The Morning Dispatch: The Forgotten Casualties of COVID-19 Lockdowns

Happy Tuesday! Or if you are a Trump campaign aide desperately trying to get the president to stop shooting himself in the foot on Twitter … Tuesday!

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• As of Monday night, 2,935,716 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the United States (an increase of 47,130 from yesterday) and 130,284 deaths have been attributed to the virus (an increase of 337 from yesterday), according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard, leading to a mortality rate among confirmed cases of 4.4 percent (the true mortality rate is likely much lower, between 0.4 percent and 1.4 percent, but it’s impossible to determine precisely due to incomplete testing regimens). Of 36,032,329 coronavirus tests conducted in the United States (519,413 conducted since yesterday), 8.2 percent have come back positive.

• The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that states can punish “faithless electors” who defect from supporting presidential candidates who win their state’s popular vote. Ten of the 538 presidential electors in 2016 voted for someone other than their pledged candidate. The Supreme Court also upheld a federal ban on robocalls to cell phones, which was passed by the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

• The Student and Exchange Visitor Program—a part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—declared Monday the State Department will not issue visas or permit entry into the United States to international students “enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester.” Harvard University had just announced its plan to invite 40 percent of students back to campus for the fall for an entirely online learning experience.

• Miami Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced the city would be closing restaurants and gyms again as coronavirus cases surge throughout the area. The mayor had already ordered the closures of movie theaters and casinos last week.

• Uber acquired the food delivery service Postmates in an all-stock buyout valued at $2.65 billion.

• Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox officially beat out the state’s former governor, Jon Huntsman Jr., in the Republican gubernatorial primary. 

• Kansas City Chiefs MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes signed a 10-year contract extension on Monday worth up to $503 million, the richest such deal in the history of American sports. (Editor’s Note: Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky, drafted eight spots ahead of Mahomes in 2017, had his fifth-year option declined in May.)

• Country music star Charlie Daniels and Oscar-winning film score composer Ennio Morricone both died on Monday. Daniels was 83, Morricone was 91.

The Forgotten Casualties of COVID-19 Lockdowns

The number of deaths attributed to the coronavirus in the United States, per Johns Hopkins’ dashboard, surpassed 130,000 yesterday, but even that staggering figure doesn’t paint a full picture of the lives we’ve lost as a result of the pandemic.

Two studies published in Nature last month (here and here) found that coronavirus-induced lockdown measures saved millions of lives across the globe. “Across 11 countries, since the beginning of the epidemic, 3,100,000 deaths have been averted due to interventions,” Seth Flaxman and his co-authors write. But even if lockdowns were the correct public health intervention and their benefits far outweighed the costs, the costs are still real. We’ve written extensively about the economic damage wrought by these government-imposed shutdowns, but there’s been a paucity of data about the public health damage: drug overdoses, domestic violence, mental health crises. That’s beginning to change.

A recent Washington Post analysis of preliminary data from hospitals, ambulance teams, and police departments that make up the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP) found drug overdoses surging during the pandemic months, accelerating as time goes on. Suspected overdoses increased 18 percent year-over-year in March, 29 percent in April, and 42 percent in May. Correlation does not always equal causation, but in this case, the connection is fairly clear: Lockdowns didn’t just impose loneliness and economic hardship on millions, they closed many treatment and rehabilitation centers as well.

Police departments and advocacy groups have also seen spikes in domestic violence cases since stay-at-home mandates were put into effect back in March. The Chicago Police Department, for example, reported a 12 percent year-over-year increase in domestic-violence-related calls from January to mid-April. Some 383 people called the city’s domestic violence hotline during the first week in March; 549 did in the last week of April. The United Nations estimates a 20 percent increase in domestic violence cases worldwide, referring to the surge as a “shadow pandemic” with global implications. “When households are placed under the increased strains that come from security, health and money worries, and cramped and confined living conditions, levels of domestic violence spike,” according to a U.N. study.

