WTF Just Happened Today

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

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• ???? Dept. of “We Have It Totally Under Control.”

• Global: Total confirmed cases: ~11,712,000; deaths: ~541,000

• U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~2,981,000; deaths: ~132,000

• Source: Johns Hopkins University

1/ The Trump administration officially notified the United Nations that it will withdraw from the World Health Organization amid a global pandemic that has infected more than 11.6 million people and killed more than a half a million. In April, Trump announced that the U.S. would freeze funding to the organization pending a review, followed by Trump’s threat in May that the U.S. would be “terminating” its relationship with the WHO over its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. is required to give a year’s notice in writing and pay its debts to the agency in order to leave. In 2019, the U.S. contributed roughly 15% of the health agency’s budget. (Washington Post / NBC News / New York Times)

2/ Trump pressed schools to physically reopen in the fall despite a surge in COVID-19 cases in parts of the country. During a series of conference calls and roundtable discussions at the White House – billed as a “National Dialogue on Safely Reopening America’s Schools” – Trump argued that keeping children at home longer would be worse than the virus itself, and that the governors, mayors, and other local officials who control the schools “think it’s going to be good for them politically so they keep the schools closed.” Trump added: “We are very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools to get them open.” On Monday night, Trump has made his position clear, tweeting: “SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, meanwhile, said she was “disappointed frankly in schools and districts that didn’t figure out how to serve students or that just gave up and didn’t try” to reopen in the fall. (New York Times / NPR / Politico / Bloomberg)

3/ Dr. Anthony Fauci called Trump’s recent focus on the coronavirus’s decreasing mortality rate in the U.S. a “false narrative” and that “by getting infected, you’re propagating this pandemic.” Trump, contradicting health experts, has called “99 percent” of coronavirus cases “totally harmless.” The nation’s top infectious disease expert said the lower mortality rate is the result of the country getting better at treating people and that the mean age of those getting infected has dropped by about 15 years. The White House, meanwhile, claimed that the U.S. is the “leader” in the fight against the coronavirus, despite the number of deaths in the U.S. passing 130,000 and cases nearing three million. (Washington Post /