vox--2020-09-02--How bad is your state’s Covid-19 outbreak?

The US is now in the middle of what can only be described as a national Covid-19 epidemic , with cases across the country rising at alarming rates in recent weeks .
Public health experts look at a few markers to determine how bad things are in each state : the number of daily new cases ; the infection rate , which can show how likely the virus is to spread ; the percentage of tests that come back positive , which should be low in a state with sufficient testing ; and the percentage of hospital beds that are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vox analysis indicates the vast majority of states report alarming trends across all four benchmarks for coronavirus outbreaks .
Most states still report a high — sometimes very high — number of daily new Covid-19 cases .
Most still have high infection rates .
Most still have test positive rates that are too high , indicating they don ’ t have enough tests to track and contain the scope of their outbreaks .
( The US overall has seen a decrease in new cases in recent weeks , but the numbers are still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still have hospitals with intensive care units that are too packed .
Across these benchmarks , only two states — Connecticut and New Hampshire — fare well on all four metrics , meaning their epidemics are relatively under control for now .
( Alabama and Florida are excluded due to recent issues with test reporting . )
Only the Northeast currently seems to be doing better overall after a resurgence of Covid-19 cases .
But that region , particularly New York City , was hit hard by the initial wave of the Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ highest overall death toll for the country so far .
The current national outbreak , reaching from California to Florida , is the result of the public and its leaders collectively letting their guard down .
States , with the support of President Donald Trump , moved to reopen — often before they saw sizable drops in daily new Covid-19 cases , and at times so quickly they didn ’ t have time to see if each phase of their reopening was leading to too many more cases .
The public embraced the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adhering to recommended precautions like physical distancing and wearing a mask .
It ’ s this mix — of government withdrawal and public complacency — that experts have cited again and again in explaining why states are now seeing a resurgence in Covid-19 cases .
“ It ’ s a situation that didn ’ t have to be , ” Jaime Slaughter-Acey , an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota , told me .
“ For almost three months , you had opportunities to be proactive with respect to mitigating the Covid-19 pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ practices that would stem the tide of transmissions as well as the development of Covid-19 complications .
… It was not prioritized over the economy.
” The effects are felt not just in terms of more infections , critical illnesses , new chronic conditions , and deaths , but in the long-term financial impact as the economy starts shutting down again , people refuse to go out , and businesses resist reopening during a pandemic .
“ Dead people don ’ t shop .
They don ’ t spend money .
They don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jade Pagkas-Bather , an infectious diseases expert and doctor at the University of Chicago , told me .
“ When you fail to invest in the health of your population , then there are longitudinal downstream effects.
” The benchmarks tracked by Vox don ’ t cover every important facet of the pandemic .
They don ’ t show , for instance , how well a state is doing with contact tracing , when “ disease detectives ” track down people who may have been infected and push them to quarantine ; the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that front is still lacking .
And some measures that are helpful for gauging if a state can safely start to reopen , like whether cases have fallen in the previous two weeks and total tests , are excluded to focus more on the status of each state ’ s current Covid-19 outbreak .
Together , these four benchmarks help give an idea of how each state is doing in its fight against Covid-19 .
Nationwide , it ’ s pretty grim .
1 ) Most states have too many daily new Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fewer than four daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people per day , based on data from the New York Times and the Census Bureau .
Which states meet the goal ?
Connecticut , Maine , New Hampshire , New Jersey , New York , and Vermont — just six states .
Why is this important ?
The most straightforward way to measure whether any place is suffering a big coronavirus outbreak is to look at the number of daily new Covid-19 cases .
There ’ s no widely accepted metric for how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many .
But experts told me that aiming for below four daily new cases per 100,000 is generally a good idea — a level low enough that a state can say it ’ s starting to get significant control over the virus .
A big caveat to this metric : It ’ s only as good as a state ’ s testing .
Cases can only get picked up if states are actually testing people for the virus .
So if a state doesn ’ t have enough tests , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases — and the reported cases won ’ t tell the full story .
That ’ s why it ’ s important not to use this benchmark by itself , but to use it alongside metrics like the test positive rate .
Along those lines , the number of daily new cases may give a delayed snapshot of a Covid-19 outbreak .
If test results take a week to get reported to the state , then the count for daily new cases will really reflect the state of the outbreak for the previous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a state , though , the toll of daily new cases gives perhaps the best snapshot of how big a state ’ s Covid-19 outbreak is .
2 ) The coronavirus is spreading too quickly in many states What ’ s the goal ?
An effective reproduction number , or Rt , below 1 , based on data from Rt.live , a site created by two Instagram founders and a data analyst .
Which states meet the goal ?
Alaska , Arizona , Arkansas , California , Colorado , Connecticut , Florida , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Massachusetts , Mississippi , Montana , Nevada , New Hampshire , New Mexico , Ohio , Oklahoma , Oregon , Rhode Island , Texas , Utah , Vermont , Washington , and Wyoming — a total of 26 states .
Why is this important ?
The Rt measures how many people are infected by each person with Covid-19 .
If the Rt is 1 , then an infected person will , on average , spread the coronavirus to one other person .
If it ’ s 2 , then an infected person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And so on .
It ’ s an attempt , then , to gauge how quickly a virus is spreading .
One way to think about it : Unlike the count for daily new cases , this doesn ’ t give you a snapshot of a state ’ s Covid-19 outbreak today , but where the outbreak is heading in the near future .
The goal is to get the Rt below 1 .
If each infection doesn ’ t lead to another , that would over time lead to zero new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be very imprecise — with margins of error that make it hard to know for certain in any state if it ’ s really above or below 1 .
Different modelers can also come up with different estimates .
That ’ s , unfortunately , just the reality of using limited data to come up with a rough estimate of a disease ’ s overall spread .
The Rt also reflects an average .
If 10 people are infected with Covid-19 , nine spread it to no one else , and one spreads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to an Rt of one .
But it masks the fact that individuals , for whatever reason , can still cause superspreading events — which seem of particular concern with the coronavirus .
Still , the Rt is one of the better measures we have for tracking a pathogen ’ s spread across the whole population .
When paired with the other metrics on this list , it can give us a sense of each state ’ s outbreak now and in the future .
3 ) Most states ’ positive rates for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the goal ?
Below 5 percent of coronavirus tests coming back positive over the past week , based on data from the Covid Tracking Project .
Which states meet the goal ?
Alaska , California , Colorado , Connecticut , Delaware , Illinois , Louisiana , Maine , Maryland , Massachusetts , Michigan , New Hampshire , New Jersey , New Mexico , New York , Ohio , Oregon , Pennsylvania , Rhode Island , Vermont , Washington , West Virginia , and Wyoming — 23 states .
Washington , DC , did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are excluded due to recent issues with test reporting . )
Why is this important ?
To properly track and contain coronavirus outbreaks , states need to have enough testing .
There are all sorts of proposals for how much testing is needed in the US , from 500,000 a day to tens of millions .
But one way to see if a state is testing enough to match its outbreak is the rate of tests that come back positive .
An area with adequate testing should be testing lots and lots of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t have the disease or don ’ t show severe symptoms .
High positive rates indicate that only people with obvious symptoms are getting tested , so there ’ s not quite enough testing to match the scope of an outbreak .
The goal for the positive rate is , in an ideal world , zero percent , since that would suggest that Covid-19 is vanquished entirely .
More realistically , in a world going through a big pandemic , the positive rate should be below 5 percent .
But even if a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it should continue trying to push that number further down , to match nations like Germany , New Zealand , and South Korea that have gotten their positive rates below 3 percent and even 1 percent , in order to truly get a hold of their outbreaks .
As long as a state is above 5 percent , chances are it ’ s still missing a significant number of Covid-19 cases .
And the higher that number is , the more cases that are very likely getting missed .
So even if your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ daily new cases , a high positive rate should be a cause for alarm — a sign that there ’ s an outbreak that ’ s only hidden due to a lack of testing .
And if your state is reporting a high number of daily new cases and a high positive rate , that ’ s all the more reason for concern , suggesting that the epidemic is even worse than the total case count indicates .
4 ) Most states ’ hospitals don ’ t have much space for Covid-19 patients @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 60 percent occupancy of ICU beds in hospitals , based on data from the US Department of Health and Human Services .
Which states meet the goal ?
Alaska , Colorado , Connecticut , Idaho , Illinois , Iowa , Massachusetts , Nebraska , New Hampshire , New Jersey , New Mexico , New York , North Dakota , South Dakota , Utah , Wisconsin , and Wyoming — 17 states .
Why is this important ?
One thing the world has seen , from China to Italy to New York , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The consequences for this are dire : If any place is suffering a big coronavirus outbreak , and there isn ’ t enough room in a hospital to treat patients , that could lead to worse outcomes , including death .
