Mar-a-Lago was the place to see and be seen for guests who paid thousands of dollars for the privilege on New Years Eve. Diamonds and furs abounded on the red carpet. When Donald Trump arrived at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, in high spirits and a tuxedo, he declared: Were going to have a great year, I predict.

But earlier that day, a Chinese government website had identified a pneumonia of unknown cause in the area surrounding a seafood market in Wuhan. When midnight struck and 2020 dawned, no one could have guessed how this microscopic pathogen would turn the world upside down, infecting 15 million people, killing 625,000, crippling economies and wiping out landmark events such as the Olympic Games.

America is no exception. The coronavirus pandemic has upended the presidential election, which, on Sunday, will be just one hundred days away. It has changed the issues, the way the fight is fought and quite possibly the outcome. The nations biggest economic crisis for 75 years, and worst public health crisis for a century, is an asteroid strike that has rewritten the rules of politics and left historians grasping for election year comparisons.

There is probably nothing the same as coronavirus, said Thomas Schwartz, a history professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Obviously, you have issues that stir the public up: 1968 would have been Vietnam and the disturbances that had taken place in the cities. But nothing quite as universal and affecting such a wide band of Americans as the coronavirus. That is really new.

Soon after that New Years Eve celebration at Mar-a-Lago, Trump would be acquitted by Republicans at his Senate impeachment trial and triumphantly brandish the next days Washington Post front page at the White House. In his own mind, at least, he was riding a strong economy on his way to re-election, while Democrats struggled to tally results in their Iowa caucuses or settle on a unifying presidential nominee.

But the virus was on the move. On 22 January, Trump claimed that it is totally under control and is going to be just fine. On 2 February, he insisted he had stopped its spread by restricting travel from China. On 27 February, he said at the White House: One day its like a miracle it will disappear. And so it went on in what critics now say was a historic feat of denial and failure in leadership.

Covid-19 swept through New York, killing thousands of people. Trump declared himself a wartime president and held daily briefings in April but then reportedly got bored and switched emphasis to reviving the economy seen as crucial to his re-election chances. Yet while the infection and death tolls ticked up, his approval ratings ticked down.

Now it seems the old maxim of Its the economy, stupid will be replaced by Its the virus, stupid as the defining issue for voters, not least because the suffering and death have a direct impact on the economy itself: Americans have filed 52.7m unemployment claims over the past four months.

Another famous campaign question, Are you better off than you were four years ago?, now seems purely rhetorical. The Trump campaign has been forced to abandon the slogan Keep America great in favour of Make America great again, again.

Schwartz added: When Trump had the economy going gangbusters he had a stronger argument on his behalf that, despite his disruptiveness and unpleasantness, people were doing OK and things seemed to be moving ahead. But look at the polling on whether the countrys going in a good direction or a bad direction and, boy, did that spike with the bad direction since March.

Trump was arguably an unusually lucky president for his first three years, not having to face the type of major crisis that confronted many of his predecessors, enabling him to persist as a gadfly reality TV star tweeting about celebrities instead of reading national security briefs. With the eruption of the virus, that luck ran out spectacularly.

America now has 4m infections and more than 140,000 deaths, the highest tallies in the world. Cases have doubled in the past six weeks even as curves flatten in Europe.

The president continues to defend his response, pointing to travel restrictions he imposed, 50m tests conducted more than any other country and mass distribution of ventilators. Were all in this together, he said on Wednesday. And as Americans, were going to get this complete. Were going to do it properly. Weve been doing it properly. Sections of the country come up that we didnt anticipate for instance, Florida, Texas, et cetera but were working with very talented people, very brilliant people, and its all going to work out, and it is working out.

But his niece Mary Trump, author of a new family memoir, said his handling of the pandemic has been criminal. She added: It was avoidable, it was preventable and even if we hadnt gotten a hold of it right away, the statistics are pretty clear. Two weeks earlier, what, 90% of deaths could have been avoided? And they havent been, simply because he refused to wear a mask because doing so would have admitted that he was wrong about something, and that is something he cannot do.

The pandemic was a moment when Trump could have surprised the world and proved his doubters wrong. He did not rise to the challenge in the eyes of those critics. He failed to devise a national strategy on testing, rarely spoke of the victims, refused to wear a mask until recently and undermined top public health experts such as Dr Anthony Fauci.

Leon Panetta, a former defence secretary and CIA director, said: If you operate on the basic premise that crisis defines leadership, then youd have to say that this crisis has also defined the failure of leadership. That has without question impacted on politics in this country.

Its pretty clear that there are a hell of a lot of constituencies out there that feel that hes failed to lead with this issue. Theres a sense that in many ways hes basically said, Youre on your own in terms of dealing with this. He at one point said he doesnt take responsibility for whats happening with this virus and I think that sent a real message to the country that the presidents gone awol on the country at a time of crisis.

Such is the backlash that multiple opinion polls show the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden leading Trump by double digits, and ahead in the battleground states that will decide the electoral college. The presidents best hope now might be an October surprise in the form of a coronavirus vaccine. There is no clearer example of how everything has changed than Texas, which no Democrat has won since 1976. On Wednesday, a record 197 deaths from Covid-19 were reported while a Quinnipiac poll showed Biden leading Trump 45% to 44%.

Filemon Vela, a Democratic congressman from southern Texas, said: Since the beginning of the pandemic, President Trump and our own governor, Greg Abbott, have made tactical decisions that are now resulting in the killing of Texans en masse. Any rational thinking Texan would be crazy if they voted for Donald Trump, given the way that the state is being ravaged by the virus.

Across the state, ICUs are full. Back in my home town, patients that should be in the ICU are having to wait in emergency rooms. Patients who cant get into emergency rooms are having to wait in ambulances for hours outside the hospital. It is a catastrophic situation and I believe that, when November comes around, the people of Texas are going to remember it.

Against the implacable foe of the virus, Trump has repeatedly sought to divert and distract. He seized on the Black Lives Matter protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis not with healing and compassion but by attempting to stoke culture war divisions over crime and Confederate statues. Still, the pandemic persisted.

Bill Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, said: If the election becomes a referendum on the presidents handling of the pandemic, he cannot win. Its as simple as that and so, barring some miraculously favourable developments in the next hundred days, he has no choice but to change the subject as best as he can.

The pandemic has not only transmogrified the substance of the election but also the style. Democrats were fortunate to get most their primaries out of the way and mostly unite behind a nominee before the storm hit. Other rituals of the election year calendar campaign rallies, convention speeches, presidential debates will be unrecognisable.

