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Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Jan. 12, 2021

The Capitol Riot Was an Infection Point

Also, the one tax trick that saved local budgets

 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) was safely distanced from colleagues in this
photo in July. Not so during the Capitol Riot. (Chip Somodevilla/Pool
via AP)

First Response

We have had the bad timing of a number of mass-gathering events over the
past three and a half months, which have coincided with ever-climbing
numbers of coronavirus cases. Most of these were fixed into our annual
schedules. The election (including early voting) packed millions of
Americans into gyms and schools. Then Thanksgiving brought small groups
of families and friends together. Christmas and New Year's did the
same. This winter was always going to be bad but the calendar is making
it worse.

Now we have another event that was unplanned. Congress has always been a
super-spreader location waiting to happen, but the attack on the Capitol
on January 6 made that possibility a probability. Thousands of maskless
rioters (you'd think the far right will invest in masks now that their
unmasked bretheren are all getting rounded up) mingled in extremely
tight quarters with the Capitol Police. They breathed on one another and
yelled near one another, and if they had COVID, gave it to one another.
And then they got on planes or into their cars and drove off to every
corner of the country. The Biogen conference in late February, which
only had a few hundred people at it, was linked to 300,000 cases
worldwide
.
Do the math on a super-spreader event with at least 10 times as many
people in attendance.

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We are already seeing the consequences of that event from the most
controlled part of it: the rooms where members of Congress sheltered in
place during the riot. Two Democrats have announced that they have
contracted the virus, and they point the finger at their Republican
colleagues, who refused to wear masks in close quarters.

First, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), a 75 year-old cancer survivor,
announced her diagnosis

from a rapid antigen test. Those tests sometimes produce false
positives, but Coleman was experiencing mild symptoms and decided to
head to the hospital
for a
monoclonal antibody treatment. Then, Congressional Progressive Caucus
chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) announced that she too tested positive
.
It's unclear whether or not she has symptoms.

Both Coleman and Jayapal described the large hearing room where they
sought refuge from the Capitol Riot for several hours. There were over
100 members of Congress and support staff inside, and not only did
Republicans decline to wear masks, they mocked staff who tried to hand
them out. There's video of this
.

Many of those refusing to wear masks were the same Republicans who
objected to the electoral vote count, including Andy Biggs (R-AZ), the
Freedom Caucus chair who helped plan

the "Rally to Save America" that was the prelude to the riot. So he
found numerous exciting ways to endanger members of Congress that day.

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I should reiterate that these rooms should have been the least dangerous
part of the Capitol, compared to the cheek-by-jowl areas of the riot.
Only Republican members who callously refused to take into account the
well-being of their colleagues turned these rooms into petri dishes. The
far more dangerous outbreak was happening outside, and I imagine we'll
see that reflected in the overall numbers.

There was already an outbreak within Congress before the Capitol Riot;
Rep. Jake LaTurner (R-KS) received his positive test on Wednesday night.
These Congressmembers often live together in Washington; that's how
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) said he got the virus (he tested positive
on Sunday). We know that Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) went on the House floor
to cast a vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker just six days after testing
positive
.
And that was before they all had to shelter in close quarters. The
Office of the Attending Physician encouraged the entire Congress and
staff to get tested

after the attack on the Capitol.

Jayapal was vaccinated
,
although only two days before the riot; the vaccine doesn't work that
quickly. Watson Coleman also received the vaccine
,
though it's not clear when. I'm more interested in whether this ends
the question of whether you can transmit the virus while vaccinated. At
least some members received the vaccine weeks ago, enough time for it to
kick in. Yet the virus still rolled through that hearing room,
apparently.

This was also a little natural experiment in the importance of masking,
which is at least supposed to be mandatory in the Capitol. "This is
not a joke," Jayapal said in a statement. "Our lives and our
livelihoods are at risk, and anyone who refuses to wear a mask should be
fully held accountable for endangering our lives because of their
selfish idiocy."

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Bullet, Dodged

Texas announced a smaller deficit than projected for the year, with just
$1 billion to fill

in a $112 billion budget. The revenue report reveals the shifts in
purchasing patterns from the pandemic. Drops in hotel and alcohol taxes
(people may be drinking at home, but when you shut down the bars things
do tend to plummet) were offset by sales taxes on home furnishings and
materials. But the real saving grace for Texas has been online sales
taxes, a new revenue source that grew out of a 2018 Supreme Court
ruling. States could previously only collect taxes from online retailers
with a physical presence there. The ruling allowed for all online sales
to be taxed in the same fashion as sales from a brick-and-mortar store.

It occurs to me that the Wayfair ruling has been far more critical than
anyone would have realized. Online sales boomed in the pandemic. If
Wayfair was just slightly delayed, states would have sacrificed many
billions in sales tax revenue, as e-commerce retailers resisted paying
the tax. We got enormously lucky.

Of course, Texas has no income tax, and other states and cities with
different revenue mixes have not been as fortunate. That's why
municipal borrowing was at a ten-year high

in 2020; localities need the money. (The associated rewards for muni
bankers might explain why the Fed didn't jump to help out cities and
states
.)
Just because the outlook is better for cities and states doesn't mean
it's great; the shortfall is around $224 billion according to
Moody's. It remains a source of austerity and something Congress needs
to address.

Number of Vaccines Given

9.27 million
,
up from 8.02 million when checked on Monday. Some of this is because of
lags in the data, but that's above the 1 million/day pace, and we're
up to 36 percent of all shots distributed being administered. Alabama,
Georgia, and North Carolina are still lagging, but there's been a lot
of improvement nationwide.

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Today I Learned

* I was on the Majority Report with Sam Seder yesterday, talking mostly
about the Capitol Riot. Watch here
.
(Majority Report)

* The Trump administration is moving toward a simpler metric

for vaccination, starting with everyone age 65 or over. (CNBC)

* Governors are being blamed

for the slow initial rollout and the spoilage of vaccine. (Politico)

* Pfizer has found the capacity for another 500 million doses
.
(Financial Times)

* Greenhouse gas emissions fell significantly

in 2020. We're just a few shelter-in-place catastrophes from saving
the planet, I guess. (New York Times)

* The Fed should get criticism

for soaring inequality, and it's why economic rescues shouldn't rely
on them. (Axios)

* Furnished short-term housing

becoming a trend for remote worker travel back to the office. (Wall
Street Journal)

* Gorillas get coronavirus
.
(Bloomberg)

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