thenation--2020-04-28--Under Lockdown, the World Is Only as Big as Our Windows

One of the uncannier tortures of the current disaster is that so much of it has occurred out of sight .
A microbe is not a tornado or a tsunami .
It spreads without us seeing it .
Then , for a lot of us , quarantine slapped blinkers on our eyes , blocking out the world .
We can ’ t see each other anymore , and we can ’ t see our families—except for those of us who have no choice but to see them all the time .
If you ’ re lucky , the crisis itself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
If you get sick enough yourself or if you ’ re homeless or you drive a taxi or work in a hospital , a morgue , an old folks ’ home , or an Amazon “ fulfillment center , ” you have no choice but to glimpse the wider scope of things , if not the virus itself then at least its world-halting consequences .
The rest of us have our phones and laptops to try to make sense of the moment , plus whatever we can see out our windows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among the lucky , locked down in a small Barcelona apartment with two people I love , and lots of windows .
The strictest lockdown in Europe went into effect here on March 16 .
Since then , except for five memorable strolls to the grocery store and increasingly leisurely expeditions to take out the trash , my world has shrunk to the narrow , intersecting streets I can see through the windows , the parked cars that never move , the slivers of sky above it all .
Some days it all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just stage props , two-dimensional , and the sky has been painted on .
When it rains , the windows fog and the whole world contracts into a small , soft , wrinkled , box .
Other days , the sunny ones , the world feels huge out there , like this block really does still connect to other blocks , to other streets and other cities , other countries and continents , other worlds , to a future as well as a past .
It helps that the air is cleaner now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , probably cleaner than it has been for most of the last 150 years since textile factories , built with money from the slave trade and the sugar plantations of Cuba , began to make this city rich .
Those connections were never easy to see here either , except in the smog that stained the horizons .
Some of what I can see is almost reassuring .
I rarely spot a single passenger , but the buses swing around the corners like they used to .
The street cleaners come every day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bins .
These days I don ’ t mind the racket they make , even when it wakes me : a sweet lullaby of farting engines and shattering glass announcing that the city is still alive .
It was too easy to miss them before , to imagine oneself alone in a city that somehow functioned on its own .
Now , more alone than ever , we see the lives that make it work , and the work that lets us live .
I see things I never used to .
People @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would have been disturbing just weeks ago .
Now it ’ s the bare faces that provoke an involuntary twinge of mistrust .
Last week I saw a woman walk by with two small children , all three of them wearing white fabric masks .
For a moment I was shocked at the sight of those little masks on those tiny , little-kid faces , but the kids didn ’ t seem to mind them .
They were poking each other , playing and screeching and racing ahead of their mom .
Seeing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that day .
I see a lot of the neighbors who live in the building behind ours .
Maybe too much .
Their apartments have spacious balconies about 15 feet from our kitchen window , which puts us on intimate enough terms with the couple opposite us and the couple in the apartment beneath them that my partner thought to name them .
There ’ s the “ upple , ” or upper couple , and the “ lupple , ” the lower one .
The upple , sour and depressed , have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cleans , hangs the laundry , smokes resentfully ; the male rolls endless joints , plays video games , and watches porn on his phone .
The lupple , beneath them , are newcomers .
They moved in at the beginning of the year , cheerful and in love .
Sometimes they wave up at us .
In the early weeks of lockdown , we would see them doing yoga together every day and sometimes , unbearably , strumming a guitar and singing to each other in the evenings .
For a while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we were sure the upple was breaking up , but quarantine seems to have been good for them .
They ’ ve been talking more .
Sometimes the male even helps out with the laundry .
The lupple , meanwhile , have been looking more and more listless .
They haven ’ t sung to each other for weeks .
I fully expect the two couples to have switched roles before this is over , if it ever ends .
The police are out there too .
I see them drive by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in slow loops .
Our upstairs neighbor tells me they ’ ve set up a checkpoint at the bottom of the hill and they ’ ll fine you if you can ’ t convince them you have a good reason to be out , but from the window I ’ ve only seen them stop someone once .
It was a young African guy .
Pandemic or no pandemic , some things don ’ t change .
I watched as four of them made him empty his pockets onto the roof of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , then stood around laughing and spraying disinfectant on each other ’ s hands .
For a while , before the infection curve began at last to flatten , we were hearing sirens all the time .
We still see ambulances pulling up to the buildings across the street .
I make a point of not looking to see whom they cart off .
I would rather keep the sick and the dying in the category of the Things I Can not See Out the Window .
That category is a large one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of dead , of course , and all the people toiling to keep the rest of us from joining them .
It includes the young African men I used to see scavenging scrap metal from the trash , and the migrants of a different sort , the herds of sunburned , moneyed tourists who have all flown home by now .
It includes the teenaged boys , mainly Moroccan , who live in the center for unaccompanied migrant youth up the block .
They must be going crazy behind those grated windows , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I don ’ t see the people in the actual prisons either , or any of the things I know are there but didn ’ t see even in circumstances that counted once as normal : all the invisible labor , hidden theft , and not-so-secret violence that make a city and a society run .
We ’ re Struggling With the Coronavirus in Spain—but We ’ re Vastly More Prepared Than the US Vietnam May Have the Most Effective Response to Covid-19 More in this series But that ’ s how it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Many of us don ’ t usually see the people who pick our vegetables and slaughter the animals we eat , and we don ’ t see them now .
We ’ re suddenly more anxiously aware of things called “ supply chains , ” which are not things or chains but people : people working in fields , mines , factories , warehouses , ports , people whose health our health depends on , a vast web of interdependency that we also can not see .
We can ’ t see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rent we can ’ t afford to pay , the management companies we ’ re supposed to write the check to , the private equity funds that hide behind them , skimming off the profits .
Just as they always did , things we can not see set the boundaries of the possible .
The enforced isolation of quarantine is just life under capitalism , only more so .
Then there are the birds , who see far more than us , and who gossip even more than we do .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep at it all day , chattier and bolder than they ever were back when the streets still clanged with our foibles .
Should it tell us something that this pause in the system is being celebrated by so many other living things ?
It should .
Our absence looks different to the birds .
They see the promise of a world no longer driven by the furies of consumption .
They see life opening up again , a different kind of web .
And surely they see us behind our windows gazing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misfortune how much we have failed to see , and doing our best—some of us—to see it all anew .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
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One of the uncannier tortures of the current disaster is that so much of it has occurred out of sight. A microbe is not a tornado or a tsunami. It spreads without us seeing it. Then, for a lot of us, quarantine slapped blinkers on our eyes, blocking out the world. We can’t see one another anymore, and we can’t see our families—except for those of us who have no choice but to see them all the time. If you’re lucky, the crisis unfolds where you can’t see it. If you get sick enough or you’re homeless or you drive a taxi or work in a hospital, a morgue, an old folks’ home, or an Amazon fulfillment center, you have no choice but to glimpse the wider scope of things—if not Covid-19 itself, then at least its world-halting consequences. The rest of us have our phones and laptops to try to make sense of the moment, plus whatever we can see out our windows.
So far, I’ve been among the lucky, locked down in a small Barcelona apartment with two people I love and lots of windows. The strictest lockdown in Europe went into effect here on March 16. Since then, except for five memorable strolls to the grocery store and increasingly leisurely expeditions to take out the trash, my world has shrunk to the narrow, intersecting streets I can see through the windows, the parked cars that never move, the slivers of sky above it all. Some days it all feels tiny, as if the buildings are just stage props, two-dimensional, and the sky has been painted on. When it rains, the windows fog, and the whole world contracts into a small, soft, wrinkled box.
Other days, the sunny ones, the world feels huge out there, as though this block really does still connect to other blocks, to other streets and other cities, other countries and continents, other worlds, to a future as well as a past. It helps that the air is cleaner now than I’ve ever known it, probably cleaner than it has been for most of the past 150 years since textile factories, built with money from the slave trade and the sugar plantations of Cuba, began to make this city rich. Those connections were never easy to see here, either, except in the smog that stained the horizons.
Some of what I can see is almost reassuring. I rarely spot a single passenger, but the buses swing around the corners as they used to. The street cleaners come every day, and the garbage trucks empty the bins. These days I don’t mind the racket they make, even when it wakes me: a sweet lullaby of farting engines and shattering glass announcing that the city is still alive. It was too easy to miss them before, to imagine oneself alone in a city that somehow functioned on its own. Now more alone than ever, we see the lives that make it work and the work that lets us live. Current Issue View our current issue
I see things I never used to. People in masks, of course. That would have been disturbing just weeks ago. Now it’s the bare faces that provoke an involuntary twinge of mistrust. Last week I saw a woman walk by with two small children, all three of them wearing white fabric masks. For a moment I was shocked by the sight of those little masks on those tiny faces, but the kids didn’t seem to mind them. They were poking each other, playing and screeching and racing ahead of their mom. Seeing them was the best thing that happened that day. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
I see a lot of the neighbors who live in the building behind ours. Maybe too much. Their apartments have spacious balconies about 15 feet from our kitchen window, which puts us on intimate enough terms with the couple opposite us and the couple in the apartment beneath them that my partner thought to name them. There’s the “upple,” or upper couple, and the “lupple,” the lower one. The upple, sour and depressed, have always avoided eye contact. The female cleans, hangs the laundry, smokes resentfully; the male rolls endless joints, plays video games, and watches porn on his phone.
The lupple are newcomers. They moved in at the beginning of the year, cheerful and in love. Sometimes they wave at us. In the early weeks of lockdown, we would see them doing yoga together every day and sometimes, unbearably, singing to each other as one strummed a guitar in the evenings. For a while last winter, before the virus hit, we were sure the upple was breaking up, but quarantine seems to have been good for them. They’ve been talking more. Sometimes the male even helps out with the laundry. The lupple, meanwhile, have been looking more and more listless. They haven’t sung to each other for weeks. I fully expect the two couples to have switched roles before this is over, if it ever ends.
The police are out there too. I see them drive by at least once an hour, cruising in slow loops. Our upstairs neighbor told me they’ve set up a checkpoint at the bottom of the hill and they’ll fine you if you can’t convince them you have a good reason to be out, but from the window I’ve seen them stop someone only once. It was a young African guy. Pandemic or no pandemic, some things don’t change. I watched as four of them made him empty his pockets onto the roof of their car. They finally let him go, then stood around laughing and spraying disinfectant on each other’s hands.
For a while, before the infection curve began at last to flatten, we were hearing sirens all the time. We still see ambulances pulling up to the buildings across the street. I make a point of not looking to see whom they cart off. I would rather keep the sick and the dying in the category of the Things I Cannot See out the Window. That category is a large one. It includes the tens of thousands of dead, of course, and all the people toiling to keep the rest of us from joining them. It includes the young African men I used to see scavenging scrap metal from the trash and the migrants of a different sort, the herds of sunburned, moneyed tourists who have all flown home by now. It includes the teenage boys, mainly Moroccan, who live in the center for unaccompanied migrant youths up the block. They must be going crazy behind those grated windows, their shelter transformed into a prison. I don’t see the people in the actual prisons, either, or any of the things I know are there but didn’t see even in circumstances that counted once as normal: all the invisible labor, hidden theft, and not-so-secret violence that make a city and a society run. Covid-19 We’re Struggling With the Coronavirus in Spain—but We’re Vastly More Prepared Than the US Ben Ehrenreich Vietnam May Have the Most Effective Response to Covid-19 George Black
But that’s how it always is, isn’t it? Many of us don’t usually see the people who pick our vegetables and slaughter the animals we eat, and we don’t see them now. We’re suddenly more anxiously aware of things called supply chains, which are not things or chains but people: people working in fields, mines, factories, warehouses, ports, people whose health our health depends on, a vast web of interdependency that we also cannot see. We can’t see the spiders lurking in it, either—the rent we can’t afford to pay, the management companies we’re supposed to write the check to, the private equity funds that hide behind them, skimming off the profits. Just as they always did, things we cannot see set the boundaries of the possible. The enforced isolation of quarantine is just life under capitalism, only more so.
Then there are the birds, which see far more than us and gossip even more than we do. They start at about five each morning and keep at it all day, chattier and bolder than they ever were back when the streets still clanged with our foibles. Should it tell us something that this pause in the system is being celebrated by so many other living things? It should. Our absence looks different to the birds. They see the promise of a world no longer driven by the furies of consumption. They see life opening up again, a different kind of web. And surely they see us behind our windows gazing out at them, remembering in our misfortune how much we have failed to see and doing our best—some of us—to see it all anew.


