POLITICO NIGHTLY: Mild Omicron could still be bad

 

BY JOANNE KENEN Presented by With help from Myah Ward Members of the public line up for Covid-19 vaccinations and booster jabs at St Thomas' Hospital in London. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images NOT SO TENDER AND MILD — The early indications suggest that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus typically causes disease that is “mild.” But even if that turns out to be true, “mild” doesn’t mean “no big deal.” Mild Covid-19 can still cause a whole lot of illness, a whole lot of economic disruption, a whole lot of strain on health care systems around the world. In the U.S., the big Omicron wave could hit in January when we could also be wrestling with a travel-propelled post-Christmas Delta surge. Plus maybe the flu. “I’m very worried,” said Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer at the American Society of State and Territorial Health Officials. Obviously, a case of mild Covid is preferable to coming down with the Vaccine-Evading Killer Bug From Hell that we worried about when we first learned of mutation-riddled Omicrom over Thanksgiving. But because Omicron is so contagious, there could be many, many cases — an exponential outbreak. “This is going to take off. The numbers of people who get sick will be substantial,” Plescia said. And even if only a very small proportion of them end up with severe disease, that still adds up to a lot of very sick people. For instance, if the fatality rate for Omicron turned out to be only one-fourth of that for “original” Covid, but Omicron infected four times as many people, then the same number of lives would be lost. “It’s the math,” said Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at NYU. And “mild” to an epidemiologist doesn’t mean the same thing that “mild” indicates to you and me. Mild to us means not feeling so bad. Mild to the public health professional just means you aren’t in the hospital. “It can knock you off your feet and debilitate you for a few days and we’d still call it mild,” Plescia said. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown, told Nightly that mild can mean anything from the sniffles to being so feverish and achy that you have to miss school and work — at a time when kids have already missed quite enough school and workplaces are short-staffed. She’s still wearing a mask in public settings. “Even if I don’t get super-sick, thanks to the vaccines,” she emailed me last night, “I can’t afford to take 10 days off of work.” Just as important, the whole “Omicron is mild” theory is tentative. It’s unclear how “mild” the variant’s disease will be in various populations, Gounder said — the vaxxed, the double-vaxxed, the boosted, the unvaccinated, or people with recent prior Covid infections, not-so-recent prior covid infections, no past infections. It’s also way too early to have any idea about the long-Covid risks of Omicron. As Ranney noted, the science isn’t settled on the risk of long Covid in Delta breakthroughs, and that variant has been around for several months now. With Omicron rising, the public health world really wants people who are still unvaccinated to get themselves — and their age-eligible kids — immunized. Concern about Omicron has spurred more vaccinated people to get boosters, but for the unvaccinated, the variant actually creates a tough messaging challenge. The public health messengers are saying, “The extremely contagious Omicron is coming!! Get your shot!” But the unvaccinated people are hearing, “Oh but it’s mild.” Like so much with this pandemic, it’s all in the ear of the beholder. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author on Twitter at @JoanneKenen. A message from Facebook: Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations, including Section 230 Aaron is one of 40,000 people working on safety and security issues at Facebook. Hear from Aaron on why Facebook supports updating regulations on the internet’s most pressing challenges, including reforming Section 230 to set clear guidelines for all large tech companies.   ON THE ECONOMY Children draw on top of a "cancelled check" prop during a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol. | Alex Wong/Getty Images BIRTH AND TAXES — The final monthly child tax credit payment of 2021 goes out Wednesday to 35 million families. Now it’s up to Democrats to pass President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill by Dec. 31 if they don’t want the benefits to lapse in January — or even become the final payment, period, writes Nightly’s Myah Ward. The American Rescue Plan, passed in March, increased the tax credit from $2,000 per child to as much as $3,600, depending on the age of child. The monthly payments began in July, with deposits of $300 for children under 6 and $250 for kids 6 to 17. Families will get the rest of the money when they file their 2021 tax returns, as will other parents who didn’t opt to receive monthly cash. Democrats are hopeful that if anything can unify their party as monthslong, grueling negotiations have forced them right up against the year-end deadline, it’s a historic antipoverty effort for children, POLITICO’s Congress team reported this week. Roughly 450 economists signed a letter to Congress this fall in support of extending the fully refundable child tax credit. In the letter, the economists, including several Nobel Prize winners, cited a growing body of research that indicates the expanded CTC “can dramatically improve the lives of millions of children” while also “promoting our country’s long-term economic prosperity” by addressing child poverty. “It’s hard to get economists to agree on things, but this is one of those cases where the economic research is so strong and telling such a consistent story,” Jacob Goldin, an economist