vox--2020-04-24--Understand the unfolding coronavirus pandemic with these Vox podcast episodes

The coronavirus outbreak that causes the Covid-19 illness continues to spread as a health threat across the globe .
As new coronavirus cases are discovered , questions keep popping up about how to prepare for an outbreak , how to travel , and the difference between quarantine , isolation , and social distancing — to name a few .
That ’ s where Vox podcasts come in .
From what it ’ s like to be quarantined with coronavirus to how prepared the US is set up to respond to this outbreak to how AI warned about coronavirus before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , The Weeds , Worldy , Reset , and Recode Decode episodes will help you understand the situation as it unfolds .
April 23 , 2020 | Teachers and students are still struggling with online education .
April 23 , 2020 | Vox ’ s science editor , Eliza Barclay , arms you with the facts you need to fight your uncle ’ s favorite coronavirus conspiracy theories .
April 22 , 2020 | Cryptic treehunters .
Unknown apples .
Flowers fighting back .
On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day , Vox @ @ @ @ @ @ @ explain what we learned about the planet in the last year .
April 21 , 2020 | Dara , Jane , and Matt on conservatives ’ desire for a rapid reopening of American businesses , and a ‘ feel good ’ white paper about air pollution .
April 21 , 2020 | A coronavirus conspiracy theory has led to arson attacks in the UK .
And - how to talk to friends and family about coronavirus misinformation .
April 21 , 2020 | A nurse , a paramedic , and a physician ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a day in the fight against Covid-19 .
The epicenter of the epicenter April 20 , 2020 | Covid-19 ’ s victims , and the people they leave behind .
April 19 , 2020 | What ’ s the deal with January 19th , 2038 ?
Why remembering Y2K correctly matters .
Help is on the way ( sort of ) April 17 , 2020 | Ezra and Matt break down the implementation problems that have bedeviled the CARES Act .
April 17 , 2020 | It could be a year or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but there ’ s a radical plan to speed up the process .
April 16 , 2020 | Public health ’ s “ tried and true ” tactic against infectious disease , and how Google and Apple want to help end the lockdown .
April 16 , 2020 | President Trump wants to reopen the country yesterday .
Bioethicist Zeke Emanuel , who served as a health policy advisor to former President Obama , offers a safe path .
April 15 , 2020 | The United States Postal Service is on the brink @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yglesias explains how and why the country should save it .
How indie bookstores might survive the pandemic April 14 , 2020 | There ’ s a new online bookseller in town that ’ s trying to save your local indie bookstore .
April 14 , 2020 | Essential workers in the food , transportation , and retail industries are being called American heroes .
They want to be paid as such .
April 14 , 2020 | Congressional oversight committee member Bharat Ramamurti joins Matt to explain his new job and what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Elizabeth Warren has a plan for this , too April 13 , 2020 | Friend of the show Ezra Klein speaks to Sen. Elizabeth Warren about several plans she has proposed to combat this pandemic .
The Internet Has a Crush on Dr. Fauci April 12 , 2020 | From fan pages to food pics , Dr. Anthony Fauci is everywhere .
The Verge ’ s Makena Kelly explains the person behind the meme .
How does this end ?
April 10 , 2020 | Ezra and Matt review four major plans for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primary finally ends .
April 10 , 2020 | Coronavirus has led to another pandemic : social isolation .
Vox ’ s Ezra Klein says this sickness has a cure .
Six feet away from God April 9 , 2020 | While a few religious leaders flout shelter in place ordinances , Easter , Passover , and Ramadan are inspiring most to get creative with worship .
Toby Ord on existential risk , Donald Trump , and thinking in probabilities April 9 , 2020 | Oxford philosopher Toby Ord spent the early part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movement , founding Giving What We Can , and focusing his attention primarily on issue areas like global public health and extreme poverty .
Ord ’ s new book The Precipice is about something entirely different : the biggest existential risks to the future of humanity .
In it , he predicts that humanity has approximately a 1 in 6 chance of going completely extinct by the end of the 21st century .
The coronavirus pandemic is a reminder that tail risk is real .
We always knew a zoological respiratory virus could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ collectively , we didn ’ t want to think about it , and so we didn ’ t .
The result is the reality we live in now .
But for all the current moment ’ s horror , there are worse risks than coronavirus out there .
One silver lining of the current crisis might be that it gets us to take them seriously , and avert them before they become unstoppable .
That ’ s what Ord ’ s book is about , and it is , in a strange way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is a conversation about the risks that threaten humanity ’ s future , and what we can do about them .
It ’ s a conversation about thinking in probabilities , about the ethics of taking future human lives seriously , about how we weigh the risks we don ’ t yet understand .
April 9 , 2020 | Why the pandemic is exposing the complicated relationship between delivery apps and restaurants and how a restaurateur and app developer is helping keep his industry alive .
April 8 , 2020 | Wisconsinites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting on Tuesday .
Is the rest of the country next ?
Your phone knows if you ’ re staying at home April 7 , 2020 | And it is telling the government .
The Verge ’ s Casey Newton explains how location data is helping fight coronavirus , and why even privacy advocates don ’ t think that ’ s such a bad thing .
Featuring Casey Newton , Silicon Valley Editor at the Verge .
April 7 , 2020 | Madonna was wrong .
Covid-19 isn ’ t an equalizer .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ s most vulnerable populations .
April 6 , 2020 | A vaccine will take a while , but Vox ’ s Umair Irfan says the global effort to test for immunity and treat Covid-19 is well underway .
Elizabeth Warren has a plan for this , too April 6 , 2020 | In January , Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the first presidential candidate to release a plan for combatting coronavirus .
In March , she released a second plan .
Days later , with the scale of economic damage increasing , she released @ @ @ @ @ @ @ track the spread of the virus : from a problem happening elsewhere and demanding a surge in global health resources to a pandemic happening here , demanding not just a public health response , but an all-out effort to save the US economy .
Warren ’ s penchant for planning stands in particular stark contrast to this administration , which still has not released a clear coronavirus plan .
There is no document you can download , no web site you can visit , that details our national strategy to slow the disease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked Warren to return to the show to explain what the plan should be , given the cold reality we face .
We discussed what , specifically , the federal government should do ; the roots of the testing debacle ; her idea for mobilizing the economy around building affordable housing ; why she thinks that this is exactly the right time to cancel student loan debt ; why America spends so much money preparing for war and so little defending itself against pandemics and climate change ; whether she thinks the Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and how this crisis is making a grim mockery of Ronald Reagan ’ s old saw about “ the scariest words in the English language.
” The two types of tests we need to end this April 5 , 2020 | How testing technology will help end the spread of covid-19 .
April 3 , 2020 | In an about-face , the Centers for Disease Control would now like you to cover your mouth and nose when you go outside .
April 3 , 2020 | Ezra and Matt discuss Covid-19 ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for single-payer , and more .
April 2 , 2020 | Last week ’ s unemployment numbers shattered all records .
This week , they doubled .
Vox ’ s Matthew Yglesias , host of The Weeds podcast , proposes a way out of this mess .
The race to make more ventilators April 2 , 2020 | Why life-saving ventilators for Covid-19 patients are in short supply , and how people like Dr. Richard Boyer are trying to fix that .
What social solidarity demands of us in a pandemic April 2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that social distancing is the best way to slow the spread of the coronavirus .
But the efficacy of social distancing ( or really any other public health measure ) relies on something much deeper and harder to measure : social solidarity .
“ Solidarity , ” writes Eric Klinenberg , “ motivates us to promote public health , not just our own personal security .
It keeps us from hoarding medicine , toughing out a cold in the workplace or sending a sick child to school .
It compels us to let @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our safe harbors , to knock on our older neighbor ’ s door.
” Klinenberg , a sociologist by trade , is the director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University .
His first book , Heat Wave , found that social connection was , at times , literally the difference between life and death during Chicago ’ s 1995 heat wave .
Since then , he ’ s spent his career studying trends in American social life , from the rise of adults living alone to the importance of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our civic bonds .
This conversation is about what happens when a country mired in a mythos of individualism collides with a pandemic that demands social solidarity and collective sacrifice .
It ’ s about preventing an epidemic of loneliness and social isolation from overwhelming the most vulnerable among us .
We discuss the underlying social trends that predated coronavirus , what kind of leadership it takes to actually bring people together , the irony of asking young people and essential workers to sacrifice for the rest of us , whether there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kind of society in the aftermath of Covid-19 , and much more .
April 1 , 2020 | Arthur Longworth calls Sean from Washington State Reformatory to explain what it ’ s like to serve a life sentence at a prison where the coronavirus is spreading .
March 31 , 2020 | Nintendo ’ s new game New Horizons has become a place to escape the reality of a global pandemic , gather with friends online - and even get married .
March 31 , 2020 | Part rally , part media-bashing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , President Trump ’ s daily press briefings are muddying the message .
Coronavirus has pushed US-China relations to their worst point since Mao March 30 , 2020 | The COVID-19 pandemic is a grim reminder that the worst really can happen .
Tail risk is real risk .
Political leaders fumble , miscalculate , and bluster into avoidable disaster .
