Dear Commons Community,

Colleges around the country are making plans to deal with coronavirus in the fall.  Some will be operating online while others plan to open their campuses to their students.  For the latter, there is considerable risk.   The Chronicle of Higher Education has a lead article this morning discussing this issue. Here is an excerpt.

“This fall, if a Vanderbilt University student walks around campus without a mask, a “public-health ambassador” might stop the student, remind them that the institution requires face coverings, and hand over a packet stocked with a mask, gloves, and hand sanitizer.

Vanderbilt’s ambassador program, which debuted last month, is part of the university’s plan for ensuring — or, at least, encouraging — compliance with public-health guidelines designed to ease the spread of Covid-19. The first group of ambassadors are campus public-safety employees who have received special training. University officials say they soon hope to train “other members of our community.”

This fall, ambassadors will encourage mask-wearing — the university is requiring them in all public spaces, including outdoors — and attempt to ease congestion at building entrances and exits. They’ll answer people’s questions and direct them to the nearest hand-sanitizing station. If there are any government-ordered restrictions on, for instance, sizes of gatherings, they’ll assist with that, too, according to the university.

A Vanderbilt spokesman declined to provide additional information about whether or how the public-health ambassadors would enforce any of these measures, or who else might serve. Their goal, he said, is “promoting and encouraging social norms that are to be expected of our community with regard to health and safety.”

“I really wish I could tell you I have faith in students to comply with these rules. But I don’t.”

To return to learning in person this fall as the pandemic rages on, many colleges will require or recommend face coverings, physical-distancing, limited gathering sizes, and travel restrictions. But how will they get their students to follow the rules?

Colleges already struggle to get students to abide by health and safety policies, particularly those governing alcohol and drug use. The Covid-19 restrictions at many institutions — which will upend most typical aspects of student life — will be even more stringent and challenging to enforce.

Compliance is “the true wild card upon returning to campus in large numbers,” wrote Jean Chin, former executive director of the University of Georgia’s health center and chair of the American College Health Association’s Covid-19 task force, in an email.

The public-health risks are immense. On college campuses, designed to encourage social interactions, students could easily spread the virus to one another and beyond. While most traditional-age students aren’t at serious risk of developing complications if they contract Covid-19, many faculty and staff members are.”

I don’t mean to sound overly pessimistic but it seems to me that residential colleges that open for on campus classes and student life are one keg party away from a health catastrophe.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, Amazon launched an artificial intelligence-based tracking system to enforce social distancing at its offices and warehouses to help reduce any risk of contracting the new coronavirus among its workers.

The new AI system comes as the world’s largest online retailer faces intensifying scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and unions over whether it is doing enough to protect staff from the pandemic.   As reported by Reuters.

“Monitors set up in the company’s warehouses will highlight workers keeping a safe distance in green circles, while workers who are closer will be highlighted in red circles, Amazon said.

The system, called Distance Assistant, uses camera footage in Amazon’s buildings to also help identify high-traffic areas.

Amazon is also testing a wearable device that lights up and makes an audio alert when workers are too close to each other, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. The device is to be piloted from Wednesday at a warehouse outside Seattle.

The company has also been hiring for roles like social distancing ambassadors and guardians, according to internal job postings reviewed by Reuters. Responsibilities of such hires range from frequent audits at warehouses to verifying that headcount does not exceed seating limits in break rooms.

Amazon, which will open source the technology behind its Distance Assistant system, is not the first company to turn to AI to track compliance with social distancing.

Several firms have told Reuters that AI camera-based software will be crucial to staying open, as it will allow them to show not only workers and customers, but also insurers and regulators, that they are monitoring and enforcing safe practices.

However, privacy activists have raised concerns about increasingly detailed tracking of people and have urged businesses to limit use of AI to the pandemic.

Amazon said that its tracking system is live at a handful of buildings, adding that it has plans to deploy hundreds of such units over the next few weeks.”

Interesting and it seems to work!

Tony

Chris Cillizza

Dear Commons Community,

Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large, had an opinion piece last Thursday speculating on what would happen if Trump loses the presidential election in November.   His conclusion was that Trump will do everything possible to keep the country divided.  I think he makes a good case for this scenario.  Trump is all about Trump.  He could care less for the country.  If Trump loses, I see him becoming a Rush Limbaugh type character on Fox News. This would still be a better situation than four more years of President Trump.  Below is Cillizza’s piece.

Tony

——————————————————————————————

Here’s the real danger if Donald Trump loses the 2020 election

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

June 11, 2020

Joe Biden said Wednesday night that he believes if President Donald Trump loses the election and refuses to leave the White House, many of the former generals who used to work for him “will escort him from the White House with great dispatch.”

