talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-19--Medical Journal Calls Out ‘Factually Incorrect’ WHO Letter From Trump

The prestigious medical journal The Lancet called out President Donald Trump on a “ factually incorrect ” point that he attributed to the journal .
At issue was Trump ’ s letter Monday to the World Health Organization , the United Nations-backed health body .
The White House sought to shift blame to the health agency amid the Trump administration ’ s inadequate response to the virus at home .
In the letter , Trump threatened to halt the United States ’ WHO funding in the absence of “ major substantive improvements , ” but the letter relied on faulty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WHO “ ignored credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019 or even earlier , including reports from the Lancet medical journal.
” But as The Lancet pointed out in a statement Tuesday , “ The Lancet published no report in December , 2019 , referring to a virus or outbreak in Wuhan or anywhere else in China.
” The journal ’ s first reports on the virus were published on Jan. 24 , according to the statement .
“ The allegations leveled against WHO in President Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ efforts to strengthen international cooperation to control this pandemic , ” the journal said .
“ It is essential that any review of the global response is based on a factually accurate account of what took place in December and January.
” The statement is the second from The Lancet in recent days directly concerning the Trump administration .
An unusual editorial in the journal on Friday criticized the administration ’ s response to the virus and urged readers to elect someone in 2020 “ who will understand that public health should not @ @ @ @ @ @ @

The prestigious medical journal The Lancet called out President Donald Trump on a “factually incorrect” point that he attributed to the journal.
At issue was Trump’s letter Monday to the World Health Organization, the United Nations-backed health body. The White House sought to shift blame to the health agency amid the Trump administration’s inadequate response to the virus at home.
In the letter, Trump threatened to halt the United States’ WHO funding in the absence of “major substantive improvements,” but the letter relied on faulty talking points.
Trump claimed that the WHO “ignored credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019 or even earlier, including reports from the Lancet medical journal.”
But as The Lancet pointed out in a statement Tuesday, “The Lancet published no report in December, 2019, referring to a virus or outbreak in Wuhan or anywhere else in China.”
The journal’s first reports on the virus were published on Jan. 24, according to the statement.
“The allegations leveled against WHO in President Trump’s letter are serious and damaging to efforts to strengthen international cooperation to control this pandemic,” the journal said. “It is essential that any review of the global response is based on a factually accurate account of what took place in December and January.”
The journal’s editor tweeted the statement:
Pr Trump claims we published reports in Dec 2019 claiming a virus was spreading in Wuhan. Untrue. The first paper describing 41 patients with COVID-19 was published on Jan 24. That paper identified symptom onset of the first Wuhan patient as Dec 1. No cover up. Full transparency. pic.twitter.com/BISAgbp0sE — richard horton (@richardhorton1) May 19, 2020
The statement is the second from The Lancet in recent days directly concerning the Trump administration.
An unusual editorial in the journal on Friday criticized the administration’s response to the virus and urged readers to elect someone in 2020 “who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics.”


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-19--Michigan Is Sending Applications For Mail-In Voting To All Voters Statewide

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced on Tuesday that the state government is sending all registered Michigan voters applications to mail in their ballots as a safety measure against COVID-19 .
“ By mailing applications , we have ensured that no Michigander has to choose between their health and their right to vote , ” Benson said in a statement .
“ Voting by mail is easy , convenient , safe , and secure , and every voter in Michigan has the right to do it.
” The official pointed to how voter turnout doubled during the local elections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absentee ballots under Michigan Gov .
Gretchen Whitmer ’ s ( D ) orders .
“ We know from the elections that took place this month that during the pandemic Michiganders want to safely vote , ” Benson said .
The application is also available for download on the government ’ s site .
With in-person voting posing major risks of spreading COVID-19 at oft-crowded poll sites , lawmakers have taken steps to establish a vote-by-mail system as a safer alternative .
Some Republicans have pushed back against the efforts , claiming that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a claim election experts dispute .
Additionally , the five states that already have all-mail voting systems ( Colorado , Hawaii , Oregon , Washington and Utah ) have not reported any increase in voter fraud .
Regardless , President Donald Trump has loudly denounced voting by mail , even though he does it himself , saying that it “ doesn ’ t work out well for Republicans ” and falsely claimed the voting method is “ corrupt.
” He was furious when California Gov .
Gavin Newsom ( D ) issued an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all voters in his state over a week ago .

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced on Tuesday that the state government is sending all registered Michigan voters applications to mail in their ballots as a safety measure against COVID-19.
“By mailing applications, we have ensured that no Michigander has to choose between their health and their right to vote,” Benson said in a statement. “Voting by mail is easy, convenient, safe, and secure, and every voter in Michigan has the right to do it.”
The official pointed to how voter turnout doubled during the local elections on May 5 after all voters received absentee ballots under Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) orders.
“We know from the elections that took place this month that during the pandemic Michiganders want to safely vote,” Benson said.
The application is also available for download on the government’s site.
With in-person voting posing major risks of spreading COVID-19 at oft-crowded poll sites, lawmakers have taken steps to establish a vote-by-mail system as a safer alternative.
Some Republicans have pushed back against the efforts, claiming that mail-in voting leads to election fraud, a claim election experts dispute. Additionally, the five states that already have all-mail voting systems (Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah) have not reported any increase in voter fraud.
Regardless, President Donald Trump has loudly denounced voting by mail, even though he does it himself, saying that it “doesn’t work out well for Republicans” and falsely claimed the voting method is “corrupt.” He was furious when California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) issued an executive order to send mail-in ballots to all voters in his state over a week ago.
“These votes must not count. SCAM!” Trump tweeted.


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-19--Sen. Brown Presses Mnuchin, ‘How Many Workers Should Give Their Lives’ For The Dow?

Sen. Sherrod Brown ( D-OH ) took the treasury secretary to task on Tuesday for the Trump administration ’ s efforts to keep facilities such as slaughterhouses open without sufficient worker protections .
“ How many workers will die if we send people back to work without the protections they need , Mr. Secretary ?
” the senator asked Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin , contrasting the point with Mnuchin ’ s earlier line that the country risked “ permanent economic damage ” due to business closures .
The administration doesn ’ t “ intend to send anybody back to work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , adding that he “ couldn ’ t be more proud ” of the medical advice the administration was receiving .
Brown kept pressing .
There ’ s no national program to provide for worker safety with regard to COVID-19 , he pointed out , and while the President signed an order declaring meatpacking plants “ critical infrastructure , ” he did not insist on slowing down processing lines or ensuring that workers have protective equipment .
“ How many workers should give their lives to increase the GDP or the Dow Jones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked .
“ No workers should give their lives to do that , ” Mnuchin answered , before protesting Brown ’ s “ unfair ” characterization .
The administration had provided “ enormous ” amounts of equipment , Mnuchin asserted , and done a “ terrific job.
” Brown cut off the “ political speech , ” moving onto another question .

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) took the treasury secretary to task on Tuesday for the Trump administration’s efforts to keep facilities such as slaughterhouses open without sufficient worker protections.
“How many workers will die if we send people back to work without the protections they need, Mr. Secretary?” the senator asked Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, contrasting the point with Mnuchin’s earlier line that the country risked “permanent economic damage” due to business closures.
The administration doesn’t “intend to send anybody back to work without the protections,” Mnuchin responded, adding that he “couldn’t be more proud” of the medical advice the administration was receiving.
Brown kept pressing. There’s no national program to provide for worker safety with regard to COVID-19, he pointed out, and while the President signed an order declaring meatpacking plants “critical infrastructure,” he did not insist on slowing down processing lines or ensuring that workers have protective equipment.
(Counties with slaughterhouses host many of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the country. Trump’s order gave legal liability protections to plant owners without requiring heightened safety measures for workers.)
“How many workers should give their lives to increase the GDP or the Dow Jones by a thousand points?” Brown asked.
“No workers should give their lives to do that,” Mnuchin answered, before protesting Brown’s “unfair” characterization.
The administration had provided “enormous” amounts of equipment, Mnuchin asserted, and done a “terrific job.”
Brown cut off the “political speech,” moving onto another question.
Watch below:


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-19--Schumer Questions Whether Trump Is Actually Taking Hydroxychloroquine

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ( D-NY ) on Tuesday morning cast doubt on President Donald Trump ’ s claim to be taking hydroxychloroquine , an anti-malaria drug , to ward off COVID-19 infection .
“ This president doesn ’ t tell the truth , ” Schumer said during an interview on “ Morning Joe.
” “ He may be taking this , he may not.
” The Democratic leader suggested that Trump may have had an ulterior motive when he told reporters on Monday about supposedly taking the drug , which has not been scientifically proven to prevent COVID-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friends who own part of the company .
It ’ s not unlike this president , ” Schumer said .
“ Someone at Mar-A-Lago or someone on the phone tells him ‘ oh this is a good company ’ and he just talks about it.
” The New York senator had expressed similar skepticism of Trump ’ s claim the night before .
“ Who knows if it ’ s true ?
” Schumer said during an interview with MSNBC anchor Steve Kornacki on Monday .
“ He may not have been taking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indeed , Trump physician Dr. Sean Conley ’ s memo to White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on the drug doesn ’ t definitively state that the President is actually taking it , only that the two of them “ concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.
” The other half of the memo merely notes that Conley will “ continue to monitor the myriad studies investigating potential COVID-19 therapies , ” and that he anticipates “ employing the same shared medical decision making based on the evidence at hand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s comment as “ reckless ” on Tuesday given that not only have studies failed to prove that hydroxychloroquine cures COVID-19 , Trump ’ s own Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) has warned of reported “ serious heart rhythm problems ” associated with the drug .

