The Paycheck Protection Program failed many Black-owned businesses

Stephanie Byrd is the co-owner of the Block, one of many restaurants that closed due to the coronavirus in Detroit. Byrd is worried that Black-owned businesses will struggle to withstand another wave of economic uncertainty following decades of inequity. | Paul Sancya/AP

It built on inequities that already exist in banking.

Danielle Parker, the CEO of Detroit Maid, says her business almost didn’t make it this past spring.

Parker’s company — which provides on-demand cleaning services — is among those that have been forced to completely alter their business model as a result of social distancing and public health guidelines during the pandemic. While Detroit Maid had previously focused 80 percent of its work on residential clients, the company has now shifted to operating predominantly with commercial ones.

Because of how much business slowed, Parker’s staff was cut roughly in half earlier this year, and at one point, she didn’t know if they’d stay open. “Businesses like mine, we had severe loss in staff, and we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to make it through May,” she told Vox.

There have been some sources of help, though. Roughly $35,000 in local grants from regional groups like TechTown and Invest Detroit have been major lifelines as Parker’s business has adapted. ”We went from not knowing if we were going to survive ... to pivoting pretty quickly,” Parker says.

Federal support, however, was more challenging to access.

Parker is one of millions of business owners who applied to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) — a federal effort to boost small businesses established by the CARES Act — and she’s also among those who was denied support with little explanation why.

“They said we didn’t meet the criteria, and they didn’t specify,” she said, adding that PayPal — the company she applied through — was very responsive, even though the process itself was cumbersome. “When I got the result back, I was like, I wonder if I just didn’t do it right — especially because there wasn’t a specific reason.”

Parker is far from the only business owner who’s dealt with confusion related to the program, and her experience underscores just how much it failed many small businesses. PayPal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to August survey results that the advocacy group Small Business Majority provided to Vox, the program appeared to reach a lower proportion of Black-owned businesses in particular. In that poll, 23 percent of Black business owners who did not receive PPP or Economic Injury Disaster Loans said their PPP applications were denied, compared to 9 percent of white business owners, 13 percent of Latino business owners, and 9 percent of Asian American business owners. And in Michigan overall, only 3 restaurants that received PPP loans of $150,000 or more self-identified as Black-owned, compared to 223 that self-identified as white-owned, according to the Detroit Free Press.

It’s worth noting that the current demographic data that’s available on PPP is incomplete because business owners were not required to submit this information when they applied, and roughly 75 percent of businesses did not do so. The Small Business Administration has also emphasized that the average loan size in the program was around $100,000, an indicator that it helped serve smaller businesses. Because minority-owned businesses are smaller, on average, this could mean that they benefited strongly from the program.

Independent survey results and analyses of the geographic distribution of PPP loans, meanwhile, have highlighted some disparities. An analysis by the New York Fed’s Claire Kramer Mills and Jessica Battisto found that multiple counties with high amounts of Black business receipts including Wayne County, Michigan — where Detroit is located — and Prince George’s County, Maryland, were among those to see lower rates of PPP allocation. In Wayne County, where more than a third of businesses are Black-owned, just 12.9 percent of businesses obtained loans, while 18.9 percent of businesses nationwide did per an updated review Kramer Mills and Battisto shared with Vox, which includes August data released by SBA.

These gaps were driven by a couple of factors including systemic inequities in banking, a chaotic application process that overwhelmed many small businesses, and restrictive terms on the loans that put off some business owners from pursuing them at all. The distribution of PPP was among the factors the New York Fed researchers examined in trying to understand why an estimated 41 percent of Black-owned small businesses became inactive during the early months of the pandemic, more than double the 17 percent of white-owned businesses that did.

“Access to capital and money has always been an issue with respect to Black enterprise, that’s nothing new,” says Rev. Horace Sheffield, the head of the Detroit Association of Black Organizations. “The pandemic has exposed or exacerbated that disparity.”

