Covid-19

California, in recent weeks, has been hit especially hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and many of its hospitals are being overwhelmed with critically ill patients. But the Los Angeles-area hospitals that are the most overwhelmed, according to the Los Angeles Times, are the ones serving primarily people of color and low-income patients.

Times reporters Matt Stiles, Emily Baumgaertner, Jaclyn Cosgrove and Andrew J. Campa, in an article published this week, explain that according to the publication's research and analysis, "densely populated and non-White communities" are facing "the greatest challenge in providing care."

On Thursday, according to POLITICO, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) broke with Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and publicly called for a standalone vote on House Democrats' legislation to raise direct COVID-19 stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000 — a move that is supported by both outgoing President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden.

Graham made the comments on "Fox & Friends," saying that "if you had a stand-alone vote on the $2,000 check, it might pass" the Senate. "70 percent of Republicans don't want to go to 2,000," he added, but "I'm with the president on this."

Appearing on CNN with host Bianna Golodryga on Thursday morning, an angry Rep Debbie Dingell (D-MI) blistered Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for crushing any hope Americans might see a $2,000 COVID-19 aid relief check in the very near future.

Asked about McConnell's refusal to allow a vote on House-passed legislation that would increase aid from $600 to $2,000, Democrat Dingell dropped the hammer on the Kentucky Republican.

With CNN host Golodryga noting, "McConnell has completely negated the fact that the president himself is demanding the $2,000 checks," she asked the Michigan lawmaker what the word is in the House of Representatives.

"I believe in respecting everybody, but I think that there are a few senators that need to get off of the Senate floor and come see real America," she replied. "They lived in this rarefied world and have no idea about how people are really living."

"His callousness of, first of all," she continued, specifying McConnell. "We are not doing anything for our rich friends. we are working hard for the people that we represent. I'm telling -- you know, he said this isn't going to help people that need help. I'm going to tell him there are a lot of people that need more help. I have people that work at the University of Michigan that have been lab technicians, that have no job, and they don't even qualify for these payments. They are hurting as much as anybody else. I have two household families who can't find child care so the mother can't work; they are not eligible right now and they're worried about whether they can even stay in their home."

"I say Senator Mitch McConnell get off the rarified world of the Senate floor and start -- just talk to some of the constituents in your state and know how people are counting on us for help," she exclaimed. "They don't look at us as Democrats or Republicans, they are Americans who are hurting and they need help."

Watch below:

According to a report from Politico, Donald Trump and his political appointees did significant damage to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the early days of the administration, which set the stage for significant failings of the department when confronted by the coronavirus pandemic that has killed over 300,000 Americans in less than a year.

Using internal documents and interviews with former employees, the report paints a portrait of an incoming administration that was hostile to science from the outset and proceeded to shut down an all-important department that would have proved helpful in batting COVID-19.

According to Politico's Dan Diamond, "Two-and-a-half years before Covid-19 would bring the issue of political interference with the Health and Human Services Department to a head, the flap surrounding the disbanding of the Science and Medicine team showed the extent to which tensions within the department were undermining its mission and sowing distrust between longtime staff members and Trump appointees."

At issue were health initiatives that the Trump administration had no interest in seeing move forward including improving "tobacco control and gather data on racial disparities."

"Trump appointees sidelined, ignored or pushed out career health officials in favor of policies demanded by the White House, a dynamic that would repeat itself throughout the pandemic," Politico reported.

Case in point was the administration forcing out Tom Novotny, the deputy assistant secretary for health, who opposed "Trump's picks for key scientific positions, some of whom had little medical expertise but were championed by religious rights organizations."

Offered a different position, he declined, saying in an interview, "They told me I was going to be transferred to the Office of Research Integrity, which already had a director. I wasn't going to do that. It was basically a demotion."

"Novotny's abrupt, forced retirement shook members of his core eight-person team, which focused on a broad range of public health issues, from implementing national strategies on autism and pain to helping fight the Zika outbreak," Diamond wrote. "Three years later, some current officials said the loss of Novotny has especially been felt amid Covid-19."

After Senate Republicans repeatedly stymied a Sen. Bernie Sanders-led effort to force a clean up-or-down vote on $2,000 direct payments, dozens of Democrats late Wednesday joined Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in allowing the chamber to move ahead with the process of overriding President Donald Trump's veto of the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act.

The vote on the motion to proceed to the NDAA veto override came after Sanders, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and others denied McConnell unanimous consent this week to speedily advance the behemoth military spending bill, a tactic aimed at securing a clean vote on House-passed legislation that would deliver $2,000 payments to most Americans.