Cruise lines are already canceling sailings into 2021

Princess Cruises announced Tuesday that it’s canceling sailings in early 2021 “due to limitations with border and port access.” The company also cited the “uncertainty of airline travel” as a reason for the cancellations, which will impact 29 sailings on two ships. The Carnival-owned cruise line made headlines earlier this year after hundreds of passengers became infected with the novel coronavirus on multiple ships. The Island Princess and the Pacific Princess ships will not sail as planned until at least April 2021, the company said. The cruises included the World Cruises and Circle South America, with some sailings up to 111 days. American ports on those voyages were Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale. “We share in the disappointment of this cancellation for guests of our world cruises because it’s a pinnacle cruise vacation experience, booked by some of our most loyal guests,” Princess Cruises president Jan Swartz said in a news release. Princess’s decision follows an announcement from British cruise line Cunard, which said Tuesday that it is halting some sailings until May. “Cunard has extended its pause in operations to sailings up to March 25, 2021 for Queen Elizabeth, April 18, 2021 for Queen Mary 2 and May 16, 2021 for Queen Victoria,” the company said on its website. Earlier this month, Miami-headquartered Crystal Cruises said it was canceling into January. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a no-sail order on cruise ships through Sept. 30, which bars any new passengers from boarding ships in U.S. waters. The cruise industry itself has canceled U.S. cruises past the order’s date, until at least Oct. 31. Princess operates a global fleet of 18 cruise ships, two of which — the Diamond Princess and the Grand Princess — saw a combined 800 total coronavirus cases and 10 deaths in March and April 2020, according to the CDC. A Washington Post investigation found that the Coral Princess was among scores of ships that continued voyages even after early outbreaks on other vessels, carrying thousands of international passengers and helping seed the virus around the globe. Read more: A cruise in Italy denied a family re-embarkation after they broke the ‘social bubble’ Cruise lines are working on their comeback. Some destinations say not so fast. Has your travel bucket list changed during the pandemic? You’re not alone.


The Daily 202: Trump puts fresh spin on ‘law and order’ during Republican convention

That’s how Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn described the blood product’s effectiveness on Sunday at a news conference at the White House, when Trump announced the agency was authorizing use of the plasma on an emergency basis to treat covid-19. … But the 35-out-of-100 claim wasn’t accurate,” “Circuit Court Judge Charles Dodson, in a 16-page decision, granted the request in a lawsuit filed by the Florida Education Association (FEA) to block the order issued July 6 by state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran compelling schools to reopen five days a week for families who did not want their children to do all virtual learning. Districts were threatened with loss of state funding if they did not comply,” Maskless crowds packed bars and lined up to enter house parties in college towns across the country over the weekend “Few here in Texas’s lower Rio Grande Valley have been left untouched by the pandemic’s lethal reach, as the virus has ripped through the border region, infecting tens of thousands of people and killing more than 1,500 just in the months after Texas thought it had escaped the virus’s grip and started to reopen,” “Covid-19 cases are proportionally higher and have spread faster in prisons than in the outside population, said Brendan Saloner, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who is studying the issue. Saloner told The Post federal public defenders contacted his team with troubling details from clients. ‘Their contention is that it’s worse in the [Bureau of Prisons] than in the state prisons,’ he said,” “Marco, the first of what was to be a double-hurricane threat to the U.S. Gulf Coast this week, fell apart Monday as it neared Louisiana, sparing the region — for a few days at least. Louisianans and Texans quickly turned their attention to Tropical Storm Laura, which poses a serious threat to each state as it churns northwest through the exceptionally warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico,” “As temperatures cooled and winds calmed over the weekend, firefighters gained ground on the LNU Lightning Complex fire, burning across a fatigued wine country north of San Francisco, and the SCU Lightning Complex, which has been threatening the eastern outskirts of San Jose and cities as far south as Gilroy,” “The decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers marks another reversal for the project, which had been blocked by the Obama