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Tuesday morning cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s claim to be taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, to ward off COVID-19 infection.
“This president doesn’t tell the truth,” Schumer said during an interview on “Morning Joe.” “He may be taking this, he may not.”
The Democratic leader suggested that Trump may have had an ulterior motive when he told reporters on Monday about supposedly taking the drug, which has not been scientifically proven to prevent COVID-19.
“Maybe he has family or friends who own part of the company. It’s not unlike this president,” Schumer said. “Someone at Mar-A-Lago or someone on the phone tells him ‘oh this is a good company’ and he just talks about it.”
Schumer: Maybe Trump's "just lying" about taking hydroxychloroquine. pic.twitter.com/rShDqtZGbT — TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) May 19, 2020
The New York senator had expressed similar skepticism of Trump’s claim the night before.
“Who knows if it’s true?” Schumer said during an interview with MSNBC anchor Steve Kornacki on Monday. “He may not have been taking it, for all we know.”
Schumer casts doubt on Trump's claim to be taking hydroxychloroquine: "Who knows if it's true?" pic.twitter.com/UzgFhhbGHl — TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) May 19, 2020
Indeed, Trump physician Dr. Sean Conley’s memo to White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on the drug doesn’t definitively state that the President is actually taking it, only that the two of them “concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.”
The other half of the memo merely notes that Conley will “continue to monitor the myriad studies investigating potential COVID-19 therapies,” and that he anticipates “employing the same shared medical decision making based on the evidence at hand in the future.”
Schumer slammed Trump’s comment as “reckless” on Tuesday given that not only have studies failed to prove that hydroxychloroquine cures COVID-19, Trump’s own Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned of reported “serious heart rhythm problems” associated with the drug.
Read Conley’s letter below:


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-19--World Health Organization Approves ‘Comprehensive’ Review Of Virus Response

GENEVA — Member states of the World Health Organization have unanimously passed a resolution brought by European Union members , @ @ @ @ @ for an independent “ comprehensive evaluation ” of the international response to the COVID-19 outbreak @ @ @ @ @ agency .
The United States has sharply criticized the agency and its relationship with China @ @ @ @ @ .
Overnight , U.S. President Donald Trump listed concerns and criticism about the WHO to @ @ @ @ @ Ghebreyesus .
Nations rallied around the resolution that calls on the director-general to initiate “ @ @ @ @ @ ” an evaluation that would “ review experience gained and lessons learned from the WHO-coordinated @ @ @ @ @ ” It was not immediately clear how , when or by whom that evaluation will @ @ @ @ @ pointed to the “ role of extensive immunization against COVID-19 as a global public good @ @ @ @ @ international organizations to “ work collaboratively ” to produce safe , effective and affordable medicines @ @ @

GENEVA — Member states of the World Health Organization have unanimously passed a resolution brought by European Union members, African nations and others calling for an independent “comprehensive evaluation” of the international response to the COVID-19 outbreak coordinated by the U.N. health agency.
The United States has sharply criticized the agency and its relationship with China, where the outbreak erupted.
Overnight, U.S. President Donald Trump listed concerns and criticism about the WHO to its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Nations rallied around the resolution that calls on the director-general to initiate “at the earliest appropriate moment” an evaluation that would “review experience gained and lessons learned from the WHO-coordinated international health response to COVID-19.”
It was not immediately clear how, when or by whom that evaluation will be conducted.
The resolution pointed to the “role of extensive immunization against COVID-19 as a global public good,” and called on international organizations to “work collaboratively” to produce safe, effective and affordable medicines and vaccines.


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-19--Creator Of FL COVID Dashboard Says She Was Removed For Refusing To ‘Manually Change Data’

The creator and manager of Florida ’ s COVID-19 dashboard says she was removed from that role after refusing to change data .
Rebekah Jones , the Florida Department of Health ’ s GIS ( Geographic Information System ) manager , was the brains behind the state ’ s lauded COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard .
She told colleagues in a May 5 email first reported by Florida Today Monday night that her team was being taken off of the dashboard due to “ reasons beyond my division ’ s control , ” and that she no longer controlled changes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ potential “ data they are now restricting.
” “ As a word of caution , I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months , ” the data scientist added .
“ After all , my commitment to both is largely ( arguably entirely ) the reason I am no longer managing it.
” Jones was involuntarily removed , she subsequently told CBS12 in an email , because she refused to “ manually change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan to reopen.
” One researcher , Professor Ben D. Sawyer of the University of Central Florida , told Florida Today that he and a colleague had been denied access to underlying data they requested from the state .
Other public health experts confirmed to the paper that data access had decreased .
The state ’ s department of health did not respond to TPM ’ s request for comment on the situation Tuesday morning .
But Gov .
Ron DeSantis ( R ) , a strong ally of President Donald Trump , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parts of Florida ’ s economy that were ordered shut due to COVID-19 .
This week restaurants , retail stores , gyms , libraries and museums were allowed to operate at half capacity .

The creator and manager of Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard says she was removed from that role after refusing to change data.
Rebekah Jones, the Florida Department of Health’s GIS (Geographic Information System) manager, was the brains behind the state’s lauded COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard.
She told colleagues in a May 5 email first reported by Florida Today Monday night that her team was being taken off of the dashboard due to “reasons beyond my division’s control,” and that she no longer controlled changes made to the tool, including any potential “data they are now restricting.”
“As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months,” the data scientist added. “After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it.”
Jones was involuntarily removed, she subsequently told CBS12 in an email, because she refused to “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen.”
One researcher, Professor Ben D. Sawyer of the University of Central Florida, told Florida Today that he and a colleague had been denied access to underlying data they requested from the state. Other public health experts confirmed to the paper that data access had decreased.
In a statement to TPM Tuesday night, a spokesperson for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Jones “exhibited a repeated course of insubordination” and “blatant disrespect for the professionals who were working around the clock to provide the important information for the COVID-19 website.”
“She is given an opportunity to resign,” spokesperson Helen Ferre said. “If she does not, she will be terminated.”
DeSantis, a strong ally of President Donald Trump, has sought to “reopen” certain parts of Florida’s economy that were ordered shut due to COVID-19. This week restaurants, retail stores, gyms, libraries and museums were allowed to operate at half capacity.
This post has been updated.


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-19--You Don’t Need Invasive Tech for Successful Contact Tracing. Here’s How It Works.

