vox--2020-10-10--Why Covid-19 cases are surging in the UK

After a relatively quiet summer , the United Kingdom is now suffering a new onslaught of Covid-19 .
Where the seven-day rolling average for much of the summer was regularly below 1,000 cases a day , it began increasing in September , and by October 5 , the new average had reached 15,505 .
The counts are complicated by test shortages and changes in the way cases are counted , but it ’ s clear the country is going through a serious second wave .
None of this was supposed to happen .
Last year , before Covid-19 hit , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prepared countries around the world were to prevent new infectious diseases from coming in , detect them if they did , and treat resulting infections .
The UK looked great — it was the second-most prepared country in the world , behind only the US .
Since then , other countries , like Vietnam , Germany , and South Korea , have able to hold their case numbers down .
But the UK government — and several other wealthy countries in Europe — made a series of missteps and lost control .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blow it , not once but twice ?
The missteps were primarily the responsibility of Parliament and its leader , Prime Minister Boris Johnson .
Unlike in the United States , where public health is primarily the responsibility of state and local governments , in the UK most public health directives for England come directly from the prime minister .
( Wales , Scotland , and Northern Ireland get some leeway . )
There are currently no checks and balances in Parliament ; Johnson ’ s Conservative Party has enough members in power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says , goes .
What stands out in the UK response is how uneven it ’ s been , despite being led by someone who tested positive for the virus and wound up in an intensive care unit in London for several days in April , relatively early on in the pandemic .
Here are some of the missteps Johnson ’ s government has made leading to the second spike .
Boris Johnson ’ s plan to help the restaurant industry may have been a public health disaster If you want to stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you do your best to keep uninfected people away from infected people .
On March 20 , as the epidemic was just beginning , the UK government counted 1,254 positive coronavirus tests , and Johnson ordered all restaurants , cafes , and pubs in England closed .
Good so far .
( The other nations in the UK made their own rules . )
On July 4 , with the daily new case count down to 403 , Johnson reopened English pubs and restaurants with no face coverings needed , but with more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limit of two households allowed to dine together .
On July 15 , to the delight of millions of Brits , Johnson took things a step further with a plan to pay people to eat out .
For the plan , dubbed “ Eat Out to Help Out , ” the government paid half of everyone ’ s restaurant bills up to 10 pounds per meal every Monday , Tuesday , and Wednesday in August — for all diners , in groups of any size , as often as people wanted , indoors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ face masks were not required in most eating establishments .
According to Boris Johnson and finance minister Rishi Sunak , the point of the plan was to help save jobs in the restaurant industry .
The public was more than happy to eat on the government ’ s dime and did so 100 million times between August 3 and 31 , at a cost of £522 million ( about $ 694 million ) , per Her Majesty ’ s Revenue and Customs , the IRS of the UK .
The public health community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ In a word , it ’ s nuts , ” says Lawrence Gostin , director of the WHO Center on National and Global Health Law , professor of global health law at Georgetown University , and a research fellow at Oxford University .
“ In the midst of a pandemic , it ’ s actually directly opposite to what the public health evidence suggests.
” The move was made despite evidence available since early in the pandemic that eating indoors , close to others , is a high-risk activity for spreading the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a well-known incident at a restaurant in Guangzhou , China , back in January , when a diner who ’ d just returned from Wuhan infected nine others in a restaurant , at his own table and two tables nearby .
There ’ s also been growing concern about the ability of the virus to travel more than 6 feet from an infected individual .
A report since published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that American adults who got Covid-19 were twice as likely to have eaten out as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gotten the virus .
No studies have yet been published in the medical literature definitively linking the rise in UK cases beginning in early September to the increased visits to restaurants throughout August .
But it ’ s hard to think otherwise .
Toby Phillips , a public policy research at Oxford University , looked at how many more people ate out , and how many more cases there have been , and concluded in The Conversation that the increased number of cases in early September “ is consistent with ” the restaurant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regions , there is a loose correlation between uptake of the scheme and new cases in the last weeks of August , ” he wrote .
“ Again , this isn ’ t to say that the scheme caused those cases .
But it certainly didn ’ t discourage those people from going out.
” To Devi Shridhar , a professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland , Johnson was being business-friendly and actively playing to his base .
“ People loved it .
And he was celebrated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Three weeks after the “ Eat Out to Help Out ” program ended , as the incidence of Covid-19 took off , Johnson limited restaurant and pub hours .
“ Now these restaurants and the hospitality industry are being hit by curfews and restrictions , ” says Shridhar .
“ So , it ’ s like one step forward , five steps backward.
” Even Johnson himself recently acknowledged that his plan might have , in part , fueled the new wave of cases across the country .
At the same time , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has happened since the pandemic began.
” The government has fumbled on PPE , testing , and contact tracing In October 2016 , UK government departments and local authorities gamed out a detailed disaster scenario , called Cygnus , in which a hypothetical new and voracious influenza virus came in from southeast Asia .
While the government has yet to release the results of Cygnus , British newspapers reported that the simulation showed there was a shortage of ventilators and critical care beds , a serious lack of personal protective equipment ( PPE @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the government scored poorly in its ability to communicate with the public .
An unnamed former government official told the Telegraph newspaper that the simulation had results “ too terrifying ” to reveal .
Indeed , there was a severe shortage of personal protective equipment for NHS staff during the first Covid-19 spike in the spring , with health care workers appealing to the public for donations of masks and other equipment .
The British media were quick to publish photos of health workers wearing garbage bags and home-made masks .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s health care providers hard .
Amnesty International reported that by September 3 , near the start of the second peak , 649 health workers in the UK had died of Covid-19 , putting it third in the world for coronavirus-related health care worker deaths , behind only Mexico and the US .
That ’ s left a smaller — and rattled — workforce to deal with the second spike .
The government has promised that it ’ s now set with PPE , and this time around there seem to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ testing and contact tracing — thought by many epidemiologists to be key , along with face masks and isolation , to controlling the pandemic — remain fraught .
The National Health Service has been offering free testing to people with symptoms and for all NHS workers , as well as some others throughout the pandemic .
Shortages were the norm early on , which became an issue for health care workers .
One of Johnson ’ s top ministers announced March 31 that there was a shortage of chemical reagents needed for testing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News the same day that the problem was not at their end .
The government canceled an early initial contact tracing effort on March 12 ; some of Johnson ’ s science advisers thought there were too many cases to trace .
Then the number of cases and deaths soared , and the government started a new program in April .
It has not gone smoothly .
Work on a contact-tracing phone app , a strategy that has been attributed to helping other countries such as South Korea keep the virus under control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in June , before it was ever broadly rolled out , due to issues integrating it effectively with major phone operating systems .
When the phone app was revived on September 24 , it at first failed to pick up data on who was infected .
Much of the test-and-trace work has been farmed out in no-bid contracts to private companies , which has sparked accusations of profiteering .
Sridhar points to the Conservative government for following a long history of privatizing government services .
“ They ’ re trying to get contracts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she says .
In September after the BMJ reported that the government had a secret £100 billion ( $ 129 billion ) plan to do 10 million tests a day ( some with tests not yet on the market ) by early next year , critics immediately criticized the idea , saying it disregards the enormous current problems with testing .
On September 10 plan , when the health secretary announced it in the House of Commons , it was met with laughter .
“ Operation Moonshot ” would extend testing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are only supposed to ask for tests if they have symptoms or are asked to by a contact tracer .
That in itself is problematic since asymptomatic or presymptomatic people with known exposures may be infected and can spread the virus without knowing it .
Then , in early October , Public Health England ( PHE ) admitted that because of an IT error , data from nearly 16,000 people who ’ d tested positive between September 25 and October 2 were left out of the UK ’ s daily count .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , meaning that people who were exposed to virus-positive contacts did not know to self-isolate , and so potentially infected people continued their normal lives for days .
Once again , and in this time in the middle of a spike , the government missed a chance to stem the tide .
Is the UK learning from its mistakes ?
Despite all of these failures , the UK government is still not setting itself up for future success .
For example , it is axing Public Health England , which in addition to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public health research and formulates recommendations on everything from smoking to obesity to poverty — all conditions that may leave people more vulnerable to Covid-19 .
On August 18 , the government announced PHE would be folded into a new agency called the National Institute for Health Protection ( NIHP ) by next spring .
The NIHP is currently charged with focusing on the Covid-19 pandemic , leaving PHE ’ s other disease-prevention functions “ to be discussed.
” “ It is on one level inexplicable , at another level perfectly understandable , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ European health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine .
The inexplicable part is gutting a public health agency in the middle of a pandemic — even one that has made mistakes — while the understandable part is that Johnson ’ s top political adviser , Dominic Cummings , has a history of abrupt changes .
