from ProPublica
Welcome to the Weekly Dispatch. The good news: Spring is here. The bad news: Don’t you dare enjoy it in the park with friends. Getting through any crisis depends on good information, and our mostly isolated journalists are working hard to understand how this got out of hand and what’s to be done about it. As a treat, this week we also took a short break to hold the powerful to account for issues not related to the coronavirus.
A CDC email obtained by ProPublica, with identifying information redacted.
The early mistakes
Most people now know about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s great coronavirus testing failure. But this week, we learned more about its slow response as the coronavirus spread: Emails we obtained from the CDC show that chaotic early attempts to track the disease only brought confusion.
Across the globe, a massive Chinese propaganda campaign that played out on Twitter contributed to misconceptions about the coronavirus. We had been reporting on covert Chinese Twitter propaganda before the virus spread, and we watched it pivot to the disease in real time.
Avoidable supply shortages
Lupus patients can’t get lifesaving medicine because people (including doctors) are hoarding it. The president has pushed the drug relentlessly despite the fact that there is little evidence it works to treat COVID-19.
Medical workers are making their own, untested masks. Due to cuts and neglect, by the time states flooded the National Strategic Stockpile with requests, it only had 30 million protective face masks, many of which were expired.
Hospitals are considering putting two or more patients on one ventilator, despite severe lung damage risks while states have been forced to compete for badly needed resources.
Danger in ICE detention
An ICE detainee in a New Jersey ICE detention center says migrants there have gone on a hunger strike for soap.
Several detainees and guards around the country have tested positive, and unrest is growing.
Though the administration has discouraged travel, ICE needlessly flew one detainee to different parts of the country nine times in 10 days.
The other public health crisis: Opioids
Walmart's own pharmacists were concerned about the company filling suspect prescriptions, and a Texas U.S. attorney was on the verge of charging the company criminally. Then political appointees at the Department of Justice quashed it. He resigned in protest. Here’s a taste of the resignation letter: “Corporations cannot poison Americans with impunity.”
Thank you, as always, for spending your Saturday morning (or whenever) sifting through our journalism. Stay safe, stay healthy and, if you can, stay inside.
Yours in isolation,
Karim Doumar
Assistant Editor, Audience
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