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Politics

How Republican States Are Increasing Their Energy Over Elections

How Republican States Are Expanding Their Power Over Elections

LaGRANGE, Georgia – Lonnie Hollis has served on the Troup County’s Electoral Committee in western Georgia since 2013. As a Democrat and one of two black women on the board, she spoke out in favor of the Sunday election, helped voters on election days and moved to a new district in a black church in a nearby town.

But this year, Ms. Hollis will be removed from the board, the result of a local electoral law signed by Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican. Previously, the members of the electoral board were elected by both political parties, the district commissioner and the three largest municipalities in the Troup district. Now the GOP-controlled district commission has sole power to restructure the board and appoint all new members.

“I speak out and know the laws,” said Ms. Hollis in an interview. “The bottom line is that they don’t like people who have any kind of intelligence and know what they’re doing because they know they can’t influence them.”

Mrs. Hollis is not alone. Across Georgia, at least 10 district electoral committees have been dismissed, removed from office, or are likely to be dismissed by local ordinances or new laws passed by the state legislature. At least five are colored and most are Democrats – although some are Republicans – and they will most likely all be replaced by Republicans.

Ms. Hollis, and local officials like her, were some of the earliest victims when Republican-led parliaments took on a massive takeover of the electoral administration in a series of new voting bills this year.

GOP lawmakers have also stripped secretaries of state of their power, exercised more control over state electoral boards, facilitated the overturning of election results, and conducted several partisan reviews and inspections of 2020 results.

Republican lawmakers in 41 states have tabled at least 216 bills to give lawmakers more power over election officials, according to the United States’ United Democracy Center, a new bipartisan organization dedicated to protecting democratic norms. Of these, 24 were enacted in 14 states.

GOP lawmakers in Georgia say the new measures are designed to improve the performance of local bodies and reduce the influence of political parties. But the laws allow Republicans to remove local officials they dislike, and since some of them were Black Democrats, franchise groups fear these are further attempts to disenfranchise colored voters.

The maneuvers risk undermining some of the core controls that served as a bulwark against former President Donald J. Trump as he tried to undermine the 2020 election results. If these bills had come into effect after the election, Democrats say, they would have greatly increased the turmoil Trump and his allies created by attempting to overturn the outcome. They fear that proponents of Trump’s conspiracy theories will soon have much greater control over the levers of the American electoral system.

“It is a barely veiled attempt to wrest control from the officials who led one of the safest elections in our history and to place them in the hands of bad actors,” said Jena Griswold, chairwoman of the Association of Democratic State Secretaries and the current one Colorado Secretary of State. “The risk is the destruction of democracy.”

Officials like Ms. Hollis are responsible for making decisions such as choosing mailbox and district locations, sending out election notices, setting early polling times, and certifying elections. But the new laws also target senior state officials, particularly foreign ministers – both Republican and Democratic – who have stood up against Trump and his allies over the past year.

The Republicans in Arizona have tabled a bill that would largely deprive Katie Hobbs, the Democratic Secretary of State, of her powers on election lawsuits and then expire when she leaves office. And they have tabled another bill that would give the legislature more power in setting guidelines for election administration, an important task currently being carried out by the Foreign Minister.

Under Georgia’s new electoral law, Republicans have severely weakened the office of Secretary of State after Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who is the current secretary, rejected Trump’s demands to “find” votes. You have dismissed the State Secretary as chairman of the state election committee and relieved his voting rights on the board.

The Kansas Republicans in May vetoed Democrat Laura Kelly to pass laws that would deprive the governor of changing electoral law and the Secretary of State, a Republican who repeatedly vouched for the security of postal votes, from the settlement election-related actions without the consent of the legislature.

And more Republicans who hold on to Mr. Trump’s election lies are running for secretary of state, bringing conspiracy theorists to a critical position within reach. In Georgia, MP Jody Hice, a Republican who voted against confirming President Biden’s victory, is running against Raffensperger. Republican candidates with similar views are running for secretary of state in Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan.

“In virtually every state, every polling officer will feel like they’re under the microscope,” said Victoria Bassetti, a senior adviser with the United Democracy Center in the United States.

In the short term, it is local election officials at district and community level who are either deposed or robbed of their power.

In Arkansas, Republicans were stabbed last year when Jim Sorvillo, a three-time state official from Little Rock, lost re-election by 24 votes to Ashley Hudson, a Democrat and local lawyer. It was later found that election officials in Pulaski County, which includes Little Rock, inadvertently tabulated 327 postal ballot papers, 27 of which were from the district, during the vote count.

Mr. Sorvillo filed several lawsuits to prevent Ms. Hudson from being seated, and all of them were denied. The Republican faction considered refusing to seat Ms. Hudson and then eventually voted to accept her.

But last month the Arkansas Republicans passed a new bill that would allow a state committee of electoral officers – made up of six Republicans and one Democrat – to investigate a variety of issues at every stage of the electoral process, from registration onwards, and Initiate corrective action “. for the submission and counting of ballot papers to confirm elections. The law applies to all counties, but it is widely believed to be directed against Pulaski, one of the few in the state who favor Democrats.

The draftsman, State Representative Mark Lowery, a Republican from a suburb of Little Rock, said it was necessary to remove voting power from local authorities, who are Democrats in Pulaski County, because otherwise Republicans could not be shaken fairly .

