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The Supreme Court refused to overturn election results that had already been certified and submitted.

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In a one-sentence order, the court refused to overturn election results that had already been certified and submitted.

A "Stop the Steal" rally on Tuesday outside the Supreme Court. Credit... Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused a long-shot request from Pennsylvania Republicans to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory in the state, delivering an unmistakable rebuke to President Trump in the forum on which he had pinned his hopes.

The Supreme Court's order was all of one sentence, and there were no noted dissents. But it was nonetheless a major setback for Mr. Trump and his allies, who have compiled an essentially unbroken losing streak in courts around the nation. They failed to attract even a whisper of dissent in the court's first ruling on a challenge to the outcome of the election.

The court now has three justices appointed by Mr. Trump, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whose rushed confirmation in October was in large part propelled by the hope that she would vote with the president in election disputes. But there was no indication that she or the other Trump appointees were inclined to embrace last-minute arguments based on legal theories that election law scholars said ranged from the merely frivolous to the truly outlandish.

Mr. Trump and his Republican allies have lost about 50 challenges to the presidential election in the past five weeks, as judges in at least eight states have repeatedly rejected a litany of unproven claims - that mail-in ballots were improperly sent out, that absentee ballots were counted wrongly, that poll observers were not given proper access to the vote count and that foreign powers hacked into and manipulated voting machines.

Mr. Trump has not come close - even once - to overturning the results of a single state's election, let alone the results in at least three states that he would need to take a victory from Mr. Biden. And around the country, judges have started to express their frustration with his attempts to have the courts substitute their will for those of voters.

Last month, for instance, the federal appeals court in Philadelphia rejected a different challenge to the results in Pennsylvania in scathing terms.

"Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy," wrote Judge Stephanos Bibas, who was appointed to the court by Mr. Trump. "Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."

"Voters, not lawyers, choose the president," Judge Bibas wrote. "Ballots, not briefs, decide elections."

On Friday, Justice Brian Hagedorn of the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued an even stronger statement in an opinion rejecting a Republican attempt to overturn that state's elections results. "Judicial acquiescence to such entreaties built on so flimsy a foundation would do indelible damage to every future election," he wrote. "This is a dangerous path we are being asked to tread."

On Tuesday night, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Pennsylvania case, the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously rejected a challenge to the vote in that state, saying it had failed "to present any evidence of 'misconduct,' 'illegal votes' or that the Biden electors 'did not in fact receive the highest number of votes for office,' let alone establish any degree of fraud or a sufficient error rate that would undermine the certainty of the election results."

In the Pennsylvania case, the justices said they would not block a ruling from the state's highest court that had rejected a challenge to the state's use of mail ballots on Nov. 3.

The request that the Supreme Court intercede had faced substantial legal hurdles since it was filed long after the enactment of a 2019 statute that allowed mailed ballots and was based on questions of state, rather than federal, law.

In late November, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs, led by Representative Mike Kelly, a Republican, on the first ground, saying they could have challenged the 2019 law allowing vote by mail for any reason more than a year ago.

"At the time this action was filed on Nov. 21, 2020, millions of Pennsylvania voters had already expressed their will in both the June 2020 primary election and the November 2020 general election," the court said. "Petitioners failed to act with due diligence in presenting the instant claim. Equally clear is the substantial prejudice arising from petitioners' failure to institute promptly a facial challenge to the mail-in voting statutory scheme, as such inaction would result in the disenfranchisement of millions of Pennsylvania voters."

The plaintiffs had asked the state court to nullify mailed ballots after the fact or to direct the state legislature to pick Pennsylvania's electors.

The filing in the U.S. Supreme Court took issue with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's interpretation of state law and sought an order telling state officials not to take further actions to certify the vote in Pennsylvania or "to nullify any such actions already taken" while the plaintiffs pursued an appeal.

The U.S. Supreme Court does not ordinarily second-guess such rulings.

In urging the justices not to intercede, lawyers for the state said the Republicans' requests were "an affront to constitutional democracy."

"Petitioners ask this court to undertake one of the most dramatic, disruptive invocations of judicial power in the history of the Republic," they wrote. "No court has ever issued an order nullifying a governor's certification of presidential election results."

They said there were four flaws in the challengers' arguments. In the U.S. Supreme Court, the challengers said the state law was at odds with federal constitutional provisions governing elections. But they had not squarely made that argument in their main filings in the state courts, and the Supreme Court does not ordinarily decide questions not first decided by a lower court.

Moreover, lawyers for the state wrote, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision turned on a question of state law. That "adequate and independent state-law ground" for the decision, they wrote, bars U.S. Supreme Court review.

They added that the challengers had not suffered the sort of concrete injury that would give them standing to sue and that the 2019 law was not at odds with the state Constitution.

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Election workers at the Philadelphia Convention Center, where ballots were being counted in November. Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

In any event, lawyers for the state wrote, the matter was moot, since the state's election results in favor of Mr. Biden have been certified and submitted. The challengers' remaining argument, they wrote, was that the Supreme Court should simply overturn the state's election results. That request, they wrote, was breathtaking and unconstitutional.

As the court was dismissing the Pennsylvania case on Tuesday, a second election case came before it, an audacious lawsuit filed directly in the court by Texas against four other states. It asked the justices to extend the Dec. 14 deadline for certification of presidential electors.

The suit, filed by Texas's attorney general, Ken Paxton, said Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had engaged in election irregularities that require investigation, and it asked the court to "enjoin the use of unlawful election results without review and ratification by the defendant states' legislatures."

Legal experts called the suit preposterous. "It looks like we have a new leader in the 'craziest lawsuit filed to purportedly challenge the election' category," Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, wrote on Twitter.

The Constitution gives the Supreme Court "original jurisdiction" to hear disputes "in which a state shall be party." In such cases, the Supreme Court acts much like a trial court, appointing a special master to hear evidence and issue recommendations. Though the Constitution seems to require the court to hear cases brought by states, the court has ruled that it has discretion to turn them down and often does.

When the court does exercise its original jurisdiction, it is usually to adjudicate disputes between two states over issues like water rights. In 2016, the justices turned down a request from Nebraska and Oklahoma to file a challenge to Colorado's legalization of recreational marijuana. The states said the Colorado law had spillover effects, taxing neighboring states' criminal justice systems and hurting the health of their residents.

Texas asked the justices to put its case on an exceptionally fast track. The court did not adopt the state's proposed schedule but did call for responses by Thursday.

In a blog post, Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, called the Texas filing a "press release masquerading as a lawsuit."

Alan Feuer contributed reporting from New York.

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Supreme Court Rejects Republican Challenge to Pennsylvania Vote

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In a one-sentence order, the court refused to overturn election results that had already been certified and submitted. WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused a long-shot request from Pennsylvania Republicans to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory in the state, delivering an unmistakable rebuke to President Trump in the forum on which he had pinned his hopes.

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- "A landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are otherwise equal in quality."

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One critical issue that I believe needs more attention is education regarding environmental and global public health. There are many issues affecting health worldwide and has resulted in many death due to diseases. I feel like "the rich" and just the general public should be educated on this topic as we can help them through small donations and acknowledgment.

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"Do not live with expectation. If you expect something to happen and it doesn't, it'll disappoint you heavily. Allow things that are meant for you to come to you, but you have to work hard in order to get it."

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A flood of new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus without any symptoms, fueling hope that it will turn out to be much less lethal than originally feared.

While that's clearly good news, it also means it's impossible to know who around you may be contagious. That complicates decisions about returning to work, school and normal life.

In the last week, reports of silent infections have come from a homeless shelter in Boston, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, pregnant women at a New York hospital, several European countries and California.

The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 25% of infected people might not have symptoms. The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Hyten, thinks it may be as high as 60% to 70% among military personnel.

None of these numbers can be fully trusted because they're based on flawed and inadequate testing, said Dr. Michael Mina of Harvard's School of Public Health.

Collectively, though, they suggest "we have just been off the mark by huge, huge numbers" for estimating total infections, he said.

Worldwide, more than 2.3 million infections and more than 160,000 deaths have been confirmed. The virus has caused nearly unprecedented economic and social harm since its existence was reported in early January.

STEALTH CASES

Based on known cases, health officials have said the virus usually causes mild or moderate flu-like illness. Now evidence is growing that a substantial number of people may have no symptoms at all.

Scientists in Iceland screened 6% of its population to see how many had previously undetected infections and found that about 0.7% tested positive. So did 13% of a group at higher risk because of recent travel or exposure to someone sick.

Aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, where one crew member died from the virus, "the rough numbers are that 40 percent are symptomatic," said Vice Adm. Phillip Sawyer, deputy commander of naval operations. The ratio may change if more develop symptoms later, he warned.

In New York, a hospital tested all pregnant women coming in to deliver over a two-week period. Nearly 14% of those who arrived with no symptoms of coronavirus turned out to have it. Of the 33 positive cases, 29 had no symptoms when tested, although some developed them later.

Previously, tests on passengers and crew from the Diamond Princess cruise ship found nearly half who tested positive had no symptoms at the time. Researchers estimate that 18% of infected people never developed any.

FLAWED METHODS

These studies used tests that look for bits of the virus from throat and nose swabs, which can miss cases. Someone can test negative one day if there's not much virus to detect and then positive the next.

Symptoms also may not appear when someone is tested but turn up later. One Japanese study found more than half of those who had no symptoms when they tested positive later felt sick.

Better answers may come from newer tests that check blood for antibodies, substances the immune system makes to fight the virus. But the accuracy of these, too, is still to be determined.

On Friday, researchers reported results from antibody tests on 3,300 people in California's Santa Clara county: Between 1.5% and 2.8% have been infected, they claimed. That would mean 48,000 to 81,000 cases in the county - more than 50 times the number that have been confirmed.

The work has not been formally published or reviewed, but some scientists were quick to question it. Participants were recruited through Facebook ads, which would attract many people likely to be positive who have had symptoms and want to know if the coronavirus was the reason. Some neighborhoods also had way more participants than others, and "hot spots" within the county might have made infections seem more common than they are elsewhere.

On Monday, Los Angeles County and University of Southern California researchers released preliminary, partial results from a similar effort using a rapid antibody test at six drive-through sites. Based on results from 863 people, they estimate that 4% of adults in the county have had the virus. But the small sample size and other variables including test accuracy mean the rate could be anywhere from 2.8% to 5.6%, if more study confirms it. The results have not been published or reviewed by other scientists.

Studies like these are bound to find far more people were infected than confirmed case tallies, because diagnostic testing shortages have caused many infections to go uncounted.

But ships, maternity wards and single counties don't provide data that can be used to generalize about what's happening elsewhere. And many of the figures have come from snapshots, not research on wide populations over time.

NEXT STEPS

Antibody testing in particular needs to be done "in an unbiased approach" on groups of people that are representative of the geographic, social, racial and other conditions, Mina said.

The CDC and other groups plan such studies, and they could guide public health advice on returning to normal life for people in certain areas.

If infections are more widespread than previously understood, it's possible that more people have developed some level of immunity to the virus. That could stifle the spread through what's called herd immunity, but scientists caution that there is still much to learn about whether mild illnesses confer immunity and how long it might last.

It will probably be months before enough reliable testing has been done to answer those questions and others, including how widespread infections have been and the virus's true mortality rate, which has only been estimated so far.

"If they've all seen the virus before, then maybe you can relax in that neighborhood" and ease social distancing, Mina said. "We're not anywhere close where we need to be" on antibody testing to do that yet, he said.

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AP writers Mike Stobbe in New York, Brian Melley in Los Angeles and Robert Burns and Lolita Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.

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Reports suggest many have had coronavirus with no symptoms

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A flood of new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus without any symptoms, fueling hope that it will turn out to be much less lethal than originally feared. While that's clearly good news, it also means it's impossible to know who around you may be contagious.

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Before December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes the Covid-19 illness - was unknown to science. "A pneumonia of unknown cause" was first reported to the World Health Organization on December 31, after a slew of cases appeared in Wuhan, China. Since then, the virus has been detected in millions of people worldwide, and killed hundreds of thousands.

This is a pandemic, a global crisis and tragedy on a scale that's hard to fathom.

There are a lot of new things for the public to learn - about the virus, controlling its spread, social distancing, treating the sick, and how our governments should react to this chaotic situation. It's like we've all been dropped in to study for a test in a class that no one signed up for. It's confusing and hard to process.

Here, we've tried to distill it into 12 key aspects of this crisis that everyone should understand. That said, we don't cover everything, and there's still a lot of uncertainty about some of the most important things on the list. (If you think you have Covid-19, and are curious about what that means for you, read this explainer. If you're most confused about the financial crisis the virus is causing, rea d this one.) This guide focuses mostly on the properties of the virus, and the implications for public health.

In the few months since this virus emerged, we've learned an immense amount about it. Scientists have decoded its genetics and whom it's more likely to kill, and have started working on vaccines that could immunize humans to it. Still, its newness means that a lot of the figures presented in this article are estimates and subject to change as scientists learn more. So keep that in mind, too.

1) SARS-CoV-2 is very contagious, and a huge portion of the global population is vulnerable

One thing we do know is that this coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is very contagious. Just look at the headlines: Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, has now infected nearly a million people around the globe.

Scientists quantify the contagiousness of a disease with a figure called R0 (pronounced R-nought.) "The figure refers to how many other people one sick person is likely to infect on average in a group that's susceptible to the disease (meaning they don't already have immunity from a vaccine or from fighting off the disease before)," Vox's Julia Belluz explains. An R0 of 2, for example, means each infected person is expected to spread the virus to two others, on average. Covid-19 is currently believed to have an R0 between 2 and 2.5.

That makes it more contagious than the seasonal flu. With the flu, there are people in the population who have some level of immunity to it - either because of a vaccine or because they have been exposed to that strain of flu in the past. That's not the case here.

With no mitigation, a statistical modeling report from the Imperial College of London found that 81 percent of the populations of both Great Britain and the US could be infected over the course of the pandemic.

The R0 is hard to estimate, even in a pandemic, because "the R0 is not a property of the virus," explains Dominique Heinke, an epidemiologist in Massachusetts. The virus's genetic code, the proteins that surround it, and the symptoms it causes are properties of the virus. The R0 is "a combination of the properties of the virus, and the way that humans interact."

Also important to know: R0 is the rate of transmission within a fully susceptible population, when no control measures are put into place. "One misconception about the R0 is that it is a fixed number - but actually, it varies over time and over context," says Caitlin Rivers, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "So it has been well established that the R0 with this disease, at least before we implement any interventions, is well over 2."

But our actions can bring this figure down. This is sometimes called the Re, or effective reproduction rate. "If we can get Re [to be less than] 1 through social distancing, natural immunity, or a vaccine, then we break the cycle of transmission and the epidemic will slow or be suppressed," Heinke says.

2) The virus is believed to be spread mainly by respiratory droplets

Why has the virus spread so fast? The WHO recently put out a statement saying its experts believe Covid-19 is primarily transmitted by respiratory droplets. When infected people breathe, cough, or sneeze, they expel little droplets of moisture that contain the virus. Another person in their vicinity could breathe in these particles and get infected. The virus-laden droplets can also land on surfaces that others may touch (and then get infected by touching their mouth, nose, or eyes). Scientists now believe the virus can remain viable on a hard, non-porous surface like plastic or steel for around three days, and a rough surface like cardboard for about a day.

The 6-feet-away social distancing guideline is meant to keep people out of the splash zone for these respiratory droplets. (But know there's no hard cutoff for how far the viral droplets can spread. A sneeze can propel material from the nose 20 feet or more, a recent MIT study found.)

It's also unknown how significant other modes of transmission are in spreading the disease. There are two other possible routes being explored: fecal-oral and airborne.

Fecal-oral transmission occurs when a virus spreads, well, through feces (usually by contaminating water or food through improper hygiene). Scientists have noted the presence of the virus in some feces of infected people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, though, that "the risk [of fecal-oral transmission] is expected to be low based on data from previous outbreaks of related coronaviruses." (That said, if you weren't already: Please wash your hands enthusiastically after defecating.)

You may have heard that the new coronavirus isn't "airborne" - meaning that unlike extremely contagious diseases like measles, it's unlikely to linger in the air for hours on end. But that doesn't mean the virus can'tlinger in the air for some amount of time.

As Wired explains, although some experts say the novel coronavirus isn't airborne, that's based on a narrow scientific definition of the term. The virus can possibly still linger in the air for some time and under some conditions. We don't yet know precisely what those conditions are. It will definitely be in the air in the moments after an infected person sneezes or coughs, but it's unclear when the particles eventually come to rest on the ground (or on surrounding surfaces).

Overall, it doesn't appear that airborne contagion is a big factor with this outbreak. "In an analysis of 75,465 COVID-19 cases in China, airborne transmission was not reported," the WHO reports. But it warns that "airborne transmission may be possible in specific circumstances and settings." Certain medical procedures like intubation, suctioning, and ventilation could possibly create airborne viral aerosols. Because these occur in hospital settings, it's extra important for health care workers to wear proper personal protective equipment (PPE) to make sure they don't get sick.

Another big reason Covid-19 has spread so far and wide is that people with mild symptoms - and even people without symptoms - can spread it. ( Fever, cough, and shortness of breath are recognized by the CDC as common symptoms, but others such as loss of smell and taste have been added to the list, and symptoms may take up to 14 days to appear.)

There are no firm estimates on this, but it seems that somewhere between 25 and 50 percent of people infected with the virus show no symptoms. Some percentage of those asymptomatic cases can spread the virus to others. (We'll need more widespread surveillance testing to better understand the exact rate of asymptomatic cases.)

On March 13, the journal Science published an analysis that concluded 86 percent of all the Covid-19 cases in China before January 23 were not detected by public health authorities at the time (though that doesn't mean these cases were asymptomatic). It's estimated that these undiagnosed cases infected 79 percent of the total cases. The results suggest that, at least, the bulk of transmission of the virus in China was spread by people not sick enough to get the attention of doctors.

The fact that this virus can spread sneakily and silently makes it extra dangerous. It's also possible to spread it before a person develops symptoms.

On April 1, the CDC published a report on how presymptomatic spread created clusters of many new cases in Singapore. In one case, the virus appeared to have spread via a church pew. Two people who had recently visited China attended church services on January 19, when they had no symptoms (they would develop them in the following days). Three other people who attended the church that day got sick, the CDC found - one of whom sat in the same seat as the people who visited China. Another instance of presymptomatic spread was found in a singing class. In others, presymptomatic cases spread in households.

3) Covid-19 is deadly

The exact death rate of the virus is another figure that's still being calculated - and is changing all the time. Here's the latest: A new paper in Lancet Infectious Diseasesfound the case fatality ratio (the percent of confirmed infections that die) to be 1.38 percent, drawing from Chinese data (which may or may not be complete). The authors also report an estimated infection fatality rate - this is the percentage of people who become infected, including those who have mild or no symptoms, who eventually die. This figure is lower, at 0.66 percent.

But there's a huge amount of variability on this figure country by country, and demographic by demographic. South Korea, on the one hand, is estimated to have a death rate of less than 1 percent. Italy's seems to be, for now, several percentage points higher.

The Lancet Infectious Diseases paper found that globally, the case fatality rate for those under age 60 was 1.4 percent. For those over age 60, the fatality rate jumps to 4.5 percent. The older the population, the higher the fatality rate grows. For those 80 and over, Covid-19 appears to have a 13.4 percent fatality rate.

These likely will not be the final estimates of the fatality rate for Covid-19.Like R0, "the mortality rate is not a characteristic of the virus," Heinke explains. "The mortality rate is a function of both the severity of disease that the virus can cause and treatment. ... The mortality rate may increase as hospitals become more and more overwhelmed with cases."

And the figure changes over time. In late February, the WHO estimated the rate in Wuhan was 5.8 percent. Now, the estimated death rate for Wuhan - the city where the outbreak began - is 1.4 percent, per a March 9 study in Nature Medicine.

"It feels like you should be able to just divide deaths by cases, and whatever that number is feels like it should be CFR," or case fatality rate, Rivers says. But it's not that simple. "If there are a lot of people either in the numerator or denominator that aren't being recognized, it can change your answer a lot." With testing lagging in the United States, it's hard to know how many cases there are overall, and therefore, it's hard to estimate the overall fatality rate.

One thing we do know: Older people, and people with underlying conditions, are much more likely to die of Covid-19 than younger people.

4) The pandemic in the US will get worse before it gets better

On March 31, the White House's coronavirus task force presented grim statistics: Under the best-case scenario for mitigation of the Covid-19 pandemic, there may be between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths in the United States.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, emphasized then that the outbreak and its toll was going to get worse before they get better. The US has since seen daily confirmed cases and deaths fall, but experts say reopening plans may be premature.

A recent study in found that, on average, the duration from symptoms to death is 17.8 days (and that recovery can take nearly 25 days). Other studies have shown it can take a week for the disease to progress from the start of symptoms to a person needing hospitalization. Some people just getting infected nowin places without strict social distancing measures could die a month from now.

Look at the Wuhan line on this new graph from @jburnmurdoch. The lockdown was introduced there on 23rd Jan - 69 days ago - which means this entire Wuhan curve has happened since then. It shows how long it can take to see the effect of control measures on the number of deaths. pic.twitter.com/MAsBIzFevj
- Adam Kucharski (@AdamJKucharski) April 1, 2020

Epidemiological modeling is useful in helping the public think through what's possible with the disease. It also can help hospitals understand how much staffing and equipment they'll need (and where they are likely to fall short).

Independent experts say the models the task force is using are sound: 100,000 to 200,000 deaths "certainly seem to be within the reasonable framework," said Bill Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in a call with reporters Tuesday morning. "I would not be particularly surprised by them, I wouldn't be surprised if they were higher, I wouldn't be actually surprised if they were lower. One of the things that's difficult for those of us who've been involved with modeling this is communicating the amounts of uncertainty that we have."

Modeling is not an ironclad prediction of the future, however. "Unlike the weather, which we're all accustomed to and incorporating forecasts into decision making, with pandemics we actually influence the outcome," Rivers says. Collective actions - continuing to social distance, self-isolating if you're sick, supporting health care workers around the country, raising the capacity of the health care system - over the next few weeks will affect whether the models are updated for better or for worse.

"I think it's key not to get fixated on the exact numbers," Heinke adds. "You can look at a range of models and say, we can expect it to be at least this bad."

5) There's a huge range of severity of illness

Young people may not be dying of Covid-19 in high numbers, but they are still at risk for severe, debilitating disease.

As of March 16, the CDC reports that 12 percent of known Covid-19 cases in the US have resulted in hospitalizations, and 20 percent of those hospitalizations were among those ages 20 to 44. But this was in the early stages of the US outbreak, so this data may be refined in the coming weeks.

In New York City, which as of April 2 has the biggest Covid-19 outbreak in the United States, 9 percent of more than 7,700 hospitalizations were for those ages 18 to 44 as of March 31.

The bottom line: In all age groups, Covid-19 can present with a huge range of severity. Many people - an exact figure is still not known - can get the virus and show no symptoms. Others become near deathly ill.

Scientists have some clues as to what puts someone more at risk than another.

"Patients with underlying health conditions and risk factors, including, but not limited to, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, COPD, coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, chronic renal disease, and smoking, might be at higher risk for severe disease or death from Covid-19," the CDC found in a recent report.

But there are still a lot of unknowns about what else contributes to risk. Even among older people, there are unanswered questions: Why do men appear to be dying at higher rates than women? Differences in severity of illness could also relate to the amount of the virus a person has been exposed to. Health care workers, when they are infected, seem to get sicker than their age cohort should suggest, which could be because they are exposed to higher doses of the virus.

Scientists will soon start to search for genetic clues, too, that might signal a person is more at risk than another. The reason might have to do more with their own biology than the virus: In some people, an excessive immune reaction called a " cytokine storm " is what leads to the most severe symptoms and death, not the virus itself.

"It's really an open question to try to figure out why some of these younger people are getting really, really severe disease, and if there are other risk factors that we are not appreciating," Angela Rasmussen,a Columbia University virologist,said in March. "Some of that will just have to wait until we have really detailed clinical data on all the cases that are coming out now in Italy and in the United States." Knowing who is most at risk, she says, "will help in terms of flattening the curve." If we learn how to protect the young people most at risk and keep them out of hospitals, we can decrease the strain on health care systems.

6) The US is still not doing enough testing

The US finally made real progress on testing in May, but experts say more is needed to fully control the outbreak. It's worth remembering why hundreds of millions in the country are under stay-at-home orders, with infection rates soaring across the country.

"The facts remain that we wasted a lot of time in terms of ramping up testing," Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, says. The US could have spent a lot more time diagnosing and isolating the sick, and tracing their contacts, which could have prevented at least some of the spread.

Testing in an outbreak provides two functions. One is to diagnose those who are sick. The other is surveillance: to see where the virus may be lurking, especially in cases where symptoms are mild or don't manifest at all. Many doctors have told patients with milder symptoms to just stay home and not get tested.

The US has caught up after some of the early stumbles. The Atlantic, which has been aggressively tracking the testing situation across the country, reports that around 104,000 people are being tested a day. But "testing backlogs have ballooned, slowing efficient patient care and delivering a heavily lagged view of the outbreak to decision makers," the Atlantic's Robinson Meyer and Alexis Madrigal write.

America needs strict social distancing measures in place, in part, because it's unknown exactly where the virus is. And it's unknown because testing still lags.

People need to stay in under the assumption that anyone they come into contact with could be infected. "The classic epidemiological approach to controlling disease is not to shut down society; it's to target the people you know to have the disease and understand who they're spreading it to," Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, says. "We can't do that right now because we don't have enough testing to know who has the disease."

Not only does the US need more testing, it also needs testing that can be completed within minutes. These rapid tests are being ro: Recently, the Food and Drug Administration approved one that can give results in five minutes. It's now being rolled out in parts of the West Coast.

The US has rolled out other kinds of testing, too, like serology - testing of people's blood for antibodies to the virus. That way, health professionals can figure out who has already had the disease and is now immune and can safely return to be in contact with others. (Though scientists still need to do more work in determining what immunity looks like in any given person.)

7) Lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders are not an overreaction

Most Americans were under some sort of lockdown or shelter-in-place order from their local authorities. For many of them, the best thing they can do right now is just be patient - especially if their states are reopening before meeting guidelines for doing so safely.

There may be a lag of a few weeks before changes in state measures are reflected in new case and death data.

Many people are still getting sick and requiring hospitalization, who were infected before these orders went into effect. The virus can incubate for up to 14 days before symptoms appear, and then it can be several more days before severe illness sets in.

All of this is reason to keep social distancing: The outright lockdowns of movement in some cities, as well as the less severe policies in place across the country, can still dramatically slow the spread of Covid-19. And per at least one poll, people are, by and large, complying.

Also know: This may get worse again before it gets better.

8) The situation for hospitals and health care workers is dire

First, the US had a shortage of diagnostic tests for Covid-19. Now there's also a shortage of personal protective equipment and supplies - from medical masks and gowns to hospital beds and ventilators. And the fear is there will soon be a shortage of health care workers responding to the disease. In Italy, more than 60 doctors have died of the disease.

As Vox's Dylan Scott, Umair Irfan, and Jen Kirby report, "Doctors and nurses are reporting gear shortages, lax protocols, and a high level of stress in their workplaces - with the worst still to come. Some of them told Vox that they consider getting infected with the coronavirus an inevitability."

Health care workers may even be putting themselves at higher risk of severe disease just by doing their jobs. "It's not just that [health care workers] are getting infected at higher rates; instead, they're getting sicker than one might expect on the basis of their age," says Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College. It's possible they're being exposed to higher concentrations of the virus, which may lead a person to more severe illness.

Meanwhile, the protective equipment that might stop them from getting sick is in short supply. Particularly acute is the supply of N95 respirators, which stop health care workers from inhaling viral-laden droplets and aerosols.

9) America can end social distancing, but an aggressive new plan needs to be in place

It's understandable that some - maybe most - people want life to go back to normal already.

But "If we all just went right back to how things were before, transmission would start again with the same intensity," Rivers says. To ease off social distancing, the US needs an aggressive new plan in place to prevent the explosive growth in new cases it's currently seeing.

"Social distancing is basically a sledgehammer," Konyndyk, who has worked on past outbreaks, like Ebola, says. "You're just stopping everything and hoping that in the process you will also slow transmission." What the US needs to do, he says, is turn that sledgehammer of social distancing into a scalpel: widespread testing and contact tracing.

Once there's widespread testing, there needs to be a huge team of public health workers in place to trace the contacts of those who test positive. Everyone who tests positive or who has come into contact with someone who tests positive then needs to be put into quarantine or isolation, to not spread the virus further. This is how authorities routinely beat outbreaks - even of incredibly infectious diseases like measles.

Rivers, along with former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and other co-authors, released a plan Sunday for how to ease off social distancing. The plan has several phases: Phase one is slowing the spread through social distancing while ramping up testing capacity and ensuring hospitals have the equipment they need. In phase two, social distancing restrictions ease while public health workers continue to track and isolate cases.

But it will take a lot to get there. The authors argue these decisions need to be made on a region-by-region basis: Phase two should only begin after 14 days of sustained case reductions in an area, and only after testing capacity is dramatically increased. Even in phase two, they stress, if cases go up again, the US will need to go back to severe social distancing. Before there's a vaccine, everyone will have to remain vigilant.

10) The pandemic is painful for millions - not just those who are sick with Covid-19

Outbreaks don't just affect those who get sick with the illness and die - there's also a lot of collateral damage. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Health care bills are piling up. Businesses are furloughing or laying off workers.

As the outbreak progresses, it will expose the cracks in American society and the country's preparedness for future outbreaks. Americans need to remember the lessons learned over the next several months.

Also important: the collateral medical damage. Hospitals are postponing elective surgeries (ones that are planned in advance) and some other treatments. There could be limited resources to treat others if another disaster strikes, like a flood or a hurricane.

11) Some parts of life may return to normal. But this won't be over until there's a vaccine and widely available treatments.

The ultimate goal in stopping a pandemic is a safe and effective vaccine that can prevent people from getting the virus. The good news is that these are already being tested. The bad news is that it could take a year or more to find one that is safe and effective. "Honestly, I think the vaccine in 12 to 18 months is a moonshot," Tara Smith, a Kent State University epidemiologist, says.

In the meantime, a treatment might be discovered sooner. The World Health Organization is facilitating a multinational clinical trial, testing medicines - and combinations of medicines - to treat Covid-19. But even those drugs wouldn't necessarily stop the outbreak.

"It would be really great, I think, for saving lives," Rivers says. "But you wouldn't really expect it to slow transmission at all." People could still be getting sick and spreading the virus. And everyone would need to be vigilant, and patient, in this scenario, too. Even if the risk of severe disease and death is reduced, if the number of cases increases, more people can still get sick and die.

12) The coronavirus came from nature, jumping from animals to humans. Researchers fear this will happen again.

The novel coronavirus outbreak presents an immense immediate challenge for global health. But it's also part of a larger pattern: Viruses that circulate in animals keep jumping over to infect humans. The story of the novel coronavirus is the story of HIV, of SARS, of Ebola, and even measles. These are all diseases that have been introduced to humans - with deadly effects - via animals. And as humans encroach more and more into animal habitats, it's believed these spillover events may only grow more common.

Scientists know this virus jumped from an animal to a human, but they are not sure exactly how or where. "If you don't understand where it came from, then it's hard to make policies, procedures, to prevent it from happening again," says Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician and Emerging Leader in Biosecurity fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.

It likely started with a bat - the genetics of the novel coronavirus suggest that it did. As Vox's Eliza Barclay reported:

What researchers have to figure out now is how exactly the coronavirus jumped to humans: perhaps through a human eating an infected animal, or through humans being exposed to infected feces or urine. "All we know [is] its likely distant source was bats, but we don't know who was between bats and people," said Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia and host of the This Week in Virology podcast. "It could be a direct infection [between bats and humans] as well."

A lot of the evidence points toward the outbreak either starting or significantly gaining steam at a live animal market in Wuhan, China. The more we know about how this virus jumped from animals to humans, the more authorities can help make sure an outbreak with this origin doesn't spiral out of control and spread around the world again.
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12 things everyone needs to know about the coronavirus pandemic

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Before December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes the Covid-19 illness - was unknown to science. "A pneumonia of unknown cause" was first reported to the World Health Organization on December 31, after a slew of cases appeared in Wuhan, China.

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Public health officials, doctors and pharmacists who have struggled for decades to convince Americans to get the flu shot are warning it is now more important than ever to get vaccinated as the U.S. faces a potential second wave of COVID-19 in the fall.

Coinciding flu and COVID-19 outbreaks could overwhelm hospitals and drain resources, threatening lives and the response to the pandemic.

Getting vaccinated could keep thousands of flu patients out of the hospitals and preserve resources that are urgently needed for COVID-19, experts say.

"We are going to try to encourage people, urge them, implore them even, to come out and roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated so we can mitigate the impact of this season of viral attack," said William Schaffner, medical director for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

Public health agencies and groups are gearing up for a massive flu vaccination campaign beginning later this summer that will hone in the importance of getting the shot as a way to help the country get through the coronavirus pandemic.

"We're really hoping the American public will see that the flu vaccine is one major way they can help the nation get through this fall," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield told Congress last week, adding that it will be a "difficult time" for the health care system.

Vaccinations are often considered by experts as the single best medical advance in modern history. But many Americans just don't get them. Vaccine rates tend to be higher for children, but those rates fall into adulthood.

For the past 10 years, flu vaccination rates have hovered around 40 percent to 45 percent, but are lower for people of color. One public health campaign aimed for an 80 percent vaccination rate by 2020, but last season 45 percent of adults were vaccinated, according to the CDC, with rates highest among people 65 and older and lowest among 18- to 49-year-olds.

One of the biggest obstacles to improving flu vaccine rates isn't usually financial - it's challenging people's beliefs about it.

Polls show most people who don't get the flu shot say they are concerned about side effects, which are typically mild, believe it doesn't work very well, or think they can get the flu from the vaccine.

That is contradicted by evidence that shows it is not possible to get the flu from the vaccine. The effectiveness of the vaccine varies by year, but research shows the illness is less severe in people who do get their shot.

Experts hope the awareness of COVID-19 - a disease for which there is currently no vaccine - will remind people of the importance of getting vaccines to prevent illness.

"Trying to communicate the power of prevention is always a challenge," said Howard Koh, former President Obama's assistant secretary for health.

"With everything people are going through with COVID and the absence of a vaccine, and with the flu coming up this fall, I'm hoping people will view it in a different light and appreciate what prevention can do," he added.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are hospitalized with the flu, including between 410,000 and 740,000 people last season, according to preliminary estimates from the CDC.

Children and the elderly are most at risk for serious illness. About 80 percent of children who die of the flu haven't been vaccinated, according to the CDC.

This year may bring new challenges as some people stay home, avoid medical care and practice social distancing as the virus spreads.

Part of the strategy to improve vaccination rates will revolve around addressing those concerns.

"It seems to be challenging just to venture out for food and supplies, let alone venture out to hospital settings or clinical settings, where people aren't feeling well," said Gary LeRoy, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

"We keep preaching about the importance of using hand sanitizer, good and frequent hand washing, and we will continue with that throughout this public health emergency and beyond," he added.

