The post GOP’s Scott, Baker don’t want Trump to fill Supreme Court vacancy before election appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Moderate Republican Govs. Phil Scott of Vermont and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts separately pushed for the Trump administration to hold off on filling Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat until after Election Day.
GINSBURG VACANCY PUTS PRESSURE ON TRUMP-CRITIC REPUBLICANS IN SENATE
“The passing of Justice Ginsburg is not only a loss for the court but for the entire nation, and I urge President Trump and the U.S. Senate to allow the American people to cast their ballots for president before a new justice is nominated or confirmed,” Baker wrote on Twitter.
“The Supreme Court is too important to rush and must be removed from partisan political infighting,” he continued.
Scott expressed a similar sentiment following news of Ginsburg’s death Friday at the age of 87.
“I am saddened to learn of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Scott wrote on Twitter. “I send my heartfelt condolences to her family, friends, and colleagues. … While it is important to take the time to mourn her passing, we must also follow precedent, as well as her dying wishes, and delay the appointment process until after Inauguration Day.”
Moderates including Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, oppose President Trump’s intention to nominate a new Supreme Court justice before Americans vote in November. Collins, who is in a reelection fight, said on Saturday she wants whoever wins in November to nominate the next justice. She faced backlash in 2018 for supporting Trump nominee Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In this April 6, 2018, file photo, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg applauds after a performance in her honor after she spoke about her life and work during a discussion at Georgetown Law School in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
“In fairness to the American people, who will either be reelecting the president or selecting a new one, the decision on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the president who is elected on November 3,” she said in a statement.
And former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a noted Trump critic, also opposes nominating a justice before the election in November. He compared the situation at hand to that of former President Barack Obama nominating Merrick Garland to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016.
“In 2016, nine months before an election, we Republicans said that the next president should fill a Supreme Court vacancy,” Flake wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “Today, six weeks before an election, we should hold the same position. Preserving the institution of the Senate should be paramount to any political gain.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced, soon after Ginsburg’s death, that the Senate would vote on a nominee put forward by Trump to replace her.
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McConnell hopes to avoid any Republican defections as Democrats plan to try to peel off enough GOP senators to defeat a vote before Inauguration Day. (A tie would place the fate of a nominee in the hands of Vice President Pence, in his role as Senate president.)
Fox News’ Sam Dorman and Brie Stimson contributed to this report.
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]]>The post Censoring Scott Atlas Should Be The Last Straw For Big Tech’s Censorship appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>If the coronavirus pandemic has proved anything it is that most Americans and their leaders are more concerned with their safety than with preserving their freedom.
Six months into the coronavirus era, most, though not all Americans may be willing to continue granting extraordinary powers to the government to deal with a threat to public safety. But the questions that they should also be considering is whether that same deference should be extended to big tech companies to censor discourse about the pandemic and what, if anything, can they do to prevent international monopolies from shutting down free speech.
The latest instance of censorship is so extreme and arbitrary that concern over the willingness of companies like Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to shut down speech they don’t like ought to transcend the political differences that divide Americans. Or at least it would if the question of what can or cannot be said about the pandemic wasn’t bound up with partisan politics and the presidential election.
Regardless of whether you agree with Dr. Scott Atlas about whether the cost in terms of lives lost and damage down to the country of lockdowns justifies them, Google’s ability to remove him from the virtual public square ought to make reining the power of big tech monopolies a national priority.
Removing All Dissent
YouTube, which is owned by Google, removed a video of an interview with Atlas conducted in June originally posted by the Hoover Institution where he serves as a senior fellow. In it, Atlas, a prominent neuroradiologist and professor at Stanford University Medical Center as well as a commentator on public health issues, spoke of his belief that the pandemic lockdowns might have done more harm than good. Since then, his opinions have become of greater interest due to his appointment in August as a presidential advisor and a member of the White House coronavirus task force.
That fact alone ought to make it vital that the public should be able to hear his opinions about the pandemic. YouTube, however, removed the interview from its video streaming service this past weekend for allegedly violating its terms of service. While the video is no longer available, the Hoover Institution has published a transcript of the interview with Atlas.
