Daily Digest for June 26, 2020 Posted at 6:45 a.m. by Cody Nelson
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Good morning and welcome to your Friday Capitol View.
President Donald Trump promised to pay for COVID-19 care, but it’s not happening in the most severe cases. Politico reports: “The Trump administration’s pledge to protect Covid-19 patients from massive medical bills is falling short for a growing number of survivors who experience long-term complications from the virus. Doctors are discovering life-threatening and costly long-term health effects ranging from kidney failure to heart and lung damage. That’s exposing a major gap in the federal government’s strategy for ensuring patients won’t go broke because of a coronavirus diagnosis.”
Nationwide protests over George Floyd’s killing are not driving spikes in COVID-19 cases. What is causing the clusters across the country: partying. Take this example from Washington state: "We did have a rally in Bellingham, which is our county seat, and there was also a protest, and we have not been able to connect a single case to that rally or to the protest , and what we're finding is in large part that's due to the use of masks," Erika Lautenbach, the director of the Whatcom County Health Department, told NPR. "Almost everyone at the rally was wearing a mask, and it's really a testament to how effective masks are in preventing the spread of this disease."
In Minnesota, protests haven’t caused a spike either. The Health Department has offered free testing in the Twin Cities over the past two weeks. The positive rate has been less than 2 percent, low enough to suggest coronavirus has not spread from protests in the way health officials initially feared.
Dems are scaling back their national convention. Via NPR : “The in-person Democratic National Convention will be scaled down significantly as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with the Milwaukee event now relying heavily on ‘live broadcasts and curated content,’ organizers have announced. … The presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, will still formally accept the party's nomination in person during the Aug. 17-20 convention, but the convention committee said state delegations should not plan to travel to Milwaukee and should instead plan to conduct convention business remotely. … The party's decision comes as its counterpart, the Republican National Committee, has faced resistance in its quest to hold a mostly normal, in-person convention. Following a squabble between President Donald Trump and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, the party made the decision to move Trump's acceptance speech to Jacksonville, Fla., though some of the convention's smaller events will remain in Charlotte.”
The state agency that handles licensing and standards for cops is reviewing all its policies. Riham Feshir reports that may lead to changes in licensing, complaint and discipline, and pre-service training : “Erik Misselt, the interim director of the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training, said the POST board’s policies haven’t kept up with the public’s expectations for police accountability. Unlike medical boards, the POST board cannot suspend an officer’s license based only on allegations. Misselt said he’d like to see the POST board go to the state Legislature and ask for changes in state laws to broaden its authority.’ When the board was created in 1979, it was created to address a very specific issue of training and recruitment, and over the years that was the very limited scope that it was intended to do,’ he said. ‘It was very clear to the board that we have not kept up with expectations of the community — expectations of law enforcement even.’” |
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