Another challenge is the misinformation spread by the small but enduring "anti-vaxxer" movement.

"The increase in vaccine hesitancy and misinformation around vaccines adds to the perfect storm in the fall," said Adriane Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs for the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

"Local health departments last year, pre-coronavirus, were dealing both with traditional messaging and trying to get the flu vaccine out to populations so people could be protected and having to combat misinformation on vaccines that have been amplified by social media."

Some venues where people traditionally get vaccinated for flu - like health fairs and through work - may not be an option this year as people practice social distancing.

According to the CDC, 17 percent of adults get vaccinated at their workplaces. But millions of Americans have been working from home to slow the spread of COVID-19, and it's not clear how many will be back in their offices in the fall.

Experts are hoping people go to pharmacies instead, which performed about one-third of all flu vaccinations last year. Kathleen Jaeger, senior vice president of pharmacy care and patient advocacy for the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, said pharmacies are preparing for a surge in demand.

Still, former CDC Director Tom Frieden said it is possible efforts people are taking to slow the spread of COVID-19 - wearing masks, frequently washing their hands, and keeping a distance from others - could also slow the spread of the flu.

"It's possible that we could have a less severe flu season if we continue to do the things that will reduce the risk of COVID," he said.

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The next COVID-19 challenge: Convincing people to get flu shots

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Public health officials, doctors and pharmacists who have struggled for decades to convince Americans to get the flu shot are warning it is now more important than ever to get vaccinated as the U.S. faces a potential second wave of COVID-19 in the fall.

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As President Trump pushes the possibility of a vaccine this year, the C.D.C. has outlined technical scenarios to state public health officials for an unidentified Vaccine A and Vaccine B.

A volunteer received an experimental coronavirus vaccine made by Moderna Therapeutics in Detroit last month. Credit... Henry Ford Health System/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has notified public health officials in all 50 states and five large cities to prepare to distribute a coronavirus vaccine to health care workers and other high-risk groups as soon as late October or early November.

The new C.D.C. guidance is the latest sign of an accelerating race for a vaccine to ease a pandemic that has killed more than 184,000 Americans. The documents were sent out on the same day that President Trump told the nation in his speech to the Republican National Convention that a vaccine might arrive before the end of the year.

Over the past week, both Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Stephen Hahn, who heads the Food and Drug Administration, have said in interviews with news organizations that a vaccine may be available for certain groups before clinical trials have been completed, if the data is overwhelmingly positive.

Public health experts agree that agencies at all levels of government should urgently prepare for what will eventually be a vast, complex effort to vaccinate hundreds of millions of Americans. But the possibility of a rollout in late October or early November has heightened concerns that the Trump administration is seeking to rush the distribution of a vaccine - or simply to hype that one is possible - before Election Day on Nov. 3.

For an administration that has struggled with the logistical challenges of containing the coronavirus, the distribution of millions of vaccines that must be stored in subzero temperatures and provided first to high-risk groups through America's flawed, fragmented health care system would be a daunting challenge. Even the C.D.C.'s guidance acknowledged that its plan was hypothetical and based on the need to immediately begin organizing the gigantic effort that would be required if the F.D.A. were to allow the use of a vaccine or two this year.

The C.D.C. plans lay out technical specifications for two candidates described as Vaccine A and Vaccine B, including requirements for shipping, mixing, storage and administration. The details seem to match the products developed by Pfizer and Moderna, which are the furthest along in late-stage clinical trials. On Aug. 20, Pfizer said it was "on track" for seeking government review "as early as October 2020."

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From left, Dr. Robert Redfield, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Stephen Hahn of the coronavirus task force, speaking to Congress in June. Credit... Pool photo by Kevin Dietsch

"This timeline of the initial deployment at the end of October is deeply worrisome for the politicization of public health and the potential safety ramifications," said Saskia Popescu, an infection prevention epidemiologist based in Arizona. "It's hard not to see this as a push for a pre-election vaccine."

Three documents were sent to public health officials in all states and territories as well as officials in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston and San Antonio on Aug. 27. They outlined detailed scenarios for distributing two unidentified vaccine candidates, each requiring two doses a few weeks apart, at hospitals, mobile clinics and other facilities offering easy access to the first targeted recipients.

The guidance noted that health care professionals, including long-term care employees, would be among the first to receive the product, along with other essential workers and national security employees. People 65 or older, as well as Native Americans and those who are from "racial and ethnic minority populations" or incarcerated - all communities known to be at greater risk of contracting the virus and experiencing severe disease - were also prioritized in the documents.

That's a positive development, "so it doesn't just all wind up in high-income, affluent suburbs," said Dr. Cedric Dark, an emergency medicine physician at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.

The C.D.C. noted in its guidance that "limited Covid-19 vaccine doses may be available by early November 2020." The documents were dispatched the same day that Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the C.D.C., sent a letter to governors asking them to prepare vaccine distribution sites by Nov. 1, as McClatchy reported.

The agency also said its plans were as yet hypothetical, noting, "The Covid-19 vaccine landscape is evolving and uncertain, and these scenarios may evolve as more information is available." A C.D.C. spokeswoman confirmed that the documents were sent but declined to comment further.

Many of the details listed for the two vaccines - including required storage temperature, the number of days needed between doses, and the type of medical center that can accommodate the product's storage - match what Pfizer and Moderna have said about their products, which are based on so-called mRNA technology. Neither company responded to requests for comment.

The scenarios, which assume that the two vaccines will demonstrate sufficient safety and effectiveness for an emergency authorization from the F.D.A. by the end of October, noted that Vaccine A, which seems to match Pfizer's, would have about two million doses ready within this time frame, and that Vaccine B, whose description matches Moderna's, would have about one million doses ready, with tens of millions of doses of each vaccine ready by the end of the year. Although it's possible that some promising preliminary data may emerge by the end of October, experts are skeptical.

"The timeline that's reported seems a bit ambitious to me," Dr. Dark said. "October's like 30 days away."

Trials that test a vaccine's effectiveness can take years to yield reliable results. It's possible to draw conclusions sooner "if there is an overwhelming effect" in which vaccinated people appear to be far better protected from disease, said Padmini Pillai, a vaccine researcher and immunologist at M.I.T.

But there can be significant risks in approving a vaccine for broad use in the public before Phase 3 clinical trials involving tens of thousand of participants are completed. Rare but dangerous side effects may only surface over time, after such large numbers of people have received the vaccine.

And data gathered early in a trial might not hold true months down the line. Researchers also need time to test large numbers of people from a variety of backgrounds to determine how well the vaccine works in different populations - including the vulnerable communities identified in the guidelines.

The Road to a Coronavirus Vaccine ›

Answers to Your Vaccine Questions

As the coronavirus vaccine get closer to U.S. authorization, here are some questions you may be wondering about:

If I live in the U.S., when can I get the vaccine? While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.

When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated? Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they'll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it's also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they're infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don't yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.

If I've been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask? Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially get authorized this month clearly protect people from getting sick with Covid-19. But the clinical trials that delivered these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. That remains a possibility. We know that people who are naturally infected by the coronavirus can spread it while they're not experiencing any cough or other symptoms. Researchers will be intensely studying this question as the vaccines roll out. In the meantime, even vaccinated people will need to think of themselves as possible spreaders.

Will it hurt? What are the side effects? The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection won't be any different from ones you've gotten before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. But some of them have felt short-lived discomfort, including aches and flu-like symptoms that typically last a day. It's possible that people may need to plan to take a day off work or school after the second shot. While these experiences aren't pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system encountering the vaccine and mounting a potent response that will provide long-lasting immunity.

Will mRNA vaccines change my genes? No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell's enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.

Should any of these snags occur, Dr. Pillai said, "all of this together could diminish public trust in the vaccine."

James S. Blumenstock, senior vice president of pandemic response and recovery at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, confirmed that the three C.D.C. documents were sent to all state and territorial health departments last week. "It is now the time to enhance organizational structure and involve all partners in this planning process going forward," he said.

Lisa Stromme, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Health, said that her state's health officials were still at "a very early stage in a planning process," but were already working toward developing infrastructure that would accommodate the assumptions laid out by the C.D.C.

The C.D.C. documents said that public health administrators should review lessons learned from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic vaccination campaign,which did not have enough doses at the beginning to meet demand.

"It's good to have a plan out for hospitals and health care systems to prepare" for a potential rollout, said Dr. Taison Bell, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the University of Virginia. But Dr. Bell added that he was concerned that the timeline outlined in the documents "is incredibly ambitious and makes me worry that the administration will prioritize this arbitrary deadline rather than maintaining diligence with following the science."

The technical comparison of Vaccine A and Vaccine B has some echoes of what was discussed at an Aug. 26 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the C.D.C. At the meeting, Dr. Kathleen Dooling, a C.D.C. medical officer, laid out three scenarios: Vaccine A, or the Pfizer vaccine, is approved, Vaccine B, the Moderna vaccine, is approved, or both. The requirement that Pfizer's vaccine be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius would mean that it couldn't be administered at most small sites, she said. The C.D.C. documents noted that orders of Vaccine A would go "to large administration sites only." The Moderna vaccine requires storage at minus 20 degrees Celsius.

The C.D.C. documents said the vaccine would be free to patients, but that providers might not be reimbursed for administrative costs if the vaccine was given an emergency authorization, rather than a standard approval.

Experts worry that the process is unlikely to go off without a hitch, given the last-minute scramble and the mixed messaging so far. "I think distribution is going to be very tricky for the vaccine, particularly if there is a cold storage requirement," Dr. Bell said.

There are also likely to be challenges administering both doses of the proposed vaccines, which must be given weeks apart, Dr. Dark said. "How are you going to make sure people get both?"

The Road to a Coronavirus Vaccine ›

Words to Know About Vaccines

Confused by the all technical terms used to describe how vaccines work and are investigated? Let us help:

Adverse event: A health problem that crops up in volunteers in a clinical trial of a vaccine or a drug. An adverse event isn't always caused by the treatment tested in the trial.

Antibody: A protein produced by the immune system that can attach to a pathogen such as the coronavirus and stop it from infecting cells.

Approval, licensure and emergency use authorization: Drugs, vaccines and medical devices cannot be sold in the United States without gaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration, also known as licensure. After a company submits the results of clinical trials to the F.D.A. for consideration, the agency decides whether the product is safe and effective, a process that generally takes many months. If the country is facing an emergency - like a pandemic - a company may apply instead for an emergency use authorization, which can be granted considerably faster.

Background rate: How often a health problem, known as an adverse event, arises in the general population. To determine if a vaccine or a drug is safe, researchers compare the rate of adverse events in a trial to the background rate.

Efficacy: The benefit that a vaccine provides compared to a placebo, as measured in a clinical trial. To test a coronavirus vaccine, for instance, researchers compare how many people in the vaccinated and placebo groups get Covid-19. Effectiveness, by contrast, is the benefit that a vaccine or a drug provides out in the real world. A vaccine's effectiveness may turn out to be lower or higher than its efficacy.

Phase 1, 2, and 3 trials: Clinical trials typically take place in three stages. Phase 1 trials usually involve a few dozen people and are designed to observe whether a vaccine or drug is safe. Phase 2 trials, involving hundreds of people, allow researchers to try out different doses and gather more measurements about the vaccine's effects on the immune system. Phase 3 trials, involving thousands or tens of thousands of volunteers, determine the safety and efficacy of the vaccine or drug by waiting to see how many people are protected from the disease it's designed to fight.

Placebo: A substance that has no therapeutic effect, often used in a clinical trial. To see if a vaccine can prevent Covid-19, for example, researchers may inject the vaccine into half of their volunteers, while the other half get a placebo of salt water. They can then compare how many people in each group get infected.

Post-market surveillance: The monitoring that takes place after a vaccine or drug has been approved and is regularly prescribed by doctors. This surveillance typically confirms that the treatment is safe. On rare occasions, it detects side effects in certain groups of people that were missed during clinical trials.