This story first appeared at ProPublica .
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom .
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I want you to mentally prepare yourself for a phone call that you could receive sometime over the course of this pandemic : in the next few months or year .
Your phone might ring , and when you pick it up , you may hear someone say , “ Hi , I ’ m calling from the health department.
” After verifying your identity , the person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m afraid we have information that you were in close contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.
” The person calling is what ’ s known as a contact tracer .
As most states begin to lift restrictions on movement and people once more start to eat in restaurants , work in offices and get on public transit , these phone calls will become more frequent .
State public health departments are hiring thousands of these workers , and experts are calling for more than 100,000 contact tracers to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ imagine how I would feel if I got a call telling me that I had been in close contact with a COVID-19 patient — shocked , a little scared and possibly a bit in denial .
But after spending a week talking to contact tracing experts across the country , and taking an online course as well , I think I ’ d also feel one more thing : empowered .
Here ’ s why .
Contact Tracing Will Help Us Reopen Safely Contact tracing is a public health strategy that has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ across the globe , from the 1930s , when it helped get rampantsyphilis under control in the United States , to the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa .
Fundamentally , contact tracing works by tracking down all the contacts of an infected person and then taking appropriate action to break the chain of transmission .
In practice , that action will vary depending on the nature of the disease — obviously , you don ’ t need someone to self-isolate at home and have groceries delivered to them if a disease can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus has been particularly tricky to contain because patients can be contagious a few days before they display symptoms , and some infected people may never show symptoms at all .
Furthermore , the time between the onset of symptoms from one case to another is estimated to be quite short , around four days .
All these characteristics have helped the virus spread rapidly — and that means that tracers have to move very quickly to reach patients and their contacts in order to cut off new branches of infection .
Experts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ key to safely reopening the economy .
“ This narrative has emerged that either we lift all our social distancing measures and let the virus burn through the population , or we hunker down at home forever and let the economy collapse , but that is a false choice , ” said Dr .
Crystal Watson , an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and lead author of a white paper on how the United States can scale up its abilities to identify and trace COVID-19 cases .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and if we spend some effort and funding on actually building up our capacities , we can control transmission , get back to work much more safely and avoid unnecessary loss of thousands of lives.
” When a patient gets a coronavirus test , the lab reports the results back not only to the patient ’ s doctor , but also to the local health department .
A contact tracer is assigned to the case and will call the person to ask about symptoms , to take down information about people the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recently , and to help draw up a plan for isolation , which could entail figuring out how to get groceries or medications delivered .
Current guidance by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends patients who test positive isolate themselves until the following three criteria are fulfilled : 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared , the patient has had three full days with no fever , and other symptoms like cough or shortness of breath are also improving .
For close contacts who have been exposed , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last date of exposure .
( “ Isolation ” is the term used for confirmed positive patients , “ quarantine ” is used for exposed contacts ; practically speaking , what you need to do is the same — stay away from others . )
A contact will be told when they were exposed , but never who it was that exposed them to the virus ; the health department keeps that information anonymous .
Since the isolation period for patients with the disease depends on symptoms , health department staff need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and help determine when they can safely leave home again .
They also check in on quarantined contacts , to see if they are developing symptoms and may need to get tested .
In theory , the process sounds straightforward , but the details can be daunting .
I had many questions , starting with : Who exactly counts as a contact ?
For now , I am still working from home and have had no prolonged or close contact with anyone other than my husband .
But when New York ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know : If someone in my office got sick , would my whole newsroom have to go into quarantine ?
What happens if someone has a subway commute — would contact tracing break down ?
The CDC defines a close contact as someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes , starting two days before the infected person began experiencing symptoms .
Public health workers will make decisions on a case by case basis , said Dr. Marcus Plescia , chief medical officer of the Association @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ You don ’ t want too many people slipping through the cracks , but at the same time , it ’ s a big ask , since you ’ re asking people to stay at home for two weeks.
” In my hypothetical scenario , a contact tracer might consider the office ’ s ventilation system , Plescia said , to help decide if a whole office needed to go into quarantine .
( A case study of a restaurant in Guangzhou , China , concluded that currents from an air conditioner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infected person to two neighboring tables . )
Another factor would be how well the patient remembered all of his or her interactions in the two days before symptoms began .
When it comes to public transit , the experts told me that transmission risk would be much higher if a patient spent their whole commute chatting with a friend — in which case , they ’ d know who that person was and could give that information to a contact tracer — while risk would be much lower for commuters who are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , especially if everyone was wearing a mask .
Dr. Emily Gurley , an associate scientist at Johns Hopkins and instructor of a free online course now required for all tracers hired by the state of New York , noted that the CDC definition of a close contact presumes that people are not wearing masks .
( And if you think you ’ ve got the knowledge to be a contact tracer , try our quiz . )
Still , contact tracing efforts may be hampered by other circumstances , such as when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Then , Gurley said , “ you ’ re trying to understand who their contacts are by talking to their family member — but they ’ re not going to have been with the patient all day long.
” Other times , patients may not know the names of everyone they came in contact with , such as at a gym or grocery store .
In those cases , contact tracers will use whatever pieces of information they can get to track down potential contacts , according to Capt .
Eric Pevzner , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Intelligence Service program .
“ You might say , ‘ I talked to Bob at the grocery store , but I don ’ t know his last name , ’ then I will call the local grocery store and ask , ‘ Do you have someone called Bob who works in the produce section ?
’ ” Pevzner recently traveled to Utah to help with contact tracing efforts .
( I was surprised to hear that such a high-ranking official would be deployed to do such tedious work , but Pevzner said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ large , even he got sent into the field . )
In Utah , Pevzner made sure to always use a landline , because people wouldn ’ t pick up if he rang from his cellphone , presuming an out-of-state number was a spam call .
“ The hard part right now is that everyone ’ s days are blending together , because everyone ’ s at home , ” he said .
“ Normally , I could ask , ‘ When did your symptoms start ?
’ And you might say , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Wednesday night , so it was Wednesday morning at work that I started to feel bad.
’ Now , people can ’ t remember what day it is , so I might ask , ‘ What did you watch on TV ?
’ And I ’ ll Google the TV show to figure out what day it was.
” Contact Tracing Doesn ’ t Have to Be Perfect to Work What happens if a contact slips through the net ?
Much has been made of South Korea ’ s meticulous contact tracing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ cellphone and credit card information and publishing digital diaries of positive patients — with information as granular as the seats they sat in at movie theaters and the restaurants they ate at .
In Hong Kong , incoming travelers are placed in mandatory quarantine and given wristbands to track their movements to ensure compliance .
We wouldn ’ t do that in the United States , for both privacy and logistical reasons .
Does that mean we ’ re doomed to contact tracing failure ?
Not so , the experts told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that can help us estimate the levels of testing and tracing needed .
Let me first note that the following studies are preprints , which are draft research papers shared publicly before being published in an academic journal .
While they are yet to be peer reviewed , outside experts not involved in the papers told me they look sound .
Both papers testify to the power of contact tracing , when done robustly but not necessarily perfectly .
Researchers in the U.K. used a model to simulate the effects of various mitigation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that isolating symptomatic cases would reduce transmission by 32 % .
But combining isolation with manual contact tracing of all contacts reduced transmission by 61 % .
If contact tracing only could track down acquaintances , but not all contacts , transmission was still reduced by 57 % .
A second study , which used a model based on the Boston metropolitan area , found that so long as 50 % of symptomatic infections were identified and 40 % of their contacts were traced , the ensuing reduction in transmission would be sufficient @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without overloading the health care system .
The researchers picked Boston because of the quality of available data , according to senior author Yamir Moreno , a professor at the institute for biocomputation and physics of complex systems at the University of Zaragoza in Spain .
“ For other locations , these percentages will change , however , the fact that the best intervention is testing , contact tracing and quarantining remains , ” he said .
Johns Hopkins ’ Gurley reminded me : “ This isn ’ t an all or nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get rid of the virus , we missed that boat .
Our goal is now to keep numbers low enough that the health care system can handle the cases and that we don ’ t have any large outbreaks even as we open up.
” Is the United States Doing Contact Tracing ?
Contact tracing can only be effective , however , if there are sufficient staff to carry it out .
Local health departments have eliminated more than 50,000 jobs over the past decade , said Oscar Alleyne , chief of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of County and City Health Officials .
“ Those positions have not been refilled .
They ’ ve just done more with less.
” It ’ s only now , in May , that states are starting to build up contact tracing forces .
Estimates for how many we will need are staggering .
Wuhan , China , has a population of 11 million .
At one point , it employed 9,000 contact tracers , split into 1,800 teams of five people , according to the World Health Organization-China joint mission report .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ contact tracers per 100,000 residents .
Massachusetts , which has a population of 7 million , is hiring 1,000 contact tracers , which would be about 14 contact tracers per 100,000 residents .
California Gov .
Gavin Newsom has said the state will recruit up to 20,000 people to do contact tracing work , including librarians and city attorney staff not able to do their current jobs .
That would amount to 50 contact tracers per 100,000 residents .
Of course , the number of contact tracers needed doesn ’ t just depend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ size of the outbreak and compliance with physical distancing and other mitigation measures .
New Zealand , which has the virus well under control , has only 190 contact tracers for the whole country ( a ratio of 4 per 100,000 residents ) .
It ’ s hard to argue that they need more .
George Washington University ’ s Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity has created a tool that estimates the contact tracing workforce needs by state , taking into account coronavirus case counts .
As of May 7 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need about 184,000 contact tracers , or about 56 per 100,000 Americans .
Many states are still in the process of hiring .
Georgia began to allow businesses to reopen on April 24 , but it only announced plans to increase its contact tracing force from 250 to 1,000 workers on May 12 .
New York City will hire 1,000 tracers by June 1 , and it plans to hire 5,000 in total , according to NYC Health + Hospitals spokeswoman Karla Griffith .
As of May 17 , the city had hired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ checks , ” she said .
“ We ’ re still playing catch-up , ” Alleyne lamented .
“ We ’ re trying to get to a place where we can move forward.
” It ’ s important to remember that contact tracing doesn ’ t work in a vacuum .
States need to have robust testing capacity ; without the ability to find positive cases in the first place , contact tracers can ’ t do their work .
Once cases and contacts are identified , they also need a way to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a challenge for people who share bedrooms and bathrooms with family members or roommates .
Many states are now considering the use of hotels or other facilities to offer patients and contacts a place to stay if needed .
This is why you often hear the phrase , “ Test , trace , isolate ” — “ trace ” on its own is not very effective .
You need all three working in concert to properly cut off transmission .
And even when we have a robust contacting tracing corps in place , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distancing can go out the window .
The U.K. modeling study assumed each case had 20 to 30 contacts .
If we all started going to football games and hanging out in crowded bars , we ’ d massively increase the number of contacts we each had and could rapidly overwhelm the capabilities of our local health departments .
In South Korea , health authorities scrambled to locate and test more than 5,000 people when a 29-year-old man tested positive after visiting five nightclubs in the capital , Seoul .
Since then , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the cluster — it ’ s unclear if all are due to this one individual — and the Seoul city government has shut down all bars and nightclubs indefinitely .
Contact Tracing Also Helps Us Learn About the Virus There ’ s more to contact tracing than suppressing transmission .
Contact tracing is also a great way to gather data , which can help scientists learn about the virus .
Pevzner , of the CDC , was in Utah because he was helping to conduct a household study in which both nasal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ member of households where one person had tested positive for the coronavirus .
Fourteen days later , samples were collected again .
The nasal samples were used to test for an active infection , while the blood samples were used to test for antibodies , an indication of past infections .
By using both types of tests , the researchers could see whether there were any family members who previously had been infected without knowing it .
By testing twice over two weeks , the researchers also hoped to find out whether home @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monitoring whether any new infections developed within the household .
Dr. Adam Karpati , senior vice president of public health programs at health organization Vital Strategies , said that such studies can also help tease out “ patterns of transmission , ” whether that is identifying high-risk settings — are homeless shelters or certain types of workplaces particularly vulnerable ?
— and types of contacts that are more likely to be infected .
One question on many people ’ s minds is how children are affected by and transmit the coronavirus .
Contact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that question .
For example , a study of 391 COVID-19 cases and their 1,286 close contacts in Shenzhen , China , published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases , found that young children were as likely to get infected as adults , though the disease was far milder .
The same study found that contacts who lived with the patient or who had traveled with the patient were at higher risk of infection than other close contacts , which included people who had shared a meal or interacted socially .
More studies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this type of finding — especially in different geographical and societal contexts .
Isn ’ t There an App for That ?
Beyond traditional manual contact tracing , there ’ s been considerable buzz about the potential use of phone apps for contact tracing , particularly after Apple and Google announced last month that they would work together to create a contact tracing system .
The Apple-Google system uses the Bluetooth antennas in smartphones to record when two people with the same app come close to each other , but it does not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person later tests positive , and records that in the app , a notification will be sent to all users who were close by in recent days , without revealing the identity of the person who had tested positive .
Apple and Google are not developing an app but rather a platform — the apps are to be designed by local public health authorities and run on this system .
Many of the experts I spoke to were skeptical about the success of digital contact tracing apps , because a high degree of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ successful .
In a best-case scenario , an app could be a welcome “ workforce multiplier , ” helping to identify contacts and new cases at a time when speed is critical , said Watson , of Johns Hopkins , but she cautioned that if information about exposure is only shared with app users and doesn ’ t get shared with public health departments in a manner that allows public health workers to follow up , then utility will be limited .
Even as digital apps continue to be explored , there are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be helpful to contact tracing efforts .
Something as simple as text messages to ask exposed contacts how they ’ re feeling can reduce the number of daily follow-up calls that a health worker needs to make every day .
“ Let ’ s say you have a mild case , it may be less invasive to just text .
But if you ’ re 75 and you say , ‘ I hate texting !
’ Someone should call you , ” said Gurley , the instructor of the contact tracing course .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to help , not replace.
” Across all the interviews I did , there was one word that every single person I interviewed said at least once , if not multiple times : trust .
Contact tracing , ultimately , depends on the goodwill of a population .
While health departments , in theory , may have some legal authority to enforce isolation of a confirmed COVID-19 patient , it ’ s highly unlikely in the United States that health departments could enforce a quarantine order for a contact who hasn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Plescia , meaning that success will be down to the voluntary cooperation of the community .
Dr. Raj Panjabi , CEO of nonprofit Last Mile Health , which works to improve access and quality of care in rural and remote communities , told me a story about contact tracing in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak .
A woman in her 40s had come down with Ebola and , unable to find treatment in the city , had gone back to her home in the middle of a rainforest to be with her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A couple of weeks later , 21 people , including many who had attended her funeral , had contracted the disease .
The Ministry of Health hired people from the community and paired neighbors with nurses to go door to door to conduct interviews .
Ultimately , they identified 216 contacts for the 21 cases and managed to halt transmission .
The key , Panjabi said , was “ hiring the neighbors of the patients — that builds trust .
You ’ re less likely to give your information to a stranger .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It comes when someone sounds like you.
” After the Ebola outbreak , Liberia not only maintained all the health workers it had hired , but it even scaled up to create a national community health workforce of 4,000 , which goes door to door providing preventive care for mothers and children , as well as testing and treatment for diseases like malaria , Panjabi said .
When the coronavirus pandemic emerged , they were rapidly retrained to look out for COVID-19 cases .
As of May 16 , the country had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has taken the time to find you in your home village , to tell you important information about your health and to try and help you , that ’ s pretty compelling and that shows their commitment to you , ” Johns Hopkins ’ Gurley said .
Contact tracers may not have to come to my door here , in America , but I hope that if I do get called someday and am told that I was exposed to the virus , that after I get over the initial shock , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to say : “ Thank you for all the work you ’ ve done to bring me this information .
I ’ m happy to stay at home .
”

