Bob Schwartz

In July, leading public health expert Dr. Peter Hotez proposed a national plan that would allow America to begin a safer and more open life by October 1.

Within a few weeks [August], we will reach the awful milestone of 100,000 new COVID19 cases per day, next 225,000 deaths by October 30, and possibly 300,000 deaths by the end of 2020. However, it is not too late to chart a different course. By October 1, we could safely reopen our schools, colleges, and businesses. Potentially we could even launch a college football season or the NFL?

It appears that the projection of 225,000 deaths by October 30 was accurate. Today, 36 states have increasing cases, while none have fewer. Schools, colleges, businesses, college football, NFL? Some moving forward, some limping along, some still at a standstill.

Is it too late to start a plan targeted to October 1 in mid-October? Any science-based national plan would be better than none, anytime. Is it likely we will have a national plan anytime soon? If you are an American or an America-watcher, you know the answer. Will there be 300,000 dead by the end of the year? At least.

For what it’s worth, below is a rerun of Dr. Hotez’s plan.

COVID19 in America: An October Plan

Within a few weeks, we will reach the awful milestone of 100,000 new COVID19 cases per day, next 225,000 deaths by October 30, and possibly 300,000 deaths by the end of 2020. However, it is not too late to chart a different course. By October 1, we could safely reopen our schools, colleges, and businesses. Potentially we could even launch a college football season or the NFL?

Our homeland security threat

COVID19 has gone beyond dangerous levels in America. We just surpassed 65,000 new cases per day, and I estimate that currently one-quarter of all the world’s COVID19 cases now occur in the Southern US. Soon we will reach Dr. Anthony Fauci’s projected apocalyptic benchmark of 100,000 new cases per day (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/politics/fauci-coronavirus.html). In addition, we are experiencing dramatic increases in hospitalizations and ICU admissions across the southern half of the United States, and as predicted, the number of deaths has spiked. The University of Washington just estimated that 225,000 Americans will die by October 30 (https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america), and potentially that number could reach close to 300,000 by the end of 2020. To place that number in perspective the terrible 1918 influenza pandemic that lasted until 2020 (or some say 2022) caused 675,000 deaths in the US (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html). This COVID19 public health impact does not include the many “recovered” patients with long-lasting disabilities resulting from virus injury to their lungs, vascular system, and heart, as well as potentially long-term neurologic and cognitive deficits.

Soon, practically every American will personally know someone who has gotten very sick or hospitalized with COVID19.

Still another aspect is my concern that low-income neighborhoods across the South – where social distancing is often more difficult and essential workers must physically be in their place of employment – are now being decimated. COVID19 is a health disparity, and LatinX, African American, and Native American people are pouring into emergency rooms, hospitals, and ICUs. For me this is the most heart-wrenching aspect of COVID19 and a reason I speak out.

It is more than public health

Beyond the dire public health impact of the 2020 COVID19 epidemic in America are the socioeconomic effects. The impact on jobs and the economy has been well-reported, but equally important is the fact that now millions of Americans feel unsafe. Many of us are fearful of leaving our homes or having our children in school. It is also impossible to imagine how schools can be considered safe in areas of the country where virus transmission is accelerating. Within a few weeks of opening schools in the South, teachers, staff, bus drivers, parents will become ill, and require hospitalization. School staffs will become demoralized, and schools will again close. In time, a collective feeling of futility and hopelessness will become pervasive. Our nation will be left vulnerable due to internal unrest, cybersecurity attacks, and more, as COVID19 transitions to a homeland security threat.

We do not have to live this way

Adding to America’s frustration is the knowledge that many European and other nations are now returning to normalcy in the aftermath of their springtime COVID19 epidemic. Transmission is way down, allowing schools and colleges to reopen safely, while people return to work and enjoy cafes (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52935145), and restaurants.

What went so terribly wrong?

Why did Europe successfully emerge from its COVID19 epidemic while America still struggles and even faces a much larger threat in the coming weeks and months?

The successful nations implemented a national plan and roadmap with a target date and target goals of reaching defined levels of virus containment.

There are different metrics used to define containment. For some it means, one prevalent COVID19 infection per million residents (http://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/Projects/COVID/Estimation_update_041720.pdf). For others, one new case per million residents per day. Under these circumstances, public health measures, including testing, contact tracing, syndromic surveillance, and effective public health communication can would prevent a resurgence.

In contrast, the US never really had a federal plan and roadmap. There was no federal directive or visible champion for implementing a national strategy. In its place, our federal government ceded control to the states. It forced the states to make its own decisions, while the US government provided important FEMA and other support, including ventilators, protective equipment, and supply chain management.