and law professor at Stanford University who signed the letter, told Nightly. “They’re such a good long-term investment, and to do anything that would jeopardize that investment, doesn’t make any sense at all.” In October, CTC payments reached 61.1 million children and kept 3.6 million from poverty, according to Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, which releases monthly numbers showing how many children the CTC has kept from poverty. November’s numbers are expected to be even higher when the center releases the data later this week, Megan Curran, policy director at the center, told Nightly. Families’ most common use of CTC payments was for purchasing food, according to national data from researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, using Census data. Food tops the list in every U.S. state, except for Mississippi, where food and school essentials are neck and neck. U.S. Census data shows significant drops in food insecurity and that families spent CTC checks on school costs and child care when children returned to classrooms this fall. Mastercard data paints the same picture, showing that CTC money drove back-to-school spending in late August. Republicans have called the expanded credit “welfare,” expressing concerns the extra cash keeps otherwise working parents at home. But six months in, Curran said, there is no evidence CTC payments have reduced employment. A national survey from the Center for Law and Social Policy shows that some families say CTC has helped them work more hours outside of the home. “The fact that a single policy can reduce child poverty by 3 to 3.5 million children in a single month is not something that we see in terms of policy impacts for kids in child poverty in this country,” Curran said. Democrats’ biggest barricade to passing their social safety net bill, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), is telling colleagues that the CTC is the biggest inflation driver in the bill, Axios reported Monday. The argument is that inflation is hurting the poor, and by stopping CTC payments, people would spend less and therefore reduce inflationary pressures. But the argument is thin, Goldin said, adding that there are other ways to reduce inflationary pressures without cutting resources to families in need. “The weight of the evidence is that the factors driving inflation are primarily short-term factors,” Goldin said. “And the idea that we would cut short this long-term, important investment out of a misguided effort to deal with those short-term inflationary pressures would be about as big a mistake as we can make.”   DON’T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO’s new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE.     ON THE HILL VOTING OR BBB? Senate Democrats are desperately trying to avoid ending the year stalled on their two top priorities: elections reform and their expansive bill to address climate and the social safety net. At the center of it all sits Manchin. During Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s leadership meeting on Monday evening, Democratic senators hotly debated how to handle their two biggest unfinished tasks, Marianne LeVine and Burgess Everett write. Some Democrats say they should kick both issues until next year. Others argue the party’s leverage over Manchin won’t improve over time and want action now. And interviews today revealed a party wrestling with how to clinch its top priorities. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said he spent the weekend talking to Manchin and other Democrats about prioritizing legislation on ballot access, which he called a “moral question” that his party needs to confront. “Voting rights should be the very next thing we do,” Warnock told reporters. “We’ve got to get Medicaid expansion, we’ve got to get child care, we’ve got to get relief to farmers. All of those things matter. But the point I’m making in this moment is: we have to have a democratic framework to continue to push for those things.”       WHAT'D I MISS? — Judge scraps Trump lawsuit to shield tax returns from Congress: A federal judge has rejected former President Donald Trump’s bid to block congressional Democrats from obtaining his tax returns . Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee to federal District Court in D.C., said Trump was “wrong on the law” and that Congress is due “great deference” in its inquiries. “Even the special solicitude accorded former Presidents does not alter the outcome,” McFadden wrote in a 45-page ruling. “The Court will therefore dismiss this case.” — Senate passes $2.5T debt limit increase, sending to House: The Senate passed a measure tonight to raise the debt limit to nearly $31 trillion as Democrats race to clear the increase before the United States risks an economically devastating default. The chamber voted 50-49 to adopt the legislation. Across the Capitol, House Democrats are ready to clear the measure for President Joe Biden’s signature as soon as tonight, saving the Treasury Department from fully exhausting its ability to pay interest on the nation's $29 trillion in loans — an economic crisis that could hit as soon as Wednesday. — Ethics board: Cuomo must give back money from $5.1M book deal: The New York state Joint Commission on Public Ethics will require former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to forfeit the money he made from his $5.1 million book deal in 2020. The move comes a month after the commission revoked its authorization allowing Cuomo to profit from his memoir, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic.” The book was published in October 2020. — Report: Socialism attacks hurt Dems with Latino voters: A new post-mortem on the 2020 election results reveals that GOP attacks claiming Democrats embrace socialism helped fuel