The justification for this move is similar to those given for the many other instances of YouTube censorship of videos about the COVID-19 crisis. The company has taken upon itself the obligation, as it sees it, to prevent the spread of conspiracy theories about the pandemic as well as misinformation that might compromise public health.
Both Google and YouTube, it should be remembered, have been severely criticized for standards that have effectively reduced the reach of conservative sources of news and opinion sources including The Federalist.
The company, which has an effective monopoly on the Internet outside of China, has continued to maintain that its decisions are not influenced by politics. It has, however, been open about its willingness to shut down what it considers dangerous conversations about the pandemic. While quiet on the specifics of its algorithm or who ultimately makes these vital decisions, the effort subjects government officials to the same rules that seek to direct viewers to what it considers trusted sources as opposed to those that spread false information or conspiracies.
Such actions might be deemed defensible when applied to videos that promoted actions that would patently endanger the health of viewers, denied the existence of the disease, or promoted conspiracy theories that included traditional memes associated with racial bias or antisemitism. Yet, a video from a widely respected think tank in which Atlas discussed a data-driven analysis of the catastrophic impact of the lockdowns does not fit into any of those easily identified categories that might deserve to be flagged.
Questioning the Unquestionable
Atlas didn’t deny the seriousness of the disease or the need to act to prevent its spread — he merely questioned the efficacy of broad lockdowns. Atlas pointed out the resulting creation of acute economic distress as well as other unintended consequences that compromised public health such as the decrease in doctor visits or treatments for other potentially fatal conditions as well as the effects of school closings on childhood development as well as upticks of abuse.
By any reasonable standard, the questions he poses as well as the data about the costs of lockdowns that he discussed are not only fair comments but also an important topic of public debate. His conclusions can be questioned. The same is true about his ideas about the wisdom of opening all schools and whether such actions would contribute to another wave of infections. But the idea that any discussion of these issues can be shut down with a single click makes the question of regulating the untrammeled censoring power of a global tech monopoly like Google all the more important.
As Avid Roy, the president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity noted, “Science is about constantly questioning established dogmas, and about having an open debate among people with different takes on the available evidence. To suppress that debate, as YouTube did, is to oppose science.”
Indeed, as Roy points out, as is clear from YouTube’s explanation for the removal of the Atlas video, they now act as de facto information gatekeepers for the WHO.
A number of you have asked for more detail as to what exactly @YouTube wrote to @HooverInst. Here is a screenshot of the email Hoover received. pic.twitter.com/wqhOVaDcG1
— Avik Roy (@Avik) September 14, 2020
The motivation for this policy is obvious. The left-wing billionaires that own Google and the other major tech companies, as well as their overwhelming left-wing staffs, view any commentary from those questioning the lockdowns as a threat to the prevailing narrative about President Trump’s alleged incompetence in dealing with the pandemic. Questions about the lockdowns or any advocacy for limiting the economic and social misery these policies have created are viewed as somehow helping Trump’s re-election.
Reining in the Big Tech Juggernaut
In recent months, more conservatives have taken up the issue of how to counter the ability of tech giants that control the Internet and social media to act as biased censors of public discourse. Twitter’s willingness to allow its team of left-wing “fact-checkers” to undermine the ability of President Trump to communicate his views to the public about a variety of issues, including the pandemic and the integrity of election results, sparked not only outrage but demands that it be stripped of its immunity from prosecution under an obscure provision of federal law.
According to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” That has allowed Twitter — as well as Facebook and YouTube — to be treated as Internet bulletin boards that may not be held legally responsible for the content of the material posted on its sites.
But with Twitter and now YouTube expanding their censorship of content, their continued impunity from the same risks faced by other publishers is no longer viable. A bill proposed by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) which seeks to remove their immunity under Section 230 has gained support on the right, though, at present, its chances of passage are unlikely.
Another related and pertinent question is whether the government will finally act to apply antitrust laws against Google, an entity, that now quite clearly wields unaccountable and unprecedented power over public communications. The attorney generals of all 50 states agree in principle with the Department of Justice that antitrust action is needed to limit its power. Yet Attorney General William Barr, who views this issue as a priority, is reportedly encountering resistance from left-leaning career lawyers inside the DOJ and the Democratic state AGs are similarly slow-walking the effort to prevent any announcement of legal action against the tech giants before the election.
