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1. Here is my conversation with the super smart San Francisco-based investor Semil Shah, of Haystack and Lightspeed, about the business climate in the COVID-19 era, including for two companies in which he was an early backer – Instacart and DoorDash.
Produced by Paul Wilke.
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2. Signs that our politico-media-cultural society reached a tipping point in the last 24 hours, accepting that the virus is going to be with us indefinitely and effectively moving on:
* The jitney to the Hamptons is running again.
* This was the headline of the lead story on the Politico website overnight: “Shocking social media posts yanked by Republican House candidate.”
* Matt Drudge led all night and this morning with the important story of a fatal shooting in Georgia that was unrelated to the virus, and many of the sensationalist virus-related links on the Drudge Report are to pieces that are more than 48 hours old.
* Many news organizations made their lead virus-related story the ultimately nothing-burger yarn of the president’s posture towards whether or not to formally keep alive the thing called the White House task force.
The same thing happened at some point during the war on terrorism after 9/11. The country adapted, regrouped, and moved on.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Yes.
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3. I have a new theory about another, related tipping point. This one has taken place more gradually.
Until recently, the confusion and ambiguity of the science regarding nearly every aspect of the virus led people to behave cautiously and carefully. In the face of frenzied uncertainty, the collective mindset was, There is so much unknown about this invisible enemy that things could be even more deadly than we realize, and I better thoroughly disinfect every Amazon Prime box that comes into my house.
Now, after weeks and weeks – with more studies having been done and more time for the scientists to get to the truth – everything is still pretty unclear.
It is understandable that a population dealing with economic insecurity and cabin fever would eventually have a new, 180-degree-opposite collective mindset: I am not going to keep following all these time-consuming and encumbering guidelines — and face financial ruin — when these so-called authorities clearly have no idea WTF they are talking about.
One very prominent and stark example: In the space of about a month, we have gone from the CDC having no recommendation on masks, to the CDC recommending people wear masks (but the president undermining that recommendation), to the wearing of masks being a centerpiece of the efforts to protect individuals and society from the virus.
Another example: the incredible roller coaster of reports about the timetable for a potential vaccine, as chronicled here by STAT’s Helen Branswell.
The swirling interaction between what is known about the properties of the virus and public policy has finally created a boy-who-cried-wolf mindset for many Americans, fueled by the incredulous, can’t-anybody-here-play-this-game tone of much of the media coverage.
The most fundamental cause and manifestation of this mindset has been the reopenings overseen by the governors. The very fact that different states have from the start made different judgments about, first, what to close, and, second, what to reopen, naturally has led to widespread cognitive dissonance and cynicism.
It is totally understandable that Americans would look at all this chaos and decide to take whatever risks are involved and get on with their lives.
Hence the reopening of the Hampton Jitney.
Part of me would like to say that this is terrible and terribly irrational.
And part of me would like to say it reflects the kind of John Galtian attitude that is the only way out of this predicament, the only way to rationally fight this war without it destroying the way of life we hold dear.
The biggest flaw in my theory, of course, is that public opinion polls continue to show Americans are wary of reopening. But my hunch is that some people are telling pollsters one thing even as they blithely lean into open car windows to have impromptu chats with friends and neighbors.
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4. I got a lot of feedback over this sentence from Wednesday’s Wide World of News:
There is an unspoken agreement among many that the deaths of the elderly, the vulnerable, and the populations of nursing homes and meat packing facilities are the price the country will have to pay for paychecks, NFL football, and getting the kids back to school in the fall.
My main reaction to the feedback is this: the federal government should immediately give the states whatever money they need to as quickly as humanly possible
* build a targeted testing regimen, along with the major scaling up of the tracking and tracing capability required to get the infected out of the position to foster community spread
* close down every senior residential facility in the country and move the elderly out, whether they are infected or not
* identify those who are in high-risk categories (the elderly, those who face the dangerous threat of comorbidities, etc)
* commandeer every hotel room in America
* buy massive numbers of trailers and mobile homes capable of holding families who have been infected, or evidence suggests might be infected
* pay all these people some extravagant monthly sum to get them to move out of their communities and into these new residential options
* turn the hotels and trailer camps into very pleasant residential centers, with fine food; entertainment; educational opportunities; a fully staffed medical capability; and a way to have quality time with uninfected loved ones (something more innovative and welcoming than what is available during prison visits)
* retrofit, at government expense, meat packing plants, factories, and other facilities at which the virus can spread quickly
* provide comprehensive preventative capability, medical care, and residential options at all these places
* do the same at Native American reservations, prisons, and military bases
Obviously, this would cost a lot of money.
