National Association of Hispanic Journalists: 40+ Fourth Estate Partners Launch Nationwide Campaign to Show Gratitude for Journalists During COVID-19

The following is a guest blog post from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists: Washington, D.C. With the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is hardly the place it ever was before. Emerging just at the end of 2019, the virus has spread throughout the world, disrupting billions of lives and creating unprecedented crises in first-world and third-world nations alike. As ever, people are adapting and learning to operate on a new norm to combat the pandemic. Journalists are no exception. Information about COVID-19 is changing at an alarming rate, and like many other essential workers, journalists are risking their health and working long hours to keep covering stories that help to show the data, inform communities, and ask the hard questions of government officials. According to a new Pew Research Center Election News Pathways survey conducted from March 10-16, 2020, “The COVID-19 pandemic has caught Americans’ rapt attention. Roughly half of U.S. adults (51%) are following news about it very closely, with another 38% following it fairly closely.” More and more, the public is depending on the press for accurate information on what is happening locally, nationally, and globally. “In a time when misinformation means life or death, we are relying even more on our journalists to provide accurate and accessible information,” said NAHJ Executive Director, Alberto B. Mendoza. “Our journalists deserve recognition for providing the public with the insight they need, to do their part in combating this pandemic and remaining healthy.” As essential workers during this time, journalists have a difficult role of creating impact, as they too are being impacted. With this campaign, Americans everywhere can seize the opportunity to #ThankAJourno and express their appreciation for #PRESSential workers’ services to the world. A commitment fulfilled, despite the unavoidable hardships in a global pandemic. Comprised of a coalition who represent every essential area of the fourth Estate, the #PRESSential campaign will serve to inform the public of the critical work done daily by journalists, unite the world in a spirit of gratitude for the press, and celebrate individuals and newsrooms for their diligence in serving their communities. In addition to the NAHJ, the core coalition includes the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), ACES: The Society for Editing, American Journalism Project, CBS News, Center for Community Media at Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, Center for Public Integrity, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Craig Newmark


E.U. strikes deal to help hardest-hit countries, as strain of coronavirus threatens to fracture the bloc

ROME — In the countries hit hardest by the coronavirus, Europe's faltering response to the pandemic turned into a wounding indictment of the continent's unity, accelerating feelings of Euroskepticism and prompting Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to warn that the bloc faces a "real" risk of collapse. Although the immediate crisis has, for now, been averted with a deal announced late Thursday that would send hundreds of millions of euros to the hardest hit countries, the fractious debate over how to respond to the virus’s vast economic fallout bore resemblance to the euro-zone crisis of a decade ago, with the economically fragile south trying to win support from countries in the more stable north. In Italy, nationalist politicians for years have bashed the European Union, but this time it’s been the pro-E.U. establishment in Rome that wondered whether the bloc was failing one of its most critical tests. “There is no doubt that if our response isn’t strong and unified, if Europe fails to come up with a monetary and financial policy adequate for the biggest challenge since World War II, for sure not only Italians but European citizens will be deeply disappointed,” Conte said in an interview with the BBC. [Coronavirus live updates: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves ICU] The frustration in Italy started building after E.U. countries last month were slow to come to Italy’s aid with medical supplies. The E.U. belatedly stepped up its efforts, but resentment crested as leaders bickered over how to support the bloc’s stricken economies. A Thursday meeting of E.U. finance ministers ended with a $590 billion compromise after days of bitterness, but it was clear that tough discussions would continue over future rounds of rescue efforts. Italy, as well as Spain, France and several other nations, had asked that newly issued debt be shared across the bloc. An alternative involved extending loans with tough conditions to the most economically vulnerable countries, similar to the aid to Greece during the financial crisis. The Netherlands was Italy’s main opponent, backed by Germany, Finland and other wealthy nations. The deal — which still needs to be signed off by national leaders — would use the euro zone’s bailout fund to offer up to $262 billion in credit lines to struggling countries. In a nod to Italy’s concerns, the demands placed on countries that sought the money would be minimal. An additional $109 billion would


The silver lining to coronavirus lockdowns: Air quality is improving

dramatically changed air-quality level from medium to good.” Zhu noted that emissions and meteorology are playing a role in improving Los Angeles’s air quality, as the weather at this time of year favors less stagnant air conditions, while factories and other emissions sources, such as cars and trucks, have decreased. There’s a growing recognition that the coronavirus can be more harmful to those with greater exposure to air pollution, making it a potential risk factor along with such underlying health conditions as diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure. A study published this week from researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health concludes a small increase in long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution causes a large increase in the risk of dying of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. “The study results underscore the importance of continuing to enforce existing air pollution regulations to protect human health both during and after the COVID-19 crisis,” the study states. For example, the study, which examined more than 3,000 U.S. counties, found that each increase in long-term exposure to fine particulate pollution of one microgram per cubic meter is associated with a 15 percent greater likelihood of dying of covid-19. This stark difference may be explained by the lung damage such pollution causes over time. Covid-19 targets the lungs and can cause patients to develop pneumonia. In addition to cuts in NO2 emissions, the coronavirus lockdowns have caused the relentless climb in carbon dioxide emissions to have a temporary hiccup, and the cancellations of tens of thousands of flights also could have consequences for our planet by reducing planet-warming emissions and high-altitude cirrus cloud formations. Ryan Stauffer, a specialist in air pollution at NASA, said additional studies are needed to determine how the coronavirus-related mitigation measures have affected air pollution. “We all have this hunch” about how air pollution has changed, Stauffer said, adding, “The longer this goes on, the more we will see.” He said in an interview that NO2 emissions have been declining in the country overall in recent years because of air pollution regulations and that spring tends to be a period of relatively low concentrations because NO2 breaks down easily in the presence of sunlight. It will take time for scientists to sort out how much of the variations in NO2 levels in 2020 are from to coronavirus-related changes in human activities, such as reduced driving,


As a warming climate delivers more rain, overwhelming sewers and polluting waterways, one city is trying a green solution

in low-income parts of a cash-strapped city such as Philadelphia. The challenges have mounted with the novel-coronavirus outbreak, as Slavet has moved programs online and encouraged people to get out in nature while observing social-distancing guidelines. Some parks have fliers up, but not this one, and Slavet has been working with a team to make laminated signs. “There’s a lack of information in Spanish,” she said. “I am sure other languages, too.” A citywide map of the new installations suggests that some lower-income neighborhoods have been slower to accept free rain barrels or make simple adaptations such as putting in planters and the porous paving stones that are recommended by RainCheck, a three-way partnership between the water department, the nonprofit Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and the Sustainable Business Network, which coordinates with subcontractors. “The education and advocacy is crucial,” said Zachary Popkin, program manager at PHS, who said almost 8,000 people have taken part in required workshops. “Maintenance is really important.” The reason becomes obvious as Popkin tours completed projects in West Philadelphia, pointing out an entire block where neighbors have banded together to reduce runoff with below-grade tree plantings, as well as individual houses where owners have installed rain gardens on front lawns, ripped up driveways and replaced them with porous materials, and attached brightly colored 55-gallon barrels to their downspouts. These systems work only if filters are kept clean and barrels are emptied before a storm so that they can collect as much water as possible when the skies open. David Krueger, who replaced his driveway with porous paving about seven years ago said he decided to fill in some gaps in the new pavers after they proved to be a tripping hazard. Still, he remains an advocate for the program. “With climate change, rainfalls are going to get worse, and we wanted to be part of the solution,” Krueger said. There is no easy way to measure the program’s more ambitious goals of improving the triple bottom line — making Philadelphia a better place to live socially, environmentally and financially — by beautifying neighborhoods, reducing summer heat and creating green jobs. Published research and the water department’s own surveys suggest “participants overwhelmingly feel that green storm water infrastructure projects are a good investment,” said Deputy Water Commissioner Marc Cammarata. While residents speak with gratitude about the improvements rain gardens bring to communal areas, a few complain that trash


The Technology 202: MIT researchers unveil effort to trace spread of the coronavirus

a post that called for shooting “every Asian we meet in Chinatown.” Instagram has since removed the post for running afoul of its policies. The Finkelstein-led effort and a separate group of researchers saw peaks in racist slurs at the beginning of the pandemic and when President Trump used the term “Chinese Virus” on Twitter last month. The hashtag #ChineseVirus appeared 130,000 times the day after Trump used it in a tweet, my colleagues report. “When it becomes normalized ... it dehumanizes Chinese and Asians,” Russell Jeung, chair of San Francisco State University’s Asian American studies department told my colleagues. “It’s like equating them to a face mask and equating them to the disease, so it’s easy to scapegoat and attack them.” NIBBLES: Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) is calling on congressional leadership to consider legislation to ensure venture capital-backed start-ups can access the federal government's small business relief program. The congresswoman said the guidance the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration have issued is insufficient, and many companies are still confused about whether they're eligible. “I continue to hear from start-ups and lenders that the ambiguity surrounding this issue is standing in the way of SBA-approved lenders from issuing [Paycheck Protection Program] loans to startups,” she wrote to House and Senate leadership yesterday. “I ask you to explore a legislative solution to ensure that startups can access the funding Congress is making available to small businesses” The SBA offered some additional guidance easrlier this week about the rules preventing many tech start-ups from applying. But the limited guidance has left start-ups scrambling to change their relationships with investors and banks still reluctant to extend loans, Emily Birnbaum and Biz Carson at Protocol report. Eshoo, who cites broad support for a solution from fellow lawmakers and over 200 general counsels for tech companies, wants Congress to make the rules crystal clear before more start-ups have to shutdown. “We cannot let this terrible pandemic lead to irreparable damage to our most innovative and vibrant businesses and their workers,” Eshoo wrote BYTES: Twitter removed a feature allowing all users to limit sharing some information The company says the change will allow advertisers to track how effective their campaigns are on Twitter. If the company can show that people are actually watching and interacting with ads, it can continue operating as a free service to consumers, it says. People can still prevent sharing of