The comments, which Biden made in an interview with Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show,” are not the first time that the former vice president — and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee — has suggested that he believes the incumbent may well seek to fiddle with the election results.

“Mark my words I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” Biden said in April.

But the real danger here is not that Trump changes the date of the general election, which is virtually impossible, or that he seeks to claims squatter’s rights in the White House.

The thing that could threaten Biden’s potential presidency — and the ability of the country to move on from what will be one of the nastiest elections in modern history — is if Trump simply refuses to admit he lost, never conceding that Biden is the fair-and-square president.

And that, judging by Trump’s long history of refusing to ever acknowledge defeat, and instead claiming he was cheated out of victory by nefarious forces, is not only a possible outcome but a likely one if the incumbent comes up short this fall.

Consider:

• When Trump lost the 2016 Iowa caucuses to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, he argued he had been cheated. “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it,” tweeted Trump. “That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!”
• When Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016 — even while winning the Electoral College and the presidency! — he said, with zero proof, that 3 to 5 million illegal votes had been cast.
• Following the loss of the House majority in the 2018 election, Trump suggested to House Republicans that they had been victimized by Democratic cheating. “We’ve gotta watch those vote tallies,” Trump told a crowd of Republican lawmakers at a Republican fundraiser in May 2019. “You know, I keep hearing about the election and the various counting measures that they have.” He added that Democrats won all of the close elections in 2018; “There’s something going on,” he said, telling the assembled lawmakers that they needed to “be a little bit more paranoid than you are, OK?”
• In advance of last month’s California House special election, which the Republican went on to win, Trump tweeted that “(Democrats) are trying to steal another election. It’s all rigged out there.”

So, yeah. There’s a pattern here.

Given his past comments — even in an election (2016) that he won! — there’s every reason to believe that even if Trump vacates the White House in January 2021 that he will never, ever concede that he lost. And that would have massive consequences on not only our politics but on the broader foundations on which American democracy is built.

Consider that in 2000, after more than a month of recounts and with considerable uncertainty about who actually won Florida, Al Gore not only ended his campaign but offered a major call for unity in the country.

“Tonight, for the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession,” Gore said on December 13, 2000. “Neither (George W. Bush) nor I anticipated this long and difficult road, certainly neither of us wanted it to happen. Yet it came, and now it has ended. Resolved, as it must be resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy.”

“For the sake of our unity of the people and the strengths of our democracy.”

“Resolved, as it must be resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy.”

Can you imagine Trump, in a similar circumstance, doing or saying the same? Absolutely not! Heck, it’s hard to imagine Trump saying those words if it’s clear he was beaten on Election Day!

What the lack of any sort of formal concession from Trump would do is clear: For his legions of adoring supporters, they would also never believe that Biden had won — or that he was the recognized president, whether or not the electoral map or the popular vote proved it. Which would mean that for a decent-sized chunk of the country, Biden would be viewed as an illegitimate president and, therefore, not someone who needed to be listened to.

And it’s very easy to imagine Trump — with his 80-plus million Twitter followers and the potential that he would be the head of a TV network post-presidency — beating the drum of illegitimacy day in and day out. Because, well, it is in his interest to do so and, as he has shown repeatedly during his presidency, he has very little regard for either the office or its status as a moral beacon within the country and the world.

The result isn’t hard to imagine: An even deeper divide within the country between the Trumpists and everyone else. A divide that would make Biden’s pledge to create “One America” again an absolute pipe dream.

Dear Commons Community,

Tulsa’s local newspaper, Tulsa World, had an editorial yesterday suggesting to President Trump that it is the wrong time and wrong place for a rally in its city.  Below is the entire editorial.  The last two sentences say it all!

“When the president of the United States visits your city, it should be exciting. We think a Trump visit will be, but for a lot of the wrong reasons, and we can’t welcome it.”

Tony

———————————————————————————————————

Tulsa World

This is the wrong time and Tulsa is the wrong place for the Trump rally

Editorial

“President Donald Trump is coming to town this week for a campaign rally.

President Trump is coming to town this week for a campaign rally  It will be his first since such events were suspended earlier this year because of the COVID-19 shutdown.

We don’t know why he chose Tulsa, but we can’t see any way that his visit will be good for the city.

Tulsa is still dealing with the challenges created by a pandemic. The city and state have authorized reopening, but that doesn’t make a mass indoor gathering of people pressed closely together and cheering a good idea. There is no treatment for COVID-19 and no vaccine. It will be our health care system that will have to deal with whatever effects follow.

The public health concern would apply whether it were Donald Trump, Joe Biden or anyone else who was planning a mass rally at the BOK.