This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
I want you to mentally prepare yourself for a phone call that you could receive sometime over the course of this pandemic: in the next few months or year.
Your phone might ring, and when you pick it up, you may hear someone say, “Hi, I’m calling from the health department.” After verifying your identity, the person may say something like, “I’m afraid we have information that you were in close contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.”
The person calling is what’s known as a contact tracer. As most states begin to lift restrictions on movement and people once more start to eat in restaurants, work in offices and get on public transit, these phone calls will become more frequent. State public health departments are hiring thousands of these workers, and experts are calling for more than 100,000 contact tracers to be deployed across America.
I can only imagine how I would feel if I got a call telling me that I had been in close contact with a COVID-19 patient — shocked, a little scared and possibly a bit in denial. But after spending a week talking to contact tracing experts across the country, and taking an online course as well, I think I’d also feel one more thing: empowered. Here’s why.
Contact Tracing Will Help Us Reopen Safely
Contact tracing is a public health strategy that has been used successfully to combat infectious disease outbreaks across the globe, from the 1930s, when it helped get rampantsyphilis under control in the United States, to the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
Fundamentally, contact tracing works by tracking down all the contacts of an infected person and then taking appropriate action to break the chain of transmission. In practice, that action will vary depending on the nature of the disease — obviously, you don’t need someone to self-isolate at home and have groceries delivered to them if a disease can only be transmitted sexually.
The current coronavirus has been particularly tricky to contain because patients can be contagious a few days before they display symptoms, and some infected people may never show symptoms at all. Furthermore, the time between the onset of symptoms from one case to another is estimated to be quite short, around four days. All these characteristics have helped the virus spread rapidly — and that means that tracers have to move very quickly to reach patients and their contacts in order to cut off new branches of infection.
Experts tell me that contact tracing is the key to safely reopening the economy.
“This narrative has emerged that either we lift all our social distancing measures and let the virus burn through the population, or we hunker down at home forever and let the economy collapse, but that is a false choice,” said Dr. Crystal Watson, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and lead author of a white paper on how the United States can scale up its abilities to identify and trace COVID-19 cases.
“We have this tool — contact tracing — and if we spend some effort and funding on actually building up our capacities, we can control transmission, get back to work much more safely and avoid unnecessary loss of thousands of lives.”
When a patient gets a coronavirus test, the lab reports the results back not only to the patient’s doctor, but also to the local health department. A contact tracer is assigned to the case and will call the person to ask about symptoms, to take down information about people the patient has been in close contact with recently, and to help draw up a plan for isolation, which could entail figuring out how to get groceries or medications delivered.
Current guidance by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends patients who test positive isolate themselves until the following three criteria are fulfilled: 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared, the patient has had three full days with no fever, and other symptoms like cough or shortness of breath are also improving. For close contacts who have been exposed, the CDC recommends a 14-day quarantine after the last date of exposure. (“Isolation” is the term used for confirmed positive patients, “quarantine” is used for exposed contacts; practically speaking, what you need to do is the same — stay away from others.)
A contact will be told when they were exposed, but never who it was that exposed them to the virus; the health department keeps that information anonymous.
Since the isolation period for patients with the disease depends on symptoms, health department staff need to call back regularly to monitor their progression and help determine when they can safely leave home again. They also check in on quarantined contacts, to see if they are developing symptoms and may need to get tested.
How Does Contact Tracing Work?
In theory, the process sounds straightforward, but the details can be daunting. I had many questions, starting with: Who exactly counts as a contact?
For now, I am still working from home and have had no prolonged or close contact with anyone other than my husband. But when New York’s stay-at-home orders end, I wanted to know: If someone in my office got sick, would my whole newsroom have to go into quarantine? What happens if someone has a subway commute — would contact tracing break down?
The CDC defines a close contact as someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes, starting two days before the infected person began experiencing symptoms.
Public health workers will make decisions on a case by case basis, said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “You don’t want too many people slipping through the cracks, but at the same time, it’s a big ask, since you’re asking people to stay at home for two weeks.”
In my hypothetical scenario, a contact tracer might consider the office’s ventilation system, Plescia said, to help decide if a whole office needed to go into quarantine. (A case study of a restaurant in Guangzhou, China, concluded that currents from an air conditioner likely helped carry the virus from an infected person to two neighboring tables.) Another factor would be how well the patient remembered all of his or her interactions in the two days before symptoms began.
When it comes to public transit, the experts told me that transmission risk would be much higher if a patient spent their whole commute chatting with a friend — in which case, they’d know who that person was and could give that information to a contact tracer — while risk would be much lower for commuters who are not touching or talking to one another, especially if everyone was wearing a mask.
Dr. Emily Gurley, an associate scientist at Johns Hopkins and instructor of a free online course now required for all tracers hired by the state of New York, noted that the CDC definition of a close contact presumes that people are not wearing masks. (And if you think you’ve got the knowledge to be a contact tracer, try our quiz.)
Still, contact tracing efforts may be hampered by other circumstances, such as when patients are too sick to interview. Then, Gurley said, “you’re trying to understand who their contacts are by talking to their family member — but they’re not going to have been with the patient all day long.”
Other times, patients may not know the names of everyone they came in contact with, such as at a gym or grocery store. In those cases, contact tracers will use whatever pieces of information they can get to track down potential contacts, according to Capt. Eric Pevzner, chief of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service program.
“You might say, ‘I talked to Bob at the grocery store, but I don’t know his last name,’ then I will call the local grocery store and ask, ‘Do you have someone called Bob who works in the produce section?’”
Pevzner recently traveled to Utah to help with contact tracing efforts. (I was surprised to hear that such a high-ranking official would be deployed to do such tedious work, but Pevzner said that the magnitude of the pandemic is so large, even he got sent into the field.)
In Utah, Pevzner made sure to always use a landline, because people wouldn’t pick up if he rang from his cellphone, presuming an out-of-state number was a spam call.
“The hard part right now is that everyone’s days are blending together, because everyone’s at home,” he said. “Normally, I could ask, ‘When did your symptoms start?’ And you might say, ‘Normally I go to spin class on Wednesday night, so it was Wednesday morning at work that I started to feel bad.’ Now, people can’t remember what day it is, so I might ask, ‘What did you watch on TV?’ And I’ll Google the TV show to figure out what day it was.”
Contact Tracing Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Work
What happens if a contact slips through the net? Much has been made of South Korea’s meticulous contact tracing abilities, which includes sweeping up citizens’ cellphone and credit card information and publishing digital diaries of positive patients — with information as granular as the seats they sat in at movie theaters and the restaurants they ate at. In Hong Kong, incoming travelers are placed in mandatory quarantine and given wristbands to track their movements to ensure compliance.
We wouldn’t do that in the United States, for both privacy and logistical reasons. Does that mean we’re doomed to contact tracing failure?
Not so, the experts told me, and there’s preliminary data that can help us estimate the levels of testing and tracing needed.
Let me first note that the following studies are preprints, which are draft research papers shared publicly before being published in an academic journal. While they are yet to be peer reviewed, outside experts not involved in the papers told me they look sound. Both papers testify to the power of contact tracing, when done robustly but not necessarily perfectly.
Researchers in the U.K. used a model to simulate the effects of various mitigation and containment strategies. The researchers estimated that isolating symptomatic cases would reduce transmission by 32%. But combining isolation with manual contact tracing of all contacts reduced transmission by 61%. If contact tracing only could track down acquaintances, but not all contacts, transmission was still reduced by 57%.
A second study, which used a model based on the Boston metropolitan area, found that so long as 50% of symptomatic infections were identified and 40% of their contacts were traced, the ensuing reduction in transmission would be sufficient to allow the reopening of the economy without overloading the health care system. The researchers picked Boston because of the quality of available data, according to senior author Yamir Moreno, a professor at the institute for biocomputation and physics of complex systems at the University of Zaragoza in Spain. “For other locations, these percentages will change, however, the fact that the best intervention is testing, contact tracing and quarantining remains,” he said.