China should be legally liable for the pandemic damage it has done

of human-to-human transmission.” On Jan. 15, the head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention declared on state television that “the risk of human-to-human transmission is low.” These were lies, and Beijing knew it. More than 1,700 Chinese medical workers had been infected. As China lied, it intentionally hampered U.S. efforts to prepare for the virus’s arrival on our shores by refusing to share samples with us. U.S. officials became so frustrated that they tried a back channel — asking the director of the biocontainment lab at the University of Texas, which had a research partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to see whether he could get samples. The Post reports that “At first, the lab in Wuhan agreed, but officials in Beijing intervened Jan. 24 and blocked any lab-to-lab transfer.” That intervention came one day after Beijing finally imposed a belated lockdown on Wuhan — which means even after Chinese officials finally publicly acknowledged they were battling a pandemic they were still obstructing the U.S. response. It took Beijing more than two months after the first case appeared to impose that lockdown. That coverup had deadly consequences. A University of Southampton study found that if Beijing acted just three weeks sooner, the number of covid-19 cases might have been reduced by 95 percent — which would have prevented a pandemic. And China’s lies and obstruction are ongoing. The U.S. intelligence community has reportedly concluded that Beijing is underreporting both total cases and deaths it has suffered from covid-19 — denying U.S. scientists accurate data they need to understand how the virus behaves. This is more than mere negligence; it is active disinformation and obstruction. Why are Chinese officials so determined to cover up the outbreak? Perhaps because, as David Ignatius recently reported, the virus might not have originated organically in Wuhan’s wet market. It might have begun instead as an accidental lab release of bat coronavirus from the Wuhan branch of China’s CDC less than 300 yards from the market — perhaps through the infection of a lab worker, a leaked sample or poor hazardous waste disposal. If so, that would add an additional layer to China’s culpability. China must be held to account for its lies and obstruction. U.S. health-care workers and business owners recently filed the first lawsuits against the Chinese Communist Party for its complicity in this pandemic. Congress should help them and others


Seattle area used early social distancing, testing, to help begin flattening the coronavirus curve

SEATTLE — One unseasonably warm day in late March, dozens of people streamed into a popular park in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood to stroll the pathways, walk their dogs and play soccer. Suddenly, a police cruiser appeared and drove through the park, lights flashing. "Your current conduct is placing yourself and your fellow Seattleites in danger," an officer announced over the loudspeaker, "and I'm asking you to leave this area." The police action in Cal Anderson Park on March 21 was part of a swift and unusually bold response to the novel coronavirus outbreak that appears to be helping Seattle and surrounding King County avoid the worst predictions about the crisis. By implementing widespread testing, quarantining the homeless and waging an aggressive campaign to enforce stay-at-home orders — including by using highway toll records, traffic cameras and Facebook data — the region is bringing the virus under control. Though King County was the site of the nation's first deadly outbreak, the latest data shows the rate of infection is slowing, hospitalizations are dropping and the numbers of deaths and new cases are expected to peak this week. Despite a feud with federal officials that cost the region thousands of promised test kits, officials here say they are cautiously optimistic. The approach has gained attention, and praise, across the country, largely because it stands apart from other states that waited to implement social distancing policies until after outbreaks became overwhelming. As beaches remained open and spring break parties raged in Florida, Mardi Gras celebrants hit the streets in New Orleans, the mayor of New York went to the gym, and several governors flaunted dinners out on social media, Seattle tried to shut itself down. "One thing that stands out in terms of blunting the velocity of the virus is how quickly in the Seattle area . . . they were able to institute social distancing," said Lee Riley, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and chair of the university's Division of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology. "That's probably the big factor in all of this. In Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Korea and other places where they saw early success, you saw the same thing." Last week, Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force response coordinator, credited Washington state and California for their early reactions to the crisis. "They brought together their communities and their health providers and they


We did this to ourselves

his cohort will compile what he calls an “atlas” of viruses to help us understand how to curb future outbreaks and create vaccines that would wipe out not only covid-19, but covid-20, -21 and others to come. So where are we supposed to look? Viruses are already lurking among mammals everywhere, and among birds, too. The planet hosts more than 1.6 million of them. Approximately 700,000 could infect people. PREDICT discovered 2,000 over a decade. The virus that causes covid-19 is only the seventh coronavirus known to have infected humans, Carroll explained to me from Washington’s District Wharf, where he lives on a boat. Yet scientists estimate there are about 4,000 other coronaviruses out there waiting to pounce. Of course, viruses have been around longer than we have, and so have bats, civet cats, pigs and other prime suspects in spreading diseases from outdoor markets to living rooms in all 50 states. But these so-called zoonotic spillover events, when a virus sneaks its way into us from the wild, are occurring two or three times a year more often than they did 40 years ago. And that’s not because viruses or bats or civet cats or pigs are doing anything too different; it’s because we are. “Viruses don’t spread,” Carroll says. “People spread viruses.” We’re multiplying. There are billions more of us every decade now, though it took hundreds of millennia just to hit the seven-figure mark. Think about disease, Carroll instructs, like the frequency with which you’d expect to bump up against someone in a crowd: the more people, the more collisions. And the collision rate between us and animals is rising, too, because we’re transforming their habitats into our own. We’re chopping down more trees in more places, gobbling up more and more land for livestock production, disrupting wildlife to enhance our own lives. We’re sending these livestock across oceans, and we’re sending ourselves across oceans, too, on business trips to Taiwan and beach vacations to Bali. Chinese poultry production has more than quadrupled since the 1970s. A fresh and timely study from the University of California and the University of Melbourne confirms the point: The risk of spillover is highest when species are hit by human exploitation and habitat destruction. The Black Death probably came to Europe over the Black Sea, aboard merchant ships filled with illness-shedding rats. Carroll rattles off a rogue’s gallery of other killer


As social distancing shows signs of working, what’s next? Crush the curve, experts say.

ago, before the most stringent lockdown policies went into effect. People in the United States have found warnings about the virus persuasive and are staying home, washing their hands, in many cases wearing facial coverings. But no one wants to do this forever. When do we return to normal life? Not too fast, many infectious-disease experts argue. Only when it appears that very few people are getting sick should the restrictions begin to be lifted, they say. And then would come a period of high alert, with officials prepared to reimpose the shutdowns should new infections reach a trigger point. “It is very hard to design a ‘little epidemic,’ ” writes Emma McBryde, an Australian infectious-disease modeler who has submitted for publication a paper arguing for the squash-the-curve strategy. “Go harsh in the beginning,” advises Yves Moreau, a data modeler at the University of Leuven in Belgium. “And then stepwise release measures, to make sure that the epidemic doesn’t take off again.” One number everyone looks at is the reproduction number, or R0 (known as “R naught”), which is the number of new infections generated by each infected person. Estimates of the R0 for this new virus have generally been higher than two. Only when the number is driven below one will the pandemic begin to wane. Lee Riley, a University of California at Berkeley professor of infectious disease, said aggressive mitigation should continue long after the reproduction number drops below one. How long? “I would say one month after you drive down the R naught to zero,” he said. Disease modelers and epidemiologists do not call the shots when it comes to something as momentous as the decisions on when and how to end the national shutdown. There are obvious, huge trade-offs between public health and economic vitality. The general public plays a key role, because restrictions are fundamentally adhered to on an individual, voluntary basis. The economy has cratered under stay-at-home orders. Millions of people are without jobs and the knock-on effects of this recession include an erosion of access to hospitals, surgery, health screenings, mental health treatments and therapies of all kinds. The pressure to reopen is already intense. Initial successes in driving down infection rates and deaths from covid-19 will create further, reciprocal pressure among public officials and business leaders to lift the restrictions. Success in driving down the numbers to more moderate levels will generate


A funeral and a birthday party: CDC traces Chicago coronavirus outbreak to two family gatherings

symptoms of the coronavirus. Two days after that, the other host got sick, too. A third family member who had hugged Patient A1.1 at the funeral also got sick. Around the same time, Patient A1.1, who was then still experiencing mild respiratory symptoms, attended a birthday party with nine other people. They hugged and shared food at the three-hour party. Seven of the attendees soon became ill. Within about a week of the onset of symptoms, the condition of the first dinner host deteriorated. The person was hospitalized, put on a ventilator and subsequently died. Another family member visited the dinner host at the hospital and — without any personal protective equipment, according to the CDC — provided “personal care” and gave hugs. Three days later, that person developed a fever and cough, too. Meanwhile, two of the birthday party attendees became critically ill and were put on ventilators. Both died. The five others experienced mild symptoms of cough and low-grade fever. While one of the critically ill patients was hospitalized, a family member and a home-care professional who visited that person developed probable covid-19, the CDC said. The visiting family member, in turn, probably transmitted it to a household contact. Three of the symptomatic birthday party attendees went to church six days after developing their first symptoms. Another church attendee who sat within one row for 90 minutes, talked to them and passed the offering plate with them also developed symptoms. The CDC hypothesizes that these clusters may have facilitated transmission of covid-19 more broadly in Chicago and that they show why social distancing measures — and in particular, avoiding gatherings with multiple people — have been critical as the virus moved out of retirement communities, cruise ships and other more contained places. In New Orleans, local officials blamed another type of “super-spreading” event, Mardi Gras, for accelerating the transmission there. Outbreaks also have been traced to a French ski resort and an Italian soccer game. “[T]hese findings highlight the importance of adhering to current social distancing recommendations, including guidance to avoid any gatherings with persons from multiple households and following state or local stay-at-home orders,” the CDC said. Read more: Who gets a shot at life if hospitals run short of ventilators? Medical ‘surge facilities’ are being set up on soccer fields, in state park cabins and converted convention centers Hospitals consider universal do-not-resuscitate orders for coronavirus patients