And even as we try to deal with this catastrophe , the seeds of another are sprouting .
The US-China relationship will define geopolitics in the 21st century .
If we collapse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opportunistic nationalism , the results could be hellish .
And we are , right now , collapsing into rivalry , conflict , and politically opportunistic nationalism .
The Trump administration , and key congressional Republicans , are calling COVID-19 “ the Chinese virus , ” and trying to gin up tensions to distract from their domestic failures .
Chinese government officials , beset by their own domestic problems , are claiming the US military brought the virus to China .
The US-China relationship was in a bad way six months ago , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Evan Osnos covers the US-China relationship for the New Yorker , and is author of the National Book Award winner , The Age of Ambition : Chasing Fortune , Truth and Faith in the New China .
In this conversation , we discuss the past , present and future of the US-China relationship .
What are the chances of armed conflict ?
What might deescalation look like ?
And we know what the US wants — what , in truth , does China want ?
March 29 , 2020 | What do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
” ; plus , the most important unanswered questions about how coronavirus is transmitted .
March 27 , 2020 | On today ’ s show , more listener questions : Why isn ’ t everyone social distancing ?
Will I be immune after I get it ?
When will this end ?
My anxiety is spiking !
March 27 , 2020 | Ezra and Matt analyze the huge but inadequate stimulus bill .
Deepak Chopra : “ If this doesn ’ t bring us together , then we deserve whatever happens ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chopra talks with Recode ’ s Kara Swisher about how to cope with the global threat posed by coronavirus , the parallel “ pandemic of panic , ” and how to not be overwhelmed by fear and anxiety .
Is the cure worse than the disease ?
March 26 , 2020 | “ We can not let the cure be worse than the problem itself !
” That was President Donald Trump , this week , explaining why he was thinking about lifting coronavirus guidelines earlier than public-health experts recommended .
The “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is social distancing , and the mass economic stoppage it forces .
The problem , of course , is COVID-19 , and the millions of deaths it could cause .
This is a debate that needs to be taken seriously .
Slowing coronavirus will impose real costs , and immense suffering , on society .
Are those costs worth it ?
This is the most important public policy question right now .
And if the discussion isn ’ t had well , then it will be had , as we ’ re already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What this coronavirus does to your body March 26 , 2020 | Why does it spread so easily ?
And could it mutate into something worse ?
The Atlantic ’ s Ed Yong explains the science so far .
March 25 , 2020 | Congress has settled on a historic stimulus package , but Ezra Klein is worried it might not be enough .
Chamath Palihapitiya : “ The investing landscape is done , ” taxes will go up , and a two-week lockdown is inevitable March 25 , 2020 | Social Capital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Kara Swisher about how long it will take to recover from the coronavirus crisis , its impact on startups , and how the US government should and will react — including by tracking individuals via their technology and repatriating cash from tech companies like Apple .
Palihapitiya says businesses should make sure they have at least 36 months worth of cash on hand to weather this recession and its slow recovery period and predicts the US will need to devote an entire year ’ s GDP to combat covid-19 .
He criticizes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make economic recovery harder says he ’ s done investing for at least nine months , because anyone trying to do deals now will be “ decapitated.
” Plus : What we can all learn right now from the histories of the Great Depression and the 2008 financial crisis , and which industries will come out of this crisis stronger than before ?
March 24 , 2020 | Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya talks with Recode ’ s Kara Swisher about how long it will take to recover from the coronavirus crisis , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 2020 | How the tech giant is responding to the pandemic , and what it says about Amazon as a company .
March 24 , 2020 | Jane , Dara , and Matt on the Defense Production Act , wartime mobilization , and pandemic-induced autarky .
March 23 , 2020 | Vox ’ s Julia Belluz went from covering the global coronavirus pandemic to giving birth in the middle of it .
( Transcript here . )
Learn more about your ad choices .
Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices An economic crisis like we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ | “ What is happening , ” writes Annie Lowrey , “ is a shock to the American economy more sudden and severe than anyone alive has ever experienced.
” It ’ s also different from what anyone alive has ever experienced .
For many of us , the Great Recession is the closest analogue — but it ’ s not analogous at all .
There , the economy ’ s potential was unchanged , but financial markets were in crisis .
Here , we are purposefully freezing economic activity in order to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data suggests the economic crisis is going to far exceed any single week or quarter of the financial crisis .
Multiple economists have told Ezra Klein that the nearest analogy to what we ’ re going through is the economy during World War II .
“ I have a secret advantage when trying to understand moments of economic upheaval .
I ’ m married to Annie Lowrey , ” writes Ezra Klein .
“ I can give you the bio — staff writer at the Atlantic , author of Give People Money ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right now ) — but suffice to say she ’ s one of the clearest and most brilliant economic thinkers I know .
Her viral piece on the affordability crisis is crucial for understanding what the economy really looked like before Covid-19 , and she ’ s been doing some of the best work on the way Covid-19 will worsen the economic problems we had and create a slew of new ones .
But this isn ’ t just a conversation about crisis .
It ’ s also a conversation about how to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it hopeful — we ’ re not there yet .
But constructive.
” The biggest experiment in online learning , ever March 22 , 2020 | COVID-19 has shut schools all over the country , and millions of American students are now learning at home , online .
Are online tools enough to make up for lost classroom time ?
March 20 , 2020 | On today ’ s show , we answer listener ’ s questions : Why is there no TP ?
Will we run out of food ?
Can I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I finally write my will ?
How can I help ?
How quickly can we treat covid-19 ?
March 19 , 2020 | The scientific community is moving at unprecedented speed to develop a way to treat COVID-19 .
But how soon can a treatment or a vaccine be available to the public ?
March 19 , 2020 | Vox ’ s Brian Resnick ( safely ) meets Sean in a Washington , D.C. park to deliver the Five Commandments of social distancing .
“ The virus is more patient than people are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Klain served as the chief of staff to vice presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden .
In 2014 , President Barack Obama tapped him to lead the administration ’ s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa .
He successfully oversaw a hellishly complex effort preparing domestically for an outbreak and surging health resources onto another continent to contain the disease .
But Klain is quick to say that the coronavirus is a harder challenge even than Ebola .
The economy is in free fall .
Entire cities have been told to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s no telling how long any of this will last .
In this conversation , Klain answers Ezra Klein ’ s questions about the disease and how to respond to it , as well as questions many of you submitted .
TFW your dad gives you Covid-19 March 18 , 2020 | Sean speaks to a Brooklyn family that has Covid-19 , and Vox ’ s Dylan Scott explains how the United States is still trying to get its act together on testing .
March 17 , 2020 | Jane , Dara , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new more serious tone and competing economic stimulus proposals .
March 17 , 2020 | After dismissing coronavirus concerns for months , President Donald is pivoting to serious action to slow the crisis in the United States .
March 16 , 2020 | The country ’ s largest school district told a million kids to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic .
It ’ s creating chaos for teachers , students , and parents .
Maggie Haberman : How coronavirus changes everything for President Trump March 16 , 2020 | Maggie Haberman , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York Times , talks with Recode ’ s Kara Swisher about how the rest of the country has bypassed Trump ’ s failure to lead on the coronavirus outbreak ; his exposure to COVID-19 at Mar-a-Lago and refusal to self-quarantine ; and the toxic cocktail of practices in his administration : Infighting , tiptoeing , and sucking up .
She also discusses CDC director Anthony Fauci ’ s “ unimpeachable ” credibility vs. President Trump ’ s trust problem , how Vice President Pence is doing at the helm of the coronavirus task @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a bigger impact on Trump ’ s re-election chances than previous crises .
Plus : Who is actually running things at the White House right now , and can Trump operate his campaign without mass rallies ?
March 14 , 2020 | Ezra and Matt on dueling pandemic response plans from Sanders and Biden , and Trump ’ s disastrous speech .
March 14 , 2020 | Italy has quarantined the whole country in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus .
Vox ’ s Julia Belluz explains why the US @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Klain : The coronavirus outbreak is just getting started in the US March 13 , 2020 | Epidemic co-host Ron Klain , who led the White House ’ s ebola response under President Obama , talks to Recode ’ s Kara Swisher about how the COVID-19 outbreak will strain America ’ s healthcare system ; how President Trump downplayed the crisis , rattling public confidence and delaying the country ’ s response ; and the way people who work in the gig economy — including Uber drivers and food delivery workers — will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He also discusses the logic behind travel bans and limits of their efficacy , why it ’ s impossible for the US to completely cut itself off from China , and what Trump didn ’ t say in his Oval Office address , but should have .
Klain , an adviser and former chief of staff to Joe Biden , also talks about the ex-vice president ’ s surprisingly successful presidential campaign and how it ’ s reckoning with Biden ’ s history of verbal flubs .
How to slow down coronavirus March @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banned most Europeans from traveling to the US .
Vox ’ s Jen Kirby explains why that won ’ t stop the novel coronavirus from spreading , and Eliza Barclay tells us what we can do to slow the spread .
Every country for itself March 12 , 2020 | Zack , Jenn , and Alex record an episode on coronavirus from their respective homes , under self-isolation .