YouTube’s arbitrary censorship of Dr. Atlas ought to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back concerning its ability to shut down speech about COVID-19 issues. For too long, these companies have used their immense wealth to influence Congress to continue granting them impunity to profit from a dangerous monopoly of the public information highway.
The pandemic has increased their wealth and influence but it also should be the turning point that will lead to long-overdue curbs on their power that has made them a far greater threat to democracy than any politician.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org and a contributing writer for National Review. Follow him on Twitter.
Copyright © 2020 The Federalist, a wholly independent division of FDRLST Media, All Rights Reserved.
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]]>The post Tim Scott slams Biden on race record, says Democrats want ‘cultural revolution’ appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>GOP Sen. Tim Scott used his headlining slot Monday on the Republican National Convention’s first night to deliver a powerful address sounding optimistic notes about the country’s potential while slamming Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on everything from his record on race to his vision for America.
In one of the most stinging lines of the night, the South Carolina senator declared: “Make no mistake: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want a cultural revolution. A fundamentally different America.”
Scott warned that if a Biden-Harris ticket is successful, they will “turn our country into a socialist utopia.”
GOP MEMBERS OF CONGRESS MAKE THE CASE FOR TRUMP AS ‘PRO-AMERICA CANDIDATE’
The line echoed other speakers who hammered the message at the opening of the party’s four-day convention — spread across the original site of Charlotte, a grand auditorium near the White House and elsewhere in a blend of live and pre-taped remarks — that “radical” Democrats would take the country in a dangerous direction.
But Scott, as the only Black Republican senator, also has emerged as a key voice on race issues on Capitol Hill, especially in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody.
“This isn’t how I pictured tonight, but our country is experiencing something none of us envisioned,” Scott said. “From a global pandemic, to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, 2020 has tested our nation in ways we haven’t seen for decades.”
“While this election is Donald Trump and Joe Biden…It is not solely about Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” Scott continued. “It’s about the promise of America. It’s about you and me…our challenges and heartbreaks, hopes and dreams.”
In a swipe at cancel culture, he added: “Do we want a society that breeds success, or a culture that cancels everything it even slightly disagrees with?”
Scott, at several points, struck an uplifting tone, using his own life story as a lesson on the potential of every American.
“I am living my mother’s American Dream,” Scott said, noting that he was 7 years old when his parents divorced, and lived in a two-bedroom house sharing a room and a bed with his mother and his brother. “My mom worked 16 hours a day to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. She knew that if we could find the opportunity, bigger things would come.”
Scott said thought he had to use “football to succeed in life,” and said his focus on academics “faded away.”
“I failed my freshman year of high school – four subjects…Spanish, English, world geography, and civics,” Scott recalled.
He quipped: “Trust me, after spending seven years in the Senate, I know I’m not the only one in Congress who failed civics.”
Scott went on to talk about his election to the House in 2010, where he beat a prominent incumbent in the primary.
“Because of the evolution of the southern heart, in an overwhelmingly white district… the voters judged me not the color of my skin, but on the content of my character,” Scott said, noting that we “live in a world that wants you to believe in the bad news—racially, economically and culturally-polarizing news.”
“The truth is, our nation’s arc always bends back toward fairness. We are not fully where we want to be, but thank God we are not where we used to be,” Scott said. “We don’t give into cancel-culture, or the radical—and factually baseless—belief that things are worse today than in the 1860s or the 1960s.”
Scott went on to tout his work with President Trump on “Opportunity Zones,” where he said they “put hard-earned tax dollars back in people’s pockets by cutting their taxes, especially for single-parent households like the one I grew up in.”
NIKKI HALEY TOUTS TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY AGENDA, SAYS ‘AMERICA IS NOT A RACIST COUNTRY’
But Scott went on to slam former Vice President Biden, saying it is “critical to paint a full picture of the records” of both Trump and Biden.
