Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Daily Briefings Need To Be About Pandemic, Not The President; Lessons On States Taking The Lead
The Wall Street Journal: All The President’s Ratings
Our Thursday editorial offering some friendly advice on how to make the daily White House coronavirus briefings more informative for the American people seems to have caught President’s Trump attention. The President took to his favorite communication venue to tweet: “The Wall Street Journal always ‘forgets’ to mention that the ratings for the White House Press Briefings are ‘through the roof’ (Monday Night Football, Bachelor Finale, according to @nytimes) & is only way for me to escape the Fake News & get my views across. WSJ is Fake News!” Thanks for reading, sir, and we agree the briefings are an excellent way to communicate directly with Americans. Our point was about the way Mr. Trump is communicating about a subject that is literally a life and death matter. That’s the reason they’re a ratings hit, not because people enjoy Donald Trump sparring with the White House press corps like a Packers-Bears game. (4/9)
The Washington Post: Trump Might Want To Get A Head Start On Packing His Bags
There is only one logical reason President Trump is so desperately trying to cast doubt on the outcome of an election that’s still seven months away: He knows he is likely to lose.To use a football analogy, it’s not even halftime and Trump is already throwing Hail Marys. In recent days, he has used his coronavirus updates to rail against mail-in voting, which will probably be the way more Americans cast their ballots in November than ever before. “Mail ballots, they cheat,” he claimed Tuesday. Fact check: They don’t. From Trump’s point of view, something that must look like a worst-case scenario is coming into focus. (Eugene Robinson, 4/9)
CNN: Trump's Planned Economic Revival May Be Blunted By Lack Of Coronavirus Testing
President Donald Trump says America does not need and will never have mass coronavirus testing, despite warnings by experts that a comprehensive program is vital to getting life back to normal. The inadequacy of testing for the virus has been a constant deficiency of the government's handling of the pandemic from the start. (Stephen Collinson, 4/10)
Bloomberg: California Declares Independence From Trump's Coronavirus Plans
California this week declared its independence from the federal government’s feeble efforts to fight Covid-19 — and perhaps from a bit more. The consequences for the fight against the pandemic are almost certainly positive. The implications for the brewing civil war between Trumpism and America’s budding 21st-century majority, embodied by California’s multiracial liberal electorate, are less clear.Speaking on MSNBC, Governor Gavin Newsom said that he would use the bulk purchasing power of California “as a nation-state” to acquire the hospital supplies that the federal government has failed to provide. If all goes according to plan, Newsom said, California might even “export some of those supplies to states in need.”“Nation-state.” “Export.” (Francis Wilkinson, 4/9)
Los Angeles Times: With Coronavirus Pandemic, States Are On Their Own
For months, the White House has been sending an implicit but unmistakable message to state governors: When it comes to handling the coronavirus pandemic, you’re pretty much on your own. “We’re not a shipping clerk,” President Trump grumbled to reporters last month as an explanation of why he has ignored pleas from states for help obtaining ventilators, N95 masks and crucial medical equipment. (4/9)
Los Angeles Times: Supreme Court Could Unleash A Political Apocalypse In November
The Supreme Court’s intervention in the Wisconsin election this week — last-minute, avoidable and slapdash — was disquieting, not least as a sign of the court’s potential role in the upcoming presidential election. The unsigned opinion on behalf of the five-justice conservative majority evoked future dangers, but it also harked back to the past, specifically to the infamous opinion in Bush vs. Gore, which wrestled the 2000 presidential election to the ground. (Harry Litman, 4/9)
Bloomberg: Hong Kong Wage Subsidies Point Way For Coronavirus Relief
Hong Kong led the world in adopting helicopter money. Now the city’s long-term wage subsidies have again put it at the forefront of global efforts to blunt the impact of the coronavirus. Other economies should pay attention. The government said this week that it will fund 50% of affected workers’ salaries for six months, capped at the equivalent of $1,160 a month. With the exception of Australia, most countries have offered shorter-term relief. Hong Kong’s spending package reflects recognition that the economy will need support for longer than initially thought. (Nisha Gopalan, 4/9)
The New York Times: Coronavirus’s Biggest Lesson: America Needs A Public Health System For All
A once-in-a-century public health crisis is unfolding, and the richest country in the world is struggling to mount an effective response. Hospitals don’t have enough gowns or masks to protect doctors and nurses, nor enough intensive care beds to treat the surge of patients. Laboratories don’t have the equipment to diagnose cases quickly or in bulk, and state and local health departments across the country don’t have the manpower to track the disease’s spread. Perhaps worst of all, urgent messages about the importance of social distancing and the need for temporary shutdowns have been muddied by politics. (Jeneen Interlandi, 4/9)
Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 Proves Need For National Practitioner Licensing System
It’s clear in this unprecedented health crisis that the healthcare delivery system is not really a system at all and one of the glaring issues is that of licensure to practice. There are medical professionals who are sitting on the sidelines when their expertise and clinical skills could be put to work. Our objective in writing this column is to point out the difficulties facing physicians who would like to contribute but cannot because of the antiquated guild system of state medical licensure. It needs to be replaced with one similar to that of the Federal Aviation Administration for pilots—universal and focused on standard skills and safety. (Katherine A. Schneider and Mary P. Davis, 4/9)