They talk about the politics of Trump ’ s ban on European travel to the US and explore why the European Union seems to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time of need .
They also explain how the virus has led to a massive drop in oil prices — and why , at this particular time , this could seriously destabilize political systems around the world .
March 10 , 2020 | The stock market ’ s going haywire .
Major companies are telling their employees to stay home .
Austin has canceled SXSW .
Vox ’ s Matthew Yglesias says governments across the world have to act fast to save the global economy .
March 10 , 2020 | The cost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contain the coronavirus .
So you think you have Covid-19 March 6 , 2020 | Thus far , the United States hasn ’ t been doing the best job of testing for the novel coronavirus .
ProPublica ’ s Caroline Chen explains why .
March 5 , 2020 | Can we stop the spread of coronavirus misinformation on social media ?
Covid-19 , explained by Carl ( who has it ) March 3 , 2020 | Carl Goldman was on the Diamond Princess cruise ship and now he has Covid-19 .
He speaks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Omaha , Nebraska .
February 18 , 2020 | One coronavirus .
Two cruise ships .
Lots of mistakes .
The Japanese case shows us that quarantining people on a cruise ship to stop the spread of Covid-19 can backfire , while the Cambodia case suggests that letting people disembark and disperse around the world can create a public health nightmare .
Find out what these cruise ship emergencies reveal about the largest outbreak .
February 13 , 2020 | Zack Beauchamp and Alex Ward talk about the politics of the coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government botched the initial response , why Chinese citizens are so angry about it , and the reasons why the problems with this response are inherent to the current Chinese governance model .
They then debate the claim from many analysts that this is the most serious crisis for China ’ s regime since the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising — and the ( low ) probability that this could trigger another revolution-minded uprising .
How will the coronavirus outbreak end ?
February 6 , 2020 | In 2015 , Dr. Vineet Menachery said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more easily than previously believed .
Now he explains what we can do to stop it .
An AI warned about coronavirus before the CDC February 4 , 2020 | How AI could predict the next big outbreak .
You can check out our guide to news of the coronavirus outbreak here .

The coronavirus outbreak that causes the Covid-19 illness continues to spread as a health threat across the globe. As new coronavirus cases are discovered, questions keep popping up about how to prepare for an outbreak, how to travel, and the difference between quarantine, isolation, and social distancing — to name a few.
That’s where Vox podcasts come in. From what it’s like to be quarantined with coronavirus to how prepared the US is set up to respond to this outbreak to how AI warned about coronavirus before the CDC, the following Today, Explained, The Weeds, Worldy, Reset, and Recode Decode episodes will help you understand the situation as it unfolds.
How coronavirus is impacting education
April 23, 2020 | Teachers and students are still struggling with online education.
Conspiracy-19
April 23, 2020 | Vox’s science editor, Eliza Barclay, arms you with the facts you need to fight your uncle’s favorite coronavirus conspiracy theories.
This one’s for Earth
April 22, 2020 | Cryptic treehunters. Unknown apples. Flowers fighting back. On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Vox’s Umair Irfan and Brian Resnick explain what we learned about the planet in the last year.
Opening up
April 21, 2020 | Dara, Jane, and Matt on conservatives’ desire for a rapid reopening of American businesses, and a ‘feel good’ white paper about air pollution.
The 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory
April 21, 2020 | A coronavirus conspiracy theory has led to arson attacks in the UK. And - how to talk to friends and family about coronavirus misinformation.
One day, three healthcare workers
April 21, 2020 | A nurse, a paramedic, and a physician’s assistant record themselves throughout the course of a day in the fight against Covid-19.
The epicenter of the epicenter
April 20, 2020 | Covid-19’s victims, and the people they leave behind.
The year 2038 problem
April 19, 2020 | What’s the deal with January 19th, 2038? Why remembering Y2K correctly matters.
Help is on the way (sort of)
April 17, 2020 | Ezra and Matt break down the implementation problems that have bedeviled the CARES Act.
Long shot
April 17, 2020 | It could be a year or more before the vaccine is ready, but there’s a radical plan to speed up the process.
Contact Tracing, Explained
April 16, 2020 | Public health’s “tried and true” tactic against infectious disease, and how Google and Apple want to help end the lockdown.
Zeke Emanuel’s exit strategy
April 16, 2020 | President Trump wants to reopen the country yesterday. Bioethicist Zeke Emanuel, who served as a health policy advisor to former President Obama, offers a safe path.
Death Cab for The Postal Service?
April 15, 2020 | The United States Postal Service is on the brink of collapse. Vox’s Matthew Yglesias explains how and why the country should save it.
How indie bookstores might survive the pandemic
April 14, 2020 | There’s a new online bookseller in town that’s trying to save your local indie bookstore.
All praise, no pay
April 14, 2020 | Essential workers in the food, transportation, and retail industries are being called American heroes. They want to be paid as such.
The corporate bailout watchdog
April 14, 2020 | Congressional oversight committee member Bharat Ramamurti joins Matt to explain his new job and what’s wrong with shareholder capitalism.
Elizabeth Warren has a plan for this, too
April 13, 2020 | Friend of the show Ezra Klein speaks to Sen. Elizabeth Warren about several plans she has proposed to combat this pandemic.
The Internet Has a Crush on Dr. Fauci
April 12, 2020 | From fan pages to food pics, Dr. Anthony Fauci is everywhere. The Verge’s Makena Kelly explains the person behind the meme.
How does this end?
April 10, 2020 | Ezra and Matt review four major plans for after social distancing; plus the Democratic primary finally ends.
The loneliness pandemic
April 10, 2020 | Coronavirus has led to another pandemic: social isolation. Vox’s Ezra Klein says this sickness has a cure.
Six feet away from God
April 9, 2020 | While a few religious leaders flout shelter in place ordinances, Easter, Passover, and Ramadan are inspiring most to get creative with worship.
Toby Ord on existential risk, Donald Trump, and thinking in probabilities
April 9, 2020 | Oxford philosopher Toby Ord spent the early part of his career spearheading the effective altruism movement, founding Giving What We Can, and focusing his attention primarily on issue areas like global public health and extreme poverty. Ord’s new book The Precipice is about something entirely different: the biggest existential risks to the future of humanity. In it, he predicts that humanity has approximately a 1 in 6 chance of going completely extinct by the end of the 21st century. The coronavirus pandemic is a reminder that tail risk is real. We always knew a zoological respiratory virus could become a global pandemic. But, collectively, we didn’t want to think about it, and so we didn’t. The result is the reality we live in now.
But for all the current moment’s horror, there are worse risks than coronavirus out there. One silver lining of the current crisis might be that it gets us to take them seriously, and avert them before they become unstoppable. That’s what Ord’s book is about, and it is, in a strange way, a comfort.
This, then, is a conversation about the risks that threaten humanity’s future, and what we can do about them. It’s a conversation about thinking in probabilities, about the ethics of taking future human lives seriously, about how we weigh the risks we don’t yet understand.
Will your favorite restaurant survive?
April 9, 2020 | Why the pandemic is exposing the complicated relationship between delivery apps and restaurants and how a restaurateur and app developer is helping keep his industry alive.
Vote and die
April 8, 2020 | Wisconsinites had to choose between catching Covid-19 and voting on Tuesday. Is the rest of the country next?
Your phone knows if you’re staying at home
April 7, 2020 | And it is telling the government. The Verge’s Casey Newton explains how location data is helping fight coronavirus, and why even privacy advocates don’t think that’s such a bad thing. Featuring Casey Newton, Silicon Valley Editor at the Verge.
“The Great Equalizer”
April 7, 2020 | Madonna was wrong. Covid-19 isn’t an equalizer. It’s coming for America’s most vulnerable populations.
The immunity test
April 6, 2020 | A vaccine will take a while, but Vox’s Umair Irfan says the global effort to test for immunity and treat Covid-19 is well underway.
Elizabeth Warren has a plan for this, too
April 6, 2020 | In January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the first presidential candidate to release a plan for combatting coronavirus. In March, she released a second plan. Days later, with the scale of economic damage increasing, she released a third. Warren’s proposals track the spread of the virus: from a problem happening elsewhere and demanding a surge in global health resources to a pandemic happening here, demanding not just a public health response, but an all-out effort to save the US economy. Warren’s penchant for planning stands in particular stark contrast to this administration, which still has not released a clear coronavirus plan. There is no document you can download, no web site you can visit, that details our national strategy to slow the disease and rebuild the economy.
So I asked Warren to return to the show to explain what the plan should be, given the cold reality we face. We discussed what, specifically, the federal government should do; the roots of the testing debacle; her idea for mobilizing the economy around building affordable housing; why she thinks that this is exactly the right time to cancel student loan debt; why America spends so much money preparing for war and so little defending itself against pandemics and climate change; whether she thinks the Democratic primary focused on the wrong issues; and how this crisis is making a grim mockery of Ronald Reagan’s old saw about “the scariest words in the English language.”
The two types of tests we need to end this
April 5, 2020 | How testing technology will help end the spread of covid-19.
