View this email in your browser

Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Oct. 12, 2020

The Election Map Is Becoming the COVID Hotspot Map

Plus, the stimulus talks are missing the most important participant

 

The famed election map, right-sized to show county-level voting and the
relative size of each county. (Ernie & Katy Newton Lawley/Creative
Commons)

First Response

**** A joke that has now grown tiresome involves
the Trump era having a writers room like a TV show, and every time some
twist or turn takes place remarking that "the writers" are on top of
their game or are falling back on old clichés. So what the writers are
throwing at us now is a consequential presidential election dovetailing
with a second surge of COVID-19 cases (at least we think they are;
it's possible that we're looking at some misdiagnosed flu cases as
well).

While testing has increased this month, case numbers have gone up more
sharply , and hospitalizations are back
on the increase
. While
the percentage of positive cases has hovered in the 5 percent range

for a month and a half, this aggregate number masks high positivity
rates in much of the country,
balanced by low numbers and significant testing in the Northeast. Even
there, the seven-day case average has gone up in the last week
.
This is a true second wave, not just the new presence of COVID in
different areas of a large country. And it tracks with the global
picture; on Friday cases worldwide hit a new record
.

The case counts haven't shown up in the death toll but you wouldn't
expect it to just yet. And given what we know about long-haul COVID
patients, heart disease and other ailments associated with the virus,
and so-called "brain fog
," a
lower mortality rate
-which
is expected when you have world-class doctors learning more about a
pathology through repetition of hundreds of thousands of
hospitalizations-doesn't really remove the full danger of the
disease.  

But here's the part that has me thinking about the writers. We already
suspected that colder weather would push people indoors and create a
surge of additional infections; the summer was supposed to be the moment
of reprieve, one that we in the United States never managed to have. But
a closer look at exactly where the outbreak is happening in the U.S.
reveals a rather consistent overlay with the electoral map.

Read all of our Unsanitized reports here

Click to Support The American Prospect

**** Yes, the coronavirus map reveals hotspots
almost everywhere, but it is somewhat more muted in the Northeast and
the West coast, where there are few surprises expected in the
presidential race. But look at the Midwestern "blue wall": Pennsylvania
, Michigan
, and Wisconsin
are all trending in the
wrong direction. Pennsylvania has cases, hospitalizations and deaths all
shooting upward; Michigan has the first two, with deaths lagging;
Wisconsin plays host to one of the biggest uncontrolled outbreaks in the
country; they just set up a field hospital

at the state fair park in West Allis to handle sick patients. Iowa
is on the edge of being a
swing state, but the outbreak there is really bad.

In North Carolina

cases and hospital stays have started to inch back up. Florida

has hit a plateau after coming down significantly, but it just opened up
its entire economy, so who knows the ramifications of that. Arizona

is in a similar position with a slight upswing.

Projecting what this looks like three weeks from now on Election Day is
difficult. But it's highly likely that we're looking at uncontrolled
spread in precisely the most important states electorally, just as a
mass national indoor event takes place. Estimates indicate that
Democrats are voting early

and with absentee ballots

at much higher rates than Republicans. That tracks consistently with
opinion polls showing Democrats taking the virus far more seriously.
Given the nature of the spread, early and in-home voting is fast
becoming a public health imperative.

Support Independent, Fact-Checked Journalism

Wall Street Landlord Redux

Maybe you thought that my first story of the day would be about the
stimulus talks happening on Capitol Hill. But I don't think there are
any actual talks happening. Real negotiations would involve the faction
needed for passage that has consistently been skeptical of moving
forward. Those would be the Senate Republicans, who are not at the table
in the White House/House Democratic talks.

This weekend, a White House briefing for the Senate GOP quickly devolved
into recriminations
,
with Senators claiming that voters will punish members for making a
relief deal. That's unlikely, but fits with the ideological
conservative aversion to spending a couple trillion dollars. At least 20
are publicly opposed and the real number is probably much higher.
Complainants included Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who's both retiring and
therefore shouldn't care about any electoral implications, and close
to Mitch McConnell, so a good proxy for his views on the matter.