This is the wrong time.

Tulsa and the nation remain on edge after the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Trump, a divisive figure, will attract protests, the vast majority of which we expect to be peaceful. But there may also be confrontation and inappropriate behavior from some. His 2016 Tulsa rally provoked a heated response for some, and his ability to provoke opponents has only grown since then.

Again, Tulsa will be largely alone in dealing with what happens at a time when the city’s budget resources have already been stretched thin.

There’s no reason to think a Trump appearance in Tulsa will have any effect on November’s election outcome in Tulsa or Oklahoma. It has already concentrated the world’s attention of the fact that Trump will be rallying in a city that 99 years ago was the site of a bloody race massacre.

This is the wrong place for the rally.

When the president of the United States visits your city, it should be exciting. We think a Trump visit will be, but for a lot of the wrong reasons, and we can’t welcome it.

Dear Commons Community,

The US Supreme Court gave a resounding victory for LGBTQ rights by ruling this morning that a landmark civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination in employment.

The court decided by a 6-3 vote that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBT workers.

“An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court. “Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”

Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas dissented. 

As reported by the Associated Press.

“The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous,” Alito wrote in the dissent. “Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of ‘sex’ is different from discrimination because of ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity.’”

Kavanaugh wrote in a separate dissent that the court was rewriting the law to include gender identity and sexual orientation, a job that belongs to Congress. Still, Kavanaugh said the decision represents an “important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans.”

The outcome is expected to have a big impact for the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the country because most states don’t protect them from workplace discrimination. An estimated 11.3 million LGBT people live in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA law school.

But Monday’s decision is not likely to be the court’s last word on a host of issues revolving around LGBT rights, Gorsuch noted.

Lawsuits are pending over transgender athletes’ participation in school sporting events, and courts also are dealing with cases about sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms, a subject that the justices seemed concerned about during arguments in October. Employers who have religious objections to employing LGBT people also might be able to raise those claims in a different case, Gorsuch said.

“But none of these other laws are before us; we have not had the benefit of adversarial testing about the meaning of their terms, and we do not prejudge any such question today,” he wrote.

The cases were the court’s first on LGBT rights since Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement and replacement by Kavanaugh. Kennedy was a voice for gay rights and the author of the landmark ruling in 2015 that made same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States. Kavanaugh generally is regarded as more conservative.

The Trump administration had changed course from the Obama administration, which supported LGBT workers in their discrimination claims under Title VII.

During the Obama years, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had changed its longstanding interpretation of civil rights law to include discrimination against LGBT people. The law prohibits discrimination because of sex, but has no specific protection for sexual orientation or gender identity.

In recent years, some lower courts have held that discrimination against LGBT people is a subset of sex discrimination, and thus prohibited by the federal law.

Efforts by Congress to change the law have so far failed.

The Supreme Court cases involved two gay men and a transgender woman who sued for employment discrimination after they lost their jobs.

Aimee Stephens lost her job as a funeral director in the Detroit area after she revealed to her boss that she had struggled with gender most of her life and had, at long last, “decided to become the person that my mind already is.” Stephens told funeral home owner Thomas Rost that following a vacation, she would report to work wearing a conservative skirt suit or dress that Rost required for women who worked at his three funeral homes. Rost fired Stephens.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, ruled that the firing constituted sex discrimination under federal law.

Stephens died last month. Donna Stephens, her wife of 20 years, said in a statement that she is “grateful for this victory to honor the legacy of Aimee, and to ensure people are treated fairly regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The federal appeals court in New York ruled in favor of a gay skydiving instructor who claimed he was fired because of his sexual orientation. The full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 10-3 that it was abandoning its earlier holding that Title VII didn’t cover sexual orientation because “legal doctrine evolves.” The court held that “sexual orientation discrimination is motivated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex discrimination.”

That ruling was a victory for the relatives of Donald Zarda, who was fired in 2010 from a skydiving job in Central Islip, New York, that required him to strap himself tightly to clients so they could jump in tandem from an airplane. He tried to put a woman with whom he was jumping at ease by explaining that he was gay. The school fired Zarda after the woman’s boyfriend called to complain.

Zarda died in a wingsuit accident in Switzerland in 2014.

In a case from Georgia, the federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled against Gerald Bostock, a gay employee of Clayton County, in the Atlanta suburbs. Bostock claimed he was fired in 2013 because he is gay. The county argues that Bostock was let go because of the results of an audit of funds he managed.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Bostock’s claim in a three-page opinion that noted the court was bound by a 1979 decision that held “discharge for homosexuality is not prohibited by Title VII.”

Congratulations to the LGBTQ community!