The occupancy rate in states ’ intensive care units helps track how much space hospitals have to deal with more Covid-19 patients .
It also gives a snapshot of just how busy states ’ hospitals are on any given day .
Generally , the goal is to stay below 60 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That ’ s a point when hospitals have enough cushion , experts say , to more effectively treat patients as well as better handle a rush of patients should an outbreak get worse .
This is a bit of a lagging indicator for tracking an outbreak .
Since people can take as long as weeks to develop Covid-19 symptoms once they ’ re infected , hospitalizations also take a few weeks to start trending up as cases trend up .
ICU occupancy also isn ’ t the only metric for tracking hospital readiness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Human Services also tracks the percentage of people in inpatient beds who have Covid-19 and the percentage of inpatient beds occupied in general .
The other benchmarks also give a view of how well a state ’ s hospitals are handling a coronavirus outbreak .
Still , for a general idea of how bad a state ’ s Covid-19 outbreak is and how ready the state is to handle a surge in cases , the ICU occupancy rate is a helpful indicator .
If a state ’ s ICUs are overwhelmed , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or at least not ready for one .
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America’s national Covid-19 epidemic continues, with the US’s daily new cases down from an early January peak but still higher than those of most developed nations — and the country recently surpassing 500,000 deaths due to the disease.
At the state level, things can look even worse than the national picture.
Public health experts look at a few markers to determine how bad things are in each state: the number of daily new cases; the infection rate, which can show how likely the virus is to spread; and the percentage of tests that come back positive, which should be low in a state with sufficient testing. Combined, these three benchmarks can tell you whether or not a state’s coronavirus outbreak is under control.
Vox’s analysis, updated weekly, shows the vast majority of states are reporting alarming trends for coronavirus cases based on these benchmarks. Only one state — Hawaii — fares well on all three metrics, suggesting the vast majority of states don’t have their outbreaks fully under control right now.
The US outbreaks are due to the failure of both the American public and the country’s leaders to take the virus seriously enough; to the extent they did, many let their guard down prematurely. With the support of former President Donald Trump, states moved to reopen — often before seeing sizable drops in daily new Covid-19 cases, and at times so quickly they weren’t able to tell whether each phase of their reopening plan was leading to too many new infections.
The public embraced the reopenings, resuming their usual day-to-day activities and often refusing to adhere to recommended precautions like physical distancing and mask-wearing.
Even as cases began to fall later in the summer, America’s overall caseload remained very high. Yet many states moved to reopen once more, with much of the public embracing the looser restrictions and subsequently going out.
It’s this mix of government withdrawal and public complacency that experts have cited in explaining why states continue to struggle with getting the coronavirus under control.
“It’s a situation that didn’t have to be,” Jaime Slaughter-Acey, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, previously told me, adding, “You had opportunities to be proactive with respect to mitigating the Covid-19 pandemic and to help normalize culture to adopt practices that would stem the tide of transmissions as well as the development of Covid-19 complications. … It was not prioritized over the economy.”
The effects are felt not just in terms of more infections, critical illnesses, new chronic conditions, and deaths, but in the long-term financial impact as the economy struggles, many people still refuse to go out, and businesses resist reopening during a pandemic.
“Dead people don’t shop. They don’t spend money. They don’t invest in things,” Jade Pagkas-Bather, an expert in infectious diseases and a doctor at the University of Chicago, previously told me. “When you fail to invest in the health of your population, then there are longitudinal downstream effects.”
With a Covid-19 vaccination campaign underway, a finish line to this crisis in finally visible. But until America reaches sufficient population protection — and, preferably, herd immunity — every day the coronavirus spreads means more illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths.
As the country works toward vaccinating everyone, the three benchmarks tracked by Vox give an idea of how each state is doing in its fight against Covid-19 in the meantime. Nationwide, it’s pretty grim.
1) Most states have too many daily new Covid-19 infections
What’s the goal? Fewer than four daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people per day, based on data from the Covid Tracking Project and the Census Bureau.
Which states meet the goal? Just one — Hawaii.
Why is this important? The most straightforward way to measure whether any place is experiencing a big coronavirus outbreak is to look at the number of daily new Covid-19 cases.
There’s no widely accepted metric for how many cases, exactly, is too many. But experts told me that aiming for below four daily new cases per 100,000 is generally a good idea — a level low enough that a state can say it’s starting to get significant control over the virus.
A big caveat to this metric: It’s only as good as a state’s testing. Cases can only get picked up if states are actually testing people for the virus. So if a state doesn’t have enough tests, it’s probably going to miss a lot of cases, and the reported cases won’t tell the full story. That’s why it’s important not to use this benchmark by itself, but to use it alongside metrics like the test positive rate.
The number of daily new cases may also give a delayed snapshot of a Covid-19 outbreak. If test results take a week to get reported to the state, the count for daily new cases will really reflect the state of the outbreak for the previous week.
If testing is adequate in a state, though, the toll of daily new cases is perhaps the best insight as to how big a state’s Covid-19 outbreak is.
2) The coronavirus is spreading too quickly in some states
What’s the goal? An effective reproduction number, or Rt, below 1, based on data from the Centre for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases.
Which states meet the goal? All but Alaska, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Wyoming — 45 states, as well as Washington, DC.
Why is this important? The Rt measures how many people are infected by each person with Covid-19. If the Rt is 1, then an infected person will, on average, spread the coronavirus to one other person. If it’s 2, then an infected person will spread it to two on average. And so on.
It’s an attempt, then, to gauge how quickly a virus is spreading. One way to think about it: Unlike the count for daily new cases, this gives you a snapshot not of a state’s Covid-19 outbreak today, but of where the outbreak is heading in the near future.
The goal is to get the Rt below 1. If each infection doesn’t lead to another, that would over time lead to zero new Covid-19 cases.
The estimated Rt can be very imprecise, with margins of error that make it hard to know for certain in any state if it’s really above or below 1. Different modelers can also come up with different estimates. That’s, unfortunately, just the reality of using limited data to come up with a rough estimate of a disease’s overall spread.
The Rt also reflects an average. If 10 people are infected with Covid-19, nine spread it to no one else, and one spreads it to 10, that adds up to an Rt of 1. But it masks the fact that individuals, for whatever reason, can still cause superspreading events — which seem of particular concern with the coronavirus.
And the Rt is only as good as the data that goes into calculating it. If a state’s data is poor quality or inconsistent, it might skew the picture. That can help explain why some states with bad and continuing outbreaks may fare better on this benchmark than others.
Still, the Rt is one of the better measures we have for tracking a pathogen’s spread across the whole population. When paired with the other metrics on this list, it can give us a sense of each state’s outbreak now and in the future.
3) Most states’ positive rates for tests are too high
What’s the goal? Less than 5 percent of coronavirus tests coming back positive over the previous week, based on data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and the Covid Tracking Project.
Which states meet the goal? Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin — 24 states, as well as Washington, DC.
Why is this important? To properly track and contain coronavirus outbreaks, states need to have enough testing. There are all sorts of proposals for how much testing is needed in the US, up to the tens of millions.
But one way to see if a state is testing enough to match its outbreak is the rate of tests that come back positive. An area with adequate testing should be testing lots and lots of people, many of whom don’t have the disease or don’t show severe symptoms. High positive rates indicate that only people with obvious symptoms are getting tested, so there’s not quite enough testing to match the scope of an outbreak.
The goal for the positive rate is, in an ideal world, zero percent, since that would suggest that Covid-19 is vanquished entirely. More realistically, in a world going through a pandemic, the positive rate should be below 5 percent. But even if a state reaches 5 percent, experts argue it should continue trying to push that number further down — to match nations like Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea, which have gotten their positive rates below 3 percent or even 1 percent — in order to truly get ahold of their outbreaks.
As long as a state is above 5 percent, chances are it’s still missing a significant number of Covid-19 cases. And the higher that number is, the more cases that are very likely getting missed.
So even if your state is reporting a low number of daily new cases, a high positive rate should be a cause for alarm — a sign that there’s an outbreak that’s only hidden due to a lack of testing. And if your state is reporting a high number of daily new cases and a high positive rate, that’s all the more reason for concern, suggesting the epidemic is even worse than the total case count indicates.
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vox--2020-09-02--Just 4 states meet these basic criteria to reopen and stay safe

All 50 states have moved to reopen their economies , at least partially , after shutting down businesses and gatherings in response to the coronavirus pandemic .
But a Vox analysis suggests that most states haven ’ t made the preparations needed to contain outbreaks — putting themselves at risk for a rise in Covid-19 cases and deaths should they continue to reopen .
Some states have already had to backtrack on reopening measures .
Experts told me states need three things to be safe to open .
State leaders , from the governor to the legislature to health departments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is no longer spreading unabated .
They need the testing capacity to track and isolate the sick and their contacts .
And they need the hospital capacity to handle a potential surge in Covid-19 cases .