Preclinical research: Studies that take place before the start of a clinical trial, typically involving experiments where a treatment is tested on cells or in animals.

Viral vector vaccines: A type of vaccine that uses a harmless virus to chauffeur immune-system-stimulating ingredients into the human body. Viral vectors are used in several experimental Covid-19 vaccines, including those developed by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Both of these companies are using a common cold virus called an adenovirus as their vector. The adenovirus carries coronavirus genes.

Trial protocol: A series of procedures to be carried out during a clinical trial.

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C.D.C. Tells States How to Prepare for Covid-19 Vaccine by Early November

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As President Trump pushes the possibility of a vaccine this year, the C.D.C. has outlined technical scenarios to state public health officials for an unidentified Vaccine A and Vaccine B.

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Knows:
- Democrat parties are considered to be left-sided while Republican parties are considered to be right-sided
- There are three branches of the government: Legislative Branch, Executive Branch, Judicial Branch
- I know what the 10 Amendments are
Want to know:
- I want to know what other peoples opinions are on the quote "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others" (especially teachers and celebrities)
- How the 10 Amendments came to be
- What exactly could happen if Government was never established

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-  Should wait until later on
- It will play an important role in the Supreme Court, but does not need to happen right now.

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Fines for Minor Infractions

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Most laws are adopted to keep our communities healthy and safe. But even the most well-intentioned laws can backfire and lead to absurd or unjust outcomes. Unintended consequences can arise even when laws seem reasonable and commonplace. Such unintended outcomes don't just happen at the federal or state level; local laws can sometimes miss the mark as well. The good news is that local governments are closer and more responsive to communities, so equitable change can often be more easily achieved at the local level.

Check out these 10 types of common local laws that may seem like good ideas but can be surprisingly harmful. If these laws exist in your community and are creating unintended negative consequences, you can use the resources in each section to learn more about solutions.

Nuisance laws can backfire, resulting in less safety in communities when residents fear reporting violence to the police and perpetrators gain impunity.

In Missouri, Rosetta Watson called police several times seeking protection from her abusive boyfriend and, as a result, was deemed a nuisance. This designation led to eviction from her home under a local law that bars people from living anywhere in the city for 6 months if they are determined to be a "nuisance." This particular type of nuisance was defined as more than 2 calls to the police about domestic violence within 180 days. There are similar ordinances across the country. Experiences like Rosetta's can cause nuisance laws to backfire, resulting in less safety in communities when residents fear reporting violence to the police and perpetrators gain impunity. To promote community safety for all residents, localities can re-examine both their existing nuisance laws and their enforcement practices.

To learn more about promoting safe homes for everyone, check out the American Civil Liberties Union's guide Safe Homes, Safe Communities.

In Atlanta, Georgia, Raquel Nelson was prosecuted for vehicular homicide after her son A.J. was killed by a drunk driver as the pair crossed the street outside of a crosswalk. Raquel and her family were trying to walk from a bus stop to their apartment, and the nearest crosswalk was one-third of a mile away. And Raquel is not alone in being penalized for living without a car. Many cities, especially suburban developments, were built to support car transportation. But as more car-less residents - such as low-income families - move to neighborhoods designed for cars, they find that their needs are not taken into account.

So what can cities do? A good place to start is factoring in non-car modes of transportation when making decisions. In doing so, cities can create - or retrofit - streets that are safe for everyone, no matter how they get around.

To learn more about making streets safer for people walking, biking, and taking transit, check out A Guide to Building Healthy Streets from ChangeLab Solutions.

3. Fines for Minor Infractions

An important way to assess a law's fairness is to see whether the penalty for violating the law is proportionate to the violation's severity. In general, fines - like any other penalty - are in place for an important reason: to encourage people to follow laws. However, when fines are combined with court costs, numerous add-on fees, and potential late fees, the costs of a citation offense such as a speeding ticket can add up quickly. Failure to pay can then lead to disproportionate consequences ranging from a suspended driver's license all the way to jail time for minor traffic violations. In effect, these cascading fees create a system in which the poor are penalized for being poor, even to the point of serving time in modern-day debtors prisons.

To learn more about the issue and consequences of excessive fines for minor infractions in traffic courts in California and across the country, check out Paying More for Being Poor: Bias and Disparity in California's Traffic System, a report by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Rightly recognizing that our aging water infrastructure needs attention, some cities have turned to for-profit water companies to own or operate public water utilities. While nearly 90% of people get their water from public utilities, water privatization continues to be a hot topic, particularly in small rural communities. Putting a vital public utility like water in the hands of the private sector has serious drawbacks. Risks of privatization include increased costs, limited transparency and public accountability, and poorer service, especially in low-income and rural communities.

In Dillon Beach, California, when a private water provider raised its rates, retiree Marjon Row was forced to choose between making her car payments and paying her water bill. She was paying 4-6 times more for her water than her neighbors in nearby towns. As more cities face tough decisions about their water infrastructure, stories like Marjon's will be important for decisionmakers to keep in mind so that water works for all residents.

To learn more about water policy in your jurisdiction, check out Food and Water Watch's report The State of Public Water in the United States. To learn about how to use policy to get clean water into rural communities, check out Closing the Water Gap: Using Policy to Improve Drinking Water in Federally-Unregulated Drinking Water Systems from ChangeLab Solutions.

5. Occupancy Standards for Rental Housing

Occupancy standards are laws that specify how many people can live in a housing unit. These laws are intended to promote health and safety by controlling dangerous overcrowding in residences. In general, these standards set limits on how many family members can live together in a single housing unit and then set a lower cap for unrelated people living together. The amount of these caps vary widely from city to city. Occupancy standards are not only impractical - because they do not take into account the size of different housing units - but also unfair, because they generally rely on a complaint-based system. Relying on community-generated complaints can cause unfair outcomes because complaints may be motivated by bias such as prejudice against renters or residents of low-income neighborhoods. Occupancy standards also treat unrelated people differently than family members. Unrelated people who live together are often more in more precarious housing situations - for example, when low-income people or students live together to reduce costs.

In Manassas, Virginia, the city council voted to repeal a housing ordinance that restricted the definition of family to immediate family members. In theory, the ordinance was intended to control overcrowding, but in practice, it targeted the many Latino families in Manassas who lived with relatives. Eliminating occupancy limits - like Bend, Oregon, and Sandpoint, Idaho, have done - would increase the amount of inexpensive housing available in a region as well as prevent groups like Manassas' Latino community from being unfairly targeted.

Community-generated complaints can cause unfair outcomes when motivated by bias such as prejudice against renters or residents of low-income neighborhoods.

To learn more about how to use policy to make housing more affordable to more people in your community, check out the National Low Income Housing Coalition's Advocates' Guide to Housing and Community Development Policy. For more about the relationship between health and housing, check out The BLOCK Project from ChangeLab Solutions.

6. Criminalizing Food Sharing

Cities have many good reasons for enforcing robust food safety standards. However, a subset of food safety laws restrict people from sharing food with community members who are homeless. These laws range from requiring a permit to share food in public spaces to making food safety regulations so stringent that food-sharing groups no longer have the capacity to comply. For example, certain food safety laws may require food handler permits or restrict food service to only hot meals in designated locations. Such laws have the effect of making it harder to be homeless rather than helping to solve the problem. Limiting food sharing - especially when coupled with anti-vagrancy measures - often ends up penalizing the homeless and those who seek to help them.

To learn more about policy solutions to help feed the homeless, check out the National Coalition for the Homeless' report Share No More: The Criminalization of Efforts to Feed People in Need.

Tobacco possession/use/purchase (PUP) laws for youths are a set of laws that penalize youth for having tobacco products. PUP laws have the right idea of preventing young people from using tobacco products. But the laws target the youths themselves rather than the adults who sell to them or the industry that aggressively markets to young people and then profits from their addiction. The effectiveness of PUP laws is also questionable; research shows that PUP laws don't actually do much to discourage youths from smoking. PUP laws can also be unfair to less-resourced community members. They risk stigmatizing and penalizing young people, in addition to frequently being disproportionately enforced among youths of color.

Youth PUP laws are one of the most common types of tobacco control laws and continue to be introduced across the country. Cities that want to support their young people in being healthy and drug-free can reconsider any existing PUP laws and think creatively about alternatives to curb youth tobacco use, including enforcement of other tobacco control laws. Possible solutions include strong prevention and education programs, enacting laws to raise the cost of tobacco products, and restricting the sale of common "starter" products like menthol and other flavored tobacco.

To learn more about strategies to keep your community tobacco-free, check out the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids' Tobacco Control Policies and Tobacco Retailer Licensing resources from ChangeLab Solutions.

8. School Discipline Policies

Children who are experiencing disciplinary or behavioral issues need support and corrective guidance rather than removal from the school environment.

As these policies have proliferated, national rates of suspensions, expulsions, and schools referring incidents to law enforcement have also risen. And these experiences have long-term effects both on children and communities. Excluding students from school is a predictor of whether kids will later come into contact with the criminal justice system, a process known as the school-to-prison pipeline and a phenomenon that affects students of color disproportionately.

To learn more about equitable ways to improve safety in schools, check out Fix School Discipline (a project of Public Counsel) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania's End Zero Tolerance.

9. Minimum Parking Requirements

Many communities require developers to build minimum amounts of parking for new buildings - both residential and commercial. This practice is increasingly criticized because it subsidizes drivers at the expense of healthy, sustainable communities. By increasing local reliance on cars, parking minimums increase traffic and pollution, encourage sprawl, and hurt walkability. Parking minimums also drive up housing costs: If new housing units must be accompanied by parking spots, this increases the cost of building and decreases the supply of housing. And in communities with high housing needs, every dollar spent on parking is a dollar not spent on housing. For example, in developing affordable housing, building 1 parking space per unit increases costs approximately 12.5%, and 2 parking spaces per unit can increase costs by as much as 25%.

In Los Angeles County, California, the majority of buildings were constructed after parking minimums went into effect. The county now has a whopping 200+ square miles of parking, and the city continues to struggle with traffic congestion as well as affordability. To combat these types of problems, cities can do away with their parking minimums; they can also consider going a step further and converting existing parking spaces to other uses, particularly uses that are friendly to non-car transportation.

To learn more about parking management strategies, check out Richard Willson's article " Parking Management for Smart Growth" in ACCESS Magazine.

While not a local law, preemption earns a spot on this list because of its increasing influence on whether and how local governments can pass laws necessary to protect public health and advance health equity. Preemption is a legal doctrine that allows a higher level of government to limit or even eliminate the power of a lower level of government to regulate a certain issue. As with any other tool, the impact of preemption depends on when and how it's wielded.

Preemption has rapidly become the tool of choice for many state legislatures to hinder local government's power to create laws that improve people's lives.

For example, floor preemption, which sets a baseline standard, ensures that everyone enjoys the benefits of a law while preserving local authority to provide additional protections. Laws such as the federal Fair Housing Act and Fair Labor Standards Act help establish baseline protections that apply nationwide while leaving options open for stronger regulation. Even ceiling preemption, which sets maximum standards that no lower level of government can go beyond, can be beneficial in the right context. Consider, for example, the need for state laws that prevent local governments from hindering efforts to increase access to affordable housing. States may limit local governments' authority to further regulate and ultimately deny certain multi-unit housing developments.

However, it is clear that preemption has rapidly become the tool of choice for many state legislatures to hinder local government's power to create laws that improve people's lives. States have preempted many important local laws promoting health and health equity. For example, Alabama preempted Birmingham's minimum wage increase; Wisconsin preempted Milwaukee's paid sick leave law; and Texas preempted both Travis County's immigrant sanctuary status and the City of Austin's law prohibiting landlords from discriminating based on a tenant's source of income (eg, federal housing assistance). In the face of preemption issues, cities can organize to preserve and protect local democracy and their ability to tailor policy solutions to their communities. Such efforts are critical to ensure that cities remain places of innovation where local governments and the people they represent have the power to pass their own laws to effect positive change.
This piece is part of the Want to learn more about equitable, health-promoting law and policy? Follow us on and , and join our email list for updates on all of ChangeLab Solutions' work. Building Healthy, Equitable Communities Series and is the first of our policy posts exploring the often unexpected ways that laws and policies can help - or hinder - community health. Take a deeper dive into the topic of health equity through archived recordings of the companion webinar and conversation with an expert panel.

