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New Evidence Suggests Better Treatment Is Contributing to Falling COVID-19 Fatality Rates

NYU-Langone-Medical-Center-Wikimedia

The fatality rate among COVID-19 patients in the United States has fallen dramatically since last spring, from 6.1 percent in mid-May to 2.6 percent yesterday. That downward trend partly reflects a younger, healthier mix of patients, whose median age fell from 46 in May to 38 in August. But two new studies suggest that improvements in treatment also have helped reduce the case fatality rate.

Leora Horwitz and other researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City looked at outcomes for more than 5,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, taking into account age, sex, comorbidities, vital signs at admission, and the results of laboratory tests. Controlling for those variables, they found that the fatality rate fell from 25.6 percent in March to 7.6 percent in August—a 70 percent drop.

“Changes in demographics and severity of illness at presentation did not fully explain decreases in mortality seen over time,” Horwitz and her collaborators note in the Journal of Hospital Medicine. “Even after risk adjustment for a variety of clinical and demographic factors, including severity of illness at presentation, mortality was significantly and progressively lower over the course of the study period.”

Horwitz et al. acknowledge the possibility of “residual confounding,” such as “a higher proportion of particularly frail patients admitted in earlier periods.” But they note that “we observed declines across all age groups,” which “mitigates this concern.” They add that criteria for hospital admission may have changed during the study period, such that patients admitted later were less seriously ill. But they note that “our inclusion of several highly predictive clinical and laboratory results likely captured many aspects of disease severity.”

A study scheduled to be published in the journal Critical Care Medicine found a similar improvement among COVID-19 patients in England. University of Exeter Medical School statistician John Dennis and several other researchers analyzed outcomes for nearly 15,000 patients who required critical care between March 1 and May 30. Adjusting for various potential confounding variables, they found “a sustained decrease in mortality risk” between the first week of April and the end of the study, amounting to a drop of 9 percent a week for patients in intensive care units and 11 percent a week for patients in high intensive units.

“Our analysis, using the largest available COVID-19 specific national critical care database, shows a substantial recent improvement in mortality for people admitted to critical care with COVID-19 in England, with markedly lower mortality in people admitted in mid-April and May compared to earlier in the pandemic,” Dennis and his co-authors report. “Adjustment for all recorded patient level demographic and clinical features suggests this improvement does not reflect a change in patient demographics or comorbidities.”

Dennis et al. say “possible causes” of declining mortality among English COVID-19 patients include “the introduction of effective treatments” and “a falling critical care burden.” Horwitz et al. suggest several possible explanations for the trend they found in New York: “Incremental improvements in outcomes are likely a combination of increasing clinical experience, decreasing hospital volume, growing use of new pharmacologic treatments (such as systemic corticosteroids, remdesivir, and anticytokine treatments), nonpharmacologic treatments (such as placing the patient in the prone position, or proning, rather than on their back), earlier intervention, community awareness, and, potentially, lower viral load exposure from increased mask wearing and social distancing.”

As far as treatments go, Horwitz told The New York Times, “We don’t have a magic bullet cure, but we have…a lot of little things that add up.” For example, “We understand better when people need to be on ventilators and when they don’t, and what complications to watch for, like blood clots and kidney failure. We understand how to watch for oxygen levels even before patients are in the hospital, so we can bring them in earlier. And of course, we understand that steroids are helpful, and possibly some other medications.”

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No Recall of Councilman for Criticizing Coronavirus Shutdown Order, Says Washington S. Ct.

From a Washington Supreme Court unanimous opinion today in In re Recall of White (written by Justice González):

In our constitutional democracy, the people elect their own representatives for fixed electoral terms….

Voters have a constitutional mechanism for expressing dissatisfaction with their elected representatives between elections: recall…. Our constitution, however, constrains recall. Most relevantly, a recall petition must allege a violation of the oath of office or an act of misfeasance or malfeasance. Wash. Const. art. I § 33. Courts are obligated to review recall petitions to ensure they allege a recallable offense and not merely an unpopular decision or an unpopular stance. See RCW 29A.56.110, .140; see also Chandler v. Otto (Wash. 1984). When the recall petitioner alleges that an official committed a recallable offense by violating the law, the petition must also articulate the “‘standard, law, or rule that would make the officer’s conduct wrongful, improper, or unlawful.'” In re Recall of Inslee (Wash. 2019).

