Biden also demurred when asked about adding Supreme Court seats if elected.
September 27, 2020, 7:13 PM
• 6 min read
In his first public remarks since President Donald Trump officially selected Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court, former Vice President Joe Biden once again urged Republicans in the Senate not to move ahead with confirmation proceedings until after the 2020 election.
“Just because you have the power to do something doesn’t absolve you of your responsibility to do right by the American people,” Biden charged in his remarks Sunday afternoon in Wilmington, Delaware.
“Uphold your constitutional duty. Summon your conscience. Stand up for the people. Stand up for our cherished system of checks and balances,” he continues.
Since the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg earlier this month, Biden has sought to simultaneously appeal to voters that the election should dictate how the rare Supreme Court vacancy should be dealt with, and Republican senators to hold their fire on the highly politicized process until after voters make their wishes known, particularly as early voting has already gotten underway in some states.
“[The] Senate has to stand strong for our democracy. They must not act on this nomination until the American people finish the process they’re already begun of selecting their president and their Congress,” Biden said.
“[The] U.S. Constitution provides one chance, one, for the Americans to have their voices heard on who serves a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, who makes those big decisions about their health care, their civil rights and much else. That chance is now. That moment is now. And the voters, in my view, are not going to stand for this abuse of power” Biden added.
In his remarks, the former vice president focused in particular on the impact Coney Barrett’s nomination could have on the Affordable Care Act, and current protections for those with preexisting conditions, as her confirmation would shift the court to a solidly conservative majority of 6-3.
“It’s no mystery about what’s happening here. President Trump is trying to throw out the Affordable Care Act and he’s been trying to do it for the last four years. The Republican party has been trying to eliminate it for a decade,” Biden said. “And as I speak, we are still in the midst of the worst global health crisis in a century — a crisis that’s already taken over 200,000 lives, between 750 and 1,000 lives a day and counting,”
The day after President Trump nominated Coney Barrett to the court in a Rose Garden ceremony, Biden only mentioned the judge’s name once and was critical of her public statements on previous Supreme Court rulings upholding the Affordable Care Act, including a 2017 criticism in an article for Notre Dame Law School that Chief Justice John Roberts “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute,” in his 2012 decision.
“The judge… has a written track record — written track record of disagreeing adamantly with the Supreme Court’s decisions on two occasions, upholding the ACA. In fact, not as a judge, but prior to going on the bench, she publicly criticized Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion upholding the law, eight years ago,” Biden later said of Coney Barrett.
Biden has acknowledged there is very little Democrats can do to stop Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from moving forward with the nomination, and continued to demur on the possibility raised by some Democrats of expanding the Supreme Court if Biden is elected in November, arguing he does not want to pull focus from the issues at hand.
“What I’m not going to do is play the Trump game, which is a good game he plays: take your eye off the issue before us. If I were to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to that, that becomes a big issue. That’s the headline here,” Biden said when asked about calls to pack the court.
“American people understand that they’re being cut out of this process they’re entitled to be part of, and the cutout is designed in order to take away the ACA and your health care in the midst of a pandemic. That’s the focus. That’s what it’s on, and that’s the deal,” he added.
In less than two weeks, 72 women from across the country will traverse dirt trails, desert sand dunes and barren landscapes in California and Nevada without the aid of technology in this year’s Rebelle Rally, the first off-road navigational rally raid for women in the United States.
Emily Miller, a seasoned endurance racer, founded the rally five years ago to “give women a platform to shine, build and test their skills.” Miller was determined to let her “Rebelles” compete in the grueling, eight-day off-road adventure even as the coronavirus pandemic forced the world into lockdown and disrupted daily life. Teams will have to clear a COVID-19 test before the competition begins Oct. 8 near Lake Tahoe. A COVID coordinator was hired to monitor the health of teams and staff. Face masks will be mandatory.
“We never took this virus lightly,” Miller told ABC News. “We are doing everything to the nth degree. This already is a remote, distanced event. There are no spectators.”
For Emme Hall, the rally had to go on. Not participating was never a consideration for Hall or her navigator, Rebecca Donaghe, teammates since the start and winners in the Crossover Class last year.
“We have all been isolated in our homes and haven’t seen any friends or family,” Hall told ABC News. “I am excited to see so many of these women. We will be in our own bubble when we get there. The Rebelles are a family.”
The event has hosted all-female competitors, ranging in age from 22 to 70 years old, from 188 cities, 38 states and provinces and eight countries since its inception. Miller said the Rebelle was designed to award precision driving and navigation — not speed. Points are determined by the number of checkpoints (there are 200) a team accumulates on the obstacle-like course that spans 1,200 miles. Cellphones and GPS devices are forbidden. Competitors are required to plot their routes via a compass, roadbooks and topographical maps.
“It’s a unique challenge and format. The scoring system pushes people to go for it,” Miller explained, adding that she envisioned the rally to give women “something to sink their teeth into, a badge of honor.”
Hall and Donaghe have introduced another hurdle to the already challenging course: driving the Rivian R1T, a 750 horsepower, four-motor powertrain all-electric truck that can get up to 300 miles of range from its 135 kWh battery. The truck will also be the first to roll off Rivian’s Normal, Illinois, assembly line, with the serial No. 1.
The R1T will not be fitted with additional features or special equipment, according to Brian Gase, chief engineer of special projects at Rivian. Even the on-board air compressor is stock equipment.
“This is such a cool opportunity to put our electric adventure vehicles into some off-road performance validation,” Gase told ABC News. “Range will vary depending on the terrain and the conditions they face, just like it would if they were in a gasoline vehicle. The drivers, the race environment, real world validation, competition with ICE [internal combustion engine] vehicles – all [are] amazing for us.”