Why German researchers held a large indoor concert during the pandemic

were hooked up to tracking devices. “I hope that this study will help to keep the joy of life up around the world,” said Michael Gekle, dean of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg’s faculty of medicine. The researchers said they received hate mail and faced questions over the safety of participants, along with concerns that the event could put the eastern city of Leipzig, which has seen comparatively few infections so far, at broader risk. Organizers aimed for 4,000 participants, but less than half showed up. But Gekle and his colleagues maintained the safety measures were sufficient. Germany has recorded far fewer coronavirus cases per capita than the United States and other hard-hit countries, but case numbers have begun to rise again. Over the past week, the country has reported 10.5 new cases per 100,000 residents — more than twice as many as two months ago. Since the pandemic began, Germany has seen more than 235,000 confirmed cases and more than 9,000 deaths. It remains to be seen if Saturday’s simulation can make a substantial contribution to the drive to restart events. But the idea of inviting a large crowd into a confined spaced under controlled conditions has already inspired other scientists around the world. Stefan Moritz, who headed the experiment, said he was aware of three similar projects being planned or pondered in Australia, Belgium and Denmark in response to the Leipzig test. The experiment may also spark similar efforts by private companies or sports teams. German Bundesliga soccer club Union Berlin announced last week it had applied for permission to host a test game with 3,000 fans. Under the club’s proposal, a negative coronavirus test requirement would replace social distancing rules in the stadium. Even though Saturday’s experiment simulated a concert, the idea was driven by the economic woes of a local Leipzig handball club that hosted well-attended matches in the arena before the pandemic. Club officials fear that the lack of (or too few) spectators could drive them and others into bankruptcy, even though matches themselves have largely resumed. Many venues face a dilemma: Events with a few well-spaced spectators may not be profitable, while more crowded events may risk exposing participants to the coronavirus. Finding a balance was a goal of Saturday’s research. To identify high-risk practices, the Leipzig concert researchers looked at three scenarios. In the first, participants pretended the pandemic did not exist. No social


Another routine the pandemic has disrupted: Your period

When my period was a week late, it brought three questions to mind: Am I pregnant? (I’m 46 and have two kids. Another child is not part of the plan!) Am I perimenopausal? Or is it just stress from this pandemic? Turns out, I’m not alone in having an unpredictable menstrual cycle during the coronavirus pandemic. After seeing some online reports about this trend, I spoke with several gynecologists who confirmed that many of their patients are reporting skipped periods or have noticed increases or decreases in cycle length, blood volume and level of menstrual-related pain. “It’s common for us to see patients with changes in their menstrual cycle, but anecdotally, it seems like it’s been happening more over the last six months,” says Beth Schwartz, an OB/GYN at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del. “I definitely think covid-19 is playing a role in that.” After all, the pandemic has upended our normal routines and jacked up our anxiety. And stress levels can affect the menstrual cycle, as can changes in work schedules (or job status), sleep patterns, eating habits and exercise routines, which many of us have experienced since March. But how can you tell what’s causing variations in your cycle and whether you need to check in with your doctor? I asked the experts for their advice. It helps to understand how menstruation is regulated. “Most people think the control of the menstrual cycle resides in the uterus, but it doesn’t,” says Mary Jane Minkin, a gynecologist at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. “It resides in your brain.” Specifically, it resides in the hypothalamus, which manages the pituitary gland and controls the release of different hormones, some of which trigger the ovaries to make estrogen and progesterone. These two hormones thicken the lining of the uterus to prepare the body for pregnancy. If you don’t get pregnant during a cycle, hormone levels drop and the lining of the uterus sheds. This is the bleeding we know as menstruation, or simply, your period. (Interestingly, some data show that women fare better than men who get covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and researchers hypothesize that estrogen and progesterone may play a role. Researchers in New York and Los Angeles are treating male covid-19 patients with these hormones to see if they help support