Johns Hopkins’ Gurley reminded me: “This isn’t an all or nothing game — our goal isn’t to get rid of the virus, we missed that boat. Our goal is now to keep numbers low enough that the health care system can handle the cases and that we don’t have any large outbreaks even as we open up.”
Is the United States Doing Contact Tracing?
Contact tracing can only be effective, however, if there are sufficient staff to carry it out. Local health departments have eliminated more than 50,000 jobs over the past decade, said Oscar Alleyne, chief of programs and services for the National Association of County and City Health Officials. “Those positions have not been refilled. They’ve just done more with less.”
It’s only now, in May, that states are starting to build up contact tracing forces. Estimates for how many we will need are staggering.
Wuhan, China, has a population of 11 million. At one point, it employed 9,000 contact tracers, split into 1,800 teams of five people, according to the World Health Organization-China joint mission report. That’s a ratio of 81 contact tracers per 100,000 residents. Massachusetts, which has a population of 7 million, is hiring 1,000 contact tracers, which would be about 14 contact tracers per 100,000 residents. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said the state will recruit up to 20,000 people to do contact tracing work, including librarians and city attorney staff not able to do their current jobs. That would amount to 50 contact tracers per 100,000 residents.
Of course, the number of contact tracers needed doesn’t just depend on population, but also on the size of the outbreak and compliance with physical distancing and other mitigation measures. New Zealand, which has the virus well under control, has only 190 contact tracers for the whole country (a ratio of 4 per 100,000 residents). It’s hard to argue that they need more.
George Washington University’s Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity has created a tool that estimates the contact tracing workforce needs by state, taking into account coronavirus case counts. As of May 7, it estimated that the United States would need about 184,000 contact tracers, or about 56 per 100,000 Americans.
Many states are still in the process of hiring. Georgia began to allow businesses to reopen on April 24, but it only announced plans to increase its contact tracing force from 250 to 1,000 workers on May 12.
New York City will hire 1,000 tracers by June 1, and it plans to hire 5,000 in total, according to NYC Health + Hospitals spokeswoman Karla Griffith. As of May 17, the city had hired “upwards of 50 people pending background checks,” she said.
“We’re still playing catch-up,” Alleyne lamented. “We’re trying to get to a place where we can move forward.”
It’s important to remember that contact tracing doesn’t work in a vacuum. States need to have robust testing capacity; without the ability to find positive cases in the first place, contact tracers can’t do their work. Once cases and contacts are identified, they also need a way to truly isolate themselves, which can be a challenge for people who share bedrooms and bathrooms with family members or roommates. Many states are now considering the use of hotels or other facilities to offer patients and contacts a place to stay if needed. This is why you often hear the phrase, “Test, trace, isolate” — “trace” on its own is not very effective. You need all three working in concert to properly cut off transmission.
And even when we have a robust contacting tracing corps in place, that doesn’t mean all physical distancing can go out the window. The U.K. modeling study assumed each case had 20 to 30 contacts. If we all started going to football games and hanging out in crowded bars, we’d massively increase the number of contacts we each had and could rapidly overwhelm the capabilities of our local health departments. In South Korea, health authorities scrambled to locate and test more than 5,000 people when a 29-year-old man tested positive after visiting five nightclubs in the capital, Seoul. Since then, more than 100 infections have been connected to the cluster — it’s unclear if all are due to this one individual — and the Seoul city government has shut down all bars and nightclubs indefinitely.
Contact Tracing Also Helps Us Learn About the Virus
There’s more to contact tracing than suppressing transmission. Contact tracing is also a great way to gather data, which can help scientists learn about the virus.
Pevzner, of the CDC, was in Utah because he was helping to conduct a household study in which both nasal and blood samples were collected from every member of households where one person had tested positive for the coronavirus. Fourteen days later, samples were collected again. The nasal samples were used to test for an active infection, while the blood samples were used to test for antibodies, an indication of past infections. By using both types of tests, the researchers could see whether there were any family members who previously had been infected without knowing it. By testing twice over two weeks, the researchers also hoped to find out whether home isolation was successful or not, by monitoring whether any new infections developed within the household.
Dr. Adam Karpati, senior vice president of public health programs at health organization Vital Strategies, said that such studies can also help tease out “patterns of transmission,” whether that is identifying high-risk settings — are homeless shelters or certain types of workplaces particularly vulnerable? — and types of contacts that are more likely to be infected.
One question on many people’s minds is how children are affected by and transmit the coronavirus. Contact tracing studies can help to start answering that question. For example, a study of 391 COVID-19 cases and their 1,286 close contacts in Shenzhen, China, published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, found that young children were as likely to get infected as adults, though the disease was far milder.
The same study found that contacts who lived with the patient or who had traveled with the patient were at higher risk of infection than other close contacts, which included people who had shared a meal or interacted socially. More studies will need to be done to confirm this type of finding — especially in different geographical and societal contexts.
Isn’t There an App for That?
Beyond traditional manual contact tracing, there’s been considerable buzz about the potential use of phone apps for contact tracing, particularly after Apple and Google announced last month that they would work together to create a contact tracing system.
The Apple-Google system uses the Bluetooth antennas in smartphones to record when two people with the same app come close to each other, but it does not log any location data. If one person later tests positive, and records that in the app, a notification will be sent to all users who were close by in recent days, without revealing the identity of the person who had tested positive. Apple and Google are not developing an app but rather a platform — the apps are to be designed by local public health authorities and run on this system.
Many of the experts I spoke to were skeptical about the success of digital contact tracing apps, because a high degree of uptake is necessary for them to be successful.
In a best-case scenario, an app could be a welcome “workforce multiplier,” helping to identify contacts and new cases at a time when speed is critical, said Watson, of Johns Hopkins, but she cautioned that if information about exposure is only shared with app users and doesn’t get shared with public health departments in a manner that allows public health workers to follow up, then utility will be limited.
Even as digital apps continue to be explored, there are other, less flashy technologies that can be helpful to contact tracing efforts. Something as simple as text messages to ask exposed contacts how they’re feeling can reduce the number of daily follow-up calls that a health worker needs to make every day.
“Let’s say you have a mild case, it may be less invasive to just text. But if you’re 75 and you say, ‘I hate texting!’ Someone should call you,” said Gurley, the instructor of the contact tracing course. “Those tech options should be there to help, not replace.”
The Key to Successful Contact Tracing? Trust.
Across all the interviews I did, there was one word that every single person I interviewed said at least once, if not multiple times: trust.
Contact tracing, ultimately, depends on the goodwill of a population. While health departments, in theory, may have some legal authority to enforce isolation of a confirmed COVID-19 patient, it’s highly unlikely in the United States that health departments could enforce a quarantine order for a contact who hasn’t yet developed symptoms, said ASTHO’s Plescia, meaning that success will be down to the voluntary cooperation of the community.
Dr. Raj Panjabi, CEO of nonprofit Last Mile Health, which works to improve access and quality of care in rural and remote communities, told me a story about contact tracing in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak. A woman in her 40s had come down with Ebola and, unable to find treatment in the city, had gone back to her home in the middle of a rainforest to be with her loved ones, where she died. A couple of weeks later, 21 people, including many who had attended her funeral, had contracted the disease.
The Ministry of Health hired people from the community and paired neighbors with nurses to go door to door to conduct interviews. Ultimately, they identified 216 contacts for the 21 cases and managed to halt transmission.
The key, Panjabi said, was “hiring the neighbors of the patients — that builds trust. You’re less likely to give your information to a stranger. You have to have rapport and empathy. It comes when someone sounds like you.”
After the Ebola outbreak, Liberia not only maintained all the health workers it had hired, but it even scaled up to create a national community health workforce of 4,000, which goes door to door providing preventive care for mothers and children, as well as testing and treatment for diseases like malaria, Panjabi said. When the coronavirus pandemic emerged, they were rapidly retrained to look out for COVID-19 cases. As of May 16, the country had reported 219 cases.
“When someone has taken the time to find you in your home village, to tell you important information about your health and to try and help you, that’s pretty compelling and that shows their commitment to you,” Johns Hopkins’ Gurley said.
Contact tracers may not have to come to my door here, in America, but I hope that if I do get called someday and am told that I was exposed to the virus, that after I get over the initial shock, I’ll have the presence of mind to say: “Thank you for all the work you’ve done to bring me this information. I’m happy to stay at home.”