This approach was doomed to fail from the beginning:

• Many states did not have the epidemiologic knowledge and models to make informed decisions about when it is safe to loosen social distancing and other measures.
• States lacked detailed information about the impact of selected measures on the projected number of cases, ICU admissions and deaths.
• Back in April (and still today) Governors were under intense political pressures to make decisions that go against public health recommendations.
• They needed the cover of the federal government, especially the CDC, to say to lawmakers, “look I hear what you are saying, but the CDC tells me if I don’t do this or that, thousands of people will die in our state”. I believe those conversations rarely happened.

The result was predictable: A fragmented, arbitrary, and broken COVID19 response.

The consequence: The US is the epicenter of the global COVID19 pandemic, and we will maintain this status in the future.

In the current trajectory, COVID19 will only get much worse as we head into the fall and winter. Compounding our epidemic is the likelihood that season influenza will soon return, and we could see another measles resurgence given the decline in vaccination rates (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e2.htm).

The default is that we might soon endure the greatest public health catastrophe in the history of the United States over the last hundred years.

The Fix: A New National Plan

We have an option. Through federal leadership and guidance, we could bring our entire nation towards a level of containment sufficient to safely open schools, colleges, and even host sporting events. We could return Americans safely to the workplace.

To do this by October 1 we now need to do the following:

• Shape a national plan with an objective of a national level of containment.
• Some experts benchmark containment as one case per million residents per day, but we might select less strict criteria.
• Upon achieving this level, it would be possible to reopen schools, colleges, and businesses safely, provided a full and functioning health system is in place.
• With containment, contact tracing actually becomes feasible, whereas this is not the case currently across most of the nation.
• Each state would either agree or be required to meet that containment benchmark.
• Some of these states, such as those in northern New England (NH VT ME) might already be close to that level. Others, such as FL TX AZ may require aggressive stay-at-home measures.
• Starting October 1, we could begin a national re-opening for schools, colleges, and even outdoor high school (“Friday Night Lights”), collegiate and professional sports.

We have few choices

Doing nothing or continuing a strategy based on states in the lead will only invite further tragedy. By late in the fall every American will personally know someone who is severely ill or hospitalized with COVID19. Hospitals across America will be overrun, hospital personnel will become sick in droves, and we might experience 300,000 deaths by the end of 2020. Moreover, we won’t have a safe and effective COVID19 vaccine anytime soon. My earliest timetable is the middle of 2021, and even then, that timeframe would be a world land speed record.

This will become one of the most unstable times in the history in the United States.

Implementing the October 1 plan will force America to make some difficult choices, but none as devastating as the mounting deaths if we choose to simply stay the course.

Peter Hotez MD PhD is Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology, and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also Co-Director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development.

There are two obstacles to finding a single factor to explain something as substantial as America’s catastrophic failure to effectively respond to the pandemic. Situations like this are complex. And what you find may be a correlate and not a cause.

Still, I thought I might look at the ways America is distinctly different than all the rest of the developed world. A first place I looked was education, believing that some degree of critical thinking is needed to sort through the scientific analysis and recommendations. While America does not lead the world in the education of its students, it is far from the bottom.

I did, however, find one way that America is “exceptional.” According to the Pew Research Center, “Americans are far more religious than adults in other wealthy nations.”:

In fact, Americans pray more often, are more likely to attend weekly religious services and ascribe higher importance to faith in their lives than adults in other wealthy, Western democracies, such as Canada, Australia and most European states, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.

For instance, more than half of American adults (55%) say they pray daily, compared with 25% in Canada, 18% in Australia and 6% in Great Britain. (The average European country stands at 22%.) Actually, when it comes to their prayer habits, Americans are more like people in many poorer, developing nations – including South Africa (52%), Bangladesh (57%) and Bolivia (56%) – than people in richer countries.

As it turns out, the U.S. is the only country out of 102 examined in the study that has higher-than-average levels of both prayer and wealth. In every other country surveyed with a gross domestic product of more than $30,000 per person, fewer than 40% of adults say they pray every day.

It is possible that this is merely a correlate of other attitudes having more to do with the pandemic response. But it does make sense. By the testimony of many Trump supporters, God answered their prayers by anointing a leader who would take care of the inequities that liberal progress inflicted on a once great nation. This latest infliction, in the form of a global virus, even if real, was merely another piece of the plan, one that the anointed one would vanquish.

Ratified in 1967, in the wake of the JFK assassination, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment of the Constitution concerns the orderly way to deal with a president unable to carry out his duties.

There have for a while been discussions of whether the current president is mentally fit for office. This week, as he evidences the psychological effects of steroid therapy, of Covid, and of political stress, the question is more focused than ever.