Donaghe said there are many similarities between the R1T and the twin-turbo, 6.7-liter V-12 Rolls-Royce Cullinan she and Hall captained in 2019. Last year, every move and every mile were carefully charted to maximize fuel.
“We worried about mileage in the Cullinan,” Donaghe told ABC News. “I even brought a siphon pack kit with me.”
This year, range will determine how far Hall and Donaghe are willing to push the limits to win. The R1T demands “more math and strategy about the checkpoints,” Donaghe said. “We never want to get down to zero battery [charge].”
A few rally participants did pull out of the event, according to Miller, but 36 teams decided to compete, including newcomers Nicole Wakelin, an automotive journalist based in New Hampshire, and her partner, Alice Chase. They’re driving the Infiniti QX80, a luxury SUV making its — and the Japanese marque’s — first appearance in the Rebelle.
“I will be leaving my husband and younger daughter at home … it will be weird not talking to them every day,” Wakelin told ABC News. “This is about me, Alice and the Infiniti — a three-person team. I wanted to do the rally to prove myself that I could do it and go outside my comfort zone.”
Ford marketing employees Erica Martin and Jovina Young will be driving the all-new Bronco Sport 4X4, which had its grand debut in July. The off-roading neophytes have spent weeks with Ford engineers, practicing skills like rock crawling and changing tires, navigating narrow rutted trails and perfecting steep ascents and descents. This year marks Ford’s inaugural involvement in the rally.
“We are a fairly late entry so it’s been quite the cram session!” Martin and Young told ABC News in a statement. “We knew we wanted to enter a professional team but during the planning we came up with the crazy idea to enter a novice team. After all, that’s what Bronco is all about – making off-roading fun and accessible for everyone. Who better to take on this challenge than ourselves?”
Rachael Ridenour, a Rebelle loyalist, has been coaching her driver and teammate, Kristie Levy, on what to expect along the daunting and physically exhausting route. They’ll be helming a Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid vehicle, the only PHEV in the rally.
“If you don’t drive well, you don’t finish,” Ridenour, a 32-year U.S. Army veteran and founder and CEO of Record The Journey, a nonprofit that provides outdoor photography adventures and training to military veterans and their families, told ABC News. “Solve one problem at a time. You will make mistakes — not if.”
She added: “It’s a collaborative and competitive event that’s fully immersive and amazing. You’re spending 24 hours a day with the same person with the same objective in the same vehicle. It creates a tight knit community.”
The women competing come from all backgrounds and careers, according to Miller: CEOs, lawyers, engineers, moms, military veterans. For 10 days they’ll escape reality, consumed with one goal only: to finish the rally.
Donaghe said the pandemic has been weighing heavily on all the participants. Teams have agreed to minimize contact with strangers and hunker down to protect themselves — and others — from infection.
“Everyone is very conscientious about [the risks],” she said. “This will be an emotional year. All of that bonding will be more intense and more important.”
In a race defined by economic views and pandemic fears, and riven by wide gender and education gaps, Joe Biden retains a 10-point lead nationally against Donald Trump in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, contracting to six points with third-party candidates included.
Biden’s 54%-44% advantage over Trump in a two-way contest precisely matches the last national ABC/Post poll in mid-August. Biden’s support slips to 49% when the Libertarian and Green Party candidates are included, versus 43% for Trump.
The results underscore Trump’s precarious position as the first president in 81 years of modern polling never to achieve majority approval for his work in office. He’s at 44% approval among all Americans, ranging from 52% for handling the economy to 40% on the coronavirus outbreak. Fifty-eight percent disapprove of his performance on the pandemic, a key to Biden’s support.
At the same time, the presence of Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen and Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins could pose a challenge to Biden in close states. Biden’s 5-point decline when these candidates are included is a significant, albeit slight, shift.
Biden continues to trail Trump, by 20 percentage points, in strong enthusiasm among their respective likely voters in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. Still, another measure finds broad antipathy toward Trump: Among those who don’t support him, 59% say his reelection would be a crisis for the country. Among those not backing Biden, fewer — but still 50% — say it’d be a crisis if he won.
It’s true, as well, that national preferences don’t always reflect Electoral College outcomes, as was the case in 2016 and 2000. Recent ABC/Post state-level polls found virtually even races in Florida and Arizona and a close contest in Wisconsin, although a wide Biden lead in Minnesota, which Trump has sought to contest.
Trump and Biden meet Tuesday in their first presidential campaign debate.
Change?
There’s room for changes in preferences, but, as in any highly polarized election, not much. Among likely voters who don’t back Trump now, 6% say they’d consider voting for him. Similarly, 5% of those who don’t currently support Biden would consider him. That makes for a net total of 5% of likely voters who can be considered movable – a thin slice, albeit potentially enough to matter in some states.
What’s likely to matter more is turnout, a question complicated this year by pandemic-related concerns. Just 46% of likely voters plan to cast their ballot in person on Election Day; 50% instead plan to vote early or absentee. Who goes through with it is highly consequential: Trump leads by 19 points, 58%-39%, among Election Day voters, while it’s Biden by more than a 2-1 margin, 67%-31%, among those who intend to vote before then.
Issues
The pandemic, of course, has disrupted far more than balloting plans. Sixty-two percent of adults worry that they or an immediate family member may catch the virus, which has claimed more than 200,000 American lives. Likely voters who express this concern favor Biden, 71%-27%.
The economy, even in a pandemic-prompted recession, works better for Trump. While just 40% of Americans say it’s in good shape, that’s up from 31% just last month. And Trump leads by 82%-17% among likely voters who rate the economy positively. Further, a quarter call the economy the top issue in their vote, and those economy-focused voters favor Trump by 80%-18%.
