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President says testing delays not his fault.
Trump: "No I don't take responsibility at all." pic.twitter.com/iT3Fj2JT6T
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 13, 2020
New York state and city officials have been pressing the FDA for days to sign off both on new tests but also automated testing. They seem to have finally gotten the authorization today. They’ve also gotten the sign-off to have the state approve testing additional capacity within the state. I know I’m focusing a lot on New York. It’s a location of major spread. But I’m also doing so because the issues are relevant to and often paralleled by the same things happening in states around the country.
We’re getting our first breakdown of mortality figures from the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. They should focus our attention on protecting and isolating the vulnerable. Helen Branswell, a reporter for StatNews who has been a critical source of information through this crisis, is sharing information from a teleconference briefing hosted by JAMA. It’s with a top clinician in Lombardy. One slide gives a breakdown of the epidemic by age.
TPM Reader OM offers the perspective of being immuno-compromised and living with the threat of COVID-19:
COVID-19 has hit at a very strange time for me. …
I had a liver transplant on Jan. 22.
One hell of a time to become immuno-compromised.
Hello, friends. As you’ve likely noticed we’ve now gone a few weeks without an Inside briefing. This was first because of my vacation in February. Then we had to cancel one briefing. Now for the last two weeks plus we’ve been in this escalating mode of crisis which all of you are no doubt experiencing in your own lives. For us, as you know, we moved to remote work Wednesday and we’re trying to get our sea legs in this new work, reporting and life reality. Basically, I just wanted to say, we’re aware of this. We apologize for the disruption and we will be getting back to a regular schedule of the access, insight and guidance we provide to Inside members absolutely as soon as possible.
From the front lines of office culture and remote work from TPM Reader ANON …
Your first post about closing the TPM offices prompted me to start putting similar pressure on my own colleagues. The news may be bursting with closings and cancellations, but I fear there are as many businesses like mine — a [xxxxxxxx] agency with ~120 employees and four office locations around the country—who even now are still playing catch-up to the reality of this situation.
Members of the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force are increasingly adopting a new default when they don’t have a satisfying answer to inquiries about COVID-19: Awkwardly pivot to praise President Trump.
Join*** A few moments ago the Director General of the WHO said that “Europe has now become the epicenter of the #COVID19 pandemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from China. More cases are now being reported every day than were reported in at the height of its epidemic.” In one sense we know this. New infections in China have dropped to a very low level. But he seems also to be saying that velocity of the epidemic is now greater in Europe than it was at the height of the crisis in China.
*** There has been a lot of attention to a statement yesterday from Ohio’s Department of Public Health Diretor Amy Acton who said that: “We know that 1% of the state’s population is carrying this virus today. That’s over 100,000 people.” I have seen this claim discussed by a substantial number of epidemiologists, public health officials and data modelers. Each expressed real skepticism about this estimate and indeed what the basis for the estimate was. As of yesterday, Ohio appeared to have run 87 tests and found 5 infections while 52 test results were pending. To be clear, I am not saying this number is false. I will also say that public health officials expect a substantial percentage of the country to become infected with the virus eventually. So this is not a ‘calm down’ message. It is simply that many experts seem skeptical that that number is accurate today and question what evidence the estimate is based on.
You’ve been sending us some very kind and generous notes about the work our team is doing providing information under these trying and unprecedented circumstances. We thank you for that. I would like to thank our whole team myself for work in circumstances few if any of us have experienced before. As I noted on February 28th – which now seems like half a lifetime ago – we will focus much of our effort on leveraging our journalistic experience finding, analyzing and amplifying trustworthy sources of information on the crisis. Our team is also focusing on reporting in areas of governmental action, agencies and policy decision-making where we bring great pre-existing experience to the table.
Let me remind you to keep the emails coming.