Local governments in D.C. region revise budgets, halt projects to blunt economic impact of covid-19

Alexandria officials have begun placing long-awaited projects such as a new Waterfront Park on hold. The D.C. government has frozen hiring and will forgo salary increases. And in Montgomery County, a proposal for a supplemental property tax increase is dead. The financial impact of the shutdown of businesses and organizations caused by the coronavirus pandemic is quickly coming into view. Local government officials said they stand to lose millions of dollars in revenue, which is certain to affect services. Several have begun revising their budgets and cutting spending. In Arlington, County Manager Mark Schwartz told the County Board that his staff estimates a nearly $56 million drop in revenue for the coming year’s budget. D.C. officials anticipate having to cut $607 million in spending in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and reduce spending by about the same amount in the upcoming fiscal year. “What was unthinkable two months ago is now in front of us,” Schwartz said. “Businesses have laid off staff, residents have lost jobs, schools have closed, and only the most essential functions continue. In over 30 years of my public service, I have seen nothing like this.” Schwartz ordered an immediate hiring slowdown, deferred capital projects and slowed discretionary spending. His revised budget maintains only the current levels of service, removes all salary increases, and places many projects on hold. A public hearing on the revised budget proposal and tax matter will be held April 23. The board is scheduled to vote April 30. Teryn Zmuda, deputy chief innovation officer and chief economist at the National Association of Counties, said counties across the nation are experiencing major financial effects, including revenue shortfalls and extensive costs from responding to the pandemic. She said counties are also continuing to providing critical services. “Budgets and the financial viability of our counties are being hit hard at the local level,” she said Wednesday during a conference call with reporters. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) this week froze hiring, salary increases and government travel. Exceptions are limited to the city’s coronavirus response, public safety, human services and school staffing. “Just as residents and businesses are making tough choices, the District will make tough choices, too,” Bowser said. D.C. Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey S. DeWitt said the District started the year with 77 days of reserves, the highest reserve levels in the city’s history. “On February 1st, when we


Hundreds of young Americans have now been killed by the coronavirus, data shows

most threatening to the old and compromised, no one is immune. For the very young — people under the age of 20 — death is extremely rare in the current pandemic. But it happens: The Post identified nine such cases. The risk appears to rise with every decade of age. The Post found at least 45 deaths among people in their 20s, at least 190 deaths among people in their 30s, and at least 413 deaths among people in their 40s. Determining a precise number for each category is difficult because of the divergent ways states present age groups. But The Post found at least 102 other deaths that occurred among people younger than 50. The true number of deaths among young people is probably even higher. Not all states provide data on coronavirus deaths sorted by age group. Some, like New Jersey and Texas, provided figures after being approached by The Post, while others, like California, did not. As a result, the figures above do not include data from some states, including several with sizable outbreaks. The percentage of younger deaths, which The Post has defined as people under the age of 50, varies widely among states. It is just 0.8 percent of all deaths in Massachusetts, but 8 percent in Louisiana and 9 percent in Illinois. By far the largest number of such deaths have come in New York, which has the country’s biggest outbreak. As of Wednesday, six New York residents under the age of 20, 33 people in their 20s, 118 in their 30s and 265 in their 40s had died. Even more young people are getting cases of serious disease that require hospital care to beat. In Colorado — where the state health department reports age data for both hospitalizations and deaths — 247 people under 50 have been hospitalized. Of these patients, nine have died. Data on more than 1,400 hospitalizations released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that just over 25 percent of people hospitalized with covid-19 were under age 50. Most of these young people suffered from underlying conditions such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension. But at least seven for whom the CDC had data had no outside health problems, underscoring that a small fraction of severe cases remain hard to explain. Similarly, in New York, 64 percent of patients between the ages of 30 and 39 who


virus. “Step one is to understand,” Casanova said. But if he can identify a mutation and test it in the lab, “step two is: How can you prevent it, how can you fix it?” Illnesses caused by inborn errors of immunity are helpful for understanding the behavior of a virus, he said, because they are “clean cases,” uncomplicated by age or underlying conditions. And they can often provide clues in the search for a cure. For example, Casanova has found people are more susceptible to tuberculosis when they have a pair of mutations that cause low levels of gamma interferon, a protein that fights the genus of bacteria that causes TB. Fortunately, he said, gamma interferon has been available as a drug for more than 30 years, making it a promising potential treatment for the disease. “That’s a very good example of what you can do once you understand a condition in patients with the genetic disorder,” he said. Back in Florida, Nicole Buchanan said she hopes her husband’s death hammers home to young people that the coronavirus can kill without exception. “All I can hope is that it opens up someone else’s eyes,” she said. “I don’t want anyone else to have to go through the pain my daughter and I are in.” Buchanan said that each passing day gets harder as she settles into the realization that Conrad is not coming home. She still wrestles with her anger that he was initially denied testing for covid-19 because he was young and healthy and had not traveled overseas. She still struggles with the fact she was never able to see him again after dropping him at the emergency room and going to park the car. Before she knew it, he was being treated and put on a ventilator, and no visitors were allowed given the outbreak. Even grieving is a lonely exercise. Her two brothers and their wives can’t come inside because of social distancing, she said, but they come during the day to her backyard to visit and offer support from a distance. There has been no memorial gathering for Conrad yet, even as he was cremated this week. For now, Buchanan keeps replaying the moment when a nurse held the phone to Conrad’s ear not long before he died, so that his wife and daughter could say their goodbyes. Together, they sang him Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”


U.S. authorities believe rising coronavirus death toll is indicator of past failures, but hope Americans have learned

an indication that the U.S. outbreak is nearing its peak. A computer model of the pandemic lowered its awful projections for the virus again Wednesday, predicting 60,000 American deaths this year, down from 92,000 a few days ago. No model actually knows the future, and estimates have been shifting frequently. A rising concern among many public health experts is the fate of states in the South and Midwest, where social distancing came later than other states or never, and where infections are creeping up. “We can prevent that by continuing the kind of mitigation that we’re now doing generally throughout the country,” Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious-disease doctor, said in an interview on Fox News Channel. He said he was particularly worried about Pennsylvania and Colorado. “Now is not the time to pull back at all. It’s the time to intensify.” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said Wednesday that his state had set records for infections and deaths from the virus. In Maryland, new infection numbers jumped by 25 percent in one day. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said the Washington region is just starting to climb: “We’re still several weeks away from the peak.” The U.S. outbreak of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is by far the largest of any country in the world, according to official figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University — with more than 425,000 infections, almost three times the number of cases reported by second-ranking Spain, which has 146,000. China, where the outbreak began, has reported about 20 percent of the number of cases as the United States — approximately 83,000 — but there is widespread doubt about the veracity of those figures. Worldwide confirmed infections crested 1.5 million Wednesday. President Trump continued his verbal attacks on the World Health Organization, arguing that the international body leading the fight against the virus has been too friendly toward China, and Wednesday he threatened to withhold U.S. funding to the group. “Very unfair,” Trump said of the group, noting that the United States pays more than China does to support its budget. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus immediately bristled at Trump’s criticism of the organization, saying countries should unify and avoid politicizing the virus “if you don’t want to have many more body bags.” New data released Wednesday reinforced the fearsome nature of the virus, deflating hopes that it is


The coronavirus emerged in D.C. one month ago. Here’s what the data tells us about its spread so far.

testing data has its limits. “Testing only symptomatic people isn’t even telling you the complete story,” said Lucy Wilson, an infectious disease specialist and faculty member at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County. “If you look at the testing data, it can be useful for a snapshot of the overall prevalence of disease in a population … but it’s not a complete picture of the disease.” Experts say the key data points to watch are not necessarily the number of known cases, but the use of health-care resources. “One of the important things to monitor is if the health-care system is overwhelmed. Are hospitals full? Are the ICU beds full? Are there enough ventilators?” Wilson said. “The indicator of whether our social distancing is working is whether we can take care of the people who are most severely affected by covid-19.” The District has, so far, been one of a handful of localities to release detailed demographic data on who is contracting coronavirus and dying from it. Men are slightly overrepresented in infections and deaths, making up 13 of the 23 fatalities. Racial data released this week shows black residents, who are 46 percent of the District’s population, account for nearly 6 in 10 deaths and a similar proportion of the reported cases where officials know the person’s race. More than half of the known cases in the District involve people over the age of 40, which is higher than the median age of 34 in the general population. Globally, seniors are most likely to die, and the average age of the dead in D.C. is 66. Washington has many more cases per 100,000 residents than the surrounding metro area, according to county-level data from Johns Hopkins University. The District is followed by Prince George’s and Montgomery counties in Maryland, and Arlington County in Virginia. Compared with other metropolitan areas, the D.C. metro area has roughly 1 death per 100,000 residents. That’s nowhere near the rate of hard-hit urban areas like New Orleans (29) and New York City-Newark-Jersey City (26). One thing that is certain from the first 30 days is that the pandemic’s grip on the District is far from over. “We are concerned that the next wave, if you will, if you consider New York City the first wave and other cities that we heard about,” Bowser said this week. “D.C. could be in the second wave.”


Coughing ‘attacks’ may be prosecuted as terrorism in war on coronavirus

British Columbia who recently published a book entitled “The Psychology of Pandemics.” Some are young adults engaging in “stress-induced antisocial behavior,” he said. “They wish this was all over, and they have a personal sense of invincibility anyway.” Another group, he said, has “more sinister” motivations, including a desire to be “agents of chaos.” The huge stress many people feel as a result of the pandemic is a factor, he said. “It’s protracted. It’s drawn out. You don’t know when it will end. You don’t know if the people around you are safe or infected,” Taylor said. “And, of course, this is the first pandemic that we’ve ever seen in the era of social media and Internet connectivity, which is accelerating the spread of fear.” The charges levied against those who allegedly intentionally spread or threaten to spread the virus varies by state and local jurisdiction. But many people involved in these cases have been charged with some form of making “terroristic threats” against others, in addition to more familiar charges such as assault. In late March, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen issued a memorandum to federal law enforcement officials around the country suggesting they might apply terrorism laws to those who threaten others with the spread of covid-19. “Because coronavirus appears to meet the statutory definition of a ‘biological agent’ ” under federal law, Rosen wrote, “such acts potentially could implicate the Nation’s terrorism-related statutes.” He pointed to laws regarding the handling or production of biological agents for use as a weapon and hoaxes involving biological weapons. Grewal believes the use of “terroristic” in these kinds of charges means something different from what many Americans might understand — and even what Rosen, himself, might have meant. “It’s really taking steps or taking measures to threaten the well-being of others,” Grewal said. “It’s not akin to, like, terrorism. It’s more focused on an individual.” Most jurisdictions agree that those offenses warrant arrest and some form of criminal charge. But unlike others, Grewal also defends an aggressive approach to policing infringements of social distancing and other restrictions. “Initially, we were in a posture of starting from a warning point of view. . . . But last week, we quickly shifted from warning into enforcement and into a zero-tolerance posture,” he said. “That’s really born out of guidance from our health department and messaging from our governor that the only tool


As the coronavirus spreads, so does online racism targeting Asians, new research shows

a “Chinese virus,” said Zhang, a computer scientist at the Helmholtz Center for Information Security, in Saarbrücken, Germany. Zhang said that “even as a man who is used to hearing racial slurs about Chinese people,” he was startled to discover the range and intensity of hateful language he found on social media once he began research for the paper. Like the others, he worried that the hostility already had spilled out in the offline world. “I always treat social media data as a good sensor of the real world,” said Zhang. Charissa Cheah, a psychology professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County who is leading another study examining discrimination against Chinese Americans during the pandemic, said anti-Chinese language such as “kungflu” and “batsoup” have their roots in historically racist tropes that have long been used to denigrate Asian Americans and cast them as foreigners no matter how long they have lived in the U.S. “Covid-19 is merely refueling processes that are already there,” said Cheah, whose research will also study Twitter activity related to the outbreak. “I worry that we might interpret these findings as, 'Oh it's covid-19 that’s causing it.' This is simply not true. The current pandemic is merely providing an outlet and making it easier to justify expressions of Sinophobia.” Another indicator of rising hostility toward China is the surging use of Twitter hashtags such as #BlameChina , #ChinaLiedPeopleDied, #ChinaVirus, #WuhanCoronaVirus and #ChinaCoronaVirus, according to an unpublished analysis done by Clemson University researcher Darren Linvill. The hashtag #ChineseVirus surged to nearly 130,000 uses the day after Trump used it in a tweet. Linvill, an assistant professor of communication, said the use was particularly prominent among accounts that regularly support Trump on Twitter. But he cautioned that the character of anti-Chinese expressions varies sharply across social media platforms, based on both the nature of the user bases and the extent to which platforms restrict behavior. Twitter, for example, has policies against hate speech. 4chan does not. “Anti-Chinese sentiment is rising, and it manifests itself differently in different places,” Linvill said. “On 4chan, it’s racist. On Twitter, it’s political.” Twitter spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said that the study by the international group of scholars, which like most academic research on Twitters relied a 1 percent sample of all tweets, may miss the “nuanced political context around content that is posted on Twitter.” She also said, “We have zero-tolerance policies


With baseball paused, the Nationals and José Andrés’s World Central Kitchen hustle to feed the needy

use of the stadium. Both the Nationals and their concessions partner, Levy Restaurants, are also contributing staff to the effort. But there are some limitations: The crews can’t walk on the field, which the team still hopes to use for games this season, and the park is not open to the public for meal pickup. The operation is purely a production and distribution operation, Mook said. WCK had been working out of the ThinkFoodGroup’s test kitchen — previously used for the Chefs for Feds relief program when the U.S. government was partially shutdown last year — to feed the hungry during the coronavirus outbreak. But because of the protocols required to confront a pandemic — social distancing between workers, packaging each meal individually — the smaller crew could produce only about 4,000 meals a day in the test kitchen on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Mook said. Executives with WCK and the Nationals “did a few tours of [Nationals Park], just to make sure how the logistics would operate, and kind of came up with a plan of how they would migrate from their existing operation, which was bursting at the seams, over here to the ballpark,” said Jonathan Stahl, vice president of hospitality and guest experience for the Nationals. There are anywhere between 30 and 75 people working at the park to produce and distribute food. They’re mostly working out of a single, large-scale kitchen, cranking out between 4,500 and 5,000 meals a day, including dishes such as oven-roasted turkey, beef fajitas and fish and coconut curry. But Mook said the operation can, with additional staff and funding, easily produce 50,000 meals a day. Most of the individually packaged meals are headed to distribution centers in highly impacted communities, but the crews at Nationals Park are also producing food for nonprofit groups, such as Miriam’s Kitchen and Dreaming Out Loud, as well as for hospital workers and first responders. Food and staff safety have been high priorities. WCK has fine-tuned its safety protocols in the weeks since the group started serving meals to the quarantined staff and passengers aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan, Mook said. Masks, gloves, hand-washing, social distancing, sanitation and temperature checks of staff are all part of the daily routine. “When people come in for the day, they get a temperature check. Their temperature has to be below 100 degrees in order to come


Birx and Fauci reject Fox News-promoted theory that coronavirus deaths are inflated

if everybody is being automatically classified, if they’re found to have covid-19, as a covid-19 death, we’re going to get a very large number of deaths that way, and we’re probably not going to have an accurate count of what the real death total is.” Hume has offered similar arguments on social media. The problem with Hume’s prostate cancer comparison is that prostate cancer, unlike viruses, occurs over a long time. It’s logical that a large number of people who have prostate cancer will die with it rather than of it — because they will have a lot of time to contract other deadly ailments. With the coronavirus, the odds that any large number of people who have it are dying in the brief period in which they contract it, but in which the virus itself isn’t a cause, is highly illogical. Much more logical is that they had conditions that were exacerbated by just such a respiratory disease, which is something health officials have been saying for months. If someone has had a lung ailment for years, for example, and suddenly dies within a week of getting the coronavirus, what are the odds that they would have died during that specific week without contracting the virus? Slim. There may be some such cases, but it’s not something that would account for any significant overcount — let alone the “thousands” Carlson cited. This argument also appeared Wednesday afternoon on Fox, via host Harris Faulkner. She played Birx’s comment and asked, “How many of those people had other health risks at play, though, and maybe it wasn’t in fact covid-19 that caused their death?” A Fox News medical contributor responded by saying, “I don’t think it’s going to be a significant difference.” Add another doctor who has now rejected this theory: Birx. She was asked about it at Wednesday’s briefing and referenced the point above about how the coronavirus exacerbates existing conditions. “ The other lead medical expert on the task force, Anthony S. Fauci, also made a point to weigh in, warning against such “conspiracy theories.” “You will always have conspiracy theories when you have a very challenging public health crisis. They are nothing but distractions,” he said, adding: “Let somebody write a book about it later on. But not now.” As has been widely reported, more convincing evidence suggests cases could be undercounted rather than overcounted. That’s because testing


