TPM Reader BR’s turning points on the COVID19 Crisis while traveling abroad …
We left the US on 29 January for a 9 week stay in Ireland (through 5 April), to have been followed by 20 days in Portugal and Spain. Trip started off well enough when we realized that the legendary John Prine was on the same flight, and he was gracious enough to give us 20 minutes of his time chatting about all the places in Ireland he thought we should visit while we waited to board.
I have been fascinated by your accounts of your own turning points in the onrush of the COVID19 Crisis. They fascinate me both as a lapsed historian and also because they refresh my memory of an abrupt historical transition that is still less than two months old. Back in early March again and again we were hearing that the key signal of transition and the onset of a crisis footing was the closure of schools. Most people are only casual consumers of news. It is difficult for even important news to break through the routines of daily life. The closure of schools directly impacts almost every aspect of social life. It upends the life of kids. It upends the life of parents of school age kids. It upends all commercial and organizational life because vast numbers of workers have school age kids. Precisely because of these dislocations the decision to close schools unmistakably signals crisis. Again and again readers reported from around the country that it was in response to a school closure that the whole tenor of life in their community changed.
ROME (AP) — While millions of people took advantage of easing coronavirus lockdowns to enjoy spring weather, some of the world’s most populous countries reported worrisome new peaks in infections Sunday, including India, which saw its biggest single-day jump yet.
Continue reading “As Lockdowns Ease, Some Countries Report New Infection Peaks”
NEW YORK — After working with neighboring states on coronavirus-related closing and reopening plans, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday that New York will join with states from Massachusetts to Delaware to create a regional supply chain for masks, gowns, ventilators, testing supplies and other equipment vital to fighting the disease.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak — and how contagious the disease is — to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show.
Continue reading “New DHS Report Claims China Hid Virus’ Severity To Hoard Supplies”
What was your COVID19 Crisis turning point?
For me it was February 25th when Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on a CDC conference call: “We are asking the American public to work with us to prepare in the expectation that this could be bad.” It is not in my experience that public health officials make open-ended “bad” comments like that.
She went on to say: “Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in this country. It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.”
This wasn’t out of the blue for me. I’d been watching the ‘novel coronavirus’ developments closely since January. I just looked at back at my Amazon purchases and it was on February 2nd that I put in an order for a stock of hand sanitizer and cloth masks. But until Messonnier’s comments I had first assumed and then hoped I was making contingency plans for edge case bad scenarios. That made clear these were likely scenarios.
Equally ominous, the comments seemed aimed not only to alert the public but to alert the public precisely because the administration was refusing to do so, either didn’t know or didn’t want to tell citizens what was happening.
What was your turning point moment?
WASHINGTON (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic is forcing big changes at the tradition-bound Supreme Court.
Beginning this coming week, the justices will hear arguments by telephone for the first time since Alexander Graham Bell patented his invention in 1876.
Audio of the arguments will be broadcast live by the news media, another first. This will be just the second time that the justices will meet outside the court since the Supreme Court building opened in 1935. (The discovery of anthrax in a court mailroom in 2001 forced a temporary relocation to another federal courthouse less than a mile away.)
The first argument is scheduled for Monday, and the court will hear a total of 10 cases over six days. Among the cases to be argued: President Donald Trump’s bid to keep certain financial records private and whether presidential electors are required to cast their Electoral College ballots for the candidate who won their state.
A few things to know before the arguments are heard:
SENIORITY RULES
Supreme Court arguments are generally freewheeling affairs, with rapid-fire questions coming at advocates. That often means the justices trip over each other trying to get in a question. This time, the justices will ask questions in order of seniority, with Chief Justice John Roberts going first and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the last to speak.
Doing things in seniority order is routine at the court. The justices sit according to the length of their court service both at the bench and when they meet for private conferences, where discussion also proceeds in seniority order. One justice you probably won’t hear much from is Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving member of the court. He almost never asks questions, and he’s said he thinks his colleagues interrupt the lawyers before them too much.
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DRESS CODE: ROBES OPTIONAL
Before taking the bench, the justices gather just behind the courtroom to put on their black robes and shake hands, another tradition upended by the virus outbreak. But with no one to see them, they could just as easily wear their bathrobes.
The same goes for lawyers who argue before the Supreme Court. Appropriate court attire for lawyers, the court says, is “conservative business dress in traditional dark colors.” Think navy blue or charcoal gray. Sweatpants come in those colors, don’t they?
Meanwhile, the Justice Department says the government’s lawyers will wear their traditional long-tailed formal morning coats and present their arguments from the conference room of the solicitor general, the government’s top Supreme Court lawyer.
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NO BUZZER, NO LIGHTS
Five minutes before the justices take the bench, a buzzer sounds in the courtroom. It sounds again right before they emerge from behind the courtroom’s red velvet curtains.
No warnings are likely over the phone, the court said, and it’s not as though the lawyers need any. They’ll get a call at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, 30 minutes before arguments begin. Right at 10, the court’s marshal, Pamela Talkin, will call the court to order. It’s possible there will be some variation on her usual cry that begins with the phrase “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!”
Another courtroom cue will be missing. Typically lawyers arguing before the court get a warning that their time is about to expire: a white light that goes on at the podium where they are arguing. A red light goes on when it’s time to stop talking. “Arguing counsel have been encouraged to keep their own time for argument, so that they can independently determine how much time is remaining,” court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist used to cut lawyers off mid-sentence when the red light went on. Roberts is more lenient, and this month, he will thank lawyers when their time is up, “signaling that they should wrap up with a sentence or two,” Arberg said.
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EVERYONE GETS A SEAT
If you’re a member of the public, getting a ticket to watch a Supreme Court argument is like winning the lottery. The tickets are free, but there are fewer than 100 seats typically available to the public, and to get one you have to line up before dawn. And that’s just for cases that are snoozers.
Watching a real blockbuster can mean spending days in line, or paying someone to do it on your behalf. People waited through a rainy night and falling temperatures for arguments in November over legal protections for young immigrants.
This time, with arguments beginning at the traditional 10 a.m. in Washington, even West Coasters can stay in bed past dawn and still have time to tune in to C-SPAN to hear the proceedings.
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STILL NO CAMERAS
Many state Supreme Courts and one federal appeals court, in San Francisco, regularly have live video of their courtroom sessions, and have continued to do so even as they have moved to remote hearings because of the coronavirus. But that’s a bridge too far for the Supreme Court. The justices won’t even have any internal video link that would allow them to see each other during the arguments, Arberg said.
LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered more insight into his hospitalization for coronavirus, telling a British newspaper that he knew doctors were preparing for the worst.
The 55-year-old Johnson, who spent three nights in intensive care during his week of treatment in a London hospital after falling ill with COVID-19, told The Sun newspaper he was aware that doctors were discussing his fate.
Continue reading “UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson Reveals How Seriously Sick He Was With COVID-19”
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The highest rate of coronavirus cases of any county on the U.S. West Coast is in Washington state’s Yakima County.
Health experts point to a large number of essential workers, a large number of cases in long-term care facilities and a large agricultural workforce living and working in close quarters as the causes. The county has about 250,000 residents.
Continue reading “Inside The County With The Highest Rate Of COVID Cases On The West Coast”