“Joe Biden said if a Black man didn’t vote for him, he wasn’t truly Black,” Scott said, referring to Biden’s “you ain’t Black” remark for which he later expressed regret. Referring to other controversial remarks, he added, “Joe Biden said Black people are a monolithic community. Joe Biden said poor kids can be just as smart as White kids.”
He added: “And while his words are one thing, his actions take it to a whole new level.”
Scott went on to slam Biden for the 1994 crime bill which he said “put millions of Black Americans behind bars.”
Biden himself has said he regrets aspects of the 1994 crime bill, including the longer sentencing guidelines for crack, which he said was a “big mistake” that damaged the Black community.
Painting a contrast between the two, Scott referenced Trump’s criminal justice reform law, which he said “fixed many of the disparities Biden created and made our system more fair and just for all Americans.”
He added: “So, when it comes to what Joe Biden says he’ll do, look at his actions. Look at his policies. Look at what he already did and didn’t do while he’s been in Washington for 47 years.”
Scott spoke in deeply personal terms as he urged people to “focus on the promise of the American journey.”
“I know that journey well,” Scott continued, while noting his grandfather’s 99th birthday would have been Tuesday.
“Growing up, he had to cross the street if a White person was coming. He suffered the indignity of being forced out of school as a third grader to pick cotton, and never learned to read or write,” Scott said.
“Yet, he lived to see his grandson become the first African American to be elected to both the United States House and Senate,” he continued. “Our family went from Cotton to Congress in one lifetime. And that’s why I believe the next American century can be better than the last.”
Scott added that “supporting the Republican ticket gives you the best chance” of making the American dream “a reality.”
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]]>The post Tim Scott slams Biden on race record, says Democrats want ‘cultural revolution’ in GOP convention address appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>GOP Sen. Tim Scott used his headlining slot Monday on the Republican National Convention’s first night to deliver a powerful address sounding optimistic notes about the country’s potential while slamming Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on everything from his record on race to his vision for America.
In one of the most stinging lines of the night, the South Carolina senator declared: “Make no mistake: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want a cultural revolution. A fundamentally different America.”
Scott warned that if a Biden-Harris ticket is successful, they will “turn our country into a socialist utopia.”
GOP MEMBERS OF CONGRESS MAKE THE CASE FOR TRUMP AS ‘PRO-AMERICA CANDIDATE’
The line echoed other speakers who hammered the message at the opening of the party’s four-day convention — spread across the original site of Charlotte, a grand auditorium near the White House and elsewhere in a blend of live and pre-taped remarks — that “radical” Democrats would take the country in a dangerous direction.
But Scott, as the only Black Republican senator, also has emerged as a key voice on race issues on Capitol Hill, especially in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody.
“This isn’t how I pictured tonight, but our country is experiencing something none of us envisioned,” Scott said. “From a global pandemic, to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, 2020 has tested our nation in ways we haven’t seen for decades.”
“While this election is Donald Trump and Joe Biden…It is not solely about Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” Scott continued. “It’s about the promise of America. It’s about you and me…our challenges and heartbreaks, hopes and dreams.”
In a swipe at cancel culture, he added: “Do we want a society that breeds success, or a culture that cancels everything it even slightly disagrees with?”
Scott, at several points, struck an uplifting tone, using his own life story as a lesson on the potential of every American.
“I am living my mother’s American Dream,” Scott said, noting that he was 7 years old when his parents divorced, and lived in a two-bedroom house sharing a room and a bed with his mother and his brother. “My mom worked 16 hours a day to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. She knew that if we could find the opportunity, bigger things would come.”
Scott said thought he had to use “football to succeed in life,” and said his focus on academics “faded away.”
“I failed my freshman year of high school – four subjects…Spanish, English, world geography, and civics,” Scott recalled.
He quipped: “Trust me, after spending seven years in the Senate, I know I’m not the only one in Congress who failed civics.”
Scott went on to talk about his election to the House in 2010, where he beat a prominent incumbent in the primary.
“Because of the evolution of the southern heart, in an overwhelmingly white district… the voters judged me not the color of my skin, but on the content of my character,” Scott said, noting that we “live in a world that wants you to believe in the bad news—racially, economically and culturally-polarizing news.”