With police sick, New Yorkers take pandemic distancing — and crowding — into their own hands

one told the Post. (The city has closed skate parks.) Solutions are urgent, officials said. Cuomo warned Wednesday that, although the alarming rise in new cases is leveling off and a few hospitals are discharging more patients than they are admitting, the potential remains for a ferocious resurgence if the “pause” that’s been in place for several weeks is rolled back prematurely. “I am more worried about the people saying, ‘the number of cases is coming down. It’s now safer,’ ” the governor said during a news conference. “It’s not. I am more afraid of the curve changing because people read into it something that is not there.” Of the nearly 1.5 million covid-19 cases reported worldwide, nearly a tenth are New Yorkers. And New York City’s police department is itself infected, with 7,000 officers — nearly 20 percent of the force — calling out sick, almost 2,000 testing positive for the virus, and 12 having died of covid-19 complications. As recently as mid-March, the NYPD’s Chief of Patrol Fausto Pichardo told officers in an internal video that they, along with health-care workers, should “keep working” even if they came in “close contact” with someone who had tested positive for covid-19. This was based on recommendations for essential workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the New York City Department of Health at the time. “They just need to take extra precautions,” said Pichardo. Typically, enforcing social distancing is telling crowds to move along. But sometimes it requires close contact — a risk not just for police but also for those gathering as well. The police department did not respond to questions about the number of fines it has levied. Thamkittikasem, the city’s director of operations, said that several arrests have been made for “repeated resistance to certain orders” — including for illegal gambling in bars. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D) office has locked handball courts, removed tennis nets and basketball hoops from public parks, and closed dog parks citywide. Initially, the mayor had said that depriving cooped-up children of the chance to run around in playgrounds was a last resort, but crowding required those to be shut, too. Everyday New Yorkers have also taken matters into their own hands. From his perch above McCarren Park in Williamsburg, the hipster heart of Brooklyn, bartender Eri Kurshan takes photos and videos of distancing violations. “They’re all huffing and


With games on hold, sports doctors and trainers are joining the coronavirus treatment effort

Less than 36 hours after his sports medicine clinic had transformed into a coronavirus first-response center, John Tabacco put on his surgical gown, an N95 respirator mask and two pairs of gloves before heading out to the parking lot to meet another frightened patient. A middle-aged woman, who had a fever and back pain and feared she had the virus that was infecting hundreds of thousands around the world, waited with her husband in an idling black Nissan Sentra. Tabacco approached, asked the man to get out of the passenger seat and climbed in to give the woman an abdominal exam. Tabacco had never performed curbside care like this, but the 38-year-old felt prepared in that frantic moment. As an internist for the Washington Redskins, he was accustomed to working around obstacles in chaotic locker rooms, and he knew how to communicate with injured players while diagnosing ailments on a football field. Just a month ago, Tabacco was tending to young teen athletes with concussions and elderly retirees with aching knees in Falls Church, Va., at PMA Health, an immediate care facility that specializes in sports injuries. Now he was trying to do his part on the front lines of the novel coronavirus pandemic, joining sports doctors across the country who are applying their skill sets in ways they never would have imagined. In Massachusetts, a sports medicine office morphed into a coronavirus testing facility. In Texas, a prominent sports medicine specialist left his practice to work shifts in an emergency room. In Ohio, an athletic physician is helping lead his county’s response to the crisis. In hot spots from Washington state to Indiana to Michigan, athletic trainers signed up to help shorthanded hospitals through an app that normally helps them find work on fields or in gyms. And in Florida, Tabacco’s mentor, renowned orthopedic surgeon James Andrews, suspended Tommy John surgeries for athletes at his clinic to comply with the state’s ban on nonessential medical procedures. So when Tabacco determined the woman in the car had a kidney stone and not the coronavirus, he felt he had contributed to the cause in some small way, offering immediate care to keep her from an emergency room bed that is becoming a dwindling commodity for virus-stricken patients. “What we do in sports medicine, seeing people in locker rooms, seeing people in their houses, that really is Coronavirus 101,” said Tabacco, who


Margaret Burbidge, who explored the universe’s distant reaches, dies at 100

was no women’s bathroom; undaunted, she used the telescope anyway after posing as an assistant to her husband, physicist Geoffrey Burbidge, who had turned toward astronomy while working as an assistant to his wife. “If frustrated in one’s endeavor by a stone wall or any kind of blockage, one must find a way around — another route towards one’s goal,” Dr. Burbidge wrote in a 1994 autobiographical essay, recalling her initial rejection at Mount Wilson. “This is advice I have given to many women facing similar situations. I tell them: Try it, it works.” Dr. Burbidge and her husband formed one of the most formidable husband-and-wife duos in modern science, writing numerous papers that combined Geoffrey’s focus on astronomical theory with Margaret’s observational skill. While he was large-framed and argumentative, chomping on cigars and criticizing the big-bang theory with anyone who would listen, she was diminutive and soft-spoken, reluctant to enter into public debates on the origin of the universe. Nonetheless, she had “the classic iron fist under her velvet glove,” astronomer Joseph S. Miller once said. She shocked many of her peers when, in 1971, she rejected the Annie Jump Cannon Award, an American Astronomical Society prize awarded to outstanding female researchers. “It is high time that discrimination in favor of, as well as against, women in professional life be removed,” she wrote. Her refusal of the award spurred the creation of a working group on the status of women in astronomy, and came one year before she was named the first female director of Britain’s Royal Greenwich Observatory, a venerable 300-year-old institution once led by Edmond Halley. The position had traditionally come with the honorary title of Astronomer Royal. But for the first time, the distinction went to someone else, one of Dr. Burbidge’s male peers. Dr. Burbidge, who later said she was not sure whether the slight was a result of sexism or scientific politicking, resigned less than two years later, then became the first female president of the American Astronomical Society in 1976. Delighting in complex mathematical calculations as well as the intricacies of optical astronomy, Dr. Burbidge studied the distance of stars, the rotations of far-off galaxies and the nature of quasars, or quasi-stellar objects, which electrified astronomers in the 1960s with their extreme brightness and radio-wave emissions. She went on to develop instruments used on the Hubble Space Telescope and was awarded the National


More coronavirus deaths reported at long-term-care facilities; Md. to provide racial breakdown of virus cases

The number of known coronavirus cases in the District, Maryland and Virginia was 8,926 on Tuesday, with 4,371 cases in Maryland, 3,340 in Virginia and 1,215 in the District. The number of virus-related deaths was 63 in Virginia, 103 in Maryland and 23 in the District, for a total of 189 fatalities. Here are some of the most significant and recent developments as the region responds to the pandemic of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19: • Maryland is considering leasing ice rinks to use as temporary morgues, part of its preparation for an increased number of coronavirus deaths. Officials stressed it would be a precautionary measure and no leases have been signed. • The greater Washington region on Tuesday reported nearly 900 additional coronavirus cases and another 21 fatalities. • D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) sent a letter Tuesday asking the head of the National Park Service to close the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials after crowds visited the locations over the weekend. • Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced Tuesday that the state will begin providing a racial breakdown of its coronavirus cases. Hogan’s decision comes a day after state lawmakers requested the data for positive cases, negative cases, deaths and hospitalizations. What a stay-at-home order means for you


The long, halting, confusing road to recovery from the coronavirus

She still has a bit of a cough and fatigue. Her doctor told her that her symptoms are probably post-viral and that she’s no longer contagious, but there’s no way to be completely sure. “I don’t know whether I’m really not contagious, and I don’t know whether or not I’m immune,” she said. SARS-CoV-2 could act like other coronaviruses that circulate in humans and cause colds. If so, a person who had the disease would probably be immune to catching it for a while. A year or two. One study of the original SARS coronavirus, which caused an epidemic when it emerged in China in 2003, showed that infected people had a full suite of antibodies to it for an average of two years but that afterward the antibodies declined. That said, people who have had covid-19 might not experience as severe an illness the next time they get it, because of partial immunity. This remains conjectural. Science says: Stand by for further data. Diana Berrent, a 45-year-old mother of two on Long Island, woke March 13 with a 102-degree fever and tremendous pressure on her chest. She tested positive for the coronavirus, but most of her symptoms cleared up after about three days, and she was never hospitalized. Her husband and kids ended up getting the virus, presumably from her, she says. They had milder cases. Berrent said she has been given conflicting guidance on when it is safe to interact with others. One doctor told her he didn’t know. A county health worker told her 14 days from the date of her positive test, but then another person said she needed two negative tests at least 24 hours apart. She asked how she could get those tests. She was told they weren’t available. She saw that New York City had put out guidance that mimicked the CDC guidance. She decided the best course of action was to stay at home. “I don’t feel comfortable being around anybody, to take a chance you could infect a single person,” Berrent said. Last week, she started a group, called Survivor Corps, that she hopes can ease the burden on health-care workers. “We could hold the hands of the dying without their loved ones, cheer on women in labor and, ultimately, we can go back to work,” she said. Jadon Hartsuff, the rector at All Souls Episcopal Church in the District, is


Miss dining out? Try one of these recommended restaurants for takeout or delivery

