The NC Native Behind the COVID Vaccine
Everything you need to know for Tuesday, Dec. 15: UNC-CH wants students on campus as Wake schools go remote + as Biden wins the Electoral College, Trump wins “alternate slates”
Tuesday , Dec. 15, 2020:
11 days until Christmas
18 days until this cursed year ends
38 days until this cursed presidency is over
My apologies if you received a draft version of this newsletter yesterday afternoon. I accidentally hit publish a little earlier than I should have.
Today’s Number: 300,000
COVID deaths in the US, as of Dec. 14.
Today’s Video:
The shot seen ’round the world.
+ ABOVE THE FOLD
—> The NC Native Behind the COVID Vaccine
The story of how scientists developed multiple vaccines for a disease that surfaced less than a year ago will feature many heroes. One of them will be Kizzmekia Corbett, a scientist and leading vaccine researcher with the National Institutes of Health. She’s also a Black woman from Hurdle Mills, North Carolina.
“Corbett is part of a team at NIH that worked with Moderna, the pharmaceutical company that developed one of the two mRNA vaccines that has shown to be more than 90% effective. Moderna's vaccine is expected to receive emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this month.”
“As a student, she was selected to participate in Project SEED, a program for gifted minority students that allowed her to study chemistry in labs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and eventually landed a full ride to the University of Maryland Baltimore County.”
“After graduating, Corbett enrolled in a doctorate program at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she worked as a research assistant studying virus infections and eventually received a PhD in microbiology and immunology …. Her work with such pathogens began when she joined the NIH’s Vaccine Research Center as a postdoctoral fellow in 2014.”
In February, Tucker Carlson (of course) got Big Mad about Corbett’s tweet criticizing a lack of diversity on Trump’s COVID task force.
—> RELATED: The state’s first COVID vaccines—made by Pfizer, not Moderna—were released to Duke Health in Durham, Atrium Health in Charlotte, and Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem on Monday. UNC Medical Center will get its first vaccines today.
+ LOCAL & STATE
—> UNC-CH Plans to Reopen Campus Over Faculty Objections
UNC-Chapel Hill’s faculty has made clear it thinks bringing students back this spring is foolishness, but the administration is pressing ahead regardless with plans to add more in-person classes and triple the number of students living on-campus.
From Policy Watch’s Joe Killian: “Overconfidence and a lack of realistic planning led to massive clusters of COVID-19 infections [this fall], ending in-person instruction and sending most students home after just six days.”
“Administrators at UNC-Chapel Hill decided to move forward with bringing students back to campus for the fall semester despite the recommendation of the Orange County health director. They also chose not to share that recommendation with faculty, students, or the wider community, who learned about it through media reports. Faculty leaders called that a ‘serious breach of trust.’”
Fourteen of the UNC System’s 17 schools kept students on campus, but the three largest—UNC, ECU, and NC State—didn’t, Killian adds:
ECU has had 1,588 positive COVID tests since March 1. UNC has had 1,513. NC State has had 1,426.
1,000 undergrads lived on-campus this fall. UNC wants 3,500 to live on-campus this fall.
UNC-CH administrators want 20% of courses to be in-person this spring.
—> MEANWHILE: The Wake County school board will decide today whether to revert to remote instruction through Jan. 25, given the spike in COVID cases.
—> SCONC Says Duke Should Pay for Coal Ash (or Not)
After the NC Supreme Court’s coal-ash ruling on Friday, Duke Energy and Attorney General Josh Stein declared victory, while the environmental groups that had partnered with Stein expressed disappointment. So what does it mean? From WRAL:
“North Carolina regulators will take a fresh look at Duke Energy electricity rates after a state Supreme Court decision Friday that could shift coal ash cleanup costs from customers to company shareholders.”
The key word is “could.” Environmentalists—and Duke—think it won’t. Stein thinks it will. It’s unclear because the court kicked the question back to the Utilities Commission.
Stein: “The court reversed a Utilities Commission order that required North Carolinians to pay nearly all of the cost of cleaning up Duke Energy’s coal ash pollution. The court sent the case back to the commission to consider a proposal to require Duke and its shareholders to bear more of those costs."
“But reconsideration doesn't guarantee an outcome, and the court decision says Duke can recover those costs.”
That made Duke happy: The company said in its own statement that the ruling represents ‘a positive step forward by affirming that our coal ash management practices are a prudent part of supplying customers with reliable electricity.’”
