vox--2020-08-11--America’s uniquely bad Covid-19 epidemic, explained in 18 maps and charts

It ’ s now clear the United States has failed to contain its Covid-19 epidemic , with case counts far ahead of other developed nations and more than 1,000 deaths reported a day for over two weeks and counting .
Asked if America ’ s coronavirus outbreak is the worst in the world , White House adviser and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci admitted it was on August 5 : “ Yeah , it is .
Quantitatively , if you look at it , it is .
I mean , the numbers don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be this way .
In March and April , other developed countries had significant Covid-19 outbreaks , but they did a much better job than the US in containing the coronavirus and keeping it down after the virus arrived .
So while some other developed nations have experienced upticks , they all pale in comparison to the massive surge in cases , hospitalizations , and deaths that the US has seen since May and June .
The result is a large disparity between the US and other developed nations in terms of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reopened in Denmark and other places .
Taiwan ’ s baseball league allows fans in stadiums , and Germany ’ s soccer league may allow fans in soon too .
Spain , France , and Italy — all of which were hit very hard by Covid-19 in the spring — are also reopening bit by bit .
Meanwhile , the US is still dealing with a resurgence of the coronavirus that has led some states to close down bars and other indoor spaces , cast doubt on whether schools will be able to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hospitals nationwide ( with another flu season looming , to boot ) .
“ It ’ s a situation that didn ’ t have to be , ” Jaime Slaughter-Acey , an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota , told me .
“ For almost three months , you had opportunities to be proactive with respect to mitigating the Covid-19 pandemic and to help normalize culture to adopt practices that would stem the tide of transmissions as well as the development of Covid-19 complications.
” But the US didn ’ t take advantage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bring Covid-19 cases to a plateau , but not a significant decline , by April and May .
But then several states rushed to reopen , with a significant portion of the public not following recommendations for masking and physical distancing .
The original hot spots were the New York region , but over time , as states moved to reopen , the virus shifted to the South , West , and eventually , the rest of the country .
Now America is stuck with the consequences , with the death toll likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the next few weeks and the possibility of another shutdown looming larger as the country heads into the fall and winter .
Here are 18 maps and charts showing the depth of America ’ s Covid-19 epidemic , how it got so bad , and what can be done about it .
1 ) America is among the worst-hit countries for coronavirus cases The US is truly one of a kind among developed nations for its number of Covid-19 cases .
The chart above , made with 91-DIVOC and based on data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US , other top 10 countries for coronavirus cases ( after adjusting for population ) , and the European Union for comparison .
While America ’ s developed peers have suppressed the coronavirus , the US case count has continued to climb to levels only seen in developing countries with weaker government institutions and shakier public health infrastructure .
2 ) The US has a very high Covid-19 death toll The US is also in the top 10 countries for Covid-19 deaths after adjusting for population , with more than 490 deaths per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America remains comparable to some of its developed peers ; Belgium , the United Kingdom , Spain , Italy , and Sweden have all suffered higher death rates , and France is only a bit behind .
But others have done much better , with Germany and Denmark reporting less than a fourth the death rate of the US , and Japan and South Korea reporting between 1 and 2 percent of the death rate of the US .
With deaths in the US totaling more than 1,000 a day in late July @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on this metric could get even worse in the coming weeks .
3 ) Even with high case counts , the US is still likely undercounting coronavirus cases While President Trump insists that the US leads the world in Covid-19 cases because it tests more than any other country in the world , the evidence suggests that America tests too little , especially compared to its developed peers .
The positive rate — or the percent of tests that come back positive for the coronavirus — is perhaps the best way to track @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place tests enough , it should have a low positive rate , because it should be testing lots and lots of people , including those who don ’ t have serious symptoms .
High positive rates indicate that only people with obvious symptoms are getting tested , which suggests a need to ramp up testing to match the scope of an outbreak .
The goal is , ideally , to get the positive rate to 0 percent , since that would mean Covid-19 is vanquished .
More realistically , experts say the acceptable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have recently called for below 3 percent .
Anything above 5 percent indicates that a country doesn ’ t have enough testing to pick up all its cases — and America is currently at 7.6 percent for the most recent week of data available ( via Our World in Data ) , meaning the US is likely missing a lot of cases .
This hinders America ’ s ability not just to track the epidemic but to respond to it too .
Paired with contact tracing , testing lets officials track the scale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are sick , quarantine those with whom the sick came in contact , and deploy community-wide efforts as necessary .
Aggressive testing and tracing are how other countries , such as South Korea and Germany , got their outbreaks under control .
4 ) The US closed down at first , but much of it then quickly reopened Back in April and May , the news looked good for Covid-19 in the US — as cases and deaths started to fall under the weight of stay-at-home orders , physical distancing , more masking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It looked like America might get Covid-19 under control , with studies showing that lockdowns suppressed the spread of the coronavirus .
Then , with President Trump ’ s insistence that states “ LIBERATE ” their economies , every state moved to reopen — at times before they even recorded drops in cases within their borders .
Many states “ never got to flat , ” Pia MacDonald , an epidemiologist at the research institute RTI International , told me .
“ That means the states didn ’ t get to very good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we all need to take to make sure the outbreak doesn ’ t continue to grow.
” The reopenings led cases , hospitalizations , and then deaths to surge in June , July , and now August .
Many states have had to pause or reverse their reopenings , based on the New York Times ’ s tracker — losing some or all the progress they made toward getting life back to normal .
In the beginning , America ’ s Covid-19 epidemic was largely concentrated in the Northeast , particularly the New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , New York and New Jersey have had by far the highest Covid-19 death tolls in the US , according to data gathered by the New York Times .
In the recent resurgence of the coronavirus , though , Covid-19 has gone national , with the vast majority of states now reporting more than four new coronavirus cases each day per 100,000 people ( which some experts consider the acceptable maximum for containing the spread of the virus ) .
Some states have far surpassed that , at times reporting more than 20 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases per 100,000 people a day .
6 ) Coronavirus is still spreading too quickly in many states Meanwhile , the coronavirus appears to be spreading too quickly in many states .
The Rt , or effective reproduction number , measures how many people are infected by each person with Covid-19 .
If the Rt is 1 , then an infected person will , on average , spread the coronavirus to one other person .
If it ’ s 2 , then an infected person will spread it to two on average .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get the Rt below 1 ; if each new infection doesn ’ t lead to another , that would over time lead to zero new Covid-19 cases .
According to Rt.live , many states are above an estimated Rt of 1 — which means that the virus is continuing to spread in much of the US .
It ’ s an improvement from the early stages of the pandemic , when the Rt was above 2 in most states , but it ’ s still high enough to allow the coronavirus to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
7 ) Hospitalizations have fallen from their previous peaks but are still very high During the ongoing resurgence of Covid-19 , total hospitalizations in the US for the virus in a single day appeared to reach a new peak of nearly 60,000 — around the same as the previous peak in mid-April , according to data collected by the Covid Tracking Project .
( Weeks after a nationwide system change , this data still has problems , but it ’ s the best we have . )
The good news is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that peak , as states reverse their reopening plans and the public follows recommended precautions like physical distancing and masking .
But just as was true during the previous peak , experts say it ’ s important that the country not get complacent and make sure the virus is truly suppressed — which the country is still nowhere near — before we try to get life back to how it was before the Covid-19 pandemic .
8 ) The US has dramatically improved its testing capabilities One good development in the past few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up its testing capacity .
Some experts at first suggested that the country would need 500,000 tests a day ; the US now regularly surpasses that — with more recent daily counts regularly topping 700,000 , according to the Covid Tracking Project .
9 ) But most states still don ’ t have enough testing to match their outbreaks That said , the US still doesn ’ t have enough testing , with reported delays in testing results now spanning a week or more as labs are slammed with rising demand and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tests ( swabs , kits , reagents , and so on ) .
That delay makes it impossible to trace and contain the infected before they spread the virus to more people , especially because the coronavirus often spreads before people show symptoms .
Part of the problem is that , while the country surpassed 500,000 tests , its coronavirus outbreak since then got much worse , so it now requires far more tests to cover all the new cases .
As a result , most states have positive rates that are too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 5 percent , some states ’ rates for the most recent week of data now go beyond 10 , 15 , and even 20 percent , based on Covid Tracking Project data .