“ He has this view of creative destruction , ” says McKee .
“ The idea would be that you shake everything up and something good might come out of it.
” In the meantime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case counts 15 times what they were this summer — and a potentially long and difficult winter ahead .
Even Prime Minister Johnson is not optimistic .
On the BBC ’ s Andrew Marr show on October 5 , Johnson predicted “ it will continue to be bumpy through to Christmas and may even be bumpy beyond.
” Many blame the uneven reaction to the new coronavirus — and many of the UK ’ s more-than 42,500 Covid-19 deaths — on Johnson ’ s hot-again , cold-again belief in the seriousness of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ businesses , and a system that gives him unquestioned power to guide the government response .
“ You can have the best health system in the world , ” Gostin says .
“ You can have the most expert scientists in the world as the UK has .
But if you don ’ t have a leader that can effectively implement good policy and effectively communicate the importance of risk avoidance behaviors , you ’ re finished.
” Joanne Silberner is a freelance journalist who has been reporting on health policy and medicine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If you have already contributed , thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world : Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

After a relatively quiet summer, the United Kingdom is now suffering a new onslaught of Covid-19. Where the seven-day rolling average for much of the summer was regularly below 1,000 cases a day, it began increasing in September, and by October 5, the new average had reached 15,505. The counts are complicated by test shortages and changes in the way cases are counted, but it’s clear the country is going through a serious second wave.
None of this was supposed to happen.
Last year, before Covid-19 hit, the Global Health Security Index judged the preparedness of countries around the world to prevent new infectious diseases from coming in, detect them if they did, and treat resulting infections. The UK looked great — it was the second-most prepared country in the world, behind only the US.
Since then, other countries, like Vietnam, Germany, and South Korea, have been able to hold their Covid-19 case numbers down. But the UK government — and several other wealthy countries in Europe — made a series of missteps and lost control.
So how did such a seemingly well-prepared country blow it, not once but twice?
The missteps were primarily the responsibility of Parliament and its leader, Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Unlike in the United States, where public health is primarily the responsibility of state and local governments, in the UK most public health directives for England come directly from the prime minister. (Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland get some leeway.)
There are currently no checks and balances in Parliament; Johnson’s Conservative Party has enough members in power to ensure that what the prime minister says, goes.
What stands out in the UK response is its unevenness, despite being led by someone who tested positive for the virus and wound up in an intensive care unit in London for several days in April, relatively early on in the pandemic.
Here are some of the missteps Johnson’s government has made leading to the second spike.
Boris Johnson’s plan to help the restaurant industry may have been a public health disaster
If you want to stop the spread of an infectious disease, you do your best to keep uninfected people away from infected people. On March 20, as the epidemic was just beginning, the UK government counted 1,254 positive coronavirus tests, and Johnson ordered all cafés, restaurants, and pubs in England closed. Good so far. (The other nations in the UK made their own rules.)
On July 4, with the daily new case count down to 403, Johnson reopened English pubs and restaurants with no face coverings needed, but with more hand-washing and ventilation required, and a limit of two households allowed to dine together. On July 15, to the delight of millions of Brits, Johnson took things a step further with a plan to pay people to eat out.
For the plan, dubbed “Eat Out to Help Out,” the government paid half of everyone’s restaurant bills up to 10 pounds (roughly $13) per meal every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in August — for all diners, in groups of any size, as often as people wanted, indoors or out. At the time, face masks were not required in most eating establishments. According to Johnson and UK Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, the point of the plan was to help save jobs in the restaurant industry.
The public was more than happy to eat on the government’s dime, and it did so 100 million times between August 3 and 31, to the tune of of £522 million (about $694 million), per Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the IRS of the UK.
The public health community reacted to the plan with horror. “In a word, it’s nuts,” says Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Center on National and Global Health Law, professor of global health law at Georgetown University, and a research fellow at Oxford University. “In the midst of a pandemic, it’s actually directly opposite to what the public health evidence suggests.”
The move was made despite evidence available since early in the pandemic that eating indoors, close to others, is a high-risk activity for spreading the virus. For example, there was a well-known incident at a restaurant in Guangzhou, China, back in January, when a diner who’d just returned from Wuhan infected nine others in a restaurant, at his own table and two tables nearby. There’s also been growing concern about the ability of the virus to travel more than 6 feet from an infected individual. A report since published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that American adults who got Covid-19 were twice as likely to have dined out compared with members of a control group who hadn’t gotten the virus.
There are no currently published medical studies definitively linking the rise in UK cases beginning in early September to the increased visits to restaurants throughout August. But it’s hard to think otherwise.
Toby Phillips, head of research and policy at Oxford University’s Pathways for Prosperity Commission, looked at how many more people dined out and how many more cases there have been, and concluded that the increased number of cases in early September “is consistent with” the restaurant program.
“Looking at the English regions, there is a loose correlation between uptake of the scheme and new cases in the last weeks of August,” Phillips wrote in the Conversation. “Again, this isn’t to say that the scheme caused those cases. But it certainly didn’t discourage those people from going out.”
To Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Johnson was being business-friendly and actively playing to his base. “People loved it. And he was celebrated for it,” she says.
Three weeks after the “Eat Out to Help Out” program ended, Johnson limited restaurant and pub hours as Covid-19 infections took off. “Now these restaurants and the hospitality industry are being hit by curfews and restrictions,” says Sridhar. “So, it’s like one step forward, five steps backward.”
Even Johnson himself recently acknowledged that his plan might have played a role in fueling the new wave of cases across the country. At the same time, he took responsibility “for everything that has happened since the pandemic began.”
The government has fumbled on PPE, testing, and contact tracing
In October 2016, the UK government and local authorities gamed out a detailed disaster scenario called Cygnus, in which a hypothetical new and voracious influenza virus came in from Southeast Asia. Although the government has yet to publicly release the results, British newspapers reported that the Cygnus simulation showed a shortage of ventilators and critical care beds and a serious lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) for National Health Service (NHS) employees. The government reportedly scored poorly in its ability to communicate with the public. An unnamed former government official told the Telegraph that the simulation had results “too terrifying” to reveal.
Indeed, there was a severe shortage of PPE for NHS staff during the first Covid-19 spike in the spring, with health care workers appealing to the public for donations of masks and other equipment. The British media was quick to publish photos of health workers wearing garbage bags and homemade masks.
The toll of improper preparation hit the UK’s health care providers hard. Amnesty International reported that by September 3, near the start of the second peak, 649 health workers in the UK had died of Covid-19, putting it third in the world for coronavirus-related health care worker deaths, behind only Mexico and the US. That’s left a smaller — and rattled — workforce to deal with the second spike.
The government has promised that it’s now set with PPE, and this time around there seem to be fewer complaints. By contrast, both testing and contact tracing — thought by many epidemiologists to be key, along with face masks and isolation, to controlling the pandemic — remain fraught.
The National Health Service has been offering free testing to people with symptoms and for all NHS workers, as well as some others throughout the pandemic. Shortages were the norm early on, which became an issue for health care workers. One of Johnson’s top ministers announced March 31 that there was a shortage of chemical reagents needed for testing; the Chemical Industries Association told ITV News the same day that the problem was not at their end.
The government canceled an early initial contact tracing effort on March 12; some of Johnson’s science advisers thought there were too many cases to trace. Then the number of cases and deaths soared, and the government started a new program in April. It has not gone smoothly.
Work on a contact-tracing phone app, a strategy that has been credited with helping other countries, such as South Korea, keep the virus under control, was started in March. But that work stopped in June, before it was ever broadly rolled out, due to issues integrating it effectively with major phone operating systems. When the phone app was revived on September 24, it at first failed to pick up data on who was infected.
Much of the test-and-trace work has been farmed out in no-bid contracts to private companies, which has sparked accusations of profiteering. Sridhar points to the Conservative government for following a long history of privatizing government services. “They’re trying to get contracts for companies rather than improving public health,” she says.
In September, after the BMJ reported that the government had a secret £100 billion ($129 billion) plan called “Operation Moonshot” to do 10 million tests a day (some with tests not yet on the market) by early next year, critics immediately criticized the idea, saying it disregards the enormous current problems with testing. On September 10, when the health secretary announced the plan in the House of Commons, it was met with laughter by disbelieving members of Parliament. Operation Moonshot would extend testing to everyone — at the moment people are only supposed to ask for tests if they have symptoms or are asked to by a contact tracer. That in itself is problematic since asymptomatic or presymptomatic people with known exposures may be infected and can spread the virus without knowing it.
