One of the most persistent mysteries of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. is why cases have largely plateaued (until the last couple weeks) while mortality figures have fallen substantially. As we’ve discussed, there’s been an ongoing debate about disentangling the evolving case counts from the ongoing rise in the number of tests being conducted every day. But particularly as cases started to rise in June it is clear that cases are growing well in excess of what can be explained by more testing. So why have the daily mortality numbers dropped? Why the disjuncture between the two numbers, even taking into account a two- or three-week lag between spikes in new cases and people succumbing to the disease?
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Gov. Abbott is doing some self-reflection.
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Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) angry-tweeted it this morning. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is pushing back against the feds over it. Four members of Congress and local officials reached out to the Trump administration expressing “urgent concern” after we broke the news.
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“I don’t kid.”
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As a man who above all things lacks discipline, Trump always tells on himself. People are rightly focusing on his casual claim to have told “his people” to “slow the testing down” to keep the COVID numbers low. The assumption has been that he’s possibly doing this now. And perhaps he is – we can never underestimate Trump’s depravity. But the US has now actually done a pretty sizable amount of testing relative to other major countries, even on a per capita basis. And the number of tests completed each day continues to creep up. There’s not a lot of clear evidence this is happening now. But there is a lot of evidence and has been for months that this is precisely what happened during the critical early weeks of the pandemic, from late January through the first weeks of March. That was the critical window of time in which the fate of tens of thousands of Americans was sealed.
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A TPM reader whose name I will withhold checks in with a reminder on the chaos COVID-19 has unleashed within the criminal justice system. Trump ousting Berman and appointing someone with no prosecutorial experience is bad. Doing it in the middle of the pandemic? Give this a read:
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