Cause, effect and the need to test for COVID-19 -- column of Aug. 27, 2020

By MARSHA MERCER

A wise editor of mine used to say, “Wet streets don’t cause rain.”

John’s point, of course, was not to confuse cause and effect. I’ve thought about his warning often since President Donald Trump began his counter-narrative about coronavirus testing.

As the number of positive cases of COVID-19 soared this summer, Trump repeatedly blamed the tests for causing the cases.

Testing “makes us look bad,” he tweeted in June.

At the Tulsa rally a few days later, he said, “I said to my people, `Slow the testing down, please.’”

His aides tried to pass that remark off as a joke, but Trump said, “I don’t kid.”

“Cases, Cases, Cases! If we didn’t test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases,” he tweeted in July.

And, he told reporters, “When you test you create cases.”

That’s all wrong. Pregnancy tests don’t create babies.

Not only the number of cases but the positivity rate – the percentage of tests coming back positive -- also soared in many places.

“A higher percent positive suggests higher transmission and that there are likely more people with coronavirus in the community who haven’t been tested yet,” the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health says, noting it may be a time to add restrictions to slow spread of the disease.

On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly posted new guidelines on its website that likely will sow confusion and discourage people from getting tested.

“If you have been in close contact (within 6 feet) of a person with a COVID-19 infection for at least 15 minutes but do not have symptoms, you do not necessarily need a test,” the latest guidance says.

Previously, the CDC urged all people who had come in close contact with an infected person to get tested.

The timing could not be worse. Hundreds of thousands of children and older students are going back to school and college. To keep them, their teachers and other essential workers safe, people need to know if they’re infected so they can self-isolate.

The new guidance cites as an exception “vulnerable” individuals and advises everyone to listen to health care providers and local public health officials.

“I’m dumbfounded by this recommendation,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of infectious diseases research at the University of Minnesota, said on CNN.

It may take four or five days for exposure to show up on a test, he said, but people still need to be tested.

Trump and everyone who comes near him at the White House are tested repeatedly. He doesn’t need to wear a mask, he says, because everyone gets a test.

Good for them. But what about the rest of us?

Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services in charge of testing, denied Trump pressured the CDC and said the guidance had been updated to reflect “current evidence.” But he didn’t present any.

“All the docs” including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had signed off on the new guidelines at a meeting, Giroir said.

Not so, said Fauci. He had seen an earlier draft but wasn’t present when the final version was approved. He had a good excuse.

“I was under general anesthesia in the operating room and was not part of any discussion or deliberation regarding the new testing recommendations,” he told CNN. Fauci had surgery Aug. 20 for a polyp on his vocal cords.

“I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact, it is,” Fauci said.  

About 40% of COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic, the CDC estimates, and the chance of people with no symptoms infecting someone else is 75%. That’s why knowing who is infected and having them quarantine for two weeks is important.

Trump has consistently attacked his own health experts, pressuring the CDC to rewrite guidelines for opening schools and businesses and rushing at “warp speed” to have a vaccine by Nov. 3.

Everyone wants to live in the world again, and most of us rely on science for the facts. 

That means we need to know more – not less – about the coronavirus, who has it and how it works.

For now, wear a mask, wash your hands, keep your distance, stay home if you’re sick, and remember: Wet streets don’t cause rain.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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What's your Pence-Q? -- Aug. 20, 2020 column

On Monday, the Republican National Convention opens four nights devoted to championing President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. This election, with the oldest presidential candidates in history – Trump is 74, Democrat Joe Biden 77 – makes running mates more important than ever.

Pence has been No. 2 for nearly four years and in government for decades, but how much do you know about the man a heartbeat away from the top job in the land? Take our political trivia quiz below. And, if you missed last week’s Democratic Veep quiz, take the What’s your Kamala-Q? here.