( Washington state is excluded due to recent reporting problems . )
So most states don ’ t have enough tests to match their outbreaks , meaning they ’ re still significantly undercounting their cases — and ill-equipped to actually deal with their epidemics .
10 ) The public is social distancing less , but many are still doing it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans were told to stay at home — and even before any government orders , many started to do so to avoid the risk of infection .
Gallup surveys found that the vast majority of Americans social distanced ; between March 30 and April 5 , 79 percent said they avoided public places , and 91 percent avoided travel .
Over time , however , Americans started to ease up , as they became exhausted with social distancing and government orders were relaxed .
People started to wander out more — and subsequently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people are still social distancing , it helps .
A review of the research published in The Lancet concluded that “ evidence shows that physical distancing of more than 1 m is highly effective.
” And a preliminary Health Affairs study found stay-at-home orders slowed the spread of the disease , likely preventing millions of cases .
But to the extent people are social distancing less , particularly while the virus is already rapidly spreading in many US communities , it ’ s contributing to a resurgence of Covid-19 .
Although there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politicization of masks , the majority of Americans have embraced masking — with 44 percent saying they “ always ” wear masks outside their home and 28 percent saying they do so “ very often ” in Gallup ’ s late June and July surveys .
That doesn ’ t mean mask use is perfect .
Using this kind of polling , the New York Times calculated that mask use still varies dramatically from community to community , from percentages in the 90s to the single digits .
And based on surveys from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are much more likely to go out without a mask than Germans , Spaniards , and the French — although less likely than Brits , Swedes , and Danes .
Still , it seems the majority of Americans at least believe in masks and are willing to wear them in public .
It ’ s yet another way that the country has had to adapt as the outbreak has continued in the US .
Along with physical distancing , there ’ s good reason to believe masking will suppress the virus : The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ found that “ face masks are associated with protection , even in non-health-care settings.
” So far , 34 states plus Washington , DC , have mandated the use of masks in public , according to AARP .
According to some surveys , there ’ s public appetite for a broader mandate : In a July Hill-HarrisX poll , for example , 82 percent of US voters said they ’ d support a national mask mandate .
There ’ s some scientific evidence behind the mandates .
One study in Health Affairs concluded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of thousands of cases by May 22 in the US .
Another study published by the research institute IZA found mandates in Germany “ reduced the cumulative number of registered Covid-19 cases between 2.3 % and 13 % over a period of 10 days after they became compulsory ” and “ the daily growth rate of reported infections by around 40 % .
” But enforcement of these mandates in the US is uneven , with some local officials refusing to enforce them .
Trump and some state officials have rejected mask mandates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of freedom and civil liberties .
13 ) Many schools aren ’ t fully reopening in the fall Meanwhile , governments have also enforced social distancing measures to try to control the virus .
Among those measures , some state and local officials aren ’ t letting schools open for in-person learning in the fall .
According to Education Weekly , most states are leaving it up to local communities , but some have imposed statewide or regional closures or delays at the state level .
This , again , reflects how poorly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If communities had the virus under control , it would be safer to reopen schools ( with certain precautions ) .
But since the virus continues to infect and kill people at a rapid rate across the US , many places don ’ t feel safe adding yet another potential source of transmission by reopening schools .
14 ) The economy has been crushed America ’ s economy has suffered greatly under the coronavirus , as people are forced to stay home , losing work and not patronizing the businesses that rely on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The result : According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis , the US GDP , which measures economic output , tanked by more than 30 percent in the second quarter of 2020 — the worst decrease on record by a large margin .
The economy has bounced back somewhat in recent months , but the resurgence of Covid-19 and expiration of federal stimulus has made a rapid full recovery impossible .
The collapsing economy has led to millions of people losing their jobs — with the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate skyrocketing past 10 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the US Bureau of Labor Statistics .
It ’ s yet another way the pandemic has hurt so many Americans .
The coronavirus pandemic has also damaged Trump ’ s standing , with his approval ratings and reelection prospects falling as the US continues to suffer greatly .
At practically every turn , Trump has failed on the virus .
After experts called for federal leadership , he left cities and states to solve national problems with testing and hospital supplies .
When the federal government released a phased plan for reopening , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — to supposedly “ LIBERATE ” them from economic calamity .
After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended people in public wear masks , Trump said it was a personal choice , refused for months to wear a mask in public , and even suggested people who were wearing masks were doing it to spite him ( though he ’ s recently shifted his views on masks ) .
He ’ s promoted ineffective and even dangerous treatments — at one point advocating for injecting bleach .
Meanwhile , Trump has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about testing problems in March , he said , “ I don ’ t take responsibility at all.
” Asked about rising deaths in July , he responded , “ It is what it is.
” The public , however , seems to take a different view , blaming Trump for the ongoing crisis , and disapproving of the job he ’ s doing .
17 ) To get back to normal , America has to control the virus For all the talk about getting the US back to normal , there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that : defeating the virus .
This is what ’ s worked in all the other countries that have managed to get a little bit closer back to normal — after they suppressed the spread of Covid-19 .
You can see that in the restaurant data : According to OpenTable , seated diner reservations in Germany — which has a fraction of the cases and deaths of the US — are back up to pre-pandemic levels .
In the US , seated diner reservations remain down nearly 60 percent .
It shows controlling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ linked .
As a preliminary study of the 1918 flu pandemic found , the cities that emerged economically stronger back then took more aggressive action that hindered economies in the short term but better kept infections and deaths down overall .
With cases only recently plateauing ( again ) and deaths still rising , the US is not there yet .
18 ) A vaccine is the main way out , but it ’ s likely months away The main way out of the pandemic is likely a vaccine .
But a vaccine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with only a few in the late stages of trials necessary to prove their safety and efficacy .
According to the New York Times , eight vaccines are in Phase III trials .
That ’ s the final step necessary for approval .
But getting through that phase can take months , and there ’ s no guarantee that every or even most vaccines that reach this stage will prove safe and effective .
( The one vaccine with approval is only allowed for limited use by China ’ s military . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ be safe and effective in trials , the US will need to scale up production and distribution to get the vaccine out to hundreds of millions of people — an enormous logistical challenge that could add more time , possibly months , to the process .
So as much as everyone wants to get back to normal , chances are the US is still months away from that .
In the meantime , the best hope is to suppress the coronavirus with other means , like social distancing and masking , as much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far failed to do that .
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It’s now clear the United States has failed to contain its Covid-19 epidemic, with case counts far ahead of other developed nations and more than 1,000 deaths reported a day for over two weeks and counting.
Asked if America’s coronavirus outbreak is the worst in the world, White House adviser and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci admitted it was on August 5: “Yeah, it is. Quantitatively, if you look at it, it is. I mean, the numbers don’t lie.”
It didn’t have to be this way. In March and April, other developed countries had significant Covid-19 outbreaks, but they did a much better job than the US in containing the coronavirus and keeping it down after the virus arrived. So while some other developed nations have experienced upticks, they all pale in comparison to the massive surge in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths that the US has seen since May and June.
The result is a large disparity between the US and other developed nations in terms of getting life back to normal. Schools reopened in Denmark and other places. Taiwan’s baseball league allows fans in stadiums, and Germany’s soccer league may allow fans in soon too. Spain, France, and Italy — all of which were hit very hard by Covid-19 in the spring — are also reopening bit by bit.
Meanwhile, the US is still dealing with a resurgence of the coronavirus that has led some states to close down bars and other indoor spaces, cast doubt on whether schools will be able to reopen for in-person teaching, and strained hospitals nationwide (with another flu season looming, to boot).
“It’s a situation that didn’t have to be,” Jaime Slaughter-Acey, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, told me. “For almost three months, you had opportunities to be proactive with respect to mitigating the Covid-19 pandemic and to help normalize culture to adopt practices that would stem the tide of transmissions as well as the development of Covid-19 complications.”
But the US didn’t take advantage of those opportunities. The country did bring Covid-19 cases to a plateau, but not a significant decline, by April and May. But then several states rushed to reopen, with a significant portion of the public not following recommendations for masking and physical distancing. The original hot spots were the New York region, but over time, as states moved to reopen, the virus shifted to the South, West, and eventually, the rest of the country.