thenation--2020-04-28--The Federalist Fight Against Fascism

The Federalist Fight Against Fascism

The Signal : While the Federal CARES Act was tilted toward handouts for big corporations and tax breaks for the wealthy , California is going ahead with New Deal–type policies to employ the unemployed .
Witness Governor Gavin Newsom ’ s ambitious plan , announced late last week , to hire unemployed restaurant workers to cook for the elderly , many of whom will now qualify for three hot meals a day , paid for by the state .
The money will be partly provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency , partly by the State of California , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And , while the White House continues to lock down immigration and blame immigrants for the pandemic and the economic collapse that has now followed , progressive states are charting their own course , seeking to use the courts to rein in an out-of-control president .
Last week , Trump ’ s in-house white supremacist , Stephen Miller , told supporters during a conference call that Trump ’ s “ temporary ” immigration ban was in fact part of a long-term project to lock out virtually all immigrants .
And the government continues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousands of children who have sponsors waiting for them , even though Judge Dolly Gee , who presides over the Flores settlement litigation , ordered them to do so nearly a month ago .
Meanwhile , as I reported in a recent column , New York Attorney General Tish James , along with AGs from other East Coast states , petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse its position allowing the odious “ public charge ” rules to go into effect while the legal arguments play out .
Last Friday the court refused to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the petitioners could seek relief in district courts , giving those lower courts the opportunity to suspend the rules—an opportunity they are likely to seize in the coming weeks .
Once Again , Trump Shreds US Immigration Law Also on the litigation front , this past Saturday the Portland-based Innovation Law Lab , which is coordinating some of the country ’ s most interesting immigrant-rights legal work , asked Oregon district court Judge Michael Simon to issue a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of the part of Trump ’ s recently unveiled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who are about to turn 18 .
This past autumn , Simon issued a temporary restraining order against Trump ’ s “ proclamation ” that all incoming immigrants would have to show financial ability to purchase private health insurance .
In that case , he certified a class of plaintiffs who could sue to block the new rules .
The Innovation Law Lab is now using the class certified in the earlier case to argue against portions of Trump ’ s immigration ban—specifically , the portion relating to minors who , if they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find their youth visas voided and thus might have to wait years to get new visas to join their families .
“ They could lose their place in line in the visa queue , which could result in decades-long delays in visa processing , ” says ILL senior staff attorney Nadia Dahab .
The judge is holding a hearing this Wednesday , and the Law Lab attorneys think it ’ s likely he ’ ll issue a temporary restraining order .
And while that would only affect minors , immigrant rights groups are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ class actions against the entirety of Trump ’ s unconstitutional immigration ban .
If recent history is any guide , they will win these cases in the lower courts , but the Justice Department will then speedily appeal to the Supreme Court , a majority of which has given Trump vast power to impose one ban after the next on whole categories of immigrants .
Trump is going to fight this election on the most nativist platform in US presidential history .
Immigration attorneys I speak with say they are bracing for more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bans on foreign students , bans on foreign workers , perhaps even Trump ’ s long-promised effort to eliminate birthright citizenship .
“ It ’ s horrifying , ” Dahab says , “ and it flies in the face of a comprehensive statutory scheme that Congress created.
” That ’ s the Signal .
We are in the fight of our lives , not just against a deadly virus , but against a government now bypassing Congress and openly advocating , and by diktat implementing , policies straight out of the fascist playbook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unbearable sound , painful in its scandalous stupidity , of Trump using the presidential podium to suggest to frightened people that they ingest household cleaners to protect themselves from Covid-19 .
And the other sound ?
Lady Liberty , still standing tall in New York Harbor , weeping at the grotesque xenophobic passion play now unfolding in the halls of power in Washington .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
The Signal: While the Federal CARES Act was tilted toward handouts for big corporations and tax breaks for the wealthy, California is going ahead with New Deal–type policies to employ the unemployed. Witness Governor Gavin Newsom’s ambitious plan, announced late last week, to hire unemployed restaurant workers to cook for the elderly, many of whom will now qualify for three hot meals a day, paid for by the state. The money will be partly provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, partly by the State of California, and partly by city and county agencies.
And, while the White House continues to lock down immigration and blame immigrants for the pandemic and the economic collapse that has now followed, progressive states are charting their own course, seeking to use the courts to rein in an out-of-control president.
Last week, Trump’s in-house white supremacist, Stephen Miller, told supporters during a conference call that Trump’s “temporary” immigration ban was in fact part of a long-term project to lock out virtually all immigrants. And the government continues to stonewall on releasing from ICE detention thousands of children who have sponsors waiting for them, even though Judge Dolly Gee, who presides over the Flores settlement litigation, ordered them to do so nearly a month ago.
Meanwhile, as I reported in a recent column, New York Attorney General Tish James, along with AGs from other East Coast states, petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse its position allowing the odious “public charge” rules to go into effect while the legal arguments play out. Last Friday the court refused to do that, but it did agree that the petitioners could seek relief in district courts, giving those lower courts the opportunity to suspend the rules—an opportunity they are likely to seize in the coming weeks. More Signal:Noise Once Again, Trump Shreds US Immigration Law Sasha Abramsky Trump’s Pandemic Priorities? Incite Violence, Increase Pollution. Sasha Abramsky
Also on the litigation front, this past Saturday the Portland-based Innovation Law Lab, which is coordinating some of the country’s most interesting immigrant-rights legal work, asked Oregon district court Judge Michael Simon to issue a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of the part of Trump’s recently unveiled “immigration ban” that affects minors who are about to turn 18.
This past autumn, Simon issued a temporary restraining order against Trump’s “proclamation” that all incoming immigrants would have to show financial ability to purchase private health insurance. In that case, he certified a class of plaintiffs who could sue to block the new rules. The Innovation Law Lab is now using the class certified in the earlier case to argue against portions of Trump’s immigration ban—specifically, the portion relating to minors who, if they turn 18 during this ban, will find their youth visas voided and thus might have to wait years to get new visas to join their families. “They could lose their place in line in the visa queue, which could result in decades-long delays in visa processing,” says ILL senior staff attorney Nadia Dahab.
The judge is holding a hearing this Wednesday, and the Law Lab attorneys think it’s likely he’ll issue a temporary restraining order. And while that would only affect minors, immigrant rights groups are working on finding plaintiffs for more general class actions against the entirety of Trump’s unconstitutional immigration ban. Current Issue View our current issue
If recent history is any guide, they will win these cases in the lower courts, but the Justice Department will then speedily appeal to the Supreme Court, a majority of which has given Trump vast power to impose one ban after the next on whole categories of immigrants.
Trump is going to fight this election on the most nativist platform in US presidential history. Immigration attorneys I speak with say they are bracing for more restrictions in the next six months: bans on foreign students, bans on foreign workers, perhaps even Trump’s long-promised effort to eliminate birthright citizenship. “It’s horrifying,” Dahab says, “and it flies in the face of a comprehensive statutory scheme that Congress created.”
That’s the Signal. We are in the fight of our lives, not just against a deadly virus, but against a government now bypassing Congress and openly advocating, and by diktat implementing, policies straight out of the fascist playbook.
And the Noise? The almost unbearable sound, painful in its scandalous stupidity, of Trump using the presidential podium to suggest to frightened people that they ingest household cleaners to protect themselves from Covid-19. And the other sound? Lady Liberty, still standing tall in New York Harbor, weeping at the grotesque xenophobic passion play now unfolding in the halls of power in Washington.


thenation--2020-04-28--Yup, Trump Endorses Bleach

Yup, Trump Endorses Bleach

Support independent cartooning : join Sparky ’ s List—and don ’ t forget to visit TT ’ s Emporium of @ @ @ @ @ book and plush Sparky !

Support independent cartooning: join Sparky’s List—and don’t forget to visit TT’s Emporium of Fun, featuring the new book and plush Sparky!


