When U.S. President Donald Trump entered 2020, he could be forgiven for thinking he was cruising toward reelection. The economy was roaring, the U.S. was involved in no major combat for the first time in a generation, and the Democrats were putting forth a mosh pit of more than 20 candidates pulling the party in more than 20 directions. Peace, prosperity and an opposition tearing itself apart is a pretty sweet place to start your reelection campaign. But a few months into 2020, the Trump bandwagon got t-boned by the pandemic—and nothing has been the same since.
A more disciplined president could have turned the pandemic into yet another political advantage. Viruses cut across party, income, race and gender lines, and there’s nothing more presidential than gathering a frightened nation close and promising you’ll look after everyone. But that isn’t Trump.
That’s not to say he didn’t get some things right. The coronavirus task force was precisely the kind of council that people like to see amid a crisis. “Operation Warp Speed” may have been spin-room sloganeering, but it helped spur vaccine developers to move fast. And while the Trump Administration dithered in using the Defense Production Act to speed the development of personal protective equipment and ventilators, Trump finally threw that switch in August.
But then there was the politicization of mask wearing; the business of injecting bleach; the tweets to “liberate” locked down cities; the inflammatory attacks on Black Lives Matter and “Democrat-run” states. By the time Trump himself contracted COVID-19 in early October, he had lost any claim to successful stewardship of the pandemic. He now owns the calamity as surely as Herbert Hoover owned the Depression.
Politically, Trump has done Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s blocking and tackling for him, opening up holes for Biden to run through. Indeed, Biden has focused his campaign on beating the pandemic by listening to the scientists, encouraging common-sense measures like mask wearing and social distancing, and depoliticizing the crisis.
The irony is that Trump and Biden are not that far apart on COVID-19 policy. Opening up schools? Check, though Biden favors letting local officials decide for themselves while Trump wants a nationwide reopening. Fast-tracking vaccines? Absolutely, though Trump pushed to have one ready in time for the election while Biden wants to let science dictate the pace. Expanding testing? Yes again, though Trump wants to provide funding but leave the implementation to the states, while Biden envisions a regimen of nationwide testing and contact tracing.
But the President’s problem has long been coloring way outside the lines of his own policies. And so we get the conspiracy theories about doctors getting paid extra if they list coronavirus as a cause of death. We get his attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci and the chants of “fire Fauci” at Trump events. And we get the mocking of mask wearing and the superspreader events that Trump rallies have become.
If Trump loses, it’s entirely possible that the pandemic would have taken him down regardless of how he behaved. George H.W. Bush, always a statesman, lost in 1992 because of a recession that was far from entirely his fault. Jimmy Carter remained a near-pastoral figure throughout his presidency, but that didn’t stop the Iran hostage crisis and long oil lines from dooming his reelection.
If Biden wins, those laws of political gravity will apply to him just as they have applied to all the others. He has sought the Presidency for half of his life. He never sought a global pandemic. But in 2020, he can’t claim the first without inheriting the second. Should he be sworn in this January, he should have no illusions about how hard his job will be.
More than 46.8 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 1.2 million people have died. Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
On Nov. 2, there were 360,608 new cases and 6,101 new deaths confirmed globally. Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here is every country with over 500,000 confirmed cases:
Health officials in China continue to report discoveries of traces of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on packages of imported refrigerated or frozen foods, including Ecuadorian shrimp, Russian squid and Norwegian seafood. China’s Centers for Disease Control reported last month that two dockworkers in the eastern port city of Qingdao are believed to have contracted the virus after handling contaminated packaging; all of the city’s 9 million residents have since been tested, while local leaders are stepping up inspections of imported foods. However, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization are skeptical of China’s claims, minimizing the risk from contaminated food or packaging.
Germany, where nearly 30% of residents are 60 or older, has been battling with an especially severe infection crisis in its nursing homes since the start of the pandemic. Now the country is planning to try a new tool: widespread antigen testing of all nursing home residents, staff and visiting relatives, the Associated Press reports. The government is bulk-buying the needed supplies and providing 20 free monthly tests per resident, while manufacturers have agreed to manufacture and sell the government more than 20 million tests in November and December alone. The solution is by no means perfect—antigen tests are considered less reliable than other methods, but they deliver results much more quickly, sometimes in minutes instead of hours or days.
In the early days of Russia’s outbreak, major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg were the hardest hit areas. But as resources flowed into those urban centers, the vast nation’s rural provinces were left unprotected. Now, as an already tough Russian winter drives people indoors, an arc of disease is sweeping across the Urals, Siberia and the borderlands near Kazakhstan, The Guardianreports. Ambulances have been turned away from clogged hospitals; local doctors are pleading for military help; and video has surfaced with grim scenes of bodies left unattended in hospital corridors.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded nearly 9.3 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 231,500 people have died. Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
On Nov. 2, there were 84,089 new cases and 557 new deaths confirmed in the U.S. Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
As President Trump continues to blast Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, another member of the President’s coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, is risking his ire—in her case, by writing an internal report criticizing the Administration’s pandemic strategy, the Washington Postreports. As Trump continues to campaign on the unfounded promise that the country is “rounding the turn” on the virus, Birx’s report warns that “we are entering the most concerning and most deadly phase of this pandemic.” Birx further argues against potential superspreader events like the President’s campaign rallies, as well as his claim that increased case counts are simply due to more testing.
While New York was ground zero for U.S. coronavirus infections back in the spring, the state has since crushed the curve, with what is currently the third-lowest positivity rate in the country. But some of that progress is slipping away—daily statewide hospitalizations, for instance, have exceeded 1,000 as recently as yesterday. Warning of “dangerous times” ahead, governor Andrew Cuomo is instituting a number of new measures to bend the curve back down, including $50 fines for travelers who fail to wear a face mask at ports of entry and a requirement that out-of-state visitors provide proof of a negative test or face a 14-day quarantine.
Folks in Utah are today looking agape at widely-circulated drone footage of a Halloween rave attended by thousands of young people on Saturday night, the Washington Postreports. The party might have gone undetected if a crowdsurfing woman hadn’t fallen on her head, prompting calls to 911, after which police broke up the gathering. But the consequences will surely linger. “Individuals who attended this event absolutely will become ill, we will have positive cases," said Aislynn Tolman-Hill, a spokeswoman for the state health department.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Nov. 3, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
As Restaurants Die, Communities May Languish
By the end of the summer, over 32,000 restaurants and 6,400 bars in the U.S. that were open on March 1 were closed. In New York City, a staggering 87% of restaurants were unable to pay their August rent, while one third to one half of all restaurants in the city are expected to close permanently. But restaurants provide more than a place to eat or drink—they are the glue that helps hold communities, neighborhoods and related businesses together, and the ripple effect of any closures could go well beyond the industry itself, the New York Times reports. Read more here.
COVID Clobbers Low-Income Students
As the pandemic drags on and K-12 students continue their education over the internet, pre-existing disadvantages—plus a lack of access to private spaces in the home to focus on learning—is driving down grades for Los Angeles-area low-income pupils, the L.A. Times reports. Making matters worse: parents in lower-income families are less likely to have jobs that allow them to work from home, and thus supervise their kids’ studies. Read more here.
Why Contact Tracing Is Failing
Contact tracing can be an effective way of containing viral spread within a community, but a new Pew study finds that the U.S. public is reluctant to participate. A majority of respondents—51%—said that if they tested positive for the virus, they would be hesitant to share a list of their close contacts with health officials. Meanwhile, just 19% said they answer their phone if they don’t recognize the number, which may stymie tracers’ efforts. Read more here.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Alex Fitzpatrick.
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