Disparities in banking were apparent in PPP, too

The role that big banks had in the program — particularly early on — posed a huge obstacle for many small businesses especially in the first wave of funding. Rather than applying to the Small Business Administration directly, businesses were required to pursue the PPP through a third-party lender, including a bank, credit union, or fintech company like PayPal. That lender would then play a role in approving the application for a business to move forward.

According to the SBA data released in August, lenders with assets of $10 billion or more were responsible for 47 percent of the loans that were made, a sign that larger lenders — including banks — had a strong presence in the program. The top three lenders in the program, per the agency, were JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and PNC, comprising just over 10 percent of loans. Lawmakers worked to ameliorate access issues in the second wave of funding, which contained a $60 billion set-aside for community development financial institutions and other entities that work with underbanked communities, including rural and minority-owned businesses.

“The big challenge is finding a lender. The banks have been inundated,” says Sheffield, who notes that this is where multiple businesses got held up. “Some of their applications got caught up in the queue, didn’t necessarily go through, and the bank had their own vetting process.”

As PPP got underway this past spring, many large banks declined to take applications from anyone who wasn’t already a customer. Bank of America, Chase, and TD Bank were just a few that limited the applications they would accept to customers who had prior accounts or lines of credit. And while they were likely doing this for volume control and their own review purposes, that meant that business owners who did not have an established relationship with these institutions would effectively be barred from pursuing PPP through them.

“TD Bank’s existing customers with a business deposit account or loan were eligible to apply for the PPP through the bank,” a TD Bank spokesperson said. “To support our PPP lending process, TD digitized the SBA’s application and strove to provide equal access to the funds by only accepting applications through our digital portal and by keeping the application open throughout June and July.” “In July, we expanded who could apply for a PPP loan through us. We opened it to people who only have a business credit card with us, or who told us they own a business but only have a personal checking account with us,” a Chase spokesperson told Vox. Bank of America did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Although businesses were able to apply for the loans through community development financial institutions, community banks, and tech companies, as well as other outlets, the restrictions imposed by larger banks cut off many from one key source for the program.

“Initially, PPP really fortified banking pipes to disburse funds in communities,” Kramer Mills told Vox.

The program’s reliance on banking is one that disproportionately hurt Black-owned businesses, the New York Fed report found. According to that report, “1 in 4 Black-owned employer firms [had] a recent borrowing relationship with a bank” prior to the pandemic, while 1 in 10 Black-owned non-employer firms did.

Because an overwhelming majority of Black-owned businesses are non-employer firms — or companies that don’t have paid employees — that meant a large proportion of businesses were starting as new customers at these banks and were blocked from even pursuing PPP there. As a point of comparison, one in four white non-employer firms had set up a recent banking relationship.

The New York Fed report emphasizes that this disparity in banking ties isn’t the result of Black-owned firms applying for financing at lower rates, but a product of their applications getting rejected by banks more frequently than those of white-owned firms in the past. According to a report from the Guardian, Black-owned businesses are twice as likely to be turned away for bank loans as white-owned businesses due to discriminatory practices.

PPP, because it relied in some ways on businesses’ established banking relationships, amplified these gaps.

“There is a structural flaw in this program. It uses banks as middlemen. Any time you create a big program and give banks the ability to choose which customers it prioritizes, you’re going to have disparities,” Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor at the University of California Irvine, told NBC News. “Credit disparities are where past injustices lead to present disparities.”

A study from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition that examined PPP loan applications captured specific examples of these biases. In some instances, it found that Black business owners with a comparable financial profile as white ones were less likely to be told that they met the qualifications needed for a loan.

Small businesses that had established relationships with these banks didn’t necessarily fare better, either. A lawsuit from a group of California businesses alleges that Bank of America, US Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo gave preferential treatment to companies that applied for larger loans — and approved them first — because it meant the banks would receive higher fees. In a CNN report, Bank of America and US Bank denied the allegations, while JPMorgan Chase denied the allegations on its website and Wells Fargo declined to comment.