Then, in early October, Public Health England (PHE) admitted that because of an IT error, data from nearly 16,000 people who’d tested positive between September 25 and October 2 were left out of the UK’s daily count. This means their contacts were not immediately informed, so people who were exposed to virus-positive contacts did not know to self-isolate, and potentially infected people continued their normal lives for days. Once again, and in this time in the middle of a spike, the government missed a chance to stem the tide.
Is the UK learning from its mistakes?
Despite all of these failures, the UK government is still not setting itself up for future success. For example, it is axing Public Health England, which in addition to its involvement in testing, also conducts public health research and formulates recommendations on everything from smoking to obesity to poverty — all conditions that may leave people more vulnerable to Covid-19.
On August 18, the government announced PHE would be folded into a new agency called the National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP) by next spring. The NIHP is currently charged with focusing on the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving PHE’s other disease-prevention functions “to be discussed.”
“It is on one level inexplicable, at another level perfectly understandable,” says Martin McKee, professor of European health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The inexplicable part is gutting a public health agency in the middle of a pandemic — even one that has made mistakes — while the understandable part is that Johnson’s top political adviser, Dominic Cummings, has a history of abrupt changes. “He has this view of creative destruction,” says McKee. “The idea would be that you shake everything up and something good might come out of it.”
In the meantime, the UK is facing new daily case counts 15 times what they were this summer — and a potentially long and difficult winter ahead. Even Prime Minister Johnson is not optimistic. On the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show on October 5, Johnson predicted “it will continue to be bumpy through to Christmas and may even be bumpy beyond.”
Many blame the uneven reaction to the new coronavirus — and many of the UK’s more-than 42,500 Covid-19 deaths — on Johnson’s hot-again, cold-again belief in the seriousness of the pandemic, his interest in helping out businesses, and a system that gives him unquestioned power to guide the government response.
“You can have the best health system in the world,” Gostin says. “You can have the most expert scientists in the world as the UK has. But if you don’t have a leader that can effectively implement good policy and effectively communicate the importance of risk avoidance behaviors, you’re finished.”
Joanne Silberner is a freelance journalist who has been reporting on health policy and medicine since the early days of HIV.
ntribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-10-10--Trump’s latest White House event put some of the nation’s most vulnerable people at risk

At his first public event since being diagnosed with Covid-19 , President Donald Trump spoke to hundreds of supporters on the South Lawn of the White House , giving a speech meant to honor law enforcement officials at a time when Black Lives Matter activists are calling to defund the police .
The crowd was primarily made up of Black and brown people invited by Blexit , an organization that seeks to move Black voters away from the Democratic Party , and Trump used their presence to both salute their politics and attack his Democratic rivals .
“ Every day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ behind left wing politicians and their failed ideology , ” the president said during his address .
“ And they ’ re embracing our pro-jobs , pro-worker , pro-police — we want law and order , we have to have law and order — and pro-American agenda.
” While this isn ’ t exactly true , Trump does enjoy some support among Black and brown voters — particularly among men .
A recent analysis from FiveThirtyEight found that Black and Hispanic voters who backed Trump in 2016 are largely still with him , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic .
Trump won just 8 percent of African American voters in 2016 , and appears to have about 10 percent support in the weeks leading up to the election .
Despite this modest gain , the president remains deeply unpopular with the group , making his appeal to them “ a game of inches , ” as the New York Times ’ s Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni have written — and making his ability to win new Black voters in key races unclear .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brandon Tatum are adamant Black Americans want to leave what Owens has characterized as “ the Democrat plantation.
” Overall , the Blexit movement presents itself as wanting to “ change the narrative that surrounds America ’ s minority communities ” by advocating for school choice , criminal justice reform , and entrepreneurship , among other goals .
And these themes were on display not just at the Trump event , but at the Blexit rally that proceeded it .
Held near the White House on the National Mall , the rally featured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black conservative talk radio host Larry Elder about how oppression isn ’ t real , how Black people must take accountability for their actions , and how police officers are allies .
“ Today is about making sure that we make some noise to support our police officers in America , ” Owens said .
“ When you remove police officers the thugs stand up.
” Following these remarks , the crowd moved to the White House .
They were required to wear Blexit apparel — bright blue tops that said “ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Blexit backs the Blue ” on the back — and to have masks , but reportedly were not required to wear them .
There , Trump delivered a campaign-style speech that honored police and that contained his pitch to Black and brown voters .
“ We call this a peaceful protest at the White House in support of the incredible men and women of law enforcement , ” Trump said , later adding , “ It ’ s a dangerous profession and they ’ ve been doing an incredible job.
” Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lives Matter protests as violent , focusing on looting , which a study from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project found took place at fewer than 10 percent of demonstrations .
“ The homes and churches and businesses of Black and Hispanic Americans have been looted .
...
They ’ ve been vandalized and burned by left wing fanatics , ” Trump said .
Black and Brown people have been hit the hardest by the coronavirus .
The event likely posed a serious threat to the health of attendees .
Though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black and brown supporters standing below him on the lawn , that he hosted the event at all , suggests he has little concern for their well-being .
From the onset , Covid-19 has disproportionately impacted Black and brown communities .
Analysis by the nonpartisan study group APM Research Lab shows that 1 in 1,000 Black Americans have already died from Covid-19 .
According to the CDC , the coronavirus death toll is twice as high for Hispanic , Black , and Native American adults under age 65 as for whites — and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of coronavirus deaths of people under 21 .
Any crowd risks spreading the coronavirus .
But a crowd like the one at the White House — made up of Black and brown people , some of whom had traveled to participate , with intermittent mask usage — risks further spreading Covid-19 among the population it has hit the hardest , and the population it is most likely to kill .
Yet on Saturday , Owens claimed that “ Black Americans , Latino Americans , minority Americans are dying because the media is lying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus as onlookers stood shoulder-to-shoulder wearing “ Make America Great Again ” hats , some of them without masks .
Similarly , Trump also ignored the impact of the coronavirus on the people standing before him , saying , “ Our nation ’ s going to defeat this terrible China virus as we call it ... through the power of the American spirit , I think , more than anything else .
Science , medicine will eradicate the China virus once and for all.
” Despite Trump ’ s optimism and faith in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warn that because of Trump ’ s inaction and with states rolling back restrictions , a coronavirus surge is likely in the fall and winter , with cases already trending up since mid-September .
And should this next surge be like the last few , the brunt of it will be borne by Black and brown Americans .
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At his first public event since being diagnosed with Covid-19, President Donald Trump spoke to hundreds of supporters on the South Lawn of the White House, giving a speech meant to honor law enforcement officials at a time when Black Lives Matter activists are calling to defund the police.
The crowd was primarily made up of Black and brown people invited by Blexit, an organization that seeks to move Black voters away from the Democratic Party, and Trump used their presence to both salute their politics and attack his Democratic rivals.
“Every day more Black and Latino Americans are leaving behind left wing politicians and their failed ideology,” the president said during his address. “And they’re embracing our pro-jobs, pro-worker, pro-police — we want law and order, we have to have law and order — and pro-American agenda.”
While this isn’t exactly true, Trump does enjoy some support among Black and brown voters — particularly among men.
A recent analysis from FiveThirtyEight found that Black and Hispanic voters who backed Trump in 2016 are largely still with him, despite the poor ratings the president has received for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump won just 8 percent of African American voters in 2016, and appears to have about 10 percent support in the weeks leading up to the election. Despite this modest gain, the president remains deeply unpopular with the group, making his appeal to them “a game of inches,” as the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni have written — and making his ability to win new Black voters in key races unclear.
Nevertheless, Blexit cofounders Candace Owens and Brandon Tatum are adamant Black Americans want to leave what Owens has characterized as “the Democrat plantation.”
Overall, the Blexit movement presents itself as wanting to “change the narrative that surrounds America’s minority communities” by advocating for school choice, criminal justice reform, and entrepreneurship, among other goals. And these themes were on display not just at the Trump event, but at the Blexit rally that proceeded it.
Held near the White House on the National Mall, the rally featured speeches from Owens, Tatum, and Black conservative talk radio host Larry Elder about how oppression isn’t real, how Black people must take accountability for their actions, and how police officers are allies.
“Today is about making sure that we make some noise to support our police officers in America,” Owens said. “When you remove police officers the thugs stand up.”
The #Blexit event in DC starting off right with the pledge of allegiance.
pic.twitter.com/tZQdZHlmMj — Essential Fleccas (@fleccas) October 10, 2020
Following these remarks, the crowd moved to the White House. They were required to wear Blexit apparel — bright blue tops that said “We the Free” on the front and “Blexit backs the Blue” on the back — and to have masks, but reportedly were not required to wear them.
There, Trump delivered a campaign-style speech that honored police and that contained his pitch to Black and brown voters.
