The Morning Meeting with Al Tompkins is a daily Poynter briefing of story ideas worth considering and other timely context for journalists, written by senior faculty Al Tompkins.

Stop me if you heard this one before, say in the Spring of 2020. New York City, just this week, reported a spike in new COVID-19 cases. So far, COVID hospitalizations have not increased. 

WNBC reported:

COVID-19 positivity rates are back above 20% in parts of Manhattan, as the latest city data indicate the virus is digging in ahead of winter.

The rolling seven-day positivity rate in the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan is up to 22.5%, according to city data Wednesday. That is by far the highest rate in New York City, and no other neighborhood is close. Just a day prior, no neighborhood was over 20%.

As I told you on Monday, the new variants, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. are quickly increasing as the leading versions of the virus, in some places now representing a third of the new cases. And, as I wrote Monday, there is a growing concern that so few Americans have taken advantage of the newest COVID-19 vaccine booster, which has the best chance of offering some immunity against the virus’ subvariant. But the vaccine cannot promise immunity, just protection against severe illness and death.

Fox News spreads COVID vaccine disinformation faster than CDC can respond

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson wrongly reported this week that the CDC was about to require children to be vaccinated against COVID. “The CDC is about to add the COVID vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule, which would make the vax mandatory for kids to attend school,” Carlson tweeted, linking to a clip of his video spewing the same nonsense. At least he gets a little bit of the story right. The CDC did add the coronavirus vaccine to its list of recommended vaccines that children should get as they grow up. It is right there along with polio, chickenpox and so on. But the CDC cannot mandate such requirements. States set immunization requirements and different states have different requirements, although they do largely align with CDC guidelines and, by the way, guidelines set by the AMA and pediatricians.  As an example, even though the CDC recommends HPV vaccines for adolescents, few states require them. (Rhode Island, Virginia, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia and the District of Columbia).

The CDC posted a response to Carlson’s claims but by then the horse had left the barn.

IMAGE 1

(Twitter)

The misinformation about the CDC meeting didn’t start with Carlson. It may have started here, with a tweet by a Fox News contributor. The original post was corrected, nine hours later. 

So why would the CDC add the COVID vaccine recommendation for children? There is a practical reason. In January, in all probability, the federal government will end its free vaccination program for COVID. By adding the COVID vaccine to the childhood immunization list, most insurance plans would cover the vaccine.  

Whites are now as likely to die from COVID as Blacks in the U.S.

A Washington Post investigation found that the trend of Black Americans dying from COVID at a faster rate than white Americans has shifted. 

A Post analysis of covid death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from April 2020 through this summer found the racial disparity vanished at the end of last year, becoming roughly equal. And at times during that same period, the overall age-adjusted death rate for White people slightly surpassed that of Black and Latino people

Unequal exposure, unequal spread, unequal vulnerability and unequal treatment concentrated harm in communities that needed protection the most yet had the least. Cumulatively, Black, Latino and Native American people are 60 percent more likely to die of covid.

The reasons for the change, the Post said, are rooted in politics, suspicion and distrust, rural health policies and, it seems, is that Black people were dying at a faster rate early in the pandemic, America’s Black population moved more quickly toward vaccinations.

Why journalists should be asking midterm candidates about foreign policy

When Americans are worried about their own economy, we tend not to pay much attention to the rest of the world’s problems. And then we seem surprised when their problems also become our problems. The pandemic certainly taught us a lesson that countries are interdependent, not independent. And the inflation rates of countries around the globe are causing havoc afar, how many times are U.S. House and Senate candidates even talking about global issues? How often are journalists asking? It is tempting for candidates to embrace an “America First” agenda when voters demand lower inflation. But foreign policy also includes how much aid to send to Ukraine and how to help the economies of Central and South America. The next Congress, for example, will deal with foreign policy issues including:

• Energy and environmental policy, whether to maintain the Paris Accord agreements or shift back toward fossil fuel production and dependance. 
• Immigration, including whether to address what the Biden administration calls the “root causes” of migration away from crumbling economies in Central and South America. Candidates too often are getting off the hook by saying they want to stop the border crisis. Beyond building a wall, what would stop desperate people from risking their lives to come to America? What would give them a better alternative than leaving their families and homes?
• International organizations: To what extent will the United States stay connected to the World Health Organization and NATO? The current administration has attempted to patch up those relationships, but backing off again might feel like the relationship is unreliable long-term.
• The Middle East: what should our policies be toward Saudi Arabia and Iran? The drones used to bombard Ukraine this week came from Iran. The Saudis pump a lot of oil and influence with OPEC+, but do we look past human rights atrocities to maintain the oil supply?
• China appears to be getting chummy with Russia while at the same time remaining a huge global economic and military influence. There will be a time, maybe not so far away, when China will make a play for Taiwan. What will America’s position be? 
• A global food crisis: The drumbeat is getting louder warning against a potential global food crisis. Russia was a global supplier of fertilizer before Russia invaded Ukraine. European fertilizer plants have been closed because of the high price of natural gas. Yesterday, I told you about millions of chickens and turkeys that have been destroyed because of the avian flu. The UN World Food Program says we are heading for another year of record hunger.” Foreign food importers can’t afford American products because of the high price of the U.S. dollar.