Parker notes that others in the entrepreneurial community had advised her to apply for the program through PayPal and said she had heard “horror stories” from other business owners about their experience with how banks handled these applications. Other business owners, including those whose applications were approved by banks, similarly encountered an arduous and complicated process.

“The communication was so poor with the PPP, it alarmed me,” said chef Omar Mitchell, the owner of a Detroit fine-dining restaurant called Table No. 2.

Flaws in the program made some businesses wary of PPP

The different reactions to PPP in its first and second waves also highlight why some businesses may have opted out. When the first wave of $349 billion in funding was made available in April, that money ran out in less than two weeks. But after Congress approved another round of $310 billion, demand for the program appeared to slow. As of August 8, the deadline for applying for a loan, tens of billions still hadn’t been allocated.

Fewer businesses may have either applied for or accepted the loan in the second wave because they had concerns about how the money could be spent. According to an SBA Inspector General report released in May, some of the initial PPP rules could have led businesses to take on more debt.

PPP was first established, after all, with a specific goal: to help companies keep workers on the payroll even as their revenue took hits during the pandemic.

That goal, while an important one, failed to account for the broader challenges that many small businesses faced during the pandemic. A significant proportion of the loans — 75 percent — for example, initially had to be used on payroll costs in order for the loans to be forgiven. If a business didn’t comply with the limitations, it would ultimately have to pay the loan back. (Congress has since loosened those restrictions so only 60 percent of the funds have to be dedicated to payroll, but the earlier rules deterred many small business owners.)

“It didn’t suit what we were doing,” says Janet Webster Jones, the owner of Source Booksellers in Detroit. “I disliked the idea it was a grant until you didn’t spend it right.”

In the end, a number of small businesses were worried that obtaining a loan would simply mean more debt if they weren’t able to meet the forgiveness requirements. “To take on more debt, it was very hard for them to say, ‘I’m going to take a chance on this,’” said Khalil Rahal, the assistant county executive in Wayne County’s Office of Economic Development.

The restrictive design of the program, too, could have had an outsize impact on Black-owned businesses, which went into the recent economic crisis in weaker financial positions, on average, compared to white-owned businesses, according to the New York Fed report. Because of this dynamic, fewer Black-owned businesses may have pursued the loans due to concerns about qualifying for them and the worry of bringing on more debt.

During the pandemic, Wayne County, as well as other regional organizations such as TechTown Detroit, also offered thousands of small businesses grants that didn’t have to be repaid, a move that helped many address some financial shortfalls.

Outstanding questions about the utility of the PPP, coupled with the surge in local funds, may have led to more businesses in the region declining to participate in it.

If there’s another wave of funding, it should come in the form of grants

Business owners and experts emphasize that they sorely need another wave of PPP, but they argue that any new funds should explicitly be grants, not loans.

“Just give people the money,” says Webster Jones.

Currently, small-business owners have to apply for loan forgiveness after receiving PPP support — and they’ll only get 100 percent of it if they meet the program’s requirements. This means they must use a majority of the funds they’re given on payroll, for example.

If the funds were a grant, they’d be much more accessible, especially as the challenges businesses are facing during the pandemic keep changing. For some businesses, many of their primary costs may be spent on operational needs, including personal protective equipment.

“I think PPP ought not to be a loan at all,” Sheffield emphasized. “I can’t count how many businesses I know are closed.”

Businesses also stress that funds should be set aside for companies that have seen explicit revenue losses, as well as those that are smaller businesses — which could be measured by size and revenue — to prevent larger ones from taking up a disproportionate amount of the aid. Prioritizing funding dedicated to Black-owned businesses, too, could help guarantee a more equitable distribution of support.

“It hurts to go through what I’m going through,” says Mitchell.

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Google and Facebook hate a proposed privacy law. News publishers should embrace it.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress in 2018. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

California voters get a chance to shape internet privacy rules for the rest of the country in November.

While most of America is focused on the presidential vote, Californians have another important decision to make at the polls this November. They’re being asked to approve what will likely become the internet privacy law for the United States.