More specifically , states should meet at least five basic criteria .
They should see a two-week drop in coronavirus cases , indicating that the virus is actually abating .
They should have fewer than four daily new cases per 100,000 people per day — to show that cases aren ’ t just dropping but are also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least 150 new tests per 100,000 people per day , letting them quickly track and contain outbreaks .
They need an overall positive rate for tests below 5 percent — another critical indicator for testing capacity .
And states should have at least 40 percent of their ICU beds free to actually treat an influx of people stricken with Covid-19 should it be necessary .
These metrics line up with a range of expert recommendations , as well as the various policy plans put out by both independent groups and government officials to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ metrics doesn ’ t mean that a state is ready to safely reopen its economy — a process that describes a wide range of local and state actions .
And failing them doesn ’ t mean a state is in immediate danger of a coronavirus outbreak if it starts to reopen ; with Covid-19 , there ’ s always an element of luck and other factors .
But with these metrics , states can gauge if they have repressed the coronavirus while building the capacity to contain future outbreaks should they come .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ how ready states are for the next phase of the fight .
So far , most states are not there .
Just four states — Colorado , Connecticut , New Jersey , and New York — met four or five of the goals , which demonstrates strong progress .
Twenty-five states and Washington , DC , hit two or three of the benchmarks .
The remaining 19 achieved zero or one .
( Alabama and Florida are excluded due to recent issues with test reporting . )
Even the states that have made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to fully reopen .
Without a vaccine or similar treatment , the threat of the coronavirus is still out there .
Especially in states that suffered big outbreaks , such as Arizona and New York , even a lot of progress or some progress doesn ’ t mean all the underlying problems that led to an epidemic are gone .
Nor do the metrics cover everything that states should do before they can safely reopen .
They don ’ t show , for example , if states have the capacity to do contact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into contact with someone who ’ s sick with Covid-19 are tracked down by “ disease detectives ” and quarantined .
Contact tracing is key to containing an epidemic , but states don ’ t track how many contact tracers they ’ ve hired in a standardized , readily available way .
States also don ’ t have ready data for health care workers ’ access to personal protective equipment , such as masks and gloves — a critical measure of the health care system ’ s readiness that ’ s difficult to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ idea of how much progress states have made toward containing the coronavirus and keeping it contained .
States will have to follow these kinds of metrics as they reopen .
If the numbers — especially coronavirus cases — go in the wrong direction again , experts said governments should be ready to bring back restrictions .
If states move too quickly to reopen or respond too slowly to a turn for the worse , they could see a renewed surge in Covid-19 cases .
“ Planning for reclosing is part of planning for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health policy expert at Duke , told me .
“ There will be outbreaks , and there will be needs for pauses and going back — hopefully not too much if we do this carefully.
” So this will be a work in progress , at least until we get a Covid-19 vaccine or the pandemic otherwise ends , whether by natural or human means .
But the metrics can at least help give states an idea of how far along they are in the fight against the coronavirus .
What ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in daily new coronavirus cases compared to two weeks ago and a 5 percent drop in cases compared to one week ago , based on data from the New York Times .
Which states meet the goal ?
Arizona , California , Colorado , Georgia , Mississippi , Nevada , Oregon , Texas , and Wyoming — a total of nine states .
Why is this important ?
Guidance from the White House and several independent groups emphasize that states need to see coronavirus cases drop consistently over two weeks before they can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reopening .
After all , nothing shows you ’ re out of an outbreak like a sustained reduction in infections .
“ The first and foremost [ metric ] is you want to have a continued decrease in cases , ” Saskia Popescu , an infectious disease epidemiologist , told me .
“ It ’ s a huge piece.
” A simple reduction in cases compared to two weeks prior isn ’ t enough ; it has to be a significant drop , and it has to be sustained over the two weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , states need at least a 10 percent drop in daily new cases compared to two weeks prior and at least a 5 percent drop compared to one week prior .
Reported cases can be a reflection of testing capacity : More testing will pick up more cases , and less testing will pick up fewer .
So it ’ s important that the decrease occur while testing is either growing or already sufficient .
And since states have recently boosted their testing abilities , increases in Covid-19 cases can also reflect improvements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ benchmark , continued caution is warranted .
If a state meets the goal of a reduction in cases compared to one and two weeks ago but cases seemed to go up in recent days , then perhaps it ’ s not time to reopen just yet .
And if cases have dropped but only from a very high baseline of cases , then that ’ s less comforting than a drop from a lower baseline .
“ You have to use common sense , ” Cyrus Shahpar , a director at the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , told me .
What ’ s the goal ?
Fewer than four daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people per day , based on data from the New York Times and the Census Bureau .
Which states meet the goal ?
Connecticut , Maine , New Hampshire , New Jersey , New York , and Vermont — just six states .
Why is this important ?
One of the best ways to know you ’ re getting away from a disease outbreak is to no longer see a high number of daily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no universally accepted number , experts said that four daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people is a reasonable ceiling .
“ If I go from one to two to three [ coronavirus cases a day ] , it ’ s different than going from 1,000 to 2,000 to 3,000 , even though the percent difference is the same , ” Shahpar said .
“ That ’ s why you have to take into account the overall level , too.
” To put it another way , it ’ s not enough for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even for weeks .
Cases also should fall below a certain level before a state can be deemed truly safe .
For example , Arizona has seen its daily new cases drop over the past two weeks .
But its daily new cases are still , after controlling for population , the third-highest in the country .
That indicates an epidemic that remains out of control .
At the same time , if your state is now below four daily new cases per 100,000 but it ’ s seen a recent uptick in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for caution .
Even the worst-hit states , after all , began with a handful of cases before they saw an exponential surge .
But if your state is below the threshold , it ’ s in a pretty solid place relative to most states .
What ’ s the goal ?
At least 150 tests per 100,000 people per day , based on data from the Covid Tracking Project and the Census Bureau .
Which states meet the goal ?
Alaska , Arkansas , California , Colorado , Connecticut , Delaware , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Iowa , Kentucky , Louisiana , Maine , Maryland , Massachusetts , Michigan , Minnesota , Missouri , Montana , Nebraska , New Jersey , New Mexico , New York , North Carolina , North Dakota , Ohio , Oklahoma , Rhode Island , South Dakota , Tennessee , Texas , Utah , Vermont , Virginia , Washington , and West Virginia — 37 states .
Washington , DC , did as well .
( Alabama and Florida are excluded due to recent issues with test reporting . )
Why is this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus pandemic , experts have argued that the US needs the capacity for at least 500,000 Covid-19 tests a day .
Controlling for population , that adds up to about 150 new tests per 100,000 people per day .
Testing is crucial to getting the coronavirus outbreak under control .
When paired with contact tracing , testing lets officials track the scale of the outbreak , isolate the sick , quarantine those the sick came into contact with , and deploy community-wide efforts as necessary .
Testing and tracing are how other countries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have managed to control their outbreaks and started to reopen their economies .
The idea , experts said , is to have enough surveillance to detect embers before they turn into full wildfires .
“ States should be shoring up their testing capacity not just for what it looks like right now while everyone ’ s in their homes , but as people start to move more , ” Jen Kates , the director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation , told me .
“ As people start @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to test more , because people are going to come into contact with each other more.
” The 500,000-a-day goal is the minimum .
Some experts have recommended as many as millions of tests nationwide each day .
But 500,000 is the most often-cited goal , and it ’ s , at the very least , a good start .
It ’ s preferable if states report this number by how many people they ’ ve tested , not just the total number of tests .
For containing an outbreak , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 500,000 people one time than to test one person 500,000 times .
But some states report the figures for total tests , not the number of tested individuals — counting tests for a single person multiple times .
That could skew the numbers .
This goal is also supposed to be for diagnostic tests , not antibody tests .
Diagnostic tests gauge whether a person has the virus in their system and is , therefore , sick right at the moment of the test .
Antibody tests check if someone ever developed antibodies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had ever been sick in the past .
Since diagnostic tests give a more recent gauge of the level of infection , they ’ re seen as much more reliable for evaluating the current state of the Covid-19 outbreak in a state .
But some states have mixed up numbers for diagnostic and antibody tests , which could skew the data collected by the Covid Tracking Project .
“ The virus isn ’ t going to care whether they were manipulating the numbers or not in order to look more favorable ; it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Crystal Watson , a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security , told me .
“ It ’ s better to really understand what ’ s going on and report that accurately.
” For states honestly reporting these numbers , though , they ’ re a critical measure of their ability to detect , control , and contain coronavirus outbreaks .
What ’ s the goal ?
Below 5 percent of coronavirus tests coming back positive over the past week , based on data from the Covid Tracking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Alaska , California , Colorado , Connecticut , Delaware , Illinois , Louisiana , Maine , Maryland , Massachusetts , Michigan , New Hampshire , New Jersey , New Mexico , New York , Ohio , Oregon , Pennsylvania , Rhode Island , Vermont , Washington , West Virginia , and Wyoming — 23 states .
Washington , DC , did as well .
( Alabama and Florida are excluded due to recent issues with test reporting . )
Why is this important ?
The positive or positivity rate , which tracks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19 , is another way to measure testing capacity .
Generally , a higher positive rate suggests there ’ s not enough testing happening .
An area with adequate testing should be testing lots and lots of people , many of whom don ’ t have the disease or don ’ t show severe symptoms .
The positive testing rate in South Korea , for example , is below 1 percent .
High positive rates indicate only people with obvious symptoms are getting tested , so there ’ s not quite enough testing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Previously , the World Health Organization ( WHO ) recommended a maximum positive rate of 10 percent .
But the WHO more recently recommended 5 percent , which is in line with the rate for countries that have managed to better control their outbreaks , like Germany , New Zealand , and South Korea .
“ Even lower is better , ” Shahpar said .
The positive rate data is subject to the same limitations as the overall testing data from the Covid Tracking Project .
So if a state includes antibody @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could skew the positive rate to look better than it is .
States only risk hurting themselves if they do this .
What ’ s the goal ?
Below 60 percent occupancy of ICU beds in hospitals , based on data from the US Department of Health and Human Services .
Which states meet the goal ?
Alaska , Colorado , Connecticut , Idaho , Illinois , Iowa , Massachusetts , Nebraska , New Hampshire , New Jersey , New Mexico , New York , North Dakota , South Dakota , Utah , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Why is this important ?
If a pandemic hits , the health care system needs to be ready to treat the most severe cases and potentially save lives .
That ’ s the key goal of “ flattening the curve ” and “ raising the line , ” in which social distancing helps reduce the spread of the disease so the health care system can maintain and grow its capacity to treat an influx of Covid-19 patients .
“ There ’ s this idea that in six weeks we can open more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security , told me .
“ But the virus is still there .
It ’ s all about making sure that the case count isn ’ t too immense for our hospital system to deal with.
” The aim is to avoid the nightmare scenario that Italy went through when it had more Covid-19 cases than its health care system could handle , leading to hospitals turning away even dangerously ill patients .
To gauge this , experts recommended looking at ICU capacity , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 60 percent occupancy in their ICUs .
Hitting the benchmarks is the beginning , not the end Vox ’ s map is just one way of tracking success against the coronavirus .
Other groups have come up with their own measures , including Covid Act Now , Covid Exit Strategy , and Test and Trace .
Vox ’ s model uses more up-to-date data than some of these other examples , while focusing not just on the state of the pandemic but also on states ’ readiness to contain Covid-19 outbreaks in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the marks recommended by experts .
But even those that do shouldn ’ t consider the pandemic over .
They should continue to improve — for example , getting the positive rate below 1 percent , as in New Zealand — and look at even more granular metrics , such as at the city or county level .
Meeting the benchmarks , however , indicates a state is better equipped to contain future coronavirus outbreaks as it eases previous restrictions .
Experts emphasized that states have to keep hitting all these goals week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19 cases must remain low , testing ability needs to stay high , and hospital capacity should be good enough for an influx of patients — until the pandemic is truly over , whether thanks to a vaccine or other means .
Otherwise , a future wave of coronavirus cases , as seen in past pandemics , could kill many more people .
“ You need to have all the metrics met , ” Popescu said .
“ This needs to be a very incremental , slow process to ensure success.
” And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wrong direction , states should be ready to shut down at least some parts of the economy again .
Maybe not as much as before , as we learn which places are truly at risk of increasing spread .
But experts caution that future shutdowns will likely be necessary to some extent .
“ I do worry we ’ re going to see surges of cases and hot spots , ” Watson said .
“ We do need to keep pushing on building those capacities .
… Otherwise , we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the virus .
It ’ s better if we have more control of the spread.
” That ’ s another reason these metrics , along with broader coronavirus surveillance , are so important : They not only help show how far along states are in dealing with their current Covid-19 outbreaks , but will help track progress to stop and prevent future crises as well .
Will you become our 20,000th supporter ?
When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go .
Today , we ’ re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in .
The reason is both lovely and surprising : Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it , too .
We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy .
That ’ s never been more important than today , during a public health crisis , racial justice protests , a recession , and a presidential election .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and advertising alone won ’ t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will help keep Vox free for all .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

All 50 states have moved to reopen their economies, at least partially, after shutting down businesses and gatherings in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
But a Vox analysis suggests that most states haven’t made the preparations needed to contain outbreaks — putting themselves at risk for a rise in Covid-19 cases and deaths should they continue to reopen. Some states have already had to backtrack on reopening measures.
Experts told me states need three things to be safe to open. State leaders, from the governor to the legislature to health departments, need to ensure the SARS-CoV-2 virus is no longer spreading unabated. They need the testing capacity to track and isolate the sick and their contacts. And they need the hospital capacity to handle a potential surge in Covid-19 cases.
More specifically, states should meet at least five basic criteria. They should see a two-week drop in coronavirus cases, indicating that the virus is actually abating. They should have fewer than four daily new cases per 100,000 people per day — to show that cases aren’t just dropping but are also below dangerous levels. They need at least 150 new tests per 100,000 people per day, letting them quickly track and contain outbreaks. They need an overall positive rate for tests below 5 percent — another critical indicator for testing capacity. And states should have at least 40 percent of their ICU beds free to actually treat an influx of people stricken with Covid-19 should it be necessary.
These metrics line up with a range of expert recommendations, as well as the various policy plans put out by both independent groups and government officials to deal with the coronavirus.
Meeting these metrics doesn’t mean that a state is ready to safely reopen its economy — a process that describes a wide range of local and state actions. And failing them doesn’t mean a state is in immediate danger of a coronavirus outbreak if it starts to reopen; with Covid-19, there’s always an element of luck and other factors.
But with these metrics, states can gauge if they have repressed the coronavirus while building the capacity to contain future outbreaks should they come. In other words, the benchmarks show how ready states are for the next phase of the fight.
So far, most states are not there. Just four states — Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York — met four or five of the goals, which demonstrates strong progress. Twenty-five states and Washington, DC, hit two or three of the benchmarks. The remaining 19 achieved zero or one. (Alabama and Florida are excluded due to recent issues with test reporting.)
Even the states that have made the most progress aren’t safe to fully reopen. Without a vaccine or similar treatment, the threat of the coronavirus is still out there. Especially in states that suffered big outbreaks, such as Arizona and New York, even a lot of progress or some progress doesn’t mean all the underlying problems that led to an epidemic are gone.
Nor do the metrics cover everything that states should do before they can safely reopen. They don’t show, for example, if states have the capacity to do contact tracing, in which people who came into contact with someone who’s sick with Covid-19 are tracked down by “disease detectives” and quarantined. Contact tracing is key to containing an epidemic, but states don’t track how many contact tracers they’ve hired in a standardized, readily available way.
States also don’t have ready data for health care workers’ access to personal protective equipment, such as masks and gloves — a critical measure of the health care system’s readiness that’s difficult to track.
But the map gives an idea of how much progress states have made toward containing the coronavirus and keeping it contained.
States will have to follow these kinds of metrics as they reopen. If the numbers — especially coronavirus cases — go in the wrong direction again, experts said governments should be ready to bring back restrictions. If states move too quickly to reopen or respond too slowly to a turn for the worse, they could see a renewed surge in Covid-19 cases.
“Planning for reclosing is part of planning for reopening,” Mark McClellan, a health policy expert at Duke, told me. “There will be outbreaks, and there will be needs for pauses and going back — hopefully not too much if we do this carefully.”
So this will be a work in progress, at least until we get a Covid-19 vaccine or the pandemic otherwise ends, whether by natural or human means. But the metrics can at least help give states an idea of how far along they are in the fight against the coronavirus.
Goal 1: A sustained two-week drop in coronavirus cases
What’s the goal? A 10 percent drop in daily new coronavirus cases compared to two weeks ago and a 5 percent drop in cases compared to one week ago, based on data from the New York Times.
Which states meet the goal? Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, and Wyoming — a total of nine states.
Why is this important? Guidance from the White House and several independent groups emphasize that states need to see coronavirus cases drop consistently over two weeks before they can say they’re ready to begin reopening. After all, nothing shows you’re out of an outbreak like a sustained reduction in infections.
“The first and foremost [metric] is you want to have a continued decrease in cases,” Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist, told me. “It’s a huge piece.”
A simple reduction in cases compared to two weeks prior isn’t enough; it has to be a significant drop, and it has to be sustained over the two weeks. So for Vox’s map, states need at least a 10 percent drop in daily new cases compared to two weeks prior and at least a 5 percent drop compared to one week prior.
Reported cases can be a reflection of testing capacity: More testing will pick up more cases, and less testing will pick up fewer. So it’s important that the decrease occur while testing is either growing or already sufficient. And since states have recently boosted their testing abilities, increases in Covid-19 cases can also reflect improvements in testing.
Even after meeting this benchmark, continued caution is warranted. If a state meets the goal of a reduction in cases compared to one and two weeks ago but cases seemed to go up in recent days, then perhaps it’s not time to reopen just yet. And if cases have dropped but only from a very high baseline of cases, then that’s less comforting than a drop from a lower baseline.
“You have to use common sense,” Cyrus Shahpar, a director at the public health policy group Resolve to Save Lives, told me.
Goal 2: A low number of daily new Covid-19 cases
What’s the goal? Fewer than four daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people per day, based on data from the New York Times and the Census Bureau.
Which states meet the goal? Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont — just six states.
Why is this important? One of the best ways to know you’re getting away from a disease outbreak is to no longer see a high number of daily new infections. While there’s no universally accepted number, experts said that four daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people is a reasonable ceiling.
“If I go from one to two to three [coronavirus cases a day], it’s different than going from 1,000 to 2,000 to 3,000, even though the percent difference is the same,” Shahpar said. “That’s why you have to take into account the overall level, too.”
To put it another way, it’s not enough for daily new Covid-19 cases to drop, even for weeks. Cases also should fall below a certain level before a state can be deemed truly safe.
For example, Arizona has seen its daily new cases drop over the past two weeks. But its daily new cases are still, after controlling for population, the third-highest in the country. That indicates an epidemic that remains out of control.
At the same time, if your state is now below four daily new cases per 100,000 but it’s seen a recent uptick in cases, that’s a reason for caution. Even the worst-hit states, after all, began with a handful of cases before they saw an exponential surge.
But if your state is below the threshold, it’s in a pretty solid place relative to most states.
Goal 3: High coronavirus testing capacity
What’s the goal? At least 150 tests per 100,000 people per day, based on data from the Covid Tracking Project and the Census Bureau.
Which states meet the goal? Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia — 37 states. Washington, DC, did as well. (Alabama and Florida are excluded due to recent issues with test reporting.)
Why is this important? Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, experts have argued that the US needs the capacity for at least 500,000 Covid-19 tests a day. Controlling for population, that adds up to about 150 new tests per 100,000 people per day.
Testing is crucial to getting the coronavirus outbreak under control. When paired with contact tracing, testing lets officials track the scale of the outbreak, isolate the sick, quarantine those the sick came into contact with, and deploy community-wide efforts as necessary. Testing and tracing are how other countries, like South Korea and Germany, have managed to control their outbreaks and started to reopen their economies.
The idea, experts said, is to have enough surveillance to detect embers before they turn into full wildfires.
“States should be shoring up their testing capacity not just for what it looks like right now while everyone’s in their homes, but as people start to move more,” Jen Kates, the director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told me. “As people start doing more movement, you’ll have to test more, because people are going to come into contact with each other more.”
The 500,000-a-day goal is the minimum. Some experts have recommended as many as millions of tests nationwide each day. But 500,000 is the most often-cited goal, and it’s, at the very least, a good start.
It’s preferable if states report this number by how many people they’ve tested, not just the total number of tests. For containing an outbreak, it’s generally more useful to test 500,000 people one time than to test one person 500,000 times. But some states report the figures for total tests, not the number of tested individuals — counting tests for a single person multiple times. That could skew the numbers.
This goal is also supposed to be for diagnostic tests, not antibody tests. Diagnostic tests gauge whether a person has the virus in their system and is, therefore, sick right at the moment of the test. Antibody tests check if someone ever developed antibodies to the virus to see if they had ever been sick in the past. Since diagnostic tests give a more recent gauge of the level of infection, they’re seen as much more reliable for evaluating the current state of the Covid-19 outbreak in a state.
But some states have mixed up numbers for diagnostic and antibody tests, which could skew the data collected by the Covid Tracking Project.
“The virus isn’t going to care whether they were manipulating the numbers or not in order to look more favorable; it’s going to continue to spread,” Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me. “It’s better to really understand what’s going on and report that accurately.”
For states honestly reporting these numbers, though, they’re a critical measure of their ability to detect, control, and contain coronavirus outbreaks.
Goal 4: A low test positive rate
What’s the goal? Below 5 percent of coronavirus tests coming back positive over the past week, based on data from the Covid Tracking Project.
Which states meet the goal? Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming — 23 states. Washington, DC, did as well. (Alabama and Florida are excluded due to recent issues with test reporting.)
Why is this important? The positive or positivity rate, which tracks how many tests come back positive for Covid-19, is another way to measure testing capacity.
Generally, a higher positive rate suggests there’s not enough testing happening. An area with adequate testing should be testing lots and lots of people, many of whom don’t have the disease or don’t show severe symptoms. The positive testing rate in South Korea, for example, is below 1 percent. High positive rates indicate only people with obvious symptoms are getting tested, so there’s not quite enough testing to match the scope of an outbreak.
Previously, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended a maximum positive rate of 10 percent. But the WHO more recently recommended 5 percent, which is in line with the rate for countries that have managed to better control their outbreaks, like Germany, New Zealand, and South Korea. “Even lower is better,” Shahpar said.
The positive rate data is subject to the same limitations as the overall testing data from the Covid Tracking Project. So if a state includes antibody tests in its test count, it could skew the positive rate to look better than it is. States only risk hurting themselves if they do this.
Goal 5: Availability of ICU beds
What’s the goal? Below 60 percent occupancy of ICU beds in hospitals, based on data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Which states meet the goal? Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming — 17 states.
Why is this important? If a pandemic hits, the health care system needs to be ready to treat the most severe cases and potentially save lives. That’s the key goal of “flattening the curve” and “raising the line,” in which social distancing helps reduce the spread of the disease so the health care system can maintain and grow its capacity to treat an influx of Covid-19 patients.
“There’s this idea that in six weeks we can open more things,” Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me. “But the virus is still there. It’s all about making sure that the case count isn’t too immense for our hospital system to deal with.”
The aim is to avoid the nightmare scenario that Italy went through when it had more Covid-19 cases than its health care system could handle, leading to hospitals turning away even dangerously ill patients.
To gauge this, experts recommended looking at ICU capacity, with states aiming to have at most 60 percent occupancy in their ICUs.
Hitting the benchmarks is the beginning, not the end
Vox’s map is just one way of tracking success against the coronavirus. Other groups have come up with their own measures, including Covid Act Now, Covid Exit Strategy, and Test and Trace. Vox’s model uses more up-to-date data than some of these other examples, while focusing not just on the state of the pandemic but also on states’ readiness to contain Covid-19 outbreaks in the future.
Very few states hit all the marks recommended by experts. But even those that do shouldn’t consider the pandemic over. They should continue to improve — for example, getting the positive rate below 1 percent, as in New Zealand — and look at even more granular metrics, such as at the city or county level.
Meeting the benchmarks, however, indicates a state is better equipped to contain future coronavirus outbreaks as it eases previous restrictions.
Experts emphasized that states have to keep hitting all these goals week after week and day after day — Covid-19 cases must remain low, testing ability needs to stay high, and hospital capacity should be good enough for an influx of patients — until the pandemic is truly over, whether thanks to a vaccine or other means. Otherwise, a future wave of coronavirus cases, as seen in past pandemics, could kill many more people.
“You need to have all the metrics met,” Popescu said. “This needs to be a very incremental, slow process to ensure success.”
And if the numbers do start trending in the wrong direction, states should be ready to shut down at least some parts of the economy again. Maybe not as much as before, as we learn which places are truly at risk of increasing spread. But experts caution that future shutdowns will likely be necessary to some extent.
“I do worry we’re going to see surges of cases and hot spots,” Watson said. “We do need to keep pushing on building those capacities. … Otherwise, we’re just rolling the dice on the spread of the virus. It’s better if we have more control of the spread.”
That’s another reason these metrics, along with broader coronavirus surveillance, are so important: They not only help show how far along states are in dealing with their current Covid-19 outbreaks, but will help track progress to stop and prevent future crises as well.
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-09-02--When is the first presidential debate? September 29.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed a lot about the 2020 presidential campaign , but at least one thing is set to proceed mostly as planned : the debates .
The first of those , between Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and President Donald Trump , is set to take place on September 29 in Cleveland , Ohio .
The debate will be held on the joint campus shared by Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic .
The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates has announced that Fox News anchor Chris Wallace will moderate , and the debate will run from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Two more presidential debates and a vice-presidential debate will follow in October .
According to Dr. James Merlino , a Cleveland Clinic executive , the September debate audience will be kept small , likely no more than 200 people , and now-familiar public health protocols — “ sanitizing hands , testing , doing health screenings , wearing masks , all of that ” — will be in place for the debate .
As with everything else this year , the debates have been beset with uncertainty .
Though the University of Notre Dame @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debate , it pulled out in late July , citing coronavirus concerns .
“ In the end , the constraints the coronavirus pandemic put on the event — as understandable and necessary as they are — have led us to withdraw , ” Notre Dame president Rev .
John Jenkins said at the time .
Notre Dame isn ’ t the only host to back out ; the University of Michigan Ann Arbor was set to host the second debate but canceled in June .
And the changes might not stop there : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ABC affiliate , a live debate audience could be nixed entirely if the coronavirus risk is too great .
And that ’ s just the Covid-related uncertainty .
Earlier this month , the Trump campaign tried to request a schedule change : In a letter to the CPD , Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani petitioned either for the addition of a fourth debate — there are three currently scheduled — or for the third debate to be moved from late October to early September , arguing that voters need a chance to watch the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ starts .
“ How can voters be sending in Ballots starting , in some cases , one month before the First Presidential Debate , ” Trump tweeted at the time .
“ Move the First Debate up.
” Giuliani also included a list of suggested debate moderators , including Fox News ’ s Bret Baier and Maria Bartiromo and conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt .
The commission , however , roundly rejected the Trump campaign ’ s requests — none of the four debate moderators announced Wednesday were names from Giuliani ’ s list @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s suggested revisions to the debate schedule , there was also a short-lived faux controversy over whether Biden would appear at the debates , prompted in part by a WSJ editorial board op-ed .
As the Washington Post ’ s Dave Weigel pointed out in August though , “ the ‘ Biden wants to cancel the debates ’ meme is a TV invention.
” There are no signs that the Biden campaign ever considered withdrawing from the debates .
In a statement after the moderators were announced , Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden has said for months — without farcical antics — he looks forward to participating in the debates set by the commission , regardless of who the independently chosen moderators are , ” Bates said Wednesday .
When Biden and Trump do take the stage late next month , they ’ re likely to be facing a political reality — a raging pandemic , an economy in crisis , and a national reckoning over race — that doesn ’ t look too different from right now .
Biden ’ s polling lead , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ points in the FiveThirtyEight national polling average , has remained fairly steady , though it ’ s down from its high of better than 9 points earlier this summer .
And while polls are more of a “ ‘ snapshot ’ in time , and not necessarily predictive of the election ’ s final result , ” as my colleague Li Zhou has explained , the underlying structures of American life right now don ’ t look like they ’ ll change in the near term .
The US continues to report tens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Weekly jobless claims have dipped below 1 million only once since late March .
And public approval on Trump ’ s handling of the pandemic has remained below 40 percent since early July .
Absentee ballots will start going out as early as September 4 ( in North Carolina ) , and the general election will be just 35 days away when the candidates meet in Cleveland .
The second and third debates will take place on October 15 and 22 , respectively , in Miami and Nashville , Tennessee .
C-SPAN @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debate , and NBC anchor Kristen Welker has been announced as the moderator for the final debate in Tennessee .
Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence will also meet at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City for a debate of their own on October 7 , moderated by USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page .
Will you become our 20,000th supporter ?
When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions , we weren ’ t sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in .
The reason is both lovely and surprising : Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it , too .
We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy .
That ’ s never been more important than today , during a public health crisis , racial justice protests , a recession , and a presidential election .
But our distinctive explanatory journalism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will help keep Vox free for all .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

The coronavirus pandemic has changed a lot about the 2020 presidential campaign, but at least one thing is set to proceed mostly as planned: the debates. The first of those, between Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and President Donald Trump, is set to take place on September 29 in Cleveland, Ohio.
The debate will be held on the joint campus shared by Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic. The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates has announced that Fox News anchor Chris Wallace will moderate, and the debate will run from 9 to 10:30 pm Eastern time.
Two more presidential debates and a vice-presidential debate will follow in October.
According to Dr. James Merlino, a Cleveland Clinic executive, the September debate audience will be kept small, likely no more than 200 people, and now-familiar public health protocols — “sanitizing hands, testing, doing health screenings, wearing masks, all of that” — will be in place for the debate.
As with everything else this year, the debates have been beset with uncertainty. Though the University of Notre Dame was originally set to host the first debate, it pulled out in late July, citing coronavirus concerns.
“In the end, the constraints the coronavirus pandemic put on the event — as understandable and necessary as they are — have led us to withdraw,” Notre Dame president Rev. John Jenkins said at the time.
Notre Dame isn’t the only host to back out; the University of Michigan Ann Arbor was set to host the second debate but canceled in June. And the changes might not stop there: According to reporting by Cleveland’s ABC affiliate, a live debate audience could be nixed entirely if the coronavirus risk is too great.
And that’s just the Covid-related uncertainty. Earlier this month, the Trump campaign tried to request a schedule change: In a letter to the CPD, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani petitioned either for the addition of a fourth debate — there are three currently scheduled — or for the third debate to be moved from late October to early September, arguing that voters need a chance to watch the candidates debate before early and mail-in voting starts.
“How can voters be sending in Ballots starting, in some cases, one month before the First Presidential Debate,” Trump tweeted at the time. “Move the First Debate up.”
How can voters be sending in Ballots starting, in some cases, one month before the First Presidential Debate. Move the First Debate up. A debate, to me, is a Public Service. Joe Biden and I owe it to the American People! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2020
Giuliani also included a list of suggested debate moderators, including Fox News’s Bret Baier and Maria Bartiromo and conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt.
The commission, however, roundly rejected the Trump campaign’s requests — none of the four debate moderators announced Wednesday were names from Giuliani’s list.
In addition to the Trump team’s suggested revisions to the debate schedule, there was also a short-lived faux controversy over whether Biden would appear at the debates, prompted in part by a WSJ editorial board op-ed.
As the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel pointed out in August though, “the ‘Biden wants to cancel the debates’ meme is a TV invention.” There are no signs that the Biden campaign ever considered withdrawing from the debates.
In a statement after the moderators were announced, Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates reiterated that point: “As Joe Biden has said for months — without farcical antics — he looks forward to participating in the debates set by the commission, regardless of who the independently chosen moderators are,” Bates said Wednesday.
Biden has a steady polling lead
When Biden and Trump do take the stage late next month, they’re likely to be facing a political reality — a raging pandemic, an economy in crisis, and a national reckoning over race — that doesn’t look too different from right now.
Biden’s polling lead, which stands in early September at 7.5 points in the FiveThirtyEight national polling average, has remained fairly steady, though it’s down from its high of better than 9 points earlier this summer. And while polls are more of a “‘snapshot’ in time, and not necessarily predictive of the election’s final result,” as my colleague Li Zhou has explained, the underlying structures of American life right now don’t look like they’ll change in the near term.
The US continues to report tens of thousands of daily new coronavirus cases. Weekly jobless claims have dipped below 1 million only once since late March. And public approval on Trump’s handling of the pandemic has remained below 40 percent since early July.
Absentee ballots will start going out as early as September 4 (in North Carolina), and the general election will be just 35 days away when the candidates meet in Cleveland.
The second and third debates will take place on October 15 and 22, respectively, in Miami and Nashville, Tennessee. C-SPAN editor Steve Scully will moderate the Miami debate, and NBC anchor Kristen Welker has been announced as the moderator for the final debate in Tennessee. Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence will also meet at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City for a debate of their own on October 7, moderated by USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page.
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-09-02--How a basic income experiment helped these Kenyans weather the Covid-19 crisis

Several years ago , researchers in Kenya decided to study the effects of a universal basic income ( UBI ) trial on people ’ s wellbeing .
Some 6,000 recipients in a 12-year trial beginning around 2017 received 75 cents a day — not much , but enough , their research found , for people to be less food-insecure and more likely to start a business .
Others received payments for just two years ( that ended in December 2019 ) , and still others received a lump sum payment .
In early 2020 , the coronavirus hit .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ imposed harsh lockdowns that sought to prevent the virus ’ s spread but that also had devastating impacts on the economy .
That prompted researchers to ask : How does receiving a UBI ( or having received a UBI up until recently ) affect how communities are hit by a serious economic setback like this one ?
The researchers decided to check back in on the households in their UBI trial .
This week , Nobel Prize-winning MIT economist Abhijit Banerjee , GiveDirectly ’ s Michael Faye , the late Princeton economist Alan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and MIT Sloan ’ s Tavneet Suri released a working paper — meaning it has not yet undergone peer review — on what they found .
Mostly , they found encouraging news : Even a very small UBI can really help with a deeply difficult situation .
The lockdown in Kenya to reduce the spread of the coronavirus was hard on rural communities like those in the UBI study , which were already quite poor .
The social safety net is limited , and people go hungry even in good times .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ were more likely to have to give up necessities .
Food insecurity was widespread — 68 percent of households in the control group reported experiencing hunger in the last 30 days .
But the UBI measurably improved things — not just for the people still receiving it but also in the group where the last payments stopped in December .
“ Recipients were 4.9-10.8 percentage points less likely to report experiencing hunger , ” the paper finds , and “ 3.6-5.7 percentage points less likely to have had a household member sick during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even less likely to be depressed .
It should be noted that almost no one in either the experimental or control groups actually had the coronavirus , which likely hadn ’ t reached rural Kenya by the time of the study — though its effects certainly had , through a nationwide lockdown that was stricter than that in much of the US .
Here ’ s how the UBI actually played out : In good times , the UBI had allowed many recipients to start businesses .
When the lockdown happened , business @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this wasn ’ t as devastating to those families as it otherwise would have been .
“ UBI lets people start businesses and have more business income , ” Tavneet Suri , one of the co-authors of the paper , told me .
“ As the pandemic comes along , they lose some of that business income .
But the businesses stay open ; they ’ re still doing some transactions.
” A small-business owner , she said , will “ expect the income to vary a lot , ” and with UBI @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to having to exit if it varies.
” People who did not start businesses still typically saw higher income as UBI recipients and were less likely to be hungry now .
As for the finding that they were less likely to be sick , perhaps having a bit more money made it less likely that household members got sick from other sources — because they could afford to eat better , access clean water , or rest when they needed it .
Proponents of UBI have argued for years that consistent benefits can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are good as well as when they ’ re difficult .
In good times , they encourage people to invest in their future — for example , by starting businesses or getting education or training .
And in bad times , they mitigate the downsides of having taken risks like starting a business , so that people can still eat .
Knowing that they ’ ll have some income no matter how bad things get may encourage people to take bigger risks when things are good .
“ That ’ s what we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the study , Suri told me .
“ Income benefits in good times and then stability benefits during bad times.
” The researchers looked , too , at whether the UBI might have encouraged recipients to do more activities that risked the spread of the coronavirus .
For instance , maybe having more money would make people more likely to have social interactions with friends and family .
In normal times , that ’ s good news .
And usually , if they ’ re more likely to go to the doctor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s good too — but during the pandemic , it might expose them or the doctor to the coronavirus .
If UBI increases social interaction or health system utilization , then under these unusual circumstances that potentially increases the spread of disease .
Researchers didn ’ t find any such effects , though .
Instead , “ Transfers generally had small beneficial effects or null effects on behaviors related to public health.
” Recipients were less likely to see a doctor — because they were less likely to get sick — and maybe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There were no effects found on work or on commercial activities like shopping .
Another criticism that is frequently aired about using a universal basic income for disaster relief is that giving people money can increase demand for goods — say , food — but the disaster will have restricted the supply .
“ If you talk to most economists , economists are always like ‘ give cash , supply chains are generally functioning in most areas.
’ But the one exception is disasters , ” Rema Hanna , a development economist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me .
For example , if there is a severe famine , giving everyone in the world a trillion dollars would not mean there ’ s enough food for everyone — it would instead result in people bidding against each other for more and more expensive food .
That doesn ’ t mean you shouldn ’ t give cash as disaster aid , she said , but it does mean it ’ s important you ’ re “ sure that supply chains are functioning.
” But in this case , it looks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a village got a cash transfer , they ate better rather than just bid up the price of food .
The coronavirus lockdown in Kenya mostly blocked trade from large cities and across international borders , Suri told me , while food is mostly conveyed more locally .
And some people can shift production to ensure there ’ s more food in a crisis — even when the country is locked down , the food supply is not fully fixed .
So giving people more money really does help , and it doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prices .
( Other research has reached the same conclusion . )
The coronavirus crisis is unlike most crises that a social support net has to weather , but the lessons from Kenya ’ s experiment are hardly uniquely applicable to the pandemic .
Many of the results researchers observe also apply to other short-term times of difficulty or scarcity , from the annual dry season to a drought year or a natural disaster .
It seems that , in hard times , UBI doesn ’ t fix everything — but it can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fears that it would make the problems that befall people worse have failed to materialize .
The new study is a bit more evidence that UBI should be a big part of our thinking as we figure out how to ensure the world ’ s poorest can endure the crises — from global warming to pandemics — ahead .
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 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work , and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

Several years ago, researchers in Kenya decided to study the effects of a universal basic income (UBI) trial on people’s well-being. Some 6,000 recipients in a 12-year trial beginning around 2017 received 75 cents a day — not much, but enough, their research found, for people to be less food-insecure and more likely to start a business. Others received payments for just two years (that ended in December 2019), and still others received a lump sum payment.
In early 2020, the coronavirus hit. In response, governments like Kenya’s imposed harsh lockdowns that sought to prevent the virus’s spread, but that also had devastating impacts on the economy.
That prompted researchers to ask: How does receiving a UBI (or having received a UBI up until recently) affect how communities are hit by a serious economic setback like this one? The researchers decided to check back in on the households in their UBI trial. This week, Nobel Prize-winning MIT economist Abhijit Banerjee, GiveDirectly’s Michael Faye, University of California San Diego’s Paul Niehaus, and MIT’s Tavneet Suri released a working paper — meaning it has not yet undergone peer review — on what they found. The late Princeton economist Alan Krueger was also a co-author.
Mostly, they found encouraging news: Even a very small UBI can really help with a deeply difficult situation. The lockdown in Kenya to reduce the spread of the coronavirus was hard on rural communities like those in the UBI study, which were already quite poor. The social safety net is limited, and people go hungry even in good times. When people earned less money, they were more likely to have to give up necessities. Food insecurity was widespread — 68 percent of households in the control group reported experiencing hunger in the last 30 days.
But the UBI measurably improved things — not just for the people still receiving it but also in the group where the last payments stopped in December. “Recipients were 4.9-10.8 percentage points less likely to report experiencing hunger,” the paper finds, and “3.6-5.7 percentage points less likely to have had a household member sick during the last 30 days.” Recipients were even less likely to be depressed.
It should be noted that almost no one in either the experimental or control groups actually had the coronavirus, which likely hadn’t reached rural Kenya by the time of the study — though its effects certainly had, through a nationwide lockdown that was stricter than those in much of the US.
Here’s how the UBI actually played out: In good times, the UBI had allowed many recipients to start businesses. When the lockdown happened, business income plunged. But UBI meant that this wasn’t as devastating to those families as it otherwise would have been.
“UBI lets people start businesses and have more business income,” Tavneet Suri, one of the co-authors of the paper, told me. “As the pandemic comes along, they lose some of that business income. But the businesses stay open; they’re still doing some transactions.” A small business owner, she said, will “expect the income to vary a lot,” and with UBI, they’re “not subject to having to exit if it varies.”
People who did not start businesses still typically saw higher income as UBI recipients and were less likely to be hungry now. As for the finding that they were less likely to be sick, perhaps having a bit more money made it less likely that household members got sick from other sources — because they could afford to eat better, access clean water, or rest when they needed it.
Related This Kenyan village is a laboratory for the biggest basic income experiment ever
The far-reaching benefits of a UBI
Proponents of UBI have argued for years that consistent benefits can improve people’s lives when times are good as well as when they’re difficult. In good times, they encourage people to invest in their future — for example, by starting businesses or getting education or training. And in bad times, they mitigate the downsides of having taken risks like starting a business, so that people can still eat.
Knowing they’ll have some income no matter how bad things get may encourage people to take bigger risks when things are good. “That’s what we’re seeing” from the results in the study, Suri told me. “Income benefits in good times and then stability benefits during bad times.”
The researchers looked, too, at whether the UBI might have encouraged recipients to do more activities that risked the spread of the coronavirus. For instance, maybe having more money would make people more likely to have social interactions with friends and family. In normal times, that’s good news. And usually, if they’re more likely to go to the doctor with a health concern, that’s good too — but during the pandemic, it might expose them or the doctor to the coronavirus. If UBI increases social interaction or health system utilization, then under these unusual circumstances that potentially increases the spread of disease.
Researchers didn’t find any such effects, though. Instead, “Transfers generally had small beneficial effects or null effects on behaviors related to public health.” Recipients were less likely to see a doctor — because they were less likely to get sick — and maybe slightly less likely to have social interactions. There were no effects found on work or on commercial activities like shopping.
Another criticism frequently aired about using a universal basic income for disaster relief is that giving people money can increase demand for goods — say, food — but the disaster will have restricted the supply.
“If you talk to most economists, economists are always like ‘give cash, supply chains are generally functioning in most areas.’ But the one exception is disasters,” Rema Hanna, a development economist at the Kennedy School at Harvard, told me. For example, if there is a severe famine, giving everyone in the world a trillion dollars would not mean there’s enough food for everyone — it would instead result in people bidding against each other for more and more expensive food. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give cash as disaster aid, she said, but it does mean it’s important you’re “sure that supply chains are functioning.”
