With coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths rising in states across the U.S., the Trump administration is reportedly attempting to block the inclusion of billions of dollars in new funding for Covid-19 testing and contact tracing in the next stimulus legislation.
The Washington Post, citing anonymous officials, reported late Saturday that the White House's opposition to funding for coronavirus testing "has angered some GOP senators... and some lawmakers are trying to push back and ensure that the money stays in the bill."
"One person involved in the talks said Senate Republicans were seeking to allocate $25 billion for states to conduct testing and contact tracing, but that certain administration officials want to zero out the testing and tracing money entirely," the Post reported. The relief bill is being written in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) office and formal negotiations are expected to begin next week, when senators return from recess.
According to the Post, the administration is also aiming to "zero out $10 billion in new funding for the CDC in the upcoming bill" while simultaneously trying to include money for a new FBI building.
Bloomberg confirmed the Post's reporting on the administration's opposition to new testing and contact tracing funds, citing an anonymous person familiar with the ongoing and fluid discussions.
"Trump officials want no money for Covid testing and tracing in next coronavirus bill," tweeted economist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. "That should tell you all you need to know."
The White House's attempt to block funds for coronavirus testing and tracing comes weeks after President Donald Trump said during a June 20 campaign rally that he ordered members of his administration to "slow the testing down," falsely blaming the surge in Covid-19 cases on increased testing capacity. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal the previous day, the president said "testing is overrated" because it "makes us look bad."
Public health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, have repeatedly stressed that the United States cannot hope to contain the spread of Covid-19 and reopen safely without a nationwide testing and contact tracing system in place.
State and local leaders in recent days have alerted the federal government to severe test shortages and delays as the virus continues to spread, overwhelming already-strained healthcare systems. In an appearance on MSNBC Friday, Judge Barbara Canales of Nueces County, Texas said her county and state are "in desperate need" of additional medical and testing supplies.
"The need is so great," said Canales. "I think we've lost complete control of contact tracing. There's just too many positives a day."
This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.