So far, the altered landscape appears to be hurting Trump and helping Biden. In 2016, the Republican thrived on rambunctious rallies where crowds chanted Build the wall! and, referring to his opponent Hillary Clinton, Lock her up! The theatre seemingly gave him a blood transfusion of political energy while building a cult of personality for crowds, often in long-neglected small towns, who then fanned out to spread the word.

Last month, however, a Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, drew a disappointingly small crowd amid virus fears, and another in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was cancelled. No more have been announced. The president has also been forced to call off Republican national convention events next month in Jacksonville, Florida, where he had been planning to make a splashy acceptance speech before a cheering crowd.

Democrats will also hold a delayed and pared-down convention in Milwaukee in August, with much of it migrating online. Biden, who at 77 would be the oldest president ever elected, has been able to lie low in his basement in Wilmington, Delaware, spared from the punishment of constant campaigning and awkward encounters that could invite his notorious gaffes. Instead the pandemic plays to his perceived strengths of empathy, experience and stability.

Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, added: Nobodys ever seen anything like this and nobody knows what the net effect is going to be. I dont know to what extent the raucous Trump rallies of 2016 were instrumental to his success but what we do know is thats not a strategy that can be repeated in 2020.

But there may be no greater demonstration of the pandemics reach than polling day itself, due to take place on 3 November amid health fears, a surge of mail-in voting and a prolonged count that Trump might seek to discredit and exploit.

This week more than 30 advocacy groups and grassroots organisations joined Protect the Results, a project to mobilise millions of people should Trump contest the election results, refuse to concede after losing, or claim victory before all the votes are counted.

Panetta, a former White House chief of staff, has heard similar talk from friends. On conferences and Zoom calls and emails Im getting concern that this is not a president who has ever shown a tendency to operate with a degree of class in accepting defeat and so theres a sense that he will resist the results of the election if its close, he said.

I guess the hope for a lot of people Ive talked to is that the election results are so clear that it makes it very difficult for the president to even pretend that somehow the vote was wrong.

More here:

'Nobodys ever seen anything like this': how coronavirus turned the US election upside down - The Guardian

This unlikely support group began as a way for 32-year-old Andrey Khudyakov, from Paris, to keep in touch with his family members during the pandemic, some of whom live in New York, others in Sweden and some in Italy. They began inviting friends to the Facebook group, who added their own friends and soon the online community grew to more than 28,000 members.

"It's very hard when you're all alone by yourself at home locked down. And maybe sometimes you don't have family support," he says. "And you just need to share with someone what's going on and have feedback."

"It gives people who have a common purpose a forum to speak openly and to feel a little bit less alone," she says. "The ability to share your story and talk about details that might make us feel humiliated or might make us feel ashamed when in reality what we need to do is really share our story ... and get the support of others."

"They're all supportive, it's just amazing to see all this exchange," Khudyakov says.

'I was searching for hope'

Marialaura Osorio, 23, found Khydakev's group after battling panic attacks following a Covid-19 diagnosis.

When health officials first raised alarm months ago, Osorio and her roommates took the threat of the virus very seriously, she says. They drafted a set of rules: they'd only invite up to two people in their home, their guests all had to be working from home and they wouldn't participate in other gatherings. She stayed locked down at their Austin home since mid-March.

"I was literally the crazy one with this whole thing," she says. "And I'm the only one that got it."

By June, with loosened measures in the state, Osorio says she let her guard down and decided to visit family and friends and go for a round of drinks.

"I thought it was an outdoor bar, we're going to be fine, we're not in danger, they checked our temperatures," she says. "I felt pretty safe, but obviously it wasn't safe."

Two days later, she had her first cold-like symptoms. And about ten days after that, she tested positive for coronavirus.

"The first four days from getting my result it was just like, I was in bed having panic attacks," she says. "It was just horrible."

She told one roommate, who stayed with family as Osorio went into isolation. The second roommate, she says, got so upset with the news they moved out. Osorio decided she wouldn't tell any other friends or anyone outside her immediate family about her positive result. Cooped up at home with no one around, her mind fled to the worst-case scenarios she read in the news: that she'd end up deeply-ill in the hospital or that she wouldn't be able to survive the infection. Desperate to find messages of recovery and survival, she turned to Facebook.

"I was searching for hope" she says. "So being able to post questions on there or read and support each other was just, honestly, I could totally 100% say that that is one of the huge things that got me through Covid."

She found members who encouraged her to stay positive, to believe in her recovery. Others offered her guidance on how to build up her immune system, how to check her oxygen levels and recommended natural remedies they found helpful. She says more than a month since her positive result, there are still people she's never met who check in on how she's recovering.

"I would have ended up either in the hospital or my panic attack would have caused like heart problems or something," she says. "I'm just so thankful to that group."

An army of survivors

Diana Berrent also remembers the isolation she felt recovering from the virus.

When the 46-year-old tested positive for coronavirus on March 18, she says she was one of the first residents in her New York community to be diagnosed and didn't have an experienced group to turn to. She locked herself in a room, away from her husband and two children, and recorded her journey in a video diary as she paced through stomach issues, severe headaches and high fevers.

"It's really extreme isolation and a lack of information," she says. "And that is a very, very scary place to be."

The early days of her recovery process felt like she was taking two steps forward and then a step back, with symptoms coming and going. It was worst at night, Berrent says, when fears of going to the hospital or ending up on a ventilator would crowd her mind. But when she began feeling better, she had a realization that changed her life.

"I realized that if I was going to be one of the first people diagnosed, if all went well, I'd be one of the first survivors," she says. "And with that came both the tremendous responsibility, but also an opportunity."

She donated her plasma -- not once, but eight times. The more time she spent reading about how important those contributions were during this pandemic, the more she felt eager to mobilize crowds to donate their own antibodies once they had recovered.

So Berrent created a Facebook group and pieced together a website that helps Covid survivors connect with not only each other, but also with plasma and blood banks near them, as well as medical studies they qualify for that could help find treatment for the illness. The group, Survivor Corps, now has more than 80,000 members.

"I can't talk about it without getting this ear to ear grin on my face," she says in an appeal to other survivors to donate plasma. "Because, in a lifetime, how many opportunities do we have to save a single life?"

The group has become a massive forum with members sharing information on just about anything regarding the virus. Put a keyword in the group's search bar, Berrent says, and you'll find hundreds of posts made by members on anything from symptoms, their experience through isolation to pictures of recovery.