That said, in a head-to-head test, the two candidates run very closely in trust to handle the economy, 49%-46%, Trump-Biden. And other results on trust are revealing: While Trump has hit hard on the issue of crime and safety, it’s Biden who’s slightly ahead in trust to handle it, 50%-44%. Biden leads by eight points in trust to handle the next Supreme Court nomination (as reported Friday), 11 points on the pandemic, 16 points on health care and 20 points on equal treatment of racial groups.
Trust on crime is about the same in the suburbs, 50%-46%, Biden-Trump, as nationally overall. Suburban men trust Trump more on crime by 20 points, but suburban women — a group Trump has focused on — trust Biden more, by 61%-37%. That tilts to Biden because of the share of suburban women — about 1 in 3 — who are racial or ethnic minorities. (Among suburban white women, it’s 51%-46%, Biden-Trump.)
There’s one warning flare here for Biden: His lead on trust to handle the pandemic has shrunk from 20 points during the summertime surge in cases in mid-July, 54%-34%, to today’s 11-point margin, 51%-40%.
As noted, the economy leads as the most important issue, with no consensus on what comes next. Seventeen percent pick the pandemic as their top issue, and likely voters who say so support Biden by 84%-13%. About as many say it’s either health care or equal treatment of racial groups; again more than 8 in 10 in both of these groups back Biden. Twelve percent cite crime and safety as their main concern — and in this group, 84% support Trump. Lastly, 11% focus on the next Supreme Court nomination, with closer vote preferences, 54%-45%, Biden-Trump.
In another delineating result, the public by 54%-42% supports recent protests against police treatment of Black people. Eight in 10 supporters of these protests favor Biden; 77% of opponents are with Trump.
Across issues, these results illuminate the logic of the current campaign, as Trump touts economic recovery and raises crime concerns while Biden pushes on the pandemic response, health care and equal treatment, and both navigate the trickier Supreme Court issue.
Third party
The impact of third-party candidates may be tough to gauge, since the pandemic has constrained their campaigns just as it has Trump’s and Biden’s. This survey asked two-candidate preferences first, then re-asked the question with Jorgensen and Hawkins added. Biden, as noted goes from 54% to 49% with these two included; that decline is significant at the 90% confidence level, as opposed to the conventional standard, 95%.
Trump moving from 44% to 43% is not statistically significant. Four percent express support for Jorgensen, who’s on the ballot in all 50 states; 3% for Hawkins, who’s on the ballot in 28 states. (In 2016, the Libertarian won 3%, the Green candidate, 1%.)
Groups
Using two-candidate preferences, huge gaps are evident across population groups. Trump leads by 13 points among men; Biden, by a wide 31 points among women. Trump’s up 6 points against Biden among nongraduates, while Biden leads by 30 points among college grads. The race is close among likely voters age 50 and older, while those younger than 30 back Biden by nearly 2-1 (using registered voters for an adequate sample size).
Unpeeling some groups demonstrates the depth of the gender gap, in particular. While the race is a close 52-47%, Biden-Trump, in the suburbs, that’s 60-38%, Trump-Biden, among suburban men, compared with 66-34%, Biden-Trump, among suburban women. And it’s Trump up 8 among men who are political independents, versus a 77%-20% Biden-Trump blowout among independent women.
In another sharp difference, evangelical white Protestants, a core Republican group, support Trump by an expected 75%-25% — but non-evangelical white Protestants go 58%-41%, Biden-Trump. (White Protestants account for nearly 3 in 10 likely voters; 57% are evangelicals, the rest not.)
Notable, too, is that Trump and Biden are dead even, 49%-49%, in households that include a veteran or active-duty member of the military; these generally are thought to be a more pro-GOP group. Trump took criticism in the past month for reports that he had disparaged military service, which he denied.
Among other groupings, Biden leads by 54%-42% in the 13 states that currently are the most contested by the candidates (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin). Moreover, it’s Biden by 20 points in the blue states won by Hillary Clinton, while dead even, 49%-49%, in the 2016 red states. Trump won those states four years ago by 53%-42%.
2016 comparisons
Comparisons to 2016, based on ABC News exit poll results, are telling. Among the most striking differences:
Clinton won political moderates by 12 points. Biden leads among them by 47 points, 72%-25%.
Clinton won independent women by four points. As noted, Biden leads among them by a remarkable 57 points.
Trump won whites by 20 points in 2016; he’s up six points among whites now. One reason: White women have switched from plus-9 points for Trump in 2016 to plus-15 points for Biden now, 57%-42%. That includes a vast shift among college-educated white women, from up 7 points for Clinton to up 41 points for Biden now.
Clinton won college-educated voters overall by 10 points; as noted, Biden now leads in this group by 30 points. In addition to college-educated white women, the change is sharp among people with postgraduate degrees, from up 21 points for Clinton four years ago to up 47 points for Biden now.
Non-evangelical white Protestants, as mentioned, support Biden by a 17-point margin; that compares to essentially an even split in 2016, 48%-45%, Trump-Clinton.
Trump, at the same time, has retained and even consolidated his core support groups. Overall, among 2020 likely voters who report having supported him in 2016, 91% support him now. He’s backed by 87% of conservatives, who account for a substantial 36% of all likely voters. And while Biden would be just the second Catholic president, white Catholics — an on-again, off-again swing voter group — side with Trump, 55%-44%.
Methodology
This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Sept. 21 to 24, 2020, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,008 adults, including 889 registered voters and 739 likely voters. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including design effects, for the full sample and registered voters, and 4.0 points for likely voters. Partisan divisions are 31%-27%-37%, Democrats-Republicans-independents, among all respondents; 33%-29%-35% among registered voters; and 33%-32%-32% among likely voters.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Maryland. See details on the survey’s methodology here.
