POLITICO NIGHTLY: Outdoor masks are back — sort of. Blame Delta.

 

BY RENUKA RAYASAM Presented by CAN’T HARDLY WAIT — Oregon is about to become the first state to reimpose an outdoor mask mandate. At the end of June, Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Kate Brown declared an end to mandatory masks and social distancing in the state, except for public transit and medical facilities. About 70 percent of Oregon’s adults had gotten a shot. Oregon had long had some of the most stringent Covid mitigation measures in the country, but state officials said that they would leave it up to localities on how to handle new Covid cases. But Brown announced a statewide indoor mask mandate two weeks ago, along with a vaccination requirement for state employees. Now, starting Friday, masks will be required at outdoor public gatherings even for vaccinated people. Two visitors peer into the room of a Covid-19 patient in the intensive care unit at Salem Hospital in Salem, Ore., as a nurse dons full protective gear before going into the room of another patient. | AP Photo/Andrew Selsky The news is discombobulating to those of us who thought we understood Covid spread. A rash of news stories this spring confirmed the safety of outdoor gatherings and argued that closing parks and beaches over Covid safety concerns was misguided. Members of Congress called the CDC’s guidance over mask requirements at summer camps too restrictive, leading the agency to revise its recommendations. “It’s not that they lied to you,” Robert Siegel, a Stanford University microbiology and immunology professor, told Nightly. Siegel and other scientists were bracing themselves last summer for widespread Covid outbreaks in the wake of Black Lives Matters protests. No vaccines were available yet, and protestors didn’t uniformly wear masks. But studies showed the events didn’t contribute to Covid surges across the country, probably because many marches were outdoors. So why is Oregon imposing an outdoor mandate? The fast spread of Delta, even in states with high vaccination rates, has reopened old debates about Covid safety. Oregon is now averaging about 2,000 new cases a day. Hospitalizations are up nearly 50 percent over the past 14 days. The great outdoors may no longer be a safe haven, Siegel said. “If the same rallies occurred today, I would be concerned that the results wouldn’t be the same,” he said. Outdoor Covid transmission is still far less likely than indoor transmission, John Volckens, a mechanical engineering professor at Colorado State University who studies aerosol emissions, told Nightly. He admits we still don’t have all the data about outdoor transmission versus indoor transmission from 2020, let alone data about the Delta variant. Still, think about hanging out with a smoker, he said. Outdoors, those cigarette plumes dissipate into the air or get swept away in the wind. So you’re less likely to breathe in secondhand smoke. But the Delta variant is like a cigarette with more smoke coming out of it. Even outdoors you are at risk of catching a whiff, though if you are vaccinated you will likely be fine. “The Oregon rule is not being written for you and 10 other families at a park,” Volckens said. “What it’s being written for are outdoor concerts, where you are shoulder to shoulder with a thousand other people. You are going to share some air.” Oregon’s health officials suggest that if they wait for the data, they’ll end up waiting too long. The state’s history of acting before all the data is in has kept Oregon’s death toll low throughout the past year and half, Tom Jeanne, a deputy state health officer and deputy state epidemiologist with the Oregon Health Authority, which advises the governor’s office, told Nightly. Oregon has the sixth lowest Covid death rate in the country. There was some evidence of the need for an outdoor mask mandate based on the spread at music festivals this summer, Jeanne said. Local county officials tied at least 66 Covid cases to an outdoor festival in the eastern part of the state, which also has some of the lowest vaccination levels in Oregon. The timing of the Oregon’s summer case surge points to at least some outdoor spread, said Dawn Nolt, an infectious disease specialist at Oregon Health & Science University. Nolt is skeptical of some reports about outdoor transmission, including the CDC’s Provincetown study, arguing that it’s hard to tease out whether spread occurred indoors or not. But Oregon is pleasant in the summer and people gather outdoors. She admits that Oregon’s outdoor mask mandate is an extreme measure, but thinks it’s necessary. There’s a chance that Oregon’s mask mandate proves to be an overreaction — unnecessary and at risk for burning people out so that they don’t comply with even indoor mask mandates. Jeanne said he knows that people have pandemic restriction fatigue. But given the state’s near-zero hospital capacity — and health care worker burnout — outdoor masking was a better alternative to shutting down businesses and events, he said. “My perspective,” Jeanne said, “is that not taking action is just as much of a decision as taking action.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. A note for next week: Nightly won’t be publishing from Monday, Aug. 30-Monday, Sept. 6. We’ll be back and better than ever Tuesday, Sept. 7. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at rrayasam@politico.com and on Twitter at @RenuRayasam.   A message from AT&T: Accessible, affordable broadband helps communities reach their American Dream. That’s why we’re making a $2 billion, 3-year commitment toward helping close the digital divide, so more low-income families have the ability to succeed. Learn more.   AFGHANISTAN UP TO 1,500 AMERICANS STILL WAITING IN KABUL — As many as 1,500 Americans are still waiting to be evacuated from Afghanistan and close to 4,500 Americans and their families have already been removed from the country, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this afternoon. The update on the numbers follows an earlier bungling of exactly how many Americans remain in Afghanistan, a move that frustrated lawmakers. Blinken noted that the tracking of Americans in Afghanistan was a complicated and swiftly moving process. The State Department originally counted 6,000 Americans in the country as of Aug. 14. “What we’re doing is very carefully tabulating everything we have, cross-checking it, referencing it, using different databases,” Blinken told reporters. “We will have numbers for all those different categories in the days ahead and after this initial phase of efforts to bring people out of Afghanistan ends.” Within the last 24 hours, the State Department has contacted 500 Americans and is still trying to reach another 1,000, he said, adding that it’s unclear how many in this group want to leave the country. A young girl points to a bus that will take people evacuated from Kabul to a refugee processing center after arriving to Dulles International Airport in Virginia. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Pentagon scolds Meijer, Moulton for Kabul airport visit: The Pentagon’s top spokesperson publicly reprimanded a pair of congressional lawmakers today for traveling to the international airport in Kabul — saying the unauthorized excursion required a “pull-off” of U.S. military resources during the urgent evacuation of the Afghan capital. Defense Department press secretary John Kirby suggested during a news briefing at the Pentagon that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was personally angered by the secret visit Tuesday by Reps. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) to Hamid Karzai International Airport. ASK THE AUDIENCE Nightly asks you: Did you, or someone you know, initially decide not to get vaccinated but then got the shot? If so, what happened to change your mind (or theirs)? Send your response using our form, and we’ll include select answers in Friday’s edition.   INTRODUCING OTTAWA PLAYBOOK : Join the growing community of Politicos — from lawmakers and leaders to pollsters, staffers, strategists and lobbyists — working to shape Canada’s future. Every day, our reporting team pulls back the curtain to shed light on what’s really driving the agenda on Parliament Hill, the true players who are shaping politics and policy across Canada, and the impact it all has on the world. Don’t miss out on your daily look inside Canadian politics and power. Subscribe to Ottawa Playbook today.     WHAT'D I MISS? — Secret Service warned Capitol Police about violent threats 1 day before Jan. 6: Just a day before the Jan. 6 riot, the Secret Service warned the U.S. Capitol Police that their officers could face violence at the hands of supporters of former President Donald Trump , according to new documents reviewed by POLITICO. The Secret Service’s emails shed light on intelligence lapses by the Capitol Police previously highlighted by both the department’s inspector general and a bipartisan report by Senate committees. — Delta Air Lines will force unvaccinated employees to pay health care surcharge: Unvaccinated Delta Air Lines employees will soon be forced to pay an additional $200 per month for the company’s health care plan, CEO Ed Bastian announced today, one of several steps the airline is taking to mitigate Covid risk. Bastian, in a memo to employees published online today, said the $200 surcharge for unvaccinated Delta employees is meant to offset medical costs from a coronavirus infection, which is more likely to occur in unvaccinated individuals. — OnlyFans reverses decision to ban pornography: Online content subscription firm OnlyFans backtracked today on its decision to ban sexually explicit content, after protests by adult content creators who rely on the company for their livelihoods. The platform announced last Thursday that it would be banning pornography from its platform from Oct. 1 to “comply with the requests of our banking partners and payout providers.” — J&J says second-dose study supports use of booster shots: Johnson & Johnson said today that giving a booster shot of its vaccine produced a sharp increase in antibodies against the coronavirus . The findings, which the company said it would submit to the Food and Drug Administration, come as the Biden administration is firming up plans to roll out booster shots to adults in late September.       NIGHTLY NUMBER 12,000 The number of additional deaths from Covid-19 that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration recognized today and were previously excluded from the state’s official tally. In one of her first acts as the new leader of New York, Hochul overhauled how the state releases Covid-19 death data to ensure that it is more consistent with federal reporting standards — an issue that dogged former Gov. Andrew Cuomo administration and sparked allegations of a cover-up.   SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TODAY: Power is shifting in Washington and in communities across the country. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. The Recast is a twice-weekly newsletter that explores the changing power dynamics in Washington and breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics and policy in America. Get fresh insights, scoops and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country and hear critical new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out, SUBSCRIBE . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel.     PARTING WORDS COAST TO COAST — California Gov. Gavin Newsom can’t stop talking about Florida as he campaigns to save his job . He’s using Florida as the ultimate threat of what California could become if the complex recall process leads to Republican leadership in the deep blue state next month, Mackenzie Mays writes. Meanwhile, Republican hopefuls have repeatedly evoked the East Coast alternative as something to aspire to, fighting to replace Newsom and his public health orders with someone more like mask-averse conservative Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The latest state-on-state tensions show just how much power governors have amassed during the Covid-19 pandemic as they’ve set policies on masks, closures, schools and vaccines. DeSantis and Newsom have become party figureheads in their own right, the former a stand-in for open rules, the latter for strong mandates. Polling suggests California is closer to having a DeSantis-like governor than anyone thought. And those Florida comparisons — with anti-recall proponents begging voters not to “DeSantis my California” — are escalating as the Sept. 14 election looms. Ballots have already been mailed to California voters. “Your daily reminder that on September 14th the Republican party is trying to drive CA off the same cliff as Florida and Texas,” Newsom said in a recent tweet , urging people to vote. “They want to pretend COVID doesn’t exist. Reverse the progress we’ve made on vaccines. Ban masking. And put partisan games over people’s lives.”   A message from AT&T: Kamal Bell is the proud owner of Sankofa Farms, a thriving family farm that employs his community. He knows food insecurity impacts minority groups in his area. But with help from accessible and affordable broadband, he can provide a food source to local food deserts, and teach Black youth about agriculture and STEM. He also uses new tech to collect data, run beekeeping operations, and monitor his farm with drones. Thanks to Access from AT&T, we can connect low-income households like the ones Kamal works with, and more communities in areas we serve with their American Dream. Learn more.   Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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