By coincidence, this week sees the publication of Unable: The Law, Politics, and Limits of Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment by Michigan State law professor Brian C. Kalt.

The long and complex Section 4 reads:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

This has never been invoked and there is no litigation on what it means or how it works. Two things are clear.

The phrase “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” (written in 1967, before the drafters understood that it made complete sense to neutrally say “the office” or “their office”) is open to interpretation. What does “unable” mean in this context?

The process is intended to be careful and onerous. It is not a judgment to be made lightly. The decision is spread among a large number of people, so the judgment of even the most partisan or least aware would be overweighed by the prudent and patriotic.

In the present case, even if Trump is mentally unfit, the chance that the amendment would successfully be invoked and applied is very small—even if his psychological condition continues to worsen.

In the future, who knows what becomes of the amendment? Maybe, with the current experience, it will be revised to include mental unfitness. And while they are at it, maybe they can implicitly acknowledge the possibility that the president might not be a “he.”

The most fascinating moment of the VP debate—aside from The Fly—was VP Pence defending Trump on charges that he refused to denounce and encouraged white supremacists and Neo-Nazis:

“President Trump has Jewish grandchildren. His daughter and son-in-law are Jewish.”

We haven’t heard much of this defense before. It is delicate. It sounds too much like “some of my best friends are…”, only more so.

Like Trump, this line is disabled in so many ways that it is hard to know where to begin.

Identifying or practicing as a Jew doesn’t mean you are not intolerant, bigoted or morally challenged. That is not a criticism of the tradition, just a fact of life. I’ve made clear in previous posts that a number of people involved in the administration’s most debased policies are Jewish, at least by affinity. I’ve directly asked where their rabbis are in all this, and a while ago, Stephen Miller’s past rabbi—the man who bar mitzvahed him—publicly took his former congregant to task.

If it’s true that being Jewish is no defense, then the associative principle of only having Jewish relatives is even weaker.

Then there is the question of Trump’s frequently claimed faith. He is obviously faithless, just yesterday bizarrely claiming that his getting the virus was “a blessing from God.” Besides this being a facet of his possible psychosis and Messiah complex, any time a religious tradition is used in supportive reference to Trump, you can be sure it is hypocritical.

Also, there is a thought that Trump himself is actually anti-Semitic. We know without question that his father was, and a number of the recent revelations about the president, including the book by his niece, confirm that Trump himself is. Which not only makes Pence’s defense strange, but raises even stranger questions about what Trump actually thinks about his Jewish daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren.

A final twisted aspect, probably bafflingly intentional, is that Kamala Harris is not Jewish, but is married to a Jewish man and has Jewish stepchildren. See, she is just like Trump and can’t criticize him! Or something like that.

We would all be better off never having to again hear that line from Pence or any other Trump defenders. Those of us in the tradition would be better off, too, as would Judaism.

Nicholas Ray is the celebrated and iconoclastic director of movies such as Rebel Without a Cause. His film Bigger Than Life (1956) is unusual, even for him.

In the late 1950s, steroids were a new and experimental therapy. Some of the known side effects—side effects that are still an issue decades later—were the basis for the movie. A synopsis from AFI (emphasis added):

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Three things tell us just how sick Trump is with Covid-19.

1. What we have been allowed to know is that he is infected with the virus, had some troubling breathing incidents, went to the hospital, and is receiving an unprecedented combination of drug therapies (unprecedented in that nobody in the world has received this combination).

2. The White House and their doctor are hiding something, being vague, evasive or silent. Reasons to hide significant things are either that it is none of your business or that there is something bad to hide. The greater the efforts to hide, the more likely it is something bad, maybe very bad.

3. He is overcompensating. He is exaggerating. He protests too much. In the past, he ordered his last doctor, Ronny Jackson, to say that Trump could live to be 200. Admittedly, Trump is known to play everything over the top. But even for him, the video and photo ops during his illness look desperate, not convincing.

As for what it means if Trump is as sick as he probably is, and maybe about to get worse, that is yet to be determined. When the worst president in American history is very sick and on a potent drug cocktail that may be affecting his mental health, anything can happen.

Minute by minute, discouraged and oppressed by current events partaking of insanity, lies and unreasoning, I have a dream.

I dream of an America based on Sanity, Truth and Reason. A STAR America. It is not based on all of us sharing the same geography, ideology, politics or culture. About these we are diverse and divergent. It is based on common adherence to, or at least aspiration to, those three ideals.

We can dream, can’t we? We must.

Just hours before the debate, the Jewish Democratic Council of America released an ad, Hate Doesn’t Stop Itself, It Must Be Stopped. In the debate, of course, Trump refused to denounce white supremacists, instead winking at the Proud Boys with his “stand by” directive.