"It's providing a community for ... a lot of people who are living in a world where people don't believe them, who are afraid of them, (where) they feel like a pariah, they're afraid to tell anybody," she says. "And so this is an outlet, a community, a source of inspiration."

A nurse tackling stigmas online

In Dallas, Bryan Bailey's work keeps him thinking about the coronavirus all day. When he goes home, he logs on to the online support groups he's joined to help dozens of strangers he's never met who are going through symptoms.

"The only time I'm not talking about Covid since February has been when I'm asleep," Bailey said.

Bailey, the director of nursing at a behavioral health facility that also treats coronavirus patients, says after helping a friend deal with the anxiety that came with her coronavirus diagnosis, he decided to join online groups to guide others through their experience with the virus. Support groups, he says, allow their communities to compare and contrast their symptoms, track patterns and help each other understand what could be a virus symptom and what could be something different, like allergies. They are needed safe spaces where no question is a bad one, Bailey says.

"From my role and my nursing background and my personal passion for mental health, (I know) a lot of people don't ask questions," Bailey said. "We know as healthcare providers, when they come to us, there's a lot of things that they feel embarrassed to talk about and that they struggle with."

Those taboo subjects for coronavirus patients can range anywhere from asking about diarrhea to brain fog to hallucinations, he says.

"So, (the group) was a great channel and vehicle for me to help other people," he added.

When he tested positive himself, he says he was initially hesitant to share his positive result -- worried about the stigma he had been helping combat.

"I struggled with whether to ... tell my own story." he says. "And I realized that, 'My gosh, I'm one of these people. Here I am telling them not to be afraid to talk about it, and I myself am afraid.'"

The virus has been stigmatized by many as something almost permanent, Bailey says. With health officials now recognizing the long-term health effects that survivors have been reporting for months, Bailey says fears of infecting loved ones can mean those who once tested positive are afraid of leaving their house again.

With a heightened sense of anxiety the virus has created, Bailey says, "I think every American ... thinks that if they cough or hiccup or sneeze, now (they)'ve got Covid."

And some people who have stayed healthy are now avoiding contact with anyone who tested positive -- even if that test was months ago.

The groups have been a vehicle to tackle those stigmas. And for people who have been fortunate enough to recover, he says the groups that served to better the patients' mental health played a major role in that process.

"Your mental health is very important when you're dealing with this," Bailey says. "And you've still got to do a lot of self-care, not just physical care, but a lot of self-care and you need support."

Read more:

Across the globe, online survivor groups are a source of hope and support for those diagnosed with Covid-19 - CNN

Because of that, we spent time this spring -- toward the start of the crisis in the US -- speaking to mayors about the vast challenges at the local level they were navigating. Their medical workers didn't have personal protective equipment, they didn't have tests and they were worried about hospital capacity.

These local leaders were also concerned about the physical, mental and economic health of the constituents who are also their friends and neighbors.

Now, almost five months in, we checked back with several of those mayors to see how the pandemic fight is going now. From the South, to the Midwest to the Northeast, there are still deep and common concerns. PPE is available but testing is still inadequate. Schools they never imagined would not resume in the fall are all struggling with how to do so safely in communities where case numbers are still high.

And, for some their biggest fear came true: Reopening parts of their cities too soon proved to be a mistake.

Tampa, Florida: 'Opening of the bars, that was a mistake'

Now she says a flaw in the statewide reopening plan fueled a resurgence in Covid-19 cases: opening Florida's bars.

"No one followed the rules from go," she said, noting people crowded bars, which she called "the veritable Petri dish for Covid-19."

Castor says they are scrambling to correct what she calls a "huge mistake" by sending law enforcement to crack down on "bad actors."

"We sent out a letter from our city attorney to over 100 bars and restaurants just reminding them of what the orders are now in the state of Florida and then any violations could result in a loss of a liquor license. So, that usually gets the bars' attention," Castor said.

Castor said she does not generally think the state, or her city, reopened too soon, despite the city enduring about 400 new coronavirus cases a day.

"We took the steps I think that we were thoughtful, and we were slow and deliberate," she said.

Still, things were so bad earlier this month, she put a mask mandate in place, which she said is starting to show positive results.

Last week the new case numbers had spiked to 900 a day in Tampa, which has a population of nearly 393,000 people. She says her mask ordinance combined with a "continued drumbeat" for people to socially distance, helped cut that number more than in half this week.

"I'm not making any excuses or trying to tie a bow around any of that. We're still in a very precarious spot. But one of the things proportionally that the number of deaths that we have is very, very low for the number of cases," Castor says.

But testing remains a problem in Tampa just as it does around the country. It is more available than before but results often take up to 10 days to process.

When we spoke in early April, Castor, who was Tampa's police chief for three decades, told us that in all of her years of law enforcement and emergency management, she had never seen this kind of unpreparedness from the federal government.

"That statement still holds true," Castor told us this week. "There's just a complete lack of leadership or direction on the federal level in this particular incident."

One of the big ripple effects on Tampa, as it is nationwide, is uncertainty about reopening schools. DeSantis wants them to open, but she says Tampa's superintendent is giving parents a choice.

"Kids can stay home and go through the e-learning that they've been using all summer. They can respond to the classroom. My instinct tells me that the schools aren't going to open on time, that there'd be an actual delay," she said.

Waterloo, Iowa: 'We're not out of the woods yet'

Tysons had indefinitely suspended production at the plant where more than 1,000 workers became infected. Now, the plant is open with increased safety measures including on-site testing and social distancing.

Hart, a Democrat, said it's "doing pretty well."

"We're happy and we're pleased about that. And that's also reflected in our numbers too. ... We were seeing hundreds of people per day, well into 50, 60 people per day. Now it may be seven, it may be six, it may be less," he said.

But Hart is not convinced his city is out of the woods yet, as state and county numbers continue to rise.

"We are very cautious because we don't want to move too fast and refer to where we're like some of the other states that are now open too fast, did things too soon but now have to scale back things," Hart says.

He is strongly encouraging his citizens to wear masks, but he is not considering implementing a mandatory mask mandate like the one just put in place in Iowa City.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, has said cities do not have the authority to do so.

"I think it's incredible where mayors are able to make the best decisions for their individual communities. The way we deal with it is not a cookie cutter situation in how we enforce things," he said.

"Mayors need to have the discretion to be able to have nonpolitical, non-biased opportunities to lead their communities, and not have that disrupted by governors and federal officials. We need to be able to have home rule," he added.

