Viewpoints: The Price Of Lockdowns; Slow Testing Results In Hard-Hit Communities

The Wall Street Journal: California’s Second Shutdown 
California Gov. Gavin Newsom pressed the panic button on Monday and locked down his state again. The causes of California’s Covid-19 “surge” are complex as they are elsewhere, but most areas have ample hospital capacity. Mr. Newsom and other politicians will do more long-term harm to their citizens if they sedate the economy whenever and wherever there’s a flare-up. Mr. Newsom was the first Governor to impose a statewide shelter in place order, though to his credit he allowed counties to begin to reopen in early May. Santa Clara and San Francisco counties have kept restaurants, bars and salons closed, but they have nonetheless experienced a surge in cases and hospitalizations like other areas of the state. (7/14)

Los Angeles Times: Let's Do This Second Shutdown Right, California 
The renewed shutdowns and restrictions ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom this week may not be as far reaching as the March stay-at-home measures, but they will be no less devastating to a state still reeling from the first round of pandemic closures. Nevertheless, Newsom took the correct approach for the moment. Who’s to blame for our retreat back into lockdown? Everyone and no one, perhaps. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now say that allowing hot spots like Los Angeles to reopen in May wasn’t a good idea, especially because it suggested to a public desperate for release that the coronavirus was in retreat and we could start getting back to normal. It wasn’t, and our collective complacency paved the way for a resurgence of COVID-19. (7/15)

The New York Times: A Shutdown May Be Needed To Stop The Coronavirus
When you mix science and politics, you get politics. With the coronavirus, the United States has proved politics hasn’t worked. If we are to fully reopen both the economy and schools safely — which can be done — we have to return to science. To understand just how bad things are in the United States and, more important, what can be done about it requires comparison. At this writing, Italy, once the poster child of coronavirus devastation and with a population twice that of Texas, has recently averaged about 200 new cases a day when Texas has had over 9,000. Germany, with a population four times that of Florida, has had fewer than 400 new cases a day. On Sunday, Florida reported over 15,300, the highest single-day total of any state. The White House says the country has to learn to live with the virus. (John M. Barry, 7/14)

Dallas Morning News: Dallas County Had To Seize Coronavirus Testing From Feds To Ensure Equality And Public Health
Dallas County’s decision this week to seize control of COVID-19 testing from the federal government simply had to happen. As Commissioner John Wiley Price correctly pointed out, it was untenable to have separate and unequal test result returns between a county-contracted testing site in Irving and a federally- controlled site at Ellis Davis Field in southern Dallas. We know that coronavirus is disparately impacting communities of color. As reporter Dianne Solis noted in a recent story, ZIP code 75211 in south Oak Cliff is the hardest hit area of Dallas for active COVID cases. Sixty percent of infections in the county are among Latinos. Black and Asian residents also have elevated infection rates compared with white residents. (7/15)

Miami Herald: In Fauci, We Trust — And These Top Miami COVID Doctors
Thank you, universe, for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease specialist. Where would we be in poorly led, COVID-ravaged Florida without Fauci’s consistent advice to take the highly infectious virus seriously? We all would be swimming in the petri dish of ignorance and denial that our mediocre local, state and federal leaders have cultivated by downplaying the dire facts. (Fabiola Santiago, 7/15)

Stat: Fauci On Public Health Advocacy: 'You Cannot Be Ideological' 
Public health and politics have always been intertwined. Think abortion and reproductive rights. One prominent public health official appears to have managed to untwine the two: Anthony Fauci. (Haider J. Warraich, 7/14)

CNN: Trump Offers Denial And Delusion As Pandemic Crisis Overtakes His Presidency 
Rarely has a president shown himself to be so unequal to a tragic national emergency. Hundreds of Americans are dying daily and tens of thousands are getting infected from a once-in-a-century virus. States and cities are closing down again, threatening to trigger a ruinous new economic slump. Doctors and nurses lack sufficient protective gear as they battle the deadly pathogen. And with testing swamped by waves of disease, one top official is warning of the "the most difficult time" ever for US public health this winter. (Stephen Collinson, 7/15)

The Washington Post: With Trump’s Heedless Approach To The Pandemic, Children Will Pay An Even Higher Price
What do you you tell parents, who look at this, who look at Arizona where a schoolteacher recently died teaching summer school; parents who are worried about the safety of their children in public schools?” That was the question posed Monday to President Trump about teacher Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd, who died after contracting covid-19. And — to no great surprise — it went unanswered. No expressions of sympathy for the family. No discussion of steps being taken. No assurances about safeguards being put in place. Mr. Trump instead just doubled down on his insistence schools reopen in the fall. ...We happen to agree with the president about the importance of getting children back into the classroom. ...Unlike the president, though, we don’t think it is sufficient, let alone effective, to make believe the virus isn’t a problem while bullying and threatening states and local school districts to open their doors in August. (7/14)

The Wall Street Journal: A Grand Bargain To Reopen Public Schools 
Reopening public schools has moved—appropriately—to the center of national debate. U.S. public education from pre-K through 12th grade is a $680 billion yearly enterprise, involving about 51 million students and more than six million teachers and support staff, not to mention tens of millions of parents. If schools don’t reopen this fall, students will suffer, parents will face difficult choices, and the economic recovery will be hobbled. But if schools are reopened hastily, without adequate preparation, the public-health consequences will be dire. (William A. Galston, 7/14)

The Hill: CDC Has To Get The Messaging Right With The COVID-19 Vaccine 
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is exploring race as a factor for consideration in the prioritization of COVID-19 vaccination receipt, the agency must use lessons from its own past to help guide communication efforts. In 2001 when letters containing anthrax were mailed to Sens. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), two vastly different populations were affected in Washington, DC — Brentwood Post office employees, who were predominately Black, and Hart Senate Office staff, who were mostly white. (Dr. Janice Blanchard, 7/14)

The Washington Post: This Summer Camp Took Extraordinary Covid-19 Precautions. It Still Failed. 
No one could level an accusation of complacency at Kanakuk Kamps, a network of Christian camps in Missouri that posted a 31-point program of pandemic precautions as summer approached. Despite those preparations, one of its camps, for teenagers, was hit by a major outbreak last month. That failure, and others like it nationwide, are a warning sign for schools and colleges that hope to reopen this fall. As we’ve said, there are excellent reasons for schools to do everything possible to reopen. The risk-benefit calculation for education is very different than, say, for filling football stadiums. But as Kanakuk’s cautionary tale makes clear, the risks can’t be minimized. (7/14)

The New York Times: Please Don’t Call Them Heroes
In America, you should always get a little suspicious when politicians suddenly start calling you a hero. It’s a well-worn trick; they’re buttering you up before sacrificing you to the gods of unconstrained capitalism and governmental neglect. A few months ago, it was nurses, doctors and other essential workers who were hailed as heroes — a perfectly accurate and heartwarming sentiment, but also one meant to obscure the sorry reality that the world’s richest country was asking health care workers to treat coronavirus patients without providing adequate protective gear. “Please don’t call me a hero,” a nurse in Brooklyn wrote on a protest sign at the time. “I am being martyred against my will.” (Farhad Manjoo, 7/15)