We have before us today a recall petition alleging that city of Yakima District 2 Councilman Jason White committed acts of misfeasance and malfeasance, and violated his oath of office by using his position to undermine the State’s and Yakima County’s responses to the public health emergency caused by the COVID-19 virus (coronavirus disease). The recall petition also alleges Councilmember White committed a recallable offense by refusing to attend several city council meetings….

Councilmember White is skeptical about the response to COVID-19 by our state and local governments. In a series of Facebook posts, Councilmember White encouraged his friends and followers to violate the governor’s Stay Home – Stay Healthy proclamation. Illustratively, Councilmember White posted:

“Only avoid getting out if you are sick.. and most American’s are extremely unhealthy and sick. For the rest of us with healthy immune systems and that keep them that way, this won’t effect us, just like all the other viruses in the environment.

“I spend my entire day in and out of grocery stores. Be healthy and wise to what is actually going on. The CDC and WHO are just the feel good branch of big pharma and Bill Gates and friends that want mandatory immunizations.”

Similar Facebook posts were included in the recall petition material. For example, when Councilmember White reposted an article from YakTriNews.com headlined “Face coverings required in Yakima County starting June 3,” he titled his post, “I will not comply!”

Yakima’s mayor, Patricia Byers, described White’s comments as “ʻreckless, frightening, and potentially harmful.'” The next day, Councilmember White announced he would no longer attend council meetings in protest. The remaining councilmembers voted unanimously to censure White. The record suggests Councilmember White resumed attending council meetings not long after….

[1.] [One charge in the recall petition] alleges that Councilmember White “used his position as an elected official to wrongfully encourage citizens to disobey state and local COVID-19 emergency proclamations that ordered everyone to stay home unless they need to pursue an essential activity.” … [But] beyond the bare assertion that Councilmember White had a duty to uphold the law and not interfere with other public officials’ executions of their duties, no standard, law, or rule he allegedly violated has been identified. Nothing in the governor’s “Stay Home – Stay Healthy” proclamation demands the allegiance of local legislators, and such a requirement would raise immediate constitutional concerns.

Councilmember White is a member of the city council. Under the Yakima City Charter, the council is the city’s legislative branch. In our system of divided government, legislators do not have a general duty to enforce public health orders or to abstain from criticizing the actions of other public officials….

[2.] [Another charge] alleged Councilmember White “violated his oath of office pursuant to RCW 29A.56.110(1)(b) by encouraging the public to disobey emergency orders imposed by the State of Washington and the Yakima County Health District.” … The petitioner contends … [that] under his sworn oath, Councilmember White had an obligation to uphold the law. According to the recall petition, the oath Councilmember White took would have said:

I,, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and Laws of the State of Washington, and the Charter and Ordinances of the City of Yakima. I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform the duties of the office of Council Member of the City of Yakima, Washington, according to the best of my ability. SO HELP ME GOD. (City of Yakima Council Oath of Office).

While the governor’s Stay Home – Stay Healthy order has the force of law, Councilmember White’s oath-bound duty to support the law cannot reasonably be construed within our system of divided government as an obligation not to criticize the law. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in dismissing this charge….

[3.] [A final] charge alleges that CouncilmemberWhite “refused to attend Yakima City Council meetings which interfered with the performance of his official duties, and unreasonably denied his constituents representation at Council meetings.” … The failure to attend council meetings could be the basis for recall if it prevented an official council meeting from occurring or, perhaps, had some other ascertainable consequence for the city’s business. But after considerable probing from the trial judge, the petitioner was unable to identify any consequence of Councilmember White’s failure to appear. Again, the petitioner bore the burden of identifying “the ‘standard, law, or rule that would make the officer’sconduct wrongful, improper, or unlawful.'” None have been articulated here….

While Councilmember White’s statements may have been scientifically inaccurate and intemperate, the petitioners have not shown they are the basis for recall. Accordingly, we affirm the superior court’s dismissal of the recall charges.

Thanks to Ramsey Ramerman for the pointer.

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US Might Not See Life Get “Back To Normal” Until 2022, Dr. Fauci Warns

US Might Not See Life Get “Back To Normal” Until 2022, Dr. Fauci Warns

Tyler Durden

Thu, 10/29/2020 – 14:32

With Larry Kudlow back in front of the cameras on Thursday talking up Thursday’s record-breaking GDP report and promising – with a newsman’s confidence – that the American economy will have made a “full recovery” by the Spring of next year.

