August 17, 2020

Italy Goes Back on Semi-Lockdown

In my COVID-19 chart roundup this morning you may have noticed a tiny uptick in Italy’s mortality numbers. I thought about mentioning it, but decided to wait a few days to see if it was just a blip. Apparently it’s not:

With daily coronavirus case numbers rising, Italy on Monday imposed its first new restrictions on daily life since coming out of lockdown nearly four months ago, ordering the closure of nightclubs and mandating mask-wearing, even outdoors, in areas with nightlife….Although the Italian restrictions are modest, they amount to a test of whether a country can keep the virus at bay without resorting to the blunt-force lockdown strategy used earlier in the pandemic. Italy’s government is specifically targeting nightclubs and evening socializing as cases are increasingly detected among the young.

Sure enough, case counts have been rising for the past several weeks:

The number of new daily cases has nearly tripled since early July. This is an early test of whether countries can ever come out of lockdown and remain safe until we have an effective vaccine. It’s not looking good so far.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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