“Without this legislation, you would have been the only authority to turn to the prosecutor for inappropriateness, who is a Democrat and may have done nothing,” Lowery said in an interview. “This gives another level of investigative power to a state-mandated body to oversee the elections.”

When asked about last year’s election, Mr. Lowery said, “I think Donald Trump was elected President.”

A separate new Arkansas law allows a state board to “vote and conduct” elections in a county when a legislative committee determines that there are questions about the “appearance of an equal, free, and impartial election.”

In Georgia, lawmakers passed a unique law for some counties. For Troup County, State Representative Randy Nix, a Republican, said he only tabled the county electoral board reorganization bill – and which will remove Ms. Hollis – after a motion was requested by county commissioners. He said he was not worried that the commission, a party body made up of four Republicans and one Democrat, could influence the elections.

“The commissioners are all elected officials and will face the electorate to answer for their actions,” Nix said in an email.

Eric Mosley, the county manager for Troup County, which Trump scored 22 points, said the decision to ask Mr. Nix for the bill was intended to make the board more bipartisan. It was unanimously supported by the Commission.

“We believed that the ultimate intent of the board of directors was to choose the removal of both Republican and Democratic representation and the real selection of members of the community who invest heavily to serve those members of the community,” Mosley said. “Our goal is to create both political and racial diversity on the board.”

In Morgan County, east of Atlanta, Helen Butler was one of the most prominent Democratic voices in the state on suffrage and electoral administration. As a member of the county electoral committee in a rural Republican district, she also leads the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a group dedicated to protecting the voting rights of black Americans and strengthening their civic engagement.

But Ms. Butler will be removed from the county board at the end of the month after Mr. Kemp signed a local law ending the ability of political parties to appoint members.

“I think this is all part of the local electoral board takeover trick that state lawmakers put in place,” Ms. Butler said. “They say they have a right to say whether an election officer is doing it right, even though they don’t work on a day-to-day basis and don’t understand the process itself.”

It’s not just Democrats who are being removed. In DeKalb County, the fourth largest in the state, Republicans decided not to nominate Baoky Vu to the electoral board again after more than 12 years in office. Mr. Vu, a Republican, had written with the Democrats in a letter that opposed an election-related bill that was ultimately not passed.

To replace Mr. Vu, Republicans nominated Paul Maner, a prominent local conservative with a history of false testimony, including the allusion that the son of a Georgia congressman was killed in “a drug deal gone wrong”.

Back in LaGrange, Ms. Hollis tries to do as much as possible in the remaining time on the board. The additional precinct in nearby Hogansville, where the population is roughly 50 percent black, is a top priority. Although the city only has about 3,000 residents, the city is divided by a railroad, and Ms. Hollis said it can sometimes take a long time to clear a freight car line, which is problematic on election days.

“We worked on it for over a year,” Ms. Hollis said, saying the Republicans had put procedural hurdles in place to block the process. But she was not deterred.

“I’m not going to sit there and wait for you to tell me what to do for the voters there,” she said. “I’ll do the right thing.”

Rachel Shorey contributed to the research.

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Health

Scientists Report Earliest Identified Coronavirus Circumstances in 5 US States

Scientists Report Earliest Known Coronavirus Cases in Five US States

When did the coronavirus arrive in the US?

The first infection was confirmed on January 21, 2020 in a Washington state resident who had recently returned from Wuhan, China. Shortly afterwards, experts concluded that the virus had been in the country for weeks.

A study published Tuesday provides new evidence: Based on an analysis of blood tests, scientists identified seven people in five states who may have been infected long before the first confirmed cases in those states. The results suggest that the virus was already circulating in Illinois, for example, on December 24, 2019, although the first case in that state was confirmed a month later.

But the new study is flawed, some experts said: it did not adequately address the possibility that the antibodies were against coronaviruses, which cause colds, and the results could be a quirk of the tests used. In addition, the researchers did not have any travel information for any of the patients, which may have helped explain the test results.

“This is an interesting paper because it raises the idea that everyone is believing that there were infections that went undiagnosed,” said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

But the small number of samples that tested positive made it difficult to be sure that these were real cases of infection and not just a methodological error. “It’s hard to tell what is a real signal and what is not,” he said.

However, if the results are correct, they reinforce the notion that bad testing in the US missed most of the cases in the first few weeks of the pandemic.

“You can’t see what’s going on without testing,” said Keri Althoff, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and lead author of the study. “In those earlier months, some of those states that we didn’t suspect had a lot of infections.”

It is no surprise that there may have been undocumented cases at the start of the pandemic, said Sarah Cobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. Experts “already knew this was the case when they looked at trends in excess mortality and hospital admissions,” she said.

The latest model from Dr. Cobey estimated that there were about 10,000 infections in Illinois as of March 1, 2020. “Given the dire state of the tests, there was no doubt we missed the earliest broadcast,” she added.

In the study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Dr. Althoff and her colleagues took blood samples from more than 24,000 people. They found nine people who donated blood between January 2 and March 18 last year and who appeared to have antibodies to the coronavirus.

