A dual coronavirus and flu threat is set to deliver a winter from hell
10 August 2020
The hope and promise of May is gone, replaced by the realization that America is in for another miserable year of COVID-19.
Why it matters: Another winter — and another flu season — is on the way as the U.S. engages in a whack-a-mole strategy that slows down the virus in one region, but sees it flaring up in another.
- "Unless Americans use the dwindling weeks between now and the onset of 'indoor weather' to tamp down transmission in the country, this winter could be Dickensianly bleak," public health experts told STAT's Helen Branswell.
- “I think November, December, January, February are going to be tough months in this country without a vaccine,” said Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota.
The stark results:
- Our schools are increasingly desperate, and parents too. Online education isn't the same for adults, let alone elementary students.
- To cap it all off, our entertainment options are running dry. Studios haven't been filming and there are dimming prospects for fall college sports.
The big picture: No other rich nation has anything close to our level of sustained outbreak, so no other rich nation will have anything close to our level of misery in the 2020-21 school year.
- Europe is reporting a new outbreak, as have nations in Asia.
- But they have repeatedly done what we haven't since the weather warmed up — successfully put the screws on community spread.
The bottom line: This may be the most miserable school year ever for many people, and a groundswell event that could forever alter the life trajectory for many of America's kids.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.