Data on suicide attempts since March is not yet widely available, but public health experts are worried about upticks in self-harm as well. “Suicides take longer to adjudicate as a cause of death,” Dr. Jane Pearson, the special adviser to the director on suicide research at the National Institute of Mental Health, told The Dispatch. “Coroners and medical examiners are very stretched dealing with COVID—were stretched before dealing with overdose—and then if you were asking them to do things faster it’s even more of a challenge.”

But what we do know is that lockdowns certainly aren’t helping alleviate any of these longstanding issues. As several public health experts told Declan back in April, people already living with mental health challenges are likely experiencing increased trauma in recent months. A report published around that same time in the Journal of the American Medical Association highlighted the mental health risks associated with economic stress, social isolation, and decreased access to community and religious support. “I was in the emergency room the last three evenings working,” Yale public health professor Dr. Howard Forman tells The Dispatch, “and we just see a lot of people with mental illness and substance use disorders coming in more often toward the end of this period than we were at the beginning.”

President Trump warned about these repercussions repeatedly as his administration was issuing lockdown guidelines. “You’re going to have large numbers of suicides,” he said in a press conference on March 29. “But you know what you’re going to have more than anything else? Drug addiction. You will see drugs being used like nobody has ever used them before. And people are going to be dying all over the place from drug addiction.” He often argued, on Twitter and elsewhere, that the country “cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” From a pure utilitarian perspective, we didn’t—provided the Nature studies referenced above are accurate. The millions of lives saved globally by lockdowns outweigh the (relatively) more modest increases in drug overdose and (likely) suicide attempts.

But lockdowns—either self-imposed or by government order—have still ushered in a wave of social isolation that appears to have had serious consequences for many individuals already suffering from drug addiction, domestic abuse, and mental health issues.

Congressional Coronavirus Relief

With resurgent COVID-19 outbreaks cropping up around the country leading some state and local officials to roll back reopening plans, Congress officially began its two-week recess yesterday without reaching an agreement on an additional coronavirus stimulus package. The House passed its own version of coronavirus relief—the $3.5 trillion HEROES Act—back in May, but Republican leaders balked at what they saw as a “$3 trillion left-wing wish list,” and expressed a desire to wait and see how the pandemic played out over the summer before shoveling hundreds of billions more dollars out the door.

They’ve seen how it’s playing out. “We had hoped we would be on the way to saying goodbye to this health-care pandemic. Clearly it is not over,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in Louisville yesterday. In his remarks, McConnell officially came out in favor of additional stimulus legislation, promoting direct payments to workers who make $40,000 a year or less and five-year liability protections for businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits. But he also recognized the challenges in creating a bipartisan compromise. “I can’t comfortably predict we’re going to come together and pass it unanimously like we did a few months ago—the atmosphere is becoming a bit more political than it was in March,” McConnell said. “But I think we will do something again. I think the country needs one last boost.”

The last round of coronavirus relief—the $2.2 trillion CARES Act—has proven largely effective, albeit imperfect. About 4.8 million jobs were recovered over the course of June, and tens of millions millions of Americans received expanded financial assistance after losing a job through no fault of their own. The Paycheck Protection Program Act—which was extended hours before it was set to expire at the beginning of July—stimulated the economy through a series of small business loans. Applicants now have through the first week of August to request the remaining $130 billion in unclaimed funds. This legislation, along with others, has bolstered the economy as states begin the process of reopening.

Jason Furman, President Obama’s top economic adviser, attributes the economy’s upturn of late to this massive government intervention. “The economy made progress in May and June in part due to extraordinary fiscal support,” he told The Dispatch. But he warned of cutting off this aid too soon. “Removing that support now—with increased signs of economic uncertainty—would be a colossal error,” he added.

This “economic uncertainty” Furman speaks of is the additional 50,000 COVID-19 cases now being confirmed every day, leading states and localities to slow their reopening efforts. California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back the state’s economic reopening in response to spikes in confirmed cases and hospitalizations, closing indoor dining areas and bars in 19 counties. In Indiana, Gov. Eric Holcomb halted the state’s phased reopening plan until mid-July at the earliest.