Mask on? Mask off?
April 3, 2020 | In an about-face, the Centers for Disease Control would now like you to cover your mouth and nose when you go outside.
Coronavirus meets health reform
April 3, 2020 | Ezra and Matt discuss Covid-19’s impact on insurance premiums, the case for single-payer, and more.
6.6 million more unemployed
April 2, 2020 | Last week’s unemployment numbers shattered all records. This week, they doubled. Vox’s Matthew Yglesias, host of The Weeds podcast, proposes a way out of this mess.
The race to make more ventilators
April 2, 2020 | Why life-saving ventilators for Covid-19 patients are in short supply, and how people like Dr. Richard Boyer are trying to fix that.
What social solidarity demands of us in a pandemic
April 2, 2020 | There is no doubt that social distancing is the best way to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But the efficacy of social distancing (or really any other public health measure) relies on something much deeper and harder to measure: social solidarity.
“Solidarity,” writes Eric Klinenberg, “motivates us to promote public health, not just our own personal security. It keeps us from hoarding medicine, toughing out a cold in the workplace or sending a sick child to school. It compels us to let a ship of stranded people dock in our safe harbors, to knock on our older neighbor’s door.” Klinenberg, a sociologist by trade, is the director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. His first book, Heat Wave, found that social connection was, at times, literally the difference between life and death during Chicago’s 1995 heat wave. Since then, he’s spent his career studying trends in American social life, from the rise of adults living alone to the importance of “social infrastructure” in holding together our civic bonds.
This conversation is about what happens when a country mired in a mythos of individualism collides with a pandemic that demands social solidarity and collective sacrifice. It’s about preventing an epidemic of loneliness and social isolation from overwhelming the most vulnerable among us. We discuss the underlying social trends that predated coronavirus, what kind of leadership it takes to actually bring people together, the irony of asking young people and essential workers to sacrifice for the rest of us, whether there’s an opportunity to build a different kind of society in the aftermath of Covid-19, and much more.
Lockdown while locked up
April 1, 2020 | Arthur Longworth calls Sean from Washington State Reformatory to explain what it’s like to serve a life sentence at a prison where the coronavirus is spreading.
There’s no social distancing in Animal Crossing
March 31, 2020 | Nintendo’s new game New Horizons has become a place to escape the reality of a global pandemic, gather with friends online - and even get married.
The trouble with Trump’s daily briefings
March 31, 2020 | Part rally, part media-bashing, part critical updates on the coronavirus crisis, President Trump’s daily press briefings are muddying the message.
Coronavirus has pushed US-China relations to their worst point since Mao
March 30, 2020 | The COVID-19 pandemic is a grim reminder that the worst really can happen. Tail risk is real risk. Political leaders fumble, miscalculate, and bluster into avoidable disaster. And even as we try to deal with this catastrophe, the seeds of another are sprouting.
The US-China relationship will define geopolitics in the 21st century. If we collapse into rivalry, conflict, and politically opportunistic nationalism, the results could be hellish. And we are, right now, collapsing into rivalry, conflict, and politically opportunistic nationalism.
The Trump administration, and key congressional Republicans, are calling COVID-19 “the Chinese virus,” and trying to gin up tensions to distract from their domestic failures. Chinese government officials, beset by their own domestic problems, are claiming the US military brought the virus to China. The US-China relationship was in a bad way six months ago, but this is a new level of threat.
Evan Osnos covers the US-China relationship for the New Yorker, and is author of the National Book Award winner, The Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China. In this conversation, we discuss the past, present and future of the US-China relationship. What are the chances of armed conflict? What might deescalation look like? And we know what the US wants — what, in truth, does China want?
Airborne, Explained
March 29, 2020 | What do we mean when we say “airborne?”; plus, the most important unanswered questions about how coronavirus is transmitted.
Your coronavirus questions, answered (Part II)
March 27, 2020 | On today’s show, more listener questions: Why isn’t everyone social distancing? Will I be immune after I get it? When will this end? My anxiety is spiking!
When $2 trillion isn’t enough
March 27, 2020 | Ezra and Matt analyze the huge but inadequate stimulus bill.
Deepak Chopra: “If this doesn’t bring us together, then we deserve whatever happens”
March 27, 2020 | Dr. Deepak Chopra talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how to cope with the global threat posed by coronavirus, the parallel “pandemic of panic,” and how to not be overwhelmed by fear and anxiety.
Is the cure worse than the disease?
March 26, 2020 | “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself!” That was President Donald Trump, this week, explaining why he was thinking about lifting coronavirus guidelines earlier than public-health experts recommended. The “cure,” in this case, is social distancing, and the mass economic stoppage it forces. The problem, of course, is COVID-19, and the millions of deaths it could cause.
This is a debate that needs to be taken seriously. Slowing coronavirus will impose real costs, and immense suffering, on society. Are those costs worth it? This is the most important public policy question right now. And if the discussion isn’t had well, then it will be had, as we’re already seeing, poorly, and dangerously.
What this coronavirus does to your body
March 26, 2020 | Why does it spread so easily? And could it mutate into something worse? The Atlantic’s Ed Yong explains the science so far.
The two trillion dollar question
March 25, 2020 | Congress has settled on a historic stimulus package, but Ezra Klein is worried it might not be enough.
Chamath Palihapitiya: “The investing landscape is done,” taxes will go up, and a two-week lockdown is inevitable
March 25, 2020 | Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how long it will take to recover from the coronavirus crisis, its impact on startups, and how the US government should and will react — including by tracking individuals via their technology and repatriating cash from tech companies like Apple. Palihapitiya says businesses should make sure they have at least 36 months worth of cash on hand to weather this recession and its slow recovery period and predicts the US will need to devote an entire year’s GDP to combat covid-19. He criticizes the corporate “shenanigans” that will make economic recovery harder says he’s done investing for at least nine months, because anyone trying to do deals now will be “decapitated.” Plus: What we can all learn right now from the histories of the Great Depression and the 2008 financial crisis, and which industries will come out of this crisis stronger than before?
Asia’s second wave
March 24, 2020 | Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how long it will take to recover from the coronavirus crisis, its impact on startups,
Is Amazon primed for coronavirus?
March 24, 2020 | How the tech giant is responding to the pandemic, and what it says about Amazon as a company.
Fighting coronavirus with corporate conscription
March 24, 2020 | Jane, Dara, and Matt on the Defense Production Act, wartime mobilization, and pandemic-induced autarky.
Giving birth in a pandemic
March 23, 2020 | Vox’s Julia Belluz went from covering the global coronavirus pandemic to giving birth in the middle of it. (Transcript here.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
An economic crisis like we’ve never seen
March 23, 2020 | “What is happening,” writes Annie Lowrey, “is a shock to the American economy more sudden and severe than anyone alive has ever experienced.”
It’s also different from what anyone alive has ever experienced. For many of us, the Great Recession is the closest analogue — but it’s not analogous at all. There, the economy’s potential was unchanged, but financial markets were in crisis. Here, we are purposefully freezing economic activity in order to slow a public health crisis. Early data suggests the economic crisis is going to far exceed any single week or quarter of the financial crisis. Multiple economists have told Ezra Klein that the nearest analogy to what we’re going through is the economy during World War II.
“I have a secret advantage when trying to understand moments of economic upheaval. I’m married to Annie Lowrey,” writes Ezra Klein. “I can give you the bio — staff writer at the Atlantic, author of Give People Money (which is proving particularly prophetic and influential right now) — but suffice to say she’s one of the clearest and most brilliant economic thinkers I know. Her viral piece on the affordability crisis is crucial for understanding what the economy really looked like before Covid-19, and she’s been doing some of the best work on the way Covid-19 will worsen the economic problems we had and create a slew of new ones. But this isn’t just a conversation about crisis. It’s also a conversation about how to respond. I wouldn’t call it hopeful — we’re not there yet. But constructive.”
The biggest experiment in online learning, ever
March 22, 2020 | COVID-19 has shut schools all over the country, and millions of American students are now learning at home, online. Are online tools enough to make up for lost classroom time?
Your coronavirus questions, answered
March 20, 2020 | On today’s show, we answer listener’s questions: Why is there no TP? Will we run out of food? Can I get the virus from sex? Should I finally write my will? How can I help?
How quickly can we treat covid-19?
March 19, 2020 | The scientific community is moving at unprecedented speed to develop a way to treat COVID-19. But how soon can a treatment or a vaccine be available to the public?
Six feet away
March 19, 2020 | Vox’s Brian Resnick (safely) meets Sean in a Washington, D.C. park to deliver the Five Commandments of social distancing.
“The virus is more patient than people are”
March 19, 2020 | Ron Klain served as the chief of staff to vice presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden. In 2014, President Barack Obama tapped him to lead the administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. He successfully oversaw a hellishly complex effort preparing domestically for an outbreak and surging health resources onto another continent to contain the disease.
But Klain is quick to say that the coronavirus is a harder challenge even than Ebola. The economy is in free fall. Entire cities have been told to shelter in place. And there’s no telling how long any of this will last. In this conversation, Klain answers Ezra Klein’s questions about the disease and how to respond to it, as well as questions many of you submitted.
TFW your dad gives you Covid-19
March 18, 2020 | Sean speaks to a Brooklyn family that has Covid-19, and Vox’s Dylan Scott explains how the United States is still trying to get its act together on testing.
Rescuing the economy from coronavirus
March 17, 2020 | Jane, Dara, and Matt discuss President Trump’s new more serious tone and competing economic stimulus proposals.
Can President Trump fix this?
March 17, 2020 | After dismissing coronavirus concerns for months, President Donald is pivoting to serious action to slow the crisis in the United States.
School’s out for Covid
March 16, 2020 | The country’s largest school district told a million kids to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s creating chaos for teachers, students, and parents.
Maggie Haberman: How coronavirus changes everything for President Trump
March 16, 2020 | Maggie Haberman, the White House correspondent for the New York Times, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how the rest of the country has bypassed Trump’s failure to lead on the coronavirus outbreak; his exposure to COVID-19 at Mar-a-Lago and refusal to self-quarantine; and the toxic cocktail of practices in his administration: Infighting, tiptoeing, and sucking up.
She also discusses CDC director Anthony Fauci’s “unimpeachable” credibility vs. President Trump’s trust problem, how Vice President Pence is doing at the helm of the coronavirus task force, and how this period could have a bigger impact on Trump’s re-election chances than previous crises. Plus: Who is actually running things at the White House right now, and can Trump operate his campaign without mass rallies?
Weeds 2020: The coronavirus election
March 14, 2020 | Ezra and Matt on dueling pandemic response plans from Sanders and Biden, and Trump’s disastrous speech.
Living in lockdown
March 14, 2020 | Italy has quarantined the whole country in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus. Vox’s Julia Belluz explains why the US might look like Italy soon.
Ron Klain: The coronavirus outbreak is just getting started in the US
March 13, 2020 | Epidemic co-host Ron Klain, who led the White House’s ebola response under President Obama, talks to Recode’s Kara Swisher about how the COVID-19 outbreak will strain America’s healthcare system; how President Trump downplayed the crisis, rattling public confidence and delaying the country’s response; and the way people who work in the gig economy — including Uber drivers and food delivery workers — will be especially hurt by the situation. He also discusses the logic behind travel bans and limits of their efficacy, why it’s impossible for the US to completely cut itself off from China, and what Trump didn’t say in his Oval Office address, but should have. Klain, an adviser and former chief of staff to Joe Biden, also talks about the ex-vice president’s surprisingly successful presidential campaign and how it’s reckoning with Biden’s history of verbal flubs.
How to slow down coronavirus
March 12, 2020 | President Trump has banned most Europeans from traveling to the US. Vox’s Jen Kirby explains why that won’t stop the novel coronavirus from spreading, and Eliza Barclay tells us what we can do to slow the spread.
Every country for itself
March 12, 2020 | Zack, Jenn, and Alex record an episode on coronavirus from their respective homes, under self-isolation. They talk about the politics of Trump’s ban on European travel to the US and explore why the European Union seems to be neglecting to help Italy in its time of need. They also explain how the virus has led to a massive drop in oil prices — and why, at this particular time, this could seriously destabilize political systems around the world.
Coronavirus hits the markets
March 10, 2020 | The stock market’s going haywire. Major companies are telling their employees to stay home. Austin has canceled SXSW. Vox’s Matthew Yglesias says governments across the world have to act fast to save the global economy.
Does stopping coronavirus require more surveillance?
March 10, 2020 | The cost of China’s high-tech response to contain the coronavirus.
So you think you have Covid-19
March 6, 2020 | Thus far, the United States hasn’t been doing the best job of testing for the novel coronavirus. ProPublica’s Caroline Chen explains why.
The coronavirus rumor mill
March 5, 2020 | Can we stop the spread of coronavirus misinformation on social media?
Covid-19, explained by Carl (who has it)
March 3, 2020 | Carl Goldman was on the Diamond Princess cruise ship and now he has Covid-19. He speaks to Sean Rameswaram from a CDC quarantine in Omaha, Nebraska.
The floating petri dish
February 18, 2020 | One coronavirus. Two cruise ships. Lots of mistakes. The Japanese case shows us that quarantining people on a cruise ship to stop the spread of Covid-19 can backfire, while the Cambodia case suggests that letting people disembark and disperse around the world can create a public health nightmare. Find out what these cruise ship emergencies reveal about the largest outbreak.
Could coronavirus collapse Chinese communism?
February 13, 2020 | Zack Beauchamp and Alex Ward talk about the politics of the coronavirus outbreak in China: Why the Chinese government botched the initial response, why Chinese citizens are so angry about it, and the reasons why the problems with this response are inherent to the current Chinese governance model. They then debate the claim from many analysts that this is the most serious crisis for China’s regime since the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising — and the (low) probability that this could trigger another revolution-minded uprising.
How will the coronavirus outbreak end?
February 6, 2020 | In 2015, Dr. Vineet Menachery said a SARS-like virus could spread to humans more easily than previously believed. Now he explains what we can do to stop it.
An AI warned about coronavirus before the CDC
February 4, 2020 | How AI could predict the next big outbreak.
You can check out our guide to news of the coronavirus outbreak here.


vox--2020-04-24--Trump says his comments on injecting disinfectants were “sarcastic.” Let’s review the tape.

President Donald Trump now claims he was being “ sarcastic ” when he mused on Thursday about disinfectant injections being a possible miracle cure for the coronavirus .
Unfortunately for him , there ’ s video .
Asked during a White House bill-signing ceremony on Friday to explain his comments — which were widely mocked for being ridiculous and more than a little irresponsible , became the top trending topic on Twitter , and prompted warnings from health agencies that it ’ s actually a bad idea to inject or consume bleach — Trump tried to rewrite history .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a very sarcastic question , to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside , ” Trump lied .
In reality , he was looking at White House officials when he earnestly asked them to investigate whether there ’ s “ a way we can do something like that , by injection inside or almost a cleaning .
Because you see it gets in the lungs , and it does a tremendous number on the lungs .
So it would be interesting to check that.
” Notably , even as he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump illustrated his fundamental inability to ever admit a mistake by continuing to defend his premise .
Disinfectant “ does kill it , and it would kill it on the hands , and that would make things much better , ” Trump said .
Watch the two clips back to back for yourself : Asked later on Friday if he wanted to clarify his comments for people who might have misunderstood his “ sarcasm , ” Trump reiterated , “ I do think that disinfectant on the hands could have a very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entirely beside the point .
Trump ’ s bizarre comments during Thursday ’ s White House press briefing came after a Department of Homeland Security official presented research indicating that “ commonly available disinfectants work to kill the virus ” on surfaces .
At no point did he suggest using them on human hands .
That ’ s likely because 1 ) disinfectants contain harsh chemicals that can cause skin irritation and even chemical burns , and 2 ) soap and hand sanitizer already exist .
When his disinfectant remarks came up for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seemed to get lost in his own lies , got corrected by a reporter about what the video shows him actually saying , and then abruptly ended the press event .
The scene was a quintessential example of gaslighting .
Instead of simply admitting he said something dumb , Trump told people they didn ’ t see what they saw , then shut things down when reporters began to call him out on his contradictions .
The scene was reminiscent of his efforts to retcon his 2016 call for Russian hackers to attack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” even when a cursory review of video from that press conference showed , beyond a doubt , that he was being serious .
Trump , however , has already primed his supporters to disbelieve their senses and just listen to him .
“ Don ’ t believe the crap you see from these people , the fake news , ” Trump said during a 2018 speech .
“ Just remember , what you ’ re seeing and what you ’ re reading is not what ’ s happening.
” Every day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

President Donald Trump now claims he was being “sarcastic” when he mused on Thursday about disinfectant injections being a possible miracle cure for the coronavirus.
Unfortunately for him, there’s video.
Asked during a White House bill-signing ceremony on Friday to explain his comments — which were widely mocked for being ridiculous and more than a little irresponsible, became the top trending topic on Twitter, and prompted warnings from health agencies that it’s actually a bad idea to inject or consume bleach — Trump tried to rewrite history.
“I was asking a sarcastic, and a very sarcastic question, to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside,” Trump lied. In reality, he was looking at White House officials when he earnestly asked them to investigate whether there’s “a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.”
Notably, even as he tried to distance himself from his remarks, Trump illustrated his fundamental inability to ever admit a mistake by continuing to defend his premise.
Disinfectant “does kill it, and it would kill it on the hands, and that would make things much better,” Trump said.
Watch the two clips back to back for yourself:
Here's a mashup of Trump claiming today he was just asking "a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room" when he mused about disinfectant injections as a possible coronavirus miracle cure, followed by the original clip showing beyond a doubt that he was not doing that. pic.twitter.com/wby4ucd59Q — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 24, 2020
Asked later on Friday if he wanted to clarify his comments for people who might have misunderstood his “sarcasm,” Trump reiterated, “I do think that disinfectant on the hands could have a very good effect.”