This is an unprecedented time for restaurants and beverage producers, who’ve seen their business models upended in a matter of days. To survive, they’re getting creative: Michelin-starred kitchens now offer curbside carryout, while breweries are taking deliveries into their own hands. Meanwhile, chefs increasingly view delivery apps as a lifeline. When your fridge is looking a little bare, or you can’t think about cooking after a day of working from home, here are local businesses looking for some support. While we are keeping this list updated, the situation remains fluid, and restaurants may decide to close at any time. Carryout-only options You won’t find some of D.C.'s most acclaimed restaurants on your favorite delivery app. Instead, you’ll have to make the effort to get their food for yourself. Trust us: It’s worth it. Call Your Mother: The “Jew-ish” Park View deli has reopened with a streamlined menu for takeout. The star remains the bagels, a New York/Montreal fusion with a chewy interior, which sell for $12 for six and $22 for a baker’s dozen. Half-pints of schmears range from plain to candied salmon cream cheese. Other options include smoked salmon and whitefish salad by the half-pound, sandwiches (on bagels or bread) and chocolate chunk cookies. Order online or call ahead, and you’ll receive a text when your food is ready. 3301 Georgia Ave. NW. 202-735-0760. Emilie’s: Chef Kevin Tien is known for his playful and wide-ranging menus, which might incorporate buttermilk fried chicken and orange kampachi crudo. But for his first takeout menu at his Capitol Hill restaurant, Tien is focusing on Vietnamese classics, including fried pork and shrimp rolls, banh mi and chicken curry. The menu is available daily between 3 and 8 p.m., and can be ordered by phone or email. 1101 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. 202-544-4368 or email FeedMe@emiliesdc.com. Little Serow: The tiny Thai restaurant, whose hot-and-funky flavors have earned it four-star reviews and a place in Tom Sietsema’s Restaurant Hall of Fame, offers Thai fried chicken, Mekhong whiskey-marinated pork ribs and hammered beef on coconut rice, among other favorites. Order online between 5 and 9 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and orders will be ready 30 to 90 minutes later. 1511 17th St. NW. littleserow.com. Maydan: Rose Previte’s restaurant is known for North African and Middle Eastern cuisine cooked over a giant open hearth, and while you won’t get to sit near the leaping flames, you can still


includes a number of dishes that have landed Rasika in our Restaurant Hall of Fame, including Goan shrimp curry, lamb biryani and some of the area’s best naan. (Available on Caviar) Stellina Pizzeria: The cacio e pepe pizza topped with toasted black pepper and a blend of hard and soft cheeses isn’t just a gimmick, it’s “genius,” according to Carman, who recently named it one of D.C.'s top pizzas. This Union Market-adjacent spot also offers its salads, sandwiches and popular Southern Italian-influenced appetizers for delivery, such as fried artichokes with herb mayo. (Available on Caviar) Drinks What’s a good meal without a beverage to accompany it? Distilleries and breweries are doing their best to get drinks directly into your hands. 3 Stars Brewing Anxo Cider: Prefer cider to beer? Anxo delivers its dry, tart and funky ciders to D.C. addresses between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday, with a $35 minimum order. Its Truxton Circle restaurant and Brightwood Park tasting room are open for to-go sales on alternative days Monday through Thursday, and both open on Friday and Saturday. Bonus for those craving caffeine: Anxo delivers locally roasted coffee from its Brightwood Park neighbors Lost Sock Roasters. anxodc.com. Aslin Beer Co.: A truck full of Aslin beer pulling up in the driveway sounds like a beer nerd’s dream. The Alexandria brewery’s hazy IPAs and fruited sours have made it popular far beyond its home market, but the for the first time, Aslin has started delivery. Pick and choose from a selection of four-packs ($11-$23), 32-ounce cans ($7-$18) and single cans ($8), and if your order is more than $75, Aslin will deliver your cases the next day for a $10 fee, as long as you live in the city of Alexandria or one in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun or Prince William counties. And you don’t even have to wait in line. aslinbeer.com/online-ordering. Bluejacket: The first D.C. brewery to offer direct-to-consumer delivery, Bluejacket sells 10 different beers in four-packs of 16-ounce cans, ranging from $12 to $18. The minimum order is $30, with a $3 delivery fee, though you must live in D.C. and within five miles of the Navy Yard brewery. Deliveries will be made daily between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. Check out Bluejacket’s menu to see which beers are available, then call the brewery or send an email to order. 202-524-4862 or email info@bluejacektdc.com. DC Brau: Washington’s


ICU doctors already know how to get covid-19 patients off ventilators faster

Italian physician, Luciano Gattinoni — as famous globally as National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director Anthony S. Fauci is — submitted a paper on 16 patients with covid-19 that was published just three days later. Everyone in the critical care community listened. With just four words in his journal article, “intubation should be prioritized,” tidal shifts in thinking occurred (likely much larger than Gattinoni ever intended), and the usual operating procedures shifted. A ventilator shortage accelerated, which sent policy planners scrambling for solutions. Covid-19 is “the story of dissemination of anecdotal medicine in a disease you don’t know, and the walk away from evidence-based medicine,” Christopher Thomas, a critical care physician at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Baton Rouge, told us. “And it’s driven by fear and anxiety.” Critical care itself is just 150 years old. During the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale requested to place the most seriously ill patients closer to the nurses’ station so they could be monitored more carefully. Specialized shock units were used in World War II to provide efficient resuscitation for the large numbers of severely injured soldiers. In 1952, in Copenhagen, the polio epidemic ballooned to 900 patients locally, which forced a medical response that thrust the discipline forward. Some providential and seemingly random connections between folks who met on a transatlantic ship journey led to the development and use of rudimentary ventilators, but there weren’t enough. Through the night and day, hundreds of nurses joined with approximately 1,500 medical and dental students to bag ventilate the tracheostomized polio patients manually. Thus, critical care was born — under conditions that seem eerily reminiscent of the stories we’ve been hearing from Bergamo and New York. Images of modern critical care from the 1990s show rows of patients, sedated into the Stone Age, unmoving, tethered to ventilators, families nowhere in sight. This was not an accident. Until about 20 years ago, patients were heavily sedated throughout their critical care stay with the dual goals of pain control and amnesia. Clinicians hoped to spare patients the discomfort and memory of the breathing tube and other procedures and — mistakenly — believed that if the patients appeared to be asleep, they would not remember anything of what went on. But when patients are sedated, they aren’t asleep. For many covid-19 patients, the nightmares of ICU delirium — caused by suspected brain invasion of the


How digital data collection can help track covid-19 cases in real time

Eric Topol, a cardiologist and geneticist, is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. Find him on Twitter @erictopol. Just as a downturn of confirmed cases of covid-19 and related hospitalizations is being seen in New York, there are increasing signs of new outbreaks in Philadelphia, Baltimore and the District of Columbia. That’s a foreshadowing of the challenges for gaining control of the pandemic. Americans can’t stay in lockdown indefinitely. We need a plan to reopen the country, an exit ramp from our immobility and our severely injured economy. And we can get closer to finding one, if we take advantage of already available digital data. Most of the plans for recovery hinge upon testing — both for the virus, to determine who has an infection, and for the antibodies to the virus, to determine who has recovered from it. But these important tests have major limitations. The test for the virus can produce false negative results. The antibody test is challenging because there is considerably cross-reactivity between covid-19 and four other coronaviruses, some of which cause common colds. Moreover, antibodies may or may not protect a person from spreading the virus or getting a second infection, and we have no idea how long they last. Finally, the logistics of getting a large proportion of 330 million Americans tested are obviously very difficult. Consider another approach. This year our team at Scripps Research published a paper demonstrating the ability to predict hot spots for flu by means of a smartwatch or fitness band. For our study, we looked at data from more than 47,000 consistent Fitbit users in five states recorded over a two-year period. (The users’ identities were not revealed to us.) The most important information was the resting heart rate, which we know is generally elevated before a fever as the body begins to mount a defense to infection. We found that when a cluster of people in one region showed heart-rate elevation, it predicted a subsequent rise in flu-like infections faster and better than models the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently use. On another front, the makers of a smart thermometer owned by more than 1 million Americans have reported that their temperature data, automatically relayed to the Internet, can indicate where clusters of people with flu, and more recently covid-19 infections, are occurring. Beyond that, Apple and Google are working on


a contact-tracing app to alert people — on an opt-in basis — if they’ve been in touch with someone known to have the novel coronavirus. An active symptom-checker app is in development. Even data such as Google searches for “I can’t smell” help to identify infection localities. Collectively, such measurements have the potential to achieve digital surveillance for most Americans because these strategies do not require everyone to participate. Like our traffic maps for driving, all we need are enough people’s smartphone signals to give accurate guidance to all. A couple of weeks ago, we launched an initiative called the DETECT study to capture smartwatch data — from almost any brand — to determine whether we’ll be able to predict an emerging risk zone for covid-19 infections. Recently, inspired by our publication of the heart rate and flu detection study, Germany launched a smartwatch app backed by their national Robert Koch Institute; more than 160,000 people have already enrolled. A plan to capture body temperature is in the works. The German case is noteworthy because of that country’s strong privacy concerns and position on limiting digital data collection. In facing the pandemic, however, the trade-offs for digital tracking were seen as worthwhile. Americans, too, have good reason to be wary of tech companies obtaining or sharing their data. But with digital tracking, we could zoom in on a small cluster or community emitting a signal suggesting an early but emerging covid-19 outbreak and begin extensive screening. We could trace what happens when individuals who test positive for antibodies return to work and re-circulate. Tech companies can be forced to ensure that only users who choose to participate will share their data, and that the data will be anonymized and used only for coronavirus research. There is a risk that this trust will be violated — but Americans who willingly share their location so their phone apps can help them avoid a traffic jam might well think the risk, and the trade-offs, are worth it to halt a pandemic. This year, some countries, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Iceland, successfully got ahead of the virus and contained their covid-19 outbreak. There has yet to be a precedent for any country preventing what is called the “second wave” — the expected reappearance of infections after the initial outbreaks subside. No other method provides continuous, real-time monitoring of people