1) Michael Richard Pence is the grandson of Catholic immigrants who came through Ellis Island in 1923 from which country?
A. Germany
B. England
C. France
D. Ireland

2) Pence once voted for . . .
A. John F. Kennedy
B. Jimmy Carter
C. Bill Clinton
D. None of the above

3) Which club did Pence write he was a member of?
A. Failed Politician’s Club
B. Campaign Losers Club
C. Never-Give-Up Club
D. None of the above

4) Pence and his wife Karen have been married since 1985 and have three grown children. Which of these has Mrs. Pence NOT done?
A. Promoted art therapy as a mental health profession
B. Taught elementary school
C. Painted with watercolors
D. Sold real estate

5) Pence described himself as . . .
A. “A husband, father and small businessman – in that order”
B. “A Hoosier, an American and a fan of moose tracks ice cream – in that order”
C. “A Christian, a conservative and a Republican -- in that order”
D. “A child of God, of the heartland and, politically, of Ronald Reagan”

6) Who is or was Greg Pence?
A. Mike Pence’s son, a Marine
B. Mike Pence’s late father, who owned gas stations in Indiana
C. The online name Mike Pence used in the past
D. Mike Pence’s older brother and a U.S. House member from Indiana

7). How many times did Mike Pence run for Congress and lose?
A. One
B. Two
C. Three
D. None. He won the first time he ran.

8) In 2006, House Republicans chose John Boehner over Mike Pence to be minority leader. Of the 196 votes cast, how many did Pence get?
A. 17
B. 27
C. 37
D. 57

9) Esquire magazine in October 2008 included Pence in one of these groups. Which one?
A. Members of Congress most likely to run for president
B. 10 worst members of Congress
C. 10 best members of Congress
D. 10 most forgettable members of Congress

10) Who did Mike Pence initially back in the 2016 Republican primaries?
A. Marco Rubio
B. Ted Cruz
C. Donald Trump
D. Mike Huckabee

BONUS: How old is Pence?
A. 58
B. 61
C. 64
D. 66


ANSWERS:
1. D
2. B
3. A In his essay “Confessions of a Negative Campaigner”
4. D
5. C At a Values Voter summit in 2010
6. D
7. B
8. B
9. C Calling Pence “one of the most principled members, from either party”
10. B

BONUS: B
--Compiled by Marsha Mercer.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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Test your Kamala-Q -- column of Aug. 13, 2020

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made history Tuesday when he picked Sen. Kamala Harris of California as his running mate. If the Biden-Harris ticket wins, Harris will become the nation’s first Black, female and Asian American vice president.

With the presidential candidates the oldest in history – Biden is 77 and President Donald Trump, 74 – running mates are more important than ever. So, how well do you know the people who could be a heartbeat away from the top job next January?

Today, before the Democratic convention opens Monday, test your trivia of Harris. Next week, before the Republican convention opens Aug. 24, take our quiz about Republican Vice President Mike Pence.

1) What’s the correct way to pronounce Kamala Harris’s first name?
A) Kuh-MAH-luh
B) CAMEL-uh
C) COMMA-luh
D) I’m not sure

2) Kamala is the Sanskrit word for what?
A) Leader
B) Lotus flower
C) Sunshine
D) Fearless

3) Harris is the daughter of immigrants from which countries?
A. India and Africa
B. India and Ecuador
C. India and Trinidad
D. India and Jamaica

4) What were her parents’ occupations?
A. Mother a breast cancer researcher, father an economics professor
B. Mother a housewife, father a translator at the United Nations
C. Mother a politician, father a corporate exec
D. Mother and father both nuclear engineers

5) In another first for someone on a major party’s presidential ticket, Harris is a graduate of which historically black college or university?
A. Morehouse College
B. Howard University
C. Spelman College
D. Hampton University

6) True or false: Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris all failed the bar exam.

7) How old was Harris when Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate?
A. 4
B. 6
C. 8
D. 10

8) Which title did Harris say means the most to her?
A. The gentlelady from California
B. Momala
C. Madame Vice President
D. None of these

9) What is the name of Harris’s husband?
A. Douglas Emhoff
B. David Englehoff
C. Donald Epstein
D. Daniel Ellsberg


10) Which of these did President Trump NOT say or tweet about Harris?
A. She’s “risky”
B. She’s “nasty”
C. She’s the “meanest” and “most horrible” senator
D. She’s “pretty cute”

BONUS: How tall is Harris?


ANSWERS
1. C. Harris put out a campaign ad when she ran for the Senate in 2016 with kids explaining how to pronounce it. https://bit.ly/2Fi54ya
2. B
3. D
4. A. Her parents divorced when Harris was a child.
5. B. Class of 1986
6. True. They all went on to pass bar exams later.
7. C. She was born Oct. 20, 1964. Biden was first elected to the Senate in November 1972.
8. B. It’s the name her two stepchildren came up with.
9. A. They were married in 2014.
10. D
Bonus: She’s 5-feet-2

--Compiled by Marsha Mercer

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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Honey, they shrunk the conventions -- Aug. 6, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Both political parties are scrambling to put together national political conventions virtually, on the spur of the moment, after throwing out long-developed plans for the usual in-person gatherings.

