Archives for December 2020

 

This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently during the day. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ for a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process. Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are usually my emphasis, though not always.

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

 

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Friday, 25 December 2020, Day 1,435:

 

Some Global Updates for the Coronavirus on Friday, 25 December 2020: Dreading the Next ‘Code Blue’ as California Hospitals Fill to Overflowing, The New York Times, Friday, 25 December 2020:

• In Southern California’s hospitals, Christmas this year is anything but a silent night.

• Remote learning risks widening the achievement gap for disadvantaged U.S. students.

• The relief bill’s fate is uncertain as the clock runs down on unemployment aid.

• Duke women’s basketball is ending its season early because of Covid concerns.

• A Texas funeral home director learns the hard way to ‘never let your guard down.’

• In a first for the Moderna vaccine, a doctor in Boston reported suffering a severe allergic reaction.

• Six states in the South are overwhelmed by virus cases after dodging the fall surge.

• In his annual Christmas address, Pope Francis urges equitable vaccine access for ‘the health of humanity.’

• France and Japan report cases of the virus variant that prompted lockdowns in Britain.

• ‘Just maintain status quo and survive’: U.S. ski resorts brace for another season of big losses.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Unemployment Aid Set to Lapse Saturday as Trump’s Plans for Relief Bill Remain Unclear. At least a temporary lapse in expanded unemployment benefits for millions of Americans is now inevitable because of President Trump’s delay in signing a $900 billion pandemic relief bill. The New York Times, Alan Rappeport, Friday, 25 December 2020: “Expanded unemployment benefits were set to lapse for millions of struggling Americans on Saturday, a day after President Trump expressed more criticism of a $900 billion pandemic relief bill that was awaiting his signature and would extend them. The sprawling economic relief package that Congress passed with overwhelming bipartisan support would extend the amount of time that people can collect unemployment benefits until March and revive supplemental unemployment benefits for millions of Americans at $300 a week on top of the usual state benefit. If Mr. Trump signs the bill on Saturday, states will still need time to reprogram their computer systems to account for the new law, according to Michele Evermore of the National Employment Law Project, but unemployed workers would still be able to claim the benefits.”

 

Saturday, 26 December 2020, Day 1,436:

 

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) failed race against covid-19: A threat underestimated and a test overcomplicated, The Washington Post, David Willman, Saturday, 26 December 2020: “A new virus was exploding in Wuhan, a Chinese city with 11 million people connected by its airport to destinations around the world. In the United States, doctors and hospitals were waiting for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a test to detect the threat. On Jan. 13, the World Health Organization had made public a recipe for how to configure such a test, and several countries wasted no time getting started: Within hours, scientists in Thailand used the instructions to deploy a new test. The CDC would not roll out one that worked for 46 more days. Inside the 15-acre campus of the CDC in northeast Atlanta, the senior scientists developing the coronavirus test were fighting and losing the battle against time. The agency squandered weeks as it pursued a test design far more complicated than the WHO version and as its scientists wrestled with failures that regulators would later trace to a contaminated lab. The Washington Post reviewed internal documents and interviewed more than 30 government scientists and others with knowledge of the events to understand more fully the missteps in those early weeks as the coronavirus began to spread unchecked across the nation. Most spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to do so publicly. This account reveals new details about how an overly ambitious test design and laboratory contamination caused the CDC’s delay, and describes previously unreported challenges that confronted the agency scientists assigned to carry out the work.”

Continue reading Week 206, Friday, 25 December  – Thursday, 31 December 2020 (Days 1,435-1,441):

[Read more…]

 

This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently during the day. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ for a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process. Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are usually my emphasis, though not always.

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

 

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Friday, 18 December 2020, Day 1,428:

 

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Friday, 18 December 2020: Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) Authorizes Moderna Vaccine for Emergency Use, Adding Millions of Doses to U.S. Arsenal, The New York Times, Friday, 18 December 2020:

• F.D.A. OKs the Moderna Covid vaccine, adding millions more doses to the U.S. supply.

• The U.S. has recorded over 250,000 cases in a day for the first time.

• Pence, McConnell and other officials receive vaccinations, but will that close the partisan divide on the shot?

• When will governors get vaccinated? Some would prefer to wait.

• California counts the dead by the hour as its I.C.U.s fill up.

• A Chinese official confirms that a million citizens received unproven homegrown vaccines.

• These frontline hospital workers were left off the vaccine list. They fought back.