Not listening to local leaders, Hart believes, is where the state and federal governments went wrong during the peak of Waterloo's outbreak in April.

"I feel that if they would have listened to us locally, sooner, than us having to go on television and write a myriad of different letters ... then we wouldn't have had near the amount of cases we had," the mayor said.

All things considered, Hart says he is proud of the way his city locally managed the outbreak, and he attributes some of their success to being proactive on the public health side.

"Pro-business means pro-worker means pro-public health. That's the way we approach this. We don't have it all solved, but we're talking a lot more and communicating upfront," the mayor said.

As the debate about reopening schools continues nationwide, Reynolds issued a proclamation saying 50% of schooling needs to be in person, which Hart calls a "huge concern."

"You may have districts that have teachers and administrators that are susceptible and vulnerable populations. And so, you're basically forcing these people to go back into a situation where they may lose their life from if they contracted Covid. So, that's a challenge," Hart said.

Hart is no stranger to the concerns of educators and students returning to school. His wife is a vice principal at a local elementary school, and he has young children at home. Waterloo's school system will begin with a phased opening.

"There is going to be the option of parents to be able to do some online learning. But as we know, there may be a lot of parents out there that can't stay home and work from home while they do education," he explained.

He thinks it will be hard for schools to follow US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines of staying six feet apart, but says the schools are trying to erect dividers between desks, provide masks and put a contact tracing system in place.

Hart, the first black mayor of his city, says the list of what keeps him up at night keeps growing.

"It was Tyson, then it was Covid, but then it was also with the Black Lives Matter movement," he said.

"I would probably say trying to figure out what we can do better keeps me up, and that is still Covid, that is still police-community relations, that is still trying to get economic development to areas that need it," he added.

He said the past six months have completely changed his life and created a new normal within his community and he is trying to adapt.

"Still show good, humble leadership in these times," he said.

Topeka, Kansas: 'Our community is starting to see how serious it is'

"We actually recently had a few public figures in our community having the virus, and just yesterday, one of our council members, our deputy mayor, was talking about the challenges that he has. And I'm hopeful that these are the conversations that are helping us understand that the virus is serious," De La Isla, a Democrat, told CNN in a phone interview.

Topeka's cases are climbing, but because she believes her residents are finally practicing social distancing and wearing masks, she is hoping the trend will reverse. There are signs that could happen -- the city saw its first drop in the number of cases on Wednesday.

Topeka has not seen case numbers anywhere near as high as hotspots nationwide. They average between 15 and 20 new cases each day, according to De La Isla. She thinks the executive order that Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a fellow Democrat, put in place in early July requiring masks statewide has made all the difference.

"Overall, we are very fortunate that the governor was wise enough to request the use of masks by everybody in the state because the numbers in the state started to go up, and I can tell you that I think it's starting to work. It's been a week, and we are finally seeing our first drop in our chart," she explained.

De La Isla also praised the governor's push for more testing statewide, which has allowed her to have more free testing for individuals in her community. Her state still falls on the lower end of testing per capita, and De La Isla is concerned test results are taking too long.

"I think that we are starting to overwhelm the system, and sometimes the testing is coming back four to five days after testing," she said.

Her city is now in Phase 3 of reopening, and she worries her constituents are exhausted by all of the precautions to protect themselves against Covid-19.

"Our joke here has been that we are in phase 3.4 of people feeling that we're OK. ... There is absolutely fatigue," she said.

The mental health of her constituents has been a top priority for De La Isla since the pandemic began. When we spoke in April, she had found creative ways to connect with her residents and provide emotional support, like starting a "warm line" (instead of hot line) for people in distress, and reading to children on Facebook every Sunday, which she still does.

As a single mom, De La Isla is having to make the same tough decision that parents across the nation are facing whether her two teen daughters will return to school in the fall.

"Does it worry me? Of course. I don't want my daughters to get sick. I don't want to get sick, but I'm hopeful that the school districts will come up with a plan that will include social distancing entry and exit strategies, as well as mass protection, and the proper protocol so that if somebody ends up sick, that we all understand how to do this," she said.

Kelly issued an executive order that would delay the start of the school year for a few weeks until September 8, but the Kansas State Board of Education rejected the order this week.

But some school districts, like Topeka, already plan to open in September with a phased approach beginning with all virtual learning.

De La Isla says her daughters want to go back to school.

"I can tell you that for my oldest daughter, she likes the online classes. She did very well in them. My youngest daughter had a really hard time with online learning. She's a social creature. She enjoys the camaraderie of her teachers and her classmates, and she was very demoralized. Both of them are dying for school to start back up," De La Isla said.

When we asked De La Isla back in April what keeps her up at night, she said it was whether doctors will have enough equipment if the virus hits her city hard, and whether the city's hospitals will have enough beds.

For now, her city is managing on both fronts, but her worries have shifted

"I firmly believe that we are at the intersection of 1918, with the pandemic, and 1968, with the civil arrest demonstrations that we had across the nation," she said.

De La Isla wants to make sure everyone in her community feels safe, "regardless of the color of their skin or who they worship and who they love." And as mayor, she needs to balance that with the demands of Covid and maintaining their city's ability to "test everybody that needs testing, so that we can continue moving our economy forward."

The emotions of her job are sometimes too much for her to contain.

"A few weeks ago, after the George Floyd incidents, I was pretty transparent. I was crying in the TV when I was telling everybody that I was not OK. That the weight of what's happening nationally combined with Covid, it's a lot for anybody to handle," the mayor said.

"It's just a very challenging time to be a mayor and know that you are responsible for the wellbeing of a whole community, and understanding and working every single day, face-to-face with these challenges. Just check on your mayors. Seriously, just check in on your mayors because we're carrying a lot of burden," she added.

Philadelphia: "We want federal help, but not that kind of federal help"

Nearly half of all Philadelphia coronavirus cases are African Americans. No other group even comes close.

"That represents the disparity in all of our society. Medical care, medical access, access to medical care has been poor for people of color. Systemic racism has put them in situations where, not only are they more likely to get Covid or die from Covid, but also diabetes and heart disease," Kenney, a Democrat, told us in a phone conversation this week.

When pressed, Kenney conceded -- as he did when we spoke three months ago - that they must do better.

"We have a poor population. Our poverty rate is higher than we certainly want it to be," he admitted.

That adds to the challenge every local leader is dealing with about what school will look like in the fall. Philadelphia is planning for two days a week in school and virtual learning for the other three days. The continuing issue is how to serve students who live in poverty.