Though he acknowledged that his take was “optimistic”, he reiterated that the president doesn’t want to shut down the economy again, adding that he doesn’t think shutdowns are “helpful”.

It’s unsurprising to see the White House dispatch Kudlow to carry out a string of TV interviews: Because as the Trump Campaign pushes its message that Trump’s response to the pandemic wasn’t as fatally flawed as critics have claimed, Dr. Fauci is on the other end, claiming that President Trump’s projections for when a vaccine might be approved are fanciful. And as the outbreak has accelerated these past few weeks (with Europe hit much harder than the US), the good doctor has been pushing his estimates for when we might expect a vaccine to be widely available further and further back.

On Wednesday evening, Dr. Fauci appeared on CNBC for an interview with Shep Smith, the latest Fox News refugee to try his luck as restarting his career, only to be hectored by the reporter who repeatedly pressed Dr. Fauci to unreservedly declare that a mandatory mask order must be passed across all of the US.

After acknowledging last night that he “hasn’t spoken to the president in quite a while”, on Thursday, Dr. Fauci is cranking up his warnings to ’11’, claiming that life in the US might not go “back to normal” until 2022, or late 2021 at the very least, and that mask wearing would likely continue until around this time next year.

That is, unless Americans change things up and start taking the virus more seriously. The comments were apparently made during a live virtual interview held by the NIH “in cooperation with Facebook and Twitter live”.

Earlier, some news outlets reported that Dr. Fauci has just come out in favor of a national mask mandate – Joe Biden’s stated preference for combating COVID-19 – for the first time, which is of course nonsense. He’s essentially been advocating for a national mandate since it became clear that restrictions and enforcement would vary dramatically from place to place.

When it comes to evaluating how much faith we should place in Dr. Fauci’s warnings, just remember, we’ve been here before…

As Dr. Joseph Ladapo argued in a commentary piece published Thursday by WSJ, data garnered so far shows that widespread mask wearing has made little difference (one widely cited study claimed just a 2% difference in the rate of growth. Though compounding is certainly a factor, the circumstances of the study are hardly definitive. As Dr. Lapado writes: “By paying outsize and scientifically unjustified attention to masking, mask mandates have the unintended consequence of delaying public acceptance of the unavoidable truth. In countries with active community transmission and no herd immunity, nothing short of inhumane lockdowns can stop the spread of Covid-19, so the most sensible and sustainable path forward is to learn to live with the virus.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/35M05iB Tyler Durden

Disney Just Laid Off Thousands Of Additional Workers

Disney Just Laid Off Thousands Of Additional Workers

Tyler Durden

Thu, 10/29/2020 – 14:15

It was less than a month ago that we reported Disney was laying off 28,000 employees as a result of continued economic pressure and lockdowns resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now, “thousands of cast members” – which include workers in Entertainment, Transportation, Merchandise, and Food & Beverage – are being hit with “another wave of layoff emails”, according to Walt Disney News Today. 

“As heartbreaking as it is to take this action, this is the only feasible option we have in light of the prolonged impact of Covid-19 on our business,” Josh D’Amaro, the chairman of the parks division, said in a memo to workers in late September.

The late September cuts spanned across the company’s various businesses including theme parks, cruise ships and retail businesses. While the layoffs also include executives, they were focusing on part-time workers: 67% of those getting a pink slip are part-time workers.

As part of its farewell package, Disney offered benefits to the workers being cut, including 90 days of severance. The 28,000 layoffs followed the furloughing of a massive 43,000 workers in April, when the company was first impacted by the pandemic. 

In July, Disney triumphantly reopened several of its shuttered parks, including in Florida, although visits were a fraction of their pre-pandemic levels. Disney still hasn’t received clearance to restart operations at its two theme parks in Anaheim, California.

Before the pandemic, Disney’s domestic parks alone employed more than 100,000. And, as we noted back in September, while one can “understand” the plight of management, which is scrambling to boost cash flow after it saddled the company with record debt in recent years…

…it probably would make all those soon-to-be-laid off workers feel a little bit better if most of that newly issued debt hadn’t gone to pay for stock buybacks the benefited upper management.

“Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park remain closed and will reopen at a later date, pending state and local government approvals,” the website says as of October 29, 2020. 

Meanwhile, Disney had restored the salaries of its senior executives back in August, while thousands of employees remained furloughed.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TD3vP3 Tyler Durden

New Evidence Suggests Better Treatment Is Contributing to Falling COVID-19 Fatality Rates

NYU-Langone-Medical-Center-Wikimedia

The fatality rate among COVID-19 patients in the United States has fallen dramatically since last spring, from 6.1 percent in mid-May to 2.6 percent yesterday. That downward trend partly reflects a younger, healthier mix of patients, whose median age fell from 46 in May to 38 in August. But two new studies suggest that improvements in treatment also have helped reduce the case fatality rate.

Leora Horwitz and other researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City looked at outcomes for more than 5,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, taking into account age, sex, comorbidities, vital signs at admission, and the results of laboratory tests. Controlling for those variables, they found that the fatality rate fell from 25.6 percent in March to 7.6 percent in August—a 70 percent drop.

“Changes in demographics and severity of illness at presentation did not fully explain decreases in mortality seen over time,” Horwitz and her collaborators note in the Journal of Hospital Medicine. “Even after risk adjustment for a variety of clinical and demographic factors, including severity of illness at presentation, mortality was significantly and progressively lower over the course of the study period.”

Horwitz et al. acknowledge the possibility of “residual confounding,” such as “a higher proportion of particularly frail patients admitted in earlier periods.” But they note that “we observed declines across all age groups,” which “mitigates this concern.” They add that criteria for hospital admission may have changed during the study period, such that patients admitted later were less seriously ill. But they note that “our inclusion of several highly predictive clinical and laboratory results likely captured many aspects of disease severity.”

A study scheduled to be published in the journal Critical Care Medicine found a similar improvement among COVID-19 patients in England. University of Exeter Medical School statistician John Dennis and several other researchers analyzed outcomes for nearly 15,000 patients who required critical care between March 1 and May 30. Adjusting for various potential confounding variables, they found “a sustained decrease in mortality risk” between the first week of April and the end of the study, amounting to a drop of 9 percent a week for patients in intensive care units and 11 percent a week for patients in high intensive units.

“Our analysis, using the largest available COVID-19 specific national critical care database, shows a substantial recent improvement in mortality for people admitted to critical care with COVID-19 in England, with markedly lower mortality in people admitted in mid-April and May compared to earlier in the pandemic,” Dennis and his co-authors report. “Adjustment for all recorded patient level demographic and clinical features suggests this improvement does not reflect a change in patient demographics or comorbidities.”

Dennis et al. say “possible causes” of declining mortality among English COVID-19 patients include “the introduction of effective treatments” and “a falling critical care burden.” Horwitz et al. suggest several possible explanations for the trend they found in New York: “Incremental improvements in outcomes are likely a combination of increasing clinical experience, decreasing hospital volume, growing use of new pharmacologic treatments (such as systemic corticosteroids, remdesivir, and anticytokine treatments), nonpharmacologic treatments (such as placing the patient in the prone position, or proning, rather than on their back), earlier intervention, community awareness, and, potentially, lower viral load exposure from increased mask wearing and social distancing.”

As far as treatments go, Horwitz told The New York Times, “We don’t have a magic bullet cure, but we have…a lot of little things that add up.” For example, “We understand better when people need to be on ventilators and when they don’t, and what complications to watch for, like blood clots and kidney failure. We understand how to watch for oxygen levels even before patients are in the hospital, so we can bring them in earlier. And of course, we understand that steroids are helpful, and possibly some other medications.”

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Americans Are Super-Gloomy About Holiday Spending, But Industry Ramps Up For Blockbuster Christmas

Americans Are Super-Gloomy About Holiday Spending, But Industry Ramps Up For Blockbuster Christmas

Tyler Durden

Thu, 10/29/2020 – 14:00

Authored by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,

Something is afoot here. And someone is going to be wrong…

That would be embarrassing: There has been the massive surge in shipments to and within the US, amid warnings of shipping capacity shortages, as companies are stocking up for the holiday shopping season because they don’t want to run out of merchandise, following record retail sales over the past few months, along with supply shortages.