“The court also signed off on a 2018 increase in Duke Energy Carolina's base electricity rates—what residential customers pay before they use any electricity. That will stay at $14 a month, a blow for advocacy groups who fought the rate on behalf of low-income customers.”
—> WHAT IT’S ABOUT: For years, Duke dumped toxic coal ash into pits that seeped into the state’s waters and ground. Now that it has to clean it up, it wants ratepayers (i.e., you) to foot the bill, rather than its own shareholders (i.e., them).
“The high court also said in its ruling that the company could earn a profit on the money it spends cleaning up coal ash ponds. Those cleanup costs are expected to run into the billions.”
—> Why NC Cops Treat the Mentally Ill Like Criminals
At North Carolina Health News, Taylor Knopf has kicked off a series on the 91% rise in North Carolina’s use of involuntary commitment over the last decade. The first part explores how cops treat mental health patients, and why they so often end up in handcuffs.
“When Sonia Padial’s grieving son swallowed too many Tylenol, she took him to the hospital for help. … The staff at the UNC Hospital Emergency Department in Chapel Hill decided that Andrew needed to be checked into a psychiatric hospital. They began the process to involuntarily commit him, even though Padial said that her son was willing to get treatment and had been cooperative with the medical staff.”
“When a psychiatric bed became available for Andrew at Holly Hill Hospital in Raleigh, Padial said she and her son were shocked and unprepared for how he would be transported there. Andrew was put in a sheriff’s vehicle with handcuffs on his wrists and shackles on his ankles. A deputy drove him and two other middle-aged male patients—all in restraints—to Raleigh, while Padial followed behind.”
The law doesn’t require counties to use law enforcement to transport IVC patients, but most do anyway.
—> In Other News: NC
Governor Cooper’s racial equity task force released a 166-page report detailing its recommendations. I’ll take a deeper dive into it tomorrow. (N&O)
Researchers have discovered a new species of salamander in North Carolina. (NC Museum of Natural Sciences via N&O)
The NCGA appointed Pat McCrory’s chief of staff, Thomas Stith, to head the state’s community colleges. (WRAL)
The NCGOP’s “victory party” ignored COVID protocols. (WRAL)
—> In Other News: Triangle
With COVID cases surging, DowntownDurham Inc. has ended its outdoor dining “streetery.” Get takeout instead, please. (N&O)
Harris Teeter is eyeing a new store location on Western Boulevard near NC State. (TBJ, sub req.)
Broughton High principal Elena Ashburn is a finalist for state Principal of the Year. (N&O)
Weather: High of 48, mostly clear (WRAL)
+ NATION & WORLD
—> Electoral College Confirms Biden, Trump Has Alternate Slates
Yesterday, the Electoral College made official Joe Biden’s presidential victory. Most years, such news wouldn’t merit comment. This year, however, Trump and his propagandists have manufactured an alternate reality in which his “landslide” was stolen. No such alternate reality, it turns out, would be complete without alternate slates of electors to send to Congress.
Those slates, elections expert Rick Hasen says, aren’t certified by anyone, so they mean nothing. Law professor Lawrence Lessig isn’t so sure.
The precedent is Hawaii in 1960, when the margin between Nixon and JFK was fewer than 200 votes. Nixon was ahead when the electors voted. JFK’s electors also cast ballots that day. After a recount changed the state’s certification before Jan. 6—the date Congress ratifies the election—JFK’s electors were counted.
As Lessig and Van Jones wrote for CNN: “The key—and this is the critical fact for 2020 as well—is that the Democratic slate had also met on December 19, and had also cast their ballots in the manner specified by the Constitution. When they voted, no one knew whether their votes would matter. But at least someone recognized that the only way their votes could matter was if they were cast on the day that Congress had set.”
Republican “electors” are making their votes “legal” in the event a court changes the results of a state’s election. To wit:
—> WHY IT MATTERS: It’s tempting to shrug off the GOP’s reality denial. But the ramifications will long outlive Trump.
“‘Democracy really depends on a shared sense of fairness and legitimacy,’ said Lee Drutman, a political scientist at New America and author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop. ‘You can’t have a system of self-governance if half of the people believe that the only fair rules are the rules in which their side comes out on top.’”
—> REMINDER: Regardless of the result, the Electoral College is archaic and antidemocratic—and it renders most of the country irrelevant.