Updated

June 15, 2021, 9:21 p.m. ET

Seven of the samples were from blood donated in their states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, and Massachusetts prior to the date of initial diagnosis. The results agree with those of another study that identified coronavirus antibodies in donated blood as early as mid-December 2019.

Participants were enrolled in a long-term project by the National Institutes of Health called All of Us, which aims to involve one million people in the United States to increase minority representation in research. Only about half of the study participants were white.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the virus would have infected very few people. A low prevalence increases the likelihood that an antibody test will incorrectly identify a sample as an antibody when it doesn’t, said Dr. Hensley – a false positive.

The researchers tried to minimize this possibility by using two antibody tests in a row. The first test identified 147 samples as possible antibodies to the coronavirus; the second reduced that number to nine.

The team also analyzed 1,000 blood samples from the 2018/19 cold and flu season and found none that tested positive for antibodies to the coronavirus.

“It is still very possible that some of these are false positives,” said Dr. Josh Denny, CEO of All of Us. But “the fact that they would all be false positives seems pretty unlikely with what we’ve done.”

The researchers said they planned to contact participants to inquire about travel history and would continue to analyze additional samples to estimate when the coronavirus hit American shores.

“The exact month it likely came to the US is still unknown,” said Dr. Althoff. “Right now, it’s essentially a puzzle, and our study is only part of that puzzle.”

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Health

Physician warns Southern states susceptible to Delta variant this summer time

Doctor warns Southern states vulnerable to Delta variant this summer

Dr. Peter Hotez warned that southern US states could feel the effects of the highly transmissible Delta-Covid variant as early as this summer, in part due to low vaccination rates.

“I’m really holding my breath about the south and what’s happening this summer,” said Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital.

“Here in the south, especially in Louisiana, Mississippi, we are seeing really low vaccination rates. And in many of these southern states, less than 10% of teenagers are vaccinated, so we have a real vulnerability here, ”said Hotez.

A new study in the UK found that Pfizer’s vaccine was 88% effective against the Delta variant, first discovered in India.

Vaccination rates vary across the US: More than 50% of the population in many northeastern states are now fully vaccinated, compared with only about 30% of the population in many southeastern states, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Tuesday, White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, on the importance of vaccines in protecting against the Delta variant, which he believes is responsible for more than 6% of US coronavirus infections that scientists have genetically sequenced.

Hotez told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that despite CDC warnings about an unexpectedly high number of cases of heart infections in 16- to 24-year-olds, he is still recommending Covid vaccinations for teenagers.

“I’m pretty confident that the possibility of severe Covid-19 from this new Delta variant is a much bigger problem, so I strongly recommend teenagers get their two doses of the vaccine,” said Hotez.

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World News

India to Take Over Vaccine Program From States Amid Criticism

India to Take Over Vaccine Program From States Amid Criticism

Amid criticism of the government’s handling of the coronavirus during one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India said in a nationwide address on Monday that the federal government would play a bigger role procuring vaccines on behalf of states. It’s a process that had been mired in confusion because of squabbling between the central and state governments and a lack of vaccine supply.

Mr. Modi said that his government would increase both the pace of inoculations and the purchasing of vaccines. Less than 4 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion people have been fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times database.

“The government of India will procure 75 percent stock from vaccine manufacturers and provide it to states,” he said. “That means, no state governments will have to spend anything on vaccines.”

Many Indian states had earlier vowed to vaccinate their populations for free, particularly those ruled by parties in opposition to Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, but they were forced to close vaccination centers after they ran out of supplies, a problem plaguing the entire country as infections continue to spread. Mr. Modi also announced free inoculations for all Indians above the age of 18, a policy that was earlier reserved for frontline workers and people above the age of 45.

The prime minister and his government have come under heavy criticism over their handling of the pandemic. Mr. Modi and members of his party appeared at political rallies and allowed mass gatherings to take place before the country experienced a devastating second wave of the pandemic.

Mr. Modi has kept a relatively low profile since his political rallies in April, in contrast with his frequent live addresses during the first wave of the pandemic last year, when he announced a nationwide lockdown four hours before it took effect.

Last week, the country’s top court asked the government to explain how it planned to achieve its own target of inoculating about 900 million adults by the end of the year. It also called out the government for allowing private health facilities to charge people under 45 for vaccinations, calling the policy “arbitrary and irrational.”

Mr. Modi said in his address that private hospitals will still be allowed to procure 25 percent stock of the vaccines. State governments were required to ensure that only 150 rupees or a little more than $2 could be levied as a “service charge” over and above the usual price, he said.

On Monday, India’s health ministry reported more than 100,000 new cases and 2,427 deaths. Though the number is high, it was lower than it was in May when the country was reporting more than 400,000 cases a day. India’s official numbers are believed to be a vast undercount, especially at a time when the virus is spreading to rural areas where testing is limited.

“We are seeing how every single dose of vaccines is so important,” Mr. Modi said. “A life is attached to each dose.”

Extending the government’s assistance program for poor households beyond the months of May and June, Mr. Modi announced free distribution of food to over 800 million households every month until November. “The aim of this effort is to make sure no countrymen or their families are forced to go to bed hungry,” he said.

Mr. Modi also took aim at his opposition, who he blamed for “political mudslinging.”

“It is the responsibility of every government, every public representative, to ensure that vaccinations are done with full discipline, that we are able to reach every citizen, as per the availability of vaccines,” he said.

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Politics

Voting Rights Invoice Falters in Congress as States Race Forward

Voting Rights Bill Falters in Congress as States Race Ahead

WASHINGTON — In the national struggle over voting rights, Democrats have rested their hopes for turning back a wave of new restrictions in Republican-led states and expanding ballot access on their narrow majorities in Congress. Failure, they have repeatedly insisted, “is not an option.”

But as Republican efforts to clamp down on voting prevail across the country, the drive to enact the most sweeping elections overhaul in generations is faltering in the Senate. With a self-imposed Labor Day deadline for action, Democrats are struggling to unite around a strategy to overcome solid Republican opposition and an almost certain filibuster.

Republicans in Congress have dug in against the measure, with even the most moderate dismissing it as bloated and overly prescriptive. That leaves Democrats no option for passing it other than to try to force the bill through by destroying the filibuster rule — which requires 60 votes to put aside any senator’s objection — to pass it on a simple majority, party-line vote.

But Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the Democrats’ decisive swing vote, has repeatedly pledged to protect the filibuster and is refusing to sign on to the voting rights bill. He calls the legislation “too darn broad” and too partisan, despite endorsing such proposals in past sessions. Other Democrats also remain uneasy about some of its core provisions.

Navigating the 800-page For the People Act, or Senate Bill 1, through an evenly split chamber was never going to be an easy task, even after it passed the House with only Democratic votes. But the Democrats’ strategy for moving the measure increasingly hinges on the longest of long shots: persuading Mr. Manchin and the other 49 Democrats to support both the bill and the gutting of the filibuster.

“We ought to be able to pass it — it really would be transformative,” Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said recently. “But if we have several members of our caucus who have just point-blank said, ‘I will not break the filibuster,’ then what are we even doing?”

Summarizing the party’s challenge, another Democratic senator who asked to remain anonymous to discuss strategy summed it up this way: The path to passage is as narrow as it is rocky, but Democrats have no choice but to die trying to get across.

The hand-wringing is likely to only intensify in the coming weeks. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, vowed to force a floor debate in late June, testing Mr. Manchin’s opposition and laying the groundwork to justify scrapping the filibuster rule.

“Hopefully, we can get bipartisan support,” Mr. Schumer said. “So far, we have not seen any glimmers on S. 1, and if not, everything is on the table.”

The stakes, both politically and for the nation’s election systems, are enormous.

The bill’s failure would allow the enactment of restrictive new voting measures in Republican-led states such as Georgia, Florida and Montana to take effect without legislative challenge. Democrats fear that would empower the Republican Party to pursue a strategy of marginalizing Black and young voters based on former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

If the measure passed, Democrats could effectively overpower the states by putting in place new national mandates that they set up automatic voter registration, hold regular no-excuse early and mail-in voting, and restore the franchise to felons who have served their terms. The legislation would also end partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, restructure the Federal Election Commission and require super PACs to disclose their big donors.

A legion of advocacy groups and civil rights veterans argue that the fight is just starting.

“This game isn’t done — we are just gearing up for a floor fight,” said Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United and Let America Vote, which are spending millions of dollars on television ads in states like West Virginia. “At the end of the day, every single senator is going to have to make a choice if they are going to vote to uphold the right to vote or uphold an arcane Senate rule. That is the situation that creates the pressure to act.”

Proponents of the overhaul on and off Capitol Hill have focused their attention for weeks on Mr. Manchin, a centrist who has expressed deep concerns about the consequences of pushing through voting legislation with the support of only one party. So far, they have taken a deliberately hands-off approach, betting that the senator will realize that there is no real compromise to be had with Republicans.

There is little sign that he has come to that conclusion on his own. Democrats huddled last week in a large conference room atop a Senate office building to discuss the bill, making sure Mr. Manchin was there for an elaborate presentation about why it was vital. Mr. Schumer invited Marc E. Elias, the well-known Democratic election lawyer, to explain in detail the extent of the restrictions being pushed through Republican statehouses around the country. Senators as ideologically diverse as Raphael Warnock of Georgia, a progressive, and Jon Tester of Montana, a centrist, warned what might happen if the party did not act.

Mr. Manchin listened silently and emerged saying his position had not changed.

“I’m learning,” he told reporters. “Basically, we’re going to be talking and negotiating, talking and negotiating, and talking and negotiating.”

Despite the intense focus on him, Mr. Manchin is not the only hurdle. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, is a co-sponsor of the election overhaul, but she has also pledged not to change the filibuster. A handful of other Democrats have shied away from definitive statements but are no less eager to do away with the rule.

“I’m not to that point yet,” Mr. Tester said. He also signaled he might be more comfortable modifying the bill, saying he “wouldn’t lose any sleep” if Democrats dropped a provision that would create a new public campaign financing system for congressional candidates. Republicans have pilloried it.

“First of all, we have to figure out if we have all the Democrats on board. Then we have to figure out if we have any Republicans on board,” Mr. Tester said. “Then we can answer that question.”

Republicans are hoping that by banding together, they can doom the measure’s prospects. They succeeded in deadlocking a key committee considering the legislation, though their opposition did not bar it from advancing to the full Senate. They accuse Democrats of using the voting rights provisions to distract from other provisions in the bill, which they argue are designed to give Democrats lasting political advantages. If they can prevent Mr. Manchin and others from changing their minds on keeping the filibuster, they will have thwarted the entire endeavor.

The Battle Over Voting Rights

Amid months of false claims by former President Donald J. Trump that the 2020 election was stolen from him, Republican lawmakers in many states are marching ahead to pass laws making it harder to vote and changing how elections are run, frustrating Democrats and even some election officials in their own party.

    • A Key Topic: The rules and procedures of elections have become a central issue in American politics. The Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal-leaning law and justice institute at New York University, counts 361 bills in 47 states that seek to tighten voting rules. At the same time, 843 bills have been introduced with provisions to improve access to voting.
    • The Basic Measures: The restrictions vary by state but can include limiting the use of ballot drop boxes, adding identification requirements for voters requesting absentee ballots, and doing away with local laws that allow automatic registration for absentee voting.
    • More Extreme Measures: Some measures go beyond altering how one votes, including tweaking Electoral College and judicial election rules, clamping down on citizen-led ballot initiatives, and outlawing private donations that provide resources for administering elections.
    • Pushback: This Republican effort has led Democrats in Congress to find a way to pass federal voting laws. A sweeping voting rights bill passed the House in March, but faces difficult obstacles in the Senate. Republicans have remained united against the proposal and even if the bill became law, it would likely face steep legal challenges.
    • Florida: Measures here include limiting the use of drop boxes, adding more identification requirements for absentee ballots, requiring voters to request an absentee ballot for each election, limiting who could collect and drop off ballots, and further empowering partisan observers during the ballot-counting process.
    • Texas: The next big move could happen here, where Republicans in the legislature are brushing aside objections from corporate titans and moving on a vast election bill that would be among the most severe in the nation. It would impose new restrictions on early voting, ban drive-through voting, threaten election officials with harsher penalties and greatly empower partisan poll watchers.
    • Other States: Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill that would limit the distribution of mail ballots. The bill, which includes removing voters from the state’s Permanent Early Voting List if they do not cast a ballot at least once every two years, may be only the first in a series of voting restrictions to be enacted there. Georgia Republicans in March enacted far-reaching new voting laws that limit ballot drop-boxes and make the distribution of water within certain boundaries of a polling station a misdemeanor. Iowa has also imposed new limits, including reducing the period for early voting and in-person voting hours on Election Day. And bills to restrict voting have been moving through the Republican-led Legislature in Michigan.

“I don’t think they can convince 50 of their members this is the right thing to do,” said Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri. “I think it would be hard to explain giving government money to politicians, the partisan F.E.C.”

In the meantime, Mr. Manchin is pushing the party to embrace what he sees as a more palatable alternative: legislation named after Representative John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights icon who died last year, that would restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the Supreme Court struck down in 2013.

That measure would revive a mandate that states and localities with patterns of discrimination clear election law changes with the federal government in advance, a requirement Mr. Manchin has suggested should be applied nationwide.

The senator has said he prefers the approach because it would restore a practice that was the law of the land for decades and enjoyed broad bipartisan support of the kind necessary to ensure the public’s trust in election law.

In reality, though, that bill has no better chance of becoming law without getting rid of the filibuster. Since the 2013 decision, when the justices asked Congress to send them an updated pre-clearance formula for reinstatement, Republicans have shown little interest in doing so.

Only one, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, supports legislation reinstating the voting rights provision in the Senate. Asked recently about the prospect of building more Republican support, Ms. Murkowski pointed out that she had been unable to attract another co-sponsor from her party in the six years since the bill was first introduced.

Complicating matters, it has yet to actually be reintroduced this term and may not be for months. Because any new enforcement provision would have to pass muster with the courts, Democrats are proceeding cautiously with a series of public hearings.

All that has created an enormous time crunch. Election lawyers have advised Democrats that they have until Labor Day to make changes for the 2022 elections. Beyond that, they could easily lose control of the House and Senate.

“The time clock for this is running out as we approach a midterm election when we face losing the Senate and even the House,” said Representative Terri A. Sewell, a Democrat who represents the so-called Civil Rights Belt of Alabama and is the lead sponsor of the bill named for Mr. Lewis.

“If the vote and protecting the rights of all Americans to exercise that most precious right isn’t worth overcoming a procedural filibuster,” she said, “then what is?”

Luke Broadwater contributed reporting.

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Health

NY Covid vaccine charges plummet as states roll out extra freebies for pictures

NY Covid vaccine rates plummet as states roll out more freebies for shots

Naomi Hassebroek receives her second COVID-19 vaccine at NYC Health+Hospitals Gotham Health Sydenham, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, March 29, 2021.

Caitlin Ochs | Reuters

New York’s Covid-19 vaccination rate has declined dramatically in recent days, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday as he pleaded with residents to get immunized against the disease that’s claimed more than 590,000 lives in America.

The state administered just 63,000 vaccines in the last 24 hours, with a seven-day average of about 133,000 shots administered in the past week as of May 24, according to state data.

The current seven-day average is a small increase from last week’s but a sharp drop from the state’s peak when it reported a seven-day average of about 266,000 vaccinations on April 4.

Cuomo urged New Yorkers to take vaccines seriously, saying the coronavirus pandemic is still a cause for caution.

“It’s not over, it’s managed, but it’s not over,” Cuomo said at a press briefing. “The number of vaccinations is dropping off dramatically, we’re now doing fewer than 100,000 per day — that’s a dramatic decline, 55% decline in how many vaccines we’re doing.”

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the U.S. is reporting an average of 1.8 million vaccinations per day over the past week. About 49% of the U.S. population has had at least one shot with 39% fully vaccinated.

The nationwide seven-day average for reported administered vaccines is currently 1.7 million, down from a peak seven-day immunization average of 3.4 million reported on April 13.

The slowing immunization rate has public officials like Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio offering different perks to convince reluctant people to get their vaccine shots. They’ve previously offered free Yankees tickets, “vax & scratch” lottery tickets, free subway and railroad rides, and tickets to popular attractions like zoos and gardens and more.

State parks will now be offering free passes with access to any of New York’s 16 state parks to anyone who gets the vaccine this week at a state park vaccination site, a campaign Cuomo dubbed “a shot in the park.”

Cuomo said he’s targeting the “youthful and the doubtful” with the latest round of incentives.

“Enjoy the park, come get a vaccine, we’re going to set up a vaccine site at everyone of the 16 state parks,” he said.

Maryland, Ohio and Oregon have set up vaccine lotteries to increase declining vaccination rates.

In Ohio, where vaccination rates were falling, the number of people 16 and older getting the shots jumped 28% the weekend after the state announced its vaccine lottery program. Ohio also announced that it would give five full college scholarships to randomly chosen vaccinated students.

New Jersey is offering anyone who gets their Covid shot in May a free beer at several local breweries as part of Gov. Phil Murphy’s “shot and a beer” campaign.

Private businesses across the U.S. have also offered incentives to vaccinated patrons like gift cards, free snacks, marijuana, beer and even free tickets to Six Flags in Illinois.

— CNBC’s Nate Rattner contributed to this report.

Categories
Health

Fauci says Covid infections are lowering in all 50 states

Fauci says Covid infections are decreasing in all 50 states

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director at the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a press conference with Press Secretary Jen Psaki at the White House in Washington, USA, on April 13, 2021.

Tom Brenner | Reuters

Dr. White House chief medical officer Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that Covid-19 infections are decreasing in every state in the United States

“All 50 states have now seen declines in infection rates,” Fauci said in an interview with Axios, suggesting the widespread declines would make it safer for Americans to resume activities such as indoor dining.

The US reports an average of 31,200 new cases per day over the past week, data from Johns Hopkins University shows. This corresponds to a decrease of 18% compared to the previous week. Case numbers have been falling since the country’s last peak about a month ago in mid-April, when the country recorded more than 71,000 cases per day.

Fauci did not provide the length of time over what period these declines in state-level infections have occurred. A CNBC analysis of the Johns Hopkins data shows the average daily caseload in 40 states has decreased by 5% or more over the past week.

The data is murky in some places, such as Alabama, where Johns Hopkins says the number of cases has been released in recent days, making the latest trend difficult to interpret.

Fauci’s statement suggests that the outbreak is weakening across the country, rather than being more confined to a particular state or region responsible for the decline in numbers.

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Health

Biden warns states with low immunization charges might even see circumstances rise once more

Biden warns states with low immunization rates may see cases rise again

President Joe Biden speaks out on the COVID-19 response and vaccination program in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on May 17, 2021.

Nicholas Comb | AFP | Getty Images

President Joe Biden warned on Monday that the number of coronavirus cases in US states with low Covid-19 vaccination rates could rise again.

For the first time since the pandemic began over a year ago, Covid-19 cases have declined in all 50 states, Biden said at a White House press conference on the nation’s progress in fighting the virus. This progress can still be reversed, especially in states where only a small percentage of people have been vaccinated.

“We know there will be strides and setbacks, and we know there can be many flare-ups that can occur,” said Biden. “But when the unvaccinated are vaccinated, they protect themselves and other unvaccinated people around them.”

He said it would be an unnecessary “tragedy” to see Covid cases among those who are not vaccinated.

“I want to thank the American people for doing their patriotic duty and vaccinating,” he said.

Biden’s comments on Monday were just his latest attempt to get Americans vaccinated as soon as possible.

Biden’s government is pushing for 70% of adults in the US to receive at least one dose of a Covid vaccine and 160 million adults to be fully vaccinated by July 4. Biden hopes this will mark a turning point in the pandemic.

As of Monday, more than 154 million American adults, or 59.7% of adults in the United States, had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the CDC, around 121 million American adults, or 47.1% of adults in the United States, are fully vaccinated.

The states with the highest number of doses given per 100,000 people include New Hampshire, New Mexico, Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, according to CDC data.

Biden said it was “easy as always” to get a Covid vaccine as many vaccination centers in the US offer walk-ins.

On Thursday, the CDC announced in updated public health guidelines that fully vaccinated people will no longer need to wear face masks or stay 6 feet away from others in most environments, whether outdoors or indoors. Many public health experts saw the move as yet another incentive for the administration to get vaccinated.

Earlier Monday, the White House announced that the US would send millions of additional doses of Covid vaccine abroad, which are still ravaged by the pandemic.