Americans were spending their extra unemployment money and stimulus checks, and spending money on stuff that they didn’t spend on services such as vacations, flights, and hotels, and spending money they made working from home and in the stock market. The expectation in the industry is that this surge in retail spending would continue and lead to blockbuster holidays sales.

But now there’s the second major survey of consumer intentions that throws cold water on this thesis. Gallup asked consumers, as it does every year at this time, “Roughly how much money do you think you personally will spend on Christmas gifts this year?” The response on average was $805. That was down 17% from what folks told Gallup at the same time last year ($942), and the lowest since 2016 (there was no survey data for 2012), and the biggest year-over-year drop in the data going back to 2006:

This comes after the National Retail Federation had said last week, based on its annual October survey, that consumers on average expect to spend about $998 on gifts, holiday food and decorations, and additional “non-gift” purchases. This was down nearly 5% from the October 2019 survey.

The amount these folks said they’d spend on gifts was down just a tad from last year, and most of the decline in spending intentions came from non-gift items they’d buy for themselves or their families.

This 5% decline in consumer spending intentions for the holidays is in stark contrast to the 4% increase that the National Retail Federation found a year ago in its October 2019 survey.

Gallup came up with similar results as the NRF in 2019: In its survey in October 2019, Gallup found that spending intentions were up 4% from the prior year. But now consumers’ spending intentions dropped 17% from October 2019.  Something is afoot here.

Gallup’s current survey, taken between September 30 and October 15, found that concerning holiday gifts:

  • 28% said they’d spend less than in 2019 (highest % since 2014).

  • Only 12% said they’d spend more than in 2019 (lowest % since 2010)

  • 59% said they’d spend about the same (lowest % since 2014).

“A strong tilt toward less spending, as is seen now, is typical of consumer intentions during recessions and slow economic times,” Gallup said, adding that its annual question about holiday spending intentions – particularly the forthcoming November survey – “has been a reliable harbinger of annual retail sales in most years.”

So we’re looking forward to the November survey to shed more light, so to speak, on these gloomy spending intentions.

“Holiday sales typically increase year-over-year, rising 3.3% on average since 2000, with sales up more than 5% in strong years and around 2% in weak years, according to figures compiled by the National Retail Federation,” Gallup said.

“Since 2000, holiday sales have been worse than that only twice: in 2008, during the global financial crisis and December 2007-June 2009 recession, and in 2009, when the economy was still recovering from these events,” Gallup said.

If consumer spending intentions on gifts translate into some sort of reality, total retail spending may rise only 2% from a year ago, Gallup said but cautions that “consumers’ mindset is fragile and can change quickly in the event of economic or political shocks.”

And there are some biggies this year on Gallup’s list of uncertainties:

And so “the chances are high for a shift in consumers’ spending intentions on discretionary items like holiday gifts.”

Looking back at its prior October-and-November survey pairs, Gallup found that spending intentions declined from the October survey to the November survey in 10 out of the past 13 years. And if this repeats itself this year, “retailers should brace for even weaker sales.”

But wait… In one out of those 13 years, in 2011, spending intentions increased “significantly” from October to November, so maybe that’ll happen this year as well.

More realistically… Concerning retailers, Gallup said, “The best they might reasonably hope for is stability.”

So clearly, no one has any idea how much money consumers will spend over the holidays, and consumers may not either, but consumers are gloomy while the industry is acting like there is going to be a huge surge in holiday spending. If Congress decides after the election to trigger another tsunami of stimulus checks and extra unemployment benefits that arrive in bank accounts before the end of November – however impossible that may seem – well, then, maybe the wildest dreams may come true because in this weirdest economy ever, everything depends on free money.

*  *  *

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Texas Ballot Snafu Latest Example Of America Headed For Election Crisis 

Texas Ballot Snafu Latest Example Of America Headed For Election Crisis 

Tyler Durden

Thu, 10/29/2020 – 13:45

Days before the Nov. 03 presidential election, more problems emerge as some mail-in ballots are unreadable by scanning machines, increasing fears of election uncertainty. 

Ballot-scanning machines in Tarrant County, Texas, are facing severe problems this week. They can’t read mail-in ballots – causing panic among local officials who are running election workers around the clock to replicate certain ballots for a recount, reported CBS DFW. 

These problems have developed as Texas, a traditionally Republican state, is now considered a “toss-up” between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. 

So far, Tarrant County ballot-scanning machines have rejected about one-third of mail-in ballots, or about 22,000. 