Obviously, this would cost much, much less than we are spending to fight the virus now, not to mention the lost GDP and jobs.
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5. Also, please spend whatever it takes to fix this immediately:
An analysis by Brookings says
In almost one in five households of mothers with children age 12 and under, the children were experiencing food insecurity.
Over 17% of those mothers said they “just couldn’t afford enough food…
Young children are experiencing food insecurity to an extent unprecedented in modern times.
Read the full report here.
Not here, not in America, even now – especially now.
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6. Unpacking this Associated Press story is more than I could manage by deadline:
A set of detailed documents created by the nation’s top disease investigators meant to give step-by-step advice to local leaders deciding when and how to reopen public places such as mass transit, day care centers and restaurants during the still-raging pandemic has been shelved by the Trump administration.
The 17-page report by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen.
It was supposed to be published last Friday, but agency scientists were told the guidance “would never see the light of day,” according to a CDC official. The official was not authorized to talk to reporters and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
More on this as news warrants.
Developing….
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7. Some notable conflicts in America in the Age of the Virus:
A nurse found out Wednesday what happens when you contradict President Donald Trump on how well coronavirus response efforts are going while standing near him in the Oval Office.
Trump clapped back at that nurse, Sophia Thomas, who said that access to sufficient supplies of personal protective equipment “has been sporadic.” Her comments came during a National Nurses Day event at the White House meant to honor those first responders.
A fight outside a Dorchester bank that began over a lack of coronavirus social distancing led to weapons charges against one man.
OWOSSO — Karl Manke gave his last haircut at 12:45 a.m. Wednesday, ending a 15-hour shift at his downtown barbershop.
Manke was violating Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's executive order for non-essential businesses to remain closed, but he didn't care. He needed to get back to work.
"(The shutdown) collapsed me, mentally, physically and spiritually," Manke said. "I was in despair, I had to go back to work...I don't have anybody paying me unless I'm doing work."
The 77-year-old barber received a citation Wednesday for violating the executive order on the third day he was open. Violating the order is a misdemeanor that carries a fine up to $1,000 and possible license sanctions.
* And Michigan again:
Lansing — The Michigan Legislature filed suit against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday, challenging as "improper and invalid" her emergency orders to combat COVID-19 and seeking a "speedy hearing."
House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, announced the suit in the Michigan Court of Claims during a press conference inside the Michigan Capitol, reflecting a major escalation of the fight between Republican lawmakers and the Democratic governor.
* Arizona:
Hours after Doug Ducey, the Republican governor of Arizona, accelerated plans to reopen businesses, saying the state was “headed in the right direction,” his administration halted the work of a team of experts projecting it was on a different — and much grimmer — course.
On Monday night, the eve of President Trump’s visit to the state, Ducey’s health department shut down the work of academic experts predicting the peak of the state’s coronavirus outbreak was still about two weeks away.
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8. Essential reading: Karl Rove’s column on “Joe Biden’s Challenge,” which includes this very truthy point:
First elected to the Senate in 1972, he started running for president in 1987, 33 years ago. After nearly half a century in Washington, what does he stand for? What’s his vision? That voters have to ask is a weakness.
In her own essential reading counterpoint in the New York Times, veteran Democratic strategist Lis Smith offers this:
If Joe Biden plays his cards right, the death of the traditional presidential campaign will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. The 77-year-old Mr. Biden, whom the president derisively calls “Sleepy Joe,” can become the hottest bad boy and disrupter in the media game…
[H]e can be digitally omnipresent — at a small fraction of the cost and physical toll — and create a new paradigm for how presidential campaigns communicate in the press for years to come.
Mr. Biden’s greatest asset as a campaigner is his palpable empathy. Politicians can learn a lot of tricks — talking points, debate and interview strategies — but personal warmth is something that cannot be taught. It also happens to be a trait that translates well on TV….
Ultimately, for Mr. Biden to be victorious, he’s going to have to beat the heavyweight champion of generating media attention, Mr. Trump.
Most of the strategists I talk to in both parties believe that even if Biden could masterfully do all the difficult things Smith suggests, he would still be hampered without a message about the future, especially on the economy.
Not since Bush 41 has a presidential candidate won a general election without a message.
But the ceiling on Trump’s support means Biden can in fact win this race without a message (beyond that he is not Trump). I still currently make the Democrat the favorite to win, not because of his message – but despite the fact that he doesn’t have one, and I don’t suspect ever will.
Meanwhile, no sign of a Tara Reade television interview as of this writing.
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Gratefully,
Mark