THREAD: AN ANSWER EMERGES FROM THE ASK BELOW. As of yesterday, “more than 200 million Americans are under state-directed mandates to wear masks in public, or more than 60% of the country by population." This is a safe estimate.
Let me explain because this is #goodtwitter. 1/
The good people @alexandraphelan@nwnancy and teams at covidamp.org have been running state/local numbers and mandates for sometime. They took the masking policies and cross referenced with populations and got 60% for me. More on them here:
For those who have been following along, this state by state approach is not great but it is all that we got. Just like closings, PPE, etc. the federal government is not mandating unified policies. So we get piecemeal efforts. 3/
I've been monitoring state by state move to masking (that mirrored process of closings in March) under the "one damn state at a time" mantra. Again, not ideal but not nothing. It looked like by mid-July we might see something like a national policy. 4/
We focus on the horrible states (looking at you Florida) but slowly but surely the population covered is getting there. This number is low as it doesn't include local ordinances in state's without mandates nor private or institutional (university, for example) rules. 5/
Again, not ideal this Articles of Confederation response. But not nothing. Thanks to the good efforts of numbers people, we now know that over 60% of the US population is covered. @TheAtlantic 6/ theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
GETTING READY. I've been privileged to assist across this country as a subject matter expert in protecting the rights of ALL Americans to vote and so I have some transparency on what is being done. It might calm folks a bit. A thread on anticipating the sh--show ahead. 1/
Each security plan has essentially the same goals: 1)mitigate risks to personnel and property; 2)a system to identify risks, determine their veracity, and communicate internally and externally; 3)dedicated team members who are focused on threats only and can communicate/decide quickly; 4)keep focus on GOTV. 2/
There are prevention protocols you would expect (doors locked, lighting, videos) and outreach to law enforcement early and often to anticipate threats to offices, personnel, and polling locations all while allowing organizers to not get distracted and to focus on GOTC. 3/
This site is not our friend, on election day in particular. As I work with states and state party officials, I give them this advice: train your teams to focus. GOTV is going to be hit with disinformation, rumors, and the craziness with only one goal in mind: distraction. 1/
Violence is a law enforcement issue; legal shenanigans are for the courts. But GOTV is ripe for the same crap we saw during the hurricanes for the purpose of impacting how campaigns understand what is going on on the ground. My take @TheAtlantic 2/ theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Want to get a state party or campaign leader to lose focus? Throw into this and other platforms some rumors that take time and effort to quell, get staff worked up, and the presidential campaign headquarters bearing down. See @hadas_gold story @cnn 3/
As universities prepare for graduation, there are 3 guiding ("O") rules for safety planning:
1)Outlets: Provide outlets for student protests
2)Off-Ramps: Many on X/the Hill talk tough, but a good plan has various levels of de-escalation;
3)Outcomes: Then get to consequences; 1/
To start, I am embarrassed for commentators who know better wanting to silence all viewpoints with tough talk; for First Amendment advocates who loosely equate Palestinian protest as pro-Hamas or anti-semitic; for those who called Biden's comments his Charlottesville moment. 2/
I say embarrassed because I do not deny the anti-semitism (nor do I deny the Islamaphobia or Anti-Arab sentiment within Jewish movement). I condemn both. But if you think this is all just anti-semitism that must be quashed by force, you are missing the story. And you know it. 3/
A proposal; It is good Biden is talking about the threat to our democracy coming from the violence Trump promises. We have a whole department created to address terrorism. And it would be nice to hear a plan about protecting our homeland security. DOJ is not built for this. 1/
The WH cannot talk of a real threat and then sit back and hope the voters solve the problem. They may and still Trump was a menace. That was true in 2020. He didn't stop. 2/
What I'm proposing is a very transparent planning process that engages local and state governments who manage elections. This plan would provide transparency on threats, a crisis response capacity, recommended rules of deployment for public safety resources, 3/
PAY ATTENTION. I wait to talk to people I trust about how to interpret an event like Tropical Storm #Hilary . So .... reliable folks are now sounding alarms. There is simply nowhere for the water to go. Severe flooding in Vegas? Rain in Death Valley? "Impacts are unknown." 1/
The best to be said now is listen to local news, don't wade out in water, and set your emergency alerts on your phone (flash flood warnings) - if you don’t know how just download the fema app. There is a lot of crap out there now. Follow
AND 2/Ready.gov
The Forum addresses the challenges and deficiencies of our disaster management system and how it might improve. We are meeting again this week in Cambridge.
By Bruggeman, Klein and Talmadge: 2/ belfercenter.org/publication/ev…