"Having Internet access is really critical for them. And we're working hard with some of our companies like Comcast and others to get those key kids plugged in so that if they can't go back to school, they're at least up to speed with Internet connection," he said.

But the fundamental issue is the health care crisis in the Black community.

"The access to primary care physicians, to having your primary care physician be in an emergency room, it's been an ongoing problem, both for the residents and citizens and for the hospital emergency system itself," he said.

Kenney, a supporter of universal health care, ripped the Trump administration for making matters worse by dismantling Obamacare, never mind shirking its responsibility to, in his view, develop a national strategy to administer and pay for widespread testing.

"This is a perfect example of what federal government that's competent can do to protect the citizens of this country by having a national mask rule, by having a national testing program, by having national PPE distribution, by having all the things that we floundered on and tripped up on in March and April and May would have been resolved by a military style effort to keep all of our citizens safe," he said.

But when it comes to another flashpoint issue big city mayors like Kenney are grappling with now -- the potential for federal intervention for alleged violence -- he draws the line.

"We want federal help, but not that kind of federal help. When the administration had the opportunity to help us months ago, they refused to do so. Now he's floundering in the polls, he's playing to his base, he's playing to what he perceived to be the suburban fear of cities. And he's dividing people again, and he's making a dangerous situation, even worse, and we're prepared to fight in court in every way possible to keep that from happening in Philadelphia," Kenney said.

More:

Four mayors reflect on their evolving response to the coronavirus pandemic - CNN

During his briefing on COVID-19 response, USA TODAY

It's time to hit the reset button: Shut it down and restart. That's whatmore than 150 health professionals are urging government leaders in an open letter published earlier this week.

"Tell the American people the truth about the virus, even when its hard. Take bold action to save lives even when it means shutting down again," the letter, spearheaded by the nonprofitU.S. Public Interest Research Group, says.

Public health leaders argue in the letter that the U.S. reopened too quickly, nonessential businesses should close again, Americans should mostly stay home, and government officials need to invest more in testing, contact tracing, and personal protective equipment capacities.

"If you dont take these actions, the consequences will be measured in widespread suffering and death," according to the letter addressed to President Donald Trump, federal officials and governors.

Here are some significant developments today:

Today's stats:The U.S. has surpassed 4 million confirmed cases and has more than 144,000 deaths,according to John Hopkins University data. Worldwide cases have surpassed 15 million with more than 633,000 deaths.

What we're reading: When will a vaccine be available to the general public?To understand when pre-COVID-19 life in the U.S. can resume, USA TODAY created a panel of experts who estimate we're almost halfway to an available vaccine.

Our live blog is being updated throughout the day. Refresh for the latest news, and get updates in your inbox withThe Daily Briefing.

COVID-19 patientsface a significantlikelihood of lingeringsymptoms, even if they weren't sick enough to go to the hospital, according to aU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report releasedFriday.

The report found about a third of 274respondentswho were symptomatic when tested "had not returned to their usual state of health when interviewed 23 weeks after testing."

The report follows widespread reports from "long-haulers" who report life-altering symptoms for weeks or months after first getting sick.

Common lingering symptoms includefatigue,cough, and headache, the report says. It found that young adults and people with no underlying conditions were among those who reported long-term illness.

A staff member for Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., died of COVID-19 in a Florida hospital, the congressman announced in a statement released Friday.

Buchanan expressed his condolences and hailed Gary Tibbetts, who had worked for the congressman since 2011, as a "consummate professional and true public servant in every sense of the word."Tibbetts is the first congressional aide known to have died from COVID-19.

Nicholas Wu

Despite President Donald Trump's pleas for schools to reopen, his son's private school in the Maryland suburbs will not be welcoming students back fully onto its campus in the fall.

St. Andrews Episcopal School said it was considering whether to take a hybrid model approach, allowing some students back to campus some days, or be fully remote to startthe school year.

"As we prepare to make a decision the week of August 10 about how to best begin the school year, we will continue to follow guidance of appropriate health officials and refine both our hybrid and distance learning plans," the school said in a letter to parents.

Under its hybrid model, students in grades 7 to 12 would rotate weekly between on-campus and remote learning. According to the New York Times,Barron, 14, Trump's youngest child, has attended the school for three years.

McDonald's will require customers to wear masks or face coverings when entering its 14,000restaurants nationwide starting Aug. 1. The fast food giant is the latest business to announce it will mandate masks to help stop the spread of COVID-19 as cases spike.

"While nearly 82% of our restaurants are in states or localities that require facial coverings for both crew and customers today, its important we protect the safety of all employees and customers," McDonald's said in its statement Friday.

Kelly Tyko

Authorities faced with limited space to store bodies awaiting autopsies are now bringing in a refrigerated cooler to help as the coronavirus pandemic surges in a Mississippi county.

Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart said Thursday that without a morgue space is running out to store victims of homicides, car crashes and other fatalities that require autopsies.

The surge in coronavirus cases and deaths in the county is also having an impact as bodies can no longer be sent to hospital morgues for temporary storage. Private facilities are also at capacity, the coroner said.

Justin Vicory, Mississippi Clarion Ledger

Washington, D.C., will require travelers coming to the city to self-quarantine for14 days if they are arriving from a high-risk area on nonessential travel.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Friday that the self-quarantine requirement would take effect next week.Maryland and Virginia, which border D.C., are exempt from the order, but other states that see a seven-day moving average of new COVID-19 cases at 10 or more per 100,000 people will be affected.

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut jointly announced self-quarantine requirements last month for travelers arriving from states with high numbers of positive cases. Their hot-spot list has grown to31 states. Many other states have quarantine requirement. Read the full list here if you're planning travel.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, recently talked about heightened threats to him and his family and his security detail.Fauci made the comments on CNN's"The Axe Files" podcastand said that many of the threats come from people who are angry and believe, "I'm interfering with their life because I'm pushing a public health agenda."

In April, media outlets reported that the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Marshals Service had stationed agents at HHS to protect Fauci.

The longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseasessaid he has been a target since the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic as the first government official speaking out about the virus. He said he received hate mailthen but could largely ignore it. The backlash he's received during the COVID-19 pandemic, however, is ofa different magnitude, he said.

"The kind of not only hate mail but actual, serious threats against me are not good," Fauci said. "It's tough. Serious threats against me, against my family, my daughters, my wife. I mean, really? Is this the United States of America? But it's real. It really is real."

Fauci added: "Weare all trying to open up American again in away thatis safe, that we can do it in a measured fashion. But the hostility against public health issues is difficult to not only understand but difficult to even process."