What could go wrong?

The way 2020 is going, it’s not hard to imagine the conventions as more trial and tribulation.

Democrats will celebrate at a social distance Aug. 17 through 20, and Republicans with a hybrid of in-person and remote events, Aug. 24 through 27.

Democrats and Republicans each initially expected upwards of 50,000 delegates, media, elected officials and celebrities to converge as they formally nominate their candidates for president and vice president.

But the novel coronavirus upended the coronations. As few as a couple hundred people may attend each convention in person. There could be more protesters than conventioneers.

The only smidgen of suspense is who Joe Biden’s running mate will be, and he’s likely to announce his choice beforehand.

President Donald Trump yanked the Republican convention from Charlotte when North Carolina’s sensible Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper refused to say Trump could fill up the convention hall.

Trump moved the shindig to Jacksonville, then canceled that “celebration” when COVID-19 cases surged in Florida.

Republican officials still plan to formally nominate Trump in Charlotte but are considering other cities for parts of their spectacle. Trump may deliver his acceptance speech from the White House South Lawn, in a huge break from tradition.

Congressional Democrats and even some Republicans say it’s possibly illegal and at least unethical to use the White House for political gatherings, though Democrats grumble Trump gives campaign speeches masquerading as news conferences at the White House nearly every day.

The pandemic has kept Biden close to home, but he was expected to break out and travel to Milwaukee to give his acceptance speech. He announced Wednesday he won’t even go to his own convention.

After consulting with health advisers, Biden decided the safe and responsible move was to give the most important speech of his life from Delaware. Other top Democratic speakers also will speak remotely.

The convention will still be “exciting,” Biden promised, offering no details.

Since COVID-19 has made 2020 one long root canal, it’s not surprising the national conventions would be strange. How strange? Even the police bailed.

In Milwaukee, more than 100 police agencies from Wisconsin and around the country that had planned to provide security quit after the Milwaukee police chief said they could not use tear gas or pepper spray to subdue protesters at the Democratic convention.

Before Trump pulled the plug on Jacksonville, the mayor as well as the local sheriff said Republicans lacked an adequate security plan for the convention and they couldn’t guarantee security.

So, what will the conventions look like? A few details are trickling out.

The GOP plans to rebrand as “the party of real, hardworking Americans.” A “nightly surprise” at 10 will feature guests and themes around “the forgotten men and women of America,” Axios reported, citing two senior Trump campaign officials.

Monday’s theme is America as “a land of heroes,” Tuesday “land of promise,” Wednesday “land of opportunity” and Thursday “land of greatness” with Trump’s plans for “the great American comeback,” Axios reported.

Democrats say they will have a “custom virtual video control room” designed to take in hundreds of live and recorded feeds from around the country at their Convention Across America that now will be “anchored” in Milwaukee.

Unlike previous conventions when speakers drone on day and night, Democrats plan only two hours of programming a night.

For decades, the value of the conventions has dwindled. Candidates clinch their nomination early, and the thousands of delegates and alternates in funny hats are little more than props for prime-time infomercials. That will be especially true for this year’s shrinking conventions.

But during the pandemic, with most of us stuck at home, Americans may enjoy watching makeshift political performances. Typically, voters watch only the party they already support, so no minds are likely to be changed.

What ultimately will be important is that the conventions signal the start of the fall campaign. No matter how jerry-rigged the conventions are, once they end it will be time to get serious.


©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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Be smart. Mask up! -- July 30, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Near a neighborhood park in Alexandria, a yard sign reads: “Don’t be Stupid. Make America Healthy Again. Wear a Facemask!”

The sign is bipartisan -- half blue and half red -- and diverse. At the bottom an assortment of faces wears masks.

Back home, Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, is on TV, telling me: “Wear a mask.”

“We have the power – the American people do – to slow the spread of this virus,” he said Thursday on NBC’s Today show.

All over social media, celebrities post selfies wearing masks and use the hashtag #wearadamnmask. It’s hard not to get the message.

More than 150,000 Americans have perished from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and more than 4.4 million people in the United States have been infected.

With the economy in distress, everyone wants to get to some sort of “new normal” life, whatever that may be, but the virus shows no sign of easing its vicious grip on the United States.

There’s no vaccine or treatment yet, and polls indicate many people worry a vaccine developed at “warp speed” may be unsafe. So states, companies and individuals hunker down.