Naegleria is a parasite that usually infects swimmers in lakes and rivers.
September 26, 2020, 5:22 PM
• 5 min read
After Texas authorities sent an urgent message about brain-eating amoeba found in a southeast county water’s supply, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality lifted a “Do Not Use” water advisory for all areas except one, Lake Jackson.
On Friday, TCEQ posted on social media that it was informed of the potential of Naegleria fowleri in the Brazosport Water Authority’s water supply.
A “Do Not Use” water advisory was issued for Lake Jackson, Freeport, Angleton, Brazoria, Richwood, Oyster Creek, Clute, Rosenberg, Dow Chemical, TDCJ Clemens & TDCJ Wayne Scott, according to the commission’s social media post.
“After extensive conversations with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as well as ensuring that Brazosport Water Authority has an adequate disinfectant residual, a determination has been made that there is no safety issue for BWA’s distribution system,” according to a statement from TCEQ on Saturday.
“Lake Jackson residents are still urged to follow the Do not Use Water Advisory until the water system has been adequately flushed and samples indicate that the water is safe to use. It is not known at this time how long this make take,” the statement continued.
TCEQ advised residents who remain under the advisory not to drink or bathe in tap water, although flushing toilets is OK.
“Naegleria likes fresh water — lakes and ponds. Infection is even rarer than Vibrio, but the stakes are even higher,” Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious disease at South Shore Health in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, told ABC News, told ABC News.
“It travels up the nose and through the cribriform plate – a little sieve separating the nasal cavity and the brain,” Dr. Ellerin said. “When it reaches the brain, it causes Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis, or PAM for short, with seizures, headaches, personality changes and confusion. Most people with PAM have died – and unfortunately two-thirds of the cases are in otherwise healthy children.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “In very rare instances, Naegleria infections may also occur when contaminated water from other sources (such as inadequately chlorinated swimming pool water or heated and contaminated tap water) enters the nose. You cannot get infected from swallowing water contaminated with Naegleria.”
The Brazosport water system had seven violations from TCEQ in 2014 and 2015 related to monitoring, one violation in 2003 for a concentration of disinfectant, according to ABC News Houston affiliate KTRK. All violations were resolved and the water system has received several awards since from TCEQ for innovation, operations, compliance and more.
ABC News’ medical contributor Dr. Laith Alexander and Lauren M. Botchan contributed to this report.
Jack Barile had been waiting much of the summer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to publish his research on the most effective way to persuade people to wear masks in a pandemic.
A psychology professor at the University of Hawaii, Barile said the study he’d co-authored — which found that people are more likely to wear masks if leaders promote a “positive attitude” about them — was stuck in the federal review process. The agency and the White House, it seemed, were “slow-walking critical research without clear explanation,” Barile said.
Then, just days before the study by Barile and his co-authors was finally scheduled to publish, Barile was walking to the park scrolling through the latest headlines on his phone when a photo of President Donald Trump filled his screen: Marching down a hallway at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Trump, who had refused to wear a mask in public, was seen donning one for the first time.
At the time, Trump had been under increasing pressure to wear one, including from members of his own party. But it wasn’t until that July 11 hospital visit, three months after the White House recommended widespread mask-wearing, that he was seen publicly heeding the guidance. At the time, he said he decided to wear one because he’d be around wounded veterans who had “just got off the operating tables.” He tweeted wearing a mask was “patriotic.”
Barile’s study published three days later, on July 14, along with two others that touted the importance of wearing a mask, including one co-authored by the CDC director himself.
“I couldn’t help but just start laughing when I saw. The timing just seemed so ridiculous,” Barile said.
Barile, who worked at the CDC for two years as a research fellow before taking his job at the University of Hawaii in 2012, said it could be “total coincidence” that the research publication came just days after the president’s first appearance in a mask.
But if it wasn’t, he wouldn’t be surprised.
“Most at the CDC would tell you the same thing if they could. This stuff has gone on for a long time. Decades,” Barile said.
At the same time, Barile also cautioned that he’s never seen anything like this. “There’s always been political influence on CDC publications, but it’s been a lot stronger with the COVID situation,” he said.
With more than 200,000 lives lost to COVID-19, the U.S. is facing a reckoning on science and politics. Even basic scientific research, like whether to wear a mask in a pandemic, is now being seen through the lens of the 2020 election and Trump politics.
That’s a big problem, health officials say, because to overcome the pandemic, most Americans will have to agree on basic steps to stop the spread of the virus, whether it’s wearing a mask or accepting a vaccine.
The White House, in response to ABC News, denied that “politics is influencing approvals or decisions,” calling it a “dishonest narrative.”
“Every decision the CDC and FDA has made under the Trump Administration has been data-driven to save lives, and this dishonest narrative that the media and Democrats have created that politics is influencing approvals or decisions is not only false but is a danger to the American public,” White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said in an email.
The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.
According to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released this month, fewer than 1 in 10 Americans have a great deal of confidence in Trump to confirm a vaccine’s effectiveness, with another 18% reporting only a “good amount” of confidence.
“Frankly I’m not going to trust the federal government’s opinion, and I wouldn’t recommend to New Yorkers based on the federal government’s opinion,” said Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been accused by conservatives of politicizing the pandemic, at a Sept. 24 news conference.
For Bela Matyas, a health officer for Solano County Public Health in California, the politics involved is just dispiriting.
“As a local health officer I should be able to rely on my state and the federal officials to help me with understanding truth, but I don’t,” said Matyas, who has worked previously with the CDC to study novel coronavirus transmission in hospitals.
The result is a mentality that every locale seemingly is on its own — but it raises the question, Matyas said, of whether that is the best way to deliver the best care to each and every community.
“Clearly, if we’re all over the place in decision-making, we are doing a disservice to our community,” Matyas said. “So not having a fallback, trustworthy source of credible data is a problem.”