In a recent interview with thebusiness news outletMarketWatch, Fauci also saidhe would not eat inside a restaurant or get on a flight given the current state of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.

Read this: Straight-talking Anthony Fauci has been the nation's voice on the coronavirus. Who is he?

Days from the end of enhanced unemployment benefits and a federal eviction moratorium, 24 million Americans say they have little to no chance of being able to pay next months rent, a U.S. Census Bureau survey shows.

A disproportionate share of those in danger come from Black and Hispanic households, two groups who have borne the brunt of negative health and economic impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Congress works to negotiate a new stimulus, experts warn the time to ward off an eviction and foreclosure crisis has almost run out.

We're about to fall off a massive cliff and see a major spike in evictions, said Alanna McCargo, vice president of housing finance policy at the Urban Institute.

A look atAmericans' confidence in being able to pay August rent:

Kevin Crowe, Theresa Diffendaland Carlie Procell

An overwhelming 3 out of 4 Americans support requiring people to wear masks in public, a new poll found.

Almost 90% of Democrats as well as nearly 60% of Republicans support requiring masks outside of people's homes. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll was conducted before President Donald Trump, who had been dismissive of wearing masks despite public health officials' support, tweeted earlier this week that wearing a face covering is patriotic.

Although partisan rhetoric around masks has undermined what public health officials say is a simple step thatcan save lives,95% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans say theyre wearing face coverings when leaving the house.

The poll also foundabout two-thirds of Americans disapprove of howTrump is handling the pandemic.

The coronavirus continued rampage through the southern and western United States is almost certain to leave an especially deadly trail among Latinos, who not only represent a significant percentage of the population in those regions but often face structural conditions that make them more vulnerable.

A new study published Thursday, the first nationwide analysis of COVID-19 cases and deaths among Latinos, concludes that crowded housing arrangements and high-risk jobs in industries like meatpacking, poultry and hospitality are among the major reasons Latinos have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

As the virus extracts a heavy toll on California, Texas and Florida the three states with the largest Latino populations the death count among the countrys biggest minority group could be staggering.

My prediction is that its very likely because the policies and practices that are needed to prevent infections and deaths are not in place, said Carlos Rodriguez-Diaz, the study's lead author.

Jorge L. Ortiz

R-0 may be the most important scientific term youve never heard of when it comes to stopping the coronavirus pandemic. USA TODAY

Parent check-list for back-to-school: Label your child's face mask with permanent marker. Have them practice putting on and taking off their mask without touching the cloth. Make a labeled, resealable plastic bag to store their mask during lunch time.Those are among thesuggestions the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has for school administrators and parentsas families prepare for school to resume in the fall.

Students should wear masks, wash their hands frequently and socially distance to protect against COVID-19 as schools reopen this fall, CDCurged in new guidance documents for administrators published Thursday. It is critically important for our public health to open schools this fall, said CDC Director Dr. RobertRedfield in a release.

CDC, the nation's top public health agency, has faced considerable political pressure from President Donald Trump and others to get schools reopened.

A key consideration for school administrators, CDC said, was COVID-19 transmission rates in their communities. But the CDC guidance offered no specific metrics for what transmission rates would require specific actions.

Elizabeth Weise

Senate Republicans were scrambling Thursday to finalizea $1 trillioncoronavirusreliefpackage that will include another round of $1,200 stimulus checks and additional funding to help schools recover from the pandemic.

GOP leaders and the White House said lateWednesday that they had agreed on key parts of the legislation, which will serve as a starting point for negotiations withDemocrats, who have already passed their own bill in the House.

But Republicans are still strugglingto put the finishing touches on the package.Congress and the White House are under pressure to clinch a deal on a freshpandemic aid package;a federal program of expanded unemployment benefits is set to run out within days.

One item that will be missing from the GOP plan isTrumps demand for a payroll tax cut. Republicans abandoned that proposal even though Trump had suggested he might not sign any bill that doesnt include it.

People who have had mild to moderate COVID-19 can come out of isolation after 10 days and don't need to be retested before going back to work, new CDC guidelines say. Symptoms, not testing, are the guide.If patients had a fever, it needs to have been gone for at least 24 hours.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document, published Wednesday,says symptoms are a bettergauge of how infectious someone is so they are"not kept unnecessarily isolated and excluded from work or other responsibilities."

The document acknowledges that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is so new that doctors are still gathering evidence for how it works.As more data becomes available, the medical community is gaining a better understanding of how people who are infected can avoiding passing on the disease. Thenew guidelinesreflect the latest thinking.

Elizabeth Weise

PresidentDonald Trump announced Thursday he is cancelingthe Jacksonville portion of the Republican National Conventionbecause of the coronavirus pandemic, a major setback in his effortto energize his struggling bid for reelection. "The timing for this event is not right," Trump told reporters at the White House. "There's nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe."

Trump said that he would deliver remarks to formally accept his party's nomination for president but offered no detailon where or when that will happen.The abrupt decision was not only a significant blow to his campaign but also raised questions about the president's narrative that the country is ready to reopen for business.

Trump said convention delegates will still gather in North Carolina, where the official business of the convention was set to take place, and formally nominate him for reelection.

Late Thursday,Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez reaffirmedthat his party will holdits national convention next month in Milwaukee, with a mostly virtual event. Delegates will vote remotely.Joe Biden has said he intends to accept the nomination in Milwaukee

John Fritze, Courtney Subramanian, Michael Collins andBill Glauber

A USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins data through late Wednesday shows 12 states set records for new cases over a seven-day period whilesix states had a record number of deathsover the period. New case records were set in Alaska, California, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. Record numbers of deaths were reported in Florida, Idaho, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

In Florida, the week's death toll was 824, more than twice the number of any week during the spring COVID-19 surge. Still, Gov. Ron DeSantis continued to press for in-classroom learning when schools open, some in less than three weeks. DeSantis stressed that young people face the least risk from the virus.

"It is our kids who have borne the harshest burden of the controlled measures instituted to protect against the virus, DeSantis said Wednesday.

Michael Stucka

On Facebook:There's still a lot unknown about the coronavirus. But what we do know, we're sharing with you.Join our Facebook group, "Coronavirus Watch,"to receive daily updates in your feed and chat with others in the community about COVID-19.

In your inbox:Stay up-to-date with the latest news on the coronavirus pandemic from the USA TODAY Network.Sign up for the daily Coronavirus Watch newsletter here.