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10 Local Laws That May Be Doing More Harm Than Good

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Most laws are adopted to keep our communities healthy and safe. But even the most well-intentioned laws can backfire and lead to absurd or unjust outcomes. Unintended consequences can arise even when laws seem reasonable and commonplace. Such unintended outcomes don't just happen at the federal or state level; local laws can sometimes miss the mark as well.

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Death Penalty for Intentional Homicide
- my opinion, if one person tries to murder or have any harmful intentions to where it leads to a loss, they should be sentenced depending on what has happened already.

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"It's not doing what is right that's hard for a President. It's knowing what is right."
- Lyndon Johnson

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Most useful source to help me throughout government 

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Most useful source to help me throughout government 

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Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) won the presidential election on November 3, 2020. Biden received 306 electoral votes and President Donald Trump (R) received 232 electoral votes. In the national popular vote, Biden received 81.2 million votes and Trump received 74.2 million votes.

Biden was sworn in on January 20, 2021, becoming the oldest president to take office at 78 years old. His running mate, former Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), became the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president.

Sixteen U.S. presidents-approximately one-third-have won two consecutive elections. Prior to Trump, George H.W. Bush (R) was the last president to lose his re-election campaign in 1992.

The election took place on November 3, 2020. The following four candidates qualified to appear on enough state ballots to win a majority-at least 270 electoral votes-in the Electoral College:

Ballotpedia identified 13 battleground states. Click here to learn more about these key states.

This page provides an overview of the race with information on the following topics:

See also: Presidential candidates, 2020, and Timeline of announcements in the presidential election, 2020

The following four notable candidates ran for president. Notable candidates include individuals who have qualified to appear on enough state ballots to win a majority-at least 270 electoral votes-in the Electoral College. A complete list of candidates registered with the Federal Election Commission can be found here.

The following vice presidential candidates were selected at national party conventions or named by the party's presumptive presidential nominee.

Presidential election results

Results by state

National results

Results by Congressional district

In the 2020 presidential election, Biden received the most votes in 224 Congressional districts. Trump received the most votes in 211 Congressional districts.

2020 presidential results by Congressional district

Candidate

Districts won

Joe Biden

224

Donald Trump

211

Lawsuits related to the 2020 presidential election

The following is a list of post-election lawsuits involving the presidential election. Where available, case names and numbers, states of origin, courts of origin, and links to complaints and docket reports are provided.

2020 presidential race ratings

The following map reflects the average presidential race rating for each state as forecast by the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, and Sabato's Crystal Ball.

Florida, Iowa, Maine's 2nd Congressional District, and Ohio moved from Toss Up to Leans Republican.

Georgia and North Carolina moved from Toss Up to Leans Democratic.

Texas moved from Tilt Republican to Toss Up.

Georgia and North Carolina moved from Toss Up to Tilt Democratic.

Texas moved from Leans Republican to Toss Up.

Battleground states

Battleground states are states that have split support for Democratic and Republican candidates in recent presidential election cycles. Sometimes referred to as swing states or purple states, they are critical to a candidate's campaign strategy since the majority of states consistently vote for the same presidential party and are not competitive.

Using the average of race ratings from the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, and Sabato's Crystal Ball, Ballotpedia identified 13 battleground states. These are the states on which an electoral victory hinged:

Election results in battleground states

The table below details the number of Congressional districts won by each candidate in the battleground states.

2020 presidential results by Congressional district, battleground states

State

Districts won by Biden

Districts won by Trump

General election debates

The following table provides an overview of the date, location, and host in each scheduled 2020 general election debate.

Click on any of the following links to read policy positions from the 2020 presidential candidates.

Abortion

Criminal justice

Economy

Education

Energy and environmental issues

Foreign policy

Gun regulation

Healthcare

Immigration

Impeachment

Labor

Trade

Campaign finance

Fundraising

The following chart displays Joe Biden and Donald Trump's overall fundraising over time through the Post-General 2020 campaign finance reports. Hover over each line for more specific figures.

The following chart displays Joe Biden and Donald Trump's overall spending over time through the Post-General 2020 campaign finance reports. Hover over each line for more specific figures.

Cash on hand

The following chart displays cash on hand-a measurement of how much money a campaign has currently available in its campaign accounts-for Joe Biden and Donald Trump as of each reporting deadline during the 2020 campaign cycle.

Electoral College

The Electoral College is the process by which the states and District of Columbia elect the president of the United States. Each state is represented by a number of electors equal to the size of its congressional delegation. There are 538 electors in total. To win the Electoral College, a candidate must receive a majority-at least 270-electoral votes.

The Electoral College met on December 14, 2020, to cast their votes for president and vice president of the United States. The final tally was 306 electoral votes for former Vice President Joe Biden (D) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D) and 232 electoral votes for President Donald Trump (R) and Vice President Mike Pence (R).

Although there is no constitutional provision or federal law requiring electors to vote in accordance with the election results in their state, electors typically vote for their state's popular vote winner. Some states have provisions permitting the disqualification and replacement of an elector whose vote deviates from the state's popular vote. There were no faithless electors in 2020.

The following map shows the number of electoral votes per state in the 2020 presidential election.

Pivot Counties in the 2020 presidential election

Pivot Counties are the 206 counties nationwide Ballotpedia identified as having voted for Barack Obama (D) in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and Donald Trump (R) in 2016. Media and political observers sometimes refer to these counties as swing counties.

There were:

181 Retained Pivot Counties across 32 states: Trump won these counties with a median margin of victory of 13.2 percentage points.

25 Boomerang Pivot Counties across 16 states: Biden won these counties with a median margin of victory of 3.4 percentage points.

Click "Show More" to view the list of all 206 Pivot Counties, the winner of those counties following the 2020 election, and margins of victory from 2008 to 2020.

2020 Democratic National Convention

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) held its presidential nominating convention the week of August 17, 2020, across four stages in New York City, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Wilmington.

The convention was originally scheduled to take place July 13-16, 2020, in Milwaukee. Organizers postponed the event in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Most of the convention's events took place remotely. The DNC announced in June 2020 that delegates should not plan to travel to Milwaukee to attend the convention. Instead, votes on reports from the Rules, Platform, and Credentials committees took place remotely from August 3-15, 2020.

The Democratic National Convention Committee announced on August 5, 2020, that former Vice President Joe Biden (D) and other speakers would not travel to Milwaukee. Biden was formally nominated at the convention on August 18, 2020.

Biden announced U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D) as his running mate on August 11, 2020. Harris was the first Black woman to appear on a major party's ticket in the United States.

2020 Republican National Convention

Limited in-person events took place in Charlotte, North Carolina. On July 23, 2020, President Donald Trump announced that high-profile convention events previously moved to Jacksonville, Florida, including his nomination acceptance speech, had been canceled for public health and safety reasons. Trump formally accepted the party's nomination from the White House.

The convention was originally scheduled to take place entirely in Charlotte but statewide restrictions in response to the coronavirus pandemic led to the convention's planned relocation to Jacksonville. The Republican National Committee Executive Committee voted to downsize the convention in Charlotte, reducing the number of in-person delegates from 2,500 to 336. The committee also decided to adopt the 2016 platform again since the Platform Committee would not be meeting.

Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing

Democratic primary debates

The following table provides an overview of the date, location, host, and number of participants in each scheduled 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate.

Republican primary debates

The Republican Party did not hold primary debates in the 2020 presidential election.

Presidential election key staff

Presidential candidates will typically have a national staff, which is overseen by a campaign manager and assisted by political consultants, senior advisors, professional polling firms, and key stakeholders such as interest group leaders and major financial supporters. They also build organizations in individual states that are overseen by state directors and staffed by party activists and political professionals well-versed in the particular politics of the area. Candidates often appoint elected officials and other important figures in their party's coalition as chairs of their national campaign and state-level campaigns.

Click here for an overview of key staff by presidential campaign.

PredictIt markets

What is a PredictIt market?

PredictIt is an online political futures market in which users purchase shares relating to the outcome of political events using real money. Each event, such as an election, has a number of contracts associated with it, each correlating to a different outcome. For instance, an election contested between four candidates would be represented by eight separate contracts, with each contract correlating to a particular candidate winning or losing the election.

The price of a share in each individual contract rises and falls based on market demand. Once the event's outcome is decided, holders of shares that correlate with the correct outcome receive a $1 payout for each share they held.

For example, a user buys 10 shares at 20 cents each in a presidential primary saying Candidate A will win. If Candidate A wins the election, the user earns $10. If the candidate loses, the user earns no money and loses his original $2 investment.

Why do PredictIt markets matter?

Services such as PredictIt are being used to gain insight into the likely outcome of elections. Microsoft Research economist David Rothschild argues that they are better suited to the task than polls: "I can create a poll that can mimic everything about a prediction market...except markets have a way of incentivizing you to come back at 2 a.m. and update your answer."

Battleground states

New Hampshire

North Carolina

Pennsylvania

Presidential election results by party, 1900-2016

This table lists presidential election results by party for each state in every presidential election held between 1900 and 2016.

Ballotpedia Trend Quizzes

Voter turnout

Fundraising

External links

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Presidential election, 2020 - Ballotpedia

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Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) won the presidential election on November 3, 2020. Biden received 306 electoral votes and President Donald Trump (R) received 232 electoral votes. In the national popular vote, Biden received 81.2 million votes and Trump received 74.2 million votes.

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Democratic party information I found useful

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Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) was formally nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee at the 2020 Democratic National Convention on August 18, 2020. The convention was originally scheduled to take place July 13-16, 2020. Organizers postponed the event in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Prior to the national convention, individual state caucuses and primaries were held to allocate convention delegates. These delegates vote at the convention to select the nominee. In 2020, a Democratic presidential candidate needed support from 1,991 delegates to secure the nomination.

With the plurality of pledged delegates, Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee on April 8, 2020, after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suspended his presidential campaign. Biden crossed the delegate threshold necessary to win the nomination on June 5, 2020.

Biden announced U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D) as his running mate on August 11, 2020. Harris is the first Black woman to appear on a major party's ticket in the United States.

Democratic presidential nominee

Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) is the projected winner of the 2020 presidential election, according to a consensus call from ABC News, CNN, Fox News, NBC News, and The New York Times. Projected to win Pennsylvania on November 7, 2020, Biden secured at least 273 electoral votes, putting him over the threshold of 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. President Donald Trump (R) won at least 213 electoral votes.

Biden will be the oldest president to take office on January 20, 2021, at 78 years old. His running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), will be the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president.

Click here to learn more about the Biden presidential transition.

Biden announced that he was running for president on April 25, 2019. With the plurality of pledged delegates, Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee on April 8, 2020, after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suspended his presidential campaign. Biden crossed the delegate threshold necessary to win the nomination on June 5, 2020, and was formally nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention on August 18, 2020.

Biden announced Harris as his running mate on August 11, 2020. He called her "a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country's finest public servants." Harris is the first Black woman to appear on a major party's ticket in the United States.

Biden framed his campaign as a challenge to Trump. "I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation-who we are-and I cannot stand by and watch that happen," he said.

He represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009 before serving as vice president under President Barack Obama (D) from 2009 to 2017.

Democratic National Convention

See also: Democratic National Convention, 2020 and Democratic delegate rules, 2020

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) held its presidential nominating convention the week of August 17, 2020, across four stages in New York City, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Wilmington.

The convention was originally scheduled to take place July 13-16, 2020, in Milwaukee. Organizers postponed the event in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Most of the convention's events took place remotely. The DNC announced in June 2020 that delegates should not plan to travel to Milwaukee to attend the convention. Instead, votes on reports from the Rules, Platform, and Credentials committees took place remotely from August 3-15, 2020.