Mystics postpone WNBA championship parade

The Washington Mystics officially postponed their WNBA championship parade scheduled for May 12 as the world continues to deal with the novel coronavirus pandemic, which has caused widespread cancellations of mass gatherings. The Mystics do not have a makeup date in mind as they wait and see when events resume. Washington defeated the Connecticut Sun in five games to win its first title. “The evolving coronavirus pandemic that has led to the postponement of the WNBA season has understandably also caused the postponement of the parade for our historic championship,” the team said in a statement. “We will continue to work closely with the WNBA, Mayor [Muriel E.] Bowser and public health officials as we look forward to a time when our team can safely play again. We continue to be inspired by the support of our tremendous community of fans, and we look forward to celebrating together in the District of Champions.” The WNBA has postponed the start of teams’ training camps and the regular season, originally slated for April 26 and May 15, respectively. The league will hold its draft April 17 virtually, without media, guests or fans. The parade route was still being finalized when the threat of the coronavirus put discussions on hold. Read more The WNBA was ascendant before the coronavirus changed everything. What happens now? Bradley Beal on all-star snub, Rui Hachimura and the Wizards’ ‘can’t guard a grandma’ defense Pickup basketball players, quarantined during an outbreak, have lost their courts and community


Readers critique The Post: This statue did not desperately need a mask

meaningless to say that a directorate exists because it’s on an organizational chart but doesn’t do anything. If the biodefense directorate still exists, what does it do as part of the office of the president? Len Zuza ● I am grateful to Sebastian Smee for highlighting Jean-Siméon Chardin’s “The Little Schoolmistress” in his March 29 Great Works, In Focus column, “A tender moment of teaching feels of now” [Style]. I agree — it truly is a lovely, touching moment in time, this teachable moment. The fact is these moments happen many, many times a day for students and teachers. That moment of connection, of understanding, sometimes of frustration, but ultimately of realization and discovery and learning. Chardin has captured this precious moment of humanity at its finest. Thanks for bringing it to our attention and reminding us of its value. Sandy Pugh ● The March 11 news article “Questions surround way Egypt is handling virus threat” projected a narrative that undermines Egypt’s efforts in combating the coronavirus and alleged that the Egyptian government is being nontransparent. To the contrary, Egypt has displayed utmost transparency since the discovery of the first case of covid-19 and firmly abides by the guidelines outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO). We continue to provide factual and detailed updates on a daily basis about the cases discovered in Egypt and have undertaken immediate measures to limit the spread of the virus. In a recent interview aired on CNN, the WHO representative in Cairo praised Egypt for its handling of the pandemic and its ability to control its spread because of its possession of one of the strongest detection systems in the region. A team of experts from the WHO concluded a covid-19 technical mission to Egypt on March 25. In a statement, they assured that Egypt is making substantial efforts to control the covid-19 outbreak and that significant work is being done, especially in the areas of early detection, laboratory testing, isolation, contact tracing and referral of patients. The statement added that Egypt’s strong disease surveillance system and contact tracing efforts have proved effective in controlling and managing cases before they can spread. At a time when the world struggles to contain this pandemic, accuracy becomes of the essence. Misleading allegations only create misperceptions at a time when families and communities are struggling to maintain their livelihoods. Yasser Reda The writer is the Egyptian ambassador


by the World Health Organization (WHO). We continue to provide factual and detailed updates on a daily basis about the cases discovered in Egypt and have undertaken immediate measures to limit the spread of the virus. In a recent interview aired on CNN, the WHO representative in Cairo praised Egypt for its handling of the pandemic and its ability to control its spread because of its possession of one of the strongest detection systems in the region. A team of experts from the WHO concluded a covid-19 technical mission to Egypt on March 25. In a statement, they assured that Egypt is making substantial efforts to control the covid-19 outbreak and that significant work is being done, especially in the areas of early detection, laboratory testing, isolation, contact tracing and referral of patients. The statement added that Egypt’s strong disease surveillance system and contact tracing efforts have proved effective in controlling and managing cases before they can spread. At a time when the world struggles to contain this pandemic, accuracy becomes of the essence. Misleading allegations only create misperceptions at a time when families and communities are struggling to maintain their livelihoods. Yasser Reda The writer is the Egyptian ambassador to the United States. ● Well into our second week of underemployed tedium, the truth dawned on us: We need the Peeps now more than ever! After three Peep-less springs, and in this time of global uncertainty, we believe the time is ripe for a return of the Peep (contest). So we did our own. We decided to limit our model materials to whatever was on hand in the house, plus, of course, the sugary stars of the show. We can only imagine there are like-minded people out there. We are planning for our grand unveiling before Easter weekend, in accordance with The Post’s tradition. We would love to see other entries: Bring back the Peep contest! Lauren ● Might this be a good time to bring back the Book World section with a few pieces on travel, rather than a Travel section (where are we going?) with a few pieces on books? Jim Gilroy ● The photograph that accompanied the March 29 news article “Latest sign recession is intensifying: White-collar workers are being laid off” was perfect to symbolize where we are right now: one lone human in a petri dish. I actually gasped when I saw it. More


The coronavirus tests society, politicians and institutions like never before

Regarding the April 6 news article “Giuliani, still a Trump confidant, touts unproven drugs”: You don’t have to be an avid fan of sci-fi to sense alarm at President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani’s slapdash approach to treatments for covid-19. By subjecting the virus in a living human being to a cocktail of assorted drugs outside a controlled laboratory environment, we may stress the novel coronavirus into mutating, perhaps into something benign or, perhaps, into something with a 50 percent mortality rate. Let the public beware: Actions have consequences. Crackpot schemes can lead to catastrophe. Kenneth Suskin Though John Pomfret The ongoing global pandemic, as he noted, shows how resilient open societies such as ours are. Washington may have dithered in its response, but this is not without precedent. Our country was slow to meet the last century’s international crises before bringing the full weight of its resources to bear. This time will be no different. When the pandemic ends, the United States will still boast the world’s most advanced economy, unmatched military might and a vibrant democratic culture that attracts talent from every corner of the globe. Buttressing our national power is a formidable set of alliances based on shared interests and values. Just as it is hard to see any of that changing in the post-coronavirus era, it is hard to see China or any other country successfully challenging the United States. American leadership may not endure for perpetuity, but it will for the foreseeable future. Daniel J. Samet The writer is program assistant at the Atlantic Council. Regarding the April 8 New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and his administration have done a great job of presenting information on New York’s covid-19 outbreak in a manner that gives a real perspective on trends and forecasts. He recently noted an apparent plateau in New York’s new hospitalizations and a decline in daily ICU admissions and intubations. The hospital discharge rate trend is also apparently encouraging. This is information the American public should have readily available for every state with a significant number of cases. Instead, we almost exclusively see information on new infections, which is heavily dependent upon the level of testing, and the number of new deaths, which is largely a lagging indicator. The hospital statistics are highly useful, as they are “real-time” and deal with the very serious cases that are of the greatest


Here’s how Trump is helping people fight addiction during the pandemic

relapse if their treatment is disrupted. Even briefly interrupting their medication makes them more likely to drift toward illicit drugs, with a much greater risk of fatal overdose. It is therefore crucial that federal, state and local leaders understand and communicate the complications posed by the covid-19 pandemic to treatment providers and those on the path to recovery. For that reason, the Trump administration is tirelessly working to identify and address federal laws and regulations that might impede treatment. For example, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is working closely with federal partners and has exercised its authorities to reduce barriers to treatment and streamline procedures. The federal government is greatly expanding telehealth options for opioid treatment programs, reducing requirements to perform in-person physical evaluations for patients treated by these programs and allowing for adequate social distance between providers and their patients in a clinical setting. During this national emergency, we are also granting blanket, state-level exceptions for patients in these programs to receive up to 28 days of take-home doses of treatment medication for opioid use disorder, so long as their provider assesses they are stable and can safely benefit from this increased flexibility. Our federal partners have issued updated guidance for patients quarantined at home and exemptions for allowing alternate delivery methods of medications to opioid treatment providers. Finally, we are continually providing guidance as states and private providers raise new issues that make continuity of care difficult to maintain. As our nation fights this pandemic, Americans should know that President Trump is committed to take any and all necessary steps to protect the lives, health and safety of the American people. We have made enormous strides in addressing our nation’s addiction crisis over the past three years. We cannot let that progress be yet another victim of the covid-19 pandemic. The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us. Read more Robert Gebelhoff: The solutions to the opioid crisis are clear. Trump just resists them. The Post’s View: Americans need to know the whole truth about the opioid crisis Robert Gebelhoff: The opioid epidemic is no mistake. It is the result of complicity and greed. Abdullah Shihipar and Brandon D.L. Marshall: What the opioid epidemic can learn from tobacco settlements Megan McArdle: The incredibly unpopular idea that could stem opioid deaths


Foreign policy challenges persist for a distracted U.S. in the midst of pandemic

at a time when the U.S. seems to be faltering, a time when it’s struggling to project its model,” said Robert Malley, the president of the International Crisis Group, an international security think tank. Strained relations will only grow worse as both countries experience rising unemployment, said Daniel Lynch, a professor of international relations at the City University of Hong Kong. “Once you get into the election campaign, Trump is going to be lashing out and blaming everyone he can. China will be at the top of the list,” Lynch said. “If there are several months of that, in a context in which the U.S. looks very pathetic because of its response to the virus, I think it could have some lasting damage.” More broadly, on issues tied to the pandemic and not, the U.S. voice at times has been overwhelmed by fast-moving facts on the ground, or a dearth of information. Japanese officials are loath to admit that the crisis has dented U.S. leadership in Asia, but the region has largely dealt with the pandemic without looking to the United States. From wearing masks to mass testing, the West has not been part of the conversation, and close allies Japan and South Korea — with far more experience dealing with epidemics — have largely found their own solutions. With the Trump administration notable by its absence, Japan has staked out its own leadership credentials, donating masks, money and medical supplies to China at the height of the outbreak in Wuhan. More recently, it arranged to send the antiviral, anti-influenza drug Avigan to at least 20 countries after it was found to have helped patients recover in China. While the eyes of the world are elsewhere, North Korea has conducted a series of missile tests — the most in a single month in March. Even before the virus outbreak, Kim Jong Un had moved to a more hard-line position on U.S. disarmament demands. Although he still seems to see some value in his relationship with Trump, Kim has taken advantage of the world’s distraction to continue to develop weapons systems. To some extent, the wheels of U.S. foreign and national security policy continue to turn, virus or no virus. When two Russian anti-submarine patrol aircraft entered the Alaskan air defense zone on Wednesday, they were intercepted by U.S. F-22 fighter jets. The State Department, with about 20 percent of its


