Summary First: There is hope, hope with many “ifs”, but hope. Good daily data is hard to come by, but new “cases” reported in China are very low or zero now. There is hope in that fact. Worldwide, as reported on Saturday, March 21st, nearly 90,000 “known cases” have recovered. “Recovered” suggests there are 90,000 people out there with good antibodies against this disease–and those are only the folks we know about, people with diagnosed illness who were tracked. IF, as suspected, there are many in the general population of the world who have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, people who never had symptoms or only mild symptoms that didn’t bring them to medical attention, and IF those folks developed good protective antibodies, then the future is not nearly as bleak as many of us currently fear. Why? Epidemiologists current best suggestion is that each infected individual is passing the disease on to 2.2 others. That is the Basic reproduction number, the R0, for Covid-19. (Click that link if you like numbers.) Postulating random transmission with that R0 of 2.2 suggests that once 55% of the population is immune, the disease will cease to spread.  That’s an ideal world number but it offers this hope: If immunity (which we are not equipped to broadly measure for this or any other virus because it’s expensive and time-consuming) is growing among asymptomatic individuals in the world population, then this scourge has an end point–herd immunity–when 55% of the populace is immune. The other 45% remain vulnerable–but are still relatively protected by the immunity of the herd. This hope in no way suggests we should abandon our efforts to “flatten the curve.” Flattening the curve still buys time. Flattening the curve will decrease the number of people who will be diagnosed, suffer, and die of this disease on our way to herd immunity while that immunity quietly builds.But maybe, just maybe there is light at the end of this tunnel–as the Chinese experience may now be demonstrating. We still have quite a knothole to get through to get there. Here’s the much less condensed version of that same argument, along with a lot of other thoughts and speculation: In an imaginary world in which all human interaction were totally curtailed for fourteen days there is evidence to suggest the Covid-19 might stop dead in its tracks. Going through that thought experiment and its assumptions might be useful. Some number of virus particles enter the nasal passages of a host human. Some of the virus particles gain access to the cytoplasm of some number of the host’s cells (cytoplasm is the innards of the cell, innards bounded by the cell’s outer membrane). In the cytoplasm the virus hijacks the cell machinery to the virus’s own use: making thousands or millions of copies of itself until the cell bursts and releases new virus particles that infect adjacent cells. Unchecked, it is easy to see how this process might quickly overwhelm the host. (Notice that the numbers of virus particles to which the host is exposed might be an important variable in this ramp up.) The immune system of nearly every host will start to make antibodies that destroy viral particles. It is a race. If the host’s immune system is up to the task, the antibodies will win. The host human will get better or may not even have had any symptoms while this is all happening. In this ideal world the antibodies will remain available and on high alert to kill any new arrivals of SARS-CoV-2, i.e. this patient is immune, he(she) is no longer susceptible to a new presentation of virus (his antibodies kill any virus that manages to replicate in his cells). This person no longer sheds any intact viral particles that can infect someone else. In a population of host humans eventually there are so many hosts who are immune that the virus cannot propagate–that’s called herd immunity.  We think we know the following about SARS-CoV-2: 1) The incubation period (the time between exposure and the first symptoms) is around 3-6 days. 2) In a very small, but very detailed, study I read within the first six days after the onset of even very mild symptoms these patients were making effective antibodies to the virus, antibodies that damaged viral particles badly enough so they are not infective. 3) In the same study, shedding of large numbers of virus particles occurred before there were notable symptoms–that’s why the disease spreads so fast–we don’t know who is harboring and spreading the virus. But viral shedding of infective particles ceased as the antibody response took over. KEY POINT: Testing for immunity (presence of effective antibodies) can be done but it is very expensive and time-consuming. Such a test cannot possibly be used broadly to tell if a given individual human host has made antibodies and is immune. It would be nice, but that is a long way off, much further off than a vaccine–and a vaccine available for widespread use is likely a year away at the very least. In this imaginary and ideal world everyone would be strictly quarantined for fourteen days, during which each and every exposed person would incubate the virus, shed virus (to which no one would be exposed), and mount an effective antibody response that would destroy the infective power of any virus that remained. (Some other hosts would, in roughly the same period, die and their remnant virus would be incinerated with their corpse.) Finally, all those immune folks with great antibodies, some of whom weren’t even aware they had been ill, would be released into population and contribute to herd immunity, just in case there were a few bits of virus still harbored somewhere. In this imaginary and ideal world the whole epidemic would be over and life would magically return to normal. Too much to hope for? Probably. Nonetheless, we have the Chinese example, something the rest of the world should watch very carefully. With 17,836 cases as of last Friday evening we in the U.S. were roughly comparable (on a per capita basis counting the entire population of the U.S. as the basis) in “case” numbers (with all the caveats that go into counting a “case”), we were roughly comparable to the point at which Wuhan shut down–and Wuhan shut down with the sort of clang and determination that probably only an authoritarian society can muster. Regardless, Wuhan sharply flattened its curve and, insofar as the Chinese are vigilant about detecting and pursuing contacts when cases reappear, their effort offers some hope–but only if we work together, recognize the gravity of the situation and the importance of isolating ourselves for several weeks. In the absence of martial law we are going to not only have to work at social distancing–we’ll need to engage in a group effort to socially shame those who flaunt their independence from the group effort. Keep to the high ground, Jerry P.S. I fear we, the United States, are the Wuhan of the following quote from epidemiologists Dr. Helen Jenkins of Boston University, and Dr. Bill Hanage of Harvard: It’s really instructive to compare what happened in Wuhan and what happened in Guangzhou. In Wuhan, they shut down when they had 495 cases in a city that is roughly the size of New York. In neighboring Guangzhou, by contrast, they took action when there were seven cases. The epidemic curve in Guangzhou was completely manageable. As we all know, in Wuhan it was absolutely catastrophic.  P.P.S. There are many things that could mess up (or enhance) my imaginary and ideal world, factors beyond our societal skepticism and unwillingness to conform. There are many unknowns: How long will the observed antibodies offer immunity? Does the virus mutate like the influenza virus does and so might it return in another wave another year? Are there people who will continue to shed infective virus while remaining entirely asymptomatic like “Typhoid Mary” spread the salmonella bacterium that causes typhoid fever? On the flip side, what portion of the population will make antibodies and become immune to SARS-CoV-2 without ever knowing they’ve been ill? There are abundant opportunities for research–if proper funding is restored to these efforts.