But that’s entirely beside the point. Trump’s bizarre comments during Thursday’s White House press briefing came after a Department of Homeland Security official presented research indicating that “commonly available disinfectants work to kill the virus” on surfaces. At no point did he suggest using them on human hands.
That’s likely because 1) disinfectants contain harsh chemicals that can cause skin irritation and even chemical burns, and 2) soap and hand sanitizer already exist.
When his disinfectant remarks came up for a third time on Friday, Trump seemed to get lost in his own lies, got corrected by a reporter about what the video shows him actually saying, and then abruptly ended the press event.
Watch:
TRUMP: I was looking at you yesterday when I was being sarcastic about disinfectants
JEFF MASON: I wasn't there yesterday
ANOTHER REPORTER: You were looking at Dr Birx
TRUMP: I was looking at Bill, the doctor, I was looking at some of the reporters
*changes topic* pic.twitter.com/h8VxIknuey — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 24, 2020
The scene was a quintessential example of gaslighting. Instead of simply admitting he said something dumb, Trump told people they didn’t see what they saw, then shut things down when reporters began to call him out on his contradictions.
The scene was reminiscent of his efforts to retcon his 2016 call for Russian hackers to attack Hillary Clinton as just “a joke,” even when a cursory review of video from that press conference showed, beyond a doubt, that he was being serious.
Trump, however, has already primed his supporters to disbelieve their senses and just listen to him.
“Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news,” Trump said during a 2018 speech. “Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”


vox--2020-04-24--The Trump administration could soon allow doctors to discriminate against LGBTQ people

The Trump administration is expected to soon finalize a Department of Health and Human Services administrative rule to roll back health care discrimination protections for LGBTQ people , according to a Politico report .
The rule , which was first proposed in May 2019 , would reverse an Obama-era interpretation that sex discrimination under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act applied to discrimination against queer and trans people .
Trans people especially face overwhelming levels of discrimination from health care providers .
According to a 2010 study , almost one in five trans people said they had been denied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their gender identity , and 28 percent were subjected to harassment in a medical setting .
It was that reality that the Obama administration attempted to address by including LGBTQ people under the definition of sex discrimination , conforming to an increasing wave of state and federal court rulings .
The Obama-era rule made it illegal for doctors , hospitals , and other health care workers to deny care to someone whose sexual orientation or gender identity they disapproved of .
What the new Trump administration rule will do , as it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ providers to deny care to anyone they perceive as trans or gay .
It will allow hospitals to house trans women and men according to their birth-assigned sex , or condition emergency treatment on the stoppage of cross-sex hormones .
It would also allow insurance companies to reinstate blanket bans on transition-related care like gender reassignment surgery or hormone replacement therapy .
In the age of Covid-19 , when hospitals are operating near capacity , the rule could also mean the life of a sick trans person is quite literally at the whim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about trans people .
That fear was already permeating throughout the trans community before news of the finalized rule was released .
“ I ’ m scared to say this out loud , but I ’ m afraid that trans people will face things like being deprioritized for ventilators or for care , ” Bre Kidman , a non-binary candidate for US Senate in Maine , told Vox earlier this month .
Politico reports that the rule was circulated among Department of Justice staff Thursday , and the White House updated a regulatory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ review , which signals that the final ruling could be issued within the next few days .
Gillian Branstetter , a spokesperson for the National Women ’ s Law Center , criticized the administration ’ s timing for moving forward with the rule in the middle of a pandemic .
“ It ’ s egregious that we are losing 3,000 Americans a day to an unprecedented public health emergency and a top priority of the Trump administration is making sure doctors can turn away trans people , ” she told Vox .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a patchwork of health inequities that leaves them at risk for any number of health concerns .
This rule threatened the well-being of trans people before this pandemic .
During this pandemic , it is beyond immoral to worsen any group ’ s access to health care.
” The Trump administration ’ s war on trans health care began more than a year ago The fight over the rule began in December 2018 with a nationwide injunction on the Obama interpretation .
It was issued by conservative favorite , federal Judge Reed O @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rulings overturning Obama-era rules regarding the Affordable Care Act , abortion access , and access to birth control .
It ’ s that ruling , an HHS spokesperson told Politico , with which the department is complying .
HHS head of civil rights Roger Severino defended that agency ’ s treatment of marginalized communities to Politico .
“ As we have shown in our recent efforts to protect persons from disability and age discrimination during the pandemic , HHS will vigorously enforce civil rights laws as passed by Congress , before , during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he said in a statement .
Before his stint as HHS civil rights chief , Severino was a fierce critic of the Obama administration ’ s efforts to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination .
Proponents of the new rule have pushed the false notion that doctors were being forced to perform gender reassignment surgeries that they were uncomfortable with .
In reality , transgender surgical care is highly specialized , and trans people are unlikely to go to a doctor who isn ’ t experienced in the procedure .
With the new rule @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looking at a possible return to a health care environment that allowed oncologists to deny cancer care to Robert Eads , a trans man who developed ovarian cancer and was never notified of his diagnosis .
When he finally learned of it , his doctor said his first instinct was to send Eads to a psychologist rather than treating his cancer .
Eads died in 1999 .
Or Tyra Hunter , who died after an EMT discovered her trans status following a car accident and refused to touch her on the trip to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ White House .
Aside from the new rule possibly going into effect next week , the LGBTQ community also awaits two Supreme Court decisions on whether queer and trans people are protected under sex discrimination provisions of federal civil rights law .
“ Trans people are terrified of the [ Supreme Court ] case , ” said Branstetter .
“ Behind a lot of that fear is the understanding that the Trump administration has been hard at work instilling long-term damage to LGBTQ rights .
It ’ s not just the Trump administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of right-wing organizations who have made their primary goal the erasure of trans people from public life.
” Conservatives haven ’ t let the pandemic slow down their political agenda Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic , there will likely be no White House protests against the new rule , or rallies in multiple cities nationwide to stand up for LGBTQ people .
In many ways , the coronavirus pandemic has provided convenient cover for conservatives to enact several political priorities while the nation ’ s attention is on the virus and gatherings are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Idaho enacted two anti-trans laws in late March , while South Carolina held a hearing on a bill that would ban transition care for trans minors while the state was under a shelter-at-home order .
Additionally , Trump ’ s DOJ filed a statement of interest in a federal lawsuit seeking to ban trans girls from high school girl ’ s sports in Connecticut .
The anti-trans moves join multiple state-level attacks on abortion access during the pandemic , with Texas , Ohio , Alabama , and Mississippi all moving to ban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ nonessential surgeries.
” Texas eventually eased its ban on nonessential surgeries , while three states saw the attempted bans stopped in federal court — meaning abortion care is still being provided in each state at this time .
Flying a bit further under the radar have also been several attempts to use the pandemic to justify loosening environmental and business regulations that have long been a goal of the Trump administration .
On March 26 , the Environmental Protection Agency issued a directive saying it would “ not expect to seek penalties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ integrity testing , sampling , laboratory analysis , training , and reporting or certification obligations in situations where the EPA agrees that Covid-19 was the cause of the noncompliance.
” The move allows air polluters to flout federal law without fear of penalty , right when clean air is perhaps most important for the health and safety of everyday Americans .
Then , in early April , the administration finalized its rollback of Obama-era requirements for vehicle fuel efficiency .
Several conservative groups , including the Heritage Foundation , also recently released plans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ business and environmental rules .
Among the Heritage plans the White House found intriguing was a call for the president to ask agencies not to enforce small business regulations altogether .
“ A presidential call for a wide-scale policy of non-enforcement would send a very strong signal to businesses that the government is not going to come down hard on them as they try to get back up and running , ” the Heritage plan said .
Left-leaning policy experts disagree .
“ This sounds exactly like the type of opportunistic political move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now , ” Jared Bernstein , a former adviser to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden , told the Washington Post .
“ Correlations between regulations and economic activity are far shakier than they assume , and I don ’ t believe this idea will help at all.
” It ’ s been clear since the pandemic started that there is no bad time for the Trump administration to push their political agenda , even if that means costing Americans — LGBTQ or not — their lives .
Every day at Vox , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

The Trump administration has finalized a Department of Health and Human Services administrative rule rolling back health care discrimination protections for LGBTQ people, according to an HHS press release. The rule was released Friday, June 12, the fourth anniversary of the Pulse shooting, which left 49 victims, including many queer and trans people, dead in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub.
First proposed in May 2019, the rule reverses an Obama-era interpretation that sex discrimination under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act applied to discrimination against queer and trans people, as well as people who are seeking or have had an abortion.
“HHS will enforce Section 1557 by returning to the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology,” reads the agency’s press release.
Democratic lawmakers were quick to condemn the rule change, which is set to go into effect by mid-August. “No one should ever have to fear seeking health care because they may be discriminated against based on who they are or the care they seek,” said a joint statement by leaders of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus, and Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus.
Trans people especially face overwhelming levels of discrimination from health care providers. According to a 2010 study, almost one in five trans people said they had been denied care by a medical provider because of their gender identity, and 28 percent were subjected to harassment in a medical setting. It was that reality the Obama administration attempted to address by including LGBTQ people under the definition of sex discrimination, conforming to an increasing wave of state and federal court rulings.