‘Will Purdue last?’: University restarts in person amid pandemic

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Outside an engineering building here, Lauren Johnson offered pandemic-safety gear to students hustling to the first classes of the fall term. But no one who had passed her so far on this blue-sky morning needed a "Protect Purdue" mask. “I would say a majority of students are abiding by the regulations right now,” Johnson said Monday. “It’s not a perfect world, and we’re going to have some people not follow the rules.” The 22-year-old senior from West Lafayette belongs to a squadron of Purdue University safety “ambassadors” paid $9.50 an hour to promote measures the public institution is taking to protect its campus from the novel coronavirus. Purdue has become a national poster school for the push to bring students to campus and teach in person despite the public health crisis — a push that in many other places has failed or is in deep jeopardy. The wave of fall reopenings, now accelerating, has exposed the fragility of plans that once seemed solid. The University of Notre Dame put in-person teaching on a two-week hiatus after virus cases surged. Butler University, in Indianapolis, flipped to remote instruction for two weeks as it opened Monday after noticing what it called “a lack of compliance” with health guidelines among “a relatively small proportion of our students.” The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scrapped face-to-face classes entirely for undergraduates on Aug. 17, a week after classes began. Coronavirus cases connected to UNC-Chapel Hill rose sharply in the past week as more than 30 percent of those tested were found to have the virus. Ohio State University officials recently disclosed they have issued more than 200 “interim suspensions” of students for potential violations of health and safety rules related to the pandemic. The University of Alabama System this week is reporting 566 coronavirus cases since Aug. 19 among students, faculty members and staffers. That includes 531 on the flagship campus in Tuscaloosa, where in-person classes are underway. On Tuesday, the University of Virginia started online with hopes of switching to in-person classes after Labor Day. Much is riding on whether Purdue’s plans to teach in person remain on track or succumb to the virus. If Purdue is forced to pivot to an online-only semester, other public universities could face pressure to follow suit, said Christopher R. Marsicano, an assistant professor of the practice of higher education at Davidson


New coronavirus cases signal wider outbreak in Gaza

The Gaza Strip has been under degrees of lockdown since 2007, when Israel and Egypt imposed blockades after the militant group Hamas took control of the impoverished Palestinian territory. The same conditions that make life a daily struggle there, and that have obstructed even the most basic preparations for the looming threat of a coronavirus outbreak, have perhaps made it harder for the virus to find a toehold. That could be about to change. The few points of entry to the coastal enclave of nearly 2 million people largely closed in March. But on Tuesday, authorities imposed a 48-hour lockdown after reporting the first four confirmed cases of the virus in the general population. By Wednesday, nine more cases had been discovered in two different areas. The territory also reported the first death related to covid-19 contracted through community spread. For months, aid agencies have warned that the silent transmission of the virus through the conflict-weary strip could be calamitous. Gaza has one of the densest populations on Earth, a collapsed health-care system, and small supplies of electricity and clean water. Health-care workers are bracing for further signs of a wider outbreak among already vulnerable communities. “Having this happen on top of the existing health system challenges is a matter of concern for us,” said Ayadil Saparbekov, the head of the World Health Organization’s local health emergencies team, according to Reuters. “We have been beefing up our support before this event by providing medical equipment and personal protective equipment as well as laboratory testing equipment.” Before Tuesday, Gaza had confirmed 109 coronavirus infections and one death, all among people in quarantine. Since March, Hamas has ordered anyone returning to the strip to spend 21 days in a government-run isolation center. International journalists and many humanitarian workers are barred from entering via the designated crossing point with Israel. The four cases from Tuesday were reported after a woman who procured an Israeli permit to travel from Gaza to Jerusalem for medical reasons tested positive for the virus upon arrival. That led Gaza authorities to uncover a cluster at al-Maghazi refugee camp, where she lived, in a dense and dilapidated neighborhood near the center of the territory. Although all four people who tested positive were members of the same family, authorities quickly imposed a curfew and announced a 48-hour shutdown of businesses, schools, cafes and mosques. Six of the nine cases reported


