Editors’ Blog

I’ve spent the last couple days writing posts I’ve then set aside about what we’ve learned in two years about the CDC and FDA and whether they are, institutionally, up to the challenge of managing the crisis of pandemic response. To paraphrase Sonny Corleone, during a pandemic we need a wartime CDC. And it’s clear we don’t have one. The institutional apparatus designed for managing ‘ordinary’ infectious diseases, researching and improving care for chronic maladies simply isn’t designed for what we’ve confronted in the last two years.

Earlier today, we published a moving tribute to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid by his onetime deputy chief of staff, Bill Dauster.

I spoke with another former Reid aide and friend of TPM this afternoon, Jim Manley. A veteran Senate staffer, Manley had worked as a spokesperson and senior communications advisor for Reid while Reid was Senate Majority Leader.

A reminder: The Josh Marshall Podcast is on break the final week of the year. So no podcast today. Kate Riga and I will be back with a new episode on Wednesday, January 5th.

Don’t miss this remembrance of Harry Reid, who died yesterday at the age of 82, from Bill Dauster, former Reid Deputy Chief of Staff and longtime friend of TPM.

Here’s the Times obit. Here’s the obit from The Nevada Independent, the top instate political news operation and the folks who knew him best.

This is an uncharacteristic post. But I realize that a lot of people are looking for information like this. So I am sharing what I’ve learned on this topic.

For all the polarization and argument over masking, there’s much less discussion or guidance about what kind of mask you should wear. At the beginning of the pandemic any mask was better than none. High quality masks needed by health care workers and first responders were in short supply. But that hasn’t been the case for a very long time. High filtration masks are widely available at relatively low cost. And you should be wearing one.

Cloth masks are better than nothing. But that should not be your standard. Even if you’ve got it hostage-taking tight around your face it’s still providing much less protection than a real filtration mask. Surgical masks are fine. But a high filtration mask provides a much higher level of protection than those too. You now have the ability to give yourself a high level of protection even if you’re somewhere where others aren’t masking or aren’t masking well.

What’s A Good Mask?

Merry Christmas, everyone. (If you don’t celebrate, just let it roll over you.) I want to thank everyone who is a reader of this site and especially our over 33,000 members. You make all this possible and we really cannot thank you enough. I hope everyone has a wonderful day with their families, whether that’s an extended clan or just a special person in your life, and a day full of warmth and free of care.

We’re ending the year in a befuddling place. The past week I’ve been having déjà vu, rocketing myself back to a simpler, but overall more confusing time — once again rounding out each evening with stupid little Victorian-era strolls around the neighborhood as my one activity for the day, all to maintain my stupid sanity.

The last few weeks have not been promising for the sweetly naive among us who were still holding on to hope for a brighter 2022. And the year as a whole has been a hard one. Kicking off the year with a literal insurrection didn’t do much to forecast optimism. Some of you, understandably, had to step away from the news at points throughout the year. And we don’t blame you! Between the Capitol attack and another impeachment and the GOP embrace of anti-vaxxers and extremists continuing their gradual takeover of Congress and the lingering Big Lie and this deadly COVID spike — it’s all been a lot. (Though, we did have a few bright spots this week!)

But our gallows humor got us through. And if we can’t, at least, release a few dark cackles into the void while the world burns, then we’ve lost our humanity.

You’ve likely seen a lot of reports in recent days about the disease severity of the Omicron wave. From some you hear increasing evidence that the Omicron wave is less severe, maybe much less severe, than previous COVID waves. Others claim there’s no solid evidence Omicron causes less severe disease. Who’s right? Some of the disconnect is differing degrees of caution. We’ve only known about Omicron for about six weeks. How much evidence do you need before you’re willing to say something is more mild, less lethal when probably hundreds of millions of people are about to get it and they need guidance about risk? But most of it is not that. Not anymore. Most of the seemingly contradictory claims are about different kinds of evidence and really different questions being asked.

I want to expand on what I mentioned in Morning Memo about some really good work from the Just Security guys on better understanding the delay in the deployment of the National Guard.

From the get-go, TPM’s coverage has been more circumspect about the decision to involve the military in the response to the attack.

Why?