Now America is stuck with the consequences, with the death toll likely to climb by the tens of thousands in the next few weeks and the possibility of another shutdown looming larger as the country heads into the fall and winter.
Here are 18 maps and charts showing the depth of America’s Covid-19 epidemic, how it got so bad, and what can be done about it.
1) America is among the worst-hit countries for coronavirus cases
The US is truly one of a kind among developed nations for its number of Covid-19 cases. The chart above, made with 91-DIVOC and based on data from Johns Hopkins University, shows the US, other top 10 countries for coronavirus cases (after adjusting for population), and the European Union for comparison. While America’s developed peers have suppressed the coronavirus, the US case count has continued to climb to levels only seen in developing countries with weaker government institutions and shakier public health infrastructure.
2) The US has a very high Covid-19 death toll
The US is also in the top 10 countries for Covid-19 deaths after adjusting for population, with more than 490 deaths per million people. In this sense, America remains comparable to some of its developed peers; Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Sweden have all suffered higher death rates, and France is only a bit behind. But others have done much better, with Germany and Denmark reporting less than a fourth the death rate of the US, and Japan and South Korea reporting between 1 and 2 percent of the death rate of the US.
With deaths in the US totaling more than 1,000 a day in late July and August, America’s rank on this metric could get even worse in the coming weeks.
3) Even with high case counts, the US is still likely undercounting coronavirus cases
While President Trump insists that the US leads the world in Covid-19 cases because it tests more than any other country in the world, the evidence suggests that America tests too little, especially compared to its developed peers.
The positive rate — or the percent of tests that come back positive for the coronavirus — is perhaps the best way to track whether testing is adequate. If a place tests enough, it should have a low positive rate, because it should be testing lots and lots of people, including those who don’t have serious symptoms. High positive rates indicate that only people with obvious symptoms are getting tested, which suggests a need to ramp up testing to match the scope of an outbreak.
The goal is, ideally, to get the positive rate to 0 percent, since that would mean Covid-19 is vanquished. More realistically, experts say the acceptable maximum is 5 percent, although some have recently called for below 3 percent. Anything above 5 percent indicates that a country doesn’t have enough testing to pick up all its cases — and America is currently at 7.6 percent for the most recent week of data available (via Our World in Data), meaning the US is likely missing a lot of cases.
This hinders America’s ability not just to track the epidemic but to respond to it too. Paired with contact tracing, testing lets officials track the scale of an outbreak, isolate those who are sick, quarantine those with whom the sick came in contact, and deploy community-wide efforts as necessary. Aggressive testing and tracing are how other countries, such as South Korea and Germany, got their outbreaks under control.
4) The US closed down at first, but much of it then quickly reopened
Back in April and May, the news looked good for Covid-19 in the US — as cases and deaths started to fall under the weight of stay-at-home orders, physical distancing, more masking, and other public health recommendations. It looked like America might get Covid-19 under control, with studies showing that lockdowns suppressed the spread of the coronavirus.
Then, with President Trump’s insistence that states “LIBERATE” their economies, every state moved to reopen — at times before they even recorded drops in cases within their borders. Many states “never got to flat,” Pia MacDonald, an epidemiologist at the research institute RTI International, told me. “That means the states didn’t get to very good compliance with the public health interventions that we all need to take to make sure the outbreak doesn’t continue to grow.”
The reopenings led cases, hospitalizations, and then deaths to surge in June, July, and now August. Many states have had to pause or reverse their reopenings, based on the New York Times’s tracker — losing some or all the progress they made toward getting life back to normal.
5) America’s coronavirus outbreak has gone national
In the beginning, America’s Covid-19 epidemic was largely concentrated in the Northeast, particularly the New York City area. To this day, New York and New Jersey have had by far the highest Covid-19 death tolls in the US, according to data gathered by the New York Times.
In the recent resurgence of the coronavirus, though, Covid-19 has gone national, with the vast majority of states now reporting more than four new coronavirus cases each day per 100,000 people (which some experts consider the acceptable maximum for containing the spread of the virus). Some states have far surpassed that, at times reporting more than 20, 30, and even 50 new cases per 100,000 people a day.
6) Coronavirus is still spreading too quickly in many states
Meanwhile, the coronavirus appears to be spreading too quickly in many states.
The Rt, or effective reproduction number, measures how many people are infected by each person with Covid-19. If the Rt is 1, then an infected person will, on average, spread the coronavirus to one other person. If it’s 2, then an infected person will spread it to two on average. And so on. The goal is to get the Rt below 1; if each new infection doesn’t lead to another, that would over time lead to zero new Covid-19 cases.
According to Rt.live, many states are above an estimated Rt of 1 — which means that the virus is continuing to spread in much of the US. It’s an improvement from the early stages of the pandemic, when the Rt was above 2 in most states, but it’s still high enough to allow the coronavirus to spread and for the epidemic to continue.
7) Hospitalizations have fallen from their previous peaks but are still very high
During the ongoing resurgence of Covid-19, total hospitalizations in the US for the virus in a single day appeared to reach a new peak of nearly 60,000 — around the same as the previous peak in mid-April, according to data collected by the Covid Tracking Project. (Weeks after a nationwide system change, this data still has problems, but it’s the best we have.)
The good news is the US has started to come down from that peak, as states reverse their reopening plans and the public follows recommended precautions like physical distancing and masking. But just as was true during the previous peak, experts say it’s important that the country not get complacent and make sure the virus is truly suppressed — which the country is still nowhere near — before we try to get life back to how it was before the Covid-19 pandemic.
8) The US has dramatically improved its testing capabilities
One good development in the past few months: The US has truly built up its testing capacity. Some experts at first suggested that the country would need 500,000 tests a day; the US now regularly surpasses that — with more recent daily counts regularly topping 700,000, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
9) But most states still don’t have enough testing to match their outbreaks
That said, the US still doesn’t have enough testing, with reported delays in testing results now spanning a week or more as labs are slammed with rising demand and a shortage of supplies necessary to run the tests (swabs, kits, reagents, and so on). That delay makes it impossible to trace and contain the infected before they spread the virus to more people, especially because the coronavirus often spreads before people show symptoms.
Part of the problem is that, while the country surpassed 500,000 tests, its coronavirus outbreak since then got much worse, so it now requires far more tests to cover all the new cases.
As a result, most states have positive rates that are too high. While the recommended max is 5 percent, some states’ rates for the most recent week of data now go beyond 10, 15, and even 20 percent, based on Covid Tracking Project data. (Washington state is excluded due to recent reporting problems.) So most states don’t have enough tests to match their outbreaks, meaning they’re still significantly undercounting their cases — and ill-equipped to actually deal with their epidemics.
10) The public is social distancing less, but many are still doing it
During the beginning of the pandemic, Americans were told to stay at home — and even before any government orders, many started to do so to avoid the risk of infection. Gallup surveys found that the vast majority of Americans social distanced; between March 30 and April 5, 79 percent said they avoided public places, and 91 percent avoided travel.
Over time, however, Americans started to ease up, as they became exhausted with social distancing and government orders were relaxed. People started to wander out more — and subsequently spread the virus.
To the extent people are still social distancing, it helps. A review of the research published in The Lancet concluded that “evidence shows that physical distancing of more than 1 m is highly effective.” And a preliminary Health Affairs study found stay-at-home orders slowed the spread of the disease, likely preventing millions of cases.
But to the extent people are social distancing less, particularly while the virus is already rapidly spreading in many US communities, it’s contributing to a resurgence of Covid-19.
11) The public has embraced masking
Although there’s a lot of talk about the politicization of masks, the majority of Americans have embraced masking — with 44 percent saying they “always” wear masks outside their home and 28 percent saying they do so “very often” in Gallup’s late June and July surveys.
That doesn’t mean mask use is perfect. Using this kind of polling, the New York Times calculated that mask use still varies dramatically from community to community, from percentages in the 90s to the single digits. And based on surveys from YouGov and Imperial College London, Americans are much more likely to go out without a mask than Germans, Spaniards, and the French — although less likely than Brits, Swedes, and Danes.
Still, it seems the majority of Americans at least believe in masks and are willing to wear them in public. It’s yet another way that the country has had to adapt as the outbreak has continued in the US.