Google announced Tuesday it would not bring employees back to their offices until next July at the earliest. It was the first big company to delay reopening that long but likely won’t be the last.

Meanwhile, the chasm grows between those who can safely work at home and those who must return to a dangerous workplace.

It would be easier to fight the disease if people broke out in a bright red coronavirus rash, but those without symptoms pass the disease to others.

And that’s why the tried-and-true advice for stopping the spread still holds. Wear a facial covering, keep six feet of social distance and wash hands frequently.

We know if we are asymptomatic and wear a mask, it helps protect others. If others also wear a mask, we protect each other.

Many stores, restaurants and other establishments now require customers to wear masks – for which millions of us are grateful. Don’t bother calling me a “sheeple,” easily led by the government. I’m not buying it.

Even President Donald Trump finally wore a mask. He says he usually doesn’t need one because he’s tested frequently, unlike most Americans. He and anyone he comes in close contact with receive their results quickly. Most Americans must wait days or a week for results, which renders contact tracing ineffective.

And that brings us to Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas. The anti-masker was tested Wednesday before he was supposed to fly on Air Force One with Trump.

When his test came back positive, Gohmert said he “can’t help but wonder” whether wearing a mask and taking it on and off somehow caused him to breathe in the virus.

“We don’t have any evidence that’s the case,” FDA’s Hahn said. “Our data show people should wear masks.”

Gohmert said he’s “all in” on hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug Trump has again been touting, despite it’s having been discredited by medical experts as a treatment for COVID-19. The drug can have serious side effects, affecting heart rhythms.

In the wake of Gohmert’s potentially infecting his staff and other members of Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered members to wear masks on the House floor except when recognized to speak.

I get that Americans hate being told what to do and masks – or their lack -- have become a political statement. We’ve seen the videos of unhinged people in stores going ballistic when asked to put on a mask.

But there’s no constitutional right to infect the front-line hero who rings up your chips and beer. It’s no show of personal liberty to infect your grandmother. Remember, 80% of the people who have died of COVID-19 are over 65.

Not wearing a mask is almost as dumb as attending a COVID-19 party because you think COVID is a hoax, as a 30-year-old man in Texas reportedly did. Shortly before he died of the disease, he told his nurse he’d made a mistake.

So, please be smart. Wear a mask. You might save someone’s life – and someone else might save yours.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved. 30

Summertime when ice wasn't easy -- July 23, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Of all the momentous issues with which the founding fathers had to grapple, one of the most perplexing was ice.

In his letters, George Washington often expressed his frustrations about being unable to preserve ice, historians at Mount Vernon tell us.

Writing his friend Robert Morris from Mount Vernon on June 2, 1784, Washington confided the ice in his icehouse is “is gone already,” and asked Morris to send a description of the size, manner of building and management of his icehouse in Pennsylvania.

“My house was filled chiefly with Snow,” Washington added, asking Morris if he had tried keeping snow and if he thought snow was key to Washington’s defeat.

Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, quickly obliged. From Philadelphia on June 15, he wrote nearly 600 words of detailed description of his icehouse, which, in case you’re wondering, was 16-feet square and 18-feet deep, with two sets of stone walls, wood and straw above and gravel below.

Morris tells Washington he tried saving snow one year and “lost it in June,” but he can keep ice from winter until the next October or November. If the icehouse were bigger, ice would last until Christmas, he thinks, and if the walls were lined with straw, even longer.

Morris further recommends ice be broken into small pieces and pounded with heavy clubs so it consolidates into a mass so solid it requires a chisel or axe to cut off pieces.

So, Washington had his slaves rebuild his icehouse on Morris’s model and kept tinkering with the design. If you visit Mount Vernon, you can see his icehouse cut into a hillside.

Slaves also did the hard and dangerous work of hauling large blocks of ice from the frigid Potomac River in the dead of winter, pulling the blocks to shore, dragging them to the icehouse and soaking them with water, so they’d freeze into a mound, historians tell us.

And that is how the father of our country and his wife came to enjoy cool drinks and iced cream, as it was then called, long after winter had passed.

“In the warm season, ice is the most agreeable thing we can have,” Martha Washington wrote in 1793. (I’ve updated 18th century spellings and punctuation for clarity.) She loved entertaining women friends at weekly parties with ice cream and lemonade.

Washington’s icehouse was for his personal use as were icehouses built for later presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, but only the very rich could afford their own.