Proposition 24, also known as the California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act of 2020 (CPRA), is supposed to expand a landmark California privacy law that passed two years ago; there’s a good chance Californians will approve this one, too. It’s framed as legislation that will better protect their privacy — in particular, sensitive data such as Social Security numbers, race, religion, and health information.

And while the proposed law technically governs the use and sale of data for Californians, California has an enormous impact on the tech industry, which means CPRA will become the de facto law for all of the US.

Which should sound like a good thing for most people. Among other impacts of the proposed law, it makes a point of protecting young people by mandating triple fines for infringements against consumers under age 16. It will allow consumers to restrict the use of geolocation data by third parties, effectively ending practices like sending targeted ads to people who’ve visited a rehab center or a cancer clinic. And it will fund the creation of an agency to protect consumer privacy.

For news publishers, though, any new data regulation can create problems, and news publishers already have plenty of well-documented problems. But I think the proposed enhancements will actually help the news industry.

Fighting the Google/Facebook duopoly

From targeted advertising to personalization, data does a lot of work online. Unfortunately, two companies dominate data collection and therefore digital advertising. One big question about any privacy laws is whether they actually create more advantages for Google and Facebook instead of leveling the playing field for smaller competitors.

We’ve seen this happen before. In Europe, which began enforcing a new privacy law in May 2018, big tech companies have been able to effectively neuter the law by implementing half-measures and exploiting loopholes while enforcement lags.

The good news for consumers and news publishers alike is that CPRA seeks to close any loopholes in the previous privacy law the state passed two years ago.

For starters, the law is supposed to more clearly limit data collection and use for third parties — companies you don’t expect to get access to your data when you visit a news site — while allowing publishers to continue to use data they generate on their own sites.

That makes sense. As we have noted for years, consumers generally expect an app or website to collect data about them to help improve the service, recognize them as return visitors, or to recommend content. But they don’t expect unknown third parties to collect data about them to build profiles and serve targeted advertising on unrelated sites or apps.

That unbridled data surveillance by some big tech companies outside of their own user-facing services — that is, Google and Facebook’s ability to track you even when you’re not on their properties — has undermined consumer trust in the entire digital economy. Giving consumers the ability to control their own data should help restore some of that trust.

Privacy and subscriptions can work together

News publishers are also increasingly interested in trying to sell subscriptions instead of relying on digital ads. CPRA can help there by letting publishers offer subscriptions to consumers who opt out of having their data shared with other parties.

Some CPRA critics think this provision puts a price on “privacy.” I would argue that it gives news publishers the flexibility to decide on their own business model, and gives consumers an opportunity to understand how content gets funded. If they do not find it compelling enough, they are likely to seek out a competitive news service elsewhere. News publishers feel this tension every day. That’s why I think they will see healthy competition for consumers at various price points.

Third parties and liability

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, the CPRA closes loopholes that could be exploited by big tech platforms. One aspect of this is what we’re calling “the switch language,” which clearly aligns the obligations of third parties to serve the interests of consumers. It notes that when a consumer exercises their opt-out rights and a publisher passes their choice along to all the companies with which it works (third parties), those companies must stop reusing that consumer’s data for any other purpose. This essentially forces those companies to revert to the role of a service provider. The “switch language” also prevents any wiggle room by not allowing contracts to override this requirement. As publishers experienced in Europe, platforms like Google and Facebook often use their unbalanced negotiating leverage to force publishers to sign over these data rights, so this section is hugely important for individual publishers that do not have the leverage to force Google or Facebook to stop mining data off their properties.

Finally, CPRA clarifies that publishers are not responsible for third parties that violate the previous section as long as they do not have actual knowledge of the violation. Taken together, these provisions reflect a thoughtful understanding of how data flows in the digital economy. They also put the onus squarely on big tech companies to tailor their data collection practices in accordance with consumer preferences.