Along with physical distancing, there’s good reason to believe masking will suppress the virus: The review of the research in The Lancet found that “face masks are associated with protection, even in non-health-care settings.”
12) More state governments have mandated masks
So far, 34 states plus Washington, DC, have mandated the use of masks in public, according to AARP.
According to some surveys, there’s public appetite for a broader mandate: In a July Hill-HarrisX poll, for example, 82 percent of US voters said they’d support a national mask mandate.
There’s some scientific evidence behind the mandates. One study in Health Affairs concluded that state mask mandates likely prevented hundreds of thousands of cases by May 22 in the US. Another study published by the research institute IZA found mandates in Germany “reduced the cumulative number of registered Covid-19 cases between 2.3% and 13% over a period of 10 days after they became compulsory” and “the daily growth rate of reported infections by around 40%.”
But enforcement of these mandates in the US is uneven, with some local officials refusing to enforce them. Trump and some state officials have rejected mask mandates altogether, characterizing them as a violation of freedom and civil liberties.
13) Many schools aren’t fully reopening in the fall
Meanwhile, governments have also enforced social distancing measures to try to control the virus. Among those measures, some state and local officials aren’t letting schools open for in-person learning in the fall. According to Education Week, most states are leaving it up to local communities, but some have imposed statewide or regional closures or delays at the state level.
This, again, reflects how poorly the US has handled the epidemic: If communities had the virus under control, it would be safer to reopen schools (with certain precautions). But since the virus continues to infect and kill people at a rapid rate across the US, many places don’t feel safe adding yet another potential source of transmission by reopening schools.
14) The economy has been crushed
America’s economy has suffered greatly under the coronavirus, as people are forced to stay home, losing work and not patronizing the businesses that rely on a steady flow of in-person customers. The result: According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US GDP, which measures economic output, tanked by more than 30 percent in the second quarter of 2020 — the worst decrease on record by a large margin. The economy has bounced back somewhat in recent months, but the resurgence of Covid-19 and expiration of federal stimulus has made a rapid full recovery impossible.
15) The US unemployment rate skyrocketed
The collapsing economy has led to millions of people losing their jobs — with the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate skyrocketing past 10 percent in recent months, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s yet another way the pandemic has hurt so many Americans.
16) Trump’s job approval rating has dropped
The coronavirus pandemic has also damaged Trump’s standing, with his approval ratings and reelection prospects falling as the US continues to suffer greatly.
At practically every turn, Trump has failed on the virus. After experts called for federal leadership, he left cities and states to solve national problems with testing and hospital supplies. When the federal government released a phased plan for reopening, Trump called on states to reopen faster — to supposedly “LIBERATE” them from economic calamity. After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended people in public wear masks, Trump said it was a personal choice, refused for months to wear a mask in public, and even suggested people who were wearing masks were doing it to spite him (though he’s recently shifted his views on masks). He’s promoted ineffective and even dangerous treatments — at one point advocating for injecting bleach.
Meanwhile, Trump has refused to admit any fault. Asked about testing problems in March, he said, “I don’t take responsibility at all.” Asked about rising deaths in July, he responded, “It is what it is.”
The public, however, seems to take a different view, blaming Trump for the ongoing crisis, and disapproving of the job he’s doing.
17) To get back to normal, America has to control the virus
For all the talk about getting the US back to normal, there’s only one safe way to do that: defeating the virus. This is what’s worked in all the other countries that have managed to get a little bit closer back to normal — after they suppressed the spread of Covid-19.
You can see that in the restaurant data: According to OpenTable, seated diner reservations in Germany — which has a fraction of the cases and deaths of the US — are back up to pre-pandemic levels. In the US, seated diner reservations remain down nearly 60 percent.
It shows controlling the epidemic and an economic recovery are linked. As a preliminary study of the 1918 flu pandemic found, the cities that emerged economically stronger back then took more aggressive action that hindered economies in the short term but better kept infections and deaths down overall.
With cases only recently plateauing (again) and deaths still rising, the US is not there yet.
18) A vaccine is the main way out, but it’s likely months away
The main way out of the pandemic is likely a vaccine. But a vaccine still appears to be months away — with only a few in the late stages of trials necessary to prove their safety and efficacy.
According to the New York Times, eight vaccines are in Phase III trials. That’s the final step necessary for approval. But getting through that phase can take months, and there’s no guarantee that every or even most vaccines that reach this stage will prove safe and effective. (China approved one vaccine for limited military use. Russia approved another vaccine for early use, before it finished trials — in what some experts worry is a premature, political move.)
Even once a vaccine is proven to be safe and effective in trials, the US will need to scale up production and distribution to get the vaccine out to hundreds of millions of people — an enormous logistical challenge that could add more time, possibly months, to the process.
So as much as everyone wants to get back to normal, chances are the US is still months away from that.
In the meantime, the best hope is to suppress the coronavirus with other means, like social distancing and masking, as much as possible. But America has so far failed to do that.
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-08-11--This week in TikTok: So … is it getting banned or what?

Hello from The Goods ’ twice-weekly newsletter !
On Tuesdays , internet culture reporter Rebecca Jennings uses this space to update you all on what ’ s been going on in the world of TikTok .
Is there something you want to see more of ?
Less of ?
Different of ?
Email rebecca.jennings @ vox.com , and subscribe to The Goods ’ newsletter here .
If you or someone you love has recently been forced to know or care about what TikTok is , first of all , I ’ m sorry , this app will take over your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the last time normal people got this riled up about a potential sale of a foreign tech company ?
I certainly can ’ t recall , but underneath all the news — is Trump banning the app ?
Is Microsoft buying it ?
Are the faceless , omnipotent gods at TikTok stealing data ?
— are anxieties about China and , specifically , fears that the US may not be the one setting the ground rules of the internet .
On August 6 , President Trump issued executive orders that would ban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from operating in the US if they were not sold by their respective Chinese parent companies by September 15 .
( In response , TikTok is now suing the Trump administration . )
National security concerns over how the Chinese government could force TikTok to hand over American user data or censor content sensitive to the Communist Party of China have been brewing for more than a year .
Both Microsoft and Twitter have reportedly been in talks to acquire TikTok , though a sale would be incalculably messy : Microsoft isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s trying to buy TikTok in the US , Canada , Australia , and New Zealand , and as my colleague Russell Brandom explains at The Verge , no one has ever split up a social network along regional lines ; it ’ s unclear whether that ’ s even possible .
“ That central problem is much harder than anyone is willing to admit , ” he writes .
Meanwhile , the vultures are swarming .
Last week Instagram launched its long-in-the-works copycat product , Reels , in the US .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
Though Reels is functionally identical to TikTok , it is as of yet unable to recreate the particular joy and originality of its predecessor , and most of the content seems like a sad facsimile of TikTok ’ s most boring memes .
But back to why any of this matters to people who don ’ t otherwise care about viral dances or technology companies .
The best and most clear-headed take on all of this , in my opinion , comes from Sarah Jeong , also writing for The Verge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ play here “ information-nationalism , ” or the idea that to point out a country ’ s failures and human rights abuses is to make it weak ( e.g .
to accurately describe slavery ’ s history in the US is to slander America ) .
The US , she argues , is afraid of TikTok because the country has made it an avatar of the Chinese approach to tech .
The irony here , though , is that there are plenty of reasons to be actively terrified of how US tech companies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data , particularly the information revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013 ; when American politicians extoll the virtues of Silicon Valley while stoking fears about China , it ’ s rather hypocritical .
“ Just like China had tried to use Google to spy on its activists , the National Security Agency had been secretly collecting bulk data from almost every American company you could think of , ” she writes .
“ The federal government has made it harder to see numbers on coronavirus infections .
The president has even said on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him look bad .
The logic behind this is the same logic that drove the Chinese Communist Party to hide the pandemic in Wuhan in the very early days , much to everyone ’ s detriment .
The similarities in their behavior will not stop the president from blaming China for a cover-up — that ’ s exactly how information-nationalism works.
” Even if Instagram Reels takes off , or even if TikTok is turned to dust with the stroke of a pen , it won ’ t matter , because while TikTok @ @ @ @ @ @ @ company to succeed on a truly global level , it likely won ’ t be the last .