the population relies on the United Nations for food aid. The lockdown comes amid escalating tension in recent days across the Gaza border between Israel and groups linked to Hamas. Palestinian militants have sent incendiary balloons into Israel as part of an effort to pressure Israel to ease the blockade. In response, the Israelis carried out airstrikes on Hamas-linked targets and closed Gaza’s only fishing zone and commercial crossing. Israel also suspended its fuel shipments to the territory’s only power plant, which shut down last week as a result. Daily electricity allocations have been reduced to two to four hours a day. “We are calling on all concerned parties to maintain a supply of electricity that is sufficient to meet the basic needs of the civilian population,” Matthias Schmale, the director of U.N. Relief and Works Agency affairs in Gaza, said in a statement. “All parties must show utmost restraint and protect the civilian population with full respect for their dignity and human rights.” Israel and Hamas fought three wars in a decade, plus countless flare-ups. As part of its stifling blockade, Israel prohibits the entry of materials that it says could have a dual purpose in weapons manufacturing. Gaza has faced severe medical shortages and has only about 100 ventilators, half of which are already in use, according to the Associated Press. Israel, Egypt and Hamas have all imposed further restrictions on entering or exiting the territory in response to the pandemic. It is difficult for Palestinians in Gaza to procure a permit to travel into Israel or the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but many try for better medical care. Rights groups in Israel have called on the government to help facilitate medical access for sick Palestinians now affected by the additional closures. “If even well equipped health-care systems in European countries have found handling this crisis difficult, then the Palestinian health-care service, which bears the burden of budget shortages and decades-long fragmentation, is likely to fare much worse,” Dana Moss and Ghada Majadle of Physicians for Human Rights Israel wrote in the Lancet. Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the United States, seized control of the territory in 2007 after it ousted its main Palestinian rival based in the West Bank. Its ultraconservative rule and corruption have angered many Palestinians in Gaza, but under the territory’s repressed conditions, no political alternatives have taken hold. This report has been updated.


Fireflies’ glow is thanks to a special lantern

Go outside as the day turns to dusk, and you might just see a soft green glow rising out of the weeds. And while these flickers sometimes resemble the supernatural, we know that they actually belong to a very special beetle called the firefly. These beetles, which are also known as lightning bugs, are a sign of summer, and many people have fond memories of catching the harmless insects in Mason jars as kids. But how many people know what puts the fire in the firefly? It all comes down to a chemical reaction, says Sara Lewis, a firefly expert at Tufts University in Massachusetts. You see, fireflies have a specially evolved organ on their undersides called a lantern. “And that lantern houses a couple of really, really cool chemicals,” says Lewis, who is also the author of “Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies.” One is a large enzyme called luciferase. And the other is a molecule called luciferin, which is much smaller. And when these two chemicals come together, like a baseball fitting into a glove, they attract other ingredients, such as sulfur, oxygen and ATP, which is basically like raw energy. As all of these molecules come together, the tiny luciferin molecule gets really excited, says Lewis, and that causes it to give off light. Scientists call this reaction bioluminescence (pronounced bi-o-lu-mih-neh-sens), but Lewis prefers another term. “Bioluminescence is such a mouthful,” she says. “I think of it as living light.” There are more than 2,000 firefly species throughout the world, and each has evolved its own unique patterns of flashes, rather like different languages. In most, the living lights are used as a way to locate and then impress potential mates. But the beacons also serve as defense. “There’s pretty good evidence that firefly bioluminescence first evolved as a warning signal,” Lewis says. After all, fireflies are slow in the air and would make easy pickings for a silent, super-fast flier such as a bat. But they taste terrible because they’re full of toxins that make them deadly to other animals, Lewis says, and their glowing butts seem to remind their predators of that fact. Interestingly, the peaceful little flashers we see on a summer evening are only the very last phase in the firefly’s life cycle. Most adults live for just two weeks, Lewis says. But firefly babies, called larvae, spend about two years underground,


Universities sound alarm as coronavirus cases emerge just days into classes — 530 at one campus