Journalists could ask candidates:

• If China takes military action to control Taiwan, what American response would you support? What would you unconditionally oppose?
• Under what conditions would you support direct American military action to support Ukraine against Russia?
• What are three Congressional actions that you would support to control the flow of immigrants seeking to enter the southern U.S. border? 

This week, I taught journalists from a couple of dozen countries who told me about the astonishing rates of inflation in their home countries of Venezuela, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Iran and Turkey. How can people survive in an economy that is running 300%-plus annual inflation?

(International Monetary Fund)

The implications are that such a crisis will force people to flee and will destabilize governments. And as history tells us, when economies crash, there are always people with radical ideas who emerge offering simplistic solutions blaming one group for the problems.

You know what is happening to food costs in the U.S. They are worse in Europe, a direct reflection of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bread prices rose 20% in the last year and will increase even more as we enter winter.  

The New York Times reported:

The squeeze has been sharpest in countries nearest to the conflict zone, especially Hungary, where the cost of a basic loaf surged in September by 77 percent from a year ago, according to Eurostat. In Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia, bread prices are up over 30 percent.

The whirlwind has come as a shock in Germany, where the cost of bread has shot up over 18 percent in a year, as overall inflation has zoomed into the double digits, too, reaching 10.9 percent in September.

Look over this map and you can see the current inflation rates posted by Eurostat. Ukraine’s inflation rate is 24%. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are not far behind. The Netherlands’ inflation is 17%, and Romania and Serbia are running around 14%. It is going to be a rough and, for some, desperate winter. 

The most recent Pew polling on this issue found 45 percent of registered U.S. voters ranking foreign policy as critical compared to the 77 percent who identified the economy as critical. And yet, in so many ways, the two are connected.

I heard a candidate for a Florida state representative seat promise this week that she would stop the fentanyl crisis. Respectfully, no she won’t. Another state house candidate said she would fight inflation. I doubt she will have a lot to say that would affect inflation. Maybe a state rep could make specific promises about specific measures that could give people a break on sales tax or gasoline tax or increase a property tax exemption. 

My point is that I am frustrated that journalists are allowing the candidates to set the agenda of what we are covering. The journalists’ job is to press candidates to state positions on important issues that they will likely vote on in the coming term. Campaign coverage is largely about documenting what candidates promise to do so we can hold them accountable when they are in office.

Here are some other questions journalists could ask a midterm candidate:

• What would you support to lessen, prevent and/or reverse the effects of climate change?
• A 55% American majority opposes phasing out the production of new gasoline cars and trucks by 2035, while 43% are in favor. Where do you stand? Background from Pew:
  “Americans lean against the idea of phasing out gas-powered vehicles by 2035: 55% say they oppose phasing out the production of new gasoline cars and trucks by 2035, compared with 43% who support this proposal.  The Biden administration has proposed regulatory efforts on emission standards that would increase the sale of electric vehicles so that half of all new cars and trucks sold in the U.S. are electric by 2030. The European Parliament supported a proposal to effectively ban new gas cars and trucks by 2035. Support for phasing out gas-powered vehicles in the U.S. is down slightly from last year, when 47% of Americans favored this idea and 51% were opposed. Democrats and Republicans continue to be deeply divided over whether to end the production of cars and trucks with internal combustion engines. About two-thirds of Democrats favor phasing out gasoline-powered cars and trucks by 2035 (65%). In contrast, just 17% of Republicans support this idea, while an overwhelming majority (82%) oppose it.”

(Pew Research Center

• 42% of U.S. adults say they are very or somewhat likely to seriously consider purchasing an electric vehicle. What role should the U.S. government have in encouraging the move away from gasoline powered vehicles?
• A majority (63%) says the federal government is doing too little to protect the water quality of rivers, lakes and streams. What should we be doing to protect waterways that we are not doing?
• By a 53% to 45% margin, Pew Research finds Americans are more likely to view stricter environmental laws as worth the cost than to say such laws cost too many jobs and hurt the economy. How will you weigh these competing pressures?
• Lower-income adults, as well as Black and Hispanic adults, are especially likely to report environmental problems in their communities.  What will you support to address the environmental issues in those communities?  Background from Pew:
  “Black and Hispanic Americans continue to be more likely than White Americans to report each of these environmental problems in their communities. For example, 63% of Black Americans and 57% of Hispanic Americans say safety of drinking water is at least a moderate problem in their local community, compared with only 33% of non-Hispanic White Americans. There are significant gaps by race and ethnicity when it comes to other environmental problems, including air pollution.”

(Pew Research Center)

Why the British Prime Minister is being compared to a head of lettuce

It has been clear that British Prime Minister Liz Truss’ days in office were numbered, and the British press has gotten rowdy lately comparing her days left as PM to the shelf-life of a head of lettuce. The Daily Star put a live camera on a decaying head of lettuce. Some started calling her “Lettuce Liz.”  Another called her the Iceberg Lady, as opposed to Iron Lady, used to describe former PM Margaret Thatcher. One of our most valued allies is in a lot of turmoil. 

Correction, 10/21/22: This story was updated to correct Margaret Thatcher’s nickname.