But in this case, it looks like they are. When everyone in a village got a cash transfer, they ate better rather than just bid up the price of food. The coronavirus lockdown in Kenya mostly blocked trade from large cities and across international borders, Suri told me, while food is mostly conveyed more locally. And some people can shift production to ensure there’s more food in a crisis — even when the country is locked down, the food supply is not fully fixed. So giving people more money really does help, and it doesn’t just lead to increased food prices. (Other research has reached the same conclusion.)
The coronavirus crisis is unlike most crises that a social support net has to weather, but the lessons from Kenya’s experiment are hardly uniquely applicable to the pandemic. Many of the results researchers observe also apply to other short-term times of difficulty or scarcity, from the annual dry season to a drought year or a natural disaster.
It seems that, in hard times, UBI doesn’t fix everything — but it can make things a little easier. And fears that it would make the problems that befall people worse have failed to materialize. The new study is a bit more evidence that UBI should be a big part of our thinking as we figure out how to ensure the world’s poorest can endure the crises — from global warming to pandemics — ahead.


vox--2020-09-02--China may double its nuclear arsenal in just 10 years. Don’t panic.

A new Pentagon report predicts China will double its number of nuclear warheads over the next 10 years .
That certainly sounds scary , but the assessment actually offers a broadly reassuring message : Despite these expected advances , the US will remain the far stronger nuclear force well into the future .
The report released on Tuesday , titled “ Military and Security Developments Involving the People ’ s Republic of China 2020 , ” is an annual report to Congress by the Department of Defense .
While it doesn ’ t include any classified information , many China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what changes , if any , China has made to its armed forces or national security strategy .
This year ’ s iteration has many interesting tidbits , such as China ’ s outpacing of the US military in shipbuilding , but one in particular stood out more than others .
“ Over the next decade , China ’ s nuclear warhead stockpile — currently estimated to be in the low 200s — is projected to at least double in size as China expands and modernizes its nuclear forces , ” the report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time the report has included an estimate of the number of operational warheads China has .
To put that more concretely , the US military believes China will have between 400 and 500 nuclear warheads available for use around 2030 .
That ’ s understandably troubling to read ( and for me to write ) , but the goods news is that most experts aren ’ t overly worried about that finding .
“ A doubling is not as scary as it sounds , ” said Vipin Narang , a nuclear expert at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why you can come out from under the covers now .
Don ’ t freak out about China ’ s nuclear advancements , at least not yet The first reason the nuclear assessment isn ’ t so worrying is because , well , it isn ’ t actually that new .
Last year , Army Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley Jr. the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency , offered the same analysis during a speech at the Hudson Institute in Washington , DC .
“ China will likely at least double the size @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of implementing the most rapid expansion and diversification of its nuclear arsenal in China ’ s history , ” he said , noting his agency believed “ the number of warheads that the Chinese have is in the low couple hundreds.
” What ’ s in the Pentagon ’ s new report , then , is just a codification of what Ashley revealed in that address .
Second , the US just has so , so , so many more nuclear weapons than China does that any growth in Beijing ’ s arsenal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nuclear stockpile numbers about 3,800 [ active ] warheads .
That ’ s almost 20 times as many as China has now and 10 times what China is projected to build over the next decade , ” said Jeffrey Lewis , director of the East Asia nonproliferation project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies .
That means the US will have the larger nuclear arsenal for decades to come , likely dissuading China from attacking the US with a nuke .
After all , America ’ s superiority means it could almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before Beijing could do the same to the US — though a nuclear war between the two powers has the potential to end civilization as we know it .
In a way , the new buildup is China ’ s admission that it ’ s acted too late to close the yawning nuclear gap .
“ China doubling over the next couple decades is kind of ‘ it ’ s about time , ’ ” said MIT ’ s Narang .
“ China is late to the game.
” Third , another statement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may not be able to grow its arsenal beyond another few hundred warheads .
“ China probably has enough nuclear materials to at least double its warhead stockpile without new fissile material production , ” the report reads .
In other words , Beijing couldn ’ t more than double its arsenal unless it produced more plutonium to build bombs , an effort the world — including the US — would detect pretty easily .
“ That would be expensive , slow , and visible , ” said James Acton , the co-director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s nuclear program .
China , in effect , is stuck right where it is in terms of the number of warheads it can make .
Any decision to go beyond doubling that stockpile would surely draw major condemnations , and perhaps retaliatory actions , from countries around the world .
None of this should lead to complacency in the Pentagon .
As Acton told me , China still has enough warheads , and long-range missiles to place them on , “ to destroy the US as a functioning society.
” And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s military prowess could match America ’ s in just 30 years .
It ’ s why experts think it ’ s a good idea for the US to seriously engage in China in arms control talks , among other things , as a way to blunt an arms race .
“ The important thing to keep in mind is that China can afford a much larger nuclear force than it has now , ” said Middlebury ’ s Lewis .
But if the Defense Department ’ s new China report says anything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the US doesn ’ t need to be very afraid of is a massive , overwhelming Chinese nuclear force .
It should consider that a win — for now .
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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work , and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

A new Pentagon report predicts China will double its number of nuclear warheads over the next 10 years. That certainly sounds scary, but the assessment actually offers a broadly reassuring message: Despite these expected advances, the US will remain the far stronger nuclear force well into the future.
The report released on Tuesday, titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020,” is an annual report to Congress by the Department of Defense. While it doesn’t include any classified information, many China analysts eagerly await its findings to track what changes, if any, China has made to its armed forces or national security strategy.
This year’s iteration has many interesting tidbits, such as China’s outpacing of the US military in shipbuilding, but one in particular stood out more than others. “Over the next decade, China’s nuclear warhead stockpile — currently estimated to be in the low 200s — is projected to at least double in size as China expands and modernizes its nuclear forces,” the report says. It’s the first time the report has included an estimate of the number of operational warheads China has.
To put that more concretely, the US military believes China will have between 400 and 500 nuclear warheads available for use around 2030. That’s understandably troubling to read (and for me to write), but the goods news is that most experts aren’t overly worried about that finding.
“A doubling is not as scary as it sounds,” said Vipin Narang, a nuclear expert at MIT.
Three main reasons help explain why you can come out from under the covers now.
Don’t freak out about China’s nuclear advancements, at least not yet
The first reason the nuclear assessment isn’t so worrying is because, well, it isn’t actually that new.
Last year, Army Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley Jr. the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, offered the same analysis during a speech at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. “China will likely at least double the size of its nuclear stockpile in the course of implementing the most rapid expansion and diversification of its nuclear arsenal in China’s history,” he said, noting his agency believed “the number of warheads that the Chinese have is in the low couple hundreds.”
What’s in the Pentagon’s new report, then, is just a codification of what Ashley revealed in that address.
Second, the US just has so, so, so many more nuclear weapons than China does that any growth in Beijing’s arsenal is somewhat negligible.
“The US nuclear stockpile numbers about 3,800 [active] warheads. That’s almost 20 times as many as China has now and 10 times what China is projected to build over the next decade,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
That means the US will have the larger nuclear arsenal for decades to come, likely dissuading China from attacking the US with a nuke. After all, America’s superiority means it could almost surely decimate Chinese cities and military positions before Beijing could do the same to the US — though a nuclear war between the two powers has the potential to end civilization as we know it.
In a way, the new buildup is China’s admission that it’s acted too late to close the yawning nuclear gap. “China doubling over the next couple decades is kind of ‘it’s about time,’” said MIT’s Narang. “China is late to the game.”
Third, another statement in the report makes clear that China may not be able to grow its arsenal beyond another few hundred warheads.
“China probably has enough nuclear materials to at least double its warhead stockpile without new fissile material production,” the report reads. In other words, Beijing couldn’t more than double its arsenal unless it produced more plutonium to build bombs, an effort the world — including the US — would detect pretty easily. “That would be expensive, slow, and visible,” said James Acton, the co-director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s nuclear program.
China, in effect, is stuck right where it is in terms of the number of warheads it can make. Any decision to go beyond doubling that stockpile would surely draw major condemnations, and perhaps retaliatory actions, from countries around the world.
None of this should lead to complacency in the Pentagon. As Acton told me, China still has enough warheads, and long-range missiles to place them on, “to destroy the US as a functioning society.” And other government reports make clear China’s military prowess could match America’s in just 30 years. It’s why experts think it’s a good idea for the US to seriously engage in China in arms control talks, among other things, as a way to blunt an arms race.
“The important thing to keep in mind is that China can afford a much larger nuclear force than it has now,” said Middlebury’s Lewis.
But if the Defense Department’s new China report says anything, it’s that one thing the US doesn’t need to be very afraid of is a massive, overwhelming Chinese nuclear force. It should consider that a win — for now.