Tony

This screen grab taken from body camera video provided by the Atlanta Police Department shows Rayshard Brooks speaking with Officer Garrett Rolfe in the parking lot of a Wendy’s restaurant, late Friday, June 12, 2020, in Atlanta. The full video is below. (Atlanta Police Department via AP)

Dear Commons Community,

It is sad that one of our country’s great southern cities had to experience a brutal confrontation between a black male and a white policeman resulting in the death of the former.  One minute, Rayshard Brooks was chatting cooperatively with Atlanta police, saying he’d had a couple of drinks to celebrate his daughter’s birthday and agreeing to a breath test. The next, they were wrestling on the ground and grappling over a Taser before Brooks ran. Seconds later, three gunshots sounded and Brooks fell mortally wounded.  As reported by the Associated Press.

Atlanta police video released Sunday showing a seemingly routine sobriety check outside a Wendy’s restaurant that quickly spun out of control, ending in gunfire. The killing of the 27-year-old black man in an encounter with two white officers late Friday rekindled fiery protests in Atlanta and prompted the police chief’s resignation.

Police said Sunday the department terminated Officer Garrett Rolfe, who fired the fatal shots, and officer Devin Brosnan was placed on administrative duty. Rolfe had worked for the department since October 2013, and Brosnan since September 2018.

Meanwhile, authorities announced a $10,000 reward for information finding those responsible for setting fire to the Wendy’s restaurant at the shooting scene. Flames gutted the restaurant late Saturday after demonstrations grew turbulent. The protests prompted 36 arrests.

More than 100 people, some sporting umbrellas and rain gear after on-and-off rain, protested peacefully at the site Sunday evening. Police blocked some side streets, slowing traffic in the area as people held up signs.

The two officers’ body cameras and the dash-mounted cameras in their patrol cars showed they spent more than 40 minutes peacefully questioning Brooks. The fighting erupted when they tried to handcuff Brooks.

Andy Harvey, chief of police of Ennis, Texas, who has written books and developed training on community policing, said such moments can turn in a split second.

“The moment you put your hands on someone is when someone will decide whether to comply or resist,” Harvey said. “That’s what happened in Atlanta.” 

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation will present the findings of its investigation to prosecutors. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said in a statement Sunday he hopes to reach a decision by midweek on whether to bring charges against the officers.

The officers were called late Friday over complaints of a car blocking the restaurant’s drive-thru lane. Brosnan arrived first and found Brooks alone in the car, apparently asleep. Brooks agreed to move the car, showed his license, and Rolfe arrived minutes later to conduct a sobriety check.

“I know you’re just doing your job,” Brooks says on video after consenting to a breath test. He mentions celebrating his daughter’s birthday and says: ”I just had a few drinks, that’s all.” 

Rolfe doesn’t tell Brooks the results though his body camera recorded a digital readout of 0.108 — higher than the 0.08-gram blood alcohol content considered too intoxicated to drive in Georgia.

“All right, I think you’ve had too much to drink to be driving,” Rolfe tells Brooks. “Put your hands behind your back.”

The video shows each officer take hold of one of Brooks’ wrists as Rolfe tries to handcuff him. Brooks tries to run and the officers take him to the ground. 

“Stop fighting!” one officers yells. 

One of the dash cameras recorded the brawl. As Brooks fights to stand, Brosnan presses a Taser to his leg and threatens to stun him. Brooks grabs the Taser and pulls it away. He struggles to his feet, the Taser in his hand, and starts running.

Rolfe fires his Taser and a yelp can be heard above the weapon’s electric crackle. Rolfe runs after Brooks, and seconds later three gunshots sound.

Both officers’ body cameras were knocked to the ground in the struggle, and none of the four police cameras captured the shooting. Footage released from a Wendy’s security camera showed Brooks turn and point an object in his hand at one of the officers, who was steps behind him. The officer draws his gun and fires.

“As I pursued him, he turned and started firing the Taser at me,” Rolfe told a supervisor after the shooting in a videotaped conversation. “…He definitely did shoot it at me at least once.”

GBI spokeswoman Nelly Miles said Sunday she could not confirm whether Brooks fired the Taser. 

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Saturday she doesn’t believe the shooting was justified. Police Chief Erika Shields, who joined the department as a beat officer in 1995, resigned. 

Brooks’ death inflamed raw emotions in Atlanta and across the U.S. following the May 25 police custody killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Some public officials questioned whether shooting of Brooks was as clearly an abuse as Floyd’s death after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to his neck. 

“The question is when the suspect turned to fire the Taser, what should the officer have done?” U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, said on CBS’ “Face The Nation.” Scott, the Senate’s only black Republican, said Brooks’s death “is certainly a far less clear one than the ones that we saw with George Floyd and several other ones.”

Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic lawmaker who gained national prominence while running for governor in 2018, said “there’s a legitimacy to this outrage” over Brooks’ death.

Chris Stewart, a Brooks family attorney, said the officer who shot him should be charged for “an unjustified use of deadly force, which equals murder.”

Stewart said that Brooks, a father of four, on Friday had celebrated the eighth birthday of one of his daughters.

This is why people are protesting!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, during his daily briefing, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo warned that he could roll back reopening measures in some areas after the state received 25,000 complaints of businesses violating social distancing measures amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re getting reports from all across the state that there are large gatherings, social distancing is being violated, people are not wearing masks,” Cuomo said during a news briefing. “We have never received more complaints in a shorter period of time. … Think about how concerned New Yorkers are not just to see the violation but then to care enough to come back and write a letter or call registering the complaint.”

Cuomo pointed the finger directly at businesses in Manhattan and the Hamptons, where images of residents flocking to bars circulated widely this weekend. He said he would reverse any reopening measures regionally before considering any statewide effort and threatened to pull liquor licenses from some bars and restaurants.

The governor’s warning comes as other states have had to reckon with their own decisions to reopen their economies earlier than experts had hoped. As reported in the Huffington Post.

The governors of Oregon and Utah paused their own jumpstarts last week after infection rates spiked in the days after restrictions eased. Nearly two dozen states have seen surges in the average daily caseload this week when compared to the previous period. 

“The virus makes the timeline,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) said. “We don’t make the timeline.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, warned this month that the impact of the coronavirus was far from over, saying he remained troubled that the disease “just took over the planet.”

“Oh my goodness. Where is it going to end? We’re still at the beginning of really understanding,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a virtual conference this week.

New York has seen a sharp decline in coronavirus transmission in recent weeks after its own stay-at-home orders. Cuomo said Saturday the city had “tamed the beast” after the city saw its lowest level of hospitalizations linked to COVID-19 since March 20

But he continued to warn Sunday that New York would not mimic other states that had seen a surge in infections as social distancing measures were eased.

“We are not kidding around with this. You’re talking about jeopardizing people’s lives,” he said. “It’s not hard to figure out what is happening here. It’s happened in half the states in the nation. So far, we have been the exception. We’re not going to go back to that dark place because local government didn’t do its job.”

I believe that Cuomo has done an outstanding job in leading New York during the pandemic.  He is right to express concern maybe even anger at the violations of social distancing requirements.

Tony

Representative Val Demings

Dear Commons Community,

Joe Biden’s advisers have conducted several rounds of interviews with a select group of vice-presidential candidates and are beginning to gather private documents from some of them, as they attempt to winnow a field that features the most diverse set of vice-presidential contenders in history. Biden has committed to having a woman on the ticket with him.  The search committee has been in touch with roughly a dozen women, and some eight or nine are already being vetted more intensively.

Among that group are two contenders who have recently grown in prominence, Representative Val Demings of Florida and Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta. One well-known candidate, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, has lost her perch as a front-runner. And some lower-profile candidates, like Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, are advancing steadily in the search process.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms

The New York Times spoke to an array of people who are familiar with the vice-presidential search and the activities of the Biden team, and the interviews yielded the fullest picture yet of the list of candidates Mr. Biden is considering, who is advancing and who may be fading, and the dynamics at play. Here is the Times analysis.

Mr. Biden’s vice-presidential search has taken a bifurcated course so far, with one path unfolding in the open — joint appearances on television or in virtual events with potential running mates — and another in an environment of strict discretion. People involved in the confidential part described it on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to discuss a process that is designed to shield Mr. Biden’s thinking and the participants’ privacy.

Some of the contenders who have advanced furthest in the process are well known, including Senators Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. But The Times confirmed that several other women — whose names have been repeatedly floated but who have not publicly confirmed that they agreed to be vetted for the job — are under active consideration as well.

Ms. Harris and Ms. Warren have been interviewed at length by Mr. Biden’s team, as has Ms. Baldwin, who was the first openly gay candidate ever elected to the Senate.

Two women with distinctive national-defense credentials have also been interviewed and asked for documents: Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Iraq war combat veteran who is Asian-American, and Susan Rice, the former national security adviser to President Barack Obama and the first black woman to serve as ambassador to the United Nations.

As the vetting process advances to a newly intense phase, the political currents of the last few weeks are also leaving a mark on the Biden team’s deliberations. The wave of demonstrations touched off by the killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of a white police officer there, has elevated a pair of black women long regarded as intriguing long-shot candidates: Ms. Demings and Ms. Bottoms.

