President calls negative hydroxychloroquine study 'a Trump enemy statement' – live

A new study suggests a connection between crowded polling places and the spread of Covid-19 in Wisconsin during the state’s April 7 election.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

The study finds a “statistically and economically significant association between in-person voting and the spread of COVID-19 two to three weeks after the election.” By studying state election and Covid-19 data, researchers concluded that consolidating polling places and decreasing the number of absentee ballots led to an increase in positive Covid-19 tests weeks after the election. The research by economists at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, University of

Wisconsin-Madison and Ball State University was published as a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research.“Our results indicate that Wisconsin counties with higher levels of in-person voting per polling location led to increases in the weekly positive rate of COVID-19 tests,” they wrote.

Furthermore, counties with higher absentee voting participation had lower rates of detecting COVID-19 two to three weeks after the election.”State and local officials scrambled in the weeks ahead of the election to prepare amid the Covid-19 pandemic. In Milwaukee, election officials were forced to close 175 of 180 polling places, but other places, such as the city of Madison, were able to keep 66 of 99 polling places open.

State health officials said that 52 people who tested positive for Covid-19 participated in in-person voting, but have cautioned they don’t know if people contracted the virus at the polls.

Here’s some more on that VA study that the president has described as “a Trump enemy statement”:

The study by VA and academic researchers reviewed the cases of 368 male patients treated at government hospitals — 97 treated with hydroxychloroquine, 113 with hydroxychloroquine, and the antibiotic azithromycin, and 158 without any hydroxychloroquine.

The study found that those who were treated with the antimalarial drug had a higher risk of death. But the research comes with several big caveats.

Most significantly, the study is retrospective. Rather than randomly assigning some patients to be treated with hydroxychloroquine and others without, researchers looked back on how patients who had and had not taken the drug fared. It’s unclear why doctors gave some patients the drug and not others, and it’s possible that physicians treated the most severe cases with hydroxychloroquine, which could at least partly explain why those patients fared worse.

The research was published as a pre-print — it has not yet gone through a rigorous process of peer review.

But there is absolutely no evidence that the researchers behind the study were biased, against the administration or against the use of the drug.

In response to growing criticism, the VA said last week that while it wouldn’t halt the use of hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment, it would offer the unproven drug to fewer patients.

In documents obtained by the Associated Press, the VA said it never “encouraged or discouraged” its government hospitals to use hydroxychloroquine. But publicly, VA secretary Robert Wilkie has touted the drug and claimed without evidence that it has been shown to benefit younger veterans.

Still, it acknowledged that VA Secretary Robert Wilkie had wrongly asserted publicly without evidence that the drug had been shown to benefit younger veterans. The VA, the nation’s largest hospital system, also agreed more study was needed on the drug and suggested its use was now limited to extenuating circumstances, such as last-ditch efforts to save a coronavirus patient’s life.

Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh, blogging from the west coast.

The former veterans affairs secretary, who said he was forced out of the Trump administration, has weighed in on Trump bashing the VA study that found patients who took hydroxychloroquine didn’t benefit.

David Shulkin, a physician and former hospital executive who served as undersecretary of veterans affairs in the Obama administration, initially helped Trump pass an expansion of the GI Bill for post-9/11 veterans and a law that streamlined the appeals process for veterans seeking disability benefits. But he left the administration amid disagreements between him and more conservative administration officials and after the release inspector general’s report that held Shulkin responsible for “serious derelictions” during an overseas trip .

None of Trump’s cabinet members would say if they are also taking hydroxychloroquine to help prevent coronavirus.

“Many of them would take it if they thought it was necessary,” the president told reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House.

Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged earlier today that he is not taking the anti-malaria drug, but he said he “wouldn’t hesitate” to use it if his doctor recommended it.

Once again, there is scant evidence that hydroxychloroqine is an effective coronavirus treatment, and the FDA has said it should only be used in hospital settings due to potential complications, including heart problems.

Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin showed off the debit cards the Trump administration is producing to distribute coronavirus relief funds.

During a cabinet meeting at the White House, Mnuchin said the debit cards would help the federal government get money to Americans “even quicker in a very safe way.”

Mnuchin presented Trump with a debit card with his name on it, jokingly adding, “Now there’s no money for you on it. This is a blank debit card.”

The president admired the card and then asked, “Do I sign the letter again?” That comment appeared to be a reference to the gushing letter Trump sent to accompany the direct cash payments from the stimulus package, which sparked accusations that the president was politicizing financial relief.

Mnuchin replied to Trump’s question, “The next time we send money, you’ll get to send another letter.”