In recent weeks, media reports have detailed extensive efforts by Trump’s political advisers to sway the findings of the administration’s public health agencies.
According to emails obtained by Politico and the New York Times, political appointees have tried to influence CDC’s weekly scientific digest to be more in step with the president’s handling of the pandemic. And one of those advisers, Michael Caputo, a former HHS press secretary now on medical leave, accused the CDC in an online rant of harboring a “resistance unit” and called on Trump’s supporters to arm themselves ahead of the election.
The media reports alarmed much of the medical field, as experts described the weekly reports by CDC as sacred.
“It goes through a lot of red tape, because it’s representing this federal agency,” said Dr. Leonard Mermel, a professor at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and medical director of Rhode Island Hospital’s Department of Epidemiology and Infection Control.
“So despite all the checks and balances that have worked very well for decades, what’s going on now appears to be radically different and with the potential for ulterior motives,” said Mermel.
On Wednesday, more accusations of political meddling followed Trump’s promise to review a vaccine guidance document by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The document would normally be subject to an interagency review, including by the White House Office of Management and Budget. But Trump also has repeatedly said a vaccine could be available before Election Day on Nov. 3.
The following day, the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine — two private nonprofits dedicated to advancing scientific and medical research — took the rare step of issuing a statement urging the administration to leave scientists alone.
“We find ongoing reports and incidents of the politicization of science, particularly the overriding of evidence and advice from public health officials and derision of government scientists, to be alarming,” wrote Marcia McNutt, president of NAS, and Victor Dzau, president of NAM.
“It undermines the credibility of public health agencies and the public’s confidence in them when we need it most,” they wrote.
For their part, the CDC and its director, Robert Redfield, have sent mixed messages in communicating the public health message, including reversing guidance on the CDC’s website, which already contains dozens of pages of duplicative and often conflicting advice on such matters as whether to send children to school and how to protect them.
This month, for example, the CDC abruptly changed its guidance on whether to get tested if a person doesn’t have symptoms and whether there is evidence that the virus is airborne.
Redfield also has declined to address Trump’s insistence that Redfield’s timeline for a vaccine being available to most Americans only by summer 2021 is wrong. Yet, he adamantly denies that CDC has been influenced by politics either way.
“People don’t understand the ability to suck energy out of people working 24-7 when they get unfairly criticized or unfairly characterized,” he told a Senate panel this week.
Barile, the CDC study co-author and professor, agreed with that sentiment — at least as it applies to the career scientists who are studying the pandemic. He said he’d never met anyone in his time at the CDC with an agenda other than to get out quality public health information.
“It is unfortunate that political influence appears to have entered a space where science should remain pure,” he said.
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
This election cycle, Georgia is in the unique position of having both Senate seats on the ballot, but with less than 40 days until Nov. 3, Democrats still need to consolidate support around one candidate in the crowded “jungle primary” special election — or risk being shut out of the all-but-guaranteed January runoff.
With 21 candidates all competing on the same ballot, no one is expected to amass a majority of the vote on Election Day, which is required under Georgia state law for all elections, excluding the presidency, to win outright. On the Republican side, appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Doug Collins, the current congressman for the 9th Congressional District, are basically running a primary campaign against each other, going tit-for-tat to prove who’s the most conservative, pro-Donald Trump candidate.
But on the Democratic side, while Rev. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. served as co-pastor until his death, has made gains since the summer, he hasn’t made enough yet to position himself clearly in first or second among the candidates, according to recent polling. And the thorn in Warnock’s side — who insists, as of now, he’s not going away — is Matt Lieberman, a former teacher, current entrepreneur and the son of former Connecticut senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman.
“I’m running for US Senate AS a fed-up citizen of Georgia, and FOR the fed-up citizens of Georgia … What Georgians of all races want is not a Black senator or a White senator etc, but a GREAT senator. That’s what I hope to be for ALL of us. That’s why I’m staying in the race,” Lieberman tweeted Thursday, amid growing calls for him to cease his campaign, as some Democrats worry about him being a spoiler for the party’s chance to win a statewide federal election for the first time since 2000 in a state that’s moving toward “purple” on the political spectrum.
Warnock’s campaign declined to comment on Lieberman, and in an interview on MSNBC Friday night, Warnock personally did, too, saying, “I can’t speak for him or anybody else in this race.”
A poll among Georgia registered voters from Monmouth University released Wednesday, showed the fight for those top-two positions was between Loeffler, with 23%, Collins, with 22%, and Warnock, with 21% — a statistical tie. In the high likely turnout model, it was a literal tie — 23% of the vote share per candidate.
The poll showed a 12-point gain for Warnock since Monmouth’s July poll, but for Lieberman, who was still holding onto 11% support among registered voters, it was only a three-point loss.
“His support is eroding, which is not surprising, because he really doesn’t have any deep ties in Georgia. … If that 10% were to get behind Warnock, then he might even be leading the pack. It would certainly guarantee him a slot in the runoff,” Charles Bullock, a professor at the University of Georgia with expertise in Southern politics and elections, told ABC News.
Ballots are already going out in Georgia — and more than 22,000 have been successfully cast, too, according to data from the secretary of state’s office — so it’s too late for a candidate to officially drop out, and have his or her name removed from the ballot, but he could put his support behind the leading Democrat in the race.
Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan took to Twitter to point out that she wouldn’t have won her seat without the GOP vote split in her special election working in her favor.
“Real talk: 8 Dems are in this race. There are only 5 Rs. That means each R gets bigger piece of overall GOP vote pie than each D gets of overall D vote pie,” she tweeted Thursday. “Lieberman is making Collins/Loeffler runoff real threat. How do I know this? This is how I won GOP seat in 2017 special.”