At least 20 million vaccine doses from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are expected to be shipped by the end of June, the White House said. This is on top of 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine that are also slated to be shipped by then, unless US regulatory approval has been obtained

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Health

How the USA Beat the Coronavirus Variants, for Now

How the United States Beat the Coronavirus Variants, for Now

On December 29, a National Guard in Colorado became the first known case in the United States of a contagious new variant of the coronavirus.

The news was unsettling. The variant, named B.1.1.7, had upset Britain, began to grow in Europe, and threatened to do the same in the United States. And while scientists didn’t know it yet, other mutants began popping up across the country. These included variants that had ravaged South Africa and Brazil that appeared to bypass the immune system, as well as others that were native to California, Oregon, and New York.

This mixture of variants could not have come at a worse time. The nation was at the beginning of a spate of post-vacation cases that would dwarf any previous waves. And the spread of powerful vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech has been botched by chaos and misunderstandings. Scientists warned that the variants – and especially B.1.1.7 – could lead to a fourth wave and that the already strained health system could give way.

That didn’t happen. B.1.1.7 became the predominant version of the virus in the United States and now accounts for nearly three quarters of all cases. But the surge experts feared they were just a slip-up in most of the country. The nationwide total daily new cases began to decline in April and is now down more than 85 percent from horrific highs in January.

“It’s pretty humble,” said Kristian Andersen, a virologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.

Dr. Andersen and other virus watchers still see variants as a potential source of problems in the coming months – especially one that has ravaged Brazil and is growing rapidly in 17 US states. But they are also taking stock of the past few months to better understand how the nation has evaded the variant threat.

Experts point to a combination of factors – masks, social distancing, and other restrictions, and possibly a seasonal decline in infections – that gave tens of millions of Americans crucial time to vaccinate. They also attribute a good dose of serendipity as B.1.1.7 is powerless against the vaccines unlike some of its competitors.

“I think we were lucky to be honest,” said Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at Yale University. “We are saved by the vaccine.”

After B.1.1.7 appeared at the end of December, new variants with combinations of disruptive mutations came to light. Scientists worried about how competition between the variants might develop.

In January, researchers in California discovered a variant with 10 mutations that was becoming more common there and drifting to other states. Laboratory experiments suggested that the variant of antibody treatment that had worked well against previous forms of the virus could be evaded, and that it was possibly more contagious as well.

In the months that followed, the United States dramatically improved its surveillance for the mutation of the variants. Last week, more than 28,800 virus genomes, nearly 10 percent of all positive test cases, were uploaded to an international online database called GISAID. This clearer picture has allowed scientists to observe how the mutants compete with each other.

The California variant proved a weak competitor, and its numbers fell sharply in February and March. It’s still common in parts of northern California, but it has virtually disappeared from the southern parts of the state and never gained a foothold anywhere else in the country. As of April 24, it made up only 3.2 percent of all virus samples tested in the country, while B.1.1.7 rose to 66 percent.

“B.1.1.7 went to knockout and it’s like ‘Bye bye, California variant’,” said Dr. Andersen.

Across the country, researchers reported in February that a variant called B.1.526 spread quickly in New York and appeared to be a formidable opponent for B.1.1.7. By February, each of these variants was down to about 35 percent of the Dr. Grubaugh’s Connecticut laboratory has grown. But B.1.1.7 has the edge.

Updated

May 16, 2021, 6:13 p.m. ET

In fact, B.1.1.7 seems to have an advantage over almost every variant identified so far. At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that B.1.1.7 accounts for 72 percent of cases in the country.

“We really see how B.1.1.7 decisively pushes out other variants,” said Emma Hodcroft, epidemiologist at the University of Bern.

The variants identified in California and New York were found to be only moderately more contagious than older versions of the virus, and much of their initial success may have been luck. The general boom in cases last fall exacerbated what might otherwise have gone undetected.

It is unclear what gives B.1.1.7 an advantage over the others. “Is it the largest of all the variants? It’s hard to tell right now, ”said Angela Rasmussen, virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Organization. “We need more research to find out what all these combinations of mutations do.” Some of the answers may come from California, where researchers are holding a head-to-head competition in a laboratory and injecting mice with a cocktail of B.1.1.7 and six other variants.

“The idea is to see who will prevail,” said Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist at the University of California at San Francisco, who was the first scientist to discover the California variant.

In Michigan, one of the few states to see an increase in projected cases this spring, B.1.1.7 found a catch in younger people returning to school and engaging in contact sports.

“Because it’s more transmissible, the virus finds behavioral cracks that normally wouldn’t have been as problematic,” said Emily Martin, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan.

But in the rest of the country, of course, people became more cautious when faced with the terrible numbers of the virus after the holidays. B.1.1.7 is thought to be about 60 percent more contagious than previous forms of the virus, but the way it spreads is no different. Most states had at least partial restrictions on indoor eating and introduced mask mandates.

“B.1.1.7 is more transferable but cannot jump through a mask,” said Dr. Hodcroft. “So we can still stop its spread.”

However, other experts are still concerned about how much the virus appears to have defied predictions.

“I can’t necessarily attribute it to behavior,” said Sarah Cobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. Respiratory viruses sometimes go through seasonal cycles, but it’s not clear why the coronavirus cycle would have caused it to go back in the middle of winter. “That might make me even more ignorant,” she said.