In 1793, an enterprising tavern owner built an ice well in Alexandria, a few miles from Mount Vernon. City Tavern, now known as Gadsby’s Tavern, at the corner of Royal and Cameron streets, offered the finest accommodations of the era, so, of course, it needed ice for guests.

That ice well could store as much as 68 tons of ice, enough for the tavern and local people who wished to buy it. In 1805, tavern owner John Gadsby sold ice for 8 cents a pound.

Magnificently restored a few years ago, the ice well has received several preservation design awards and is a magnet for visitors who peer for free into the subterranean well from the city sidewalk.

Today, we can’t help being struck not only by how much colder winters were in the 18th century but also by the amount of thought, labor and perseverance needed to thwart the process of melting.

In the past, the stories of early achievements of our young country failed to recognize the work of enslaved people. Times have changed, and we now understand much of our celebrated progress was won through the muscle and backs of the enslaved.

Preserving ice enabled the fortunate few to keep fresh meats longer and have more variety in their diet. In time, the treat became an expectation.

Ice is still transitory, of course, but these days we hardly worry about it melting. More cubes are always popping out of the icemaker in the fridge -- until the icemaker stops working and human intervention must once again be employed, in the form of low-tech ice trays.

We moderns worry about many things, but ice isn’t one of them. And for that we all can be grateful in the sizzling summer of 2020.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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Vote by mail -- yes, but . . . July 16, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The old adage about voting “early and often” may be half true this Election Day.

With more voters than ever likely to cast absentee ballots Nov. 3, more will be relying on the U.S. Postal Service. Voting early is advisable.

Major operational changes the new postmaster general is making that could slow mail service are disconcerting, especially as problems with undelivered absentee ballots already have popped up around the country during primary season.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told postal employees Monday in memos obtained and verified by The Washington Post the agency must operate more like a private business, would prohibit overtime and curtail other measures post offices use to deliver mail when understaffed.

Traditionally, the postal service has been run as a service, going the extra mile, so to speak, to make multiple trips to deliver letters and packages rather than leaving them in distribution centers overnight. No more.

“If plants run late, they will keep the mail for the next day,” a memo titled “New PMG’s [Postmaster General’s] expectations and plan” said, the Post reported.

Congressional allies of the Postal Service were quick to criticize the changes.

“If these reports are accurate, Trump and his cronies are openly seeking to destroy the post office during the worst public health crisis in a century,” Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said in a statement.

“With states now reliant on voting by mail to continue elections during the pandemic, the destabilizing of the post office is a direct attack on American democracy itself,” said Pascrell.

DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman and Trump mega-donor, took over as postmaster general in June at a critical time. President Donald Trump in April called the Postal Service “a joke” and said it should quadruple its package delivery fees, a move apparently aimed at Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, who owns the Post.

The beleaguered Postal Service is actually faring better financially during the pandemic because of the strong demand for package deliveries. Companies often use the postal service for “last mile” local deliveries.

But even before the latest cost-cutting measures, the Postal Service has struggled to adjust to a surge in absentee ballots. In 2020, many more voters are choosing to vote from home rather than stand in long lines.

In Dallas, some voters who had mailed in their absentee ballots for Tuesday’s elections unaccountably received them back only a day or two before the election, The Dallas Morning News reported.

In Wisconsin, three tubs of absentee ballot were found at a Milwaukee post office after the polls closed for the April 7 election. In addition, absentee ballots requested were not delivered and hundreds more mailed by voters were not postmarked.

Requests for absentee ballots in Wisconsin have soared 440% since 2016, a Postal Service inspector general report found, adding that date changes for mailing and completing ballots due to the coronavirus also complicated the spring elections.

The IG report identified potential nationwide issues it said could affect future elections. Among them: Some states set too-short deadlines to request absentee ballots, ballots lack mail-tracking technology and poor communication between the Postal Service and election offices.

About half the states have deadlines to request ballots of less than a week before Election Day. These deadlines “put ballots at high risk of not being delivered to voters before an election,” the report warned.

In Virginia, the deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail is 5 p.m. Oct. 23, but a voter can request an absentee ballot online or vote in person at their local registrar’s office 45 days before Election Day. You no longer need a reason to vote early in person or to cast an absentee ballot.

If you’re returning your ballot by mail, it must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by your registrar by noon on the third day after the election. Rules are slightly different for first time voters. See Virginia rules.  

No one knows what the novel coronavirus will be doing Nov. 3. So, don’t wait until the last minute. Vote early. America needs every ballot to count.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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