Новости за 19.01.2022

Wavis Jordan “doesn’t do Covid deaths.” That’s what the pastor and Republician coroner of Cape Girardeau County, Mississippi, told Missouri Independent last month. He requires families to submit a positive test if they want coronavirus listed on the death certificate. Otherwise, the cause of deaths at home in his county are attributed to a range of other conditions that might be exacerbated by Covid-19, including Alzheimer’s, heart attack, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—but never the virus itself. Читать дальше...

On January 18, something impossible happened: A federal crisis-response service launched a day early, and it appeared fast and intuitive to use. Anyone with a fixed address in the United States or its territories could go to CovidTests.gov and order four tests sent for free to their home. The initiative may have come weeks too late to help contain the omicron surge, the limit of four tests per address disadvantages larger households, and the entire program surely seems to have been launched out... Читать дальше...

When Joe Biden was elected, he promised to treat the pandemic differently from his predecessor. And for a while, it seemed that his approach was working. But a year into his administration, omicron is surging, and many of Biden’s more ambitious plans have fallen by the wayside. On episode 41 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Melody Schreiber, a regular contributor to The New Republic, and the social epidemiologist Justin Feldman. What happened to Biden’s promises? Читать дальше...

There are five headlines about presidencies, driven less by reality than by the political press’s addiction to a preset narrative arc. President Joe Biden has arrived at number three.

Donald Trump wants Ron DeSantis to kiss the ring. The former president, in exile at Mar-a-Lago, has been “grumbling quietly to friends and visitors” that the Florida governor has thus far refused to state publicly that he will not run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 should Trump enter the race—itself all but a foregone conclusion at this point—per The New York Times. This feud has, in recent days, reached a boiling point, dividing Republicans and providing the first tantalizing... Читать дальше...

Like any good economic euphemism, “quantitative easing” evokes the soothing prospect of crisis averted and equilibrium restored. The term—coined by former Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke to keep interest rates at (and later below) zero for the high-powered banks obtaining cash at the Fed’s discount window—neatly conveys a sense of close forensic care paired with the aura of a safe landing in progress: It says, in essence, “Everyone’s in good hands now.”

When the Supreme Court rejected the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s testing mandate for U.S. companies with 100 or more employees last Thursday, President Biden, his allies, and most media observers received this outcome as an irremediable disaster, “handcuffing” him from making good on his pledge to mandate Covid-safe workplaces for up to 100 million Americans, and “completing the radical right’s takeover of the Supreme Court.” These apocalyptic reactions were overwrought. If not corrected... Читать дальше...