Late last Thursday I realized I could see the two extremes of our present disaster simultaneously: no new cases of COVID-19 in China even as the Chinese loosened the lockdown on one extreme–and dire reports from Italy of health worker fatalities, an overwhelmed health care system, and challenges in dealing with the backlog of corpses–all that on the other extreme.

Then on Friday morning the Spokesman reported a case of COVID-19 in a retirement community, Holman Gardens, in Spokane Valley–in spite of screening staff, a recommendation for social distancing and many residents having self-quarantined. Message: these measures alone are not sufficient. We need to lock down. Disapproval–shaming–of those who refuse to socially distance is necessary and appropriate. If we do all this and do it well there is light at the end of the tunnel.

“But, but,” I heard someone say, “We hardly have any cases here.'” That is so wrong… Why? All along the use of the word “case” of COVID-19 has lulled the population into a false sense of security. We know, the media should know, and the media should explain again and again that each “case” is a very imperfect and fraught representation of a much larger reservoir of infected people who are not yet (and may never) develop symptoms. In nearly all reporting, a “case” is counted only when a person tests positive for Covid-19. As we’ve read, the U.S. is sti”Cases” only provide a general indicator of the spread of infection. The number of cases reported will always lag the actual number of people infected by and possibly spreading SARS-CoV-2 (That’s the name of the virus. Covid-19 is the disease it causes.) A headline that reads “512 new cases of Covid-19” is not useful. It is the change, not the absolute number that is important. Consider: If there were 726 new cases reported the day before the 512 new cases reported today, that would be great news–the rate of spread would be slowing. Conversely, if the previous day’s new cases had been 262, a report of 512 today would suggest continued exponential growth–not good–no tapering off–yet. (Of course, a graph of data covering several days would be even more meaningful. Also, all the numbers are less meaningful if there is a large change in the commonness of testing.)

