I’ve seen a number of commentators (among them @DouthatNYT) argue that wartime-production analogies are facile, because America hasn’t pulled off an Apollo-like miracle in decades. But the Trump admin has, without controversy, activated excess production for Operation Warp Speed.
Perhaps in six months, we’ll learn that Operation Warp Speed actually showed the futility of a wartime approach.
But today, it sure seems like the only reason the Trump admin hasn’t secured the production of millions of additional PPE or therapeutics is because it didn’t try.
I mean, look, this is exactly what @ScottGottliebMD was writing in July, on the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed page. This isn’t controversial stuff. The White House just didn’t do it. wsj.com/articles/antib…
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I wanted to make a new kind of climate journalism, written for people who recognize that climate change will be the backdrop of the rest of our lives, reshaping how we work, play, and shop.
3/ Today, I’m thrilled to introduce Planet, The Atlantic’s new section devoted to climate change.
We want to be your source of stellar reporting, expert information, and thoughtful analysis about how to live at this moment.
I’m stuck on Judge Barrett’s declaration that she has no “firm views” on climate change. She didn’t need to evade—Kennedy (R-LA) wasn’t looking for gotchas. She could’ve said it was real, earned bipartisan points, and stayed within the conservative-jurist mainstream. She didn’t.
For comparison, Justice Kavanaugh has acknowledged the reality of climate change many times. I’ve seen him do it from the bench! He doesn’t seem to think the EPA can do much about it, but that’s a separate legal question (in his mind at least). He still affirms it’s a problem.
This seems plausible, but the fact she reached for the “I’m not a scientist” cop-out is itself concerning. It’s like a lower intensity version of when someone says “Democrat” instead of “Democratic”—at the very least, you know what they’re used to hearing.
I’ve been covering COVID-19 testing with @alexismadrigal for the last six months. We’ve kept coming back to the same questions: Why is testing still broken in America? Can it be fixed? Should we even try to fix it now?
It’s worth focusing on one of these questions: Why is testing *still* broken?
Because it’s definitely still broken. The start of August saw the first concerted decline in tests since the pandemic began. About 7% of US tests are coming back positive, according to the CDC. 2/n
The standard explanation of why testing failed is that a fight between the FDA and CDC held back the debut of tests in February, allowing the virus to spread silently and beyond our ability to contain it. @olgakhazan had a good story on this then: theatlantic.com/health/archive… (3/n)
Yes, the protests and the police response will exacerbate the pandemic.
But cases may have already been rising. Arizona, North Carolina, and California are seeing more cases than ever. The US is now trying to do harm reduction around Covid, not beat it: theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
I’m getting two good questions about the rise in cases in Arizona, North Carolina, and other states:
- Is it just because we’re testing more?
- Are we seeing hospitalizations rise too?
Unfortunately, we have good evidence that the answers are no and yes, respectively.
Arizona, which is of special concern, is at its all-time peak in the data for tests, positives, and hospitalizations. For the first time since late April, the percent of tests that come back positive in AZ now again exceeds 10%. public.tableau.com/profile/peter.…
I want a prestige HBO remake of Moby Dick. Six seasons. 10 episodes each. They don’t actually leave on the boat til S3 (at earliest). And a couple times a season, there’s a gorgeously shot hour-long doc that contains literally not a single correct whale fact
What other prestige HBO content do I, personally, desire? Well,
1. Ludicrously overbudget Ballet Russes period drama - Timothée stars as Nijinsky - huge S2 subplot for Stravinsky (Adam Driver)
4. Ursula Le Guin anthology series - S1 is “Left Hand of Darkness” - Chiwetel Ejiofor debuts as Genly Ai - (marginalia: consider possible title “AMERICAN HAIN STORY”???)
5. “The Third Man,” reshot entirely in the fake mall in the basement of Barbra Streisand’s house