As I’ve noted, we’re getting and closely reading your emails with accounts of events in communities around the country. We’ve been particularly focused on the major epicenter of the outbreak in Washington state. There’s one broad theme in many or all these accounts I’d like to share with you. That is people who are hearing major news from their employers – often major national or multinational corporations-, from the school districts where their kids are in school, in some cases from local government or health authorities even while the federal government remains largely silent.
There’s a huge, huge story unfolding – many communities are already shifting behavior in major ways – and yet we hear little of it from the federal government or to a significant degree even from the news media.
King County, Washington sends a detailed list of advisories to residents of the county recommending various social distancing practices to slow the spread of the virus. If you’re familiar with social distancing practices, nothing is terribly surprising: people with elevated risk (by age or medical conditions) should avoid large assemblages of people, recommending remote work where possible. Also an update on active cases in the county.
TPM Reader DF checks in from the post-Brexit UK …
Thanks as usual for you thoughtful coverage of the big picture issues of the day, even if they are not always focused on politics. Coronavirus represents a global challenge, and is a real opportunity for the “adults in the room” to lead. With that in mind, let’s review the response of the UK government (I’m an expat/dual-citizen here, have lived in London for 10+ years, etc).
I think TPM Reader RR might really be on to something that could be a big thing in the years to come …
Josh, a quick comment on your post “An Eerie Silence,” which I think captures a huge issue. I work in Asia, for one of those giant multinationals. A really significant part of my job is business travel in the region and to and from the home office in the US. Given my location, I’ve been affected by the travel restrictions for quite some time, as well as the work-from-home moves and event cancellations. It’s really been ever-present, something you check and watch constantly when planning travel. Now, it’s moving to a new and more comprehensive phase where all non-essential travel is just out, and work-from-home goes from something you could do if you were worried to something you should do to something you must do.
From TPM Reader and traveler GK …
I just got back from an international business trip. In the last two weeks my travels had me visiting Milan, Italy, Singapore, and Malaysia before ending in Dubai, from which I was banned to travel to either Bahrain or Saudi Arabia because of my recent travel history.
In each of those stops, except Dubai, I had my temperature screened before entering. I was explicitly asked whether I had been to China. The disease’s presence went from background to foreground as it ended up cutting my trip short when KSA and Bahrain denied entry.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) probably should’ve known what his remarks on the steps of the Supreme Court would spark among feverish Republicans desperate for a distraction from coverage of the Trump administration’s abysmal response to the coronavirus.
But this is petty, even for Trump’s most loyal congressional bulldogs.
JoinFrom TPM Reader PL from the epicenter …
Since you mention reading emails from your readers reflecting local events in response to the virus, I figured I’d chime in. I live pretty much at ground zero – the hospital where most of the Washington state COVID-19 deaths have occurred is our local hospital, 4 miles down the road. The LifeCare nursing home is another 2 miles further out from there.
You do get the feeling we’re on our own at the federal level, but I’ve been impressed on how much Inslee, the governor, and Dow Constantine, the King County Executive, have tried to get ahead of events. Constantine today called for telecommuting, and to avoid creating large gatherings (more than about 10 people). And that’s actually seeming to happen, very quickly. Apparently Microsoft (my pre-retirement employer) said everyone should count on working from home for the next 3 weeks. Good!
I took a deep dive into the Trump administration’s failure to bring any new Voting Rights Act cases in the first three years of his term. This dry spell of new public VRA enforcement is unprecedented, and it sets Trump’s DOJ apart from that of previous administrations, Democratic and Republican alike.
JoinTwo things I’ve picked up in conversations with readers over the last couple days, both of which point to real world impacts of the White House’s either lackadaisical or disinformational messaging on the Coronavirus. One is elderly relatives resisting basic social distancing precautions because they’re hearing on Fox News that a lot of Coronavirus is just hype for politically interested reasons. Another is cases where medical professionals in red states are assuming or inferring that the Coronavirus isn’t as serious as the outbreaks of H1N1 or Ebola in recent years because the preparation they’re seeing locally isn’t as extensive or urgent. These are anecdotal examples. We can’t read too much into them. But they do point to real world impacts of the President’s nonchalance or claims that concerns about Coronavirus are being hyped for political purposes.
Here’s a very interesting report from TPM Reader TR in Singapore. Singapore has been in this for weeks. They have what seems to be a semi-contained outbreak – 117 cases as of today but no dramatic growth in the last week or so. TR describes a period of pretty intense public panic followed by a new equilibrium of acceptance of on-going risk but people returning to something like normal, along with all of the social distancing procedures we’re hearing about.