Though Ms. Demings and Ms. Bottoms are far less known to the national electorate than other figures on Mr. Biden’s list, they have played crucial roles in a cascading civil rights crisis: Ms. Demings, a former police chief in Orlando, Fla., has become a major figure in the law-enforcement debate, while Ms. Bottoms’s handling of chaotic demonstrations in her city earned her national acclaim.

Both women have spoken with the vetting team, and Biden advisers have reached out to their allies to seek information about them.

Representative Charlie Crist of Florida, a supporter of Ms. Demings, said he had recently spoken about her with former Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a member of Mr. Biden’s search committee. Mr. Crist — a former Republican who was vetted for vice president by John McCain in 2008 — predicted that if Mr. Biden made Ms. Demings his running mate, it would lock down Florida and its 29 Electoral College votes.

“She is ready for the task,” Mr. Crist said of Ms. Demings, adding, “It would make a huge difference if you actually had a Floridian on the ticket.”

Mr. Biden insisted in an interview with CBS this past week that the last few tumultuous weeks had not meaningfully changed his thinking about the vice presidency, except to put “greater focus and urgency on the need to get someone who is totally simpatico with where I am.”

“I want someone strong,” he said, “and someone who is ready to be president on Day 1.”

Representative Dina Titus of Nevada, a prominent early supporter of Mr. Biden, counseled him to not be caught up in a momentary news cycle but rather make a sober-minded governing choice, someone to help him steer through turbulent years ahead.

“He needs to pick somebody who’s serious, respected and has some policy chops,” Ms. Titus said, “not just somebody who’s a personality.”

Several state executives have also had conversations with members of the vetting team, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who clashed with President Trump over his handling of the coronavirus, and Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, a leader of her party’s centrist wing. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, a former chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, is one of the candidates from whom Biden advisers have requested private documents, a signal that she is regarded as a serious contender.

It is not clear precisely where Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia candidate for governor, stands in the process. In an appearance Wednesday on Stephen Colbert’s CBS show, Ms. Abrams appeared to say she had not been contacted by the search committee, though several people insisted she was still in the mix.

Ms. Harris, who was already a leading prospect, appears to have lifted herself further in recent weeks with her advocacy for policing reform. But three Democrats in regular contact with top Biden officials said they still frequently expressed unease about Ms. Harris because of her rocky turn as a presidential candidate and her blistering attack on Mr. Biden in the first debate last year.

Ms. Klobuchar is also still under consideration, but she has receded amid criticism that she did not take on police misconduct as a district attorney in Hennepin County, home to Minneapolis. That may leave Ms. Warren as the most formidable white candidate in the running, in large part because of her popularity with liberals and her credibility as a messenger on the economy.

Mr. Biden’s decision has taken on outsize importance as the country faces an overlapping set of crises that are all but certain to last beyond Inauguration Day.

At 77, Mr. Biden would be the oldest person ever elected to the White House, a distinction with actuarial implications that cannot be discounted. A moderate white man in a party fueled by the political energy of women, young liberals and people of color, Mr. Biden is facing demands from numerous quarters to complete his ticket with someone who represents racial, geographic, generational or ideological balance — imperatives that no one running mate could satisfy in full.

If Mr. Biden wins the November election, he might well take office under the darkest conditions of any president in half a century, with economic stagnation and a deadly pandemic shadowing his new administration.

That unsettling reality has bolstered the view among many Democrats that Mr. Biden must choose a running mate who could be a full partner in governing rather than someone who is useful chiefly for tactical purposes in an election season.

The selection process by now has become so delicate that some of Mr. Biden’s senior aides are stepping gingerly. Steve Ricchetti, one of Mr. Biden’s closest advisers, has told people he is trying to avoid contact with any of the prospects because he does not want to be seen as tipping his hand.

The fact that someone has been interviewed for vice president does not necessarily mean she is among the top candidates, and it is somewhat customary for presidential candidates to put a few close allies on their short list as a kind of reward for their support. People briefed on the search also said it would be premature to assume anyone has been eliminated as a candidate simply because she may not have moved as far in the process as others.

Jennifer Palmieri, who advised Hillary Clinton during her 2016 hunt for a running mate, said it made sense for the search committee to screen a large number of candidates to give Mr. Biden flexibility in his decision. The search, she said, should function “outside of the day-to-day political ecosystem” that thrives on fleeting conventional wisdom.

“Their job is to give Biden as many qualified options as possible,” Ms. Palmieri said. “Somebody who does not make a lot of sense in June can make a great pick on Aug. 1.”