Thanks to the Trump and his administration’s lack of preparedness due to a toxic combination of ignorance and willful denial of its own study and science in general (“no one knew”) we in this country are woefully behind in testing. Keep that in mind every time you read an isolated number representing new “cases.” We get an “F” rating among developed countries for testing and an “F” rating for leadership–starting at the very top.

Take no comfort in case numbers. They are merely rough indicators. Even if we all self-quarantined in place for two weeks with no contact, i.e. absolutely no opportunity for the SARS-CoV-2 to pass from one human to the next, the daily new case numbers would still increase for at least a couple of weeks on account of the incubation period.

I searched yesterday for information of other countries that are not yet making news that we commonly see. I found it. The New York Times is offering coronovirus coverage with no paywall. Have a look at the bar graph a little way down the page. Every country listed (most of the roughly 195 countries in the world, with North Korea not reporting) reports at least one “case.” ALL the countries reporting more than a hundred cases, excepting Mainland China, also show an increase in reported new case numbers in each reported time segment. Many of these countries are likely to have even less preparedness the we have in the U.S. Remember it was only three weeks ago, February 26th, that Mr. Trump either in willful ignorance or willful denial was reassuring us:

“So we’re at the low level. As they get better, we take them off the list, so that we’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.” — Trump at a White House briefing.”

As of yesterday Friday evening (March 20), three weeks and two days later, we have 17,836 “cases” reported in the U.S. (and 238 dead). With that demonstrated exponential growth in mind, with an increase in reported “cases” in nearly every country in the world, and with “case” numbers so vastly unrepresented the number of infected people, I predict we, as a world, are in for a very, very rough next few weeks–at least.

That’s scary and sobering–but remember that China went into lockdown and is starting to emerge with no new reported cases. (Yes, China controls what people get to hear, but after an initial stumble, they’re not likely to suppress a recurrence. Too much is at stake. They know the cost.)

On Monday I’ll cover more of the reasons to hope. There are some. Meanwhile, remember this meme I saw on Facebook (paraphrased): Our parents, grandparents, and/or great-grandparents lived through the Great Depression and all the privations and death of World War II. We are called upon to sit on the couch for a few weeks. We can do this!

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

COVID-19 is a new virus to humans. Researchers are busy trying to answer some of the basic questions. Today I offer two links that provide such basic information. The first link is a two part Twitter thread. (I didn’t even know you could do this on Twitter, but a lot of people actually get their information there.) It was written by Professor Palli Thordarson of the School of Chemistry of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. I think he was surprised at the popularity of what he had written. Here’s the link: https://twitter.com/PalliThordarson/status/1236549305189597189 The German government and health system, unlike our own, were better funded and better led. They got ahead of the curve on the COVID-19 pandemic, chasing down contacts as early as the end of December. I do not have the numbers at my fingertips, but Germany has, so far, done better containment and has a lower death rate than other developed nations. The following article provides some detail on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the form of a case study of nine people with known exposure whose virus shedding was intensively monitored during their course of Covid-19. (technically, SARS-CoV-2 is the virus, Corvid-19 is the disease the virus produces.) Here’s the link to the story: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-most-contagious-before-during-first-week-symptoms Here’s the link to the original research paper: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20030502v1 This study is just one of many that will need to be done before this virus and it’s associated disease is better understood. Several take-home points (not hard and fast conclusions, but good information): 1) Patients with clinically very mild disease can shed lot of virus early on when they might have only mild upper respiratory tract symptoms (a “cold”). Hence the rapid spread with severely ill patients popping up unexpectedly. 2) Generally, severely ill patients shed even more virus. 3) All nine patients developed antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 within about a week of the appearance of the first mild symptoms, antibodies that neutralized (i.e. destroyed) the infectivity of the virus particles the patients bodies continued to shed. That’s an important point, because testing for virus particles with the common method, something called PCR (polymerase chain reaction) detects bits of viral RNA, but that RNA may be “dead” from the standpoint of disease spreading capability. It suggests that the current recommendation for isolating an exposed patient for fourteen days may actually be time enough for them to become non-infectious. Moreover, the development of functioning antibodies raises some hope that most patients after mild illness will be immune to this virus for some period of time (as yet to be determined). [In this study infectivity was assessed by “cell culture,” a more expensive and time-consuming method than the PCR method.] Below I repeat the rational for social distancing–Flatten the Curve–that I shared last Friday. We are all in this boat together. By the time this is over most of us will have been infected by Covid-19. Some of us will become very ill–and some of us will die (people from almost age groups, but more so among the elderly and among those with pre-existing medical problems). For those who experience severe pneumonia medical help for our breathing will be life-saving. The idea of all this pre-emptive closing of events is to “flatten the curve.” Here that is in graphic form:

I also offered the link below in last Friday’s email.  It is a great animated illustration of COVID-19 epidemiology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg&feature=emb_logo Keep to the high ground–and I’ll be back Monday week, i.e. March 23, Jerry

With quarantines, case changing and pre-emptive closing down of large gatherings we are trying to avoid what happened in China and what is now happening in Italy: https://www.thelocal.it/20200311/hospitals-are-overwhelmed-italian-doctors-describe-the-struggle-of-fighting-the-coronavirus-outbreak?fbclid=IwAR0G78eRNjcsTbXm_8Hm32pYjxK-eskhcU-_hfs-v3Y-jsR4BHxAlfSb5xs By the time this is over most of us will have been infected by COVID-19. Some of us will become very ill–and some of us will die (people from almost age groups, but more so among the elderly and among those with pre-existing medical problems). For those who experience severe pneumonia medical help for our breathing will be life-saving. The idea of all this pre-emptive closing of events is to “flatten the curve.” Here that is in graphic form:

If you want to delve more deeply into the epidemiology and mathematics of this here’s the best I’ve seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg&feature=emb_logo Keep to the high ground–and I’ll be back Monday week, i.e. March 23, Jerry

I have to take a breather. Please mark your calendar and look for my MWF email to return at 5AM on Monday, March 23rd. I have had a number of people conclude that I had quit writing when their email application started sending my Indivisible Email to a Junk or Promo. If in doubt, feel free to email me by Replying to any one of my emails. There is much going on in eastern Washington and northern Idaho that I will try to catch up with when I return.

I recommend signing up for and reading Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson and The Weekly Sift written by Doug Muder. Both are excellent. Both are incisive and thoughtful. Both write because they feel compelled by circumstance.

Doug Muder’s The Weekly Sift comes out every Monday morning. He provides a summary and sober analysis of the past week’s news (complete with links) that I am unable to find anywhere else. I look forward to reading this every Monday.

Heather Cox Richardson is a history professor at Boston College with an encyclopedic knowledge of American history and politics. She writes Letters from an American daily. It is the first thing I read in the morning.

Both Muder and Richardson cover mostly national (and some international news). Please visit there websites, read some and then go through the two step process to sign up. Here are the raw links:

https://weeklysift.com/

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

Everybody take a deep breath. We need to stick together and involved as we approach this fall’s election. Keep engaged.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

Be turn in your Washington State Presidential Primary ballot before Tuesday evening at 8PM (or put it in the mail in time to get it postmarked–no stamp needed–before 8PM).

COVID-19:

The U.S. needs a leader whose understanding inspires confidence. Instead, Mr. Trump at his press conference on February 26 offered none. If you missed it, you can watch it here:

https://www.wlns.com/news/michigan/livestreaming-now-pres-trump-holds-coronavirus-news-conference/

He failed to demonstrate a rudimentary understanding of infectious disease, harping on “only fifteen cases” that “are going to get fewer” as proof that his border restrictions are holding the line. He blamed the recent Democratic debate for damaging the stock market. He suggested that all would be well if everyone would just quit talking and worrying about COVID-19, as if he could, by his own power, wish away biological reality. Multiple times he engaged in precisely the politically-based slams of which he was blaming others.

More recently Mr. Trump informed us that he intends to continue holding his political rallies in defiance of public health concerns.

The increasing numbers of patients with COVID-19 since the press conference come as no surprise. When patients  begin to appear with the disease who are in no known way connected to a prior case it implies that the disease is spread by people who do not know they harbor the virus, that is, people who do not feel ill. Unless transmission is slowed we can look forward to a burst of disease activity that could overwhelm.our ability to provide supportive healthcare to those unfortunate patients who develop severe illness.

