A lack of test kits for the new COVID-19 coronavirus is still obscuring the extent of the outbreak in the U.S., but for a critical period in February, there were no functional federal tests and "local officials across the country were left to work blindly as the crisis grew undetected and exponentially," The New York Times reports. The coronavirus has now infected more than 1,000 people in 36 states and Washington, D.C., according to Johns Hopkins University's count.
The first U.S. outbreak was in Washington state, where authorities confirmed the first patient — suffering from respiratory problems after visiting Wuhan, China — only after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made an exception to strict testing criteria. In Seattle, Dr. Helen Chu, an infectious disease expert who was part of an ongoing flu-monitoring effort, the Seattle Flu Study, asked permission to test their trove of collected flu swabs for coronavirus.
State health officials joined Chu in asking the CDC and Food and Drug Administration to waive privacy rules and allow clinical tests in a research lab, citing the threat of significant loss of life. The CDC and FDA said no. "We felt like we were sitting, waiting for the pandemic to emerge," Chu told the Times. "We could help. We couldn't do anything."
They held off for a couple of weeks, but on Feb. 25, Chu and her colleagues "began performing coronavirus tests, without government approval," the Times reports. They found a positive case pretty quickly, and after discussing the ethics, they told state health officials, who confirmed the next day that a teenager who hadn't traveled abroad had COVID-19 — and the virus had likely been spreading undetected throughout the Seattle area for weeks. Later that day, the CDC and FDA told Chu and her colleagues to stop testing, then partially relented, and the lab found several more cases. On Monday night, they were ordered to stop testing again.
"In the days since the teenager's test, the Seattle region has spun into crisis, with dozens of people testing positive and at least 22 dying," the Times notes. "The scientists said they believe that they will find evidence that the virus was infecting people even earlier, and that they could have alerted authorities sooner if they had been allowed to test." Read more about the red tape at The New York Times. Peter Weber
The giant pandas at the Smithsonian's National Zoo can leave their passports tucked away for three more years.
The United States and China's panda loan agreement was set to expire on Monday, but the zoo reached a deal with the China Wildlife and Conservation Association so Mei Xiang, Tian Tian, and their cub, Xiao Qi Ji, can stay in Washington, D.C., until Dec. 7, 2023.
Mei Xiang, a 22-year-old female, and Tian Tian, a 23-year-old male, have been at the zoo for two decades. Xiao Qi Ji, their fourth surviving cub, was born on Aug. 21. As part of the panda diplomacy project, the zoo has been hosting giant pandas from China since 1972.
In addition to the roughly 600 giant pandas in zoos and breeding centers worldwide, experts believe there are only about 1,800 pandas left in the wild in China. Steve Monfort, director of the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, said in a statement that he is looking forward to spending the next three years "watching Xiao Qi Ji grow and making further strides in conservation and in our understanding of giant pandas." Catherine Garcia
Charles "Chuck" Yeager, the first pilot to break the speed of sound and survive, died Monday night, his wife, Victoria, announced on Twitter. He was 97.
Yeager eventually became the first person to fly at 2.5 times the speed of sound, but he entered the history books on Oct. 14, 1947, when he flew an experimental Bell X-1 test jet over California's Mojave Desert at nearly 700 miles per hour, breaking the sound barrier. He was secretly flying with several broken ribs after he and his first wife went drinking then rode horses at night days earlier, The Washington Post reports, but Yeager wrote in his 1985 autobiography that once you got past Mach 1, physically the ride "was a smooth as a baby's bottom."
Yeager was born in rural Hamlin, West Virginia, in 1963. "Although not a distinguished student, Chuck Yeager excelled in geometry and used his talents to become an excellent pool hustler," the Post reports. "Like his father, he also showed great skill in mechanics and as a teen was able to take apart and reassemble a car engine." The younger Yeager enlisted in the Army Air Forces during World War II, right out of high school. He was credited with shooting down at least 12 German planes, but was also shot down himself during his eighth mission, slowly making his way from Nazi-occupied France down to British forces in Gibraltar.