“We call this a peaceful protest at the White House in support of the incredible men and women of law enforcement,” Trump said, later adding, “It’s a dangerous profession and they’ve been doing an incredible job.”
Supports on the South Lawn wait for @realDonaldTrump to makes remarks. pic.twitter.com/zfQ4Zp3To2 — Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) October 10, 2020
Trump also took an opportunity to characterize Black Lives Matter protests as violent, focusing on looting, which a study from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project found took place at fewer than 10 percent of demonstrations. “The homes and churches and businesses of Black and Hispanic Americans have been looted. ... They’ve been vandalized and burned by left wing fanatics,” Trump said.
Black and Brown people have been hit the hardest by the coronavirus. The event likely posed a serious threat to the health of attendees.
Though Trump expressed enthusiasm and gratitude for the Black and brown supporters standing below him on the lawn, that he hosted the event at all, suggests he has little concern for their well-being.
From the onset, Covid-19 has disproportionately impacted Black and brown communities. Analysis by the nonpartisan study group APM Research Lab shows that 1 in 1,000 Black Americans have already died from Covid-19. According to the CDC, the coronavirus death toll is twice as high for Hispanic, Black, and Native American adults under age 65 as for whites — and children of color make up 75 percent of coronavirus deaths of people under 21.
Any crowd risks spreading the coronavirus. But a crowd like the one at the White House — made up of Black and brown people, some of whom had traveled to participate, with intermittent mask usage — risks further spreading Covid-19 among the population it has hit the hardest, and the population it is most likely to kill.
Yet on Saturday, Owens claimed that “Black Americans, Latino Americans, minority Americans are dying because the media is lying,” and did not acknowledge the coronavirus as onlookers stood shoulder-to-shoulder wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, some of them without masks.
Similarly, Trump also ignored the impact of the coronavirus on the people standing before him, saying, “Our nation’s going to defeat this terrible China virus as we call it ... through the power of the American spirit, I think, more than anything else. Science, medicine will eradicate the China virus once and for all.”
Despite Trump’s optimism and faith in the “American spirit,” experts warn that because of Trump’s inaction and with states rolling back restrictions, a coronavirus surge is likely in the fall and winter, with cases already trending up since mid-September. And should this next surge be like the last few, the brunt of it will be borne by Black and brown Americans.


vox--2020-10-10--Trump used his first speech post-hospitalization to make a pitch to Black voters

President Donald Trump used his first public speech following his hospitalization for Covid-19 to deliver a pitch to Black and Latinx voters .
In a speech delivered from a balcony overlooking the White House South Lawn , the president repeatedly touted his support for law enforcement and for investment in Black businesses in a 15-minute speech .
The speech was given Saturday afternoon to approximately 400 supporters affiliated with conservative activist Candace Owens ’ Blexit group , which Owens has said is made up of Black Americans who have moved away from the Democratic Party .
While it was labeled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign staff involved to avoid violating the Hatch Act — which bans certain political activity by federal employees — the address was very much a campaign speech .
The president began his remarks by saying , “ We ’ ve got to vote these people [ Democrats ] into oblivion.
” And Trump also claimed that he , not Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden , has the social and economic concerns of Black Americans at heart .
“ You understand that to protect the lives of Black Americans , and all Americans , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump said .
“ Democrats have run nearly every inner city in America , and I mean for 100 years , and their policies have delivered nothing but calamity , poverty , and trouble .
Sleepy Joe Biden ’ s betrayed Black and Latino Americans.
” Beyond these sorts of attacks against his electoral opponent , Trump also touted his “ Platinum Plan ” for investing in Black-owned businesses .
The plan , which was announced in September , would direct up to $ 40 billion in federal funds into the private sector @ @ @ @ @ @ @ businesses .
In trumpeting his achievements , Trump did not mention setbacks Black and Latinx Americans have met in recent months , largely due to his failure to contain the coronavirus .
Rather than laying out a plan to boost Black and Latinx unemployment , for instance , which reached pandemic highs at 16.8 and 17.6 percent , respectively — and which have improved at a slower rate than white unemployment — Trump said , “ Last year , Black and Hispanic American poverty reached the lowest ever in the history of our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back up so quickly.
” Overall , Trump said , as he often incorrectly does , “ The fact is that I ’ ve done more for the black community than any president since Abraham Lincoln .
I say it .
Nobody can dispute it.
” Historically , Black voters have broken heavily for Democrats , and that trend is likely to continue again this year .
According to a recent Pew Research poll of US adults taken from September 30 to October 5 , Biden leads Trump among Black voters by 81 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clinton ’ s in 2016 .
Trump has made some small inroads with Black and Latinx men , though whether those margins are enough to give the president victory in swing states remains to be seen .
The usually verbose Trump kept his remarks brief — to just 15 minutes — which could be a result of his recovery from Covid-19 after being released from Walter Reed Medical Center earlier this week .
While the event was outdoors and supporters were required to wear masks to be admitted to the event , there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with supporters listening to Trump in close proximity to one another , and repeatedly shouting and cheering — activities known to increase the risk of virus spread .
Trump has refused to say if he ’ s had a negative Covid-19 test since his initial diagnosis , and was far more than 6 feet away from the crowd .
He was cleared to participate in public events beginning on Saturday by White House physician Dr. Sean Conley , who worked to assuage concerns Trump may still be infectious on Thursday .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s diagnosis , and based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting , I fully anticipate the president ’ s safe return to public engagements at that time , ” Conley said .
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) recommends an infected person isolate for at least 10 days before engaging with other people .
But the CDC also suggests that Covid-19 patients who have been hospitalized or who needed external oxygen — both criteria that apply to Trump — isolate for a total @ @ @ @ @ @ @ symptoms to ensure they are no longer infectious .
Conley ’ s assessments of the president ’ s health have been called into question before ; he made misleading statements last week about Trump ’ s need for oxygen , later saying he misspoke .
However , even if Trump is now well enough to participate in rallies , attendees may not be .
Guests at Saturday ’ s event were required to wear a face mask to enter the White House grounds , but were not required to wear it once inside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also reportedly had their temperature taken and completed a symptom questionnaire .
This sort of screening is limited in its effectiveness .
For one , it misses asymptomatic people ; for another , as Vox ’ s Brian Resnick has explained , scientists are still working to understand both when an infected person can begin to spread the coronavirus and whether infectious people can have negative test results .
All this is to say that there may be infectious people in the crowd despite these precautions .
Photos from the event suggest some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provide some protection even in scenarios with poorer ventilation than Saturday ’ s event .
But not all attendees appeared to be masked .
And evidence suggests the event ’ s outdoor venue won ’ t necessarily prevent it from becoming another White House superspreader event , like the recent reception for Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett , which appeared to result in the infection of numerous lawmakers and Trump associates .
Similarly , an outdoor Trump rally in Minnesota last month resulted in at least nine infections and two hospitalizations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggest that neither Trump nor anyone else in the White House have learned any lessons from that rally , or from the Barrett event .
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President Donald Trump used his first public speech following his hospitalization for Covid-19 to deliver a pitch to Black and Latinx voters. In a speech delivered from a balcony overlooking the White House South Lawn, the president repeatedly touted his support for law enforcement and for investment in Black businesses in a 15-minute speech.
The speech was given Saturday afternoon to approximately 400 supporters affiliated with conservative activist Candace Owens’ Blexit group, which Owens has said is made up of Black Americans who have moved away from the Democratic Party.
While it was labeled an official White House function with no campaign staff involved to avoid violating the Hatch Act — which bans certain political activity by federal employees — the address was very much a campaign speech. The president began his remarks by saying, “We’ve got to vote these people [Democrats] into oblivion.”
Trump begins his first post-coronavirus diagnosis speech by telling his adoring fans at the White House, "we gotta vote these people into oblivion. Into oblivion. Gotta get rid of 'em. So bad for our country." pic.twitter.com/RtH7O8jYY7 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 10, 2020
And Trump also claimed that he, not Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, has the social and economic concerns of Black Americans at heart.
“You understand that to protect the lives of Black Americans, and all Americans, we must support our police,” Trump said. “Democrats have run nearly every inner city in America, and I mean for 100 years, and their policies have delivered nothing but calamity, poverty, and trouble. Sleepy Joe Biden’s betrayed Black and Latino Americans.”
Beyond these sorts of attacks against his electoral opponent, Trump also touted his “Platinum Plan” for investing in Black-owned businesses. The plan, which was announced in September, would direct up to $40 billion in federal funds into the private sector in hopes of boosting lending to Black-owned businesses.