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-20--How Texas Has Taken Its Fight Against Pandemic Absentee Voting To The Next Level

Everything is bigger in Texas — including the lengths to which the state will go to limit absentee voting in the pandemic .
When requesting an absentee ballot , voters in many have to list a reason why they can not cast their vote in person .
A handful of those states have resisted letting voters invoke the coronavirus outbreak to cast ballots by mail .
But among that handful , Texas has taken its resistance to the next level .
The state is embroiled in a nasty legal battle over whether COVID-19 qualifies as an absentee voting excuse under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rages on , Texas state officials have repeatedly raised the prospect of criminal sanctions for anyone who advises voters that they can vote absentee due to the pandemic .
While lower courts have backed the idea that COVID-19 counts as an absentee voting excuse , the process for getting the question in front of the state Supreme Court has been turbo-charged .
On Tuesday night , a federal court ordered the state to allow voters to vote absentee if they ’ re seeking to avoid the virus .
The order , which will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments on certain aspects of the dispute .
Already local Texas officials have seen a significant uptick in requests for such an option , and they expect that interest to only increase as the next election gets closer .
Right now the court fight centers on absentee voting in the run-off election being held on July 14 .
But how it is resolved will likely set the ground rules for absentee voting in November ’ s general election , which some health officials have warned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outbreak .
The stakes for that election are high at both the national and state level , where Democrats are hoping to capture Texas ’ House and get a seat at the table for the next redistricting cycle .
As the coronavirus outbreak hit the United States in earnest this spring , Texas joined several other states in delaying the election it had next on its calendar — a primary run-off scheduled for May — until the summer .
Its early voting period will also be twice as long .
But state officials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — drew a red line at letting the pandemic be an excuse to vote absentee in the state , which typically limits vote by mail to Texans who are incarcerated , out of town , are 65 or older , or who suffer from a “ disability ” Paxton has echoed rhetoric by President Trump in claiming baselessly that an expansion of vote-by-mail would invite fraud .
The legal argument the state is making is that the pandemic is not covered by the “ disability ” qualification the state code allows for voting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interpretation began in March , with a state court lawsuit against the state and local officials brought by the Texas Democratic Party , which sought clarity on whether the outbreak qualified as an absentee voting excuse .
A federal lawsuit was filed weeks later , and state Democrats have also been joined by voting rights groups that have intervened in the litigation .
They ’ ve pointed to the language in the statute that says either “ illness ” or a “ physical condition ” can make someone eligible for the disability qualification @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outbreak , combined with the current lack of immunity to COVID-19 , amounts to a physical condition that makes in-person voting a risk to one ’ s health , as contemplated by state code .
Texas has dismissed the challengers ’ arguments by equating them to a “ mental ” or “ emotional ” fear of COVID-19 , in contradiction to the state code ’ s description of a “ physical ” condition triggering the disability exemption .
In his order Tuesday , U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said that “ such fear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ physical health , ” while also backing the argument that the lack of immunity is a physical condition .
“ Citizens should have the option to choose voting by letter carrier versus voting with disease carriers , ” Biery said .
Texas is not the only state that is fighting in court lawsuits seeking to expand absentee voting .
But how it ’ s reacted to court rulings against it have set it apart , voting rights experts said .
After a state court judge had signaled he was leaning against the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the formal ruling , state officials released a letter floating the potential for criminal prosecution for anyone who advises the use of COVID-19 as an excuse to vote absentee .
“ Attempts to intimidate election officials who are trying to figure out ways to make the elections work under very trying circumstances … is obviously inappropriate and politicizes the election process to really a shocking degree , ” said Wendy Weiser , director of Brennan Center ’ s democracy program .
County officials signaled that they were following the state court judge ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the outbreak to be used as an excuse to vote absentee , even as the state was appealing that decision .
This prompted Paxton to make the threat of criminal prosecution again in a May 1 advisory .
The advisory came with a press release that explicitly called out Harris County , which is home to Houston .
The legal challengers asked a state appeals court to push back on the claims that Paxton made in his May 1 letter , and his threats didn ’ t stop Harris County and local officials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as an excuse to vote absentee .
“ I ’ ve said that if anybody actually gets prosecuted by these characters , I ’ ll come down to the trial and tell them , ‘ I told the person they could do this , ’ ” Douglas Ray , a special assistant attorney for Harris County , told TPM .
“ Part of the chilling effect is not on the voters , but on the groups that want to advocate that voters do this.
” Biery , the federal judge , on Tuesday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threats or otherwise issuing guidance that was inconsistent with his order .
Pre-pandemic , less than 1 percent of absentee ballot requests in Harris County cited the disability excuse , according to Ray .
As requests have quadrupled since the previous Texas election , that reason now makes up 4 percent of the requests .
Use of the disability provision made up 10 percent of all absentee ballot requests that were filed after the state court okayed COVID-19 as an excuse .
Rather than let the fight play out at the appeals court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Texas Supreme Court for an intervention .
Seeking a so-called writ of mandamus , which leapfrogs over the normal appellate process , Paxton is asking the justices to block the clerks of five Democratic-leaning counties from advising people who fear the outbreak to vote absentee .
That writ is before the state Supreme Court as it hears oral arguments tomorrow , as is a separate writ of mandamus petition filed by the state on a procedural issue that has arisen in the litigation .
‘ We ’ re In For a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Supreme Court will use Wednesday ’ s arguments to address the larger legal interpretation question or resolve the narrower procedural dispute is unclear .
If Texas ’ Supreme Court resolves only the narrower procedural question after Wednesday ’ s arguments , then litigation over the merits of the state court dispute will likely continue for several weeks longer .
The number of states that , like Texas , are fighting efforts to expand absentee voting is shrinking .
Tennessee is facing a legal fight for its refusal to let COVID-19 to count as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including those facing lawsuits , legislators have come up with narrow measures to expand absentee voting during the pandemic , or are at least discussing those measures .
Once the state Supreme Court has its say on who can vote absentee because of the pandemic , the fight will continue in the federal court , where the state will appeal the Tuesday order .
Texas is also facing a federal lawsuit targeting exactly how it carries out absentee voting , including its lack of paid postage and its ban on certain ballot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be as contentious as the one over the “ disability ” exemption .
“ If this small step is being fought so aggressively , we ’ re in for a very bumpy ride in Texas , ” Weiser said .