Donald Trump’s gains with Latino voters last year . More than 40 percent of Latino voters across the country expressed concern that Democrats are embracing socialism and leftist policies, according to a survey included in a report released today by Equis, a Democratic research firm. Among those who voted for Trump, more than 70 percent were concerned. And Latino voters said they are more concerned with Democrats moving to the left than with Republicans embracing fascist and anti-democratic politics. — “We owe them action”: Biden honors Sandy Hook victims on 9th anniversary: Biden addressed the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting today , marking the tragedy’s nine-year anniversary by calling it “an unconscionable act of violence.” Biden, who was President Barack Obama’s vice president at the time of the shooting, led the Obama administration’s effort to enact tougher gun control laws in Sandy Hook’s wake. That effort was ultimately unsuccessful when legislation to impose tougher background checks on gun sales — a bill that had been significantly pared back amid fierce opposition — failed on the Senate floor. — D.C. suing the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys for damage caused on Jan. 6: The attorney general of the District of Columbia is suing the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and 31 members of the far-right groups for participating in the mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6. It’s the first government-backed legal action against the groups whose members allegedly stormed the Capitol. Members of Congress and the Capitol Police have already filed similar suits in their personal capacities. — Biden taps Thompson for full term as top housing regulator: Biden will nominate Sandra Thompson, currently the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to a full term at the regulator, the White House announced today . If confirmed, Thompson would be the country’s top housing regulator, with oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled companies that stand behind about half of the roughly $11 trillion residential mortgage market. AROUND THE WORLD British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits Stow Health Vaccination center in London. | Jeremy Selwyn - WPA Pool/Getty Images BORIS SCRAPES OUT A WIN — Boris Johnson suffered the biggest parliamentary rebellion of his premiership and had to rely on opposition support to pass plans for tighter coronavirus restrictions, Esther Webber writes. Some 98 Conservative MPs voted against the U.K. leader’s policy that will see a Covid pass — comprising either proof of vaccination or a negative test — required for entry to venues including nightclubs. The rebellion — which came as the government tries to contain the spread of the Omicron Covid variant — effectively wipes out the 80-seat majority he won in 2019. The measure passed thanks to the support of the opposition Labor Party, by 369 votes to 126. But the sheer scale of the rebellion reflects the mounting pressure the prime minister is facing from his own party over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting told Sky News in the aftermath of the vote that the result reflects “the shattered authority of Boris Johnson.” Conservative MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said a leadership challenge to Johnson next year has now “got to be on the cards.” The senior Tory told Sky News: “He’s got to realize that and he’s got to change.”   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     NIGHTLY NUMBER 89 percent The reduction of risk of hospitalization or death with Pfizer’s antiviral Covid-19 pill in high-risk patients who’d been experiencing symptoms for three days or fewer, according to final results from a trial of 2,246 adults the company released today. The results tracked with interim findings the company reported last month, which prompted it to petition the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization of the pill, called Paxlovid. PARTING WORDS OSLO GOES DRY — Norway will ban the serving of alcohol in bars and restaurants, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said , as part of new Covid-19 restrictions intended to stem the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, Thibaul Spirlet writes. There’s “no doubt the new variant changes the rules,” Gahr Støre told a news conference Monday, announcing the country’s fourth round of measures in two weeks. “That’s why we need to act fast and we need to act again.” The government also announced stricter rules for schools and the closure of gyms and swimming pools to some users as well as speeding up its vaccination campaign. “For many this will feel like a lockdown, if not of society then of their lives and of their livelihoods,” the PM added. Norway has reported the largest outbreak of Omicron in continental Europe, with 958 cases confirmed, according to the daily bulletin of the EU’s disease control agency on Monday. A message from Facebook: Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations, including Section 230 Aaron is one of 40,000 people working on safety and security issues at Facebook. Hear from Aaron on why Facebook supports updating regulations on the internet’s most pressing challenges, including reforming Section 230 to set clear guidelines for all large tech companies.     Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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POLITICO NIGHTLY: Congress is working — barely

 