• The U.S. says employers can require workers to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

• American student sentenced to 4 months in prison for violating quarantine rules in the Cayman Islands.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Some significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic on Friday, 18 December 2020: Nearly all of California under stay at home order as the Food and Drug Administration authorizes second vaccine, The Washington Post, Meryl Kornfield, Carolyn Y. Johnson, Hannah Knowles, Lateshia Beachum, Laurie McGinley, Derek Hawkins, Marisa Iati, Siobhán O’Grady, and Taylor Telford, Friday, 18 December 2020: “Nearly all of California is under regional stay-at-home orders triggered by alarmingly low capacity in intensive care units. Statewide, a sliver of those critical beds were available: 2.1 percent. The news came as a second coronavirus vaccine received emergency authorization Friday, an unprecedented scientific feat that gives the United States two powerful tools to fight a pandemic that emerged almost exactly a year ago.

Here are a few of the significant developments included in this article.

• Vice President Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
• President-elect Joe Biden and Jill Biden will receive coronavirus shots on Monday in Delaware, a spokeswoman said.
• Stanford Health Care apologized for a plan that left nearly all 1,300 of its young, front-line doctors out of the first round of coronavirus vaccinations.
• The House approved a two-day extension in funding for the federal government to give lawmakers more time to resolve the remaining sticking points on a $900 billion coronavirus relief package.
• Italy’s government ordered a lockdown starting Christmas Eve and continuing through the first week of the new year.
• The Mexico City metropolis is shutting down nonessential activities and banning dining in restaurants during the holiday season.

Presidential Transition Updates: Congress Passed Short-Term Spending Bill as Stimulus Talks Continued, The New York Times, Friday, 18 December 2020:

• Congress passes short-term funding bill to avert government shutdown as snags delay stimulus talks.

• Lara Trump served on the board of a company through which the Trump political operation spent more than $700 million.

• Pence, Pelosi and McConnell receive a coronavirus vaccine. Biden is set to get an injection on Monday.

• Harris will campaign in Georgia on Monday for Senate runoffs that are practically impossible to poll.

• Biden addresses accusations against his son, saying, ‘I think it’s kind of foul play.’

• Unswayed by hacking breach, Trump threatens to veto a bill aimed at fortifying cyberdefense.

Continue reading Week 205, Friday, 18 December  – Thursday, 24 December 2020 (Days 1,428-1,434):

[Read more…]

 

 

This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently during the day. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ for a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process. Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are usually my emphasis, though not always.

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

 

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Friday, 11 December 2020, Day 1,421:

 

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Friday, 11 December 2020: Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) Clears Pfizer Vaccine and Millions of Doses Will Be Shipped Right Away. The accelerated timeline comes after President Trump’s chief of staff threatened the F.D.A. head’s job if he didn’t get it done on Friday. The Trump Administration will buy another 100 million doses of Moderna vaccine. New York Times, Friday, 11 December 2020:

• With F.D.A. approval, Pfizer will ship millions of vaccine doses immediately.

• Trump administration to buy another 100 million doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine.

• Los Angeles County could face ‘catastrophic suffering and death,’ a health official warns.

• Mexico approves Pfizer vaccine for emergency use, and other news around the world.

• To build confidence, Fauci says he’ll ‘get vaccinated publicly.’

• Indoor dining in N.Y.C. will shut down again, Cuomo says.

• Devin Nunes said he has tested positive for coronavirus antibodies.

• Superspreading Boston biotech conference in February is linked to 1.9 percent of all U.S. cases.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Some significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic on Friday, 11 December 2020: Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorizes Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, first approved in the U.S., The Washington Post, Laurie McGinley, Carolyn Y. Johnson, Lateshia Beachum, Meryl Kornfield, Derek Hawkins, Marisa Iati, Hamza Shaban, and Miriam Berger, Friday, 11 December 2020: “The Food and Drug Administration on Friday gave emergency use authorization to the nation’s first coronavirus vaccine, setting in motion a highly choreographed and complex distribution process aimed at expediting vaccines throughout the United States to curb the pandemic. The nation set a record for covid-19 deaths Thursday for the second day in a row, surpassing 3,300. The death tally for Friday was 2,950, only slightly lower, bringing the U.S. death toll to nearly 295,000.

Here are a few of the significant developments included in this article.

• The United States reported 237,092 new infections and 108,507 coronavirus inpatients, both new highs.
• Mexico has authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the coronavirus, health officials announced Friday.
• The Trump administration said it will purchase an additional 100 million doses of a Moderna vaccine.
• The coronavirus can travel farther and faster inside restaurants than previously thought, a South Korean study suggests.

Presidential Transition Highlights: Democrats and Some Republicans Applaud Supreme Court Rejection of Suit to Overturn Election, The New York Times, Friday, 11 December 2020:

• ‘Our institutions held’: Democrats (and some Republicans) cheer Supreme Court ruling on election suit.

• Texas suit to overturn election results is denied by the Supreme Court.

• Still divided over a stimulus deal, Congress staved off a shutdown this week.

• Congress might ban surprise medical billing, and that’s a surprise.

