Your Monday Evening Briefing

October 5, 2020

Your Monday Evening Briefing

By Victoria Shannon and Judith Levitt

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

1. President Trump to Americans: “Don’t be afraid of Covid.”

Mr. Trump announced that he would leave the hospital this evening and urged others to have no fear and not to let the virus “dominate your life.” He made no mention of the 209,000 Americans who have died from the virus.

His doctors said that he met or exceeded all discharge criteria, but that he would be watched and treated this week by a team at the White House. “Feeling really good!” the president tweeted, three days after he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Above, Dr. Sean Conley, Mr. Trump’s physician, briefing reporters today.

The announcement was a drastic turn of events given that a day earlier, his medical team had presented mixed messages about his condition. The doctors said Mr. Trump had received a third dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir and continued to take dexamethasone, a steroid drug normally reserved for patients who were very sick with Covid-19.

Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, became the latest in the president’s inner circle to announce that she had tested positive for the virus. At least three White House correspondents have also been infected.

Here’s what experts say about when an infectious patient wants to leave the hospital.

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Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

2. Joe Biden hit the campaign trail in Florida, urging Americans not to minimize the threat posed by the coronavirus.

“I hope the president’s recovery is swift and successful, but the nation’s Covid crisis is far, far from over,” Mr. Biden said in the Miami neighborhood Little Havana.

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Polls showed no signs of a sympathy bounce for Mr. Trump, and they found that most Americans did not think that the president took the virus seriously. Here’s our daily poll tracker.

Vice President Mike Pence, who tested negative for the virus, was not quarantining. He was scheduled to travel to Utah ahead of Wednesday night’s vice-presidential debate.

Libby March for The New York Times

3. “It’s going to be hell no matter what.”

That’s Eric Hawes, a Republican in Erie, Pa., whose father-in-law, a die-hard Democrat, shares his unease about the election in November and its aftermath.

For voters on both sides, there’s a sense of foreboding about what the next several months could bring. The outcome of the Nov. 3 vote itself, the claims of rampant voter fraud that President Trump has leveled, the specter of a stolen election, the fear of violent clashes should the vote counting drag out — there is no limit to the bleak imagination.

Here’s our guide on voting — in person, early, by mail — this Election Day.

Ammar Awad/Reuters

4. Israel’s lockdown fuels protests, violence and confusion.

Last month, the country became the first to reimpose nationwide measures as the number of coronavirus cases surged. But the decision led to chaotic scenes and criticism of how Israel’s fragile coalition is handling the health crisis. Above, a protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

Elsewhere in virus news:

Bars and many cafes in Paris will close for two weeks to stem a surge of coronavirus cases.
Nearly 16,000 cases in the U.K. weren’t counted because of a spreadsheet glitch.
The European Commission said 179 staff members had tested positive for the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, and its president is in isolation.
Just days after reopening, public and private schools are closing in nine New York City neighborhoods where cases are surging.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

5. Another 40,000 U.S. layoffs are in the offing.

Regal Cinemas said it would temporarily close all 663 of its movie theaters in the U.S. and Britain. The move was expected to affect 40,000 U.S. employees and 5,000 in Britain.

Delays in many films — including “Black Widow,” “Wonder Woman 1984” and the latest James Bond film, “No Time to Die” — meant the company “didn’t have the goods” for customers, the chief executive of Regal’s parent company said.

Last week, U.S. companies announced plans to fire or furlough more than 60,000 workers. Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Steven Mnuchin, secretary of the Treasury, resumed efforts to reach a stimulus deal, which could increase the speed of the recovery.

Christie Hemm Klok for The New York Times

6. President Trump proclaimed that the coal industry was back. It wasn’t.

Saving coal-fired plants in Arizona and Kentucky was part of Mr. Trump’s efforts to make good on his 2016 campaign promise to end “the war on coal.”

But despite appointing coal industry executives and lobbyists to his administration, taking big donations from the industry, rolling back environmental regulations and intervening directly in cases, the Trump administration failed to counter the forces decimating the industry.

By late last year, both plants had gone offline. Above, the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona.

David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe, via Getty Images

7. Higher temperatures are linked to lower test scores, but only for Black and Hispanic children, according to research published today.

The likely culprit: a lack of air-conditioning. The gap seems to reflect the fact that minority students are less likely to have air-conditioning at school and at home, the paper’s lead author said.

The findings are the newest addition to a growing body of research showing that climate change in general, and rising temperatures in particular, have a greater effect on minorities.

Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

8. The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to three scientists for discovering the hepatitis C virus.

Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles Rice solved a thorny scientific mystery that had plagued physicians and researchers for years.

About 71 million people worldwide live with the virus. Because the infections can spread without symptoms, many don’t know they carry it. But once established, the pathogen can silently erode the liver’s function over decades.

Work by the three awardees — two Americans and a Briton — paved the way for highly accurate and effective blood tests for the hepatitis C virus.

José Luiz Ribeiro

9. A colossus is rising in Sicily.

Thirty-eight statues of Atlas, each 25 feet tall and carved from limestone, once stood upright, appearing to hold up the Temple of Zeus in Agrigento, the world’s largest Doric temple, on the southwest coast of Sicily. Today, they are in pieces, the result of two millenniums of earthquakes and pilfering.

Now, a colossal statue, a sort of Franken-Atlas, is being built out of eight of the original statues to mark the founding of the city’s ancient predecessor 2,600 years ago.

The concept has been criticized for violating professional standards and, perhaps, good taste. “No archaeologist would endorse the use of ancient sculpture, no matter how fragmentary, to create a modern sculpture, even if the purpose is to highlight the site’s antiquity,” an archaeologist said.

Pablo Rochat

10. And finally, hunting the latest pandemic treasure.

First it was toilet paper, paper towels, pasta and beans. Months later, Clorox wipes remain the hard-to-find pandemic item and one of a handful of brands approved by regulators to kill the coronavirus.

Shoppers show up to stores early when deliveries are made and clear out shipments in a matter of minutes. “We know our products are not everywhere everyone wants them to be,” Andy Mowery, Clorox’s chief supply officer, said.

Like trophies, two canisters of Clorox wipes are displayed on the kitchen counter at the home of May Vanegas in San Antonio. Before finding them in a Target store after a six-month search, she said, “I had lost all hope.”

Have a persistent evening.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

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