The Democratic National Convention Committee announced on August 5, 2020, that former Vice President Joe Biden (D) and other speakers would not travel to Milwaukee. Biden was formally nominated at the convention on August 18, 2020.

Biden announced U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D) as his running mate on August 11, 2020. Harris is the first Black woman to appear on a major party's ticket in the United States.

Since the last multi-ballot Democratic convention took place in 1952, conventions have largely become ceremonial. They provide candidates with the "opportunity to shape their images to voters who hadn't really tuned in before," according to AP national politics reporter Bill Barrow.

Presidential nomination roll call

The following spreadsheet contains the number of delegates each candidate received during the presidential nomination roll call at the Democratic National Convention on August 18, 2020. It was updated live during the event.

In addition to Joe Biden, the following candidates appeared on five or more Democratic primary ballots:

Campaign finance

The following chart shows Democratic presidential campaign fundraising, including both total receipts and contributions from individuals, as well as campaign spending. Figures for each candidate run through the end of June 2020 or through the final reporting period during which the candidate was actively campaigning for president. The total disbursements column includes operating expenditures, transfers to other committees, refunds, loan repayments, and other disbursements.

Click on any of the following links to read policy positions from the 2020 presidential candidates.

Abortion

Criminal justice

Economy

Education

Energy and environmental issues

Foreign policy

Gun regulation

Healthcare

Immigration

Impeachment

Labor

Trade

Democratic primary debates

The following table provides an overview of the date, location, host, and number of participants in each scheduled 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate.

Democratic primary endorsements

With more than two dozen noteworthy candidates entering the Democratic primary for president in the 2020 election, endorsements from party leaders were one tool candidates used to distinguish themselves. According to political strategist Susan Del Percio, "Endorsements do matter; what you do with them is more important. They need to be treated as a way of targeting the group you seek to persuade, especially on certain issues."

Endorsements over time

The following chart shows the total number of noteworthy endorsements former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders received over time since January 2019.

Gubernatorial endorsements

The following table indicates which governors endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate during the primary.

U.S. Senate endorsements

The following table indicates which U.S. senators endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate during the primary.

U.S. House endorsements

The following chart and table indicate which U.S. represenatitives endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate during the primary.

PredictIt markets

General election

Campaign travel

Ballotpedia compiled the number of days each Democratic presidential candidate has spent in the four early primary states- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada -from January 1, 2019, through February 29, 2020.

Information about the candidates' schedules was sourced from The Des Moines Register, NBC Boston/NECN, The Post & Courier, The Nevada Independent.

The following table shows the number of days each candidate spent in each early primary state between January 1, 2019, and February 29, 2020. Candidates marked with an asterisk did not have complete information available for one or more states.

The following chart includes the campaign logo and slogan for each Democratic presidential candidate.

2020 Democratic presidential candidate logos

Candidate

Logo

Slogan

Joe Biden

Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead

Early voting states

New Hampshire

Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees, 1900-2016

The following chart shows the Democratic presidential ticket from every presidential election between 1900 and 2016.

Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees, 1900-2016

Year

Democratic presidential nominee

Democratic vice presidential nominee

General election result

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Democratic presidential nomination, 2020 - Ballotpedia

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Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) was formally nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee at the 2020 Democratic National Convention on August 18, 2020. The convention was originally scheduled to take place July 13-16, 2020. Organizers postponed the event in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Republican party information I found useful

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The Republican Party selected President Donald Trump as its presidential nominee at the 2020 Republican National Convention, which was held from August 24-27, 2020.

Prior to the national convention, individual state caucuses and primaries were held to allocate convention delegates. These delegates vote at the convention to select the nominee. Trump crossed the delegate threshold necessary to win the nomination-1,276 delegates-on March 17, 2020.

George H.W. Bush (R) was the last incumbent to face a serious primary challenge, defeating political commentator Pat Buchanan in 1992. He was also the last president to lose his re-election campaign. Franklin Pierce (D) was the first and only elected president to lose his party's nomination in 1856.

Sixteen U.S. presidents-approximately one-third-have won two consecutive elections.

Republican National Convention

See also: Republican National Convention, 2020 and Republican delegate rules, 2020

The Republican Party held its national convention from August 24-27, 2020.

Limited in-person events took place in Charlotte, North Carolina. On July 23, 2020, President Donald Trump announced that high-profile convention events previously moved to Jacksonville, Florida, including his nomination acceptance speech, had been canceled for public health and safety reasons. Trump formally accepted the party's nomination from the White House.

The convention was originally scheduled to take place entirely in Charlotte but statewide restrictions in response to the coronavirus pandemic led to the convention's planned relocation to Jacksonville. The Republican National Committee Executive Committee voted to downsize the convention in Charlotte, reducing the number of in-person delegates from 2,500 to 336. The committee also decided to adopt the 2016 platform again since the Platform Committee would not be meeting.

At the convention, party delegates typically select the Republican presidential nominee and vote to adopt a platform outlining the party's policy priorities and values. According to presidential historian Tevi Troy, however, "conventions today remain largely party advertising opportunities rather than fora for real decision-making."

In addition to President Donald Trump, the following candidates appeared on five or more Republican primary ballots:

See also: Timeline of announcements in the presidential election, 2020

Mark Sanford (R), former governor of South Carolina, withdrew on November 12, 2019.

(R), a former U.S. representative from Illinois, withdrew February 7, 2020.

(R), former governor of Massahchusetts, withdrew on March 18, 2020.

As of December 2020, the following 12 politicians and public figures had been discussed as potential candidates for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination. Individuals in this list will be removed or added based on statements from candidates on their potential candidacy and media reports.

Politicians

Business executives and public figures

Mark Cuban, investor and owner of the Dallas Mavericks

Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard

Campaign finance

See also: Presidential election campaign finance, 2020

The following chart shows Republican presidential campaign fundraising, including both total receipts and contributions from individuals, as well as campaign spending. Figures for each candidate run through the end of June 2020 or through the final reporting period during which the candidate was actively campaigning for president. The total disbursements column includes operating expenditures, transfers to other committees, refunds, loan repayments, and other disbursements.

PredictIt markets

See also: PredictIt markets in the 2020 presidential election

General election

Republican primary debates

As of December 2020, the Republican National Committee had not released any information about possible Republican primary debates.

The following chart includes the campaign logo and slogan for each Republican presidential candidate.

2020 Republican presidential candidate logos

Candidate

Logo

Slogan

Donald Trump

Make America Great Again

Promises Made, Promises Kept

Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees, 1900-2016

The following chart shows the Republican presidential ticket from every presidential election between 1900 and 2016.

Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees, 1900-2016

Year

Republican presidential nominee

Republican vice presidential nominee

General election result

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Republican presidential nomination, 2020 - Ballotpedia

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The Republican Party selected President Donald Trump as its presidential nominee at the 2020 Republican National Convention, which was held from August 24-27, 2020. Prior to the national convention, individual state caucuses and primaries were held to allocate convention delegates. These delegates vote at the convention to select the nominee.

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Democratic voting information i found useful

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" The Democratic Party was founded on the promise of an expanded democracy... Democrats believe we must make it easier to vote, not harder."

Voter purging . Voter fraud . Voter suppression . Russian interference . If you've ever had an issue with voting, you know that it can be daunting. It can be overwhelming. It might even start to feel like no one else is paying attention. Well, here's the good news: We're paying attention. The Civic Engagement and Voter Protection team is dedicated to protecting our democracy. We are working around the clock to educate voters and fight voter suppression. We are dedicated to ensuring that all voters have equal access to the ballot box. Together we can protect the right to vote and take back the White House in 2020.

Who we are & what we do

The Civic Engagement and Voter Protection department is concerned with safeguarding the right to vote by ensuring fair, accessible elections. To further our mission, our department works closely with local, state, and national partners to implement voter education and voting rights programming and strategies.

How we can help

We can provide assistance for two areas: simple issues and complex issues. Simple issues such as voter registration, updating voter information, and checking polling locations can be done through IWillVote.com.

If the issue is outside of the scope of IWillVote, it is probably a complex issue. In such instances, we recommend voters call us at 1-833-DEM-VOTE (1-833-336-8683). Our voter hotline is monitored by DNC employees 24/7/365 who are ready to field questions pertaining to felon disenfranchisement, voter purging, poll worker misconduct, voter machines, accessibility, and more.

How you can help

There are tangible ways that you can help promote and protect voting rights in your own community! Applying to be a poll worker in your community can have a huge impact on elections. We also have an Election Advocate Program, in which volunteers advocate for programs and policies in their counties.

You can also join our Facebook group! We encourage our members to share voting information pertinent to their state and respective communities!

Resources

IWillVote: Use IWillVote to register to vote, update voter information, locate your polling location, and more!

Voter Hotline: Call 1-833-DEM-VOTE (1-833-336-8683) for complex issues. Our 24/7 hotline is monitored by DNC employees.

Facebook: Connect with us on Facebook to stay up to date on voter protection news, events, volunteer opportunities, and more in your area!

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" The Democratic Party was founded on the promise of an expanded democracy... Democrats believe we must make it easier to vote, not harder." Voter purging . Voter fraud . Voter suppression . Russian interference . If you've ever had an issue with voting, you know that it can be daunting.

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My thoughts on the voting are that it should be done through mail-in ballots or through absentee. I do not like the idea of in-person voting because of the risk it could take since we are supposed to be "quarantined". The result of votes can still be the same if people vote as an absentee or in-person, but to avoid the COVID-19 risks I think in-person voting should not be regulated.

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- Senate confirms Amy Coney Barrett for Supreme Court
- "Justice Barrett is the very model of a sympathetic yet impartial judge"
- "She is exactly the type of person whom the American people deserve to have sitting on their Supreme Court."

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- Joe Biden will become the 46th US President
- Electoral vote count
- Biden (306) / Trump (232)

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View maps and real-time presidential election results for the 2020 US election. For more information, visit cnn.com/election.

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This is the current new regarding what has happened after the election of the presidency

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What you need to know

President-elect Joe Biden will introduce a slate of key administration picks today, including veterans affairs secretary. Here's who Biden has selected for his Cabinet so far.

All 50 states and DC have certified their presidential election results and the Electoral College process moves forward Monday with the meeting of electors.

President Trump continues to rail against the results and is asking the Supreme Court to invalidate millions of votes in battleground states.

1 min ago
Key things to know about the Supreme Court lawsuit from Texas and Trump challenging Biden's win

From CNN's Ariane de Vogue and Dan Berman

Although all 50 states have certified their election results and although the Supreme Court swiftly rejected an emergency request from Pennsylvania Republicans to block election results in the commonwealth, the justices are now grappling with a new controversial bid from Texas, supported by President Trump and 17 other Republican-led states.

They are asking the Supreme Court for an emergency order to invalidate the ballots of millions of voters in four battleground states - Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - even though there is no evidence of widespread fraud.

Critics of the President and his allies say the case reflects an audacious and legally dubious gambit to keep the lawsuits flowing in order to prolong baseless claims that President-elect Joe Biden's victory was somehow illegitimate.
Here's what you need to know:

Who is suing? Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit Tuesday. The President on Wednesday filed a motion to intervene - basically a request to join the lawsuit, asking for the same result. Seventeen GOP states are backing the effort as well.

What do the Republicans want? Essentially, to swing the election to Trump. They're asking for the court to block the electors from Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, pushing Biden back under the magic 270-vote total to win. First the court would have to allow Paxton to file the suit. Then the court would have to block certification of the Electoral College vote, determine that the four states had allowed massive amounts of "illegal" votes, have the states revisit their vote counts and then resubmit the numbers. The court could also, Trump's filing suggests, let state legislatures determine who wins each state or throw the entire election to the US House of Representatives, where each state delegation would have one vote -- and since Republican delegations outnumber Democratic delegations, Trump would win.

