Viewpoints: Dumping Health Law Would Destroy Many Black Lives; Lessons On How Primary Care Doctors Are Stepping Up During Tough Times

USA Today: Black Health: COVID-19 Has Shown It Matters More Than Ever
The Trump administration’s latest move to end the Affordable Care Act threatens to deprive millions of Americans of health coverage in the midst of a pandemic. Especially troubling is that dismantling the law would disproportionately harm Black people — advancing racism precisely as we grapple with its shameful legacy. We emphatically endorse the need to develop policies to dismantle the racist structure of policing as one means of saving Black lives. However, unless we create and put in place strategies to ensure their health, well-being and access to medical care, many Black people will continue to fall sick and die from preventable illnesses. (Roslyn Young-Daniels and M. Lindsay Kaplan, 7/11)

Stat: Pickup Truck Medicine: Saving Primary Care During Covid-19 
As the Covid-19 pandemic burned through Chicago, New York, Detroit, and other large U.S. cities this spring, residents serenaded and applauded hospital health care workers. Rightly so: They were doing amazing, high-risk, and innovative work. We should also have been celebrating primary care physicians, who kept finding new ways to continue caring for their patients during times of lockdown and hardship, often putting themselves at risk of being infected with the coronavirus. (Timothy J. Hoff, 7/13)

The New York Times: American Horror, Starring Donald Trump
I think I echo many Americans, and people of the world in general, when I say that I’m having a hard time fully grappling with the gravity of this moment. It is still hard to absorb that a virus has reshaped world behavior, halted or altered travel, strained the economy and completely reshaped the nature of public spaces and human interaction. It is also hard to absorb that this may not be a quickly passing phase, an inconvenience for a season, but something that the world is forced to live with for years, even assuming that a vaccine is soon found. There’s this notion that things could turn on a dime, not because of a human action, but rather because humans are under attack. (Charles Blow, 7/12)

Bloomberg: Covid Fear Will Keep The World In A Slump
To date, the economic damage wrought by the pandemic has been mostly hidden by massive government subsidy. That’s about to change. And so the next few months will reveal the underlying economic impact of Covid-19 across the globe more clearly than we’ve seen so far. My bet: As governments withdraw fiscal support, the economic picture is going to look worse than commonly appreciated.Getting a sense of what’s about to happen requires that we first be clear about how and why the pandemic has affected the economy: Is it because governments have required people to stay home, or is it because of the virus itself? New research shows that economic losses have come mainly from fear, not government mandate. So eliminating the mandates without ending the fear does very little. (Peter Orszag, 7/12)

The Washington Post: Want To Know How Badly We’ve Botched The Pandemic? Consider The Plight Of Movie Theaters.
Theater owners have sued New Jersey for the right to reopen in the middle of a pandemic, in a rather perfect symbol of how badly both governments and the public have botched the response to the coronavirus. Like the rest of us, movie theaters are stuck trying to navigate conflicting advice, obvious hypocrisy and inconsistent governance to figure out the right balance between keeping safe and staying afloat. Let’s be clear: With infection numbers rising in much of the country and indoor gatherings serving as one of the key vectors of transmission, there’s much to be said for keeping theaters shuttered. Despite the complicated seating charts theaters have devised to make social distancing possible, the extra-intense cleanings they’ve promised to conduct between screenings and pledges the three biggest chains — Regal, Cinemark and AMC — have made to require mask usage by patrons, it’s hard to argue that the benefit of theaters being open outweighs the risk. (Sonny Bunch, 7/9)

The Washington Post: Trump Finally Puts On A Mask 
President Trump finally wore a face mask! In public! This development came more than three months after his own administration recommended that all Americans wear masks in situations where social distancing is not possible. Granted, wearing one should have been a no-brainer, given that Trump was visiting Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a facility full of vulnerable patients and front-line health-care workers. Also, that it is Defense Department workplace policy to “mandate use of cloth face coverings in situations where social distancing is difficult to maintain.” (Karen Tumulty, 7/12)

CNN: What Trump's Mask Can't Hide
On Saturday, we learned how many Americans had to die from Covid-19 before President Donald Trump would wear a mask in public: At least 134,000. But Trump deserves zero applause for finally allowing himself to be photographed wearing a mask, which he did while on a visit wounded service members at Walter Reed hospital. (Dean Obeidallah, 7/12)

Arizona Republic: Gov. Doug Ducey Again Showcases His Weak Response To COVID-19
Acknowledging “the brutal facts of our current reality,” Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey took bold, new action on Thursday to get the coronavirus under control. Except it wasn’t bold. Ducey ordered that restaurants limit their indoor dining to 50% of their capacity. And it wasn’t new. Ducey on June 17 ordered that restaurants space their indoor tables at least 6 feet apart, essentially requiring them to keep every other one empty. Ducey’s announcement comes as the state is in the national spotlight, America’s embarrassed poster child for how not to handle a highly contagious, sometimes fatal disease. (Laurie Roberts, 7/10)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Ga.’s Approach To Controlling COVID-19 Isn’t Working
Looking at the skyrocketing number of COVID-19 cases in Georgia is like staring down the barrel of a gun.No, make that a rocket-propelled grenade. Things are getting so much worse so quickly that it is apparent that the state’s approach to controlling the epidemic is not working. Yet, what did the governor do? As we reach 3,000 deaths, he extended the current guidelines for another 5 weeks and even loosened them by allowing live performance venues to reopen and conventions to occur. (Mark Rosenberg and Julie Rosenberg, 7/11)

Orlando Sentinel/Tampa Bay Tribune: The Florida Economy Can’t Take Another Lockdown
Gov. Ron DeSantis recently walked back the reopening process in Florida by reclosing bars and nightclubs; the most populous county has also reversed the decision to allow restaurants to resume indoor dining. Targeted restrictions to slow the spread of the virus is warranted so area hospital systems aren’t overrun. But Florida, as well as Texas, Arizona and other states with hotspots, should avoid slipping into another broad lockdown. The economy, which is already hanging on by thread, can’t withstand another blow. (Joseph Semprevivo, 7/12)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Who Could've Known Trump's Tulsa Rally Would Spike Virus Cases? Everyone.
Exactly as predicted, and right on schedule, coronavirus cases are hitting new records in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma, where President Donald Trump staged his first campaign rally of the season in late June. Public health officials say it’s likely a direct result of the rally, in which thousands of Trump supporters followed the lead of their idol by packing indoors and defying recommendations to wear masks. Since death rates reliably lag behind infection rates, there’s little question that some of those infected soon could die — all in service to this president’s insatiable ego and contempt for science. How does this make America great again? (7/11)