Ripped from the Headlines: October 2020: This Week In Words: Current Events Vocab for October 3–9, 2020

The former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called on the current CDC head to admit that the administration has failed to confront or control the pandemic. Dr. William Foege, an epidemiologist who led the victory over smallpox, wrote a letter to Dr. Robert Redfield saying that the public deserved an open accounting of the failures, calling the situation "a slaughter and not just a political dispute."

The Trump campaign is cancelling advertisements in Midwestern states and increasing spending in the Sun Belt and Nevada. The campaign says that it's confident about the Midwest, particularly Ohio, but some Republican strategists question this decision and suggest that the campaign is short on money. Congruent is Latin for "agreeing" or "consistent."

President Trump returned to the Oval Office after leaving the hospital and briefly isolating in the White House residence. Since people with the virus are considered highly likely to be contagious at this stage of the illness, staff are required to wear protective gear when interacting with him, though masks are still optional in the White House. Convalesce is Latin, meaning "to recover health."

After President Trump was hospitalized with Covid-19, a number or prominent White House staff and Republican officials have tested positive, as have members of the military and civilian White House staff. The White House has said that it will not be doing contact tracing to determine who else may have been exposed. Experts believe that many of these people were infected during the reception for Amy Coney Barrett, the President's nominee to replace Justice Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.

Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris met for the vice presidential debate in Salt Lake City, Utah. The event was less chaotic than the first presidential debate, though the Vice President talked over the moderator extensively and both candidates dodged questions they did not want to answer. This was the only scheduled meeting between the two.

As the President's poll numbers fall, some Republicans in vulnerable races are beginning to separate themselves from him. The debate, his hospitalization, and his announcement that any financial stimulus to help the economy will have to wait until after the election have all contributed to growing unease within the party. While many Republicans are optimistic, saying the President enjoys broad support, some senior G.O.P. officials fear that the next month will not be good for them.

While the coronavirus pandemic rages, the opioid abuse epidemic continues to be a serious problem. After a 4 percent reduction in 2017, overdose deaths reached an all-time high last year. Proxy comes from procuracy, which originated in the Latin procurator: a manager, agent, steward, or attorney.

A recent report shows that high-level officials in the Trump administration pushed for the separation of families at the border regardless of the age of the children concerned. When the policy of prosecuting all undocumented immigrants began in 2018, Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General at the time, told prosecutors "we need to take away children." Then-deputy AG Rod Rosenstein said that it didn't matter how young the children were.

The House Judiciary Committee released a 449-page report that says big tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are abusing their power and have grown too large, effectively becoming monopolies that suppress competition. Members of the committee said that if Joe Biden wins the election, they're confident that he'll use the report to guide his administration's policies on the tech sector.

Last month was the hottest September on record, according to the European Copernicus weather service. It averaged almost one degree Fahrenheit warmer than September of 2019, which had broken the previous record. The warmer climate has made wildfires, flooding, and severe storms worse, and experts say that the trend will continue as long as carbon levels in the atmosphere continue to rise.