thenation--2020-04-28--This Crisis Demands an End to Mass Incarceration

The Covid-19 pandemic has savagely ripped the fancy window dressing from our house of systemic inequality and revealed the United States for what it is : a country where the wealthy can live in relative comfort through a pandemic struggle , while poor people wait for hours at food banks , are fired from jobs , or left to languish in hospital corridors .
It has shown that ours is a society that forces millions to cling to what they can for survival , with no guarantee of help coming from those in power .
Perhaps most powerless to face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the millions of people literally held captive by our system of mass incarceration .
According to the Bureau of Prisons , there are 649 federal detainees who have tested positive for Covid-19 nationwide ; more than 10,000 people , including staff , have tested positive at the state prison level , and we do not even know how many people in jails have Covid-19 , even though jails are a major pandemic incubator .
Lack of testing and delays in reporting guarantee that these are conservative estimates .
Those trapped in jails and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ practice any of the precautionary measures that are vital to slow the spread of the pandemic .
Overcrowding makes social distancing impossible ; incarcerated people sleep in beds only a few feet apart from each other , live in units without soap or hand sanitizer , listening to their neighbors cough and wheeze without recourse .
Alcohol-based hand sanitizer , which is flying off store shelves , is banned in jails and prisons , stripping detainees of a simple , yet lifesaving tool .
A brutal , inhumane irony is that , while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they work long hours for slave wages to manufacture it for public consumption .
As a result , detention , even for minor offenses , has become a potential death sentence .
Last week , 138 detainees at a Denver facility tested positive for Covid-19 .
More than a third of cases in Arkansas are found in the state prison .
And in a Marion , Ohio , prison , a jaw-dropping 78 percent of its detainees have tested positive .
The numbers tell a harrowing truth : Jails and prisons are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What ’ s happening on the outside is not lost on those on the inside .
Pre-pandemic conditions in prisons and jails already placed detainees at risk of violence , something the current outbreak has exacerbated .
Concerns about Covid-19 outbreaks have led to uprisings and protests nationwide .
Given the enhanced risk of outbreaks in jails and prisons , relatively little attention has been paid to the role of the officials locking people up in the first place : The prosecutors .
Right now , having the power to decide who goes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home makes a local prosecutor one of the most powerful public safety and public health officials in our communities , who could play a vital role in flattening the curve .
Activists and organizers who have explicitly advocated for decarceration are finding new allies as Covid-19 tears through incarcerated populations nationwide .
A growing chorus of elected officials have called for the strategic release of the elderly , medically vulnerable , folks serving sentences for nonviolent offenses , and those caged for being too poor to afford bail .
“ The job is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away the key ; it ’ s about protecting the public , even—perhaps especially—in today ’ s extraordinary circumstances , ” Elie Honig wrote in a recent CNN editorial .
Tragically , some prosecutors have stood in the way of a wide-scale release , to disastrous consequences .
In my home of Queens , New York , District Attorney Melinda Katz took two weeks to consent to the release of 30 incarcerated people—less than 1 percent of the population of the Rikers Island jails .
Despite the jail population ’ s now dipping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 1940s , incarcerated elders with dire medical conditions and others are still being held on charges like food theft and technical parole violations .
When local prosecutors act swiftly , lives are saved , with no risk to public safety .
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin acted early , releasing people who couldn ’ t afford to pay bail and elderly and medically at-risk detainees , and approving early release for those nearing the end of their sentence .
To date , San Francisco ’ s jail population has been reduced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has created the conditions for the jail medical team to implement some level of social distancing , to isolate people who are incarcerated who show symptoms , to find ways to actually meet the medical needs of folks who have other medical conditions besides Covid-19 who are housed in the jail .
And in doing so , at least to date , we have managed to avert what could be a really catastrophic outcome , ” Boudin told NPR .
Boudin isn ’ t an anomaly .
In Philadelphia , District Attorney Larry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by releasing those charged with nonviolent offenses or misdemeanors without posting bail .
He ’ s also encouraged the local police to exercise discretion when making arrests , and has taken on judges who refuse to decarcerate during the pandemic .
While among the most effective , they aren ’ t the only ones .
What we are seeing now , from New Jersey to California to Montana , is the implementation of the principle progressive prosecutors like Boudin , Krasner , and others have promoted for years : Public health is public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time for a paradigm shift from a focus on punishment to public health outcomes .
Local prosecutors can and should lead the way .
Others have to follow .
Mayors and governors around the country are now putting into action ideas advocates , directly impacted people , and enlightened DAs have long fought for , and been told were impossible .
This pandemic has revealed that adequate discharge planning , robust work release programs , and freeing up hotels to house the homeless are effective , and should ’ ve been done a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take a crisis like this to realize that compassionate and stabilizing public health approaches are the key to public safety .
The pandemic has put each and every one of us in survival mode , pushing one single question to the forefront : How do we save lives and keep people safe ?
Progressive prosecutors have the tools to help answer that question .
We should have been listening all along .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has savagely ripped the fancy window dressing from our house of systemic inequality and revealed the United States for what it is: a country where the wealthy can live in relative comfort through a pandemic struggle, while poor people wait for hours at food banks, are fired from jobs, or left to languish in hospital corridors. It has shown that ours is a society that forces millions to cling to what they can for survival, with no guarantee of help coming from those in power.
Perhaps most powerless to face down this crisis, though, are the millions of people literally held captive by our system of mass incarceration. According to the Bureau of Prisons, there are 649 federal detainees who have tested positive for Covid-19 nationwide; more than 10,000 people, including staff, have tested positive at the state prison level, and we do not even know how many people in jails have Covid-19, even though jails are a major pandemic incubator. Lack of testing and delays in reporting guarantee that these are conservative estimates. Those trapped in jails and prisons at this time are unable to practice any of the precautionary measures that are vital to slow the spread of the pandemic. Overcrowding makes social distancing impossible; incarcerated people sleep in beds only a few feet apart from each other, live in units without soap or hand sanitizer, listening to their neighbors cough and wheeze without recourse.
Alcohol-based hand sanitizer, which is flying off store shelves, is banned in jails and prisons, stripping detainees of a simple, yet lifesaving tool. A brutal, inhumane irony is that, while detainees can’t possess alcohol-based sanitizer, they work long hours for slave wages to manufacture it for public consumption.
As a result, detention, even for minor offenses, has become a potential death sentence. Last week, 138 detainees at a Denver facility tested positive for Covid-19. More than a third of cases in Arkansas are found in the state prison. And in a Marion, Ohio, prison, a jaw-dropping 78 percent of its detainees have tested positive. The numbers tell a harrowing truth: Jails and prisons are becoming an epicenter of the pandemic. What’s happening on the outside is not lost on those on the inside. Pre-pandemic conditions in prisons and jails already placed detainees at risk of violence, something the current outbreak has exacerbated. Concerns about Covid-19 outbreaks have led to uprisings and protests nationwide. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Given the enhanced risk of outbreaks in jails and prisons, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of the officials locking people up in the first place: The prosecutors. Right now, having the power to decide who goes to jail or prison and who goes home makes a local prosecutor one of the most powerful public safety and public health officials in our communities, who could play a vital role in flattening the curve.
Activists and organizers who have explicitly advocated for decarceration are finding new allies as Covid-19 tears through incarcerated populations nationwide. A growing chorus of elected officials have called for the strategic release of the elderly, medically vulnerable, folks serving sentences for nonviolent offenses, and those caged for being too poor to afford bail. “The job is not about locking people up and throwing away the key; it’s about protecting the public, even—perhaps especially—in today’s extraordinary circumstances,” Elie Honig wrote in a recent CNN editorial.
Tragically, some prosecutors have stood in the way of a wide-scale release, to disastrous consequences. In my home of Queens, New York, District Attorney Melinda Katz took two weeks to consent to the release of 30 incarcerated people—less than 1 percent of the population of the Rikers Island jails. Despite the jail population’s now dipping to the lowest it has been since the 1940s, incarcerated elders with dire medical conditions and others are still being held on charges like food theft and technical parole violations. Current Issue View our current issue
When local prosecutors act swiftly, lives are saved, with no risk to public safety. San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin acted early, releasing people who couldn’t afford to pay bail and elderly and medically at-risk detainees, and approving early release for those nearing the end of their sentence. To date, San Francisco’s jail population has been reduced by nearly 40 percent. “That has created the conditions for the jail medical team to implement some level of social distancing, to isolate people who are incarcerated who show symptoms, to find ways to actually meet the medical needs of folks who have other medical conditions besides Covid-19 who are housed in the jail. And in doing so, at least to date, we have managed to avert what could be a really catastrophic outcome,” Boudin told NPR.
Boudin isn’t an anomaly. In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner is working to meet the moment by releasing those charged with nonviolent offenses or misdemeanors without posting bail. He’s also encouraged the local police to exercise discretion when making arrests, and has taken on judges who refuse to decarcerate during the pandemic.
While among the most effective, they aren’t the only ones. What we are seeing now, from New Jersey to California to Montana, is the implementation of the principle progressive prosecutors like Boudin, Krasner, and others have promoted for years: Public health is public safety. The pandemic is the ideal time for a paradigm shift from a focus on punishment to public health outcomes. Local prosecutors can and should lead the way. Others have to follow.
Mayors and governors around the country are now putting into action ideas advocates, directly impacted people, and enlightened DAs have long fought for, and been told were impossible. This pandemic has revealed that adequate discharge planning, robust work release programs, and freeing up hotels to house the homeless are effective, and should’ve been done a long time ago. It should not take a crisis like this to realize that compassionate and stabilizing public health approaches are the key to public safety.
The pandemic has put each and every one of us in survival mode, pushing one single question to the forefront: How do we save lives and keep people safe? Progressive prosecutors have the tools to help answer that question. We should have been listening all along.