The search process has been carried out by a selection committee staffed by a team of lawyers and led by four close allies of Mr. Biden: Mr. Dodd, Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles and Cynthia Hogan, Mr. Biden’s counsel when he was vice president himself.

The process has unfolded in several stages, according to people familiar with the search. In April and May, advisers to Mr. Biden contacted more than a dozen Democratic women to ask whether they would be willing to be vetted for the vice presidency. Nearly everyone approached answered in the affirmative; a notable exception was Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, who is running for re-election this year and declined to join a time-consuming vetting process that she believed was highly unlikely to end in her selection.

A second senator, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, did not immediately rebuff the Biden team but removed herself from consideration late last month. Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire also agreed to be vetted, but she has not been actively pursuing the job and is not seen as a major candidate.

For those who agreed to move ahead, the next step was interviewing with members of Mr. Biden’s screening committee. Those sessions involved a range of broad questions concerning the role of the vice presidency and the policy challenges facing a potential Biden administration, as well as aspects of the candidates’ public records.

Only in recent days has the process moved toward more intrusive scrutiny of the candidates’ sensitive private matters.

While Ms. Demings could help Mr. Biden in Florida, a similar argument could apply to Ms. Bottoms, given Georgia’s status as an emerging political battleground. As mayor, she has managed the coronavirus response in the Southern metropolis and has regularly criticized Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about reopening states.

Some of Ms. Bottoms’s fellow city leaders are enthusiastic about the idea of a mayor on the ticket. “She’d be strong and is very popular amongst her colleagues,” said Mayor Steve Benjamin of Columbia, S.C.

Mr. Benjamin, a former president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said he had shared his high opinion of Ms. Bottoms with the Biden camp.

Biden’s decision here is critical.  I think it would be best if he selected a minority woman who could bring in a swing state.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The U.S. has reported more than 2 million confirmed coronavirus cases, according to data compiled by  NPR.

The grim milestone comes as states continue to reopen, despite rising infection rates. More than 114,000 people have died in the U.S.

President Trump, who has long downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic, has used the opportunity of widespread protests against racism and police brutality as an opportunity to argue for holding rallies again. On Wednesday, his campaign said the first rally since early March would be held in Tulsa on June 19, with plans to visit Florida, North Carolina, Arizona and Texas.

The Washington Post reported  that oronavirus hospitalizations have been on the rise in a number of states — including Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Oregon, Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah and Arizona — since Memorial Day weekend.  Arizona, one of the earliest states to begin reopening its economy, has seen a 200% jump in coronavirus infections in the last two weeks, according to NPR.   New positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths rose in Arizona after the state eased major shelter-in-place orders in mid-May, allowing gyms, spas, movie theaters, restaurants and bars to reopen without releasing strict guidelines on how people should maintain their safety.

NPR’s analysis found that the state is averaging more than 1,000 new cases per day.  

“We weren’t ready to reopen,” Dr. Matthew Heinz, an internist at Tucson Medical Center, told .   on Thursday. “We hadn’t met the criteria set down by the WHO or the CDC to even begin to look at reopening the state, but political leadership pushed us in that direction.”

It is obvious that coronavirus has not gone away.  It will be with us at least until next year and until a vaccine is developed.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has a featured article this morning looking at how dentists are faring now that many states have opened up partially at least after stay-at-home orders due to coronavirus have been lifted. The article indicates that dentist offices tend to be stable businesses that stick around for decades, unlike other enterprises that open and close frequently.

Dentists offer services with no clear substitute. If you need your teeth cleaned or a cavity filled, the dentist is the only option and therefore could be a crucial indicator of whether Americans feel safe returning to normal activities.  This makes them, in the eyes of some economists, the perfect barometer for gauging the country’s recovery from the shock of the pandemic. “If you look at your typical dentist office, nothing went wrong with their business model,” said Betsey Stevenson, an economics professor at the University of Michigan. “It’s just coronavirus that happened.”

The article (see below) suggests that while some dentists are doing well after reopening, there is still a ways to go for a full recovery.

My daughter, Dawn Marie, has a dental practice outside of Seattle and she says her office is booked solid through November after having been closed for almost three months.

Tony

————————————————————————————————————-

New York Times

How’s the Economy Doing? Watch the Dentists

By Sarah Kliff

June 10, 2020

If not for coronavirus, you’d expect your local dentist office to be doing just fine.

Dentist offices tend to be stable businesses that stick around for decades, unlike restaurants that open and close frequently. Dentists earn a healthy salary — a median of $159,000 — and offer services with no clear substitute. If you need your teeth cleaned or a cavity filled, the dentist is the only option.

This makes them, in the eyes of some economists, the perfect barometer for gauging the country’s recovery from the shock of the pandemic.