In trumpeting his achievements, Trump did not mention setbacks Black and Latinx Americans have met in recent months, largely due to his failure to contain the coronavirus. Rather than laying out a plan to boost Black and Latinx unemployment, for instance, which reached pandemic highs at 16.8 and 17.6 percent, respectively — and which have improved at a slower rate than white unemployment — Trump said, “Last year, Black and Hispanic American poverty reached the lowest ever in the history of our country. It’s all building back up so quickly.”
Overall, Trump said, as he often incorrectly does, “The fact is that I’ve done more for the black community than any president since Abraham Lincoln. I say it. Nobody can dispute it.”
"I have done more for the black community than any president since Abraham Lincoln. Nobody can dispute it. Nobody can dispute it. Nobody can dispute it." -- Trump's material is unchanged pic.twitter.com/E8EnpYhuOi — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 10, 2020
Historically, Black voters have broken heavily for Democrats, and that trend is likely to continue again this year. According to a recent Pew Research poll of US adults taken from September 30 to October 5, Biden leads Trump among Black voters by 81 percent, a similar lead to Hillary Clinton’s in 2016. Trump has made some small inroads with Black and Latinx men, though whether those margins are enough to give the president victory in swing states remains to be seen.
The event created a public health risk
The usually verbose Trump kept his remarks brief — to just 15 minutes — which could be a result of his recovery from Covid-19 after being released from Walter Reed Medical Center earlier this week.
While the event was outdoors and supporters were required to wear masks to be admitted to the event, there appeared to be little enforced social distancing, with supporters listening to Trump in close proximity to one another, and repeatedly shouting and cheering — activities known to increase the risk of virus spread.
Trump has refused to say if he’s had a negative Covid-19 test since his initial diagnosis, and was far more than 6 feet away from the crowd. He was cleared to participate in public events beginning on Saturday by White House physician Dr. Sean Conley, who worked to assuage concerns Trump may still be infectious on Thursday.
“Saturday will be day 10 since Thursday’s diagnosis, and based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting, I fully anticipate the president’s safe return to public engagements at that time,” Conley said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends an infected person isolate for at least 10 days before engaging with other people. But the CDC also suggests that Covid-19 patients who have been hospitalized or who needed external oxygen — both criteria that apply to Trump — isolate for a total of 20 days after the onset of symptoms to ensure they are no longer infectious.
Conley’s assessments of the president’s health have been called into question before; he made misleading statements last week about Trump’s need for oxygen, later saying he misspoke. However, even if Trump is now well enough to participate in rallies, attendees may not be.
Guests at Saturday’s event were required to wear a face mask to enter the White House grounds, but were not required to wear it once inside, according to ABC News. Guests also reportedly had their temperature taken and completed a symptom questionnaire.
This sort of screening is limited in its effectiveness. For one, it misses asymptomatic people; for another, as Vox’s Brian Resnick has explained, scientists are still working to understand both when an infected person can begin to spread the coronavirus and whether infectious people can have negative test results.
All this is to say that there may be infectious people in the crowd despite these precautions. Photos from the event suggest some attendees were wearing masks, which can provide some protection even in scenarios with poorer ventilation than Saturday’s event.
But not all attendees appeared to be masked. And evidence suggests the event’s outdoor venue won’t necessarily prevent it from becoming another White House superspreader event, like the recent reception for Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, which appeared to result in the infection of numerous lawmakers and Trump associates. Similarly, an outdoor Trump rally in Minnesota last month resulted in at least nine infections and two hospitalizations.
Today’s speech seems to suggest that neither Trump nor anyone else in the White House have learned any lessons from that rally, or from the Barrett event.


vox--2020-10-10--Federal judge blocks a Texas order limiting ballot drop-off locations

A federal judge has blocked a Texas order that limited the number of drop-off locations for mail-in ballots to one per county .
That order was put in place on October 1 by Republican Gov .
Greg Abbott when he issued a proclamation that allowed for only one drop-off location in each of Texas ’ s 254 counties , regardless of population or geographic size .
Abbott cited election security as a justification for the order .
But it eliminated multiple drop-off sites available for Texans ; for instance , Harris County — the third most populous county in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its 12 drop-off sites .
Abbott ’ s decision immediately drew legal challenges from advocates and voting rights groups , who sued to reinstate the drop-off locations , arguing that Abbott changing procedures in the middle of the election — after people have already started requesting their ballots — put an unreasonable burden on voters and ultimately undermined faith in the electoral process at this late stage .
US District Court Judge Robert Pitman sided with those groups , saying that Abbott ’ s order put an undue burden on older voters and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the majority of absentee voters in Texas .
Pitman wrote that Abbott ’ s restrictions would cause “ absentee voters , if they choose not to return their ballots in person to avoid exposure to Covid-19 , to face the risk that their ballots will not be counted if the USPS is unable to timely deliver their ballot after it ’ s been requested or unable to timely return their completed ballot.
” “ These burdens fall disproportionately on voters who are elderly , disabled , or live in larger counties , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drop boxes represents just one of the fights over voting in the state this election season , and one of hundreds of legal challenges over elections across the country .
Friday ’ s decision was a victory for voters , and for advocates and some county clerks in Texas , who wanted to see the drop-off locations reinstated .
The governor ’ s office is likely to appeal the decision .
( Vox contacted Abbott ’ s office for comment , and we will update when we hear back . )
So the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quite over , and the final outcome could make a difference in how easy it is for Texans — particularly older ones — to vote in this unprecedented election year .
The fight over the Texas drop-off locations , explained The Covid-19 pandemic hit the United States in March , right in the middle of primary season and ahead of a contentious general election .
All states had to consider the administration of their elections , whether by adopting additional safety protocols for in-person voting and vote-counting , expanding mail-in voting , extending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cure processes so voters could fix mistakes on their mail-in ballots .
In Texas , Abbott expanded the state ’ s early in-person voting period by nearly a week ; it will now begin October 13 .
That proclamation also expanded the period when Texas voters could deliver their mail-in ballots in person to the clerk ’ s office .
Previously , voters had only been allowed to drop off mail-in ballots to the county clerk ’ s office on Election Day .
Voting by mail in Texas is still pretty restricted : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loosen its mail-in voting requirements , which only allow people to vote absentee who are over the age of 65 , who have a physical disability or ailment , or are in jail or temporarily out of the county .
Texas Democrats tried to challenge the age rule , but the courts denied the change .
( There have also been other lawsuits around mail-in voting , including a recent one where the Texas Supreme Court blocked Harris County from sending mail-in ballot applications to registered voters . )
So the Texas drop-off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hand-deliver their ballots , offering an alternative for those who do not want to send their ballots through the United States Postal Service because of questions about the USPS ’ s capacity to handle the influx of election ballots this year , or who just want to know , for sure , that their ballots have been received by election officials .
In Harris County , for example , 11 locations drop-off locations were clerk ’ s offices around the county .
The Harris County clerk ’ s office designated the 12th spot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ main drop-off headquarters because , an official told me , it allowed for social distancing and more space to process applications in what was expected to be record election turnout .
Travis County , another blue-leaning area , had four drop-off locations .
But on October 1 , Abbott said , sorry , one drop-off location only .
According to a court filing made on Wednesday , Abbott argued that no Texas counties , except for Harris County , had ever had multiple drop-off locations before the July 2020 primary .
Abbott ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ locations was bad for election security , arguing in a court filing that they provided “ inconsistent safeguards to preserve the integrity of the election , such as a lack of poll watchers overseeing ballot deliveries.
” It also claimed that “ election fraud , specifically vote-by-mail election fraud , has proven to be a frequent and enduring problem in Texas.
” Advocates , however , say this security argument is not grounded in reality .
Each drop-off location is staffed with sworn clerks , and voters must show a valid ID and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ There was no legitimate justification to reduce the number of ballot drop-off locations , ” Ravi Doshi , senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center , one of the groups bringing a legal challenge , told me before Friday ’ s ruling .
“ That has been said by county election officials , who are the ones that actually administer this election.
” Doshi added that some county clerks see the drop-off locations are more secure since the ballots are going directly into the hands of election officials , avoiding the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to provide identification when they drop off their ballot .
Voter fraud in general is rare , and Texas ’ s attempt to investigate voter fraud unraveled after reviews of the citizenship status of voters swept up thousands of legitimate voters .
Abbott has echoed President Donald Trump ’ s false claims about fraud in mail-in voting , but many of the fears he has highlighted — say , someone filling out a ballot for someone else — are highly unlikely to happen at drop-off locations given the ID requirements .
Rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advocates say Abbott ’ s order was created to disadvantage populous counties by making drop-off sites difficult to access and increasing wait times .
“ It is just plain and simple voter suppression , ” Grace Chimene , president of the League of Women Voters of Texas , one of the groups that joined a lawsuit against Gov .