Tips for coping:Every Saturday and Tuesday we'll be in your inbox, offering you a virtual hugand a little bit of solace in these difficult times.Sign up forStaying Apart, Togetherhere.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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Coronavirus updates: CDC finds 'prolonged illness' is common; experts call for shut down; daily global cases break another record - USA TODAY

Before he became Prime Minister, Boris Johnson used to be a regular cycle commuter. (Photo by Dan ... [+] Kitwood/Getty Images)

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to tell overweight Britons they need to increase their activity levels to better fight against infection from the novel coronavirus. Being obese or overweight puts people at greater risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19, experts have said this week. Cycling to work is a key way of losing weight and changing sedentary lifestyles, Johnson will advise on Monday.

Family doctorsknown in the U.K. as general practitioners, or GPswill be encouraged to prescribe cycling as a way for patients to lose weight. GP surgeries could also participate in bicycling incentive programs, with the possibility that some people could be paid to pedal.

Johnson is also expected to announce other bicycling promotions in the week beginning July 27, with further encouragement for local authorities to instal protective cycleways.

Johnsons recommendation to cycle is part of a new nannying government strategy to reduce the impact of the virus on the NHSprevention being cheaper than a cureand will include bans on advertising junk food to children as well as forcing restaurants to display calorie counts on menus.

Active travel, such as walking and cycling, can play an important role in reducing obesity levels, with a recent comprehensive study showing that, compared to driving, cycling was shown to cause a weight loss of 0.75kg for the average person.

Daily bicycle travel leads to the lowest body mass index, according to the study which was conducted in seven European cities.

The analysis of data from seven European citiespart of the European Commission funded Physical Activity through Sustainable Transport Approaches (PASTA) projectsuggested that daily cyclists weigh less than their non-active counterparts. The research was led by Hasselt University and the Flemish Institute for Technological Research, and included researchers from Imperial College London.

Speaking during a recent visit to a GP surgery in East London, Johnson said:

Obesity is one of the real co-morbidity factors. Losing weight, frankly, is one of the ways you can reduce your own risk from coronavirus.

Perhaps more importantly, cycling is also a key way of moving moreinactivity is a killer.

The Guardians political correspondent Peter Walker describes cycling as a miracle pill (and hes got a book out in January 2021 with that title.)

Imagine if a team of scientists devised a drug which massively reduced peoples chances of developing cancer or heart disease, cutting their overall likelihood of dying early by 40%, he wrote in 2017.

That drug is already here, albeit administered in a slightly different way: its called cycling to work.

Walker added: One of the more puzzling political questions is why it is so rarely prescribed on a population-wide level. Most people recognise riding a bike makes you more healthy. But studies have shown the impact of even a relatively modest regular cycle can have near-miraculous health dividends.

In May, Johnson told the U.K. parliament that the near future should be a new golden age for cycling.

He made his comments during Prime Ministers question time and was answering a question from former transport secretary Therese Villiers who asked whether the Prime Minister would be seeking assurances from London Mayor Sadiq Khan that the London Underground tube service would soon be open to use for all who wanted to use it and not just key workers.

A cyclist makes a hand gesture to the then Mayor of London Boris Johnson as he cycles over Vauxhall ... [+] Bridge, London, to launch London's first cycle superhighway in 2015. (Photo by Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images)

A crucial part of our success now in getting transport to run safely will be running a bigger and more expansive tube service so that people can observe social distancing, replied Johnson.

Unbidden, Johnson added that there will be a huge amount of planning going to helping people to get to work other than by mass transit and this should be a new golden age for cycling.

The government later rolled out a 2-billion program to boost bicycling and walking.

Before becoming prime minister, Johnson regularly cycled in London while he was Mayor and when he was a backbench MP.

Public Health England (PHE) said on July 25 that excess weight puts people at greater risk of needing hospital admission or intensive care.

PHE chief nutritionist Dr Alison Tedstone said that being overweight or obese puts people at greater risk of serious illness or death from Covid-19, as well as from many other life-threatening diseases.

"Losing weight can bring huge benefits for health, she said, and may also help protect against the health risks of COVID-19.

She added: The case for action on obesity has never been stronger.

The U.K. has one of the highest levels of obesity in Europe, with two-thirds of adults reported as being obese or overweight.

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Fight Coronavirus With Miracle Pill Of Bicycling To Work, Boris Johnson To Tell Brits - Forbes

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of 10:00 a.m., on July 25,2020, there have been 255,089 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 5,772 total cases and 103 deaths.

In alignment with updated definitions fromthe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the dashboard includes probablecases which are individuals that have symptoms and either serologic (antibody)or epidemiologic (e.g., a link to a confirmed case) evidence of disease, but noconfirmatory test.

CASESPER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (28/0), Berkeley (589/19), Boone (69/0), Braxton (7/0), Brooke(45/1), Cabell (258/9), Calhoun (5/0), Clay (17/0), Fayette (112/0), Gilmer(14/0), Grant (38/1), Greenbrier (81/0), Hampshire (55/0), Hancock (81/4),Hardy (49/1), Harrison (154/1), Jackson (153/0), Jefferson (274/5), Kanawha (648/12),Lewis (24/1), Lincoln (44/2), Logan (72/0), Marion (149/4), Marshall (94/1),Mason (40/0), McDowell (13/1), Mercer (81/0), Mineral (89/2), Mingo (81/2),Monongalia (799/15), Monroe (18/1), Morgan (24/1), Nicholas (22/1), Ohio(227/0), Pendleton (27/1), Pleasants (6/1), Pocahontas (39/1), Preston (95/22),Putnam (135/1), Raleigh (121/4), Randolph (201/4), Ritchie (3/0), Roane (14/0),Summers (4/0), Taylor (39/1), Tucker (8/0), Tyler (11/0), Upshur (33/2), Wayne(173/2), Webster (3/0), Wetzel (41/0), Wirt (6/0), Wood (211/10), Wyoming(15/0).

As case surveillance continues at thelocal health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certaincounty may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individualin question may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is thecase of Braxton County in this report.

Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR.

Please visit thedashboard at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.

Continued here:

COVID-19 Daily Update 7-25-20 - 10 AM - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Thousands of Texas prisoners are stuck in limbo during the public health disaster, approved for parole yet still sitting inside disease-prone lockups as the coronavirus rages across the state.

Many have been waiting six months or longer for release. During that time, Texas has seen more state prisoners die with the virus than any other state prison system in America.