Privacy laws are imperfect yet unavoidable

CPRA isn’t perfect, but it’s well-intentioned. And while you might hear tech giants warning that it will hurt publishers, you should consider the source of those warnings, and the motivations behind them.

Consumer expectations are evolving; policy, and our industry, must follow. Yes, there may be some short-term problems as advertisers get used to working with less data and lower the price for the ads they buy. But those playing the long game will be prepared for a world where more value is placed on publishers’ direct relationships — and consumer trust.

Jason Kint is the chief executive of Digital Content Next, a trade association that represents digital content companies, including Vox Media.

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Trump team under fire for confusion about president’s condition

The White House took flak throughout the weekend over its mixed messaging on President Donald Trump’s health. That blowback continued into Sunday evening because of a lack of any messaging or information before the president briefly departed Walter Reed Medical Center in a motorcade.

Trump, a 74-year-old, overweight patient who has been hospitalized with Covid-19 since Friday, surprised supporters — and the reporters who track his movement — by waving to a crowd of cheering well-wishers as his motorcade drove past the hospital.

The president was seen wearing a mask inside a black SUV, but many of the tightly packed supporters who gathered outside did not have face coverings, a problem exacerbated by the cheers the president’s appearance elicited as he drove by.

The lack of communication with the pool of reporters tasked to follow the president’s movements drew swift condemnation from the White House Correspondents’ Association and became the latest data point in issues the Trump administration has had in sharing timely, accurate updates on the president’s health.

“It is outrageous for the president to have left the hospital — even briefly — amid a health crisis without a protective pool present to ensure that the American people know where their president is and how he is doing,” the WHCA said in a statement. “Now more than ever, the American public deserves independent coverage of the president so they can be reliably informed about his health.”

Trump’s doctors on Sunday said he could be discharged as soon as the next day, but their assessment of the president’s health didn’t necessarily align with that message. Sean Conley, the president’s physician, told reporters that X-rays and CT scans revealed only “some expected findings but nothing of any major clinical concern,” declining to go into detail.

Conley said Trump had been given dexamethasone, a decades-old steroid typically recommended for patients with severe or critical cases of the coronavirus. Trump had also received supplemental oxygen at the White House on Friday morning, Conley said, a revelation he avoided on Saturday when he briefed the press on the president’s condition.

“I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, that his course of illness has had,” Conley explained Sunday. “I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction. And in doing so, you know, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true.”

Alyssa Farah, the White House communications director, later described Conley’s explanation as “a common medical practice,” a questionable claim.

“You want to convey confidence and you want to raise the spirits of the person you’re treating,” she told Fox News. “It’s actually a very common medical practice to do that, so if anything the doctor was giving a really strong and confident viewpoint.”

Farah also dismissed news reports that the president was furious with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who told reporters after Conley’s rosy news conference on Saturday that Trump’s vitals over the past 24 hours “were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care.”

“We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery,” Meadows said then.

“Honestly, if anything,” Farah said, “I think the chief of staff’s comments reflect how close their relationship is, that he’s so close to this individual when he sees him not feeling well, not his tough, strong self that we all know, that he wanted to make sure to convey that to the public.”

Meadows had told reporters on Friday morning that the president had mild symptoms. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow had also said on Friday that Trump had a “very moderate case” of Covid-19. But on Saturday night, Meadows told Fox News: “Yesterday, we were real concerned. He had a fever, and his blood oxygen level dropped rapidly.”

The White House also came under fire for seemingly trying to edit a cough out of a video the president tweeted, and for appearing to stage quick photo ops of the president at Walter Reed to show him at work, including one that showed him signing a blank page of paper. (Two pictures taken 10 minutes apart showed Trump in different clothing and different settings.)

Farah sought to explain any inconsistent messaging on what she called “an evolving situation.”

“We’re striving to be as transparent as we can for the American public,” she said on Sunday. “I think where the confusion sort of arose was between Dr. Conley’s briefing yesterday and then comments from the chief of staff, which he helped clarify on your network. Here’s the thing: These were two different moments in time.”