thenation--2020-04-28--Comparing the US’ and China’s Response to Covid-19

Historically , in hyper-crises , local and global systems can change fundamentally .
Before the coronavirus pandemic hit first China and then the rest of the globe , the question of whether the American imperial era might be faltering was already on the table , amid that country ’ s endless wars and with the world ’ s most capricious leader .
When humanity emerges from this devastating crisis of disease , dislocation , and impoverishment , not to mention the fracturing of a global economic system created by Washington but increasingly powered by Beijing on a climate-stressed planet , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese dragon pushed the American eagle down to a secondary position ?
To assess that question objectively in this unsettled moment , it ’ s necessary to examine on a day-to-day basis how the two contemporary superpowers handled the Covid-19 crisis , and ask the question : Who has proved better at combating the deadliest disease of modern times , President Donald Trump or President Xi Jinping ?
It ’ s chastening to note that whereas China under Xi has suppressed the latest coronavirus at the human cost of three lives per million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is still struggling to overpower it , having already sacrificed 145 of every million Americans .
In the afterglow of Trump ’ s December 16 , 2019 , touting of a partial trade deal with China ( after a lengthy trade war ) , a Sino-American exchange took place .
George Gao , director of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CCDC ) , spoke with his American counterpart , Robert Redfield , on January 3 , alerting him to the arrival of an as-yet-unidentified , pneumonia-inducing virus in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Chinese government would for crucial days withhold domestically ) .
Redfield then briefed Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar on that conversation .
Ever since , the trajectories of the policies followed by Beijing and Washington have diverged by 180 degrees .
Mind you , the potential prize for the winner of the contest for killer of the super-virus is the World Leadership Trophy .
China ’ s National Health Commission ( NHC ) , which had dispatched a team of experts to Wuhan on December 31 , informed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases of pneumonia of an unknown sort had been detected in that city , linked to human exposure at a 1,000-stall wholesale seafood market , selling fish and other animals , dead and alive .
With that , the Chinese scientists faced two separate challenges : to isolate the pathogen causing the disease in order to set out its genome sequencing and to determine whether there was human-to-human transmission of the virus .
On January 3 , the NHC centralized all testing related to the mysterious disease and , two days later , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ caused by pathogens that jump from animals to humans , completed the sequencing of the genome of the virus .
It became accessible worldwide that January 7 .
And on January 10 and 11 , the WHO issued guidance notices to all its member states about collecting samples from any patients who might show symptoms of the disease , listing stringent precautions to avoid the risk of human-to-human transmission .
On January 14 , Maria Van Kerkhove , acting head of the WHO ’ s emerging diseases unit , offered a mixed message @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that there had , so far , been only the most limited kinds of human transmission between family members in China .
Nonetheless , she added , the possibility of wider human-to-human transmission should not be regarded as “ surprising ” given the similarity of the new virus to the ones in the earlier SARS ( Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ) and MERS ( Middle East Respiratory Syndrome ) outbreaks .
However , Reuters and China ’ s Xinhua News Agency also quoted her as saying that there had been only the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so far , mainly among small clusters of family members , and that “ it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission.
” On January 16 , scientists at the German Center for Infection Research in Berlin developed a new laboratory test to detect the novel coronavirus .
This offered the possibility of diagnosing suspected cases quickly .
The WHO publicized it as a guideline for diagnostic detection .
The leaders of many countries adopted it , but not President Trump , who , in America First–style , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Only on February 29 , however , would the Food and Drug Administration allow laboratories and hospitals to conduct their own Covid-19 tests to speed up the process .
That was four weeks after the WHO had started distributing its effective test globally .
On January 19 , China ’ s National Health Commission confirmed human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus .
On that day , it publicly confirmed the first cases of person-to-person transmission .
Headed by a cabinet minister , the NHC classified the novel coronavirus as a category B @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1989 Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases ( revised in 2004 and 2013 ) .
This law allows the upgrading of an infectious disease to category A subject to the decision of the cabinet .
Under that classification , medical institutions are authorized to treat patients in isolation in designated places and take necessary preventive measures to discover and deal with their close contacts .
On January 20 , after chairing a cabinet meeting , Premier Li Keqiang first spoke of the necessity of controlling a coronavirus epidemic , demanding that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the situation .
While endorsing Li ’ s call , President Xi Jinping stressed “ the importance of informing the public to safeguard social stability.
” As one high-level Communist Party committee typically stated in a posting on WeChat , “ Whoever deliberately delays or conceals reporting for the sake of their own interests will be forever nailed to history ’ s pillar of shame.
” All this happened on the eve of the week-long Chinese New Year holiday , a time when hundreds of millions of people return to their homes for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days before the New Year , the authorities suspended all rail and air links out of Wuhan .
The next day , the central government imposed a complete lockdown on that bustling city of 11 million and other large urban centers in the province of Hubei .
Residents were forbidden to leave their homes , while food and other supplies were to be delivered by neighborhood committees .
This set a precedent for similar measures in other cities , as in the coming weeks many areas across China imposed such “ closed management @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 760 million people were subjected to travel curbs of one sort or another , while the economy was reduced to 40–50 percent of its normal capacity .
During a meeting with WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Beijing on January 29 , President Xi assured him that he had personally overseen and directed the response to the viral outbreak and the prevention and control measures that went with it .
On January 30 , with the novel coronavirus having spread to 17 countries including the United States , the World Health Organization @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emergency.
” On February 11 , it labeled the disease caused by the latest coronavirus , which can culminate in death-inducing pneumonia , Covid-19 .
On January 29 , President Trump officially inaugurated a task force led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to monitor , contain , and mitigate the spread of the coronavirus while also keeping Americans informed on the matter .
Azar and the Centers for Disease Control Prevention ’ s Robert Redfield had already been involved in protecting Americans from the deadly virus .
On January 7 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Covid-19 Incident Management System and , on the 21st , he activated its emergency response structure .
On that very day , the first lab-confirmed coronavirus case was reported in Olympia , Washington .
( Earlier ones would later be detected . )
The president noted the news with a tweet : “ It ’ s one person coming in from China and we have it under control .
It ’ s going to be just fine.
” Inside the White House , Trump ’ s national trade adviser , Peter Navarro @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Security Council stating that the present “ lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic , imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.
” He estimated that such a pandemic could kill half a million people and deliver a $ 5.7 trillion hit to the economy .
Two days later , in response to these developments , all Trump did was ban the arrival of non-US citizens who had recently traveled to China .
From then on , he repeatedly touted this as evidence that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan to set up surveillance in five cities at the cost of $ 100 million fell through when , on February 21 , Nancy Messonnier , director of the CDC ’ s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases , told reporters that problems with the kits to test for Covid-19 were still unresolved .
In the absence of meaningful testing , the number of cases in the United States looked small .
“ The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA , ” Trump tweeted on the 24th .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been working hard and very smart .
Stock Market starting to look very good to me !
” He ignored Navarro ’ s memo of the previous day and its warning that “ there is an increasing probability of a full-blown Covid-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans , with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.