“The truth is, our nation’s arc always bends back toward fairness. We are not fully where we want to be, but thank God we are not where we used to be,” Scott said. “We don’t give into cancel-culture, or the radical—and factually baseless—belief that things are worse today than in the 1860s or the 1960s.”
Scott went on to tout his work with President Trump on “Opportunity Zones,” where he said they “put hard-earned tax dollars back in people’s pockets by cutting their taxes, especially for single-parent households like the one I grew up in.”
NIKKI HALEY TOUTS TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY AGENDA, SAYS ‘AMERICA IS NOT A RACIST COUNTRY’
But Scott went on to slam former Vice President Biden, saying it is “critical to paint a full picture of the records” of both Trump and Biden.
“Joe Biden said if a Black man didn’t vote for him, he wasn’t truly Black,” Scott said, referring to Biden’s “you ain’t Black” remark for which he later expressed regret. Referring to other controversial remarks, he added, “Joe Biden said Black people are a monolithic community. Joe Biden said poor kids can be just as smart as White kids.”
He added: “And while his words are one thing, his actions take it to a whole new level.”
Scott went on to slam Biden for the 1994 crime bill which he said “put millions of Black Americans behind bars.”
Biden himself has said he regrets aspects of the 1994 crime bill, including the longer sentencing guidelines for crack, which he said was a “big mistake” that damaged the Black community.
Painting a contrast between the two, Scott referenced Trump’s criminal justice reform law, which he said “fixed many of the disparities Biden created and made our system more fair and just for all Americans.”
He added: “So, when it comes to what Joe Biden says he’ll do, look at his actions. Look at his policies. Look at what he already did and didn’t do while he’s been in Washington for 47 years.”
Scott spoke in deeply personal terms as he urged people to “focus on the promise of the American journey.”
“I know that journey well,” Scott continued, while noting his grandfather’s 99th birthday would have been Tuesday.
“Growing up, he had to cross the street if a White person was coming. He suffered the indignity of being forced out of school as a third grader to pick cotton, and never learned to read or write,” Scott said.
“Yet, he lived to see his grandson become the first African American to be elected to both the United States House and Senate,” he continued. “Our family went from Cotton to Congress in one lifetime. And that’s why I believe the next American century can be better than the last.”
Scott added that “supporting the Republican ticket gives you the best chance” of making the American dream “a reality.”
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]]>The post Tim Scott: Trump had to ‘clean up Joe Biden’s mess’ with Black community appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina helped close out the first night of the Republican National Convention on Monday by saying that President Trump has had to clean up Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden’s messes when it comes to policies that are consequential for Black Americans.
Mr. Scott, the U.S. Senate’s lone Black Republican, said the 1994 crime bill Mr. Biden championed as a U.S. senator “put millions of Black Americans behind bars.”
He said the First Step Act, a bipartian sentencing and prison reform bill Mr. Trump signed in 2018, fixed some of the problems Mr. Biden helped create and ushered in a fairer criminal justice system.
Mr. Scott also said Mr. Biden “failed” Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the country.
“Once again, to clean up Joe Biden’s mess, President Trump signed into law historically high funding for HBCUs, as well as a bill to give them permanent funding for the first time ever,” he said.
“So when it comes to what Joe Biden says he’ll do, look at his actions. Look at his policies,” Mr. Scott said. “Look at what he already did and what he didn’t do while he’s been in Washington for 47 years.”
Mr. Scott also noted Mr. Biden’s recent comments in which the former vice president said supporters of Mr. Trump “ain’t Black” and suggested that the Black community isn’t as diverse in attitudes as the Hispanic population.
“While his words are one thing, his actions take it to a whole new level,” he said.
In his speech, Mr. Scott also touted school choice and “Opportunity Zones” for hard-hit neighborhoods that he helped write into the 2017 GOP tax law.
He also said Mr. Biden’s “radical” Democrats are trying to “permanently transform” what it means to be an American.
“Make no mistake: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want a cultural revolution – a fundamentally different America,” he said. “If we let them, they will turn our country into a socialist utopia. And history has taught us that path only leads to pain and misery, especially for hard-working people hoping to rise.”