BY ELANA SCHOR Presented by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images CHAOS AVERTED — We’re 13 days into December, a month that was forecast as uniquely brutal for Congress. Yet lawmakers’ two biggest must-pass bills — a debt limit fix and a government funding stopgap — are on track to pass and long since passed, respectively. The third item on the legislative branch’s high-priority list, the defense policy bill, is expected to pass the Senate soon. It’s tempting to look at that progress — the Hill’s avoidance of two big cliffs — and see the potential for more to come. We should resist that urge. There is no reason to grade Congress on that steep of a curve, even in the context of avoiding a repeat of recent debacles like the shutdowns in 2013 and 2018 and the 2011 downgrading of the nation’s credit rating. And the reason is simple: Things aren’t back to normal. These deals were reached only in the face of grinding partisan pressure and historically toxic relations between Democrats and Republicans. In the case of the debt limit, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pivoted from months of promising not to lift a finger to help Democrats and agreed to give the 50-vote majority a path out of its bind. As POLITICO reported, McConnell’s move hinged on “some of the most involved face-to-face negotiating the two Senate leaders conducted all year.” The debt fix hardly set a new standard of bipartisanship for a chamber that’s — pardon me for quoting our Congress team again — “leagues away from the days when the two party leaders met regularly.” And it hinged on some truly tortured procedural logic for the Republican Party, which gave the Democrats the votes for a special debt fix that couldn’t be filibustered after declining to take the much easier step of simply … not filibustering a debt fix. As for the government funding stopgap, that bill effectively locks in Trump-era budget levels until Feb. 18, longer than Democrats had hoped for given their complete control of Washington. Until we know whether more stopgap bills will be needed to keep the government open through the bulk of 2022, it’s tough to see this patch as a serious victory for Democrats or sign of a new comity between the two parties. Come February, with the midterm elections even closer, Democrats are unlikely to find the GOP any more amenable to the majority party’s spending priorities. A Congress that earned its kudos would be able to meet Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) preference for a bipartisan paid-leave bill with serious negotiations. A Congress worth congratulating would have seen both parties’ leaders get behind a collaborative investigation of the violence of Jan. 6. Neither of those things have happened, because the leading incentive of the modern legislative branch is no longer policymaking; it’s political advantage. So if we’re going to laud lawmakers for clearing a low bar, let’s choose one that rewards their hard-working staffers and conjures the Ghost of Congress Yet to Come: Both chambers should be able to finish the defense bill, forge a workable schedule for votes on President Joe Biden’s social spending plan and adjourn for the year before Christmas Eve. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at eschor@politico.com, or on Twitter at @eschor. A message from Facebook: Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations, including Section 230 Aaron is one of 40,000 people working on safety and security issues at Facebook. Hear from Aaron on why Facebook supports updating regulations on the internet’s most pressing challenges, including reforming Section 230 to set clear guidelines for all large tech companies.   ON THE HILL NEW TONIGHT: JAN. 6 PANEL RELEASES MEADOWS TEXTS — As rioters swarmed the Capitol, President Donald Trump’s eldest son pleaded with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to get his father to do more to end the violence, Nicholas Wu and Kyle Cheney write. “He’s got to condemn this [shit] Asap. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough,” Donald Trump Jr. texted, one of a series of messages Meadows provided to the Jan. 6 select committee investigating the former president’s effort to overturn the election. After they described the messages, the panel held Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to testify to investigators. The matter now goes to the full House, which is expected to refer Meadows to the Justice Department on Tuesday. CHATTING OVER SOME JOES — Manchin remains at the negotiating table, despite deep concerns about Biden’s climate and social spending bill, Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine write. After speaking with Biden this afternoon, Manchin said he was still “engaged” in discussions. And as he left the Capitol, the key Democratic senator made clear he wasn’t ready to commit to voting for or against a bill that is still coming together behind closed doors. “Listen, let’s at least see the bill. Need to see what they write, what’s the final print. That tells you everything,” Manchin said this evening. With Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pressing for action by Christmas, the afternoon phone call between Biden and Manchin came at a critical moment. And Manchin is expressing privately and publicly that he’s not yet sold on the $1.7 trillion social spending bill. In a sign of the fluid state of negotiations, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates signaled that Biden and Manchin would speak again in “the coming days.”   JOIN TUESDAY FOR A WOMEN RULE 2021 REWIND AND A LOOK AHEAD AT 2022: Congress is sprinting to get through a lengthy and challenging legislative to-do list before the end of the year that has major implications for women’s rights. Join Women Rule editor Elizabeth Ralph and POLITICO journalists Laura Barrón-López, Eleanor Mueller, Elena Schneider and Elana Schor for a virtual roundtable that will explore the biggest legislative and policy shifts in 2021 affecting women and what lies ahead in 2022. REGISTER HERE.     