“If I could make it at Hooters, I could make it anywhere.” Freshman Tennessee state representative Julia Hurley, writing in the pages of Hooters Magazine, a publication that exists. [Ben Smith/Politico]
Tentative good news as hospitalizations spike around the country
Two new peer-reviewed studies are showing a sharp drop in mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The drop is seen in all groups, including older patients and those with underlying conditions, suggesting that physicians are getting better at helping patients survive their illness.
“We find that the death rate has gone down substantially,” says Leora Horwitz, a doctor who studies population health at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine and an author on one of the studies, which looked at thousands of patients from March to August.
The study, which was of a single health system, finds that mortality has dropped among hospitalized patients by 18 percentage points since the pandemic began. Patients in the study had a 25.6% chance of dying at the start of the pandemic; they now have a 7.6% chance. That’s a big improvement, but 7.6% is still a high risk compared with other diseases, and Horwitz and other researchers caution that COVID-19 remains dangerous.
Klain played a key role in the Obama administration’s economic recovery efforts and its response to the Ebola crisis
Longtime Democratic aide Ron Klain is the leading candidate to be presidential nominee Joe Biden’s chief of staff if Biden wins the election, according to several people familiar with the situation. …
He’s widely respected by Democrats across the party’s ideological spectrum and progressives say they would be comfortable with him in that role.
Others under consideration include Steve Ricchetti, also a former Biden vice presidential chief of staff and chairman of his presidential campaign, and Jeff Zients, a co-chair of Biden’s transition team. But Klain, who first worked for Biden during his short-lived 1987 presidential campaign, has the candidate’s trust and more pertinent experience than anyone else who might be considered for the job, the people said. Another name that has been floated is Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond, an early Biden endorser and campaign co-chair.
Some pronounced optimism from the Speaker
The First Lady has not recovered entirely from Covid
Quite a statistic
Barr is definitely going to hop right on this
Joe Biden picked up a few unusual endorsements today
Axios reports:
USA Today, one of the largest newspapers by circulation in America, gave Joe Biden its first-ever presidential endorsement on Tuesday.
“This is not something we do lightly or do eagerly,” said Bill Sternberg, head of USA Today’s editorial board.
… The newspaper, which published its first endorsement in 1982, posted a “dis-endorsement” of President Trump in 2016, but fell short of actually endorsing Hillary Clinton.
The Hill reports:
Michael Steele, who led the Republican National Committee (RNC) during the first years of Joe Biden’s vice presidency, formally endorsed him Tuesday morning after joining a “Never Trump” GOP group in August.
Steele made his announcement on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” shortly before starring in an advertisement paid for by the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project.
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