More than 500 cases at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Nearly 160 at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Colleges and universities that brought students back to campus are expressing alarm about coronavirus infections emerging as classes have barely started, raising the possibility everyone could be sent home. “The rise we’ve seen in recent days is unacceptable, and if unchecked, threatens our ability to complete the rest of the semester on campus,” University of Alabama President Stuart Bell said at a news conference on Monday, five days after classes resumed, as the mayor of Tuscaloosa temporarily closed bars and warned that the local health system could become overwhelmed. While a growing number of schools have backed off reopening, opting instead for online classes, others are hoping a host of new rules and adaptations can keep the coronavirus at bay. They are requiring masks, mandating testing and threatening students and campus groups with penalties for partying. Ohio State University said this week that it had suspended 228 students for virus-related violations. Despite the precautions, schools are quickly discovering large outbreaks that have prompted new soul-searching about students’ commitment to social distancing and universities’ ability to deliver even a dramatically transformed on-campus experience. Speaking Monday, Bell declined to blame young people’s lack of caution and emphasized that it is up to the university to work with everyone to minimize infections. “Our challenge is not the students,” Bell said, though he acknowledged that multiple students are facing discipline for breaking coronavirus rules. “Our challenge is the virus.” Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox, who joined Bell at the Monday news conference, said the university had requested his executive order closing bars for two weeks and eliminating bar service at restaurants. He said “the ever-increasing number of coronavirus cases on campus will create two major disruptions for Tuscaloosa if left unabated” — stretching the city’s health system and threatening its economy, which includes thousands of university jobs. Among students, faculty and staff tested across the University of Alabama System, 566 have had positive results for the virus since Aug. 19, according to a dashboard that is being updated. Those numbers do not include “entry testing” conducted to make sure students leave home coronavirus-free. The overwhelming majority of the new cases, 531, are at the flagship campus in Tuscaloosa. “The truth is that fall in Tuscaloosa is in serious jeopardy,” Maddox said. Other officials are striking


To counter China, some Republicans are abandoning free-market orthodoxy

federal contracts for companies that outsource to China. Proponents of the new semiconductor legislation say the United States has lost too much chip manufacturing to other countries that offer big subsidies to attract the factories, which are among the most expensive manufacturing facilities to build. Maintaining domestic production is important, they say, because the chips are at the heart of most high-tech equipment, including weapons systems. U.S. semiconductor companies account for 47 percent of global chip sales but only 12 percent of manufacturing, because they outsource much of the manufacturing overseas, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, which welcomed the new legislation. China is investing heavily in chip production and is rapidly gaining ground, the association said. The legislation, which also won the unanimous support of Democratic senators, calls for federal grants of up to $3 billion for the construction of domestic chip-making factories or R&D facilities and the training of workers to staff them. It also directs the White House to establish a national strategy for semiconductor research and manufacturing. And it calls for the private sector and government to jointly found and operate a National Semiconductor Technology Center, tasked with conducting research and funding semiconductor start-ups. The Senate measure, and a similar one in the House, passed as amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act and will now head to a conference committee to be reconciled. Parts of the conservative think-tank world are unimpressed by this shift in Republican thinking. Scott Lincicome, senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, criticized the semiconductor legislation as an unnecessary giveaway to a profitable industry. In an interview, he also panned the measure for subsidizing any type of domestic chip manufacturing instead of focusing incentives on the most high-tech chips. “You’d be giving handouts to companies that aren’t planning to operate at the bleeding edge of technology,” he said. And in a recent opinion piece titled “America Doesn’t Need an Industrial Policy,” Thomas J. Duesterberg, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, argued that “history records few examples of democracies in which political leaders have successfully steered their economies by targeting industries for support.” But other conservative thinkers say it’s time to embrace more government direction of the economy. “We think standard libertarian views about laissez faire, the idea that the market will spontaneously structure itself in an ideal way, we think that’s naive,” said Will Wilkinson, vice president for research at