WHAT'D I MISS? — Biden to survey Kentucky tornado damage Wednesday: Biden said today he would travel to Kentucky later this week to survey damage left by a deadly tornado storm that struck late last week. The White House put out an advisory shortly after the president’s announcement indicating Biden will visit the U.S. Army base at Fort Campbell, which is located on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, as well as the towns of Mayfield and Dawson Springs in Kentucky. — ‘Dr. Oz Show’ will end in 2022 during host’s Senate bid: The “Dr. Oz Show” will end its 12-year run early next year as its host, Mehmet Oz, ramps up his bid for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, Sony Pictures Television confirmed in a statement today. The daytime television show, currently in its 13th season, will air its last episode on Jan. 14, 2022 and be replaced by “The Good Dish,” a cooking show hosted by Oz's daughter Daphne, food writer Gail Simmons and “Let's Eat” co-host Jamika Pessoa. The “Dr. Oz Show” had previously been renewed in September 2020 for seasons 13 and 14. — Supreme Court rejects move to block New York vaccine mandate: The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request to block New York’s vaccination mandate for health care workers because it doesn't have a religious exemption . Three of the court’s six conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — dissented, saying they would grant relief. The mandate covers staff in hospitals, nursing homes and other medical facilities. A mural of George Floyd painted in downtown Atlanta to memorialize the life of George Floyd. | Megan Varner/Getty Images — Chauvin expected to plead guilty in Floyd civil rights case: Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin appears to be on the verge of pleading guilty to violating George Floyd’s civil rights , according to a notice sent out today by the court’s electronic filing system. The federal docket entry shows a hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday for Chauvin to change his current not guilty plea in the case. These types of notices indicate a defendant is planning to plead guilty. — California to require indoor masking statewide: California residents will be required to wear facial coverings in all indoor public spaces from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15 to help fend off a rise in Covid-19 cases as the holidays approach. “We are proactively putting this tool — universal indoor masking in public settings — in place to ensure we get through a time of joy and hope without a darker cloud of concern and despair,” said Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, during a press briefing today. — No troops disciplined in U.S. strike killing Afghan civilians: No U.S. troops involved in the August drone strike that killed innocent Kabul civilians and children will face disciplinary action, U.S. defense officials said today. Officials said that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has approved recommendations on the disciplinary matter from the generals who lead the U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command, based on the findings of an independent Pentagon review released last month. — Defense claims politics behind indictment of Rep. Jeff Fortenberry: A lawyer for Rep. Jeff Fortenberry said today that the Nebraska Republican was being targeted for political reasons in a federal prosecution on charges of making false statements during an investigation into campaign finance violations, including raising funds from a foreign donor. “Our core defense in this case will be that this prosecution is a political prosecution,” Fortenberry’s lead defense attorney, John Littrell, said during a hearing in federal court in Los Angeles.       AROUND THE WORLD EU HITS RUSSIA’S WAGNER — EU foreign ministers decided today to slap sanctions on Russian private military contractor Wagner as well as eight individuals and three entities connected to the group. The sanctions include travel bans and asset freezes. The targeted people include Dimitriy Utkin, who is described in the legal announcement of the sanctions as “a former Russian military intelligence officer” and “the founder of the Wagner Group” who is deemed “responsible for coordinating and planning operations for the deployment of Wagner Group mercenaries in Ukraine.” Wagner first attracted international attention in 2014 when it supported pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Since then, it has been involved in conflict zones including in Syria, Sudan, Mozambique and the Central African Republic. Western officials consider the group to be entangled with the Russian security apparatus, although Moscow has always denied any link. POLITICO reported last week that Brussels was planning to impose sanctions against the group.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     NIGHTLY NUMBER 114 The number of chainsaws a former Amtrak employee allegedly stole from 2012 to 2020, according to a related guilty plea announced by Amtrak’s Office of the Inspector General . Jose Rodriguez of New Jersey allegedly stole $76,000 worth of equipment from Amtrak. PARTING WORDS The United States Air Force Thunderbirds fly over the Huntington Beach Pier. | Michael Heiman/Getty Images HITTING EJECT — The Air Force has discharged 27 people for refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccine, making them what officials believe are the first service members to be removed for disobeying the mandate to get the shots. The Air Force gave its forces until Nov. 2 to get the vaccine, and thousands have either refused or sought an exemption. Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said today that these are the first airmen to be administratively discharged for reasons involving the vaccine. She said all of them were in their first term of enlistment, so they were younger, lower-ranking personnel. And while the Air Force does not disclose what type of discharge a service member gets, legislation working its way through Congress limits the military to giving troops in vaccine refusal cases an honorable discharge or general discharge under honorable condition. None of the 27 sought any type of exemption, medical, administrative or religious, Stefanek said. Several officials from the other services said they believe that so far only the Air Force has gotten this far along in the process and discharged people over the vaccine refusal. A message from Facebook: Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations, including Section 230 Aaron is one of 40,000 people working on safety and security issues at Facebook. Hear from Aaron on why Facebook supports updating regulations on the internet’s most pressing challenges, including reforming Section 230 to set clear guidelines for all large tech companies.     Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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POLITICO NIGHTLY: How to spot the next Omicron

 

BY MYAH WARD Presented by With help from Tyler Weyant People wait in line to get tested for Covid-19 at a testing facility in Times Square in New York City. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images CONNECT THE DOTS — It’s been two weeks since South African scientists alerted the world of a new Covid variant on Friday, Nov. 26. Two weeks is also the amount of time the president’s top health adviser, Anthony Fauci, said it would take to get a better idea of what we’re dealing with when it comes to Omicron. On cue, new info has been trickling out of South Africa this week, suggesting that while the variant is spreading like wildfire in the country, it’s possible the disease it causes is less severe — though it’s still way too early to really tell. As for how Omicron will affect the U.S., figuring that out in two weeks was a “little optimistic,” Charles Chiu, an infectious diseases researcher at the University of California San Francisco, told Nightly. We have the genomic sequencing data and capabilities, Chiu said. The problem is the U.S. lacks the infrastructure to quickly turn this information into action. Unlike South Africa, the U.S. has a fractured virus surveillance system, with some states sequencing Covid cases at high percentages and others just examining a small number of samples. There’s no national standard for genomic virus sequencing, he said, and the result is an incomplete and biased picture of the current state of the virus — one that tends to ignore rural and minority populations. It took U.S. health officials an extra five days — until Dec. 1 — to detect Omicron, meaning we’re about a week behind South Africa, which has one of the world’s most robust national surveillance systems, Chiu pointed out. Once a country has access to a variant, it can take scientists up to two weeks to grow enough of a virus like Omicron for widespread distribution to labs, Chiu said. After that, scientists can conduct studies on the variant’s transmissibility, severity and ability to evade vaccines. Results from these studies in the U.S. will continue to roll out in the coming days and weeks. There are a few reasons the U.S. was slow to identify a case from the new variant. Factors like population size and Omicron’s origin across the Atlantic Ocean, either in Europe or Africa, put us behind. But so did the U.S. system of public health, Chiu said. Time is important — many U.S. labs don’t sequence a sample until two weeks after it’s collected, he said. This means the data is almost useless for contact tracing and other public health measures. And U.S. labs are also not sharing the right data. The genome itself is virtually useless, Chiu said. You also need metadata attached to the sample, which would include valuable information such as the demographics of the person infected, whether they had symptoms, the severity of disease, and vaccination status. “We don’t have this sort of sample-to-answer-to-action pipeline that’s really needed to provide information as soon as possible,” Chiu said. In the U.K., sequencing labs are processing hundreds to thousands of samples a day, Chiu said, tagging and annotating them with clinical metadata that’s then fed to hospitals and the country’s public health agency, so the information can immediately be applied in both clinical and public health decision making. Nothing like that happens in the U.S. States like California have set goals to sequence 20 percent of Covid cases. But these samples aren’t linked to any clinical metadata, which Chiu blames on the lack of a national health care system in the U.S., as well as privacy and confidentiality concerns. “On a national level, in some cases, we were unable to even release the ZIP code of where the sequence came from. Much less identifying information like potentially age or sex, or gender,” he said. Finding a way to address this information-sharing blockade will be key to preventing future pandemics, he said. The U.S. can’t necessarily overhaul its entire health care system, Chiu said, but he thinks it should be possible to set new standards for how we collect and share public health data. “We know that it’s only a matter of time before we’re going to see another virus or even a relative of this virus emerge and become the next pandemic,” Chiu said. “The next critical step that needs to be made is that we need to more tightly integrate our national surveillance system.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at mward@politico.com, or on Twitter at @MyahWard. A message from UnitedHealth Group: UnitedHealth Group recognizes the environment is a key part of what makes the communities in which we live and work sustainable, viable and healthy. We are doing our part by committing to achieve operational net zero emissions by 2035 and working towards a paperless consumer and provider experience in the next 2 to 3 years. Learn more.   