How companies are confronting the unparalleled uncertainty of the coronavirus crisis

When JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon released his widely read annual shareholder letter, he moved most of the typical charts and discussion about the company’s performance to the end, focusing instead “on issues that relate to our current crisis.” His 23-page letter explained how the banking giant was dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, detailing different economic scenarios, explaining what it’s doing for employees and customers, and discussing the strength of its liquidity and balance sheet. But Dimon also wrote, “We do not know how this crisis will ultimately end, including how long it will last, how much economic damage it will do, or how fast or slow the recovery will be.” The “actual new crisis,” Dimon wrote, “while it shares attributes with what is being stress tested — is dramatically different from the expected.” In virtual boardrooms across America, managers are confronting unprecedented uncertainty as they try to communicate — with their investors, their employees and their customers — amid the all-consuming scope and scale of the pandemic. Finely tuned scenario plans are being upended, project timelines are getting cast aside and conventional playbooks are proving insufficient as managers face a health and economic crisis with no modern parallel. In some cases, “we are no longer in crisis management, we are in chaos management,” said Davia Temin, eponymous founder of a reputation and management consulting firm. “You can do certain things and mitigate a crisis. This is out of our hands to some degree now.” The communications challenge to investors will hit center stage in the coming weeks, as companies that haven’t opted to delay first-quarter earnings — as the SEC is allowing — report results and the spring annual shareholder meeting season hits its peak. Communications firm Sard Verbinnen & Co. has been tracking public companies that are withdrawing, suspending or revising 2020 financial guidance and has tallied over 540 so far from news stories, client reports or other publicly available information. “We’ve seen some companies redefine and essentially surrender to the idea of no timelines,” said Bruce Haynes, who co-chairs Sard’s covid-19 task force. “Businesses exist on being able to provide that kind of information accurately. They can’t do that now, and that’s an incredible struggle.” For Tim Ryan, U.S. chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, uncertainty has been one of the most challenging aspects of the crisis. “The hardest thing is not having an answer when you’re used to having


The Daily 202: GOP senator’s coronavirus plan: Get federal government to cover 80 percent of wages.

fears that small towns like the one he grew up in will not recover without dramatic government action. He’s worried that vultures will take advantage of the crisis to line their own pockets. That’s why the senator wants to strengthen disclosure requirements that would make it harder for activist investors and hedge funds to buy up companies and force layoffs and liquidations. “The number one thing is that this crisis should not be opportunity for profiteering by Wall Street,” Hawley said. “It should not be that a select few folks on Wall Street are able to make out like bandits from this while the rest of our nation suffers.” “Hospitals across the country have deferred or canceled non-urgent surgeries to free up bed space and equipment for covid-19 patients. But that triage maneuver cut off a main source of income, causing huge losses that have forced some hospitals to let go of health-care workers as they struggle to treat infected patients,” Shane Harris, Justin Sondel and Gregory Schneider report. “Hospital executives and analysts emphasize that not all the furloughed or fired workers are directly involved in treating covid-19 patients. Others say the furloughs help reduce the number of people in hospitals, slowing the spread of the virus. But the absences have put a strain on doctors, nurses and other health-care workers treating a surge of patients that has already stretched some health-care systems to the breaking point. Remaining front-line workers face longer hours, and some have seen their pay cut and benefits reduced. For hospitals already in bad financial shape before the outbreak, the loss of income has raised doubts about their ability to keep treating patients.” New York City has 87,725 confirmed cases of covid-19, including 21,571 hospitalizations and 4,778 deaths. “At a base down the road from Niagara Falls, a specialized unit from the New York Air National Guard had spent years preparing for one of the military’s grimmest missions: find and recover the bodies of those killed in a chemical attack, natural disaster or other mass tragedy,” Paul Sonne reports. “But when their deployment orders arrived March 21, they were sent to do a job their practice sessions didn’t foresee. … [New York City’s] medical examiners, who pick up the bodies of those who die unattended by a physician or in unexplained circumstances, were on the verge of being overwhelmed. … [So they] have been carrying body


The Kennedy Center should reconsider furloughs for the Opera House Orchestra

I was happy to learn in reading the April 8 Style article “Deal averts furloughs for NSO musicians” that Kennedy Center President and chief executive Deborah Rutter There was no mention of the other orchestra at the Kennedy Center: the Opera House Orchestra. Its members were treated similarly with no change of mind on Ms. Rutter’s part. They are a great orchestra, along with the National Symphony Orchestra, and an indispensable part of what makes the Kennedy Center the cultural institution that it is. I would like to promote awareness of the situation in which this poor stepsister orchestra at the Kennedy Center finds itself. As someone who retired from the National Symphony Orchestra in 2014, I know that we need to rally behind the wonderful musicians of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra and urge Ms. Rutter to reconsider her actions with them as well. Jackie Anderson Read more letters to the editor.


Tokyo Olympic official hints that 2021 isn’t a guarantee

medicines and vaccines.” Last month, in announcing that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics would be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the Games would be held in full in 2021 ″as a testament to victory over the infection.” On Tuesday In announcing the state of emergency, Abe said the risk of infection in Tokyo was “not really high” compared with other cities overseas. But Tokyo recorded 189 new cases of the coronavirus Friday, pushing its total over 1,700. Japan has had more than 5,500 cases, with the caseload rising by around 500 per day over the past few days, compared with an average daily increase of 40 to 50 three weeks ago. With the world’s oldest population, Japan is considered especially vulnerable to the coronavirus. Abe also declined to order residents to work from home, instead asking that companies institute remote working where possible. Japan’s corporate culture prizes face-to-face interaction as a matter of respect, and the country’s failure to update its technological infrastructure means telework is not an option for many. During a March 25 conference call with reporters, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said the Games will be held “at the latest in the summer 2021″ and did not mention staging them any later than that. Bach did say “we will organize a Games only in a safe environment for all the participants.” Around that time, IOC member Dick Pound told The Washington Post that Olympic organizers will continue to monitor the spread of the virus before making further changes to the Olympic schedule. “Well, we had a prime minister many years ago who used to say, ‘We’ll jump off that bridge when we get to it.’ What you hope is, in 16 months the containment strategies will have become effective,” Pound said. “You’ll be that much closer to a vaccine. Maybe it’ll be not normal-normal, but it’ll be sufficiently normal to go ahead. If those circumstances change, that’s the next elephant in the room. We would again rely on the World Health Organization and the other public health authorities to give their advice or rulings.” Said Muto on Friday: “We have made the decision to postpone the Games by one year. So this means that all we can do is work hard to prepare for the Games. We sincerely hope that come next year mankind will manage to overcome the coronavirus crisis.”


South Korea is winning the fight against covid-19. The U.S. is failing.

As the coronavirus spreads rapidly around the world, killing thousands and leaving governments scrambling to deal with the fallout, one country has repeatedly drawn praise for its efficiency in dealing with it: South Korea. After the first cases appeared, the South Korean government ramped up testing at a speed almost unimaginable in the United States. Its swift response slowed the spread of the virus and saved thousands of lives. As of April 8, South Korea had suffered 200 deaths due to the virus (4 per 1 million of population) and the number of new cases has slowed, while the United States had suffered 13,000 deaths (39 per 1 million population) with new cases continuing to grow quickly. How did this happen? For many it is baffling that a relatively small Asian country could succeed where much of the rest of the world tragically failed. Was it South Korea’s experience dealing with another respiratory epidemic illness, Middle East respiratory syndrome, in 2015? Its excellent and affordable health-care system? Its cultural values? Mask-wearing? Some of these factors doubtless accelerated South Korea’s rapid deployment of testing stations and its subsequent efforts to identify and treat patients. But the efficient South Korean response also hinged on two historically rooted factors: the close cooperation between the state and the private sector, and the South Korean public’s willing and almost enthusiastic embrace of a large-scale medical intervention. The origins of both of these phenomena lie in the South Korean experience of rapid industrialization and nation-building during the Cold War. After the first cases of covid-19 were reported in South Korea on Jan. 20, the government recognized the need for prompt and comprehensive action. According to Reuters, South Korean Health Ministry officials called a meeting with representatives from medical companies in January when only four cases of the virus had been confirmed. The health officials told the executives that the country needed to have tests ready in short order, and they promised rapid approval by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In scarcely one week, the government had approved a test kit developed by Kogene Biotech and would soon fast-track the approval of test kits developed by several other companies. The endeavor was so successful that by March, 47 countries were seeking to import South Korean test kits. Compared with President Trump, who has squabbled with 3M and General Motors over the production of masks