” Instead , on February 25 , at a news conference in New Delhi during his trip to India , the president haughtily claimed that a vaccine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Now they have it , they have studied it , they know very much , in fact , we ’ re very close to a vaccine , ” he said confidently .
That same day , in a CDC briefing in Washington , Nancy Messonnier described the situation this way : “ Ultimately , we expect we will see [ the infected ] community spread in this country… [ and ] disruption to everyday life may be severe .
But these are things that people need to start thinking about now.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Dow Jones Industrial Average , which infuriated Trump .
He promptly urged Larry Kudlow , director of the National Economic Council , to go on television and preach confidence .
Accordingly , Kudlow told CNBC , “ We have contained this .
I won ’ t say airtight , but it ’ s pretty close to airtight.
” On his return to Washington on February 26 , Trump replaced Azar as the head of the coronavirus task force with Vice President Mike Pence , and charged him with disseminating positive messages @ @ @ @ @ @ @ market .
The next day , the grievance-laden president complained that the media was doing all it could “ to make the Caronavirus [ sic ] look as bad as possible , including panicking markets , if possible.
” Meanwhile , Back in the Middle Kingdom On February 10 , Chinese President Xi visited a hospital in Beijing where he held a video call with health workers in Wuhan .
Coverage of it and his temperature being taken by a doctor filled the front page of the official newspaper , the People ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Party chiefs in Wuhan and Hubei province had been “ replaced ” because of their poor initial response to the coronavirus .
In Wuhan , an extra 60,000 hospital beds for Covid-19 patients were created within a month by converting 16 exhibition halls and sports venues into field hospitals and constructing two brand new hospitals as well .
On February 23rd , Xi teleconferenced with 170,000 local officials , describing the pandemic as the hardest public health emergency to contain since the founding of the People ’ s Republic .
He noted that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while Hubei Province and significant parts of the rest of the country ( as well as the economy ) had been shut down .
The highest priority was given to the production of personal protective equipment .
According to an official March 6 press briefing , production of protective clothing had jumped from less than 20,000 pieces daily to 500,000 pieces daily .
The output of specialist N95 masks shot up eightfold to 1.6 million and ordinary masks totaled 100 million .
During a trip to Wuhan four days later , Xi praised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soldiers , community workers , police officers , officials , and volunteers fighting the pandemic , as well as patients and residents in the locked-down city .
The epidemic had by then caused 3,000 deaths .
On March 9 , however , daily new cases in Wuhan had already dropped to 19 from thousands a day a month earlier .
All the makeshift hospitals were closed .
Nonetheless , Xi warned that prevention-and-control work required constant vigilance .
When 114 countries reported coronavirus cases to the World Health Organization on March 11 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic .
By mid-March , the Chinese government and the Jack Ma Foundation , part of the giant corporate conglomerate Alibaba Group , had sent doctors and medical supplies to Belgium , Cambodia , France , Iran , Iraq , Italy , the Philippines , Serbia , Spain , and the United States .
The foundation announced that it would ship “ 20,000 testing kits , 100,000 masks and 1,000 protective suits and face shields ” to every country in Africa and added that Ethiopia ’ s prime minister , Abiy Ahmed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the logistics and distribution of these supplies to other African countries.
” Of the 89 countries that , by March 26 , had received emergency assistance from China to fight the pandemic , 28 were in Asia , 16 in Europe , 26 in Africa , nine in the Americas , and 10 in the South Pacific .
Such medical supplies mainly included testing kits , masks , protective suits , thermometer guns , and ventilators .
China also invited officials and experts from more than 100 countries to a video conference on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ telephone conversations with 22 foreign leaders , including French President Emmanuel Macron , Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz , Spanish King Felipe VI , Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte , and Donald Trump .
On March 13 , President Trump declared a national emergency , pledging to dramatically speed up coronavirus testing ( which he , disastrously , failed to do ) .
By then , he had chalked up a remarkable series of false claims and outright lies about the fast-spreading disease .
Typically , on a visit to CDC headquarters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 6 , he had boasted of his “ natural ability ” to understand the subject of epidemiology .
On March 13 , he falsely announced that a Google website was being developed to help people find places to get Covid-19 tests , something Google ’ s officials turned out to know nothing about .
The next day , he lined up executives from Walmart , Target , CVS , Walgreens , LabCorp , Quest Diagnostics , and Roche Diagnostics , insisting that they would help expedite testing to stop the quick-spreading virus .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation began to shut down .
Public schools closed , sports leagues postponed or cut off their seasons , people began working from home in large numbers ( as others by the millions simply lost their jobs ) , and supplies of hand sanitizer , disinfectant wipes , and toilet paper disappeared from store shelves .
A month on , very few of the president ’ s promises had materialized , while the disease had spread dramatically and deaths had begun to soar .
Asked about the shortage of testing kits and sites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ behind South Korea and other countries in dealing with the still-spreading virus , Trump couldn ’ t have been clearer .
“ I don ’ t take responsibility at all , ” he said .
And yet , locked into his “ Make America Great Again ” bubble , until March 6 he blocked an offer from the Jack Ma Foundation to send 500,000 testing kits and one million masks to the United States to be distributed by the CDC .
By heeding the WHO ’ s battle cry of “ test , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had managed to avoid the kinds of lockdowns implemented by China , many Western European countries , and some American cities .
In a desperate phone call to President Moon Jae-in on March 24 , Trump begged him to rush test kits to the United States .
In response , Jeong Eun-kyeong , director of the South Korean equivalent of the CDC , agreed , but only at a level that would not diminish his own country ’ s testing capacity .
Soon after the arrival of 1,000 Chinese ventilators at John F. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much to the relief of a grateful Governor Andrew Cuomo , a tweet from Trump read , “ USA STRONG !
” His boast , however , sounded hollow , given the grim news that , between February 12th and March 11 , the Dow Jones index had dropped around 8,000 points from its historic peak , as national unemployment tripled from a low of 3.5 percent ( with more to come ) .
To counter this , on April 9 , the Federal Reserve released business lending and other programs worth $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It had already injected $ 500 billion dollars into the financial system in March , with plans for a further $ 1.5 trillion to come .
By March 27 , as the United States had gained the global status of number one in coronavirus cases , the president also signed into law the $ 2.2 trillion Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act , passed almost unanimously by Congress , to rush federal assistance to workers and businesses .
It included the payment of $ 1,200 to most taxpayers ; enhanced unemployment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ program for large companies , cities , and states ; and a $ 367 billion fund for small businesses .
Despite all this , the country ’ s gross domestic product is expected to fall by at least 10.8 percent in the second quarter of 2020 .
China ’ s GDP contraction of 6.8 percent in the first quarter of the year was a historic drop .
However , at 5.9 percent , the jobless rate in urban areas in March 2020 was down by 0.3 percent from the previous month .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now pondering is this : Have their responses to Covid-19 shifted the balance of power between China and the United States in a way that will matter in a post-coronavirus world ?
Watching the chaos of Trump ’ s daily press conferences and his administration ’ s failure to stop the virus effectively proved an alarming reminder that rational people can plan for anything—except an irrational American president .
After all , under his watch 746,459 Americans had contracted Covid-19 , and 39,651 had died by mid-April .
The comparable figures for China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nathalie Tocci , an adviser to the European Union ’ s foreign affairs chief , recently offered a pertinent historical parallel to consider .
She cited the 1956 Suez crisis—Britain ’ s unsuccessful , if conspiratorial , alliance with France and Israel to militarily topple the nationalist regime of Egypt ’ s President Gamal Abdul Nasser .
It is now considered the sunset moment for Britain ’ s imperial power .