Abbott , told me earlier this week .
“ There is no other word — and it ’ s voter suppression that impacts people with disabilities and elderly voters.
” Harris County , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Texas ’ s entire electorate , with 2.4 million registered voters .
Harris and Travis counties — where Houston and Austin are located , respectively — also have large swaths of Democratic voters , including many Black and Latino voters .
Luis Roberto Vera Jr. , national general counsel at the League of United Latin American Citizens ( LULAC ) , another party to the Texas litigation , told me earlier this week that Abbott ’ s order is directly targeting Democratic strongholds , and the many Black and Latino voters in those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ people who aren ’ t going to vote for Republicans , not to cast their vote .
That ’ s all this is designed for.
” The constant changing of the rules and locations is also confusing , complicating attempts by voters to make and execute plans .
This , advocates say , is part of the goal : not just to make it more difficult for people to vote by eliminating locations , but to make the process so convoluted that it may depress turnout .
“ If you can ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ security , ” Justin Levitt , a law professor at Loyola Law School and former Justice Department official who worked on voting rights cases , told me , “ And you can ’ t find a good rationale based on administrative necessity , then what you ’ re left with is the rationale which is , ‘ We ’ re doing this , because we believe they ’ ll help us get reelected by ensuring that fewer people are able to cast votes.
’ ” Judge Pitman ultimately agreed with the plaintiffs ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would disproportionately burden voters who are older or have disabilities in large population centers .
He also called Abbott ’ s arguments about security a “ pretext , ” finding that Abbott ’ s order did not promote security , since all of the drop-off locations follow the same protocol .
“ On the one hand , the State argues that satellite ballot return centers can not be used during the early voting period because of ballot security concerns , ” Pitman wrote .
“ Yet , the State authorizes counties to use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without regard to those ballot security concerns .
It is perplexing to the Court that the State would simultaneously assert that satellite ballot return centers do not present a risk to election integrity on Election Day but somehow do present such a risk in the weeks leading up to November 3 , 2020.
” Attempts to limit the vote are often done under the guise of guarding against voter fraud , and 2020 is no different .
As in Texas , officials in Pennsylvania , Montana , and New Jersey , among other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraud and security on new voting accommodations .
Using allegations of voter fraud to restrict voting isn ’ t new , even if GOP attacks on mail-in voting are outsize in a year when many millions more voters plan to vote by mail — and in an election where the president is currently trailing in many polls .
But what ’ s happening in Texas , and really across the country , has deeper roots .
Changes in voting procedure — particularly changes that could expand the electorate or make it easier to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to those with easy paths to election and reelection under the status quo .
“ The common element , unfortunately , is incumbents terribly interested in clinging to power and attempting to use their incumbency , to rewrite the rules for the election process in a way that changes the electorate , rather than changing hearts and minds of voters , ” Levitt said .
Texas is no different .
Its changing demographics and politics mean the state is trending bluer in a way that could remake the electoral map .
Trump remains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic candidate Joe Biden is not far behind , and he ’ s investing money there .
This political context matters for Texas ’ s case .
The state is “ becoming much younger , much more ethnically and racially diverse , and much more urban , ” Brandon Rottinghaus , a professor and expert in Texas politics at the University of Houston , told me .
“ Those voters are more likely to support Democrats.
” Using voting rules to entrench power has historically been a bipartisan exercise , but Republicans are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Republican-controlled legislature has used its power to try to add constraints on how Texans can vote , particularly over the past decade or so .
“ I can definitively say that Texas does not make it easy to vote , ” Rottinghaus said .
“ And it is happening concurrent with massive changes in Texas politics.
” This context helps makes sense of why Texas would attempt to shut drop-off locations in areas where they ’ re needed the most .
But some advocates have argued that the attempt to shut @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over making it easier to vote in the pandemic may backfire , motivating voters rather than turning them away .
“ I know that voters really care a lot about this election , ” Chimene , of the League of Women Voters of Texas , said , “ And they ’ re not going to let anything stand in their way of voting in this election.
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A federal appeals court said late Monday that Texas can limit the number of ballot drop-off locations to one per county.
The ruling is the latest in a battle over voter access in Texas. It comes after a federal judge on Friday said the state could not limit the number of ballot drop-off locations in each county to one, saying it disadvantaged older voters and those with disabilities.
But Texas appealed, and now a three-judge panel on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has overruled the lower court, allowing Texas’s limitations on drop-off locations to stay in place. The judges, all three of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump, said the limitations on drop-box locations “still gives Texas absentee voters many ways to cast their ballots in the November 3 election.”
On October 1, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation that allowed for only one drop-off location in each of Texas’s 254 counties, regardless of population or geographic size. Abbott cited election security as a justification for the order. But it eliminated multiple drop-off sites available for Texans; for instance, Harris County — the third most populous county in the country and home to the state’s biggest city, Houston — had to shut 11 of its 12 drop-off sites.
We’re seeing some wraparound action, but overall the line to drop of absentee ballots in Harris County is moving quickly. Thanks to Gov. Abbott’s proclamation this is now the only drop-off site in the county of more than 4.7 million. I’m live on @MSNBC w/ the latest all day. pic.twitter.com/n2mauqq20A — Priscilla Thompson (@PriscillaWT) October 6, 2020
Abbott’s decision immediately drew legal challenges from advocates and voting rights groups, who sued to reinstate the drop-off locations, arguing that Abbott changing procedures in the middle of the election — after people have already started requesting their ballots — put an unreasonable burden on voters and ultimately undermined faith in the electoral process at this late stage.
On Friday, US District Court Judge Robert Pitman sided with those groups, saying Abbott’s order put an undue burden on older voters and voters with disabilities, who make up the majority of absentee voters in Texas. Pitman wrote that Abbott’s restrictions would cause “absentee voters, if they choose not to return their ballots in person to avoid exposure to Covid-19, to face the risk that their ballots will not be counted if the USPS is unable to timely deliver their ballot after it’s been requested or unable to timely return their completed ballot.”
“These burdens fall disproportionately on voters who are elderly, disabled, or live in larger counties,” Pitman wrote.
But late on Monday, a higher court decided that Abbott’s order could remain in place, overturning Pitman’s decision. “These methods for remote voting outstrip what Texas law previously permitted in a pre-Covid world. The October 1 proclamation abridges no one’s right to vote,” the judges wrote.
This battle over Texas drop boxes represents just one of the fights over voting in the state this election season, and one of hundreds of legal challenges over elections across the country.
It’s not clear if this is the final decision in this fight, as the plaintiffs are weighing their options. But this ruling may ultimately make a big difference in how Texans vote in 2020.
The fight over the Texas drop-off locations, explained
The Covid-19 pandemic hit the United States in March, right in the middle of primary season and ahead of a contentious general election. All states had to consider the administration of their elections, whether by adopting additional safety protocols for in-person voting and vote counting, expanding mail-in voting, extending deadlines for ballot counting, or implementing cure processes so voters could fix mistakes on their mail-in ballots.
In Texas, Abbott expanded the state’s early in-person voting period by nearly a week; it will now begin October 13. That proclamation also expanded the period when Texas voters could deliver their mail-in ballots in person to the clerk’s office. Previously, voters had only been allowed to drop off mail-in ballots to the county clerk’s office on Election Day.
Voting by mail in Texas is still pretty restricted: Unlike other states, Texas did not loosen its mail-in voting requirements, which only allow people to vote absentee if they are over the age of 65, have a physical disability or ailment, or are in jail or temporarily out of the county. Texas Democrats tried to challenge the age rule, but the courts denied the change. (There have also been other lawsuits around mail-in voting, including a recent one where the Texas Supreme Court blocked Harris County from sending mail-in ballot applications to registered voters.)
So the Texas drop-off locations are strictly for absentee voters to hand-deliver their ballots, offering an alternative for those who do not want to send their ballots through the United States Postal Service because of questions about the USPS’s capacity to handle the influx of election ballots this year, or who just want to know, for sure, that their ballots have been received by election officials.
In Democratic-leaning Harris County, for example, 11 drop-off locations were clerk’s offices around the county. The Harris County clerk’s office designated the 12th spot, at NRG Arena, as the main drop-off headquarters because, an official told me, it allowed for social distancing and more space to process applications during what was expected to be record election turnout. Travis County, another blue-leaning area, had four drop-off locations.
But on October 1, Abbott said, sorry, one drop-off location only. According to a court filing made on Wednesday, Abbott argued that no Texas counties, except for Harris County, had ever had multiple drop-off locations before the July 2020 primary.