"In short, a significant and important chunk of Senate Republicans hate
everything about the package... and, at this juncture, it has absolutely
no chance of even getting brought up in that chamber," Playbook wrote on
Sunday
.
The fact that Mark Meadows and Steve Mnuchin are now switching gears
to
call for restarting the Paycheck Protection Program with unused funds,
something Trump urged a week ago, shows the desperation here. That Larry
Kudlow is saying the deal isn't dead
,
given his track record, is usually a sure sign that the deal is dead.

This is why I'm utterly flummoxed by a boomlet of commentary advising
Nancy Pelosi to "take the deal" offered by the White House, one that now
touches $1.8 trillion
.
What deal? If Mitch McConnell isn't involved it does not exist.
There's this thought that Donald Trump has a totemic quality, where he
can whip any Republican into line with a tweet, but that was the Trump
who was not down by 12 points and dragging the entire ticket into the
muck. Republicans are dying to distance themselves

from Trump now, and rejecting a big spending bill offers the perfect
opportunity.

We Depend on Your Donations

Are there 60 votes for a spending bill of this type in the Senate?
Perhaps. But there doesn't seem to be any way that Mitch McConnell,
more concerned with the Supreme Court fight and coasting to re-election,
would mess with both by breaking the Hastert rule and pass something of
this significance with all Democrats and a handful of Republicans.
It's the only thing that could harm his electoral chances, and the
timing would be extremely hazardous.

In fact, there's some thought that said timing, and not any real
concerns, is informing Pelosi's reticence to strike a deal. I will say
that Pelosi is going out of her way to build substantive opposition,
employing all of her leading committee chairs to denounce the White
House offer as well. Complaints include: inadequate spending on testing
and bureaucratic red tape on the same, low definitions for "community
spread," no national tracing plan, vague warnings of slush funds, lack
of expansion of the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, a
reduced federal unemployment boost and something regarding clawbacks of
other funds from the unemployed, no second draw on PPP, and a dozen
other nitpicks.

These aren't exactly compelling points of opposition, given that the
alternative is nothing. But if Pelosi is trying to mess with the Barrett
nomination, she would hold out until next Monday, agree to the toplines
and spend a week nailing down legislative language, and then kick a
passed bill to the Senate on October 26. At that point, Donald Trump
would be screaming for the Senate to act, and they'd have one week to
pass this major legislation and the Barrett nomination. McConnell would
have to prioritize what to do, with major political downsides in either
direction.

I don't think McConnell can functionally put the bill on the floor.
But laying bare GOP priorities would have major political value. In
fact, Democrats don't have to wait to extract that value right now
.

Days Without a Bailout Oversight Chair

197
.

We Can't Do This Without You

Today I Learned

* I was on the "On the Ground" program on Pacifica in D.C. discussing
coronavirus and the economy. Listen here
.
(On the Ground)

* Silicon Valley firms follow up on allowing remote work by trying to
claw back cost of living increases
.
Wow. (Wall Street Journal)

* State and local governments need to get more comfortable

with borrowing to avoid austerity. (City Monitor)

* The Trump campaign misappropriates Dr. Fauci's words

for a campaign ad. (NBC News)

* The "intensive care
" state
of private equity portfolio firms means little to private equity
managers who have already cashed out. (Financial Times)

* Curbside pickup

can be a great equalizer, because your local store, big-box or
otherwise, is closer than an Amazon warehouse. (CNBC)

* The private sector cannot be a spender of last resort
.
(New York Times)

* One bank in Florida

has made about 40 percent of all the loans and 25 percent of all the
loan value for the Main Street Lending Program. (Wall Street Journal)

**Click the social links below to share this newsletter**

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

Copyright (C) 2020 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States