August 26, 2020
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At least three Virginia universities have hired a fledgling New Orleans-based company on no-bid contracts to provide Covid-19 tests to students before allowing them to move into campus dorms, sparking criticism from some faculty members and students. The College of William & Mary, George Mason University, and Virginia Commonwealth University are among the institutions that contracted with Kallaco — which was incorporated less than four months ago — to handle testing. There’s one problem: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration confirmed to The Chronicle this week that Kallaco’s throat-swab test is not approved for at-home use. That means the FDA has approved the test’s use only when a medical professional collects the samples. That’s not what’s happening. Kallaco’s no-bid contracts at the three institutions range in value, but collectively, the company stands to be paid more than $4 million for its testing suite of services and related software.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Wall Street Journal
The Borough of Carlisle, Pa., could release more information about use of force by officers, or about the racial makeup of traffic stops. Or, it could not. As mundane as it sounds, the critical distinction surrounding recent discussions on police transparency is the old “can’t-versus-won’t” issue, according to government officials and activists. And there isn’t a unified sense of what is worth releasing or withholding. “The right thing to do is to create avenues to gather this information, even if the law doesn’t mandate it,” said Chris Burbank, vice president of Law Enforcement Strategy at the Center for Policing Equity, which advocates for better data collection in the justice system. With only 32 officers, Carlisle Police Chief Taro Landis said it’s not difficult for him to keep tabs on his staff, and questioned if broader use-of-force statistics would be valuable. “Any kind of statistics you put out can be misconstrued,” Landis said. “Why would we do that? Why would we look for another thing for people to look at us for, and justify what we do and don’t do, and criticize?” His fear, Landis said, is that any disparities in the use of force — particularly racial disparities — will be used to accuse individual officers of malice, rather than taking into account a wider variety of circumstances, particularly socio-economic factors. “Those are the things, in reality, we should be looking at, but we look at the low-hanging fruit,” said Landis, who is Black.
Governing
As South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster prepared to announce the end of a coronavirus stay-at-home order, his top staff received an email from the state health department. The message, highlighted in bold, was clear: Wait longer before allowing customers back inside restaurants, hair salons and other businesses where people will be in close contact. Instead, McMaster pressed ahead with a plan written by the state restaurant association to resume inside dining on May 11. The guidelines made masks optional for employees and allowed more customers inside than the health agency had advised. A few days later, the Republican governor opened the doors to salons, fitness centers and swimming pools. He did not wait to gauge the effect of the restaurant reopening on the virus, as public health officials had suggested. Like many states, South Carolina later experienced a surge in infections that forced McMaster to dial back his reopening plan. He was hardly alone. Thousands of pages of emails provided to The Associated Press under open-records laws show that governors across the U.S. were inundated with reopening advice from a wide range of industries — from campgrounds in New Hampshire to car washes in Washington. Some governors put economic interests ahead of public health guidance, and certain businesses were allowed to write the rules that would govern their own operations.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune