Be smart. Mask up! -- July 30, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Near a neighborhood park in Alexandria, a yard sign reads: “Don’t be Stupid. Make America Healthy Again. Wear a Facemask!”

The sign is bipartisan -- half blue and half red -- and diverse. At the bottom an assortment of faces wears masks.

Back home, Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, is on TV, telling me: “Wear a mask.”

“We have the power – the American people do – to slow the spread of this virus,” he said Thursday on NBC’s Today show.

All over social media, celebrities post selfies wearing masks and use the hashtag #wearadamnmask. It’s hard not to get the message.

More than 150,000 Americans have perished from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and more than 4.4 million people in the United States have been infected.

With the economy in distress, everyone wants to get to some sort of “new normal” life, whatever that may be, but the virus shows no sign of easing its vicious grip on the United States.

There’s no vaccine or treatment yet, and polls indicate many people worry a vaccine developed at “warp speed” may be unsafe. So states, companies and individuals hunker down.

Google announced Tuesday it would not bring employees back to their offices until next July at the earliest. It was the first big company to delay reopening that long but likely won’t be the last.

Meanwhile, the chasm grows between those who can safely work at home and those who must return to a dangerous workplace.

It would be easier to fight the disease if people broke out in a bright red coronavirus rash, but those without symptoms pass the disease to others.

And that’s why the tried-and-true advice for stopping the spread still holds. Wear a facial covering, keep six feet of social distance and wash hands frequently.

We know if we are asymptomatic and wear a mask, it helps protect others. If others also wear a mask, we protect each other.

Many stores, restaurants and other establishments now require customers to wear masks – for which millions of us are grateful. Don’t bother calling me a “sheeple,” easily led by the government. I’m not buying it.

Even President Donald Trump finally wore a mask. He says he usually doesn’t need one because he’s tested frequently, unlike most Americans. He and anyone he comes in close contact with receive their results quickly. Most Americans must wait days or a week for results, which renders contact tracing ineffective.

And that brings us to Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas. The anti-masker was tested Wednesday before he was supposed to fly on Air Force One with Trump.

When his test came back positive, Gohmert said he “can’t help but wonder” whether wearing a mask and taking it on and off somehow caused him to breathe in the virus.

“We don’t have any evidence that’s the case,” FDA’s Hahn said. “Our data show people should wear masks.”

Gohmert said he’s “all in” on hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug Trump has again been touting, despite it’s having been discredited by medical experts as a treatment for COVID-19. The drug can have serious side effects, affecting heart rhythms.

In the wake of Gohmert’s potentially infecting his staff and other members of Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered members to wear masks on the House floor except when recognized to speak.

I get that Americans hate being told what to do and masks – or their lack -- have become a political statement. We’ve seen the videos of unhinged people in stores going ballistic when asked to put on a mask.

But there’s no constitutional right to infect the front-line hero who rings up your chips and beer. It’s no show of personal liberty to infect your grandmother. Remember, 80% of the people who have died of COVID-19 are over 65.

Not wearing a mask is almost as dumb as attending a COVID-19 party because you think COVID is a hoax, as a 30-year-old man in Texas reportedly did. Shortly before he died of the disease, he told his nurse he’d made a mistake.

So, please be smart. Wear a mask. You might save someone’s life – and someone else might save yours.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved. 30

Summertime when ice wasn't easy -- July 23, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Of all the momentous issues with which the founding fathers had to grapple, one of the most perplexing was ice.

In his letters, George Washington often expressed his frustrations about being unable to preserve ice, historians at Mount Vernon tell us.

Writing his friend Robert Morris from Mount Vernon on June 2, 1784, Washington confided the ice in his icehouse is “is gone already,” and asked Morris to send a description of the size, manner of building and management of his icehouse in Pennsylvania.

“My house was filled chiefly with Snow,” Washington added, asking Morris if he had tried keeping snow and if he thought snow was key to Washington’s defeat.

Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, quickly obliged. From Philadelphia on June 15, he wrote nearly 600 words of detailed description of his icehouse, which, in case you’re wondering, was 16-feet square and 18-feet deep, with two sets of stone walls, wood and straw above and gravel below.

