May 8, 2020

Quote of the Day: Maybe Testing Isn’t So Great After All

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One of Mike Pence’s aides tested positive for coronavirus today. President Trump says this is why tests are a bad idea:

This is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great. The tests are perfect, but something can happen between the test where it’s good and then something happens and all of a sudden— She was tested very recently and tested negative and today I guess for some reason she tested positive.

Trump has said before that he’s not crazy about tests because all they do is make him look bad. Now he’s going further: he seems unsure the tests are even measuring something real. They’re negative one day and then positive the next. Why? “For some reason.”

I wonder how far down this rabbit hole he’s gone? Does Trump even believe the pandemic is real? He can’t see it, after all. Does he figure that if everyone would just stop reporting the numbers then everything would be OK? Or maybe he’s taking a purely transactional view: testing is fine in the abstract, but not so good when it tags someone close by who might be used to humiliate him. There’s no telling. But whatever it is, it’s pretty obvious that the stress of dealing with COVID-19 is accelerating whatever mental deterioration he was undergoing already.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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