Everything is bigger in Texas — including the lengths to which the state will go to limit absentee voting in the pandemic.
When requesting an absentee ballot, voters in many states have to list a reason why they cannot cast their vote in person. A handful of those states have resisted letting voters invoke the coronavirus outbreak to cast ballots by mail. But among that handful, Texas has taken its resistance to the next level.
The state is embroiled in a nasty legal battle over whether COVID-19 qualifies as an absentee voting excuse under state law. As the court fight rages on, Texas state officials have repeatedly raised the prospect of criminal sanctions for anyone who advises voters that they can vote absentee due to the pandemic. While lower courts have backed the idea that COVID-19 counts as an absentee voting excuse, the process for getting the question in front of the state Supreme Court has been turbo-charged.
On Tuesday night, a federal court ordered the state to allow voters to vote absentee if they’re seeking to avoid the virus. The order, which will be appealed, came the day before the state Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments on certain aspects of the dispute.
Already local Texas officials have seen a significant uptick in requests for such an option, and they expect that interest to only increase as the next election gets closer.
Right now the court fight centers on absentee voting in the run-off election being held on July 14. But how it is resolved will likely set the ground rules for absentee voting in November’s general election, which some health officials have warned could come amidst a resurgence of the outbreak. The stakes for that election are high at both the national and state level, where Democrats are hoping to capture Texas’ House and get a seat at the table for the next redistricting cycle.
A ‘Physical Condition,’ Or Simply An ‘Emotional’ Fear?
As the coronavirus outbreak hit the United States in earnest this spring, Texas joined several other states in delaying the election it had next on its calendar — a primary run-off scheduled for May — until the summer. Its early voting period will also be twice as long. But state officials — led by Attorney General Ken Paxton — drew a red line at letting the pandemic be an excuse to vote absentee in the state, which typically limits vote by mail to Texans who are incarcerated, out of town, are 65 or older, or who suffer from a “disability”
Paxton has echoed rhetoric by President Trump in claiming baselessly that an expansion of vote-by-mail would invite fraud. The legal argument the state is making is that the pandemic is not covered by the “disability” qualification the state code allows for voting absentee.
The court battle over that interpretation began in March, with a state court lawsuit against the state and local officials brought by the Texas Democratic Party, which sought clarity on whether the outbreak qualified as an absentee voting excuse. A federal lawsuit was filed weeks later, and state Democrats have also been joined by voting rights groups that have intervened in the litigation.
They’ve pointed to the language in the statute that says either “illness” or a “physical condition” can make someone eligible for the disability qualification. The challengers argue that the viral outbreak, combined with the current lack of immunity to COVID-19, amounts to a physical condition that makes in-person voting a risk to one’s health, as contemplated by state code.
Texas has dismissed the challengers’ arguments by equating them to a “mental” or “emotional” fear of COVID-19, in contradiction to the state code’s description of a “physical” condition triggering the disability exemption.
In his order Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said that “such fear and anxiety is inextricably intertwined with voters’ physical health,” while also backing the argument that the lack of immunity is a physical condition.
“Citizens should have the option to choose voting by letter carrier versus voting with disease carriers,”Biery said.
A ‘Chilling Effect’
Texas is not the only state that is fighting in court lawsuits seeking to expand absentee voting. But how it’s reacted to court rulings against it have set it apart, voting rights experts said.
After a state court judge had signaled he was leaning against the state, but before the judge issued the formal ruling, state officials released a letter floating the potential for criminal prosecution for anyone who advises the use of COVID-19 as an excuse to vote absentee.
“Attempts to intimidate election officials who are trying to figure out ways to make the elections work under very trying circumstances … is obviously inappropriate and politicizes the election process to really a shocking degree,” said Wendy Weiser, director of Brennan Center’s democracy program.
County officials signaled that they were following the state court judge’s interpretation of the law that allowed the outbreak to be used as an excuse to vote absentee, even as the state was appealing that decision. This prompted Paxton to make the threat of criminal prosecution again in a May 1 advisory. The advisory came with a press release that explicitly called out Harris County, which is home to Houston.
The legal challengers asked a state appeals court to push back on the claims that Paxton made in his May 1 letter, and his threats didn’t stop Harris County and local officials elsewhere from telling voters the outbreak counted as an excuse to vote absentee.
“I’ve said that if anybody actually gets prosecuted by these characters, I’ll come down to the trial and tell them, ‘I told the person they could do this,’” Douglas Ray, a special assistant attorney for Harris County, told TPM. “Part of the chilling effect is not on the voters, but on the groups that want to advocate that voters do this.”
Biery, the federal judge, on Tuesday also blocked the state from making prosecutorial threats or otherwise issuing guidance that was inconsistent with his order.
Pre-pandemic, less than 1 percent of absentee ballot requests in Harris County cited the disability excuse, according to Ray. As requests have quadrupled since the previous Texas election, that reason now makes up 4 percent of the requests. Use of the disability provision made up 10 percent of all absentee ballot requests that were filed after the state court okayed COVID-19 as an excuse.
Rather than let the fight play out at the appeals court, the Attorney General then went straight to the Texas Supreme Court for an intervention. Seeking a so-called writ of mandamus, which leapfrogs over the normal appellate process, Paxton is asking the justices to block the clerks of five Democratic-leaning counties from advising people who fear the outbreak to vote absentee.
That writ is before the state Supreme Court as it hears oral arguments tomorrow, as is a separate writ of mandamus petition filed by the state on a procedural issue that has arisen in the litigation.
‘We’re In For a Very Bumpy Ride’
Whether the state Supreme Court will use Wednesday’s arguments to address the larger legal interpretation question or resolve the narrower procedural dispute is unclear.
If Texas’ Supreme Court resolves only the narrower procedural question after Wednesday’s arguments, then litigation over the merits of the state court dispute will likely continue for several weeks longer.
The number of states that, like Texas, are fighting efforts to expand absentee voting is shrinking. Tennessee is facing a legal fight for its refusal to let COVID-19 to count as an excuse. But in other states, including those facing lawsuits, legislators have come up with narrow measures to expand absentee voting during the pandemic, or are at least discussing those measures.
In its obstinacy, Texas remains exceptional.
Once the state Supreme Court has its say on who can vote absentee because of the pandemic, the fight will continue in the federal court, where the state will appeal the Tuesday order.
Texas is also facing a federal lawsuit targeting exactly how it carries out absentee voting, including its lack of paid postage and its ban on certain ballot collection programs.
Expect those fights to be as contentious as the one over the “disability” exemption.
“If this small step is being fought so aggressively, we’re in for a very bumpy ride in Texas,” Weiser said.


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-20--Trump Seems To Retreat From His Threat To Withhold Funding From Michigan

President Trump appeared to back away from his threat to withhold federal funding from Michigan during a meeting with Arkansas Gov .
Asa Hutchinson ( R ) and Kansas Gov .
Laura Kelly ( D ) Wednesday afternoon .
Earlier Wednesday , Trump blasted Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in a series of tweets , erroneously accusing her of sending absentee ballots to registered voters and threatening to withhold federal funding from the state over her mail-in voting initiative .
Trump would later correct himself in another Wednesday tweet , clarifying that Michigan voters were receiving mail-in voting applications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany declining to go into details about the federal funding that would be withheld from Michigan during a Wednesday afternoon briefing , Trump wouldn ’ t specify the “ very specific ” funding he has for the state after claiming that he has spoken with Michigan Gov .
Gretchen Whitmer ( D ) .
“ They ’ ll be finding out very soon if it ’ s necessary , ” Trump said , referring to whether he plans to withhold funds from Michigan .
“ I don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be necessary.
” Trump then baselessly argued that mail-in ballots are “ a very dangerous thing ” due to “ massive fraud .
”

President Trump appeared to back away from his threat to withhold federal funding from Michigan during a meeting with Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) Wednesday afternoon.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump blasted Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in a series of tweets, erroneously accusing her of sending absentee ballots to registered voters and threatening to withhold federal funding from the state over her mail-in voting initiative. Trump would later correct himself in another Wednesday tweet, clarifying that Michigan voters were receiving mail-in voting applications and not absentee ballots.
Much like White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany declining to go into details about the federal funding that would be withheld from Michigan during a Wednesday afternoon briefing, Trump wouldn’t specify the “very specific” funding he has for the state after claiming that he has spoken with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).
“They’ll be finding out very soon if it’s necessary,” Trump said, referring to whether he plans to withhold funds from Michigan. “I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.”
Trump then baselessly argued that mail-in ballots are “a very dangerous thing” due to “massive fraud.”


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-20--WH Doesn’t Have A Good Explanation For Trump’s Michigan Tweets

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany dodged Wednesday when asked what , exactly , was illegal about Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sending out absentee voting applications to all registered voters in the state , after President Trump went after the state official on Twitter earlier in the day .
Trump criticized Benson ’ s mail-in voting initiative in a series of tweets early Wednesday , erroneously alleging that she sent out absentee ballots and threatening to withhold federal funding to the swing state as a result .
Trump later reposted the same tweet , clarifying that Michigan voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not absentee ballots .
After declining to go into specifics about the federal funding that would be withheld from the state , McEnany said that Trump ’ s tweets were meant to “ alert ” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and OMB Director Russell Vought about his concerns of “ a lot of fraud that is potentially at play ” regarding mail-in voting .
There ’ s no evidence that mail-in voting is ripe for fraud .
McEnany then deferred to the Trump campaign when it comes to the “ illegality and legality ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ swing state ’ s voting practices .
After telling reporters Trump supports mail-in voting — which he did during Florida ’ s primary election in March — “ for a reason , ” McEnany repeatedly declined to specify what exactly was illegal about the Michigan secretary of state ’ s efforts .
She referred the questions to the Trump campaign .
Shortly after the briefing ended , Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh defended the President ’ s tweets .

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany dodged Wednesday when asked what, exactly, was illegal about Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sending out absentee voting applications to all registered voters in the state, after President Trump went after the state official on Twitter earlier in the day.
Trump criticized Benson’s mail-in voting initiative in a series of tweets early Wednesday, erroneously alleging that she sent out absentee ballots and threatening to withhold federal funding to the swing state as a result. Trump later reposted the same tweet, clarifying that Michigan voters were being sent mail-in voting applications and not absentee ballots.
After declining to go into specifics about the federal funding that would be withheld from the state, McEnany said that Trump’s tweets were meant to “alert” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and OMB Director Russell Vought about his concerns of “a lot of fraud that is potentially at play” regarding mail-in voting. There’s no evidence that mail-in voting is ripe for fraud.
McEnany then deferred to the Trump campaign when it comes to the “illegality and legality” of withholding federal funds over the key swing state’s voting practices.
After telling reporters Trump supports mail-in voting — which he did during Florida’s primary election in March — “for a reason,” McEnany repeatedly declined to specify what exactly was illegal about the Michigan secretary of state’s efforts. She referred the questions to the Trump campaign.
Shortly after the briefing ended, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh defended the President’s tweets.
.@realDonaldTrump is correct. There is no statutory authority for the secretary of state in Michigan to send absentee ballot applications to all voters. Existing case law in Michigan supports that conclusion as well. https://t.co/Ku6bwIPnYl — Tim Murtaugh – Download the Trump 2020 app today! (@TimMurtaugh) May 20, 2020


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-20--In Poor Bronx Neighborhoods, 34% Tested Had COVID-19 Antibodies, Gov Says