Fair Fight founder Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee and one of the most prominent Democrats in Georgia, made an unequivocal call for Lieberman to move aside.
“I would just encourage Matt to search his conscience and to understand why he is running, and if his goal is to make certain that Georgia has the senators we need to defeat Mitch McConnell … we need Matt Lieberman to understand that he is not called for this moment, and to step back and … to let support consolidate around Raphael Warnock,” she told reporters over a virtual media availability Thursday.
Lieberman responded to Abrams on Twitter, accusing her of engaging in “candidate suppression,” saying, “We Democrats must be about giving the people the right to choose who will lead them, and not limiting that choice before they even have a chance to vote.”
He went on to claim that Warnock, who’s also been backed by Senate Democrats’ campaign arm and 31 U.S. senators, “would show up to work on day 1 already owned by power brokers in Atlanta & DC.”
Lieberman scoffed at Warnock securing the endorsement of former President Barack Obama on Friday, implying it was yet another indicator that Warnock would be “beholden” to the Washington establishment.
His campaign did not respond to a request for an interview.
But an endorsement from the most popular Democrat in the country, and the nation’s first and only Black president, could be just the push Warnock needs to gain enough momentum to overcome Loeffler or Collins — or both of them if one doesn’t break away as the Republican leader.
It’s also rare for Obama to throw his support behind a Democrat still competing against other Democrats, making his endorsement Friday even more notable.
Consolidating the vote among Black Georgians, the bedrock of the Democratic Party’s base in the state, could be key for Warnock securing his place in the runoff, J. Miles Coleman, the associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia, told ABC News Friday. Monmouth’s polling indicates he can still do that.
According to the poll, about half of the Black electorate is backing Warnock already, while 18% of Black registered voters are backing Lieberman, and another 8% are backing Ed Tarver, another Democrat in the race. Eleven percent, however, say they are still undecided. The former president’s endorsement, Coleman said, could help Warnock push those undecided voters into his lane, and even chip away more support from Lieberman.
Bullock, the UGA professor, said there’s still plenty of time for Warnock to lock up the Democratic vote — especially because he’s currently running television ads, unlike Lieberman. He’s on air with his fourth ad of the cycle, highlighting his stance on health care, which he calls a “moral issue,” while also contrasting himself with his top-two Republican challengers, and GOP efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Warnock’s ad shows both Loeffler and Collins, but he doesn’t say their names.
It’s in contrast to the new TV spot Loeffler’s campaign unveiled Friday, which hits on the partisan fight unfolding around the Supreme Court vacancy.
The ad names Warnock twice — signaling that he is the Democrat she sees herself competing against.
“I think that does enhance Warnock’s credibility that if you’re a Democratic voter who’s undecided, you say, ‘Well, gee, if he’s taking incoming from one of the Republican candidates, [that] indicates that they’re afraid of him, so maybe I’m going to get behind this person,'” Bullock said.
While this Senate seat is surely headed to a runoff on Jan. 5, it’s entirely possible that the race between Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff will also advance to one, given there’s a third candidate in the race and polling shows neither Perdue nor Ossoff with more than 50% of the vote.
If that were to happen, Bullock said, and control of the Senate wasn’t yet determined, “Georgia becomes, for nine weeks, the center of the political universe.”
“All the money in the world will be spent here,” he said, but added that the limited statewide runoff history in Georgia comes with a warning.
“The Republican always wins,” he said, citing one example from 1992 when Democrat Wyche Fowler led by about 30,000 votes in the general election, but ended up losing to Republican Paul Coverdell in the runoff. “So, the experience has been the Republicans do a much better job of getting their voters back to the polls.”
Michael McDonald, an elections expert and University of Florida professor who’s done extensive research on voter turnout, said that not only do runoff elections typically see lower voter turnout, but usually fewer Democrats show up. He offered a critical caveat, though.
“I think all bets are off if the fate of the Senate is in the balance with the Georgia elections,” he told ABC News.
He added that in special elections under Trump’s term, like Alabama’s special Senate election to replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, there has been “unprecedentedly high turnout.”
“So if we think of the runoff as similar to those special elections that are the only elections that are taking place, the only race that’s on the ballot, yeah, I think that that dynamic could be different from what we’ve had past elections,” McDonald said. “So I wouldn’t know for certain that the past behavior would hold.”
However, Coleman, of Crystal Ball, said if either of the Senate runoff elections were to decide control of Congress’s upper chamber, that probably wouldn’t be good for Democrats.
“Georgia is — it’s still somewhat of a medium red state, at least,” he said.
Coleman didn’t have to go back very far to cite a statewide race in Georgia where Democrats performed worse in the runoff.
In 2018’s secretary of state election, Democrat John Barrow was second to now-Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger by only half a percentage point in the November general.
That runoff took place in the aftermath of Abrams accusing her competitor, then-Secretary of State and now-Gov. Brian Kemp, of voter suppression, which he’s denied, while he was overseeing an election he was a candidate in. The argument that electing a Democratic secretary of state to prevent that from happening again could have been especially compelling, Coleman noted. But turnout dropped in the counties covering and around Atlanta, the largest Democratic hub statewide, he said.
Barrow ended up losing the runoff by 3.8 percentage points, and the total number of ballots cast for both candidates was more than 400,000 less than Barrow got in the first election.
Shawn Myers, 42, held two large parties within one week, prosecutors say.
September 26, 2020, 2:26 PM
• 3 min read
A Maryland man has been sentenced to one year in jail after he hosted two parties against the governor’s COVID-19 large gathering orders, prosecutors said.
On March 22, officers responded to Myers’ home in Hughesville for a report of a large party violating Gov. Larry Hogan’s state of emergency and large gathering orders, prosecutors said.