Measures to reduce the spread of the disease offer worthwhile benefit.

The following two articles would be good for you all to read. This is some of the basic science that our President does not understand.

“Cryptic transmission of novel coronavirus revealed by genomic epidemiology” from March 3^rdhttps://bedford.io/blog/ncov-cryptic-transmission/?fbclid=IwAR0qDGSu-Alyes4rmO0Xlaait4RaoNgpP-PN0SFbTq3ONsv2aA5COUbBmaQ

and this, from 2008:
“Nonpharmaceutical Interventions Implemented by US Cities During the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic”
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/208354?fbclid=IwAR2-q39aQ-7xYqaiAcTAlKlWLFLDBwN8JURU3scXuqwqXpBhpJFqWvq0cSE

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

Here’s the best explanation I’ve seen about the rule changes in the Democratic National Convention process of nominating the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. It is different than 2016. Firm up this background from Heather Cox Richardson so you have the facts when someone suggests the process is rigged by evil forces.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

March 4, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 5

There is a lot of news about both the novel coronavirus and politics tonight, but I’m going to let it rest so I can address the concern that has been popping up in my email and messages all day. People are concerned that there has been some sort of a corrupt bargain between the “Democratic establishment”—possibly even including former President Barack Obama– and retiring presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar to throw the Democratic nomination to former Vice President Joe Biden in order to thwart the popular will to nominate Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

First of all, the nomination process is not over, and there is not currently a winner. Second, the nomination has not been rigged. This is a deeply problematic construction at a time when our actual elections really ARE in danger; it is also an argument pushed by Russian disinformation to undermine faith in democracy.

Here’s how the Democratic nomination process currently works. (I am not going to talk here about the Republican system—I’ve talked about it before—but it permits less input from voters than the Democratic system.)

First of all, neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party, nor any other party, is a government institution. While they have to abide by our laws, they make their own rules, and a LOT of jockeying goes into the writing of those rules. (FWIW, Sanders is the only candidate running who had a hand in writing the current Democratic National Committee rules. Three of his top advisors were on the commission that wrote the current rules, and he chose four others.)

The process is crazy-complicated, but it makes more sense if you know some of the history behind it. Democratic presidential candidates used to be chosen by party leaders, behind closed doors. That exploded in 1968, when Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the nomination without winning any primaries as a solo act— he had been running as President Lyndon Johnson’s vice president when Johnson abruptly withdrew from the race too late for Humphrey to enter the primaries. Humphrey was associated with the ”establishment” and the war in Vietnam (although he was eager to end it), at a time when leaders were increasingly suspect and 80% of voters in the Democratic primaries had voted for anti-war candidates (including Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was making a strong play for the nomination when he was murdered). So when he won the nomination over anti-war candidates, demonstrators began to protest and the police counter-rioted. The convention turned into violent chaos. And, of course, Humphrey lost the election to Richard M. Nixon, who dramatically escalated the war in Vietnam, (among other things!).

After the 1968 debacle, DNC leaders commissioned a 28-person panel overseen first by South Dakota Senator George McGovern and then, when he resigned to run for president himself, Minnesota Representative Donald M. Fraser, to figure out how to get more people involved in the nomination process. The result was the state primary, which has now replaced caucuses in all but three states (and three territories), by my count. In primaries, voters cast ballots for their choice for the nomination, who then gets allotted delegates to the convention. With luck, there will be a clear winner, but if not, the convention delegates will wheel and deal to decide who should win the nomination. The commission also reduced the roles of party leaders in the nominating process, and required better representation for minorities, women, and young people.

These rules governed the 1972 convention, which gave the presidential nomination to McGovern himself, who was enormously popular with young people and those opposed to Nixon’s escalation of the Vietnam War, but much less so with the traditional Democrats (especially workers) who had lost representation at the convention under the new rules.