If the US believes that this is a problem , information-nationalism isn ’ t the answer .
On TikTok , some memes are funny , many are cringe , and a few are incredibly disgusting ( do not click on that link unless you want to watch videos of people eating cereal with milk out of each other ’ s mouths ) .
But among the worst and most insidious is the prevalence of digital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Black peoples ’ voices or mimic their affectations .
Digital blackface has always been a problem on the internet , and on TikTok , where mimicry is the lingua franca , it ’ s found new fertile ground .
In this month ’ s Wired cover story , Jason Parham explores how TikTok has shaped this evolution , where memes like “ Hot Cheeto Girl ” and audio like Nene Leakes ’ s “ whew chile , the ghetto ” have become fair game for white creators .
Said one woman interviewed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call them out , it ’ s , ‘ Anyone of any race can be a Hot Cheeto Girl.
’ No sweetheart , we know what you ’ re doing .
We know that the Hot Cheeto Girl is just a derivative of the ghetto girl , the hood rat , the Shanaynay that people used to call Black and Latinx women.
” The piece also includes a series of disturbing statements from TikTok creators on the racism they ’ ve experienced on the app , either from fellow users or from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because sign language is read as a “ gang symbol , ” censorship of reactions to racist videos but no action taken on the racist video itself .
It ’ s now common for Black creators to keep a backup account for when their main account eventually gets suspended for some nebulous violation .
Most illuminating in Parham ’ s piece , though , is when he details the importance of seeing images of Black people online , and TikTok , despite its apparent issues , has been a home for many Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what the early days of social media as a Black person were like : “ It wasn ’ t until college , where I spent hours a day clicking through Facebook , feeling connected to a world and the people who made it for what felt like the very first time , that I finally began to articulate what part of me had known since boyhood : that images make us true .
From my laptop screen I gazed out into a kind of Black Universe .
Here were Black people doing what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ barbecue ; hanging out with family members back home , caught mid-laugh .
We posed for the camera every chance we got because we understood , though we never spoke it , that we ’ d exist here — somewhere — forever .
There was air in our lungs , fire in our bones.
” When white people attempt to put on that Blackness for TikTok , this is what they ’ re erasing .
This was a rather depressing newsletter , so please enjoy this incredibly soothing video of a self-proclaimed cottagecore @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The sandwich looks so good !
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Hello from The Goods’ twice-weekly newsletter! On Tuesdays, internet culture reporter Rebecca Jennings uses this space to update you all on what’s been going on in the world of TikTok. Is there something you want to see more of? Less of? Different of? Email rebecca.jennings@vox.com, and subscribe to The Goods’ newsletter here.
If you or someone you love has recently been forced to know or care about what TikTok is, first of all, I’m sorry, this app will take over your life.
Second of all, when was the last time normal people got this riled up about a potential sale of a foreign tech company? I certainly can’t recall, but underneath all the news — is Trump banning the app? Is Microsoft buying it? Are the faceless, omnipotent gods at TikTok stealing data? — are anxieties about China and, specifically, fears that the US may not be the one setting the ground rules of the internet.
On August 6, President Trump issued executive orders that would ban two apps, TikTok and WeChat, from operating in the US if they were not sold by their respective Chinese parent companies by September 15. (In response, TikTok is now suing the Trump administration.) National security concerns over how the Chinese government could force TikTok to hand over American user data or censor content sensitive to the Communist Party of China have been brewing for more than a year.
Both Microsoft and Twitter have reportedly been in talks to acquire TikTok, though a sale would be incalculably messy: Microsoft isn’t trying to buy TikTok, it’s trying to buy TikTok in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and as my colleague Russell Brandom explains at The Verge, no one has ever split up a social network along regional lines; it’s unclear whether that’s even possible. “That central problem is much harder than anyone is willing to admit,” he writes.
Meanwhile, the vultures are swarming. Last week Instagram launched its long-in-the-works copycat product, Reels, in the US. (Snapchat also has a competitor feature.) Though Reels is functionally identical to TikTok, it is as of yet unable to recreate the particular joy and originality of its predecessor, and most of the content seems like a sad facsimile of TikTok’s most boring memes.
But back to why any of this matters to people who don’t otherwise care about viral dances or technology companies. The best and most clear-headed take on all of this, in my opinion, comes from Sarah Jeong, also writing for The Verge. She dubs the central strategy in play here “information-nationalism,” or the idea that to point out a country’s failures and human rights abuses is to make it weak (e.g. to accurately describe slavery’s history in the US is to slander America).
The US, she argues, is afraid of TikTok because the country has made it an avatar of the Chinese approach to tech. The irony here, though, is that there are plenty of reasons to be actively terrified of how US tech companies and its own government use that same data, particularly the information revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013; when American politicians extoll the virtues of Silicon Valley while stoking fears about China, it’s rather hypocritical.
“Just like China had tried to use Google to spy on its activists, the National Security Agency had been secretly collecting bulk data from almost every American company you could think of,” she writes. “The federal government has made it harder to see numbers on coronavirus infections. The president has even said on the record that increased testing will make him look bad. The logic behind this is the same logic that drove the Chinese Communist Party to hide the pandemic in Wuhan in the very early days, much to everyone’s detriment. The similarities in their behavior will not stop the president from blaming China for a cover-up — that’s exactly how information-nationalism works.”
Even if Instagram Reels takes off, or even if TikTok is turned to dust with the stroke of a pen, it won’t matter, because while TikTok may be the first Chinese social media company to succeed on a truly global level, it likely won’t be the last. If the US believes that this is a problem, information-nationalism isn’t the answer.
Meme watch
On TikTok, some memes are funny, many are cringe, and a few are incredibly disgusting (do not click on that link unless you want to watch videos of people eating cereal with milk out of each other’s mouths). But among the worst and most insidious is the prevalence of digital blackface, in which white creators lip-sync to Black peoples’ voices or mimic their affectations. Digital blackface has always been a problem on the internet, and on TikTok, where mimicry is the lingua franca, it’s found new fertile ground.
In this month’s Wired cover story, Jason Parham explores how TikTok has shaped this evolution, where memes like “Hot Cheeto Girl” and audio like Nene Leakes’s “whew chile, the ghetto” have become fair game for white creators. Said one woman interviewed for the story, “When you call them out, it’s, ‘Anyone of any race can be a Hot Cheeto Girl.’ No sweetheart, we know what you’re doing. We know that the Hot Cheeto Girl is just a derivative of the ghetto girl, the hood rat, the Shanaynay that people used to call Black and Latinx women.”
The piece also includes a series of disturbing statements from TikTok creators on the racism they’ve experienced on the app, either from fellow users or from the technology itself — videos get taken down because sign language is read as a “gang symbol,” censorship of reactions to racist videos but no action taken on the racist video itself. It’s now common for Black creators to keep a backup account for when their main account eventually gets suspended for some nebulous violation.
Most illuminating in Parham’s piece, though, is when he details the importance of seeing images of Black people online, and TikTok, despite its apparent issues, has been a home for many Black creators. Here he is talking about what the early days of social media as a Black person were like:
“It wasn’t until college, where I spent hours a day clicking through Facebook, feeling connected to a world and the people who made it for what felt like the very first time, that I finally began to articulate what part of me had known since boyhood: that images make us true. From my laptop screen I gazed out into a kind of Black Universe. Here were Black people doing what we do: playing spades at a barbecue; hanging out with family members back home, caught mid-laugh. We posed for the camera every chance we got because we understood, though we never spoke it, that we’d exist here — somewhere — forever. There was air in our lungs, fire in our bones.” When white people attempt to put on that Blackness for TikTok, this is what they’re erasing.
One Last Thing
This was a rather depressing newsletter, so please enjoy this incredibly soothing video of a self-proclaimed cottagecore lesbian preparing a picnic for her girlfriend. The sandwich looks so good!
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-08-11--The Supreme Court’s enigmatic “shadow docket,” explained

Last week , the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision blocking a lower court ’ s order requiring a California jail to take several steps — such as socially distancing inmates and providing them with “ hand sanitizer containing at least 60 % alcohol ” — to prevent the spread of Covid-19 within the jail .