Conley’s Saturday update was “very accurate,” Farah said, adding that Meadows’ comments simply reflected that “things were a little bit more concerning” on Friday.

Trump’s brief appearance in the motorcade on Sunday afternoon was the first time the president had made some sort of public appearance since disclosing early Friday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus and boarding the presidential helicopter to go to Walter Reed.

While Trump has scaled back his tweets and released some prerecorded videos online, he hasn’t done any live virtual or phone interviews, ceding the spotlight to allies he has spoken to, to deliver messages on his behalf.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wanted the American people to know that he and Trump discussed the pandemic, Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation process, and the economy. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he and the president spoke about getting a Covid relief deal after months of stalled talks.

Senior Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller said Trump’s message to the American people was to “be careful, to make sure that folks are washing hands, to make sure [they’re] using hand sanitizer, to make sure they’re wearing a mask if you can’t socially distance.”

“These are all important things and reminders that President Trump told us,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” Trump also pledged to defeat the virus, Miller said.

“President Trump personally is going to defeat it,” he continued. “As a nation, we’re going to defeat it and get life back to normal.”

Steve Cortes, another senior Trump campaign adviser, cast Trump’s infection as a testament to the virus’ power. Trump had continued to hold large rallies and other events without wearing a mask, much like many in the crowd who would pack in without wearing face coverings.

“He was unwilling to completely sequester himself to take no risk because leaders take risks and he is the servant of the people as well as the commander in chief, and so he said he must be around the people he serves and he knew that it was not riskless for him to do so,” Cortes said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“He could have been hermetically sealed in the residence and been practically guaranteed that he wouldn’t get the virus, but instead, he took reasonable risks, not reckless ones but reasonable risks,” Cortes added. “Unfortunately, he got the virus, and I think what this shows us from a policy perspective … [is] that we know even the most severe of lockdowns cannot completely stop the virus.”

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Republican senator shown without mask on Delta Airlines flight

A witness says Senator Roger Wicker did not wear his mask 90% of the flight

A passenger on a Delta Airlines flight posted a photo to Twitter of U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) with his mask tucked under his chin.

Wicker, an ally of President Donald Trump, was criticized on the social media platform after putting fellow passengers at risk.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), pays respects as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose under the Portico at the top of the front steps of the U.S. Supreme Court building on September 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)

An advertising and media specialist for Democrat Mike Espy’s campaign, Matt Harringer, spotted the senator on the flight from Washington, D.C. to Jackson, Mississippi, Sun Herald reported.

Read More: Missouri governor, opponent of mandatory masks, has COVID-19

He decided to post the unmasked politician on Twitter.

I’ve seen enough Republican senators test positive to tweet this photo. @SenatorWicker — because you refused to wear a mask on our @Delta flight last night, please let your fellow passengers know your status once you’ve been tested. pic.twitter.com/j2TW6g1gwO

— Matt Harringer (@MattHarringer) October 3, 2020

“Senator Wicker lowered his face mask to eat a snack and forgot to put it back up. When he was reminded by a flight attendant, he put the mask back up,” said Rick Vanmeter, Sen. Wicker’s communications director.

“He did not attend any recent events at the White House and has not been in contact with any of the individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days,” he said.

However, Harringer told the Sun Herald that Wicker had his mask down on his chin for 90% of the entire flight, and he time stamped the images of his unmasked face.

Wicker’s mask was under his chin at 8:37 p.m., 9:27 p.m. and 9:46 p.m. on Thursday, which, according to Harringer, were times before takeoff, during the flight, and just before landing, the Sun Herald reported.

Read More: Rite Aid manager fired after defending herself against violent customer over mask

“I think the people on the plane, the woman in front of him, me, who was sitting 5 feet away from him, deserve to know his status,” Harringer said.

“It’s incredibly upsetting to see people like the senator act like this is no big deal,” Harringer said. “I don’t know if he’s lost anybody he loved, but when you lose somebody you love, you get upset about people not wearing masks.”