Morris tells Washington he tried saving snow one year and “lost it in June,” but he can keep ice from winter until the next October or November. If the icehouse were bigger, ice would last until Christmas, he thinks, and if the walls were lined with straw, even longer.

Morris further recommends ice be broken into small pieces and pounded with heavy clubs so it consolidates into a mass so solid it requires a chisel or axe to cut off pieces.

So, Washington had his slaves rebuild his icehouse on Morris’s model and kept tinkering with the design. If you visit Mount Vernon, you can see his icehouse cut into a hillside.

Slaves also did the hard and dangerous work of hauling large blocks of ice from the frigid Potomac River in the dead of winter, pulling the blocks to shore, dragging them to the icehouse and soaking them with water, so they’d freeze into a mound, historians tell us.

And that is how the father of our country and his wife came to enjoy cool drinks and iced cream, as it was then called, long after winter had passed.

“In the warm season, ice is the most agreeable thing we can have,” Martha Washington wrote in 1793. (I’ve updated 18th century spellings and punctuation for clarity.) She loved entertaining women friends at weekly parties with ice cream and lemonade.

Washington’s icehouse was for his personal use as were icehouses built for later presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, but only the very rich could afford their own.

In 1793, an enterprising tavern owner built an ice well in Alexandria, a few miles from Mount Vernon. City Tavern, now known as Gadsby’s Tavern, at the corner of Royal and Cameron streets, offered the finest accommodations of the era, so, of course, it needed ice for guests.

That ice well could store as much as 68 tons of ice, enough for the tavern and local people who wished to buy it. In 1805, tavern owner John Gadsby sold ice for 8 cents a pound.

Magnificently restored a few years ago, the ice well has received several preservation design awards and is a magnet for visitors who peer for free into the subterranean well from the city sidewalk.

Today, we can’t help being struck not only by how much colder winters were in the 18th century but also by the amount of thought, labor and perseverance needed to thwart the process of melting.

In the past, the stories of early achievements of our young country failed to recognize the work of enslaved people. Times have changed, and we now understand much of our celebrated progress was won through the muscle and backs of the enslaved.

Preserving ice enabled the fortunate few to keep fresh meats longer and have more variety in their diet. In time, the treat became an expectation.

Ice is still transitory, of course, but these days we hardly worry about it melting. More cubes are always popping out of the icemaker in the fridge -- until the icemaker stops working and human intervention must once again be employed, in the form of low-tech ice trays.

We moderns worry about many things, but ice isn’t one of them. And for that we all can be grateful in the sizzling summer of 2020.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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Vote by mail -- yes, but . . . July 16, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The old adage about voting “early and often” may be half true this Election Day.

With more voters than ever likely to cast absentee ballots Nov. 3, more will be relying on the U.S. Postal Service. Voting early is advisable.

Major operational changes the new postmaster general is making that could slow mail service are disconcerting, especially as problems with undelivered absentee ballots already have popped up around the country during primary season.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told postal employees Monday in memos obtained and verified by The Washington Post the agency must operate more like a private business, would prohibit overtime and curtail other measures post offices use to deliver mail when understaffed.

Traditionally, the postal service has been run as a service, going the extra mile, so to speak, to make multiple trips to deliver letters and packages rather than leaving them in distribution centers overnight. No more.

“If plants run late, they will keep the mail for the next day,” a memo titled “New PMG’s [Postmaster General’s] expectations and plan” said, the Post reported.

Congressional allies of the Postal Service were quick to criticize the changes.

“If these reports are accurate, Trump and his cronies are openly seeking to destroy the post office during the worst public health crisis in a century,” Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said in a statement.

“With states now reliant on voting by mail to continue elections during the pandemic, the destabilizing of the post office is a direct attack on American democracy itself,” said Pascrell.

DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman and Trump mega-donor, took over as postmaster general in June at a critical time. President Donald Trump in April called the Postal Service “a joke” and said it should quadruple its package delivery fees, a move apparently aimed at Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, who owns the Post.

The beleaguered Postal Service is actually faring better financially during the pandemic because of the strong demand for package deliveries. Companies often use the postal service for “last mile” local deliveries.