McGovern lost to Nixon in a landslide—the Electoral Count was 520 to 17, and McGovern didn’t even carry his home state. Then Democratic President Jimmy Carter lost his reelection bid by a similar landslide (the Electoral College split was 489 to 49). At that point, Democratic leaders decided the nomination process had swung too far away from professional politicians. They thought that primary voters, who tend to be much more extreme than those in the general election, were choosing unelectable candidates.

Another commission, this one of 70 people, met in 1981 and 1982, and added back into the nomination process the voices of state party chairs, the Democratic governors and members of Congress, former presidents and vice presidents, and certain DNC leaders. These are the so-called superdelegates, and they are not pledged to any candidate. The idea is that, having won or run elections, these people will have a sense of who can win at the national level and will provide a counterweight if primary voters choose someone unelectable. Originally, the superdelegates made up about 15% of the delegate count, but before the 2016 election they had crept up to about 20%.

Before the 2016 election, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sanders tussled to win the nomination, the DNC overwhelmingly voted to change the rules to compromise between the two camps. Under those rules, a new commission of 21 people, including 9 nominated by Clinton and 7 by Sanders, met in 2017. They reduced the percentage of superdelegates to about 15% again, and refused to let them vote on a first ballot, bringing them in only if the nomination is contested.

So back to the question of rigging. The Sanders camp wanted to get rid of the superdelegates altogether, believing it would help him win the 2020 nomination. But they had to compromise on keeping the superdelegates from voting on the first ballot, expecting that he could win quickly with a majority if the superdelegates stayed out of it. But now that it looks like he will likely not win outright, he will likely be sunk when the superdelegates are in play on a second ballot. So now he wants the nomination to go to someone with a plurality of delegates—that is, not a clear majority, but more than anyone else—on the first ballot. This would be highly unusual: brokered conventions used to be the norm, and they are a good way to unite the party behind a candidate.

But do members of the Democratic establishment—those who could be superdelegates—want Sanders as the nominee? Almost certainly not. They do not think he is electable. He is not popular with African American voters, who are a key part of the Democratic Party’s base, and he has a history that will play badly with moderate voters.

Are they right that he is unelectable? Before Tuesday, I was not at all certain of that. But Sanders’s big play for the nomination has been that he could bring new voters into the party by attracting young people. He certainly is popular with younger folks, but they did not turn up to vote for him on Tuesday, suggesting his key strength is not as strong as it seemed. Still, political prognostications at this stage of the game are a fool’s game. My opinion and $3 will get you a cup of coffee.

Did Buttigieg or Klobuchar cut a deal with Biden before endorsing him? Almost certainly. But that is not a corrupt deal; it’s how politics works. If they followed the norm, they will have gotten him to promise to make a priority in his administration (if he is elected) something they and their supporters care about. This is key to the other part of the nomination process that is going on now: hashing out the issues (they’re known as “planks”) that will be in the party’s platform, indicating its priorities. The jockeying going on now between voters and candidates and the party’s eventual leader is key to that construction.

This is why we go through this process, and why the president and the platform matters. We often forget that when we show up at the polls every four years to pick a president, we are not simply electing a charismatic leader, we are electing someone who can get legislation we care about passed by nailing together coalitions that will move the country in a direction we like. That is incredibly important, and it’s why working with experienced politicians matters.

But it is also important to put pressure on those leaders to move in directions we want. If your favorite candidate has left the race or looks to be pushed aside, it is more important than ever to continue to advocate for the causes (and people) you believe in, to keep those things front and center. That, too, is part of the political process. Most famously, in 1890, an upstart reform party took America by storm. It organized as the People’s Party in 1891 and demanded a slew of changes to take American finance and politics out of the hands of the very wealthy. The party largely fizzled out when the Democrats absorbed their ideas in 1896. Within twenty years, though, most of their reforms had become law.

——

Notes:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/time-bernie-sanders-rigged-system-against-himself-n1144361

https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/URC_Report_FINAL.pdf

ballots: https://www.salon.com/2020/02/20/every-democratic-candidate-except-bernie-sanders-indicates-support-for-a-contested-convention/

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/democrats-vs-trump/democrats-strip-super-delegates-power-reform-caucuses-historic-move-n903866

young voters: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/03/04/super-tuesday-bernie-sanders-youth-votes-fell-short-compared-2016/4947795002/