Mr. Scott took the lead on Senate Republicans’ policing overhaul bill after the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, a Black man, while in Minneapolis police custody.
In an emotional floor speech, he had slammed comments from Sen. Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat, who warned against taking a “token, half-hearted approach” – comments for which Mr. Durbin apologized.
“Democrats called our work a token effort and walked out of the room during negotiations because they wanted the issue more than they wanted a solution,” Mr. Scott said in his speech on Monday.
Mr. Scott’s legislation would incentivize police departments to ban chokeholds and calls for better reporting on the use of practices like “no-knock” warrants.
Senate Democrats blocked his legislation from advancing, saying they preferred a bill that passed the Democrat-led House that included bans on practices like chokeholds and instituted national use-of-force standards.
Mr. Scott, a former member of the U.S. House, was appointed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to replace former GOP Sen. Jim DeMint, who left office in 2012.
Mr. Scott won a 2014 election to serve the final two years of Mr. DeMint’s term before he was re-elected in 2016.
Mr. Scott initially endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida in the 2016 Republican presidential primary contest.
The senator and his friend, former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, took something of a comedy duo routine on the road to warm up for Mr. Rubio ahead of the 2016 South Carolina primary contest, which Mr. Trump won.
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]]>The post Scott Peterson spared from death penalty in infamous slaying of pregnant wife appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>August 24, 2020 | 2:23pm | Updated August 24, 2020 | 3:07pm
California’s highest court overturned Scott Peterson’s death sentence Monday — although it still left the door open for the man who killed his pregnant wife to be executed.
The state Supreme Court balked at the notion that Peterson — who in 2002 murdered wife Laci, 27, to be with his mistress — was wrongfully convicted because of jury bias.
“Peterson contends his trial was flawed for multiple reasons, beginning with the unusual amount of pretrial publicity that surrounded the case,” the court said. “We reject Peterson’s claim that he received an unfair trial as to guilt and thus affirm his convictions for murder.”
But the court did agree that Peterson’s trial judge “made a series of clear and significant errors in jury selection that, under long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent, undermined Peterson’s right to an impartial jury at the penalty phase.
“While a court may dismiss a prospective juror as unqualified to sit on a capital case if the juror’s views on capital punishment would substantially impair his or her ability to follow the law, a juror may not be dismissed merely because he or she has expressed opposition to the death penalty as a general matter,” the court’s judges wrote in their unanimous opinion.
Still, the decision allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty again against Peterson.
He was convicted of first-degree murder for Laci’s death and second-degree murder for their unborn son, Connor. Laci was eight months pregnant when she was killed by her husband.
Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager, whose office would retry the penalty phase of the case, did not immediately comment.
With Post wires
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]]>The post Transcript: Scott Gottlieb discusses coronavirus on “Face the Nation,” August 16, 2020 appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The following is a transcript of an interview with former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb that aired Sunday, August 16, 2020, on “Face the Nation.”
MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. He’s in Westport, Connecticut, this morning. Good morning to you, Doctor. Good to have you back.
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to start where we always do, which is where we stand right now. 1,500 deaths on Wednesday. That rate back to where we were in the spring. You heard Jared Kushner say basically not as bad as the spring, but what does it say about where we are right now that we’re at these levels and where are we headed?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, it’s been fairly persistent. We thought we’d be coming down by now, we’d see deaths peak and start to come down as the epidemics in the southern states started to peak and decline. But there’s been a fairly persistent level of infection, hospitalizations and deaths over the last couple of weeks. We’ve had over a thousand deaths a day for at least two weeks now, over 50,000 infections a day on average. We hit 55,000 in the last day. Hospitalizations have come down a little bit, but they haven’t really started to decline very rapidly. What’s happening is as the cases start to decline in the southern states, Arizona, Texas, Florida, we’re starting to see infections pick up in other parts of the country. California is still increasing. Really, the only state that seems to have come down quite a bit of the epidemic Sun Belt states is Arizona. And we now have 14 states with positivity rates above 10%. Mississippi at 21%, Nevada 17%, Florida at 18%. So there’s still a lot of states with pretty high positivity rates.