I have no idea why the Supreme Court would do such a thing , and neither does anyone else who isn ’ t a justice or one of their closest advisers .
The reason for our ignorance is that the five justices in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court ’ s Republicans — didn ’ t bother to explain their decision .
The entirety of the Court ’ s order in Barnes v. Ahlman is a single paragraph of boilerplate language , informing the reader that “ the district court ’ s May 26 , 2020 order granting a preliminary injunction is stayed pending disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition ” of a petition asking the justices to fully review this case .
Hundreds of incarcerated people could become infected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Supreme Court won ’ t even tell us why .
Welcome to the Court ’ s “ shadow docket.
” The term “ shadow docket ” was coined by University of Chicago law professor William Baude in an influential 2015 article .
It refers to “ a range of orders and summary decisions that defy [ the Court ’ s ] normal procedural regularity.
” Often these orders are handed down without any explanation from the majority , or without much advance notice from the Court .
Frequently they are handed down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some of the Supreme Court press corps are already a couple of beers into their weekends .
Because shadow docket cases are often released without a majority opinion explaining the Court ’ s reasoning , they have less impact on legal doctrine than most ordinary decisions .
Judges are bound by the Court ’ s majority opinions , but a lower court judge can ’ t follow an opinion that doesn ’ t exist .
Nevertheless , the stakes in shadow docket cases — which often arise after a party files an emergency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lower court order — can be enormous .
The decision in Barnes endangers the health of thousands of inmates .
Other shadow docket decisions concern billions of dollars .
Or they can effectively lock thousands of immigrants out of the country .
The ideological cast of the shadow docket , moreover , is even more conservative than the Court ’ s regular docket .
Though the Court ’ s recent term featured several high-profile — though often very narrow — victories for liberals , the Court ’ s party-line decision to lift safeguards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is more typical of its shadow docket .
The Trump administration has a particularly high win rate in shadow docket cases .
And it knows it .
It asks the Supreme Court to block lower court orders far more than any recent administration .
The Court , meanwhile , has shifted an increasing share of its output to this often inscrutable shadow docket .
In the past year , Justice Sonia Sotomayor has written several strongly worded dissents warning that her colleagues are bypassing safeguards intended to prevent the Court from handing down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they often do so to benefit the Trump administration .
Her most recent dissent was in Barnes , the jail case .
“ The District Court found that , despite knowing the severe threat posed by COVID–19 and contrary to its own apparent policies , the Jail exposed its inmates to significant risks from a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease , ” Sotomayor wrote .
And yet the Supreme Court “ intervenes , leaving to its own devices a jail that has misrepresented its actions to the District Court and failed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in its care.
” Perhaps there ’ s an explanation for why the Court ’ s Republican majority felt intervention was appropriate .
But if there is one , they aren ’ t telling us .
Because they are decided so quickly and often without explanation , moreover , shadow docket cases will tend to fly under the radar .
But , with so much at stake in many of these cases , they deserve far more attention than they often receive .
Before we jump into the shadow docket , it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordinarily decides cases .
The famous cases that you ’ ve most likely heard of — cases like Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education — reach the Court through a long , drawn-out process that privileges careful decision-making over speed .
Because the Supreme Court has the final word on all questions of federal law , including interpretations of the Constitution , the Court ’ s ordinary procedures call for it to act with great care to avoid making mistakes .
For starters , the justices are extraordinarily selective about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ docket .
In a typical year , lawyers file 7,000 to 8,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari , the formal name for a petition asking the Supreme Court to give full review to a lower court ’ s order .
The Court typically grants fewer than 80 of these “ cert ” petitions .
Once such a petition is granted , the justices spend months pondering the case .
Lawyers on either side of the dispute file lengthy briefs and voluminous collections of documents culled from the case ’ s overall record @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dozens of amicus briefs may be filed on either side of the case as well — leaving the justices and their law clerks with hundreds or even thousands of pages of legal arguments to ponder before reaching a decision .
And all of this typically happens after the case has already received considerable attention from lower court judges .
The Supreme Court ’ s rules warn lawyers that , unless their case presents an unusually “ important question of federal law ” that demands the justices ’ attention , the Court rarely grants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disagreement between two federal courts of appeals , two state supreme courts , or a federal court of appeal and a state supreme court .
Thus , by the time the justices hear a case , the legal question presented by that case has typically been pondered by many lower court judges , and judges who disagree about the proper answer to that question have written their own opinions that the justices can rely on in thinking through the case themselves .
As Peter Margulies , a law professor at Roger Williams University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ view ” among judicial experts is that “ you want that kind of percolation effect.
” When there are “ more eyeballs ” on a legal question before it reaches the justices , the Supreme Court benefits from “ more viewpoints , ” and that tends to lead to better decisions .
There ’ s also a very good reason the Supreme Court ordinarily moves so slowly , and typically spends so much time thinking about cases before handing down an opinion .
There is no higher court that can correct the Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the justices botch a case , that decision could linger forever .
It will bind all future judges who are confronted with similar cases , and can only be overruled by a subsequent Supreme Court decision .
Shadow docket cases receive little of the careful deliberation that goes into the ordinary docket Which brings us to the Court ’ s shadow docket .
Unlike cases on the Court ’ s regular docket , shadow docket cases receive very limited briefings and are rarely , if ever , argued before the justices .
Though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among themselves , they frequently do so on an extraordinarily compressed schedule — leaving far less time for reasoned debate .
That ’ s often true because shadow docket cases frequently arise from emergency requests asking the Court to grant swift and immediate relief , meaning that the justices will only spend days or even hours pondering how to rule on such a request .
Because many of these cases are resolved in brief orders and without a written opinion explaining the majority ’ s reasoning , shadow docket cases often have less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ordinary docket .
Lower court judges are bound by the reasoning memorialized in the Supreme Court ’ s majority opinions , but they can ’ t be bound by an opinion that doesn ’ t exist .
The Court does sometimes hand down majority opinions when it resolves cases on its shadow docket .
To date , for example , the Court ’ s only majority opinion governing the rights of voters who are afraid of contracting Covid-19 if they go to the polls is Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which effectively required Wisconsin to toss out many ballots cast in its election last April , was decided just two days after the GOP requested an emergency order from the Supreme Court .
“ It ’ s hard to imagine that [ the justices ] have the same deliberation or time to think about the varying arguments by each party ” in many shadow docket cases , according to Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia , a professor and associate dean at Penn State Law .
Yet when the Court hands down a majority opinion in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judges still must obey that decision .
When the justices in the majority do not explain their reasoning , a different but also troubling problem arises .
There ’ s a common phrase within the judiciary .
When a judge initially thinks a case should come down one way , but then they start writing their opinion and realize they can ’ t come up with a legally sound argument justifying that outcome , they say that the opinion “ won ’ t write.
” The ordinary requirement that judges explain their decisions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ check on judicial power .
It discourages those judges from ruling in arbitrary ways .
As Margulies told me , “ there are some opinions that just aren ’ t going to work out ” once a justice has taken sufficient time to reason through how to decide the case .
But if the Supreme Court pushes too many of its decisions onto its shadow docket , the justices in the majority may never figure out that their first instinct regarding how to decide a case was flawed .
Cases on the Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ receive a great deal of public scrutiny .
Consider , for example , June Medical Services v. Russo , an abortion decision the Court handed down in June .
Vox covered the Court ’ s decision to hear this case , its oral argument in this case , and its ultimate decision to strike down a Louisiana anti-abortion law as separate and important news events — and that sort of coverage is typical of outlets that cover the Supreme Court .
We also probed the history of June Medical and similar cases .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Court ’ s decision .
And that ’ s just a small fraction of our coverage of this highly newsworthy case .
Shadow docket cases , by contrast , almost never receive this kind of attention .
How could they when they are often decided so quickly that even many veteran Supreme Court journalists do not realize the Court is considering an important case until after a decision is handed down ?
For many of these reasons , the Supreme Court has historically applied a strong presumption against second-guessing lower court judges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s shadow docket .
As Justice Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion in Wolf v. Cook County , one of several recent decisions where she criticized her colleagues for being too eager to stay lower court opinions , “ stay applications force the Court to consider important statutory and constitutional questions that have not been ventilated fully in the lower courts , on abbreviated timetables and without oral argument.