Is there any precedent? No. "In a nutshell the President is asking the Supreme Court to exercise its rarest form of jurisdiction to effectively overturn the entire presidential election," said Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and University of Texas Law School professor.

The Supreme Court has 6 conservatives. Does that guarantee Trump will win? No. The court has thus far shown no desire to intervene in the presidential election. On Tuesday, it rejected the plea from Pennsylvania Republicans to invalidate the state's presidential tallies. It issued one sentence and noted zero dissents. (Justices don't always have to make their votes public.) Trump has suggested publicly that he hopes his nominees -- Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch -- will side with him on any election dispute. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are also ones to watch. No justice is required to recuse him or herself from the dispute; Barrett, notably, did not recuse herself in the Pennsylvania lawsuit.

Read more here.

5 min ago
These are Biden's top contenders for attorney general

From CNN's Jeff Zeleny and Evan Perez

The role of attorney general remains the biggest outstanding position in the Cabinet yet to be named by President-elect Joe Biden.

Three leading contenders for the post are: Sen. Doug Jones, Judge Merrick Garland and Sally Yates, people familiar with the matter say, after Jeh Johnson informed allies late Tuesday he would not be serving in the Biden administration.
Here are key things to know about the possible contenders:

Jones: The Alabama senator who lost his race in November, is seen as the leading candidate to run the Department of Justice, people close to the matter say, particularly given his long-standing friendship with Biden and his strong civil rights record. He also fits a pattern developing among several key Cabinet nominees: Biden is turning to people with whom he has strong relationships, are seen as competent and could face an easier road to confirmation."All signs point to Doug Jones," a person close to the Biden transition tells CNN, but noted that Biden had not informed candidates of his final decision.

Garland: The judge has also been under consideration for weeks. Some people close to the process say his candidacy has become more serious over the last week and he remains an option. Yet his nomination also faces more challenges than Jones, including a more complicated confirmation battle, the vacancy it would create on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and questions from civil rights groups. Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court was blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the final year of the Obama administration

Yates: A former deputy attorney general, would also likely face a more difficult confirmation than Jones. As a 30-year career official at Justice, it's also an open question whether she is best suited to lead the department in the post-Trump era. During her time as deputy attorney general, she stood by while then-FBI Director James Comey, who reported directly to her, repeatedly violated Justice Department policy in handling the Hillary Clinton email probe.

CNN has previously reported that Lisa Monaco, a former Homeland Security adviser in the Obama White House who worked closely with Biden on his vice presidential search, is also under consideration for the attorney general post. Deval Patrick, the former Massachusetts governor and former civil rights chief at the Justice Department, was also being considered.

A Biden transition official said a decision had not yet been made and a formal announcement is not expected this week.

Read more here.

33 min ago
Electors will formally cast votes on Monday. Here are key dates to watch until Biden's inauguration.

Analysis from CNN's Zachary B. Wolf and Will Mullery

Americans who went to the polls on Election Day didn't actually select the President directly.

They were technically voting for 538 electors who, according to the system laid out by the Constitution, meet in their respective states and vote for president and vice president once the popular vote totals are completely counted and certified. The electors are set to meet Monday to cast their votes for US president.

These electors are collectively referred to as the Electoral College, and their votes are then forwarded to the president of the Senate, who counts them in a joint session of Congress after the new year.
Here's a look at some Monday key dates Dec. 23 from now until Inauguration Day: Jan. 3

Electoral votes cast: In law, this date is the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. This year it falls on Dec. 14. Six days after disputes are supposed to be settled, electors are supposed to meet in their respective states and cast votes for US president. They certify six sets of votes and send them to Washington. Many states have laws requiring their electors to support the winner of their state's election and can levy fines against faithless electors who go their own way.

Jan. 6

Electoral votes must arrive in Washington: The certified electoral votes have nine days to get from their states to Capitol Hill.

Jan. 20

New Congress is sworn in: Members of the House and new members of the Senate take the oath of office at noon. This is the official start of the 117th Congress.

Electoral votes counted: Members of the House and the Senate all meet in the House chamber. The president of the Senate (that's Vice President Mike Pence) presides over the session and the Electoral votes are read and counted in alphabetical order by two appointees each from the House and Senate. They then give their tallies to Pence, who announces the results and listens for objections. If there are objections or if there are, somehow, multiple slates of electors put forward by a state, the House and Senate consider them separately to decide how to count those votes.There are 538 electoral votes - one for each congressman and senator plus three for Washington, DC. If no candidate gets 270, the 435 members of the House decide the election. Each state gets a vote. The House has until noon on Jan. 20 to pick the President. If they can't, it would be the vice president or the next person eligible in the line of presidential succession.

Inauguration Day: A new president takes the oath of office at noon. In a disputed election, if the House has not chosen a President but the Senate has chosen a vice president, the vice president-elect becomes acting president until the House makes a choice. And if there's no president-elect and no vice president-elect, the House appoints a president until one is chosen.

What you need to know

President-elect Joe Biden will introduce a slate of key administration picks today, including veterans affairs secretary. Here's who Biden has selected for his Cabinet so far.

All 50 states and DC have certified their presidential election results and the Electoral College process moves forward Monday with the meeting of electors.

President Trump continues to rail against the results and is asking the Supreme Court to invalidate millions of votes in battleground states.

1 min ago
Key things to know about the Supreme Court lawsuit from Texas and Trump challenging Biden's win

From CNN's Ariane de Vogue and Dan Berman

Although all 50 states have certified their election results and although the Supreme Court swiftly rejected an emergency request from Pennsylvania Republicans to block election results in the commonwealth, the justices are now grappling with a new controversial bid from Texas, supported by President Trump and 17 other Republican-led states.

They are asking the Supreme Court for an emergency order to invalidate the ballots of millions of voters in four battleground states - Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - even though there is no evidence of widespread fraud.

Critics of the President and his allies say the case reflects an audacious and legally dubious gambit to keep the lawsuits flowing in order to prolong baseless claims that President-elect Joe Biden's victory was somehow illegitimate.
Here's what you need to know:

Who is suing? Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit Tuesday. The President on Wednesday filed a motion to intervene - basically a request to join the lawsuit, asking for the same result. Seventeen GOP states are backing the effort as well.

What do the Republicans want? Essentially, to swing the election to Trump. They're asking for the court to block the electors from Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, pushing Biden back under the magic 270-vote total to win. First the court would have to allow Paxton to file the suit. Then the court would have to block certification of the Electoral College vote, determine that the four states had allowed massive amounts of "illegal" votes, have the states revisit their vote counts and then resubmit the numbers. The court could also, Trump's filing suggests, let state legislatures determine who wins each state or throw the entire election to the US House of Representatives, where each state delegation would have one vote -- and since Republican delegations outnumber Democratic delegations, Trump would win.

Is there any precedent? No. "In a nutshell the President is asking the Supreme Court to exercise its rarest form of jurisdiction to effectively overturn the entire presidential election," said Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and University of Texas Law School professor.

The Supreme Court has 6 conservatives. Does that guarantee Trump will win? No. The court has thus far shown no desire to intervene in the presidential election. On Tuesday, it rejected the plea from Pennsylvania Republicans to invalidate the state's presidential tallies. It issued one sentence and noted zero dissents. (Justices don't always have to make their votes public.) Trump has suggested publicly that he hopes his nominees -- Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch -- will side with him on any election dispute. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are also ones to watch. No justice is required to recuse him or herself from the dispute; Barrett, notably, did not recuse herself in the Pennsylvania lawsuit.

Read more here.

5 min ago
These are Biden's top contenders for attorney general

From CNN's Jeff Zeleny and Evan Perez

The role of attorney general remains the biggest outstanding position in the Cabinet yet to be named by President-elect Joe Biden.

Three leading contenders for the post are: Sen. Doug Jones, Judge Merrick Garland and Sally Yates, people familiar with the matter say, after Jeh Johnson informed allies late Tuesday he would not be serving in the Biden administration.
Here are key things to know about the possible contenders:

Jones: The Alabama senator who lost his race in November, is seen as the leading candidate to run the Department of Justice, people close to the matter say, particularly given his long-standing friendship with Biden and his strong civil rights record. He also fits a pattern developing among several key Cabinet nominees: Biden is turning to people with whom he has strong relationships, are seen as competent and could face an easier road to confirmation."All signs point to Doug Jones," a person close to the Biden transition tells CNN, but noted that Biden had not informed candidates of his final decision.

Garland: The judge has also been under consideration for weeks. Some people close to the process say his candidacy has become more serious over the last week and he remains an option. Yet his nomination also faces more challenges than Jones, including a more complicated confirmation battle, the vacancy it would create on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and questions from civil rights groups. Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court was blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the final year of the Obama administration

Yates: A former deputy attorney general, would also likely face a more difficult confirmation than Jones. As a 30-year career official at Justice, it's also an open question whether she is best suited to lead the department in the post-Trump era. During her time as deputy attorney general, she stood by while then-FBI Director James Comey, who reported directly to her, repeatedly violated Justice Department policy in handling the Hillary Clinton email probe.

CNN has previously reported that Lisa Monaco, a former Homeland Security adviser in the Obama White House who worked closely with Biden on his vice presidential search, is also under consideration for the attorney general post. Deval Patrick, the former Massachusetts governor and former civil rights chief at the Justice Department, was also being considered.

A Biden transition official said a decision had not yet been made and a formal announcement is not expected this week.

Read more here.

33 min ago
Electors will formally cast votes on Monday. Here are key dates to watch until Biden's inauguration.

Analysis from CNN's Zachary B. Wolf and Will Mullery

Americans who went to the polls on Election Day didn't actually select the President directly.

They were technically voting for 538 electors who, according to the system laid out by the Constitution, meet in their respective states and vote for president and vice president once the popular vote totals are completely counted and certified. The electors are set to meet Monday to cast their votes for US president.

These electors are collectively referred to as the Electoral College, and their votes are then forwarded to the president of the Senate, who counts them in a joint session of Congress after the new year.
Here's a look at some Monday key dates Dec. 23 from now until Inauguration Day: Jan. 3

Electoral votes cast: In law, this date is the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. This year it falls on Dec. 14. Six days after disputes are supposed to be settled, electors are supposed to meet in their respective states and cast votes for US president. They certify six sets of votes and send them to Washington. Many states have laws requiring their electors to support the winner of their state's election and can levy fines against faithless electors who go their own way.

Jan. 6

Electoral votes must arrive in Washington: The certified electoral votes have nine days to get from their states to Capitol Hill.

Jan. 20

New Congress is sworn in: Members of the House and new members of the Senate take the oath of office at noon. This is the official start of the 117th Congress.

Electoral votes counted: Members of the House and the Senate all meet in the House chamber. The president of the Senate (that's Vice President Mike Pence) presides over the session and the Electoral votes are read and counted in alphabetical order by two appointees each from the House and Senate. They then give their tallies to Pence, who announces the results and listens for objections. If there are objections or if there are, somehow, multiple slates of electors put forward by a state, the House and Senate consider them separately to decide how to count those votes.There are 538 electoral votes - one for each congressman and senator plus three for Washington, DC. If no candidate gets 270, the 435 members of the House decide the election. Each state gets a vote. The House has until noon on Jan. 20 to pick the President. If they can't, it would be the vice president or the next person eligible in the line of presidential succession.

Inauguration Day: A new president takes the oath of office at noon. In a disputed election, if the House has not chosen a President but the Senate has chosen a vice president, the vice president-elect becomes acting president until the House makes a choice. And if there's no president-elect and no vice president-elect, the House appoints a president until one is chosen.

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us election 2020: latest news on the trump-biden transition

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By Meg Wagner

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US election 2020: Latest news on the Trump-Biden transition

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What you need to know President-elect Joe Biden will introduce a slate of key administration picks today, including veterans affairs secretary. Here's who Biden has selected for his Cabinet so far. All 50 states and DC have certified their presidential election results and the Electoral College process moves forward Monday with the meeting of electors.