County elections administrator Heider Garcia addressed this issue Tuesday night to county commissioners. Garcia said bar codes on some ballots are illegible by machines causing them to be automatically rejected. 

Tarrant County normally uses in-house ballot printing – but the virus pandemic forced local officials earlier this year to outsource ballots from Runbeck Election Services in Phoenix, Arizona, due to the expectations of social distancing would keep people at home and vote via mail. 

For readers who are interested in how the “ballot replication” process works. CBS DFW explains:

“Ballot replication is done yearly, Garcia said, but not at this volume. The process usually involves ballot board members, from more than one political party, manually filling out a new ballot that matches the one that was damaged or unreadable.

“Because of the volume of work, Garcia said in this case an employee will likely use an electronic machine to replicate the ballot. Ballot board members will then compare a print out of those choices, to the original ballot that was sent in, to verify the choices match.”

In response to the ballot-machine debacle, Runbeck Elections Services released this statement:

“We were concerned to learn that some Tarrant County ballots are not able to be scanned properly by Hart Intercivic tabulation machines, as Runbeck Election Services is a certified ballot printer for Hart Intercivic. This election year alone we have printed nearly 100 million ballots, many of which have been the same type of ballot used in Tarrant County, without experiencing any scanning issues. Runbeck Election Services is working with Tarrant County elections officials to investigate if the problem is printing-related or scanning-related. Once the investigation is complete, we will offer our support to all partners and vendors involved to determine the appropriate next steps to ensure that all ballots are properly tabulated.”

Here’s CBS DFW’s video reporting of the ballot-machine debacle in Tarrant. 

As counties and states scramble with processing mail-in ballots, there will be unexpected errors, such as the one in Texas. Counting tens of millions of mail-in ballots by election night seems complicated to meet that deadline.

Election uncertainty is the consensus among the latest Bank of America Fund Manager Survey, where 74% of respondents believe that a contested election is possible. 

What this all means is that mail-in voting has opened up a can of worms that will allow either political party to easily contest election results 

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No Recall of Councilman for Criticizing Coronavirus Shutdown Order, Says Washington S. Ct.

From a Washington Supreme Court unanimous opinion today in In re Recall of White (written by Justice González):

In our constitutional democracy, the people elect their own representatives for fixed electoral terms….

Voters have a constitutional mechanism for expressing dissatisfaction with their elected representatives between elections: recall…. Our constitution, however, constrains recall. Most relevantly, a recall petition must allege a violation of the oath of office or an act of misfeasance or malfeasance. Wash. Const. art. I § 33. Courts are obligated to review recall petitions to ensure they allege a recallable offense and not merely an unpopular decision or an unpopular stance. See RCW 29A.56.110, .140; see also Chandler v. Otto (Wash. 1984). When the recall petitioner alleges that an official committed a recallable offense by violating the law, the petition must also articulate the “‘standard, law, or rule that would make the officer’s conduct wrongful, improper, or unlawful.'” In re Recall of Inslee (Wash. 2019).

We have before us today a recall petition alleging that city of Yakima District 2 Councilman Jason White committed acts of misfeasance and malfeasance, and violated his oath of office by using his position to undermine the State’s and Yakima County’s responses to the public health emergency caused by the COVID-19 virus (coronavirus disease). The recall petition also alleges Councilmember White committed a recallable offense by refusing to attend several city council meetings….

Councilmember White is skeptical about the response to COVID-19 by our state and local governments. In a series of Facebook posts, Councilmember White encouraged his friends and followers to violate the governor’s Stay Home – Stay Healthy proclamation. Illustratively, Councilmember White posted:

“Only avoid getting out if you are sick.. and most American’s are extremely unhealthy and sick. For the rest of us with healthy immune systems and that keep them that way, this won’t effect us, just like all the other viruses in the environment.

“I spend my entire day in and out of grocery stores. Be healthy and wise to what is actually going on. The CDC and WHO are just the feel good branch of big pharma and Bill Gates and friends that want mandatory immunizations.”

Similar Facebook posts were included in the recall petition material. For example, when Councilmember White reposted an article from YakTriNews.com headlined “Face coverings required in Yakima County starting June 3,” he titled his post, “I will not comply!”