“If you look at your typical dentist office, nothing went wrong with their business model,” said Betsey Stevenson, an economics professor at the University of Michigan. “It’s just coronavirus that happened.”

The dental industry has weathered an exaggerated version of the pandemic’s economic impact, experiencing both a steeper decline and a faster recovery than other sectors. Half of all dental workers lost their jobs in March and April as states closed businesses to slow the virus’s spread. The industry accounted for a staggering 35 percent of all health care jobs lost in those months, even though its workers make up just 6 percent of the industry, according to analysis of federal data by the nonprofit Altarum Institute.

How long it takes those jobs to come back entirely will be a crucial indicator of whether Americans feel safe returning to normal activities, and if they have the economic means to do so.

“I’m obsessed with dentists because, if the only thing we’re doing is putting the economy on pause, and then going back to normal, all of them should be coming back,” Ms. Stevenson said. “We’re not really recovered until all the dentists are back to work.”

The dental industry halted much of its work on March 16, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Dental Association issued joint guidance against elective care. Some dentists say they closed even earlier as protective equipment became in short supply.

By mid-April, 45 percent of dentists had laid off their entire staffs, according to data collected by the dental association. Only 13 percent remained fully open, with the remaining offices keeping a skeleton staff. Patient visits fell to 7 percent of normal rates.

Marko Vujicic, the chief economist at the dental association, expected a slow return of workers into dentist offices. But regular surveys, sent out to 12,000 dental practices every two weeks, showed a relatively fast recovery.

“My initial predictions were we’d have an elevator ride down and an escalator ride up,” he said. “But we’re actually seeing a pretty sharp acceleration of the jobs coming back.”

By early May, 33 percent of dental offices had hired their full staffs back. The number rose to 58 percent by mid-May and, most recently, hit 77 percent the first week of June.New federal data released last week tells a similar story. The dental industry gained a quarter-million jobs in May, accounting for a full 10 percent of the net jobs added across the American economy.

Federal stimulus programs may have played a key role in bringing dentists back to work. An estimated 37 percent of dental offices received funding through the Paycheck Protection Program, meant to help small businesses keep workers on payroll. Dentist practices that participated in the program were more likely to remain open than those that didn’t.

As dentists head back to work, it’s unclear whether patients will follow. While most states have given dentist offices the go-ahead to reopen, patient volumes remain half of what they were before the pandemic.

That suggests it isn’t just stay-at-home orders that have caused patients to cancel appointments. Some may have lost the dental insurance they used to get at work. Others may fear contracting the virus; they may feel safer putting off preventive care that has already waited months. Or they may question the value of regular cleanings altogether.

Dentists understand why coming into their offices — even with the extra protective equipment they’ve invested in — may not be an appealing proposition.

“You have to have someone right in your face,” said Jason Bastida, who practices primarily in Elmhurst, a neighborhood in Queens that was hard hit by coronavirus. “I get to wear an N95 mask, but you have to make yourself vulnerable by taking your mask off.”

He returned to work last week and has about a quarter of his regular patient volume. He graduated from dental school in 2017, and worries about how he’ll pay off his $330,000 in outstanding student debt if his caseload doesn’t pick up soon.

Even after last month’s job gains, the dental industry still has 289,000 fewer workers than it did before the pandemic. That suggests to Ms. Stevenson, the economist, that the industry — and the rest of the American economy — is far from recovered.

“The fact that dentistry employment is down 30 percent tells us that there is income loss, and there is fear,” she said. “We might not see employment in a retail store get back to the levels it had last year. But we should see dental employment get all the way back to where it was.”

Employment in the dental industry — and the rest of the economy — is likely to remain constrained by other areas of the economy that don’t reopen as quickly. This is especially true for day cares and schools, many of which will not reopen full time in the fall.

Abi Adeyeye, a 31-year-old pediatric dentist in Plano, Tex., was among those who returned to work in May. Over the past five weeks, she has been excited to see patient volume rebound to pre-coronavirus levels.

“Before coronavirus, I had a cancellation rate around 30 percent,” she said. “Now nobody cancels. It seems like people are wanting to get out of the house and need something to do.”

Even with a full patient schedule, her office is not at full employment. She used to have six dental assistants, but only four have come back to work. One was pregnant, and one couldn’t secure child care.

The work of dentistry, at the same time, has only become more challenging. Dr. Adeyeye now wears an N95 respirator mask, a surgical mask, a face shield and a surgical cap.

“The first two weeks I had these massive migraines,” she said. “Not only am I hot, I also can’t breathe.” She’s slowly adjusting to the new dentistry: “My headaches have gone down to once a week.”