BERLIN (AP) — Austria and the Czech Republic said Monday they plan to relax some restrictions imposed because of the coronavirus starting after Easter, getting ahead of their European counterparts as they announced proposals that would begin a slow return to normal life.
Continue reading “Austria, Czech Republic Will Relax Some Anti-Coronavirus Measures”
BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she’s as anxious as anyone for life to return to normal in the country.
Merkel says “we’re still living in the pandemic” and now isn’t the time to talk about an end date to restrictive measures.
Continue reading “Merkel: It’s Too Early To Ease Restrictive Measures To Fight Coronavirus”
One of the things that is lost in the tsunami of statistics about the COVID-19 epidemic is something as elementary as national and jurisdictional population. When we look at death tolls how does this compare to a country’s population. On this per capita basis Spain and Italy are far and away the worst hit major countries in the world. (I say major countries because some city states like San Marino or Andorra have outsized numbers with relatively few fatalities.) In Spain there have been 282 deaths per million people; in Italy it’s 263. For another hard hit country, France, it’s 124. For the UK, it’s 79. To date, for the USA it’s 29.
Here are also you get a sense of the scale of the epidemic in New York state. Here the number is 243. Two other states, New Jersey (103) and Louisiana (102), are over 100 and rest are far behind.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday that he will ask President Donald Trump to allow patients infected with COVID-19 to be treated on the USNS Comfort emergency hospital ship currently docked in New York City.
Continue reading “Cuomo Will Ask Trump To Allow Coronavirus Patients On Comfort Emergency Ship”
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly reportedly continued railing against the captain he fired after the captain raised concerns over the spread of COVID-19 on his ship. Continue reading “Acting Navy Secretary Rails Against Captain He Fired For Being ‘Too Stupid’”
President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani is apparently whispering in the President’s ear again. This time, it’s about an unproven cure to COVID-19.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: Of Course Giuliani Is Behind This”
Christi Grimm, the principal deputy inspector general at the Health and Human Services Department, released a report on Monday that found the “significant challenges” hospitals are grappling with in treating COVID-19 were partially due to the federal government’s flailing response to the outbreak.
Continue reading “HHS Watchdog Finds Federal Gov’t Partially Responsible For Medical Supply Crisis”
Two key issues we’re following are a) the question of the true death toll from COVID-19 and b) finding out more information about the federal government’s seizures of medical goods destined for states, localities and major hospital and medical systems. On the second story particularly, I want to renew my call for information. If you see local reports that we haven’t found yet, please send them in. If you know of incidents that have not been reported on yet, please contact us via email. We will zealously guard your confidentiality, as always do. Here is the main story I published over the weekend. Here’s a follow up from last night which adds in the AP report about how late the federal government began ordering masks.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a tweet Monday that he spoke with newly appointed White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to help him push President Trump to appoint a coronavirus czar. Continue reading “Schumer Urges Meadows To Push Trump To Appoint COVID-19 Czar”
Starting last week, and continuing this week, we’ve been publishing a series of articles by historians and legal scholars. Full disclosure: they have nothing to do with the coronavirus. This series was in the works for a few months, and though the crisis has our attention more or less 24/7, it’s sometimes a welcome break to think about something else. Even a democratic crisis.
The basic idea for this series is one shared with us by historian Greg Downs: that even if Democrats retake the Senate in 2020, hold onto the House, and win the presidency, it wouldn’t be enough for the Party to truly control the levers of power. They are, in a sense, not safe at home. The current political system enabled and in many cases ratified the excesses of the Trump presidency. Whoever holds power next must contend with that fact.