MARGARET BRENNAN: In talking with Mr. Kushner, he said most people dying are over 70. And he also talked about his confidence sending his kids back to in-person classroom education, saying children have six times higher chance of dying from the flu than covid. Do you know where those numbers come from? Does that sound right to you?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I don’t know where the six times comes from. We need to be careful, I think, about making comparisons to flu. This infection hasn’t been as prevalent in children as flu is each year, there’s been about 330,000 diagnosed infections. If you believe we’re diagnosing one in five to one in 10 infections in children, maybe there have been about three million kids who’ve been infected with this. Flu is estimated to cause symptomatic illness in upwards of 11 million kids every season. This was a 2018-2019 season. And it causes a fair degree of asymptomatic infection in kids as well. So the prevalence is much higher. With flu we see upwards of about 400 tragic deaths a year. We’ve already seen 90 deaths about- from COVID in children. And it just hasn’t- probably hasn’t been as prevalent in kids. And we also see concerning indications of post viral syndromes, this multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which has affected 570 children, that’s been recorded so far. So there’s a lot we don’t understand about COVID in kids. I think we need to be careful about making comparisons to flu and the death and disease we see in flu relative to COVID.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The CDC said this week that people who’ve recovered from COVID are essentially immune for at least three months. What do we know about immunity?
DR. GOTTLIEB: That’s right. And so this was the first study where they could say with certainty that for at least three months you have immunity that would guard against reinfection. They actually said people who have been exposed to COVID who’ve had infection in the last three months, don’t need to self quarantine because the immunity is that absolute. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to have immunity for a longer period of time. The study just looked at three months. COVID hasn’t been around long enough for us to really study long term immunity in a practical way in people in the community. But it’s probably the case that you’re going to have a period of immunity that lasts anywhere from six to 12 months. It’s going to be highly variable. Some people will have less immunity, some people will have slightly more. But it’s good news that they’re able to document that people have really sterile immunity. They’re not going to get reinfected for at least three months and probably longer than that after infection.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But this concept of herd immunity is it- and I mean, how close are we to that? What do you think of it?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Prob- probably a long way from herd immunity. If you look at the seroprevalence studies overall, maybe 8% of the population as a whole has been exposed to this. In outbreak states like Arizona it might be higher, closer to 25% based on some modeling, maybe as high as 20% in Florida based on certain modeling and 15% in Texas. We know the seroprevalence in New York City is 20%. So that’s getting closer to a level of immunity where the rate of transmission will start to decline. It’s not quite herd immunity, but you’re going to see declines in the rate of transmission because of that- that level of infection. There’s also speculation around T-cell immunity, whether or not people who have prior infection with coronavirus have some residual T-cell memory that confers immunity. We don’t know if the T-cells confer immunity, but we do know now that people who had prior infection with coronaviruses, other coronavirus have what we call cross reactive T-cells. So they have T-cells that cross react with this particular coronavirus. Now, whether that confers a level of immunity has to be demonstrated and we’re not sure. Probably if it does, what is doing is it’s helping prevent you from getting COVID the disease, but you’re still going to get coronavirus the infection and maybe even be able to transmit it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The president on Friday announced that McKesson Corporation will be a central distributor of a COVID vaccine and supplies. But he also said the military is ready to distribute doses. Do you think it should be the private sector or the government distributing any vaccine?
DR. GOTTLIEB: I think what the government ought to do is leverage the private sector, the- the companies, the distributors, the manufacturers know how to distribute vaccines through the existing supply chain. I think if the government tries to take physical possession of these vaccines and then distribute it through channels they set up, that could ultimately lead to hiccups and delays in getting vaccines to consumers. What they should be doing is directing the existing supply chain on where to allocate those vaccines based on where they perceive the need and what the allocation system is going to be, based on who the vaccines are ultimately approved for, whether they’re approved for frontline health care workers initially authorized for people who are at higher risk. But I wouldn’t try to recreate the wheel here. I would use the existing supply chain that’s worked quite well to distribute a lot of different vaccines very quickly. We were able to distribute the flu vaccine very efficiently through the existing supply chain.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK, well, if and when we get there. And thank you very much, Dr. Gottlieb. We’ll be back in a moment.
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