Abbott’s administration claimed having multiple drop-off locations was bad for election security, arguing in a court filing that they provided “inconsistent safeguards to preserve the integrity of the election, such as a lack of poll watchers overseeing ballot deliveries.” It also asserted that “election fraud, specifically vote-by-mail election fraud, has proven to be a frequent and enduring problem in Texas.”
Advocates, however, say this security argument is not grounded in reality. Each drop-off location is staffed with sworn clerks, and voters must show a valid ID and give their signature at all locations.
“There was no legitimate justification to reduce the number of ballot drop-off locations,” Ravi Doshi, senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, one of the groups bringing a legal challenge, told me last week. “That has been said by county election officials, who are the ones that actually administer this election.”
Doshi added that some county clerks see the drop-off locations as more secure, since the ballots are going directly into the hands of election officials, avoiding the middleman of the USPS, and voters have to provide identification when they drop off their ballot.
Voter fraud in general is rare, and Texas’s attempt to investigate voter fraud unraveled after reviews of the citizenship status of voters swept up thousands of legitimate voters. Abbott has echoed President Donald Trump’s false claims about fraud in mail-in voting, but many of the fears he has highlighted — say, someone filling out a ballot for someone else — are highly unlikely to happen at drop-off locations given the ID requirements.
Rather than being about election integrity, voting advocates say Abbott’s order was created to disadvantage populous counties by making drop-off sites difficult to access and increasing wait times.
“It is just plain and simple voter suppression,” Grace Chimene, president of the League of Women Voters of Texas, one of the groups that joined a lawsuit against Gov. Abbott, told me last week. “There is no other word — and it’s voter suppression that impacts people with disabilities and elderly voters.”
Harris County, for example, represents about 14 percent of Texas’s entire electorate, with 2.4 million registered voters. Harris and Travis counties — where Houston and Austin are located, respectively — also have large populations of Democratic-leaning voters, including many Black and Latino voters.
Luis Roberto Vera Jr., national general counsel at the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), another party to the Texas litigation, told me last week that Abbott’s order is directly targeting Democratic strongholds, and the many Black and Latino voters in those districts. They want, he said, “people who aren’t going to vote for Republicans not to cast their vote. That’s all this is designed for.”
The constant changing of the rules and locations is also confusing, complicating attempts by voters to make and execute voting plans. This, advocates say, is part of the goal: not just to make it more difficult for people to vote by eliminating locations, but to make the process so convoluted that it may depress turnout.
“If you can’t find a good rationale based on security, and you can’t find a good rationale based on administrative necessity, then what you’re left with is the rationale which is, ‘We’re doing this because we believe they’ll help us get reelected by ensuring that fewer people are able to cast votes,’” Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School and former Justice Department official who worked on voting rights cases, told me.
Judge Pitman ultimately agreed with the plaintiffs’ arguments, that shuttering the drop-off locations would disproportionately burden voters in large population centers who are older or have disabilities. He also called Abbott’s arguments about security a “pretext,” finding that Abbott’s order did not promote security, since all the drop-off locations follow the same protocol.
But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton quickly appealed the decision to try to stop the judge’s order, saying it undermines election security and “creates confusion on the eve of an election and threatens the integrity of the election.”
Late Monday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Texas, basically saying that Abbott had already expanded opportunities for voting in the pandemic and that limiting the number of drop-off locations would not hinder Texans’ right to vote.
“Normally, if a voter wanted to hand-deliver her mail-in ballot, she would have had only one day to do it—Election Day,” the judges wrote. “Now, under the Governor’s expanded policy, she can deliver the ballot anytime until Election Day. That effectively gives voters forty extra days to hand-deliver a marked mail-in ballot to an early voting clerk.”
“And,” the judges added, “the voter still has the traditional option she has always had for casting a mail-in ballot: mailing it.”
Texas, a battleground
Attempts to limit the vote are often done under the guise of guarding against voter fraud, and 2020 is no different. As in Texas, officials in Pennsylvania, Montana, and New Jersey, among other states, have faced legal challenges citing fraud and security on new voting accommodations.
Using allegations of voter fraud to restrict voting isn’t new, even if GOP attacks on mail-in voting are outsize in a year when many millions more voters plan to vote by mail — and in an election where the president is currently trailing in many polls.
But what’s happening in Texas, and really across the country, has deeper roots. Changes in voting procedure — particularly changes that could expand the electorate or make it easier to vote — are often seen as threats to those with easy paths to election and reelection under the status quo.
“The common element, unfortunately, is incumbents terribly interested in clinging to power and attempting to use their incumbency to rewrite the rules for the election process in a way that changes the electorate, rather than changing hearts and minds of voters,” Levitt said.
Texas is no different. Its changing demographics and politics mean the state is trending bluer in a way that could remake the electoral map. Trump remains ahead in most Texas polls, but Democratic candidate Joe Biden is not far behind, and he’s investing money there.
This political context matters for Texas’s case. The state is “becoming much younger, much more ethnically and racially diverse, and much more urban,” Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor and expert in Texas politics at the University of Houston, told me. “Those voters are more likely to support Democrats.”
Using voting rules to entrench power has historically been a bipartisan exercise, but Republicans are upholding that legacy in Texas right now. The Republican-controlled legislature has used its power to try to add constraints on how Texans can vote, particularly over the past decade or so. “I can definitively say that Texas does not make it easy to vote,” Rottinghaus said. “And it is happening concurrent with massive changes in Texas politics.”
This context helps makes sense of why Texas would attempt to shut drop-off locations in areas where they’re needed the most. But some advocates have argued that the attempt to shut down the drop-off locations, and other battles over making it easier to vote in the pandemic, may backfire, motivating voters rather than turning them away.
“I know that voters really care a lot about this election,” Chimene, of the League of Women Voters of Texas, said. “And they’re not going to let anything stand in their way of voting in this election.”


vox--2020-10-10--Chris Christie leaves the hospital after a week of Covid-19 treatment

Former New Jersey Gov .
Chris Christie on Saturday morning announced his discharge from a Morristown , New Jersey , hospital , where he spent a week being treated for Covid-19 .
Christie tested positive for the virus on October 2 , one day after President Donald Trump announced his own diagnosis .
The former governor checked himself into the hospital that same day as a precautionary measure but ended up spending the week there .
“ I am happy to let you know that this morning I was released from Morristown Medical Center .
I want to thank the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me for the last week , ” Christie tweeted Saturday .
Christie is one of more than 20 people to become infected with the coronavirus after spending time at the White House .
He helped Trump prepare for the first presidential debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden in late September , and days earlier attended a White House reception for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett .
Dr. Anthony Fauci , a member of the federal coronavirus task force , has called the gathering “ superspreader event , ” as it appears to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attendees , including Republican Sens .
Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany .
Although most of those infected at the White House have been isolating and recovering at home , Christie had a somewhat extended stay in the hospital , giving rise to social media rumors about his condition .
Like Trump , Christie was at a higher risk for complications due to his gender and weight .
Despite the outbreak , officials within the White House and the Trump campaign don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lesson .
On Saturday afternoon , Trump is expected to address a crowd of several thousand on the White House South Lawn , his first public event since being diagnosed with the virus .
His campaign also scheduled a “ big rally ” for Monday in Sanford , Florida .
Though both events will be held outdoors , so was a September 18 Trump rally in Bemidji , Minnesota , to which state health officials have linked nine cases and two hospitalizations so far .
Should Christie follow the Centers for Disease Control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recommendations , he will not appear at either event .
In general , the CDC recommends an infected person isolate for at least 10 days before engaging with other people .
But it also suggests someone who was hospitalized , as Christie was , isolate for a total of 20 days after the onset of symptoms to ensure they are no longer infectious .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work .
If you have already contributed , thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world : Contribute today @ @ @ @ @ @ @

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Saturday morning announced his discharge from a Morristown, New Jersey, hospital, where he spent a week being treated for Covid-19.
Christie tested positive for the virus on October 2, one day after President Donald Trump announced his own diagnosis. The former governor checked himself into the hospital that same day as a precautionary measure but ended up spending the week there.
“I am happy to let you know that this morning I was released from Morristown Medical Center. I want to thank the extraordinary doctors & nurses who cared for me for the last week,” Christie tweeted Saturday.
I am happy to let you know that this morning I was released from Morristown Medical Center. I want to thank the extraordinary doctors & nurses who cared for me for the last week. Thanks to my family & friends for their prayers. I will have more to say about all of this next week. — Governor Christie (@GovChristie) October 10, 2020
Christie is one of more than 20 people to become infected with the coronavirus after spending time at the White House.