Nevertheless, elements of the organized Jewish community criticized comparing hate in Trump’s America to early-1930s German and Nazis. In the Forward, Halie Soifer, executive director of the JDC, explains:

In a baffling and unfortunate development, some of the major Jewish American organizations came out against our ad. The American Jewish Committee claimed it was an “offensive” distraction “from the urgent need to fight Jew hatred” that trivializes the memory of the Holocaust’s victims. @USJewishDems, take down this ad immediately.

And the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, insisted that references to Hitler have “no place in the presidential race.”

So it was ironic to say the least when, just hours after the ad’s release, the President validated our message at the first presidential debate by refusing to condemn white supremacy. After all, his ugly comments during the debate are hardly the first time Trump has flirted with white nationalists….

It’s sad that despite all this, the ADL and the AJC felt the need to criticize our ad, which was so heartily vindicated just hours later. We recognize that parallels between today and the 1930s are grim and chilling, but they are real. We cannot wish them away, and Trump continues to remind us of the extreme danger of his words, as the AJC and ADL both confirmed in their condemnations of his debate performance last night….

We are proud to speak truth to power, even when it’s difficult. And the truth is that the hatred emboldened by President Trump is an insidious danger to our community and our democracy, and that is why we are doing everything we can to elect Joe Biden and restore the soul of our nation in 34 days.

To our fellow Jewish organizations, we would like to say that the time for equivocation is over. This is no time to back away from the truth.

Readers of this blog may know that during this presidency, I have posted regular references to Nazi Germany, but often as historic observations and not pointed directly at any particular current political situation. Although I have, I admit, frequently posted the question “Are we scared yet?” and a caution about thinking that “it can’t happen here.”

The JDC is right. The time for equivocation is over. In the face of obvious evil, whatever fancy talk they mouth and whatever cloak of rationalizations they wear, apologists become aiders and abettors. Those who claim to know history should go back to their studies. Only the self-deluded and the self-interested turn a blind eye. We should be scared because it can happen anywhere.

‘Cause out on the edge of darkness,
There rides a Peace Train
Oh Peace Train take this country,
Come take me home again
Peace Train by Yusuf/Cat Stevens

My vocabulary includes lots of musical allusions. So after watching just minutes of the presidential debate, Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne started playing in my head.

Spot on, to be sure, but not really helpful for our much needed sanity in this moment. So I accessed other “train” songs in my mental database.

I settled on Peace Train by Yusuf/Cat Stevens. For those who don’t know him, over decades he has been one of the most talented and humane musical stars in the firmament. To mark the 50^th anniversary of his breakthrough album Tea for the Tillerman (1970), he just released an entire rerecording of the disc.

Peace Train is from his 1971 album Teaser and the Firecat (which also includes hit tracks Morning Has Broken and Moonshadow).

Peace Train

Now I’ve been happy lately
Thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be
Something good has begun

Oh, I’ve been smiling lately
Dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be
Someday it’s going to come

‘Cause I’m on the edge of darkness
There ride the Peace Train
Oh, Peace Train take this country
Come take me home again

Now I’ve been smiling lately,
Thinkin’ about the good things to come
And I believe it could be,
Something good has begun

Get your bags together,
Go bring your good friends, too
‘Cause it’s getting nearer,
It soon will be with you

Now come and join the living,
It’s not so far from you
And it’s getting nearer,
Soon it will all be true

Oh Peace Train sounding louder
Glide on the Peace Train
Come on now Peace Train

Now I’ve been crying lately,
Thinkin’ about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating,
Why can’t we live in bliss

‘Cause out on the edge of darkness,
There rides a Peace Train
Oh Peace Train take this country,
Come take me home again

We usually talk about the failure of the U.S. to respond effectively to the pandemic as a matter of ignoring or denying science. Along with that, though, is the dominance of style over substance.

The concern for some important leaders was how the situation looked, sounded and felt. If things seemed bad, people would conclude they were bad. Dress up the situation—hiding this, highlighting that, adding some makeup—and everything would seem fine. Even if it was demonstrably not.

Style has always mattered. It is a way of making things or yourself look distinctive, look better. It can also be a way of making things or yourself look better, or at least different, than they are.

Style is more dominant than ever, easier to fashion than ever. Whether or not something is substantial, it is possible for more people and producers to make it look and sound substantial.

Which brings us back to the pandemic and its leaders. Selling something that’s nothing, or less than nothing, is a skill approaching art. They have for the better part of a year now styled the pandemic in ways that didn’t match the substance. The Wizard of Oz, P.T. Barnum. They are continuing that today, and will continue for as long as there are people who will buy the style, no matter how ugly the substance.