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Greetings!
Evan Osnos in an article published in The New Yorker last week states: “The trials of 2020 have dismantled some of the most basic stories we Americans tell ourselves. The world’s richest, most powerful country has botched even rudimentary responses to the pandemic—finding masks, making tests—and some agencies have proved to be so antiquated and starved of resources that they’ve used fax machines to share data. The White House offered policies that read like mock Kafka; even as people were advised against dining out, it was proposing a corporate tax break on business meals. On Fox News in April, Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and one of the leaders of the coronavirus response, declared the Administration’s effort ‘a great success story.’” Today the folly of Kushner’s analysis is found in the data: on August 24, in the U.S. there were 36,422 new cases: 554 deaths and 170,155 deaths total. In comparison, 477 new cases and 4 deaths (35,396 total) in Italy; 782 new cases and 2 deaths (9,322 total) in Germany; in France, 4,897 new cases and 1 death (30,513 total ); the United Kingdom had on August 24, 1,041 new cases, 6 deaths (41,443 total).
Your editor and his curators have to the best of their ability tried to do policy/practice assessment first and then allow the readers to bring to bear their own politics. We have allowed the journalists and their reporting on policy, practice, daily life, and the science to tell the story. We have provided the data on new cases, that day’s deaths, and the total deaths to date to compare our response to other nations.
All of the nations cited above entered the pandemic with their own battles between the left and right, the Social Democrat and the Nationalist, Labor/Social Democrat versus Conservative, or here in the US–Democrats versus what is today’s Republican party. Revitalize believes that as professionals and practitioners, in and out of the “room,” we have to engage in policy/practice assessment first. We also try to promote in our readers and our own minds the ability to determine when and how failed politics, weakened political systems, tribalism, and/or flawed politicians have contributed to the Covid response failings of this and any other nation. Therefore, today’s Revitalize is a mix of science and medical reporting, a look at how and when we are going to reopen, and political reporting and essays.
To start, we return to Stat, a great online journal that makes us focus on science and statistics and enjoy it. A statistical look at the (now highly political) question of “are deaths rates falling?” Stat also offers us a critical look at the FDA, to whom we are most dependent upon for tests and drugs and vaccines. Unfortunately and realistically, Stat and the Aug. 25 NY Times The Daily testify that at the FDA (and at their Russian and Chinese counterparts) politics has not only entered but may now dominate the room. The Daily also offers to listen or look at “other new developments in the treatment and understanding of the coronavirus that have arisen in the United States and abroad.”
Ready to take a break from work, gather friends and family at home, grab a coffee with an old or a new friend or colleague? The Curators, all mask wearing, socially distant, and in some instances monitoring or teaching Zoom learning, are ready to meet you at Millstone in Culver City, Johnny’s in Reno, Cartel or your favorite coffee shop in Phoenix, Zuni in SF, and we could go on. Our craving pushed the curators to find the best of the writing on the politics, psychology, and epidemiology of opening. We found and link a great look at California’s reopening challenges from our Oakland cafe companion Politico’s great health care-politics reporter Victoria Colliver. She offers a report on the challenges Governor Newsom, many mayors, and all of us face in reopening our state. Paired with that is an article from The Atlantic that explores the reality that “as states ease restrictions on businesses, individuals face a psychological morass.”
And in our politics final section we offer first a look at polling on the Covid response from Axios-Ipsos poll: “The Biden-Trump trust gulf.” We then turn to the Washington Post’s analysis “What does it mean that most Republicans see the coronavirus death toll as acceptable?” Our last article is now a month old essay by one of our great political reporters George Packer’ “We Are Living in a Failed State” posted from The Atlantic. Packer offers both a big picture Covid Story as well as an well-argued and angry essay that reviews all the reasons why today we are still in lockdown and confronting as Osnos stated the “world’s richest, most powerful country has botched even rudimentary responses to the pandemic.”
A quick Reminder: The Daily link offers both the podcast and the transcript and The Atlantic, The New Yorker, NY Times, and other publications found here have the AUDM podcast option.
As a final word let me encourage you to read this mix of science, political science and politics, all brilliantly written and edited. And now from Culver City with contributions from all of California, the great states to our North and East, and Hong Kong and elsewhere in the world here is Revitalize list for Aug. 26, 2020:
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Revitalize: The week in health-care news you need
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In the U.S., emergency-use authorization has been granted for convalescent plasma, the efficacy of which is yet to be robustly tested. For some, this echoes the situation with hydroxychloroquine and the government’s subsequent U-turn on its rollout. America’s infection rate appears to be flattening out—but at tens of thousands of cases per day.
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Politico: Newsom nears pivotal decision; Should California try to reopen again?
As states ease restrictions on businesses, individuals face a psychological morass.
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The Washington Post analysis: What does it mean that most Republicans see the coronavirus death toll as acceptable?
The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.
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Jerry Seelig, CEO
Fax: 310-841-2842
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