—> BIDEN: “In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed.”
—> Briefs: 3 Stories to Read Today
“The execution of multiple prisoners by the Trump administration in its final days has the potential to be a definitive mark for a president who often tried to paint himself as a champion of criminal justice reform. Moving forward with the executions of five inmates in President Trump’s lame-duck period is a reminder that his dominant legacy in criminal justice will be his frequent advocacy for the harshest sentences possible.” (WaPo)
“Health insurers are furiously lobbying Congress to tweak a last-minute deal on protecting Americans from surprise medical bills—one that is viewed as favoring doctors over them. … The Democratic and Republican leaders of three House committees and one Senate committee said this weekend they agreed on an approach to resolving surprise medical bills, opening the door to include it in the government funding package Congress is trying to finalize this week.” (WaPo)
“A bipartisan group of senators finally hit paydirt in its long-running coronavirus relief negotiations. But it’s not clear what exactly Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi will do with it. Nearly a dozen centrist senators will present their much-anticipated product on Monday afternoon in two pieces: a $748 billion package boosting funds for education, vaccine distribution, transportation, and other areas, and a $160 billion add-on of state and local aid coupled with a short-term liability shield for employers.” (Politico)
—> The Rundown
In a Monday evening tweet, Trump announced that Attorney General William Barr is stepping down. (WaPo)
After Biden’s favorite to run the EPA was criticized by environmental justice groups, the transition team is scrambling to find new candidates. (NYT)
Sen. Kelly Loeffler says she had no idea she was mugging with a former KKK leader and neo-Nazi at a campaign event on Friday. (WaPo)
The US sanctioned two Iranian intelligence officials for the 2007 abduction and likely death of Bob Levinson, a former FBI agent who was on an “unauthorized mission” for the CIA when he disappeared near Iran’s Kish Island. (CNN, NYT)
The US sanctioned NATO ally Turkey over its purchase of a Russian missile defense system. (WaPo)
Germany will go into a national lockdown over Christmas. (CNN)
An oil tanker was “hit from an external source” while unloading in Saudi Arabia, causing an explosion. (BBC)
+ OUR SO-CALLED LIVES
—> The Sad Men of Murdoch’s Newspapers
On Friday, The Wall Street Journal gave space on its editorial page for retrograde troll Joseph Epstein to mansplain to Dr. Jill Biden that she should not use the honorific “doctor” because a “doctor of education” is not a real doctor.
Epstein—who once wrote that nothing his sons “could ever do would make me sadder than if any of them were to become homosexual”—was roundly mocked for being a chauvinistic troglodyte.
The WSJ has not apologized: “‘Why go to such lengths to highlight a single op-ed on a relatively minor issue?’ wrote [opinion page editor Paul] Gigot …. ‘My guess is that the Biden team concluded it was a chance to use the big gun of identity politics to send a message to critics as it prepares to take power. There’s nothing like playing the race or gender card to stifle criticism.’”
On Saturday, Rupert Murdoch’s other New York newspaper, the New York Post, dove into grotesque sexism by outing a 23-year-old paramedic for … posting legal pictures of herself on Only Fans to subsidize her shit pay.
“Lauren Caitlyn Kwei, 23, works for SeniorCareEMS, an ambulance company serving hospitals in the city’s 911 system. She also posted images on her OnlyFans account, where subscribers can see her in lingerie—or in the buff—for fees starting at $11.99 a month.”
The Post also allowed some anonymous asshole to judge her: “A veteran FDNY paramedic agreed that EMT pay is paltry, but blasted Kwei’s choice of a side career. ‘Other EMTs and paramedics make more money by pulling extra shifts, instead of pulling off their clothes,’ he said.
Kwei responded on a GoFundMe page:
I know I did nothing wrong and I have nothing to be ashamed of. Most of the quotes in that article are me defending myself to this reporter. He did not include that I begged him to remain anonymous (which was never agreed to) and that I told him my safety and job were going to be at risk if he posted this article. He truly did not care. He went on to call my employer and my mother.
—> Et Cetera
Google went down for about an hour on Monday, reminding us that Google runs our lives. (NYT)
Giraffes are being ferried off a flooded Kenyan island by barge. (CNN)
The AV Club says HBO’s I May Destroy You is the year’s best TV show. (AV Club)
Thanks to Beth Keena for her assistance. I’ll see you tomorrow.