” A Supreme Court order blocking a lower court decision has historically been considered an “ extraordinary ” event , Sotomayor explained .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Trump years .
Since the Court ’ s most recent term began last October , the justices have handed down at least 10 emergency orders decided by a 5-4 vote .
Eight of these shadow docket cases granted full or partial relief to a party seeking to curtail a lower court order .
The Court ’ s shadow docket decisions often have severe consequences for the most vulnerable communities The Court ’ s decision to , again borrowing from Sotomayor ’ s words , lift public health restrictions on a jail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of COVID– 19 in a single week ” is fairly typical of its recent shadow docket decisions .
Though liberals sometimes prevail in these cases , the Court ’ s shadow docket cases far more frequently benefit conservative litigants and conservative causes , at least when the justices divide on the proper outcome .
Of the 10 cases mentioned above , eight were decided along party lines with the Republican justices in the majority .
And these decisions benefit conservatives at the expense of some of the most vulnerable communities subject to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Committee , for example , forced many Wisconsin voters to make a devilish choice — give up their right to vote or risk becoming infected with a potentially deadly disease .
The Court ’ s decision in Dunn v. Ray ( 2019 ) ruled that an Islamic death row inmate could not have his spiritual adviser present at his execution , even though the prison permitted Christian inmates to have a minister present to say last rites .
And then there are the Court ’ s immigration decisions , where the Court has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in cases that arose on its shadow docket .
Among other things , the Court ’ s shadow docket cases reinstated a Trump administration policy restricting low-income immigrants ’ ability to enter the United States .
They permitted Trump to spend billions to build a border wall .
And they reinstated a policy that makes it so difficult for victims of persecution to seek asylum in the United States that , according to Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union ’ s Immigrants ’ Rights Project , that policy has the effect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shot.
” “ When the Supreme Court acts to stay an injunction by the lower courts , ” Wadhia told me , “ it ’ s often at the expense of vulnerable people and , in this case , immigrants.
” Prior to the Trump administration , the Justice Department typically understood that the justices viewed a Supreme Court stay of a lower court order as an extraordinary form of relief , and it rarely applied for such relief as a result .
According to a November 2019 paper by University of Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sixteen years of the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations , the Solicitor General filed a total of eight such applications — averaging one every other Term.
” By contrast , “ in less than three years , [ Trump ’ s ] Solicitor General has filed at least twenty-one applications for stays in the Supreme Court ( including ten during the October 2018 Term alone ) .
” The Supreme Court , meanwhile , has rewarded the Trump Justice Department ’ s behavior .
Vladeck finds that the Trump administration achieved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two-thirds of cases where it seeks to temporarily block a lower court opinion .
What was once extraordinary is now quite ordinary .
The Trump administration , for what it ’ s worth , often argues that Supreme Court intervention is necessary because individual trial judges have handed down an unusual number of nationwide injunctions — orders blocking a federal policy throughout the entire country — since Trump became president .
And there are good reasons to be cautious about such injunctions .
If Joe Biden is president next year , many Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ action taken by the new administration .
But according to Gelernt , there ’ s a good reason why lower courts have so frequently blocked Trump ’ s immigration policies — and why litigators often feel compelled to seek such relief .
“ The reason why there have been more national injunctions in the immigration area , ” he told me , “ is because the Trump administration has enacted so many policies that harm so many people immediately , leaving no choice but to seek immediate national relief.
” It remains to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ equally zealous in policing lower court injunctions once Democrats control the elected branches of government .
For the moment , however , it is hard to escape the impression that the Court is reaching out to do favors for the Trump administration , even if doing so means ignoring rules intended to prevent the Court from deciding cases too rashly .
As Sotomayor wrote in her Wolf dissent , the Court ’ s “ has been all too quick to grant the Government ’ s ‘ reflexiv [ e ] ’ requests , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Trump ’ s lawyers .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
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Last week, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision blocking a lower court’s order requiring a California jail to take several steps — such as socially distancing inmates and providing them with “hand sanitizer containing at least 60% alcohol” — to prevent the spread of Covid-19 within the jail.
I have no idea why the Supreme Court would do such a thing, and neither does anyone else who isn’t a justice or one of their closest advisers.
The reason for our ignorance is that the five justices in the majority — all five of the Court’s Republicans — didn’t bother to explain their decision. The entirety of the Court’s order in Barnes v. Ahlman is a single paragraph of boilerplate language, informing the reader that “the district court’s May 26, 2020 order granting a preliminary injunction is stayed pending disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition” of a petition asking the justices to fully review this case.
Hundreds of incarcerated people could become infected with a potentially deadly disease. And the Supreme Court won’t even tell us why.
Welcome to the Court’s “shadow docket.”
The term “shadow docket” was coined by University of Chicago law professor William Baude in an influential 2015 article. It refers to “a range of orders and summary decisions that defy [the Court’s] normal procedural regularity.” Often these orders are handed down without any explanation from the majority, or without much advance notice from the Court. Frequently they are handed down on Friday evenings, after at least some of the Supreme Court press corps are already a couple of beers into their weekends.
Because shadow docket cases are often released without a majority opinion explaining the Court’s reasoning, they have less impact on legal doctrine than most ordinary decisions. Judges are bound by the Court’s majority opinions, but a lower court judge can’t follow an opinion that doesn’t exist.
Nevertheless, the stakes in shadow docket cases — which often arise after a party files an emergency request asking the Court to block a lower court order — can be enormous. The decision in Barnes endangers the health of thousands of inmates. Other shadow docket decisions concern billions of dollars. Or they can effectively lock thousands of immigrants out of the country.
The ideological cast of the shadow docket, moreover, is even more conservative than the Court’s regular docket. Though the Court’s recent term featured several high-profile — though often very narrow — victories for liberals, the Court’s party-line decision to lift safeguards against spreading Covid-19 within a California jail is more typical of its shadow docket.
The Trump administration has a particularly high win rate in shadow docket cases. And it knows it. It asks the Supreme Court to block lower court orders far more than any recent administration.
The Court, meanwhile, has shifted an increasing share of its output to this often inscrutable shadow docket. In the past year, Justice Sonia Sotomayor has written several strongly worded dissents warning that her colleagues are bypassing safeguards intended to prevent the Court from handing down cursory, insufficiently thought-out decisions — and that they often do so to benefit the Trump administration.
Her most recent dissent was in Barnes, the jail case. “The District Court found that, despite knowing the severe threat posed by COVID–19 and contrary to its own apparent policies, the Jail exposed its inmates to significant risks from a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease,” Sotomayor wrote. And yet the Supreme Court “intervenes, leaving to its own devices a jail that has misrepresented its actions to the District Court and failed to safeguard the health of the inmates in its care.”
Perhaps there’s an explanation for why the Court’s Republican majority felt intervention was appropriate. But if there is one, they aren’t telling us.
Because they are decided so quickly and often without explanation, moreover, shadow docket cases will tend to fly under the radar. But, with so much at stake in many of these cases, they deserve far more attention than they often receive.
The Supreme Court’s normal process for hearing cases, explained
Before we jump into the shadow docket, it’s helpful to understand how the Court ordinarily decides cases. The famous cases that you’ve most likely heard of — cases like Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education — reach the Court through a long, drawn-out process that privileges careful decision-making over speed. Because the Supreme Court has the final word on all questions of federal law, including interpretations of the Constitution, the Court’s ordinary procedures call for it to act with great care to avoid making mistakes.
For starters, the justices are extraordinarily selective about which cases they hear through their ordinary docket. In a typical year, lawyers file 7,000 to 8,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari, the formal name for a petition asking the Supreme Court to give full review to a lower court’s order. The Court typically grants fewer than 80 of these “cert” petitions.
Once such a petition is granted, the justices spend months pondering the case. Lawyers on either side of the dispute file lengthy briefs and voluminous collections of documents culled from the case’s overall record. In the most high-profile cases, dozens of amicus briefs may be filed on either side of the case as well — leaving the justices and their law clerks with hundreds or even thousands of pages of legal arguments to ponder before reaching a decision.
And all of this typically happens after the case has already received considerable attention from lower court judges. The Supreme Court’s rules warn lawyers that, unless their case presents an unusually “important question of federal law” that demands the justices’ attention, the Court rarely grants cert petitions unless necessary to resolve a disagreement between two federal courts of appeals, two state supreme courts, or a federal court of appeal and a state supreme court.
Thus, by the time the justices hear a case, the legal question presented by that case has typically been pondered by many lower court judges, and judges who disagree about the proper answer to that question have written their own opinions that the justices can rely on in thinking through the case themselves.
As Peter Margulies, a law professor at Roger Williams University, told me, the “usual view” among judicial experts is that “you want that kind of percolation effect.” When there are “more eyeballs” on a legal question before it reaches the justices, the Supreme Court benefits from “more viewpoints,” and that tends to lead to better decisions.
There’s also a very good reason the Supreme Court ordinarily moves so slowly, and typically spends so much time thinking about cases before handing down an opinion. There is no higher court that can correct the Supreme Court’s errors, so if the justices botch a case, that decision could linger forever. It will bind all future judges who are confronted with similar cases, and can only be overruled by a subsequent Supreme Court decision.
Shadow docket cases receive little of the careful deliberation that goes into the ordinary docket
Which brings us to the Court’s shadow docket.
Unlike cases on the Court’s regular docket, shadow docket cases receive very limited briefings and are rarely, if ever, argued before the justices. Though the justices will often discuss these cases among themselves, they frequently do so on an extraordinarily compressed schedule — leaving far less time for reasoned debate. That’s often true because shadow docket cases frequently arise from emergency requests asking the Court to grant swift and immediate relief, meaning that the justices will only spend days or even hours pondering how to rule on such a request.
Because many of these cases are resolved in brief orders and without a written opinion explaining the majority’s reasoning, shadow docket cases often have less impact on legal doctrine than cases on the ordinary docket. Lower court judges are bound by the reasoning memorialized in the Supreme Court’s majority opinions, but they can’t be bound by an opinion that doesn’t exist.
The Court does sometimes hand down majority opinions when it resolves cases on its shadow docket. To date, for example, the Court’s only majority opinion governing the rights of voters who are afraid of contracting Covid-19 if they go to the polls is Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee (2020). That decision, which effectively required Wisconsin to toss out many ballots cast in its election last April, was decided just two days after the GOP requested an emergency order from the Supreme Court.
“It’s hard to imagine that [the justices] have the same deliberation or time to think about the varying arguments by each party” in many shadow docket cases, according to Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, a professor and associate dean at Penn State Law. Yet when the Court hands down a majority opinion in a shadow docket case, lower court judges still must obey that decision.
When the justices in the majority do not explain their reasoning, a different but also troubling problem arises.
There’s a common phrase within the judiciary. When a judge initially thinks a case should come down one way, but then they start writing their opinion and realize they can’t come up with a legally sound argument justifying that outcome, they say that the opinion “won’t write.” The ordinary requirement that judges explain their decisions in reasoned opinions can be a tremendous check on judicial power. It discourages those judges from ruling in arbitrary ways.
As Margulies told me, “there are some opinions that just aren’t going to work out” once a justice has taken sufficient time to reason through how to decide the case. But if the Supreme Court pushes too many of its decisions onto its shadow docket, the justices in the majority may never figure out that their first instinct regarding how to decide a case was flawed.
Cases on the Court’s ordinary docket, moreover, receive a great deal of public scrutiny. Consider, for example, June Medical Services v. Russo, an abortion decision the Court handed down in June. Vox covered the Court’s decision to hear this case, its oral argument in this case, and its ultimate decision to strike down a Louisiana anti-abortion law as separate and important news events — and that sort of coverage is typical of outlets that cover the Supreme Court. We also probed the history of June Medical and similar cases. We reported on the political fallout from the Court’s decision. And that’s just a small fraction of our coverage of this highly newsworthy case.
Shadow docket cases, by contrast, almost never receive this kind of attention. How could they when they are often decided so quickly that even many veteran Supreme Court journalists do not realize the Court is considering an important case until after a decision is handed down?
For many of these reasons, the Supreme Court has historically applied a strong presumption against second-guessing lower court judges when a case arrives on the Court’s shadow docket. As Justice Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion in Wolf v. Cook County, one of several recent decisions where she criticized her colleagues for being too eager to stay lower court opinions, “stay applications force the Court to consider important statutory and constitutional questions that have not been ventilated fully in the lower courts, on abbreviated timetables and without oral argument.”
A Supreme Court order blocking a lower court decision has historically been considered an “extraordinary” event, Sotomayor explained. But they’ve become increasingly common in the Trump years.
Since the Court’s most recent term began last October, the justices have handed down at least 10 emergency orders decided by a 5-4 vote. Eight of these shadow docket cases granted full or partial relief to a party seeking to curtail a lower court order.
The Court’s shadow docket decisions often have severe consequences for the most vulnerable communities
The Court’s decision to, again borrowing from Sotomayor’s words, lift public health restrictions on a jail that “recently reported 15 new cases of COVID– 19 in a single week” is fairly typical of its recent shadow docket decisions.
Though liberals sometimes prevail in these cases, the Court’s shadow docket cases far more frequently benefit conservative litigants and conservative causes, at least when the justices divide on the proper outcome. Of the 10 cases mentioned above, eight were decided along party lines with the Republican justices in the majority. And these decisions benefit conservatives at the expense of some of the most vulnerable communities subject to the Court’s jurisdiction.
Republican National Committee, for example, forced many Wisconsin voters to make a devilish choice — give up their right to vote or risk becoming infected with a potentially deadly disease. The Court’s decision in Dunn v. Ray (2019) ruled that an Islamic death row inmate could not have his spiritual adviser present at his execution, even though the prison permitted Christian inmates to have a minister present to say last rites.
And then there are the Court’s immigration decisions, where the Court has repeatedly blocked lower court decisions protecting immigrants in cases that arose on its shadow docket. Among other things, the Court’s shadow docket cases reinstated a Trump administration policy restricting low-income immigrants’ ability to enter the United States. They permitted Trump to spend billions to build a border wall. And they reinstated a policy that makes it so difficult for victims of persecution to seek asylum in the United States that, according to Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, that policy has the effect of “virtually ending asylum at one shot.”
“When the Supreme Court acts to stay an injunction by the lower courts,” Wadhia told me, “it’s often at the expense of vulnerable people and, in this case, immigrants.”
Prior to the Trump administration, the Justice Department typically understood that the justices viewed a Supreme Court stay of a lower court order as an extraordinary form of relief, and it rarely applied for such relief as a result. According to a November 2019 paper by University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck, “during the sixteen years of the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations, the Solicitor General filed a total of eight such applications — averaging one every other Term.”
By contrast, “in less than three years, [Trump’s] Solicitor General has filed at least twenty-one applications for stays in the Supreme Court (including ten during the October 2018 Term alone).”
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has rewarded the Trump Justice Department’s behavior. Vladeck finds that the Trump administration achieved a full or partial victory in about two-thirds of cases where it seeks to temporarily block a lower court opinion. What was once extraordinary is now quite ordinary.
The Trump administration, for what it’s worth, often argues that Supreme Court intervention is necessary because individual trial judges have handed down an unusual number of nationwide injunctions — orders blocking a federal policy throughout the entire country — since Trump became president. And there are good reasons to be cautious about such injunctions. If Joe Biden is president next year, many Republican judges could try to halt literally any action taken by the new administration.
But according to Gelernt, there’s a good reason why lower courts have so frequently blocked Trump’s immigration policies — and why litigators often feel compelled to seek such relief. “The reason why there have been more national injunctions in the immigration area,” he told me, “is because the Trump administration has enacted so many policies that harm so many people immediately, leaving no choice but to seek immediate national relief.”
It remains to be seen whether the Court will be equally zealous in policing lower court injunctions once Democrats control the elected branches of government. For the moment, however, it is hard to escape the impression that the Court is reaching out to do favors for the Trump administration, even if doing so means ignoring rules intended to prevent the Court from deciding cases too rashly.
As Sotomayor wrote in her Wolf dissent, the Court’s “has been all too quick to grant the Government’s ‘reflexiv[e]’ requests,” at least when those requests come from Trump’s lawyers.
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