Tag: COVID-19

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News

Deborah Birx tried to protect us from the pandemic

Last June, the U.S. public-health physician Deborah Birx and her chief epidemiologist Irum Zaidi began a road trip across America to see first-hand the path of the pandemic.

Birx, who made her career combatting HIV and AIDS, had been appointed to the vice president’s task force overseeing the country’s response to COVID-19. As we now know, the task force, like most of the federal response, suffered from next to no leadership by the president.

The idea for the road trip came to the women after the White House brought in Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist who asserted that masks did little to stop the spread of SARS-1. As if that weren’t enough to disqualify him, Atlas also advocated for allowing the virus to move freely through the population with the aim of spurring so-called herd immunity.

We know this thanks to the reporting of Lawrence Wright, whose New Yorker issue-length account of America’s mistakes and struggles in confronting the virus may be the most comprehensive first draft of history of a pandemic ever reported.

As the task force began to dissolve amid the dearth of leadership and absurdity of Atlas’ views, Birx and Zaidi decided to hit the road. As Wright tells it, the idea was inspired by the duo’s travels together across Africa meeting with local leaders about HIV and AIDS.

In the months to follow, Birx and Zaidi crossed the U.S. eight times, visiting 43 states. In that time, reports Wright:

Birx corralled politicians, hospital executives, and public-health officials, often bringing such leaders together for the first time. She took charts and slides from state to state, promoting a simple, consistent message about masks, social distancing, transparency, and responsible leadership. She was the only federal official doing so.

The duo encountered governors like Jim Justice of West Virginia, who had mandated wearing of masks and who at press briefings read the names of West Virginians who had died of COVID-19. “West Virginia represents exactly what we want to see across the country — a commonsense approach based on the data,” said Birx.

In South Dakota, Governor Kristi Noem, who had refused to issue a mask mandate, “couldn’t find time to meet with Birx,” reports Wright.

Wright’s account deserves to be read in its entirety. Especially as the U.S. records nearly 23 million cases of COVID-19 and deaths from the disease are averaging about 4,400 a day. “The U.S. is already by far the most affected region of its size on the planet,” The Washington Post noted on Wednesday.

Throughout their travels, Birx and Zaidi found that both Democratic and Republican governors had the same complaint. “Many people wouldn’t listen as long as Trump refused to set an example,” Wright reports.

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News

Saturday’s headlines are for the ages

The front page of The New York Times on Saturday showed history happening in something approaching real time. In an instant one could see the end of an effort by Donald Trump to, as the headline put it, “subvert the vote,” together with a turning point in the effort to end the pandemic.

The headline splashed across the top of the page proclaimed that the Supreme Court on Friday tossed out a lawsuit by Texas that sought to overturn the results of the presidential election. The ruling effectively ends an effort by Donald Trump to change the outcome. 

Just below appeared the news that the Food and Drug Administration had authorized Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. The authorization clears the way for millions of people most at risk from the coronavirus to begin receiving the jab.

One commentator likened Saturday’s front page to those proclaiming the end of World War II. Though the latest milestones did not, fortunately, follow the use of a nuclear weapon, the ruling by the Supreme Court exploded an effort by Trump to overturn the results of the presidential election.

In an unsigned, one-page ruling, the justices said that Texas lacked standing (that is, a legally recognizable harm) to object to the ways that four states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — conducted their elections. 

The Trump Administration and more than half the Republicans in the House of Representatives backed the lawsuit, which asked the justices to consider the case as part of the Court’s so-called original jurisdiction.

The Constitution authorizes the Court to hear disputes between states directly, without the requirement that the dispute come through the appellate courts. In such instances the Supreme Court functions essentially as a trial court in which the justices weigh evidence and arrive at a verdict. 

Texas had asked the court to delay certification of the voting by the Electoral College because “unconstitutional irregularities” in the four states made it impossible to know who “legitimately won the 2020 election.”

Each of the four states filed briefs attacking the lawsuit. “Texas has not suffered harm simply because it dislikes the result of the election, and nothing in the text, history, or structure of the Constitution supports Texas’s view that it can dictate the manner in which four other states run their elections,” Pennsylvania told the Court.

The justices agreed, writing that Texas “has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.” For their part, Justices Samuel Alito and Thomas said that the lawsuit fell within the Court’s original jurisdiction “but would not grant other relief… and express no view on any other issue” in the lawsuit.

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Law

The Supreme Court blocks New York’s COVID-19 restriction on religious services

The Supreme Court late on Wednesday blocked the governor of New York from enforcing restrictions that sought to restrict attendance at religious services in areas of the state that officials say are witnessing clusters of COVID-19.