The Obama-era rule made it illegal for doctors, hospitals, and other health care workers to deny care to someone whose sexual orientation or gender identity they disapproved of. The new Trump administration rule allows health care providers to deny care to anyone they perceive as trans or gay. It will allow hospitals to house trans women and men according to their birth-assigned sex, or condition emergency treatment on the stoppage of cross-sex hormones. It would also allow insurance companies to reinstate blanket bans on transition-related care like gender-affirming surgery or hormone replacement therapy.
The Human Rights Campaign has already announced its plan to sue the Trump administration over the rule. Meanwhile, National Women’s Law Center President and CEO Fatima Goss Graves said the organization has teamed up with the Transgender Law Center, the Harvard Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund to challenge the rule as well.
“This sanctioning of discrimination in health care is unlawful and immoral, and doing so while our country loses thousands of lives daily and health inequities across the board persist is especially egregious,” said Graves in a statement Friday. “No one should fear being turned away by a medical provider because of who they are or the personal health decisions they have made.”
In the age of Covid-19, the rule could also mean the life of a sick trans person is quite literally at the whim of a doctor’s personal beliefs about trans people. That fear was already permeating the trans community before news of the finalized rule was released. “I’m scared to say this out loud, but I’m afraid that trans people will face things like being deprioritized for ventilators or for care,” Bre Kidman, a nonbinary candidate for US Senate in Maine, told Vox in April.
Gillian Branstetter, a spokesperson for the National Women’s Law Center, criticized the administration’s timing for moving forward with the rule in the middle of a pandemic. “It’s egregious that we are losing 3,000 Americans a day to an unprecedented public health emergency and a top priority of the Trump administration is making sure doctors can turn away trans people,” she told Vox in April. “We already know that trans people face a patchwork of health inequities that leaves them at risk for any number of health concerns. This rule threatened the well-being of trans people before this pandemic. During this pandemic, it is beyond immoral to worsen any group’s access to health care.”
The Trump administration’s war on trans health care began more than a year ago
The fight over the rule began in December 2016 with a nationwide injunction on the Obama interpretation. It was issued by federal Judge Reed O’Connor, a conservative favorite who has issued numerous rulings overturning Obama-era rules regarding the Affordable Care Act, abortion access, and access to birth control. That ruling was finalized in October 2019 by O’Connor.
It’s that ruling, an HHS spokesperson told Politico back in April, with which the department is complying. HHS head of civil rights Roger Severino defended that agency’s treatment of marginalized communities to Politico. “As we have shown in our recent efforts to protect persons from disability and age discrimination during the pandemic, HHS will vigorously enforce civil rights laws as passed by Congress, before, during, and after any rulemaking,” he said in a statement.
Before his stint as HHS civil rights chief, Severino was a fierce critic of the Obama administration’s efforts to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination. Proponents of the new rule have pushed the false notion that doctors were being forced to perform gender-affirming surgeries that they were uncomfortable with. In reality, transgender surgical care is highly specialized, and trans people are unlikely to go to a doctor who isn’t experienced in the procedure.
With the new rule, the US trans community is now looking at a possible return to a health care environment that allowed oncologists to deny cancer care to Robert Eads, a trans man who developed ovarian cancer and was never notified of his diagnosis. When he finally learned of it, his doctor said his first instinct was to send Eads to a psychologist rather than treating his cancer. Eads died in 1999. Or Tyra Hunter, who died in 1995 after an EMT discovered her trans status following a car accident and refused to touch her on the trip to the hospital, mere miles from the White House.
Aside from the new rule, the LGBTQ community also awaits two Supreme Court decisions on whether queer and trans people are protected under sex discrimination provisions of federal civil rights law.
“Trans people are terrified of the [Supreme Court] case,” Branstetter said. “Behind a lot of that fear is the understanding that the Trump administration has been hard at work instilling long-term damage to LGBTQ rights. It’s not just the Trump administration, it’s an entire sphere of right-wing organizations who have made their primary goal the erasure of trans people from public life.”
Conservatives haven’t let the pandemic slow down their political agenda
In many ways, the coronavirus pandemic has provided convenient cover for conservatives to enact several political priorities while the nation’s attention is on the virus and gatherings are strongly discouraged.
At the state level, Idaho enacted two anti-trans laws in late March, while South Carolina held a hearing on a bill that would ban transition care for trans minors while the state was under a shelter-at-home order. Additionally, Trump’s DOJ filed a statement of interest in a federal lawsuit seeking to ban trans girls from high school girls’ sports in Connecticut.
The anti-trans moves join multiple state-level attacks on abortion access during the pandemic, with some conservative states moving to ban or restrict the procedure under bans on “nonessential surgeries.” Texas eventually eased its ban on nonessential surgeries, while three states saw most of the attempted bans stopped in federal court. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, only Arkansas’s partial ban remained in place as of May 19.
Flying a bit further under the radar have also been several attempts to use the pandemic to justify loosening environmental and business regulations, long a goal of the Trump administration.
On March 26, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a directive saying it would “not expect to seek penalties for violations of routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, and reporting or certification obligations in situations where the EPA agrees that Covid-19 was the cause of the noncompliance.” The move allows air polluters to flout federal law without fear of penalty, right when clean air is perhaps most important for the health and safety of everyday Americans.
Then, in early April, the administration finalized its rollback of Obama-era requirements for vehicle fuel efficiency.
Several conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation, also released plans for the administration to pursue deregulation of business and environmental rules. Among the Heritage plans the White House found intriguing was a call for the president to ask agencies not to enforce small business regulations altogether.
“A presidential call for a wide-scale policy of non-enforcement would send a very strong signal to businesses that the government is not going to come down hard on them as they try to get back up and running,” the Heritage plan said.
Left-leaning policy experts disagree. “This sounds exactly like the type of opportunistic political move that absolutely should not be attempted right now,” Jared Bernstein, a former adviser to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, told the Washington Post in April. “Correlations between regulations and economic activity are far shakier than they assume, and I don’t believe this idea will help at all.”
It’s been clear since the pandemic started that there is no bad time for the Trump administration to push their political agenda, even if that means costing Americans — LGBTQ or not — their lives.


vox--2020-04-25--China reportedly lobbied the EU to dial down criticism of its Covid-19 disinformation campaigns

Evidence-based explanations of the coronavirus crisis , from how it started to how it might end to how to protect yourself and others .
China has reportedly successfully lobbied European Union officials to rewrite and soften language in a new report criticizing Beijing for spreading disinformation around coronavirus .
According to reports in the New York Times and Politico , Chinese diplomats managed to persuade EU officials to scrap a reference to China running a “ global disinformation ” campaign , and also remove reference to Beijing ’ s criticism of the French response to the pandemic .
The final @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Official and state-backed sources from various governments , including Russia and — to a lesser extent — China , have continued to widely target conspiracy narratives and disinformation.
” The lobbying campaign represents the latest instance of the Chinese government attempting to control narratives in order to defend its reputation , after failing to keep coronavirus within its borders and to properly alert other countries of the threat the new virus poses .
Recently , Chinese officials and news outlets have deliberately spread false information — most notably the conspiracy theory that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Wuhan and started the pandemic itself .
Despite this , Chinese officials have reportedly been keen on shielding themselves from criticism over spreading disinformation .
Officials from the country even threatened to retaliate in some form against the EU if the bloc ’ s report language wasn ’ t softened , according to the New York Times .
“ The Chinese are already threatening with reactions if the report comes out , ” Lutz Güllner , an EU diplomat , wrote to colleagues in an email , the Times reported .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” would have been , and whether they would come in the form of diplomatic posturing or a policy move .
But the Times noted that the EU is currently expecting to win trade concessions from China , an expectation that may have informed decision making around the report .
The report was eventually put out by the European External Action Service ’ s Strategic Communications division , which analyzes disinformation campaigns that affect the EU .
A spokesman for the group denied the reports and claimed that they have “ never bowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” according to Politico .
China is desperate to control the narrative Beijing has gone to great lengths to use information both defensively and offensively to protect its international reputation as a virus that originated within its borders has gone global .
As Vox ’ s Julia Belluz explained in February , Beijing downplayed or covered up many of the key facts of the early spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a bid to project an image of competence and control : On December 31 , when China first announced the outbreak of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a few things .
Most of the patients had been to a food market in Wuhan , the city that ’ s still the epicenter of the outbreak .
They said there was “ no clear evidence ” of human-to-human transmission , meaning the virus wasn ’ t yet spreading from one person to another but instead , they suggested , from an animal to humans .
And they said the earliest case had shown symptoms only recently — on December 12 .
Yet , for weeks now , reports in both the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have contradicted what Chinese authorities were telling the world .
These reports show the outbreak started weeks or months sooner than China let on , and the virus was already spreading among people — and beyond the food market in Wuhan — in early January .
Authorities also censored information and silenced the whistleblowers who tried to sound the alarm .