Yeager joined the X-1 project at Muroc Field in California, now Edwards Air Force Base, after World War II. He won the assignment to break Mach 1 after the civilian test pilot who had been flying the experimental plane demanded a $150,000 bonus. The head of test flights, Col. Albert Boyd, also called Yeager "the best instinctive pilot I ever saw," a quality that probably helped him survive when other pilots died trying to break the sound barrier.
Yeager retired from the Air Force in 1975 as a decorated brigadier general, though he was given the honorary rank of major general in 2005. President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985. Yeager's flights helped with the creation of the U.S. space program, but he said he would not have qualified for the astronaut program himself, had he been interested, because he lacked a college degree. "I was probably the last guy who will get to do the kind of flying I did," Yeager said in 2002, when he broke the sound barrier for his final time. Peter Weber
After taking his oath of office on Monday, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón promised to enact sweeping change, saying he will end cash bail for misdemeanors and non-violent felony offenses and prohibit prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.
Los Angeles, he declared, is "a poster child for the failed tough-on-crime approach. The status quo hasn't made us safer." Gascón, a former San Francisco district attorney and assistant chief in the Los Angeles Police Department, defeated Jackie Lacey in the November election, running on a progressive platform.
Gascón said he is also implementing new policies to end the practices of charging juveniles as adults and using sentencing enhancements, and will reopen at least four investigations into officer-involved shootings. There are people now in jail "because they can't afford to purchase their freedom," Gascón said, and they will have the opportunity to request new court hearings to be released.
"I recognize for many this is a new path ... whether you are a protester, a police officer, or a prosecutor, I ask you to walk with me," he said. "I ask you to join me on this journey. We can break the multigenerational cycles of violence, trauma, and arrest and recidivism that has led America to incarcerate more people than any other nation." Catherine Garcia
Over the past week, President Trump twice called Bryan Cutler, the Republican speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, asking for assistance in the quest to overturn his loss in the state.
"The president said, 'I'm hearing about all these issues in Philadelphia, and these issues with your law,'" Michael Straub, a spokesman for Cutler, told The Washington Post. "'What can we do to fix it?'" Straub, who described the calls as being "amicable," said Cutler explained to Trump that the legislature did not have the power to overturn Pennsylvania's chosen slate of electors.
Late last week, Cutler and roughly 60 other GOP state lawmakers signed a letter encouraging Pennsylvania's congressional representatives to object to the Electoral College votes received from Pennsylvania during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress.
Trump continues to spread his baseless claims about voter fraud, despite the fact that his campaign has lost dozens of legal challenges across the country and has yet to produce any tangible evidence. The president has asked Republicans in Michigan and Georgia to overturn their results, with Trump telling Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) he should call a special legislative session in order to change how the state's electors are selected; Kemp rejected the request, saying the law would not allow it. Catherine Garcia
Police raid home of fired Florida data scientist who challenged state government on COVID-19 numbers
President-elect Joe Biden has selected retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to be his defense secretary, three people with knowledge of the matter told Politico on Monday.
Austin is a former commander of U.S. Central Command and was the first Black general to command an Army division in combat and first to oversee a theater of operations. He retired from the military in 2016 after 41 years, and became a board member of Raytheon Technologies and Nucor. Because he has not been out of the military for the required seven years, Austin would need to receive a waiver from Congress to serve as defense secretary.
People familiar with the matter told Politico other candidates included defense policy adviser Michèle Flournoy and former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. Catherine Garcia
Officials in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh are trying to figure out what is causing a mysterious illness that has hospitalized at least 450 people and left one dead.
The illness was first detected in the ancient city of Eluru on Saturday evening, The Associated Press reports. Doctors said patients have reported feeling nauseous and anxious, with some losing consciousness and others foaming at the mouth. On Sunday evening, a 45-year-old man who had been hospitalized with nausea and symptoms similar to epilepsy died of a heart attack, The Guardian reports.
Water samples taken from the city do not show any signs of contamination, health officials said. The patients are from different age groups, and have tested negative for COVID-19 and other viral diseases like dengue and chikungunya. On Monday, India's central government sent a team of experts to Eluru to investigate the illness. Andhra Pradesh has been hit hard by the coronavirus, with more than 800,000 cases recorded, and the virus is straining the state's health care system. Catherine Garcia