AROUND THE NATION New York Attorney General Letitia James presents the findings of an independent investigation into then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in August in New York City. | David Dee Delgado/Getty Images THE DISH ON TISH — In a year that’s seen plenty of shocks in Albany, New York’s capital got another big stunner today: Tish James announced she would end her gubernatorial campaign and instead run for reelection as attorney general. To find out more about what drove James’ decision, and how the Democratic field for governor is shaping up now, Nightly’s Tyler Weyant chatted with New York Playbook co-author Anna Gronewold. This conversation has been edited. In the AG race James is headed to, does she clear the field with this move? And do folks in Albany expect her office will be making big moves as we head in 2022? Good questions. Another dynamic at play is that a couple of politicians who were clearly interested in becoming AG hadn’t declared their candidacies yet, making us wonder if they were suspecting James wasn’t catching fire. Running in an open field was one thing, but running against a popular incumbent and the first Black woman to hold the office? “I’m not trying to commit political suicide,” one of the potential, but undeclared, candidates told me. But at least five Democrats had already declared their campaigns. At least one has already dropped out, at least one has said they are absolutely not dropping out, and the rest haven’t answered our calls yet. There will be a primary, but Tish has an extreme advantage and should be pretty solid on fundraising for an incumbent AG campaign. Continuing the work as AG is the reason she’s putting forth to suspend her gubernatorial campaign, and shortly before she made that announcement today, several news outlets reported that she is continuing to pursue her office’s high-profile probes into former president Donald Trump. A source familiar with the matter told us James is seeking a deposition from Trump on Jan. 7 at her New York offices as part of her investigation into potential fraud inside the Trump Organization. Funny the timing on that news! James’ announcement seemed to take New York politicos by surprise. Did you have any indication at all this was coming? Tish James seems to be fond of surprising everyone with timing, but I will offer my gratitude that it’s rarely at 5 p.m. on a Friday. There have been tea leaves, especially in the past few weeks. Candidates aren’t required to report their fundraising until January, but several sources suggested hers wasn’t going to come even close to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s, who has raised more than $10 million for her reelection campaign since announcing in August. And there was hardly any momentum in the early days when she announced. That seemed to slow even more in the past few weeks, as Bill Mahoney reported just this week . Her public and media fronts have been extremely limited, this from a seasoned politician who is employing seasoned consultants to run her campaign. But if she dropped out, most people I speak with were predicting some time after the holidays but before the state party convention around February. With James out, how do you see the governor’s race changing the next few months? Is Hochul the person to beat? Will we see a splashy Bill de Blasio entry soon? Yes, Hochul was already the frontrunner. Polling from earlier this week showed that she was ahead of James (her closest opponent) with 36 percent of Democrats’ support, compared to 18 percent backing James. Other contenders weren’t in great spots: 10 percent supported New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and 6 percent each backed Rep. Tom Suozzi and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. De Blasio, we should note, remains clearly interested, but has not declared candidacy yet. But most of James’ support would likely go to Hochul. For instance, Brooklyn party chair Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn endorsed Hochul just minutes after James announced she was dropping out. Bichotte Hermelyn was someone who had publicly expressed strong support for James’ campaign as a Black woman and Brooklyn native. And Brooklyn would be a pretty big get for any Dem these days in a primary. Obviously there’s a lot of time before the primary and polling has more recently … not been the valuable source of information we'd like. But, pending any wacky circumstances or political missteps, Hochul’s in an extremely strong position with her incumbency, and the support and cash she’s already gathered. The historic nature of her being there also adds an edge — in September, 74 percent of voters — 84 percent of Democrats — said they felt excited to have the first woman governor in office. There would need to be a new political lane opened for someone to try and oust the state’s first woman governor who has had less than a year in office to prove herself. And what Bill de Blasio decides is between him and God.   JOIN TUESDAY FOR A WOMEN RULE 2021 REWIND AND A LOOK AHEAD AT 2022: Congress is sprinting to get through a lengthy and challenging legislative to-do list before the end of the year that has major implications for women’s rights. Join Women Rule editor Elizabeth Ralph and POLITICO journalists Laura Barrón-López, Eleanor Mueller, Elena Schneider and Elana Schor for a virtual roundtable that will explore the biggest legislative and policy shifts in 2021 affecting women and what lies ahead in 2022. REGISTER HERE.     