But even before the latest cost-cutting measures, the Postal Service has struggled to adjust to a surge in absentee ballots. In 2020, many more voters are choosing to vote from home rather than stand in long lines.

In Dallas, some voters who had mailed in their absentee ballots for Tuesday’s elections unaccountably received them back only a day or two before the election, The Dallas Morning News reported.

In Wisconsin, three tubs of absentee ballot were found at a Milwaukee post office after the polls closed for the April 7 election. In addition, absentee ballots requested were not delivered and hundreds more mailed by voters were not postmarked.

Requests for absentee ballots in Wisconsin have soared 440% since 2016, a Postal Service inspector general report found, adding that date changes for mailing and completing ballots due to the coronavirus also complicated the spring elections.

The IG report identified potential nationwide issues it said could affect future elections. Among them: Some states set too-short deadlines to request absentee ballots, ballots lack mail-tracking technology and poor communication between the Postal Service and election offices.

About half the states have deadlines to request ballots of less than a week before Election Day. These deadlines “put ballots at high risk of not being delivered to voters before an election,” the report warned.

In Virginia, the deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail is 5 p.m. Oct. 23, but a voter can request an absentee ballot online or vote in person at their local registrar’s office 45 days before Election Day. You no longer need a reason to vote early in person or to cast an absentee ballot.

If you’re returning your ballot by mail, it must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by your registrar by noon on the third day after the election. Rules are slightly different for first time voters. See Virginia rules.  

No one knows what the novel coronavirus will be doing Nov. 3. So, don’t wait until the last minute. Vote early. America needs every ballot to count.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Reopen schools? Washington doesn't know best -- July 9, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

When it comes to managing schools, Thomas Jefferson had it right when he said: “The government closest to the people serves the people best.”

One size doesn’t fit all, especially during a raging pandemic. 

And yet, President Donald Trump and his allies are pressuring schools across the country to do things Trump’s way.

The president wants all schools to fully open in person this fall. He has threatened to withhold federal funds from school districts that take a more cautious approach.

Democrats and teachers’ groups say they want to reopen schools but do so safely, perhaps with some online classes.

Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans accuse each other of playing politics. In an election year? Say it isn’t so.

Whatever happened to local control?

Trump was all-in on local control when it came to making hard decisions about shutting businesses down or even wearing face coverings to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. He left it up to governors and local officials.

Had he articulated a national strategy of testing, contact tracing and treatment, we might have contained the virus, as some European countries have done.

Instead, because Trump believes his re-election depends on a recovered economy, he urged states to reopen, disregarding federal guidelines for doing so safely. This, sadly, led to a surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths in states that followed his edicts.

Now, he has both feet in local schools.

Trump again refuses to listen to public health experts, including the Centers for Disease Control, which issued guidelines for reopening schools.

“I disagree with the @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!” Trump tweeted Wednesday.

Vice President Mike Pence then announced the CDC would issue “a new set of tools” in a few days.

I’ve taken a look at the existing school guidelines, which set out three levels of risk. You don’t need a medical degree to know the lowest is virtual-only classes and events, highest is full-sized, in-person classes and events, and the middle involves students staying with the same teacher all day.

The current guidelines prescribe cleaning, physical distancing and planning protocols with at least a dozen instances of wiggle words like “if feasible” and “when possible.”

For example, “Face coverings should be worn by staff and students (particularly older students) as feasible, and are most essential in times when physical distancing is difficult.”

The first paragraph of the seven-page guidelines emphasizes: “These considerations are meant to supplement – not replace – any state, local, territorial, or tribal health and safety laws, rules, and regulations with which schools must comply.” (Bold-face words are in the original.)

Trump still could take the lead in insisting that more federal funds go to schools so they can buy the electronic devices needed so kids don’t have to share as well as cleaning and other supplies.

Schools also may need to hire staff. It’s not fair to ask overworked teachers who are risking their lives in the classroom also to disinfect the playground equipment.

House Democrats included $100 billion in funding to support schools in the relief bill that passed in May, but Senate Republicans nixed the money.

New York City and other school systems have decided full, in-person education is too risky.

Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos specifically scorned Fairfax County Public Schools, one of the largest in the nation with 189,000 students, for offering parents a choice of fully remote instruction or two days a week in the classroom.

Most of Virginia’s cases and deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, have occurred in Fairfax and other Northern Virginia counties.

But other parts of the state have had few, if any, virus deaths. Decisions about 

reopening schools likely will differ, and they should, depending on risk to public health.  

One size doesn’t fit all for the entire country nor is it a good idea for a whole state.

Let local school districts decide how to reopen without undue pressure from Washington. They know best their local needs.

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A terrible idea gets worse -- July 2, 2020 column

 

By MARSHA MERCER

President Donald Trump has devoted much of his 3 ½ years in office to painting over the name of Barack Obama.

Trump has sought to wipe out Obama’s efforts to de-nuke Iran, fight climate change, protect the environment, help the young Dreamers, and regulate Wall Street, among other things.

But nowhere is Trump’s obsession with obliterating his predecessor’s legacy more mystifying and confounding than with Obamacare. His mania to undo all things Obama could cost upwards of 20 million Americans their health insurance during a pandemic.

Trump repeatedly has promised to repeal Obama’s Affordable Care Act and replace it with a better, cheaper plan that retains its popular provisions.

For example, in June 2019, Trump said in an ABC News interview he’d propose “in about two months, maybe less” a “phenomenal” health plan that would be “less expensive than Obamacare by a lot.”

We’re still waiting.  

Obamacare is not perfect, and supporters want to mend it. Critics complain premiums are too high. Some people get subsidies to help defray the cost, but not all.

On the plus side, the 2010 law protects women from being charged more than men and people with pre-existing conditions from being denied coverage. It provides free health screenings and allows children up to age 26 to be covered under their parents’ plans.

The Trump administration filed a brief June 25 in the Supreme Court, saying the entire ACA “must fall” because Congress in 2017 eliminated the financial penalty for those who fail to buy health insurance.

Meanwhile, coronavirus cases are surging around the country, and hospitals in some states are filling up. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Tuesday the number of cases could soon jump from 40,000 a day now to 100,000 a day.

Fortunately, Obamacare remains in place. About half a million people have signed up for coverage in special enrollments as they’ve lost their jobs and their health insurance.

The court will hear oral arguments in California v. Texas in October at the earliest, so Obamacare could loom large just before the election. A ruling is expected by next spring or early summer.

Democratic candidates who rode the health care horse to victory in 2018, gaining control of the House, are saddling up again. The House Tuesday approved an Obamacare expansion in a vote largely along party lines. It was symbolic as the measure is dead in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Democrats remind voters if they contract and survive COVID-19 in a world without Obamacare they could lose their health insurance or it could be priced beyond their means – because they’d have a pre-existing condition. COVID-19 survivors often have impaired lungs and other organs. Survivors of cancer and other diseases could face a similar crisis.

Trump’s base, including the 18 red states hoping to overturn the ACA, are delighted Trump is still sticking it to Obamacare, but Republican candidates, especially in key Senate races, are being left high and dry.

Democrats need only three seats to retake the Senate if  Democrat Joe Biden wins the White House, four if Trump is re-elected. Some Republican candidates are scrambling to position themselves as defenders of health care.

Analysts on the right concede the timing of the administration’s brief and Supreme Court action on Obamacare is terrible for GOP candidates. The Trump re-election campaign hammers on Democrats’ “Bernie Sanders-inspired, socialist health care agenda,” and barely mentions Obamacare.

Don’t expect a Trump plan before November. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Sunday there would be none until after the court rules and a new Congress is in place.

What the court will do is anyone’s guess. Chief Justice John Roberts saved Obamacare in 2012. He wrote the 5 to 4 majority opinion saying the individual mandate, a requirement that most Americans have insurance or pay a penalty, was within Congress’s power to tax.

The Republican-controlled Congress in 2017 eliminated the penalty, which the law’s opponents contend makes the law unconstitutional.

It’s hard to imagine a worse time to push to eliminate a law that guarantees millions of Americans health insurance, no matter whose name is on it.  

 ©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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