In addition, key CARES Act provisions are set to expire at the end of this month. The approximately 31.5 million workers claiming unemployment benefits are currently receiving an additional $600 per week, but this additional buffer ends on July 31. And despite the recovery of several million jobs in May and June, we’re still experiencing record high unemployment: 11.1 percent per the latest Department of Labor release.

James Pethokoukis, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, believes the government must act quickly and decisively to forestall long-term economic damage. 

“You have people who are still having trouble meeting their basic bills, paying their mortgages. You want to make sure you keep these small businesses intact, even through these very difficult times, because once they collapse putting them back together is not very easy,” he tells The Dispatch. “Right now we are in this very dangerous period that if we misplay, it will lead to a much longer period of economic volatility and I think real economic danger. We do not want to go back into a recession. So we really need to get this right.”

Worth Your Time

• Check out Harvey Mansfield’s review of The Debate on the Constitution, a newly released compilation of speeches, letters, and articles illustrating the arguments that the Framers had with one another in the years leading up to the Constitution’s ratification. Mansfield’s defense of the Founding, he acknowledges, comes at a time when pessimism about the American project pervades. Many elites are “unimpressed with America’s relatively long survival, to say nothing of its greatness,” Mansfield writes. “They will praise the Constitution only for its openness, which consists mainly in its ability to inspire new invention.” But the Constitution’s enduring genius becomes apparent when one engages with the profound thought processes of the men who wrote it.

• Vox has a great explainer about the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, and what it means for the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein case. Maxwell was a “British socialite,” Ella Nilsen writes, who was arrested on Thursday for luring underage girls—some as young as 14 years old—“into situations where she knew they would be sexually abused by her billionaire ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.” Due to Epstein’s alleged suicide in his prison cell months ago, the trial surrounding his many crimes had largely been put on hold; but Maxwell’s arrest has opened up new opportunities for prosecutors and investigators to continue to unravel his years-long abuse of underage girls.

Something Fun

Ennio Morricone’s music has long served as the soundtrack to some of your Morning Dispatchers’ late-night writing. Here’s one of our favorites. May he rest in peace.

Presented Without Comment

Also Presented Without Comment

Toeing the Company Line

• On the latest Advisory Opinions, David and Sarah discuss the rumors of a potential retirement from the Supreme Court next week, and speculate about the political circus that would ensue before the 2020 election. Plus, a roundup of the recent SCOTUS cases on faithless electors, robocalls, and more!

• So fervent is the desire of some NeverTrump types to see Trumpism purged from the GOP that they’re actively rooting for Republicans to lose not just the White House, but also the Senate this year: A host of Trump’s enablers forced to follow him out of Washington. Over at the site today, Christian Schneider has a great be-careful-what-you-wish-for piece looking back at 2008.

• Andy Smarick does a deep dive on the Supreme Court’s Espinoza decision, which ruled that if states offer funding for private schools, they cannot exclude private religious schools. He looks at the various opinions issued in the case—seven in all—and predicts future clashes on the matter.

• Much of the focus on the memo detailing allegations of Russian bounties to the Taliban to attack U.S. soldiers has been on whether it was true and, if so, what that means. Today on the site, Gary Schmitt analyzes what the memo’s release—and its timing—says about dysfunction in the intelligence community.

Let Us Know

Several months removed from the most stringent of coronavirus lockdown measures, how are you looking back on the early days of the pandemic? Did the shelter-in-place orders and business closures buy us time to develop testing, build up hospital capacity, and learn more about the virus and how it spreads? Did states and localities begin to reopen too early? Should we have never locked down at all?

Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons), Charlotte Lawson (@charlotteUVA), Audrey Fahlberg (@FahlOutBerg), Nate Hochman (@njhochman), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).

Photograph Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images.