Yakima’s mayor, Patricia Byers, described White’s comments as “ʻreckless, frightening, and potentially harmful.'” The next day, Councilmember White announced he would no longer attend council meetings in protest. The remaining councilmembers voted unanimously to censure White. The record suggests Councilmember White resumed attending council meetings not long after….

[1.] [One charge in the recall petition] alleges that Councilmember White “used his position as an elected official to wrongfully encourage citizens to disobey state and local COVID-19 emergency proclamations that ordered everyone to stay home unless they need to pursue an essential activity.” … [But] beyond the bare assertion that Councilmember White had a duty to uphold the law and not interfere with other public officials’ executions of their duties, no standard, law, or rule he allegedly violated has been identified. Nothing in the governor’s “Stay Home – Stay Healthy” proclamation demands the allegiance of local legislators, and such a requirement would raise immediate constitutional concerns.

Councilmember White is a member of the city council. Under the Yakima City Charter, the council is the city’s legislative branch. In our system of divided government, legislators do not have a general duty to enforce public health orders or to abstain from criticizing the actions of other public officials….

[2.] [Another charge] alleged Councilmember White “violated his oath of office pursuant to RCW 29A.56.110(1)(b) by encouraging the public to disobey emergency orders imposed by the State of Washington and the Yakima County Health District.” … The petitioner contends … [that] under his sworn oath, Councilmember White had an obligation to uphold the law. According to the recall petition, the oath Councilmember White took would have said:

I,, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and Laws of the State of Washington, and the Charter and Ordinances of the City of Yakima. I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform the duties of the office of Council Member of the City of Yakima, Washington, according to the best of my ability. SO HELP ME GOD. (City of Yakima Council Oath of Office).

While the governor’s Stay Home – Stay Healthy order has the force of law, Councilmember White’s oath-bound duty to support the law cannot reasonably be construed within our system of divided government as an obligation not to criticize the law. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in dismissing this charge….

[3.] [A final] charge alleges that CouncilmemberWhite “refused to attend Yakima City Council meetings which interfered with the performance of his official duties, and unreasonably denied his constituents representation at Council meetings.” … The failure to attend council meetings could be the basis for recall if it prevented an official council meeting from occurring or, perhaps, had some other ascertainable consequence for the city’s business. But after considerable probing from the trial judge, the petitioner was unable to identify any consequence of Councilmember White’s failure to appear. Again, the petitioner bore the burden of identifying “the ‘standard, law, or rule that would make the officer’sconduct wrongful, improper, or unlawful.'” None have been articulated here….

While Councilmember White’s statements may have been scientifically inaccurate and intemperate, the petitioners have not shown they are the basis for recall. Accordingly, we affirm the superior court’s dismissal of the recall charges.

Thanks to Ramsey Ramerman for the pointer.

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Justice Department Will Let Local Cops Wear Body Cameras in Task Force Raids

policebodycamera_1161x653

The Justice Department today announced an important change in policy: Local police will be able to use their body-worn cameras when they’re involved in a task force with federal officers.

Over the past decade we’ve seen a huge and somewhat successful push to have police wear cameras. The aim is to better document their behavior, to hold them accountable when they engage in misconduct, and to clear them when they’re innocent.

Under President Barack Obama, the Department of Justice encouraged local police departments to buy body cameras, offering millions of dollars in grants to help fund the purchases. At the same time, strangely, federal law enforcement agencies did not start wearing body cameras. Furthermore, the Justice Department barred local cops from wearing these cameras during multiagency task forces involving federal officers. If, say, local deputies teamed up with the Drug Enforcement Administration for a raid, no cameras were permitted.

This conflicted approach was highlighted in September, when U.S. Marshals teamed up with three other local law enforcement agencies to arrest antifa activist Michael Reinoehl outside Olympia, Washington. (Reinoehl was wanted for second-degree murder in the death of Aaron Danielson, a member of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer killed during a protest in Portland, Oregon.) The attempt to arrest Reinoehl went bad, and Reinoehl was shot and killed by police on the scene under suspicious circumstances. Eyewitnesses say the police never identified themselves before shooting him. The police say Reinoehl was trying to pull a gun on them, a gun that was reportedly found in his right pocket. Maybe Reinoehl’s death was an illegal execution; maybe it was self-defense. We’ll never see any body camera footage providing the evidence either way.