Theyve been told theyre still behind bars because theres nowhere to send them, they need to finish a life skills program or they cant leave until the new coronavirus is done and over with, according to prisoners responses to questionnaires sent by advocacy groups. Sometimes the prisoners arent told anything at all, the elation of winning parole morphing into dread as they watch prison coronavirus infections and deaths rise.

Some of these people were eligible [for release] months and months and months ago, and theyre still there, said Jorge Renaud, southwest regional director of policy and advocacy for LatinoJustice, one of the advocacy groups. They are putting these people at risk unnecessarily.

In May, more than 15,000 Texas prisoners had been approved for parole but were not yet released, according to records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Thats about 12% of the state prison population. About 4,300 prisoners had been granted parole at least six months earlier.

Parole releases are never immediate, and its a common requirement for prisoners to first undergo in-prison education or rehabilitation programming before their release. But the coronavirus has delayed some of those classes and also pushed back release for an unknown number of people who have already completed such programming or never needed to take it.

Jon Reynolds, an inmate at the geriatric Pack Unit, where state attorneys say at least 19 men have died with the virus, testified in federal court last week that he finished his board-required programming in May but has remained in the highly infected prison. He said thats because the units parole officer, who approves housing plans, hasnt been there. State attorneys questioned if his delay was instead because his housing plan was not adequate, but Reynolds denied that.

People are still getting sick over and over, the 51-year-old said at a videoconference trial in a case over TDCJs handling of the pandemic. Im not understanding what it is that is keeping TDCJ from letting people go that have already completed their program.

Other inmates whose required programming was unavailable at their prisons had to wait months while transfers between units were stopped to limit the virus spread. And units confirmed to have active infections nearly 3,000 inmates had recently tested positive at dozens of prisons Wednesday are locked down, restricting activity within and halting movement in and out of them, including releases into the free world.

A TDCJ spokesperson said that although the agency cant release inmates during lockdowns, it has started directly releasing inmates at prisons without known infections to family instead of first moving them to a transfer facility. He added that he did not think any prison had been consistently restricted since the virus first hit the prison system in March, saying most cycled on and off lockdown, which allows for some releases. Several units have been on lockdown because of the virus for more than a month at a time, according to agency reports.

From the very beginning of the pandemic, there became more and more issues with the way that we would normally transport folks, spokesperson Jeremy Desel said. We move to process them as quickly as we can, but theyre still going to need to uphold whatever conditions are set.

More than 13,500 of about 130,000 TDCJ inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus as of Wednesday, according to agency reports. At least 94 have died with it, the highest death toll in the country among state prison systems. The virus has also infected nearly 2,900 prison employees and killed 14 people who worked in state lockups.

But despite continued pleas from inmates, their loved ones and advocates for immediate release of those who are granted parole during the public health disaster, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has repeatedly said it has not changed how it makes parole decisions. A board spokesperson said Wednesday that parole approval rates rose in the last year to an average of about 39%, but state data indicates a slight decrease in the average rate since March. The board still sets release dates far in the future or requires monthslong, in-prison programming before an inmate can be released.

Gov. Greg Abbott, who oversees the board, said in March that releasing dangerous criminals wasnt the answer to controlling the virus in prison hot spots and has since remained silent on the issue. A spokesperson has not responded to repeated questions, including on Wednesday, on whether his stance changed as cases and deaths have risen behind prison walls.

Renaud said he and other advocates plan to push in the 2021 legislative session for required parole programming, like drug rehabilitation, to be permitted in the community instead of in prison. For Donald Mickens, that would mean his wife would be home with their children.

Mickens wife, serving a three-year stint out of Galveston County on a probation violation, was approved for parole in October. But the 41-year-old first had to complete a six-month drug rehabilitation program, Mickens said. That meant sending her to another unit, according to Mickens, a move that was delayed for months until June because of a halt in unit transfers as the virus swept through the system.

Now she's there and they're not even doing the classes, they're just giving them paperwork underneath the door, he said, because of a lack of counselors at the unit. ... Shes struggling real bad in there because shes so scared shes going to get [the coronavirus].

For Kambri Crews, programming on the outside may have allowed her to say goodbye to her dying father in person instead of on a hard-fought FaceTime call.

Theodore "Cigo" Crews, 73, died in a prison hospital earlier this month after a late cancer diagnosis, 30 days after hed been granted parole after serving 18 years. His daughter believes the harsh conditions and poor food inmates get in coronavirus lockdowns quickened his death. She said he lost 15 pounds from May to June.

He would have died anyway, but it would have been nice for him to die in the free world, Crews said.

Her father was required to take a drug and alcohol program first, she said, but she didnt understand why he couldnt have taken classes any other time in his nearly two decades behind bars, or outside with her.

Inmates who are set to leave on parole and arent required to take programming have been stuck as well during the pandemic. Long-awaited release dates are taken off the calendar when units go on or extend the medical lockdowns, and the parole board has set release dates far in the future, to the dismay of prisoners loved ones.

Debra Boyds son won parole in May, with the caveat that he first had to undergo the prisons life-skills program. The three-month class which Renaud and other prison reform advocates criticize on its effectiveness focuses on managing stress, time and money, and personal assessments. To try to hasten his homecoming, Boyd informed the parole board that her 41-year-old son had already completed the program months earlier.

His parole condition was changed after her phone call so that her son could be released without completing a program but not until January.

It was real exciting, she said, when she first learned her son was approved for parole, even if he had to redo the program. Then when everything switched around to January, its like, Oh my god, what has happened?

The boards chief of staff, Timothy McDonnell, said Boyds sons release was never intended to be before 2021. His release was first set to be after he completed the three-month program, which the board directed to begin in November at the earliest, McDonnell said. A future release date for parole approvals is often issued when the parole panel wants the inmate to serve more time, but not necessarily as long as it would take for the next parole review, he said.

With the second week of trial nearing an end, TDCJ continues defending itself in a case that questions whether the agency adequately protected inmates at the Pack Unit. State attorneys argued that the question of parole, which inmate Reynolds raised in his testimony, was irrelevant to the case since the lawsuit focuses on how TDCJ protects inmates. But advocates and epidemiologists have said for months that releasing inmates and reducing the prison population is the most effective strategy to promote social distancing and keep infections from spreading like wildfire among prisoners and into the community.

There was two ways to go, said Renaud. Either kick everybody out who is on parole or not let anybody go and not take anybody in and hope that little by little that the disease would just wear itself out, that it would just burn out.

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Coronavirus is keeping Texas inmates approved for parole in prison - The Texas Tribune