It is also puzzling why variants that have beaten other countries have not yet become widespread in the United States. B. 1,351 rapidly dominated South Africa and several other African countries late last year. It was first reported in the US on January 28, but it still only accounts for 1 percent of the cases. This may be because it is not ahead of the rapidly expanding B.1.1.7.

“I think that’s because it doesn’t really have much of a transmission benefit,” said William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

P.1, a variant that is devastating Brazil, got off to a sluggish start in the US but is now estimated to account for more than 10 percent of the country’s cases.

“I think it is a matter of time before the P.1 variant becomes one of the most widespread in the US,” warned Dr. André Ricardo Ribas Freitas, a medical epidemiologist at the Faculdade São Leopoldo Mandic in Brazil.

Still, Nels Elde, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Utah, said the events of the past four months had raised questions about whether it was worth fretting over different variations rather than focusing on the behaviors that can limit them all.

“We split the hair between a handful of mutations here and there, we lost perspective,” he said. “It’s catnip for an inquisitive mind.”

The United States also has a plethora of powerful vaccines that make variants an academic problem rather than a concern for the average person. The vaccines may be slightly less effective against the variants identified in South Africa and Brazil, but prevent serious illness in all known variants.

It is not impossible that the situation could get worse. Only about 35 percent of people in the United States are fully immunized, and protection from the vaccines could wear off by winter. Nobody knows how variants that appear in other parts of the world, like one that has grown in importance in India and is circulating at a low level in the US, will behave here. And even more variants will inevitably appear in places where the virus is widespread, warned Dr. Cobey: “There is still a lot to be done.”

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World News

Many States with Unhealthy Latest Outbreaks Present Instances and Hospitalization Drops

Many States with Bad Recent Outbreaks Show Cases and Hospitalization Drops

According to a database from the New York Times, many of the states that have seen the worst coronavirus outbreaks recently have seen significant decreases in both new cases and hospitalizations over the past two weeks.

For example, in Michigan, which has had one of the steepest declines in the country, the average number of daily cases fell 45 percent and hospital admissions fell 32 percent during that period as of Tuesday.

The average number of new cases in the past two weeks has decreased 30 percent in Minnesota, 38 percent in Pennsylvania, and 33 percent in Florida. In the same three states, hospital admissions are down 20 percent, 27 percent, and 11 percent.

Advances for states like Michigan, which recently began to recover from one of the worst sections of the pandemic, may suggest vaccinations are starting to curb the virus in the United States. Hospitalization dates can often lag behind case numbers for a number of reasons.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky testified at a Senate hearing Tuesday that, although encouraged by the achievements against the pandemic, she urged Americans to remain vigilant about the threat from the virus around the world.

Ms. Walensky said a vaccine is the fastest way to end the pandemic.

“But even with this powerful tool, while we continue to have community transmission, we must adhere to public health measures that we know will prevent the spread of this virus, mask hygiene, hand hygiene and physical distancing “, she said.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview that the vaccines had been a major contributor to improving case numbers and hospitalizations, but that the virus behaved in surprising ways There remained aspects that experts had to learn more about.

As an example of the unpredictable ups and downs of the virus, Dr. Osterholm pointed to Indiana, which borders Michigan and has lower vaccination rates, but has not seen the same increase in case numbers recently as its northern neighbor.

“I don’t see any national upswing. We won’t be like India. I think the vaccine concentration has certainly helped us immensely in getting that off the table, ”said Dr. Osterholm. “But I think at the state level, where we have significant populations that need vaccination, we could still see significant activity.”

After reaching an average high of 3.38 million doses per day in mid-April, the pace of US vaccinations had slowed. Almost every state now has a spate of vaccine doses that could be quickly distributed to teenagers once the Pfizer BionTech vaccine is approved for 12-15 year olds.

President Biden is pursuing a strategy that focuses on local reach and expanded vaccine access to meet his goal of at least partially vaccinating 70 percent of Americans by Independence Day.

“When it’s available, when it’s close by, when it’s convenient, people get vaccinated,” Biden said at the White House on Wednesday, highlighting initiatives like the availability of walk-ins and free Uber and Lyft trips to vaccination sites .

The vaccination relief could appeal to the 30 million or so Americans who say they’ll get the shot but have not yet done so for a myriad of reasons. Local officials and private companies are also offering a wide range of different incentives, such as free subway rides, beer, baseball tickets, and cash withdrawals, to make Americans reluctant to get vaccinated.

The changes in the virus’ trajectory in the United States are due to other regions of the world, particularly India and Southeast Asia, being hit hard. A number of variants are also spreading around the world, and scientists told a US Congressional panel on Wednesday that variants will pose an ongoing threat to the nation.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, said Monday that the world is seeing a plateau in known cases, “but it’s an unacceptably high plateau, with more than 5.4 million cases and nearly 90,000 deaths in the past week.”

He continued, “Any decline is welcome, but we’ve been here before. Over the past year, many countries have seen a downward trend in cases and deaths, public health and society policies too quickly eased, and individuals have disappointed their vigilance only for these hard-won gains are being lost. “

Bryan Pietsch contributed to the reporting.