Thousands of coronavirus tests performed in low-income communities of color around New York City showed rates of infection much higher than the city average , New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo said Monday .
Cuomo described preliminary data from about 8,000 tests performed by the health care provider Northwell Health during a slideshow presentation ; he didn ’ t go through underlying data or details about testing procedure .
The screenings were the result of a partnership between Northwell , New York ’ s department of health , and several churches throughout the city that are serving as testing centers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the viral disease : 27 % of those tested across the churches in low-income neighborhoods carried COVID-19 antibodies , Cuomo said , compared to the 19.9 % overall rate in the city .
A whopping 34 % of those tested in the Bronx were positive for antibodies , compared to 29 % in Brooklyn and 25 % in Queens , Cuomo said .
Staten Island and Manhattan hovered around the city-wide average .
“ The data shows not just a high positive — not just that a high number of people had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continuing in those communities and that ’ s where the new cases are coming from , ” Cuomo said .
“ You can literally do that on a zip code basis.
” In Morrisania , in the Bronx , 43 % of those tested were positive for antibodies , Cuomo said , more than double the city-wide rate .
Forty-one percent of respondents at a site in Brownsville , Brooklyn , tested positive for antibodies .
The sites had rates of hospitalization near or over double the rates city-wide , according to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told TPM in an email that it had “ performed more than 9,250 tests in the first week at 11 churches.
” The tests consisted of nasal swabs for the virus and antibody tests on alternating days , the spokesperson said .
The city ’ s viral disparities were also apparent in a map of case and death rates released by the city earlier this week , which showed the disparate impact of COVID-19 in lower-income areas far from the city ’ s wealthy center .

Thousands of coronavirus tests performed in low-income communities of color around New York City showed rates of infection much higher than the city average, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
Cuomo described preliminary data from about 8,000 tests performed by the health care provider Northwell Health during a slideshow presentation; he didn’t go through underlying data or details about testing procedure. The screenings were the result of a partnership between Northwell, New York’s department of health, and several churches throughout the city that are serving as testing centers.
The tests showed the disparate impact of the viral disease: 27% of those tested across the churches in low-income neighborhoods carried COVID-19 antibodies, Cuomo said, compared to the 19.9% overall rate in the city.
A whopping 34% of those tested in the Bronx were positive for antibodies, compared to 29% in Brooklyn and 25% in Queens, Cuomo said. Staten Island and Manhattan hovered around the city-wide average.
“The data shows not just a high positive — not just that a high number of people had the positive — but the spread is continuing in those communities and that’s where the new cases are coming from,” Cuomo said. “You can literally do that on a zip code basis.”
In Morrisania, in the Bronx, 43% of those tested were positive for antibodies, Cuomo said, more than double the city-wide rate. Forty-one percent of respondents at a site in Brownsville, Brooklyn, tested positive for antibodies. The sites had rates of hospitalization near or over double the rates city-wide, according to the preliminary data.
A spokesperson for Northwell told TPM in an email that it had “performed more than 9,250 tests in the first week at 11 churches.” The tests consisted of nasal swabs for the virus and antibody tests on alternating days, the spokesperson said.
The city’s viral disparities were also apparent in a map of case and death rates released by the city earlier this week, which showed the disparate impact of COVID-19 in lower-income areas far from the city’s wealthy center.


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-20--Pelosi Says Trump Is Like A Child Who ‘Comes In With Doggy Doo On His Shoes’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ( D-CA ) is still putting President Trump in the doghouse .
Just two days after slamming “ morbidly obese ” Trump following his claim that he had been taking the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to prevent contracting COVID-19 , Pelosi further threw the President under the bus when asked Wednesday morning about his tweets stoking a baseless right-wing conspiracy alleging MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of a grave crime .
“ You are asking me about the appropriateness of the actions of this President of the United States ?
” Pelosi said , sounding exasperated .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it ’ s almost a given.
” Pelosi then compared Trump to “ a child who comes in with mud on their pants or something ” after playing outdoors .
“ He comes in with doggy doo on his shoes , and everybody who works with him has that on their shoes , too , for a very long time to come , ” Pelosi said .
Pelosi went on to argue that Trump repeatedly says things that are “ inappropriate ” for a president , such as his remarks on women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ market ” for insulting comments .

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is still putting President Trump in the doghouse.
Just two days after slamming “morbidly obese” Trump following his claim that he had been taking the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to prevent contracting COVID-19, Pelosi further threw the President under the bus when asked Wednesday morning about his tweets stoking a baseless right-wing conspiracy alleging MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of a grave crime.
“You are asking me about the appropriateness of the actions of this President of the United States?” Pelosi said, sounding exasperated. “So completely inappropriate in so many ways that it’s almost a given.”
Pelosi then compared Trump to “a child who comes in with mud on their pants or something” after playing outdoors.
“He comes in with doggy doo on his shoes, and everybody who works with him has that on their shoes, too, for a very long time to come,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi went on to argue that Trump repeatedly says things that are “inappropriate” for a president, such as his remarks on women and that he plays to a “market” for insulting comments.
Watch Pelosi’s remarks below:


talkingpointsmemo--2020-05-20--Pompeo Admits Participation In One Investigation Conducted By Fired IG

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged Wednesday that he submitted written answers earlier this year as part of the recently fired State Department Inspector General ’ s investigation .
He added during a press conference that he knew neither the scope nor the nature of the probe .
“ I don ’ t know if that investigation is continuing , I don ’ t know if that investigation was closed out , ” he said , adding that “ it ’ s not possible for there to have been retaliation.
” The New York Times reported Tuesday night that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Steve Linick ’ s investigation into Pompeo ’ s participation in a Saudi Arabian arms deal .
Linick ’ s ongoing probe , confirmed to TPM by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel ( D-NY ) , centered on President Donald Trump issuing an emergency declaration to enable Pompeo to circumvent Congress and approve billions in arms sales .
Pompeo said that he had no knowledge of any other investigations Linick was conducting , mocking reports that he and his wife forced a political appointee to do menial errands for them as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was walking my dog to sell arms to my dry cleaner.
” Linick was abruptly fired by President Donald Trump Friday night , on Pompeo ’ s recommendation .
“ Frankly , I should have done it a long time ago , ” Pompeo said Wednesday , though he declined to give any specific reasons for Linick ’ s ouster .
Linick is the fourth inspector general Trump has fired this spring alone , though this particular sacking seems to have deep ties to Pompeo .
The secretary of state has racked up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , involving misuse of State Department staff for his wife ’ s travel , his own possibly politically motivated travel to Kansas and a complaint similar to the one Linick was investigating about misuse of security guards as errand boys .
A Tuesday NBC News report also revealed that Pompeo and his wife often threw elaborate , glitzy dinners on the government ’ s dime , though it is not clear that Linick was investigating that behavior .
Pompeo rounded off his press conference by reminding reporters of Sen. Bob Menendez ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , along with Engel , is spearheading the congressional probe into Linick ’ s firing .
The senator from New Jersey was also indicted on federal corruption charges in 2015 , though the Justice Department ultimately dropped the case .
“ Here ’ s the last thing to think about as you see these stories that have been leaked to you all , to the press .
This is all coming from the office of Senator Menendez , ” he said .
“ I don ’ t get my ethics guidance from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ll continue to do the right thing to make sure the State Department is served by every employee , including our Inspector General , ” he added .

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged Wednesday that he submitted written answers earlier this year as part of the recently fired State Department Inspector General’s investigation.
He added during a press conference that he knew neither the scope nor the nature of the probe. “I don’t know if that investigation is continuing, I don’t know if that investigation was closed out,” he said, adding that “it’s not possible for there to have been retaliation.”
The New York Times reported Tuesday night that the written answers were related to Inspector General Steve Linick’s investigation into Pompeo’s participation in a Saudi Arabian arms deal.
Linick’s ongoing probe, confirmed to TPM by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY), centered on President Donald Trump issuing an emergency declaration to enable Pompeo to circumvent Congress and approve billions in arms sales.
Pompeo said that he had no knowledge of any other investigations Linick was conducting, mocking reports that he and his wife forced a political appointee to do menial errands for them as “crazy stuff” like “someone was walking my dog to sell arms to my dry cleaner.”
Linick was abruptly fired by President Donald Trump Friday night, on Pompeo’s recommendation. “Frankly, I should have done it a long time ago,” Pompeo said Wednesday, though he declined to give any specific reasons for Linick’s ouster.
Linick is the fourth inspector general Trump has fired this spring alone, though this particular sacking seems to have deep ties to Pompeo. The secretary of state has racked up multiple complaints and allegations over the years, involving misuse of State Department staff for his wife’s travel, his own possibly politically motivated travel to Kansas and a complaint similar to the one Linick was investigating about misuse of security guards as errand boys.
A Tuesday NBC News report also revealed that Pompeo and his wife often threw elaborate, glitzy dinners on the government’s dime, though it is not clear that Linick was investigating that behavior.
Pompeo rounded off his press conference by reminding reporters of Sen. Bob Menendez’s (D-NJ) criminal trial. Menendez, along with Engel, is spearheading the congressional probe into Linick’s firing. The senator from New Jersey was also indicted on federal corruption charges in 2015, though the Justice Department ultimately dropped the case.
“Here’s the last thing to think about as you see these stories that have been leaked to you all, to the press. This is all coming from the office of Senator Menendez,” he said. “I don’t get my ethics guidance from a man who was criminally prosecuted.”
“I’ll continue to do the right thing to make sure the State Department is served by every employee, including our Inspector General,” he added.