Now that policy is changing. The Department of Justice, determining that a previous pilot program had been successful, today announced that it will permit local law enforcement officers to keep wearing their body cameras and to record some police encounters: “The department’s policy will permit federally deputized officers to activate a body-worn camera while serving arrest warrants, or during other planned arrest operations, and during the execution of search warrants.”

That’s a huge improvement, but it doesn’t change the fact that federal agents themselves do not wear body cameras during these arrests and raids. (And it’s not like the department doesn’t have the money to pay for the cameras.) The rules are also full of exceptions, forbidding body cameras when the feds are “using specialized or sensitive investigative techniques, operating in a sensitive area, or working in an undercover or covert status on behalf of the federal task force or federal agency as determined by the federal agency sponsoring the task force.” The federal agency organizing the task force can veto camera recording for “highly specialized or sensitive operations.”

Furthermore, all the recordings will be deemed federal records, even though they’re recorded by local cops. Federal guidelines, not local public records laws, will determine the release of any footage collected. It can take years for the Department of Justice to comply with public records requests, and the guidelines establish a presumption that the recordings are sensitive information: “Nothing in this policy shall be deemed to provide a right of public access to…recordings.” When a body camera ends up recording footage of a serious injury or death of another person during one of these task forces, the federal government will decide the timeline for the footage to be released.

It’s an improvement over the status quo. But we’ll have to see how frequently the feds try to stop the release of important footage.

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Justice Department Will Let Local Cops Wear Body Cameras in Task Force Raids

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The Justice Department today announced an important change in policy: Local police will be able to use their body-worn cameras when they’re involved in a task force with federal officers.

Over the past decade we’ve seen a huge and somewhat successful push to have police wear cameras. The aim is to better document their behavior, to hold them accountable when they engage in misconduct, and to clear them when they’re innocent.

Under President Barack Obama, the Department of Justice encouraged local police departments to buy body cameras, offering millions of dollars in grants to help fund the purchases. At the same time, strangely, federal law enforcement agencies did not start wearing body cameras. Furthermore, the Justice Department barred local cops from wearing these cameras during multiagency task forces involving federal officers. If, say, local deputies teamed up with the Drug Enforcement Administration for a raid, no cameras were permitted.

This conflicted approach was highlighted in September, when U.S. Marshals teamed up with three other local law enforcement agencies to arrest antifa activist Michael Reinoehl outside Olympia, Washington. (Reinoehl was wanted for second-degree murder in the death of Aaron Danielson, a member of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer killed during a protest in Portland, Oregon.) The attempt to arrest Reinoehl went bad, and Reinoehl was shot and killed by police on the scene under suspicious circumstances. Eyewitnesses say the police never identified themselves before shooting him. The police say Reinoehl was trying to pull a gun on them, a gun that was reportedly found in his right pocket. Maybe Reinoehl’s death was an illegal execution; maybe it was self-defense. We’ll never see any body camera footage providing the evidence either way.

Now that policy is changing. The Department of Justice, determining that a previous pilot program had been successful, today announced that it will permit local law enforcement officers to keep wearing their body cameras and to record some police encounters: “The department’s policy will permit federally deputized officers to activate a body-worn camera while serving arrest warrants, or during other planned arrest operations, and during the execution of search warrants.”

That’s a huge improvement, but it doesn’t change the fact that federal agents themselves do not wear body cameras during these arrests and raids. (And it’s not like the department doesn’t have the money to pay for the cameras.) The rules are also full of exceptions, forbidding body cameras when the feds are “using specialized or sensitive investigative techniques, operating in a sensitive area, or working in an undercover or covert status on behalf of the federal task force or federal agency as determined by the federal agency sponsoring the task force.” The federal agency organizing the task force can veto camera recording for “highly specialized or sensitive operations.”

Furthermore, all the recordings will be deemed federal records, even though they’re recorded by local cops. Federal guidelines, not local public records laws, will determine the release of any footage collected. It can take years for the Department of Justice to comply with public records requests, and the guidelines establish a presumption that the recordings are sensitive information: “Nothing in this policy shall be deemed to provide a right of public access to…recordings.” When a body camera ends up recording footage of a serious injury or death of another person during one of these task forces, the federal government will decide the timeline for the footage to be released.

It’s an improvement over the status quo. But we’ll have to see how frequently the feds try to stop the release of important footage.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/35O7fmq
via IFTTT