• The long, strange road Trump took to challenge the election results.

• Biden is considering Cuomo for attorney general.

• The federal investigation into his son is likely to hang over Biden as he takes office.

Other significant developments are included in this article.

Continue reading Week 204, Friday, 11 December  – Thursday, 17 December 2020 (Days 1,421-1,427):

[Read more…]

This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently during the day. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ for a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process. Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are usually my emphasis, though not always.

 

For independent global news, visit Democracy Now!

 

For a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter, Letters from an American.

 

Friday, 4 December 2020, Day 1,414:

 

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Friday, 4 December 2020: San Francisco Bay Area Issues Strict Stay-at-Home Order, The New York Times, Friday, 4 December 2020:

• The San Francisco Bay Area will enact new restrictions before California orders them.

• Cases surge in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, often exceeding the scale of the spring outbreak.

• Bahrain follows Britain in approving Pfizer’s vaccine for emergency use before the U.S. does.

• The C.D.C. urges Americans to wear face masks outside the home.

• Outbreaks at nursing homes appear to be linked to Washington State wedding. Seven have died.

• The New York Young Republican Club held a secret gala, despite coronavirus concerns.

• Restaurants in Washington State defy governor and invite guests inside.

• As Miami’s cases soar, officials plead with residents to stay home for the holidays, and other news from around the country.

• Pence says the nation is in a ‘season of hope’ as vaccine development speeds up.

Some significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic for Friday, 4 December 2020: Bay Area becomes first California region to enact state’s new stay-at-home orders, The Washington Post, Hannah Knowles, Meryl Kornfield, Taylor Telford, Antonia Noori Farzan, Erin Cunningham, Kim Bellware, Siobhán O’Grady, and Paulina Villegas, Friday, 4 December 2020: “Millions of people in the San Francisco Bay Area will be subject to new stay-at-home orders, local officials announced Friday, a day after California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said most of the nation’s most populous state was on track to hit critically low hospital capacity levels, triggering new restrictions. The Bay Area has not reached those triggers yet but became the first region to implement the stay-at-home plans Newsom outlined. Health officials for the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and Santa Clara said Friday that they want to act before hospitals grow too strained. California on Friday reported 22,000 new coronavirus infections, the highest ever single-day total for any state.

Here are a few of the significant developments included in this article.

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has for the first time urged  universal mask use indoors.
• President-elect Joe Biden encouraged fellow Democrats to get on board with a bipartisan, $908 billion deal even as some liberals blasted it as insufficient.
• The U.S. economy added 245,000 jobs in November — the slowest month of growth since the recovery began.
• Covid-19-related deaths are likely to reach 539,000 by April, according to a new estimate Friday.
• The United States has set new highs for daily infections three days in a row, climbed past 2,500 deaths a day for four straight days, and hit new highs for hospitalizations for the eighth consecutive day.

Federal Judge Orders the Trump Administration to Fully Reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program, The New York Times, Caitlin Dickerson and Michael D. Shear, Friday, 4 December 2020: “A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to fully restore an Obama-era program designed to shield young, undocumented immigrants from deportation, dealing what could be a final blow to President Trump’s long-fought effort to end the protections. The program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was created by President Barack Obama in 2012. Over the years, it has protected more than 800,000 individuals, known as ‘dreamers,’ who met a series of strict requirements for eligibility. Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn directed the administration to allow newly eligible immigrants to file new applications for protection under the program, reversing a memorandum issued in the summer by Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, which restricted the program to people who were already enrolled. As many as 300,000 new applicants could now be eligible, according to the lawyers who pushed for the reinstatement. The memo from the Department of Homeland Security also limited benefits under the program, including permits to work, to one year, but the judge on Friday ordered the government to restore them to a full two years. Judge Garaufis, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, also said the government must find a way to contact all immigrants who are eligible for the program to inform them of the change. The program still faces other challenges, including a case in federal court in Texas, where Republican attorneys general have asked a judge to declare the program unlawful. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has vowed to restore the DACA program when he takes office next month, but a legislative solution that would permanently allow the dreamers to live and work legally in the United States remains elusive, leaving their fates to the shifting political winds.” See also, Federal judge restores DACA and orders the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to accept first-time applications from immigrants, The Washington Post, Maria Sacchetti, Friday, 4 December 2020: “Thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children are immediately eligible to apply for an Obama-era program that grants them work permits, a federal judge in New York ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis in Brooklyn said he was fully restoring the eight-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program to the days before the Trump administration tried to end it in September 2017. He ordered the Department of Homeland Security to post a public notice by Monday to accept first-time applications and ensure that work permits are valid for two years.”

Continue reading Week 203, Friday, 4 December  – Thursday, 10 December 2020 (Days 1,414-1,420):

[Read more…]