WHAT'D I MISS? — Appeals court denies Trump effort to block White House records from Jan. 6 investigators: A federal appeals court panel has rejected former Trump’s effort to stop congressional Jan. 6 investigators from obtaining his White House records . “On the record before us, former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the Political Branches over these documents,” wrote Judge Patricia Millett of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, joined by Judges Robert Wilkins and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The court delayed the effect of its order for two weeks, allowing Trump’s attorneys time to either ask the full bench of the D.C. Circuit to consider the issue or take it to the Supreme Court. — Senate passes Schumer-McConnell debt limit pact: The Senate passed a one-time loophole tonight to empower Democrats to raise the debt limit on their own , a major step toward warding off mid-December economic fallout. The chamber cleared the bill in a 59-35 vote, sending it on to President Joe Biden. Once signed into law, the measure would give Senate Democrats a free pass to raise the U.S. borrowing limit in a simple-majority vote, rather than facing the usual 60-vote hurdle to move legislation forward. — Biden reaffirms Ukrainian sovereignty support in Zelensky call: Biden today reassured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of the United States’ support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, as the country steels itself for a potential Russian invasion on its eastern frontier. “President Biden voiced the deep concerns of the United States and our European Allies about Russia’s aggressive actions towards Ukraine and made clear that the U.S. and our Allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of a further military intervention,” according to a White House readout of the call, which lasted more than an hour.   A message from UnitedHealth Group:     — FDA authorizes Pfizer Covid booster for 16-, 17-year-olds: The Food and Drug Administration authorized a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for 16- and 17-year-olds today, giving those teens access to the shots as the Omicron variant spreads worldwide. The decision comes just over a week after the companies first sought the expansion of their emergency use authorization for the vaccine as a booster. Eligible teens will be able to get the shot once they are at least six months past their second dose. — Biden calls summit ‘inflection point’ for democracies: Biden invoked the late civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis and pledged that he would continue to push for the passage of federal voting rights legislation when he commenced his administration’s first Summit for Democracy today. In his opening remarks at the outset of the two-day virtual event, Biden hailed Lewis — the Georgia Democrat who served in Congress for more than three decades and was the youngest leader of the 1963 March on Washington — as “a great champion of American democracy and for civil rights around the world.” — Lawyer: Capitol Police whistleblowers face retaliation: Multiple people who worked in the Capitol Police intelligence division on Jan. 6 raised concerns about the department before and after the insurrection and have since faced retaliation , according to an employment lawyer representing the whistleblowers. “I represent a group of U.S. Capitol Police whistleblowers who worked in IICD [Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division] on January 6, 2021,” Dan Gebhardt of the Solomon Law Firm, PLLC told POLITICO in a statement. “They have made a multitude of internal complaints regarding gross mismanagement and intelligence failures by certain IICD managers that contributed to the events of January 6, 2021. As a result, there have been multiple retaliatory actions against the whistleblowers, including two proposed removals.” NIGHTLY NUMBER 52 years The length of time since the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits was as low as today’s numbers, according to Labor Department data. Unemployment claims dropped by 43,000 to 184,000 last week, the lowest since September 1969.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     PARTING WORDS SYSTEM FAILURE — It’s been 20 years since China entered the global trade body, the World Trade Organization, a move that gave it access to the international trade system. Was it worth it? Some officials and lawmakers have regrets, arguing that China’s gains from WTO entry on Dec. 11, 2001, came at an unfair cost to the U.S. economy, Phelim Kine writes. Most U.S. lawmakers who paved the way for China’s accession to the WTO by agreeing to normalize trade relations with China through approval of Permanent Normal Trade Relations in May 2000 would rather not talk about their vote. POLITICO canvassed eight senators still in the chamber who voted in favor of the bipartisan move, as well as one former senator who is now a state governor. The only one to respond, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), said in a statement that China’s WTO accession helped reduce poverty in China and benefited U.S. agriculture, but that “clearly the arrangement hasn’t lived up to our hopes of 20 years ago.” A message from UnitedHealth Group: The U.S. health care sector is responsible for 8.5% of U.S. emissions. Decarbonizing the health system can help limit the harmful effects of climate change and its impact on marginalized communities. UnitedHealth Group is partnering with the National Academy of Medicine to meaningfully reduce the carbon footprint of the U.S. health care system. See how we’re working to minimize our impact on the environment and help create more sustainable, viable and healthy communities.     Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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