More recently , China has pushed conspiracy theories that the US spread the virus in China as a way of shifting any blame for the pandemic away from the Chinese government .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ who appear to have gone to the Donald J. Trump School of Diplomacy , ” Julian Gewirtz , a scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard , told the New York Times in March , in response to reports of conspiracy theories .
“ This small cadre of high-volume Chinese officials don ’ t seem to realize that peddling conspiracy theories is totally self-defeating for China , at a moment when it wants to be seen as a positive contributor around the world.
” China , of course , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The US has also worked to exaggerate and spread inaccurate information about China ’ s handling of the coronavirus .
Trump , for example , has spread the rumor that the virus originated in a Chinese lab , despite an absence of proof that this happened — and overwhelming skepticism from scientists that the virus originated in one .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

China has reportedly successfully lobbied European Union officials to rewrite and soften language in a new report criticizing Beijing for spreading disinformation around coronavirus.
According to reports in the New York Times and Politico, Chinese diplomats managed to persuade EU officials to scrap a reference to China running a “global disinformation” campaign, and also remove reference to Beijing’s criticism of the French response to the pandemic.
The final version of the report reads mildly: “Official and state-backed sources from various governments, including Russia and — to a lesser extent — China, have continued to widely target conspiracy narratives and disinformation.”
The lobbying campaign represents the latest instance of the Chinese government attempting to control narratives in order to defend its reputation, after failing to keep coronavirus within its borders and to properly alert other countries of the threat the new virus poses.
Recently, Chinese officials and news outlets have deliberately spread false information — most notably the conspiracy theory that the US Army introduced the novel coronavirus to Wuhan and started the pandemic itself.
Despite this, Chinese officials have reportedly been keen on shielding themselves from criticism over spreading disinformation. Officials from the country even threatened to retaliate in some form against the EU if the bloc’s report language wasn’t softened, according to the New York Times.
“The Chinese are already threatening with reactions if the report comes out,” Lutz Güllner, an EU diplomat, wrote to colleagues in an email, the Times reported.
It’s unclear what those “reactions” would have been, and whether they would come in the form of diplomatic posturing or a policy move. But the Times noted that the EU is currently expecting to win trade concessions from China, an expectation that may have informed decision making around the report.
The report was eventually put out by the European External Action Service’s Strategic Communications division, which analyzes disinformation campaigns that affect the EU. A spokesman for the group denied the reports and claimed that they have “never bowed to any alleged external political pressure,” according to Politico.
China is desperate to control the narrative
Beijing has gone to great lengths to use information both defensively and offensively to protect its international reputation as a virus that originated within its borders has gone global.
As Vox’s Julia Belluz explained in February, Beijing downplayed or covered up many of the key facts of the early spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a bid to project an image of competence and control:
On December 31, when China first announced the outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia, officials there emphasized a few things. Most of the patients had been to a food market in Wuhan, the city that’s still the epicenter of the outbreak. They said there was “no clear evidence” of human-to-human transmission, meaning the virus wasn’t yet spreading from one person to another but instead, they suggested, from an animal to humans. And they said the earliest case had shown symptoms only recently — on December 12. Yet, for weeks now, reports in both the scientific literature and local and international news have contradicted what Chinese authorities were telling the world. These reports show the outbreak started weeks or months sooner than China let on, and the virus was already spreading among people — and beyond the food market in Wuhan — in early January. Authorities also censored information and silenced the whistleblowers who tried to sound the alarm.
More recently, China has pushed conspiracy theories that the US spread the virus in China as a way of shifting any blame for the pandemic away from the Chinese government.
“There are a few Chinese officials who appear to have gone to the Donald J. Trump School of Diplomacy,” Julian Gewirtz, a scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard, told the New York Times in March, in response to reports of conspiracy theories. “This small cadre of high-volume Chinese officials don’t seem to realize that peddling conspiracy theories is totally self-defeating for China, at a moment when it wants to be seen as a positive contributor around the world.”
China, of course, is not alone in pursuing this strategy. The US has also worked to exaggerate and spread inaccurate information about China’s handling of the coronavirus. Trump, for example, has spread the rumor that the virus originated in a Chinese lab, despite an absence of proof that this happened — and overwhelming skepticism from scientists that the virus originated in one.


vox--2020-04-25--Study: 71 percent of jobless Americans did not receive their March unemployment benefits

The majority of unemployed Americans did not receive unemployment benefits in March — a month that shattered US records for job loss claims — according to a new study .
The Pew Research Center has found that , although more than 11 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims in March , the wide variety of methods states and territories use to administer their jobless programs have resulted in wide disparities in who has received their payments , and how much those payments were worth .
As a result , only 29 percent of jobless Americans received benefits in March , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Labor Department statistics .
The disbursement rate of unemployment payments was found to vary widely , with nearly 66 percent of unemployed Massachusetts residents receiving their benefits , compared to only 7.6 percent of unemployed Florida residents .
The federal CARES Act , the $ 2.2 trillion stimulus package aimed at addressing coronavirus-related economic fallout , featured provisions meant to boost the size and scope of unemployment benefits .
But it left the distribution of funds to the states — many of which have outdated , underfunded , and inefficient methods for enrolling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Ella Nilsen has explained .
Also at issue , Pew notes , is those seeking support “ face a hodgepodge of different state rules governing how they can qualify for benefits , how much they ’ ll get and how long they can collect them.
” For example , in some states , workers must wait a week before they can start collecting benefits .
In others , workers who receive commission , rather than standard wages , are ineligible for aid .
And , in many states , people may exhaust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time — a scenario that is unworkable in a job market in which standard employment is largely on hold for the foreseeable future .
( The CARES Act does extend the length of people ’ s eligibility for federal benefits after their state benefits run out , the study notes . )
These different scenarios result in regional disparities in who receives benefits — and mean that millions of those eligible did not , and perhaps still have not , received aid .
By and large , the states where the fewest jobless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ benefits were in the South , and the states where the most jobless people ( more than 40 percent ) received benefits were in the Northeast and Midwest .
The amount of the benefits also varied widely , because states cap benefits in relation to a person ’ s earnings , at different amounts , from $ 235 per week in Mississippi to $ 823 per week in Massachusetts .
Some states offer additional benefits for dependents ; others don ’ t .
Even before this explosion of job loss , unemployment benefits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many states ’ administrative apparatuses went underfunded for years .
All this comes at a time when Americans have said they need immediate support — more than half of low-income Americans report that they will have trouble paying bills this month .
And nationwide , the economic fallout from the virus ’ s spread is on par with the Great Depression .
Now , paired with new hurdles , such as the rocky rollout of new programs and glitchy or purposefully inaccessible online portals , millions more Americans are seeing — and about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the national safety net .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

The majority of unemployed Americans did not receive unemployment benefits in March — a month that shattered US records for job loss claims — according to a new study.
The Pew Research Center has found that, although more than 11 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims in March, the wide variety of methods states and territories use to administer their jobless programs have resulted in wide disparities in who has received their payments, and how much those payments were worth.
As a result, only 29 percent of jobless Americans received benefits in March, according to Pew’s analysis of Labor Department statistics. The disbursement rate of unemployment payments was found to vary widely, with nearly 66 percent of unemployed Massachusetts residents receiving their benefits, compared to only 7.6 percent of unemployed Florida residents.
The federal CARES Act, the $2.2 trillion stimulus package aimed at addressing coronavirus-related economic fallout, featured provisions meant to boost the size and scope of unemployment benefits. But it left the distribution of funds to the states — many of which have outdated, underfunded, and inefficient methods for enrolling the newly unemployed, as Vox’s Ella Nilsen has explained.
Also at issue, Pew notes, is those seeking support “face a hodgepodge of different state rules governing how they can qualify for benefits, how much they’ll get and how long they can collect them.”
For example, in some states, workers must wait a week before they can start collecting benefits. In others, workers who receive commission, rather than standard wages, are ineligible for aid. And, in many states, people may exhaust their benefits after a certain period of time — a scenario that is unworkable in a job market in which standard employment is largely on hold for the foreseeable future. (The CARES Act does extend the length of people’s eligibility for federal benefits after their state benefits run out, the study notes.)
These different scenarios result in regional disparities in who receives benefits — and mean that millions of those eligible did not, and perhaps still have not, received aid. By and large, the states where the fewest jobless people (under 15 percent) received benefits were in the South, and the states where the most jobless people (more than 40 percent) received benefits were in the Northeast and Midwest.
The amount of the benefits also varied widely, because states cap benefits in relation to a person’s earnings, at different amounts, from $235 per week in Mississippi to $823 per week in Massachusetts. Some states offer additional benefits for dependents; others don’t.
Even before this explosion of job loss, unemployment benefits were often hard to access, as many states’ administrative apparatuses went underfunded for years. All this comes at a time when Americans have said they need immediate support — more than half of low-income Americans report that they will have trouble paying bills this month. And nationwide, the economic fallout from the virus’s spread is on par with the Great Depression.
Now, paired with new hurdles, such as the rocky rollout of new programs and glitchy or purposefully inaccessible online portals, millions more Americans are seeing — and about to fall through — the gaping holes in the national safety net.