Five of the court’s conservative members granted requests from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and two Orthodox Jewish synagogues to block the attendance limits, which capped at 10 the number of people who could attend a service in an area classified as “red” and at 25 in zones the state designated as “orange.”

Both the diocese and the synagogues noted that the restrictions targeted religious services more harshly than they did businesses deemed by the state to be essential, all of which could operate without limits on the number of people who entered their premises.

As such, the regulations violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, contended the religious groups, which asked the court to block their enforcement.

“The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty,” wrote the majority, which included recently confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett. “Even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten.”

The majority noted that the churches and synagogues subject to the order had honored protocols recommended by the state (including wearing masks and forgoing singing), which the majority added could point to no instances in which the religious services risked the spread of COVID-19 more than a store in Brooklyn that might have hundreds of people shop there on a given day.

Justice Gorsuch concurred. Writing that squaring the governor’s orders with the First Amendment “is no easy task,” Gorsuch underscored what for him showed the extent to which the state’s order treated religious groups differently:

It turns out the businesses the governor considers essential include hardware stores, acupuncturists, and liquor stores. Bicycle repair shops, certain signage companies, accountants, lawyers, and insurance agents are all essential too. So, at least according to the governor, it may be unsafe to go to church, but it is always fine to pickup another bottle of wine, shop for a new bike, or spend the afternoon exploring your distal points and meridians. Who knew public health would so perfectly align with secular convenience?

“Even if the Constitution has taken a holiday during this pandemic, it cannot become a sabbatical,” Gorsuch wrote.

At issue in the appeal is the requirement of government neutrality toward religion. Rules issued by the government that treat religious groups differently must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

The majority acknowledged that the state has a compelling interest in stemming the spread of COVID-19 but that the restrictions in New York were far more restrictive than needed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus at religious services hosted by the groups that sought to block the governor’s order.

For their part, the court’s three liberal members noted in dissent that the governor’s order had changed since the appeal was filed; that the churches and synagogues are no longer within the red or orange zones — that the houses of worship are now in yellow zones, where they can hold religious services at up to 50% of capacity.

Though the state remained free to reimpose red or orange zones in areas where the churches and synagogues are located, the diocese and synagogues also remained free to refile their requests for court review, the dissenting justices noted.

“The nature of the epidemic, the spikes, the uncertainties, and the need for quick action, taken together, mean that the state has countervailing arguments based upon health, safety, and administrative considerations that must be balanced against the applicants’ First Amendment challenges,” they said.

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New York City

Pandemic homecoming

“Welcome back to America, do you recognize it?” a friend emailed recently, a day after I landed back in the U.S. from a seven-month stay with my partner in South Africa.

Though I can’t speak about America, I can say that the neighborhood where I live here in New York City has changed in some by-now familiar ways. Most people wear masks when they go out. Stores have made face coverings a condition of entry.

The state is encouraging everyone to download an app that sends you COVID-19 exposure alerts. Signs posted on windows and fences remind you to stand six feet apart.

KEEP THIS FAR APART

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For the past week, I’ve kept apart, mostly in my apartment, where I wait to see whether I experience any symptoms of the coronavirus. I go out for solo strolls. So far, I feel fine.

Maybe it’s me but the ambient noise — the low-level hum that courses through the city – seems a tick lower than when I left in February. Trash trucks make their rounds, though the streets seem less tidy.

The world has come some way in its understanding of the coronavirus. “I struggle to tell from the news reports how terrible contracting COVID-19 may be,” I wrote on April 1, six days into a 21-day nationwide lockdown in South Africa. “Some people seem to experience mild symptoms, others no symptoms; some people die. I hope never to find out.”

We know more now about how to stay safe. Unlike the U.S., countries that instituted strict lockdowns have bent the curve of new infections. On April 15, I wrote: “So far more than 2 million people around the world have become infected with the coronavirus. Nearly 129,000 have died.”

By now more than 34 million people around the world have become infected and more than a million have died. The virus is projected to take many more lives.

On a whim the other day, I reached for the book “Kitchen Confidential,” which I’ve owned but until now not read. Even before the pandemic, I didn’t frequent restaurants. And I don’t cook, really. Still, the book feels like a discovery.

The vibrancy of the writing aside, Anthony Bourdain’s account of kitchens – their intensity and banging (as in people kicking closed oven doors) and heat – how working in one might be the closest thing to being part of the crew of a pirate ship – makes me yearn to stand shoulder-to-shoulder (safely) with others. I rarely thought this before the pandemic, but I look forward to one day buying a beer in a crowded bar.

That’s how home feels different now. We’re socially distant.

It’s autumn in New York. The days are mild and sunny and dry. The nights clear and cool for sleeping. The nearby ocean lends its warmth. I always like the season. But this year especially, it hints at a future when the pandemic is far away.