In the present context , she speculated that the Covid-19 pandemic may prove to be a “ Suez moment ” for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scientists and public health experts , President Trump threatens to disastrously extend his coronavirus chronology from hell into an increasingly painful future by “ reopening ” the country too soon .
By so doing , he will only accelerate the day when the World Leadership Trophy , held by America since 1946 , is handed to the People ’ s Republic of China .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy. This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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Historically, in hyper-crises, local and global systems can change fundamentally. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit first China and then the rest of the globe, the question of whether the American imperial era might be faltering was already on the table, amid that country’s endless wars and with the world’s most capricious leader. When humanity emerges from this devastating crisis of disease, dislocation, and impoverishment, not to mention the fracturing of a global economic system created by Washington but increasingly powered by Beijing on a climate-stressed planet, the question will be: Has the Chinese dragon pushed the American eagle down to a secondary position?
To assess that question objectively in this unsettled moment, it’s necessary to examine on a day-to-day basis how the two contemporary superpowers handled the Covid-19 crisis, and ask the question: Who has proved better at combating the deadliest disease of modern times, President Donald Trump or President Xi Jinping? It’s chastening to note that whereas China under Xi has suppressed the latest coronavirus at the human cost of three lives per million population, the United States under Trump is still struggling to overpower it, having already sacrificed 145 of every million Americans.
In the afterglow of Trump’s December 16, 2019, touting of a partial trade deal with China (after a lengthy trade war), a Sino-American exchange took place. George Gao, director of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC), spoke with his American counterpart, Robert Redfield, on January 3, alerting him to the arrival of an as-yet-unidentified, pneumonia-inducing virus in the city of Wuhan (news of which the Chinese government would for crucial days withhold domestically). Redfield then briefed Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar on that conversation.
Ever since, the trajectories of the policies followed by Beijing and Washington have diverged by 180 degrees. Mind you, the potential prize for the winner of the contest for killer of the super-virus is the World Leadership Trophy.
Attacked by a Virulent Virus, China Fights Back
China’s National Health Commission (NHC), which had dispatched a team of experts to Wuhan on December 31, informed the World Health Organization (WHO) that cases of pneumonia of an unknown sort had been detected in that city, linked to human exposure at a 1,000-stall wholesale seafood market, selling fish and other animals, dead and alive. With that, the Chinese scientists faced two separate challenges: to isolate the pathogen causing the disease in order to set out its genome sequencing and to determine whether there was human-to-human transmission of the virus. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
On January 3, the NHC centralized all testing related to the mysterious disease and, two days later, in conjunction with experts in infectious diseases caused by pathogens that jump from animals to humans, completed the sequencing of the genome of the virus. It became accessible worldwide that January 7. And on January 10 and 11, the WHO issued guidance notices to all its member states about collecting samples from any patients who might show symptoms of the disease, listing stringent precautions to avoid the risk of human-to-human transmission.
On January 14, Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of the WHO’s emerging diseases unit, offered a mixed message on the situation. She told reporters that there had, so far, been only the most limited kinds of human transmission between family members in China. Nonetheless, she added, the possibility of wider human-to-human transmission should not be regarded as “surprising” given the similarity of the new virus to the ones in the earlier SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) outbreaks. However, Reuters and China’s Xinhua News Agency also quoted her as saying that there had been only the most limited human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus so far, mainly among small clusters of family members, and that “it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission.” Current Issue View our current issue
On January 16, scientists at the German Center for Infection Research in Berlin developed a new laboratory test to detect the novel coronavirus. This offered the possibility of diagnosing suspected cases quickly. The WHO publicized it as a guideline for diagnostic detection. The leaders of many countries adopted it, but not President Trump, who, in America First–style, demanded a test produced by US scientists. Only on February 29, however, would the Food and Drug Administration allow laboratories and hospitals to conduct their own Covid-19 tests to speed up the process. That was four weeks after the WHO had started distributing its effective test globally.
On January 19, China’s National Health Commission confirmed human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus. On that day, it publicly confirmed the first cases of person-to-person transmission. Headed by a cabinet minister, the NHC classified the novel coronavirus as a category B infectious disease under the country’s 1989 Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases (revised in 2004 and 2013). This law allows the upgrading of an infectious disease to category A subject to the decision of the cabinet. Under that classification, medical institutions are authorized to treat patients in isolation in designated places and take necessary preventive measures to discover and deal with their close contacts.
On January 20, after chairing a cabinet meeting, Premier Li Keqiang first spoke of the necessity of controlling a coronavirus epidemic, demanding that all Communist Party and government units address the situation. While endorsing Li’s call, President Xi Jinping stressed “the importance of informing the public to safeguard social stability.” As one high-level Communist Party committee typically stated in a posting on WeChat, “Whoever deliberately delays or conceals reporting for the sake of their own interests will be forever nailed to history’s pillar of shame.”
All this happened on the eve of the week-long Chinese New Year holiday, a time when hundreds of millions of people return to their homes for celebrations. On January 22, three days before the New Year, the authorities suspended all rail and air links out of Wuhan.
The next day, the central government imposed a complete lockdown on that bustling city of 11 million and other large urban centers in the province of Hubei. Residents were forbidden to leave their homes, while food and other supplies were to be delivered by neighborhood committees. This set a precedent for similar measures in other cities, as in the coming weeks many areas across China imposed such “closed management” situations on communities. Up to 760 million people were subjected to travel curbs of one sort or another, while the economy was reduced to 40–50 percent of its normal capacity.
During a meeting with WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Beijing on January 29, President Xi assured him that he had personally overseen and directed the response to the viral outbreak and the prevention and control measures that went with it. On January 30, with the novel coronavirus having spread to 17 countries including the United States, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a “global health emergency.” On February 11, it labeled the disease caused by the latest coronavirus, which can culminate in death-inducing pneumonia, Covid-19.
Meanwhile, in Trumpland…
On January 29, President Trump officially inaugurated a task force led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to monitor, contain, and mitigate the spread of the coronavirus while also keeping Americans informed on the matter.
Azar and the Centers for Disease Control Prevention’s Robert Redfield had already been involved in protecting Americans from the deadly virus. On January 7, Redfield had established the CDC’s Covid-19 Incident Management System and, on the 21st, he activated its emergency response structure. On that very day, the first lab-confirmed coronavirus case was reported in Olympia, Washington. (Earlier ones would later be detected.) The president noted the news with a tweet: “It’s one person coming in from China and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
Inside the White House, Trump’s national trade adviser, Peter Navarro, addressed a warning memo to the National Security Council stating that the present “lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.” He estimated that such a pandemic could kill half a million people and deliver a $5.7 trillion hit to the economy.
Two days later, in response to these developments, all Trump did was ban the arrival of non-US citizens who had recently traveled to China. From then on, he repeatedly touted this as evidence that he had acted early. Azar’s plan to set up surveillance in five cities at the cost of $100 million fell through when, on February 21, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters that problems with the kits to test for Covid-19 were still unresolved.
In the absence of meaningful testing, the number of cases in the United States looked small. “The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA,” Trump tweeted on the 24th. “CDC & World Health [Organization] have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” He ignored Navarro’s memo of the previous day and its warning that “there is an increasing probability of a full-blown Covid-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.”
