COVID-19 UPDATE: Yesterday's White House briefing shows "great mask debate" largely ending = good. Virus peaking + Mask mandate = Economy resuming = Epicenter OW

The White House held its first coronavirus briefing in more than 12 weeks and unlike previous briefings, the primary speaker was President Trump, while Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci were not present.  Overall, I thought it was an overall solid briefing and my takeaways are:- Trump's stance is now pro-mask.  It is "patriotic" and this largely ends any public/political resistance to the mask stance;- Trump came out speaking favorably towards expanded testing - this came during the Q&A;- He warned "things would get worse before they get better" but this strikes us as typical of policymakers "over-reacting;"This is a welcome shift in messaging from the White House.  While there are the ongoing debates about the science supporting the effectiveness of mask use to mitigate spread, several studies and contact traces show the effectiveness of a simple mask:- the Singapore to China flight by an infected person, but since he wore a mask, not a single passenger nor crew member tested positive, (even 1M later);- two infected hair stylists in Missouri who had served >100 clients, but not a single client became infected;- according to the big-data model by IHME, daily infections would fall 80% by September with full mask compliance (see below)And this is coming at a time when t...

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