He helped Trump prepare for the first presidential debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden in late September, and days earlier attended a White House reception for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the federal coronavirus task force, has called the gathering “superspreader event,” as it appears to have led to the infection of several attendees, including Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
Although most of those infected at the White House have been isolating and recovering at home, Christie had a somewhat extended stay in the hospital, giving rise to social media rumors about his condition. Like Trump, Christie was at a higher risk for complications due to his gender and weight.
Despite the outbreak, officials within the White House and the Trump campaign don’t appear to have learned their lesson. On Saturday afternoon, Trump is expected to address a crowd of several thousand on the White House South Lawn, his first public event since being diagnosed with the virus. His campaign also scheduled a “big rally” for Monday in Sanford, Florida.
Though both events will be held outdoors, so was a September 18 Trump rally in Bemidji, Minnesota, to which state health officials have linked nine cases and two hospitalizations so far.
Should Christie follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendations, he will not appear at either event.
In general, the CDC recommends an infected person isolate for at least 10 days before engaging with other people. But it also suggests someone who was hospitalized, as Christie was, isolate for a total of 20 days after the onset of symptoms to ensure they are no longer infectious.
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vox--2020-10-10--Tropical depression Delta brings heavy rain and wind to the Gulf Coast

Hurricane Delta made landfall Friday evening in southwest Louisiana , an area that was badly impacted by the Category 4 Hurricane Laura just six weeks ago .
Delta hit the Louisiana shore in Cameron Parish ’ s Creole community as a Category 2 hurricane at 6:01 pm local time with 100-mph winds .
( It has since been downgraded to a tropical depression . )
On land , the storm brought sustained winds of 60 mph and dropped more than a foot of rain in Louisiana , with some places receiving up to 15 inches .
The National Hurricane Center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could lead to flash flooding — more than 5 million people are already under flash-flood warnings in the region — as well as minor river flooding across parts of the lower Mississippi River Valley and the Tennessee Valley on Saturday .
Heavy rain is expected to continue into the Southern Appalachians on Sunday .
Nearly 800,000 homes and businesses were left without power across Louisiana , Texas , and Mississippi , according to AccuWeather , and more than two dozen emergency calls included high-water rescues in areas like Baton Rouge , where the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than expected on Friday , the New York Times reported .
The storm ’ s strong winds flipped two trucks onto their sides on Interstate 10 between Lake Charles and Lafayette , Louisiana .
The NHC on Saturday morning downgraded Delta to a tropical depression , which is a tropical cyclone characterized by maximum sustained surface winds of 38 mph , according to the Weather Channel .
Due to the storm , the National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for areas in Alabama and Florida until 1 pm Central on Saturday .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season .
It ’ s also the 10th named storm this season to make landfall in the continental US , setting the record for the most storms in one year , CNN reported .
( Delta is the seventh major storm to hit the Gulf Coast since June . )
The storm first made landfall as a Category 2 storm about 20 miles south of Cancun , Mexico , on early Wednesday .
Before hitting the Yucatan Peninsula , Delta transformed into a Category 4 hurricane over the course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speed by nearly 100 mph in that time .
One forecaster on Twitter said he could find no previous record of an Atlantic storm escalating that quickly or strongly .
Louisiana residents are still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Laura , which hit the state as an “ extremely dangerous ” storm in late August during the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina .
Wind gusts of up to 130 mph removed rooftops , flipped trees , and downed power lines .
At least 10 people in the state , many from falling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bomb went off , ” a resident told Vox .
Before Delta made landfall , Lake Charles Mayor Nic Charles told the Wall Street Journal , “ We are still reeling from Laura .
There are thousands of buildings in this city that were weakened from Laura that are nowhere near put back together .
There are still piles of debris left .
You just can ’ t recover from a catastrophe in six weeks.
” Lake Charles , where 95 percent of structures suffered damage from Laura , is north of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The year ’ s particularly intense hurricane season is due in part to climate change .
As Vox ’ s Umair Irfan reported , “ Warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea ” have created more energy for hurricanes to “ spin up , grow , and strengthen.
” Shifts in wind patterns are also a factor : The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted a busier-than-normal hurricane season in the Atlantic this year .
“ The agency forecast 13 to 19 named storms , of which six to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , three to six would become major hurricanes , ” Irfan wrote .
“ This is higher than an average season , which produces 12 named storms , six hurricanes , and three major hurricanes.
” The NHC expects minor to major river flooding to continue across parts of Louisiana and Mississippi throughout the week .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work .
If you have already contributed , thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world : Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

Hurricane Delta made landfall Friday evening in southwest Louisiana, an area that was badly impacted by the Category 4 Hurricane Laura just six weeks ago.
Delta hit the Louisiana shore in Cameron Parish’s Creole community as a Category 2 hurricane at 6:01 pm local time with 100-mph winds. (It has since been downgraded to a tropical depression.) On land, the storm brought sustained winds of 60 mph and dropped more than a foot of rain in Louisiana, with some places receiving up to 15 inches.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned that heavy rainfall could lead to flash flooding — more than 5 million people are already under flash-flood warnings in the region — as well as minor river flooding across parts of the lower Mississippi River Valley and the Tennessee Valley on Saturday. Heavy rain is expected to continue into the Southern Appalachians on Sunday.
Nearly 800,000 homes and businesses were left without power across Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, according to AccuWeather, and more than two dozen emergency calls included high-water rescues in areas like Baton Rouge, where the outer bands of the storm hit earlier than expected on Friday, the New York Times reported.
Delta is on the verge of becoming a tropical depression, but the storm remains a concern as it tracks across the Mississippi Valley, leaving nearly 800,000 without power: https://t.co/xsuA4FIVpi pic.twitter.com/5MX48g0wGI — AccuWeather (@breakingweather) October 10, 2020
The storm’s strong winds flipped two trucks onto their sides on Interstate 10 between Lake Charles and Lafayette, Louisiana.
No power in our hotel in #Lafayette this morning. Saw two flipped trucks on I-10 between Lake Charles and Lafayette last night.
More than 594K customers are without electricity across Louisiana this morning after #Hurricane #Delta pic.twitter.com/vwPcGLxJwd — Bill Wadell (@BillWadell) October 10, 2020
The NHC on Saturday morning downgraded Delta to a tropical depression, which is a tropical cyclone characterized by maximum sustained surface winds of 38 mph, according to the Weather Channel.
Due to the storm, the National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for areas in Alabama and Florida until 1 pm Central on Saturday.
#Delta is still bringing damaging winds hundreds of miles inland ... getting lots of reports of trees and power poles down. Gusts over 50 mph are common near the lowest pressure, now over northeast LA and western MS #lawx #mswx pic.twitter.com/Old1VsN1R7 — Greg Postel (@GregPostel) October 10, 2020
Delta is the 25th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. It’s also the 10th named storm this season to make landfall in the continental US, setting the record for the most storms in one year, CNN reported. (Delta is the seventh major storm to hit the Gulf Coast since June.)
The storm first made landfall as a Category 2 storm about 20 miles south of Cancun, Mexico, on early Wednesday. Before hitting the Yucatan Peninsula, Delta transformed into a Category 4 hurricane over the course of 30 hours, increasing its wind speed by nearly 100 mph in that time. One forecaster on Twitter said he could find no previous record of an Atlantic storm escalating that quickly or strongly.
Louisiana residents are still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Laura, which hit the state as an “extremely dangerous” storm in late August during the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Wind gusts of up to 130 mph removed rooftops, flipped trees, and downed power lines. At least 10 people in the state, many from falling trees. “It just looks like a bomb went off,” a resident told Vox.
Before Delta made landfall, Lake Charles Mayor Nic Charles told the Wall Street Journal, “We are still reeling from Laura. There are thousands of buildings in this city that were weakened from Laura that are nowhere near put back together. There are still piles of debris left. You just can’t recover from a catastrophe in six weeks.” Lake Charles, where 95 percent of structures suffered damage from Laura, is north of Creole, where Delta first hit.
The year’s particularly intense hurricane season is due in part to climate change. As Vox’s Umair Irfan reported, “Warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea” have created more energy for hurricanes to “spin up, grow, and strengthen.” Shifts in wind patterns are also a factor:
Major storms like hurricanes also require a fair amount of calm in the air to form. Shifts in wind speed and direction with altitude, known as wind shear, can prevent storms from forming or rip apart weather systems before they blossom into major storms. But this year, the air over the North Atlantic was more placid, with less wind shear than is typical.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted a busier-than-normal hurricane season in the Atlantic this year. “The agency forecast 13 to 19 named storms, of which six to 10 would become hurricanes. Of those, three to six would become major hurricanes,” Irfan wrote. “This is higher than an average season, which produces 12 named storms, six hurricanes, and three major hurricanes.”
The NHC expects minor to major river flooding to continue across parts of Louisiana and Mississippi throughout the week.
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