

The Trump administration disclosed Monday that the recipients of the more than $521 billion in forgivable loans included top lobbying and law firms, private equity-backed restaurant chains like P.F. Chang’s, investment companies and even Kanye West’s clothing brand. Though $130 billion remains uncommitted under the so-called Paycheck Protection Program, it's rekindling long-running concerns about the degree to which businesses with ample sources of financing are getting government-backed support while smaller employers continue to struggle.

"It’s important for taxpayers and for the administration to ask whether some of these companies followed the rules," Rep. Ben McAdams (D-Utah) said Tuesday. "Moving forward, Congress should ensure that the affected small businesses receive the assistance they need – not celebrity clothing lines or companies already determined to be ineligible.”

POLITICO DISPATCH: JULY 8

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a surge in families considered food insecure — and that’s true across demographic groups. But for Black and Hispanic families, the numbers are unprecedented.

Lawmakers negotiating the next round of small business aid were already discussing ways to target funds at employers that were hit hardest by the pandemic-induced shutdown even before the data was released. But the disclosures are spurring new calls for oversight of whether many of the program's loan recipients should have received the money. The loans have proved attractive to businesses of all sizes because they can be forgiven if employers maintain their payrolls. If they don't, they remain loans with a 1 percent interest rate.

The extraordinary aid program is widely lauded as an overall success after delivering emergency funds to nearly 4.9 million borrowers in less than three months, with 86.5 percent of businesses taking loans of less than $150,000. Defenders of the program's rocky rollout — including its shifting guidelines on who should receive the money — say it was the price to pay to keep workers attached to their jobs in rapid fashion.

Still, the numerous anecdotes and controversies pouring out of the Paycheck Protection Program loan data are shaping lobbying efforts around the next economic relief package that Congress is expected to take up later this month.

"It's straightforward," said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. "Big businesses that can keep people on the payroll without a PPP loan should not get one. The purpose of these taxpayer dollars going out the door was to ensure that entities that truly needed money to keep regular Americans employed received it. "



CONGRESS
New data shows lawmakers secured millions in small-business aid


BY MELANIE ZANONA, ZACHARY WARMBRODT AND SAM MINTZ

Even the champions of the program have started arguing that it's time for a major overhaul. Linking the delivery of aid with demonstrated need is a key feature lawmakers are considering as they draft ideas for what to do beyond the initial iteration of the program, which closes to new loans on Aug. 8.

Senate Small Business Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a key architect of the program, has floated plans for new types of loans that would be available to businesses that employ 300 or fewer employees and can prove that they suffered significant revenue losses this year. One of his proposals for a long-term loan would focus on seasonal employers, businesses that make at least half of their profit in a low-income community, as well as manufacturers and hotels. Rubio's plan included $25 billion set aside for businesses that employ 10 or fewer people.




A bipartisan group of lawmakers who want to let businesses apply for second Paycheck Protection Program loans are also proposing that the additional aid be limited to the smallest businesses that took hits to revenue.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is among those calling for tighter restrictions on the flow of loan funds. In June, he slowed efforts in Congress to loosen the program's rules after warning that lawmakers should also enact reforms to prevent funds from going to organizations that didn't need them. He appears to have won over Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who said last month he agreed with Johnson that under the Paycheck Protection Program there should be "very specific criteria" that money goes to companies that need the help.

Johnson told POLITICO in an interview that he prefers Congress set the threshold based on businesses' profitability this year.

"We had to do something fast, we had to do something massive," Johnson said. "We knew that it was going to be far from perfect. But now we have more time and we really can provide greater direction and better targeting in terms of what the aid needs to be."

It would be a big change from the way Congress first designed the program. While it was aimed at businesses with fewer employees, it included exceptions for large restaurant and hotel chains to tap into the funds. The loan application doesn't require borrowers to prove hardship outside of a self-certification that "current economic uncertainty" made the loan necessary to support ongoing operations. After a public backlash when several large, publicly traded companies disclosed receiving the loans, the Trump administration tried to deter further takeup by the biggest corporations by threatening penalties and audits

The plight of small businesses is even more popular in American politics than apple pie," said Aaron Klein, a Brookings Institution fellow and former chief economist of the Senate Banking Committee. "The hidden truth is that lots of large businesses fit under the legal definitions of small business. The new data release crystallizes to the American public in every community around the country that recipients of millions of dollars in PPP money were not small, local stores but rather big enterprises with deep pockets who took advantage of free government money."

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Small Business Committee, told POLITICO in an interview that the next phase of small business support would concentrate on employers at smaller businesses as well as underbanked, minority and rural businesses.

"It's going to be based upon need," Cardin said. "There's going to be a revenue loss standard for businesses that qualify. It won't be the type of self-certification you saw in the first round and basically allowing almost any small business to qualify for funding."

Amanda Fischer, policy director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, said Congress needs to consider "structural changes to get money into the hands of the most vulnerable small businesses." Fischer said she sees the possibility of Congress tightening eligibility rules or making some firms pay back the money.

"For example, some reporting showed that private equity portfolio firms gamed rules to gain access when they were otherwise prohibited," she said. "Hedge funds also received some PPP funds. This clearly was not the congressional intent."

The disclosures have given new ammunition to consumer advocates who are arguing that the program's reliance on banks to deliver the aid has benefited the well-connected while leaving the smallest businesses — including those owned by people of color — without access.

Ashley Harrington, federal advocacy director at the Center for Responsible Lending, said Congress should consider direct grants instead of using banks as intermediaries.

"The question is not just did they deserve the loans, did they need the loans," she said. "But they had access that other communities did not have. That's something we need to recognize and address when we think about what small business relief looks like going forward."