Officers found about 50 people at Myers’ home and they told Myers that his party violated the current rules, prosecutors said.
Myers allegedly argued with the officers, but he “eventually agreed to disband his party,” prosecutors said.
Days later, on March 27, officers again responded to Myers’ home for another report of a party with more than 50 people.
“Officers told Myers to disband the party, but again he was argumentative claiming he and his guests had the right to congregate,” according to prosecutors.
Myers also allegedly told “his guests to stay in defiance of Governor Hogan’s Orders and the officers’ lawful orders to disband the party,” prosecutors said.
“Officers tried to reason with Myers and obtain his cooperation to no avail,” prosecutors said.
Myers was then arrested.
After Myers is released from jail, he will be on unsupervised probation for three years, prosecutors said.
Over 122,000 people in Maryland have been diagnosed with COVID-19, including at least 3,772 people who have died, according to state data.
Two former leaders of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home in Massachusetts have been indicted in connection with the COVID-19 deaths of nearly a dozen veterans, Attorney General Maura Healey announced Friday.
Former Superintendent Bennett Walsh and former Medical Director Dr. David Clinton each have been charged with criminal neglect following an investigation into the facility, where at least 76 residents died of COVID-19.
Each defendant is facing five counts of charges of caretaker who wantonly or recklessly commits or permits bodily injury to an elder or disabled person, and five counts of caretaker who wantonly or recklessly commits or permits abuse, neglect or mistreatment to an elder or disabled person. Walsh and Clinton will be arraigned in Hampden County Superior Court at a later date.
“This was an outbreak at the home that we know claimed at least 76 lives … the lives of veterans who served our country bravely and with honor. They risked their lives from the beaches of Normandy to the jungles of Vietnam, and to know that they died under the most horrific circumstances is truly shocking,” Healey said.
The prosecution focused on a March 27, 2020, decision to consolidate two dementia units into one, which resulted in the placement of symptomatic residents, including confirmed COVID-19-positive residents, and asymptomatic residents, within feet of each other, increasing their exposure to each other.
Healey alleged that Walsh and Clinton were “ultimately responsible for the decision on March 27 that led to tragic and deadly results,” of combining the 42 veterans into a single unit that usually accommodates 25 beds. Six or seven veterans were placed in rooms meant to hold only four people. Because of overcrowding, nine beds also were placed in a dining room.
“Some of the residents in the dining room had symptoms of COVID-19, some did not. The beds of these veterans in the dining room were just a few feet apart from each other,” Healey said. “Some were next to the room where confirmed positive residents were located, and residents in the unit were mingling together regardless of their COVID-19 status.”
Healey said that these “reckless” decisions placed asymptomatic veterans at greater risk of contracting the virus — and a greater risk of death.
“While this criminal indictment cannot bring back their loved ones, I do hope, sincerely, that it provides those affected by this tragedy some solace that we are doing everything we can to hold accountable the individuals who we believe are responsible here,” Healey said.
In a statement, an attorney for Walsh wrote that “the Attorney General is blaming the effects of a deadly virus that our state and federal governments have not been able to stop on Bennett Walsh. He, like other nursing home administrators throughout the Commonwealth and nation could not prevent the virus from coming to the Home or stop its spread once it arrived there. At all times, Mr. Walsh relied on the medical professionals to do what was best for the veterans given the tragic circumstances of a virus in a home with veterans in close quarters, severe staffing shortages and the lack of outside help from state officials.”
An attorney for Walsh told ABC News he intends to plead not guilty and to vigorously defend himself against the allegations. An attorney for Clinton didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Over 90 families of Holyoke Soldiers’ Home veterans have been consulted and interviewed as a part of the investigation.
“I think that Bennett Walsh and Dr. Clinton should have to dig every grave that hasn’t been dug yet — as well as whatever time they receive if they’re found guilty,” said Susan Kenney, whose father, Charles Lowell, served in the Air Force from 1960 to 1965 during the Vietnam War and died at the facility earlier this year. “They need to accept responsibility and account for their behaviors and the actions that they took.”
The Holyoke Soldiers’ Home coalition, on behalf of family members, also released a statement that read, in part: “Our Veterans and senior citizens deserve the greatest respect and should always receive care with the greatest honor and dignity as is the mission of our state for the Soldiers’ Home. We now hope that justice will prevail and that the state builds a new Home in Holyoke as a lasting memorial to all those who have died.”
The attorney general’s report is the second of four investigations into failures at the facility. Earlier this summer, an investigation lead by former federal prosecutor Mark Pearlstein also found that the facility’s leadership team made substantial errors in responding to the outbreak.
The two other investigations, which are still ongoing, include a federal investigation led U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew E. Lelling and an investigation conducted by the Massachusetts Office of the Inspector General Glenn A. Cunha.
Healey confirmed that her office is actively investigating several other facilities that suffered high numbers of coronavirus-related deaths. Since the beginning of the pandemic, over 6,000 probable or confirmed deaths have been reported in long-term care facilities in Massachusetts — approximately two-thirds of the state’s total reported death count.
A new study estimates that 90% of Americans may still be vulnerable.
September 26, 2020, 12:06 AM
• 6 min read
More than 90% of U.S. adults remain susceptible to COVID-19, according to research published on Friday.
Using data from dialysis centers in the United States, the study, published in The Lancet, estimates that less than 10% of U.S. adults have virus antibodies, meaning everyone else is potentially vulnerable to infection.
Those figures roughly match those of a forthcoming Centers of Disease Control and Prevention study, according to CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, who spoke at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
“The preliminary results in the first round show that a majority of our nation, more than 90% of the population, remains susceptible,” said Redfield, referring to an ongoing CDC study assessing the prevalence of antibodies to better track how widely the virus has spread.