Instead, on February 25, at a news conference in New Delhi during his trip to India, the president haughtily claimed that a vaccine for Covid-19 would soon be available. “Now they have it, they have studied it, they know very much, in fact, we’re very close to a vaccine,” he said confidently.
That same day, in a CDC briefing in Washington, Nancy Messonnier described the situation this way: “Ultimately, we expect we will see [the infected] community spread in this country…[and] disruption to everyday life may be severe. But these are things that people need to start thinking about now.” That led to a staggering 1,031-point fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which infuriated Trump. He promptly urged Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, to go on television and preach confidence. Accordingly, Kudlow told CNBC, “We have contained this. I won’t say airtight, but it’s pretty close to airtight.”
On his return to Washington on February 26, Trump replaced Azar as the head of the coronavirus task force with Vice President Mike Pence, and charged him with disseminating positive messages in order to steady a jittery stock market. The next day, the grievance-laden president complained that the media was doing all it could “to make the Caronavirus [sic] look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible.”
Meanwhile, Back in the Middle Kingdom
On February 10, Chinese President Xi visited a hospital in Beijing where he held a video call with health workers in Wuhan. Coverage of it and his temperature being taken by a doctor filled the front page of the official newspaper, the People’s Daily. By then, Communist Party chiefs in Wuhan and Hubei province had been “replaced” because of their poor initial response to the coronavirus.
In Wuhan, an extra 60,000 hospital beds for Covid-19 patients were created within a month by converting 16 exhibition halls and sports venues into field hospitals and constructing two brand new hospitals as well. On February 23rd, Xi teleconferenced with 170,000 local officials, describing the pandemic as the hardest public health emergency to contain since the founding of the People’s Republic. He noted that the situation remained grim and complex, while Hubei Province and significant parts of the rest of the country (as well as the economy) had been shut down.
The highest priority was given to the production of personal protective equipment. According to an official March 6 press briefing, production of protective clothing had jumped from less than 20,000 pieces daily to 500,000 pieces daily. The output of specialist N95 masks shot up eightfold to 1.6 million and ordinary masks totaled 100 million.
During a trip to Wuhan four days later, Xi praised frontline medical workers, military officers, soldiers, community workers, police officers, officials, and volunteers fighting the pandemic, as well as patients and residents in the locked-down city. The epidemic had by then caused 3,000 deaths. On March 9, however, daily new cases in Wuhan had already dropped to 19 from thousands a day a month earlier. All the makeshift hospitals were closed. Nonetheless, Xi warned that prevention-and-control work required constant vigilance.
When 114 countries reported coronavirus cases to the World Health Organization on March 11, it declared the Covid-19 outbreak a global pandemic.
By mid-March, the Chinese government and the Jack Ma Foundation, part of the giant corporate conglomerate Alibaba Group, had sent doctors and medical supplies to Belgium, Cambodia, France, Iran, Iraq, Italy, the Philippines, Serbia, Spain, and the United States. The foundation announced that it would ship “20,000 testing kits, 100,000 masks and 1,000 protective suits and face shields” to every country in Africa and added that Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, would “take the lead in managing the logistics and distribution of these supplies to other African countries.”
Of the 89 countries that, by March 26, had received emergency assistance from China to fight the pandemic, 28 were in Asia, 16 in Europe, 26 in Africa, nine in the Americas, and 10 in the South Pacific. Such medical supplies mainly included testing kits, masks, protective suits, thermometer guns, and ventilators. China also invited officials and experts from more than 100 countries to a video conference on Covid-19, while President Xi conducted 26 telephone conversations with 22 foreign leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, Spanish King Felipe VI, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, and Donald Trump.
Trump Wakes Up
On March 13, President Trump declared a national emergency, pledging to dramatically speed up coronavirus testing (which he, disastrously, failed to do). By then, he had chalked up a remarkable series of false claims and outright lies about the fast-spreading disease. Typically, on a visit to CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 6, he had boasted of his “natural ability” to understand the subject of epidemiology.
On March 13, he falsely announced that a Google website was being developed to help people find places to get Covid-19 tests, something Google’s officials turned out to know nothing about. The next day, he lined up executives from Walmart, Target, CVS, Walgreens, LabCorp, Quest Diagnostics, and Roche Diagnostics, insisting that they would help expedite testing to stop the quick-spreading virus. In fact, little happened and the nation began to shut down. Public schools closed, sports leagues postponed or cut off their seasons, people began working from home in large numbers (as others by the millions simply lost their jobs), and supplies of hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, and toilet paper disappeared from store shelves. A month on, very few of the president’s promises had materialized, while the disease had spread dramatically and deaths had begun to soar.
Asked about the shortage of testing kits and sites, which has left America lagging far behind South Korea and other countries in dealing with the still-spreading virus, Trump couldn’t have been clearer. “I don’t take responsibility at all,” he said. And yet, locked into his “Make America Great Again” bubble, until March 6 he blocked an offer from the Jack Ma Foundation to send 500,000 testing kits and one million masks to the United States to be distributed by the CDC.
By heeding the WHO’s battle cry of “test, test, test,” South Korea had managed to avoid the kinds of lockdowns implemented by China, many Western European countries, and some American cities. In a desperate phone call to President Moon Jae-in on March 24, Trump begged him to rush test kits to the United States. In response, Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the South Korean equivalent of the CDC, agreed, but only at a level that would not diminish his own country’s testing capacity.
Soon after the arrival of 1,000 Chinese ventilators at John F. Kennedy International Airport on April 4, much to the relief of a grateful Governor Andrew Cuomo, a tweet from Trump read, “USA STRONG!” His boast, however, sounded hollow, given the grim news that, between February 12th and March 11, the Dow Jones index had dropped around 8,000 points from its historic peak, as national unemployment tripled from a low of 3.5 percent (with more to come).
To counter this, on April 9, the Federal Reserve released business lending and other programs worth $2.3 trillion to steady a fast-sinking economy. It had already injected $500 billion dollars into the financial system in March, with plans for a further $1.5 trillion to come.
By March 27, as the United States had gained the global status of number one in coronavirus cases, the president also signed into law the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, passed almost unanimously by Congress, to rush federal assistance to workers and businesses. It included the payment of $1,200 to most taxpayers; enhanced unemployment benefits; a $500 billion lending program for large companies, cities, and states; and a $367 billion fund for small businesses.
Despite all this, the country’s gross domestic product is expected to fall by at least 10.8 percent in the second quarter of 2020. China’s GDP contraction of 6.8 percent in the first quarter of the year was a historic drop. However, at 5.9 percent, the jobless rate in urban areas in March 2020 was down by 0.3 percent from the previous month.
Passing on the World Leadership Trophy?
The question that many experts on geopolitics are now pondering is this: Have their responses to Covid-19 shifted the balance of power between China and the United States in a way that will matter in a post-coronavirus world? Watching the chaos of Trump’s daily press conferences and his administration’s failure to stop the virus effectively proved an alarming reminder that rational people can plan for anything—except an irrational American president. After all, under his watch 746,459 Americans had contracted Covid-19, and 39,651 had died by mid-April. The comparable figures for China were 82,747 cases and 4,632 deaths.
Nathalie Tocci, an adviser to the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, recently offered a pertinent historical parallel to consider. She cited the 1956 Suez crisis—Britain’s unsuccessful, if conspiratorial, alliance with France and Israel to militarily topple the nationalist regime of Egypt’s President Gamal Abdul Nasser. It is now considered the sunset moment for Britain’s imperial power. In the present context, she speculated that the Covid-19 pandemic may prove to be a “Suez moment” for the United States.
Ignoring the warnings of scientists and public health experts, President Trump threatens to disastrously extend his coronavirus chronology from hell into an increasingly painful future by “reopening” the country too soon. By so doing, he will only accelerate the day when the World Leadership Trophy, held by America since 1946, is handed to the People’s Republic of China.


