The US surpassed 200,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 this week. “COVID-19 is now one of the leading causes of death in the U.S., which has reported more than 6.8 million coronavirus cases – more than any other country, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. More than 31 million cases have been reported worldwide, including more than 965,000 deaths… The U.S. death toll is the highest in the world, by a large measure. Despite having less than 5% of the global population, the U.S. has suffered more than 20% of COVID-19 deaths worldwide… From the earliest phase of the disease's arrival in the United States, COVID-19 has taken a horrible toll on minority communities, where people have died in disproportionate numbers compared with the general population. According to the CDC, Black people in the U.S. have a coronavirus death rate that's 2.1 times higher than white people. Latinos and Native Americans also have higher death rates. Six months into the pandemic, majorities of Black, Latino and Native American households are facing serious financial problems, compared with 36% of white households, according to a recent national poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.”
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on Friday evening. The New York Times Daily podcast aired a retrospective on her life: “When Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated from law school, she received no job offers from New York law firms, despite being an outstanding student. She spent two years clerking for a federal district judge, who agreed to hire her only after persuasion, and was rejected for a role working with Justice Felix Frankfurter because she was a woman. With her career apparently stuttering in the male-dominated legal world, she returned to Columbia University to work on a law project that required her to spend time in Sweden. There, she encountered a more egalitarian society. She also came across a magazine article in which a Swedish feminist said that men and women had one main role: being people. That sentiment would become her organizing principle.”
The CDC published and then removed guidance on potential airborne transmission of COVID-19. “Just days after publishing significant new guidance on airborne transmission of the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday withdrew the advice, saying only that it had been “posted in error” on the agency’s website… The new document for the first time had acknowledged that the virus spreads mainly by air, a declaration with urgent implications for how people protect themselves indoors and how ventilation should be engineered in schools, offices, hospitals and other public buildings. Experts with knowledge of the incident said on Monday that the latest reversal appeared to be a genuine mistake in the agency’s scientific review process, rather than the result of political meddling. Officials said the agency would soon publish revised guidance.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order this week that would ban new gas vehicles within 15 years. The AP reports that “The plan won’t stop people from owning gas-powered cars or selling them on the used car market. But in 2035 it would end the sale of all new such vehicles in the state of nearly 40 million people that accounts for more than one out of every 10 new cars sold in the U.S.”
The SF Chronicle reports that the number of people experiencing hunger is increasing dramatically in the Bay Area. “I’ve been an anti-hunger advocate in California for over 20 years, and never seen anything like this,” said Jessica Bartholow, legislative advocate for the Western Center on Law and Poverty. Widespread, devastating layoffs have left millions of people scrimping to pay for basic necessities. Desperation is especially high among workers from low-wage service jobs at hotels, restaurants, airports and stores who bore the brunt of layoffs and who lacked financial cushions. Food insecurity — a government term for lacking access to enough good, healthy and culturally appropriate food — has more than doubled statewide and more than tripled in some Bay Area counties. In San Francisco, for instance, 18.7% of households struggled to get enough to eat in April and May, up from 5.7% in December 2018, according to the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.”
Vox reports on the potential health fallout from wildfire smoke. “Air pollution, regardless of the source, is already one of the deadliest public health threats in the world. The World Health Organization estimates that 7 million people a year die from air pollution. Dirty air can also take years of life expectancy away from people. But a key aspect of wildfire smoke that makes it so dangerous compared to other pollution sources is the sheer amount of hazardous particles and gases it produces. “One thing that’s quite unique about wildfires is that they can create these very high levels of the particulate matter air pollution that you really don’t typically see on a day-to-day basis with typical urban pollution from trucks or factories,” said Jo Kay Ghosh, the health effects officer for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, whose jurisdiction covers more than 17 million people across Southern California. “In general, the higher [the] levels of pollution, the higher the risks of health effects.”