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Americans have a good sense of how the Covid-19 pandemic is going in their country: very badly. Infections, hospitalizations and deaths just keep rising. By Tuesday, the case count was over 4 million, more than a quarter of the global total, and U.S. deaths had climbed above 149,000. Per capita, the American death rate is the fourth highest in the world. Yet these statistics provide an imprecise picture. They suggest things are bleak, but say almost nothing about how to make them better. For that, officials need to see where exactly outbreaks are occurring and whether the measures they’re taking to defeat Covid-19 — including mask-wearing, testing and treatment — are working. The U.S. needs to know more specifically which people are being infected and where they’re picking up the coronavirus. (7/29)

How many women have died of Covid-19? How many women have lost their jobs in the economic crisis it created? And how many have had to stop working because schools and day cares have closed and now have to take on unforeseen and added child care responsibilities? I don’t know the full answer to any of these questions. No one does. When it comes to the pandemic and its effect on women, too often we just don’t have the numbers. (Melinda Gates, 7/30)

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced legislation this week that directs the Trump administration to send three “high-quality, reusable” masks to every person in the United States, and would provide $5 billion to increase mask production. This is a good idea. Wearing masks saves lives, and not just other people’s lives. There’s evidence that it limits the chances of catching the coronavirus. Wearing a mask might save your life, too. Sending masks to every American won’t convince them all to wear a mask. It is not a corrective for the behavior of Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, who has flaunted his refusal to wear a mask, and who said Wednesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. But distributing high-quality masks would provide Americans inclined to behave responsibly with masks that maximize health benefits. (7/29)

I have taken care of patients who have this virus. It does not care what you look like, how old you are, or what you do. It just wants a host. If it can find any opportunity, the virus will take it. Simply put, being in crowded areas with other people encourages the virus to spread. This is why physical distancing and masks are so important. It helps prevent the virus from having a host. (Monalisa Tailor, Lewis Hargett and Heidi Marguilis, 7/30)

Another week, another rejection. Now neighboring Illinois doesn’t want anything to do with us. Its governor is asking residents of his state to avoid Iowa because lately our rate of positive COVID-19 tests is a whopping 7.2% compared with Illinois' 3.7%. That dis comes after East Coast states insisted Iowans quarantine on arrival there. So did the city of Chicago. In Rock Island, they call Iowa the “Wild West.” Are we embarrassed to be the pariahs, as much larger, more diverse and congested states got their COVID numbers down through stricter measures? Is our leader ready to admit she was wrong, first for not mandating sheltering in place, and then for relaxing social distancing as numbers were still rising? Not a bit. As 30 of 50 states require face coverings, Gov. Kim Reynolds digs her heels in. (Rekha Basu, 7/29)

If anything, Missouri and other coronavirus-afflicted states should be following New York’s example instead of mocking it. Gov. Mike Parson undermined his own credibility once again on Monday by calling New York “a disaster” after that state and its neighbors imposed a 14-day quarantine on Missourians if they want to travel there. “I’m not going to put much stock in what New York says. They’re a disaster,” Parson told reporters. Command of facts and common sense has rarely been Parson’s strong suit.When states like New York found themselves drowning in coronavirus cases a few months ago, they instituted drastic precautionary measures that included shutting down bars and restaurants, banning public gatherings and mandatory wearing of masks in public. Parson took the opposite approach. (7/28)

Looking for evidence of what made America great? A good place to start is our genius for scientific envelope-pushing. Since World War II, it’s brought forth one game-changer after another, in cars and planes, computers and phones — you name it. American innovation has led the world as medical breakthroughs made workers and their families healthier and longer-lived. That’s what makes President Donald Trump’s war on science so gobsmackingly perverse. In mid-July, with COVID-19 infections hitting distressing levels in the Sun Belt, the president and his advisers chose to diss their own doctors, most notably infectious disease guru Dr. Anthony Fauci, as wrongheaded losers. (Tracy Dahlby, 7/30)

Yesterday, the news site Breitbart posted a video of a group of physicians giving a press conference about medical advances in the fight against COVID-19. Some of the news that doctors delivered was hopeful because there is hopeful news to report. Seventeen million people saw that video, the president retweeted it. This enraged Democrats. Any scientific advancement that reduces the suffering of Americans in an election year is a threat to Joe Biden's campaign. So they decided to pull that video off the internet. Fifteen years ago, that would have been absurd. You couldn't have done it. This was America. You weren't allowed to ban a news story just because it might hurt your candidate's poll numbers. (Tucker Carlson, 7/29)

Social media companies took down the video within hours. But by then, it had already been viewed tens of millions of times. ... “Misinformation about a deadly virus has become political fodder, which was then spread by many individuals who are trusted by their constituencies,” said Lisa Kaplan, founder of Alethea Group, a start-up that helps fight disinformation. “If just one person listened to anyone spreading these falsehoods and they subsequently took an action that caused others to catch, spread or even die from the virus — that is one person too many.” One of the speakers in the video, who identified herself as Dr. Stella Immanuel, said, “You don’t need masks” to prevent spread of the coronavirus. She also claimed to be treating hundreds of patients infected with coronavirus with hydroxychloroquine, and asserted that it was an effective treatment. The claims have been repeatedly disputed by the medical establishment. (Sheera Frenkel and Davey Alba, 7/28)

Eight months into the global coronavirus pandemic, the life sciences industry is ramping up drug research in previously unprecedented ways, investigating existing drugs as well as potential new therapies and vaccines to treat and prevent Covid-19. The rush to research, however, has resulted in some haphazard, poorly designed, and costly Covid-19 clinical trials, as demonstrated by a STAT analysis. What we need is a coordinated effort, something like the one used in the U.S. space program. (Suresh Katta, 7/29)

On the day the US surpassed another tragic milestone -- 150,000 coronavirus deaths -- it became ever clearer that pseudo-science, ideological posturing and mocking the idea of a national strategy are no way to fight a deadly pandemic. Yet President Donald Trump, his friends in Congress, members of his Cabinet, senior staff and supporters are still setting out to undermine the fact-based approaches that might get the virus under control and restore normal life. (Stephen Collinson, 7/30)

The Miami Marlins clubhouse is crawling with the coronavirus. At least 17 players and coaches have tested positive for covid-19; the Philadelphia Phillies, plus their umpiring crew and stadium staff, await results after their dust-up with the infected Floridians; the New York Yankees were in lockdown before heading to Baltimore. That’s the box score only after opening weekend — yet Major League Baseball says it’s not planning on cutting short its already stunted season. Meanwhile, the entire National Basketball Association has gone to Disney World. The show must go on, apparently, because we don’t know what we’d do without it. We’re looking to sports for a grand reprise of our regular lives in a very irregular summer. (Molly Roberts, 7/29)

“This field, this game — it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.” — Terence Mann in “Field of Dreams.” No, they won’t come, Ray. A global pandemic has reduced the Grand Old Game’s romanticists to cardboard cutouts behind home plate. Don’t keep the field or play, either; the liability is too great. You’ll get sued.Wear your mask, Ray. Maintain social distance of about an Iowa cornfield from the Miami Marlins. And get over any misguided notion that a return to baseball — and, indeed, to all sports — is essential for our collective mental health right now. We want sports. We don’t need them. (Mike Wise, 7/29)