It’s been months – ghastly months – since we made excess mortality data a central aspect of our coverage of the COVID Crisis. To review, this is epidemiologists’ and population statisticians’ way of looking at the total number of fatalities for all causes across society and comparing it to baseline trends in recent years. Josh Kovensky is back with a new report based on CDC-collected data which shows that the US has seen more than 200,000 fatalities normal so far this year.

The former VP has kept us waiting for some time. We’re expecting to know sometime this week who his vice president will be.

We’re in line for a rash of morality tales emerging out of school re-openings around the country. That high school in Georgia that had the viral photo of kids crowded into a hallway between classes has now reported at least 9 new cases – students and teachers – and is at least temporarily moving to remote instruction.

These stories also provide new evidence of how little emerging science is figuring into decisions on the school reopening question. North Paulding High School is moving to remote instruction today and tomorrow during which time the facility will be closed for cleaning and disinfection. The problem is that most of what we’ve learned over the last eight months tells us that this sort of cleaning addresses what is likely only a minor or even trivial source of infection. COVID virus can persist on surfaces for significant periods of time, at least in laboratory settings. But surfaces contaminated hours or days earlier appear to account for very little disease transmission.

President Trump’s COVID relief decrees are poor policy (setting aside legality) on their own, inasmuch as they only go to people who have jobs. The COVID era is rough for everyone but obviously it’s much less rough for people who haven’t lost their jobs. But what I find remarkable is a part of this plan that Trump managed to avoid getting in the headlines. If you get COVID “relief” in the form of a payroll tax holiday, you still have to pay it back! After the election!

Read More

This is an incredibly important oped. You should take a moment to read it. It’s by Michael T. Osterholm, a respected epidemiologist who runs a major center in Minneapolis and Neel Kashkari, now President of the Minneapolis Fed but earlier a key player in the Bush portion of 2008 financial crisis response and a Republican candidate for Governor of California. Their argument is simple: we need another lockdown.

Here is an example of where visualizing data can be very illuminating even if you’ve been steeped in the data in numerical terms. As I mentioned earlier, here is a graph of per capita COVID fatalities to date in the US and the other peer nation states around the globe.

We already knew that GOPer and ex-Ohio governor John Kasich would have a speaking role at the Democratic National Convention in a few short weeks.

But a new report out of Politico this morning takes a look at some of the behind-the-scenes about how Democrats will cast their convention, and provides details on who a few more high profile convention speakers might be — the Obamas, the Clintons, Jill Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). But it may be who ends up left out of the coveted speaking gigs that’s more intriguing.

We now have a new projection of 300,000 US COVID fatalities by December. I’ve wanted over recent days to put together a chart showing just how much worse the death toll already is in the US compared to almost any other peer country – ‘peers’ here meaning countries with comparable affluence, state capacity, etc.

The US is now well over 150,000 fatalities. Japan has had just over one thousand. Germany is approaching 10,000 fatalities. These countries have small populations of course. If Germany had the same population as the US that number would be about 40,000. Japan would be about 3,000. But the magnitude of the difference speaks for itself. How many of these 150,000 and counting US fatalities are the product of negligence and policy abdication? 100,000? 75,000? The number is staggering.

We have a special briefing on Friday at 1 PM for Inside members. We’ll be talking to Annette Gordon-Reed. Gordon-Reed is one of the country’s preeminent Jefferson scholars and the leading scholar of the Jefferson/Hemings family in all its dimensions. We’re going to talk about that story, Annette’s scholarship and how we do see or should see Jefferson in the light of this history and particularly in the light of the season of iconoclasm we are currently living through after the murder of George Floyd. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. So I hope you’ll join us. An email invitation should be in your inbox.

Yesterday I sat down with Senior Editor David Taintor and Reporter Kate Riga to discuss this week’s news. We talked COVID, COVID relief negotiations and the 2020 elections. If you’re a member watch our conversation right here.