Hello Matt. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our people and our customers. We take our mask policy seriously and are investigating this incident. Kylie

— Delta (@Delta) October 3, 2020

In response to his tweet, Delta Airlines stated that the company is launching an investigation.

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If Trump has learned anything from getting Covid-19, he’s not showing it

President Donald Trump in the back of a car in a motorcade outside of Walter Reed Medical Center, where he’s getting treatment for Covid-19. | Alex Edelman/AFP via Getty Images

Trump’s drive-by motorcade photo-op is out of the same coronavirus playbook that got America into this mess.

If President Donald Trump has learned anything from getting sick with Covid-19, he’s not showing it.

Since Trump’s diagnosis last Thursday, he and his administration have worked diligently to cover up the president’s disease. They’ve downplayed his symptoms. They’ve suggested he needed to be hospitalized not due to his apparently high fever and low oxygen levels but out of an abundance of caution. They’ve posted videos and photos of the president doing normal things. Even the president’s own doctors have taken to politicized spin, arguing that they were trying to be “upbeat” as they refused to fully and truthfully answer questions about Trump’s health.

On Sunday, it culminated in a photo-op in which Trump was driven outside Walter Reed hospital as he waved at supporters — exposing at least a driver and passenger in Trump’s car to his infection. As James Phillips, attending physician at Walter Reed, tweeted, “That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of COVID19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures. The irresponsibility is astounding. My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play.”

This is all out of the same playbook Trump has used for Covid-19 from day one. It’s an attempt to make everything seem normal, as if the coronavirus isn’t wrecking lives, in a desperate attempt to go back to a better world that could help ensure Trump’s reelection. As Trump told journalist Bob Woodward, “I wanted to always play [the coronavirus] down.”

Trump has stuck to this even as it’s put people in danger again and again, now even after he’s gotten sick himself. He’s called for states to reopen — to “LIBERATE” them — even as experts warned that opening too soon would lead to new cases (and, sure enough, cases spiked over the summer as states opened prematurely). He’s pushed for less testing, arguing more tests pick up more cases and therefore make the US look bad, even as experts said more testing, along with contact tracing, is still needed to slow the outbreak. He’s mocked masks and frequently refused to wear one himself, even as experts and a growing body of research show masks are key to stopping Covid-19.

This obsession with creating a false sense of normalcy seemingly extended to the moment that Trump received a positive coronavirus test. As the Washington Post initially reported, and White House staff confirmed, Trump attended campaign events on Thursday even after he and his staff learned one of Trump’s closest aides, Hope Hicks, was showing symptoms. That continued, based on recent reports, as some staff noticed Trump seemed fatigued and likely sick himself. In doing this, Trump likely exposed his own staff and supporters to Covid-19.

A potential silver lining to Trump getting sick was that maybe this would show him how serious this virus is — that it’s real, that it can make people very ill and kill them. Trump alluded to that in a video on Sunday, claiming, “I learned a lot about Covid. I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school.” Despite that, Trump was back out Sunday for the drive-by photo-op that potentially exposed his staff, at least, to the coronavirus.

This is all ridiculous, of course, because we already know Trump is sick and hospitalized. This is obviously not normal.

And we know the consequences of this act. It’s how the US ended with nearly 210,000 Covid-19 deaths so far — more than any other country in the world. It’s how the US ended up, after accounting for population, at the top 20 percent among developed countries for Covid-19 deaths. (If the US had the same Covid-19 death rate as Canada, more than 125,000 more Americans would likely be alive today.) It’s why America can’t go back to normal, even as countries like Germany, New Zealand, and South Korea open up more, as it faces far too many coronavirus cases — almost 100,000 new cases just since Trump tested positive.

It’s why Trump himself got sick. As he lived his denial, going to ill-advised campaign rallies and events, frequently refusing to wear a mask, Trump exposed himself to the coronavirus again and again.

And it’s all set to continue — as Trump and his staff’s barrage of mistruths and political spin over the weekend proved.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/3nkOmPY