CDC data from that study is expected to be published in the “next week or so,” Redfield added.
The Lancet study offers new details about the prevalence of COVID-19. Researchers at Stanford University studied 28,503 U.S. patients receiving dialysis in July 2020 and found that 8% of those sampled had COVID-19 antibodies — 9.3% when standardized to the general U.S. adult population.
The study raises questions over “herd immunity,” the idea that when enough a large enough population becomes immune the virus could die off. One big problem, experts have said, is that they don’t yet know enough about how immunity to COVID-19 develops to say whether antibodies provide adequate protection from reinfection.
“What we know about antibodies is that things get a little dicey,” said Dr. Jay Bhatt, an ABC News contributor and former chief medical officer of the American Hospital Association. “People don’t have a uniformly consistent or strong antibody response, so the question is, ‘Can we achieve herd immunity with this particular virus, or will that not be possible?'”
The results provide “yet another data point that helps us reinforce that there are significant amounts of people in this country that haven’t been exposed to the virus,” Bhatt added. “This study suggests that we have a long way to go to get to the kind of immunity we need to move past the virus.”
This study is different from many others in that it looked at dialysis patients, who already undergo routine, monthly laboratory studies. This allows for better and more reliable data collection.
Dialysis cleans the blood of patients with end-stage kidney disease. Because dialysis patients are from a diverse range of backgrounds, ethnicities and socioeconomic statuses, the group studied is a reasonable approximation for the rest of the country, the researchers said.
John Brownstein, an ABC News contributor and epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, said the study’s findings should be taken with a grain of salt as dialysis patients aren’t necessarily representative of the general population.
Because dialysis patients are less likely to be employed and many have issues with mobility, they also could have been exposed to COVID-19 at lower rates, which would mean the actual number of people with antibodies has been underestimated. Or conversely, individuals on dialysis may be more susceptible to the virus because of chronic underlying health issues, meaning the number of those with antibodies has been overestimated.
Patients with end-stage kidney disease and patients with severe COVID-19 have several risk factors in common: they’re older, have higher rates of hypertension and diabetes, and people of color are disproportionately affected by both. This adds an extra layer of insight to the study’s findings.
“Being able to understand the level of vulnerability of the part of the population that is going to be most impacted by the virus is important,” Brownstein said. “And understanding where they are at in terms of immunity or potential immunity is valuable information.”
Leah Croll, M.D., a neurology resident at NYU Langone Health, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
Jimmy Lai’s future is uncertain. The media tycoon is one of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy activists and one of Beijing’s most ardent critics. This, according to Lai, makes him “a logical target” of the Chinese government.
Lai is out on bail after he was arrested under the controversial new security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong this summer to clamp down on the pro-democracy movement after a year of protests.
Speaking with ABC News at his home in Hong Kong, the 71-year-old former textile magnate explained why he wanted to try his hand at publishing after the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing.
“I never thought I was doing something for society or having a mission or whatever. It was just some rebelliousness in my nature that prompted me,” he said.
But the controversy surrounding Lai reached new heights on Aug. 10 when he was arrested at his home for collusion with foreign forces. Around 200 police officers were then sent to raid the offices of Apple Daily, which Lai started 25 years ago.
Several of Lai’s executives were also arrested.
The day after the arrests and newsroom raid, supportive Hong Kong residents bought copies of the paper, in what Lai called “a form of resistance” at a time when protests have been curbed by the pandemic.
When Lai was released on bail 36 hours after he was detained, he received a hero’s welcome back in the newsroom.
“Apple Daily is considered the most important independent and pro-democracy paper in Hong Kong and Jimmy Lai himself has become a kind of icon,” said Ma Ngok, an associate professor of political science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “It’s controversial because a lot of people don’t like its sensationalism and then some people will see its reports as bias. But a lot of people would think that Apple Daily still is a very important voice, if we believe that Hong Kong enjoys a wide diversity of political opinions.”
Ma said the tabloid has also played an “advocacy role” in calling on people to join democracy movements, including during last year’s months-long protests that at times turned violent.
Journalists at Apple Daily, who spoke to ABC News over several weeks, said their bylines have been removed from stories for their protection.
They only wanted to be identified by their first names in interviews.
“Many colleagues had mental issues and depression … even in 2020, when I see police officers patrolling the streets, it will also make me nervous,” KT added.
Some journalists at Apple Daily fear that they, too, will become targets of the national security law but vow to carry on with their work as usual.
“It’s as if the more pressure that we face, we think it is more important for us to do our job,” said reporter Tweety, who livestreamed the 2019 protests as the events unfolded.
Before the national security law was imposed on June 30, Apple Daily’s investigative team made sure their sources were protected.
“We destroyed all the documents which contain sensitive information. We digitalized the documents and saved them into a private server overseas,” said Antony, who files hard-hitting investigative reports for the paper.
But Apple Daily’s struggles go beyond the newsroom.
In Hong Kong’s business community, Lai is a rare democratic voice.
“We don’t have many advertisements from commercial sectors because they have a close relationship with the authorities and the Chinese government, so they don’t like us,” Apple Daily Editor-in-Chief Alvin Wong said. “And they won’t advertise in our newspaper. Our financial support mainly comes from Mr. Lai.”
But Lai said Apple Daily will go on no matter what happens to him: “We will continue to the last day.”
Reflecting on his detention in August, before authorities granted his bail and took away his passport, Lai said he has made peace with his future.
A tearful Lai explained how he had “escaped from China” when he was just 12 years old: “I came here with one dollar. I owe this place everything.”
As for his team of determined editors and journalists, Lai said, “They will have to be careful. I cannot protect them. But they are very motivated because they know now is the time to test their integrity.”