thenation--2020-04-28--Take Action Now: Bail Out People, Not Corporations

Hundreds of Amazon workers called in sick Friday to protest working conditions they argue are unsafe and unethical amid the pandemic .
They join frontline workers from grocery stores to poultry plants to emergency rooms who ’ ve demanded safety protections , pay increases , and paid sick leave as they confront some of the greatest risks of contracting the virus .
As these fights continue across the country , it ’ s crucial that we fight for the policies that workers need to be safe in the workplace and beyond .
This week ’ s Take Action Now gives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep up the pressure after Earth Day last week , and demand a bailout for people , not companies .
Take Action Now gives you three meaningful actions you can take each week whatever your schedule .
You can sign up here to get these actions and more in your inbox every Tuesday .
On April 17 , Representative Ilhan Omar introduced a bill that would enact rent and mortgage cancellation , a policy that puts low-wage workers struggling to pay rent at the front of the policy agenda .
Call your representatives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bill in the upcoming stimulus package .
Then , help low-wage workers being hit hardest by the pandemic meet their basic needs by donating to the center for Popular Democracy ’ s community solidarity fund or United We Dream ’ s National UndocuFund .
Environmental groups kept up the pressure on our leaders to address the climate crisis last week with a three-day online digital Earth Day action .
Read and sign the Youth Climate Strike coalition ’ s demands for a people ’ s bailout , a Green New Deal , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Then sign on to Stop the Money Pipeline ’ s demands to the Trump administration to direct recovery money to people , not coal , oil , and gas companies .
Check out and share the group ’ s resources for moving your money away from fossil funders like Chase , Blackrock , and Liberty Mutual .
The house approved another nearly $ 500 billion coronavirus relief package last week , but low-wage workers and advocates say that it doesn ’ t do nearly enough to address the most immediate harms of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , join the People ’ s Bailout for a Live Stream rally .
Scroll down on the page for ideas on how to organize a collective action : Form a car caravan with your neighbors or create a banner .
Check out this slideshow for more ideas on how to take powerful action in a time of physical distancing .

Hundreds of Amazon workers called in sick Friday to protest working conditions they argue are unsafe and unethical amid the pandemic. They join frontline workers from grocery stores to poultry plants to emergency rooms who’ve demanded safety protections, pay increases, and paid sick leave as they confront some of the greatest risks of contracting the virus. As these fights continue across the country, it’s crucial that we fight for the policies that workers need to be safe in the workplace and beyond.
This week’s Take Action Now gives you ways to support frontline workers, keep up the pressure after Earth Day last week, and demand a bailout for people, not companies.
Take Action Now gives you three meaningful actions you can take each week whatever your schedule. You can sign up here to get these actions and more in your inbox every Tuesday.
NO TIME TO SPARE?
On April 17, Representative Ilhan Omar introduced a bill that would enact rent and mortgage cancellation, a policy that puts low-wage workers struggling to pay rent at the front of the policy agenda. Call your representatives and tell them to support inclusion of the bill in the upcoming stimulus package. Then, help low-wage workers being hit hardest by the pandemic meet their basic needs by donating to the center for Popular Democracy’s community solidarity fund or United We Dream’s National UndocuFund.
GOT SOME TIME?
Environmental groups kept up the pressure on our leaders to address the climate crisis last week with a three-day online digital Earth Day action. Read and sign the Youth Climate Strike coalition’s demands for a people’s bailout, a Green New Deal, and indigenous rights amid the pandemic. Then sign on to Stop the Money Pipeline’s demands to the Trump administration to direct recovery money to people, not coal, oil, and gas companies. Check out and share the group’s resources for moving your money away from fossil funders like Chase, Blackrock, and Liberty Mutual.
READY TO DIG IN?
The house approved another nearly $500 billion coronavirus relief package last week, but low-wage workers and advocates say that it doesn’t do nearly enough to address the most immediate harms of the crisis. On May Day this Friday, join the People’s Bailout for a Live Stream rally. Scroll down on the page for ideas on how to organize a collective action: Form a car caravan with your neighbors or create a banner. Check out this slideshow for more ideas on how to take powerful action in a time of physical distancing.