counterexample is electric-car manufacturer Tesla, which received a $465 million federal loan in 2010 and went on to achieve considerable success. Cass and other conservatives say there is strong precedent for industrial policy in the United States. Alexander Hamilton, the country’s first treasury secretary, encouraged the United States to use import tariffs and “bounties,” or subsidies, to foster a strong manufacturing sector, which he saw as crucial to maintaining independence. The federal government took command of U.S. manufacturing during World War II and still maintains an Office of Industrial Policy at the Pentagon, which coordinates with the private sector and recommends legislative policies to ensure the military has a steady supply of weapons and equipment. Even during the Reagan era, Congress appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to a government-industry consortium called Sematech that was founded to help U.S. semiconductor companies catch up to Japanese rivals. Several recent industrial-policy proposals have attracted bipartisan support, even if Republicans and Democrats tend to advocate government intervention for different reasons. “Republicans want to talk about national security and China and maybe your left-wing people want to talk about inequality. But from my perspective, you get to the same place,” said Julius Krein, editor of American Affairs, who has written about the bipartisan phenomenon. The bill from Sen. Young and Rep. Gallagher proposing $10 billion for regional tech hubs was co-sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), whose district includes Silicon Valley. The measure also proposes expanding the National Science Foundation into a renamed National Science and Technology Foundation, and giving it $100 billion over five years to invest in everything from university research to small manufacturing sites for the testing of new products. Democrats’ proposals are typically more ambitious. Biden has pledged to spend $400 billion during his first term on additional federal purchases of American-made goods, in what he calls the “largest mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure and R&D since WWII.” That purchasing would include electric vehicles, steel, medical supplies and telecommunications gear, Biden said. He has also proposed an extra $300 billion in federal funding of R&D into new technologies, a federal loan program to help small manufacturers and a tax credit to spur the modernization of manufacturing facilities. And he’s pledged to spend big on infrastructure to support new industries, including a promise to build 500,000 charging stations for electric vehicles.


Europe’s top trade official has been forced to resign

to minimize the risk of coronavirus spreading. Furthermore, specific travel restrictions were recently applied to parts of the Irish Midlands, where there were a number of coronavirus clusters. It soon became clear that Hogan had traveled extensively across Ireland during the 14-day period, including within the restricted zone. Hogan claimed in an official memorandum to the European Commission president that he no longer had to self-isolate after the first few days he spent in Ireland because he had received a negative coronavirus test result. He also argued he had a “reasonable excuse” for entering the restricted zone. However, Ireland’s Department of Health disputed his claim that he didn’t have to self-isolate after the coronavirus test. Even worse, new information emerged this morning about an apparent witness who has claimed Hogan ate at a restaurant the evening he arrived in Ireland, instead of self-isolating as he said he did. Another person said Hogan was seen in public areas during the same period. Hogan’s spokesperson declined to comment on the allegations, but it became increasingly clear over the day that his position was unsustainable. After initial indecision, Ireland’s government indicated that it wanted Hogan to resign. The problem was that it didn’t have the authority to force his resignation. This speaks to the complicated politics of the European Commission, the E.U.'s executive arm. National governments nominate their preferred candidates to the commission. However, these candidates, once they take office, are E.U. officials under the responsibility of the president of the commission and are supposed to care about Europe rather than their country of origin. As political scientists have shown, that is often a polite fiction. Commissioners see defending their home countries’ interests as an important part of their job. However, polite fictions can have consequences. In this case, they gave Hogan some initial room for maneuver. Because he helped defend Ireland’s interests in an important policy area (setting trade policy), the Irish government initially didn’t want him to leave. It has no guarantee whatsoever that his replacement will get a similarly influential position. Because Hogan was an E.U. official, the Irish government had a plausible-sounding excuse for inaction: It had no authority to sack him — his boss was the president of the European Commission. Eventually, however, the government decided that Hogan was becoming a serious political liability, as new stories kept on emerging that seemed to contradict his previous explanations. Ireland’s


Administration asks Supreme Court to reinstate FDA requirement on obtaining medication abortion

not hesitated to take such cases to the more conservative Supreme Court — far more than previous administrations — and most often has been rewarded. The abortion rights supporters who brought the case said there is no need for the Supreme Court to intervene. “With COVID-19 raging across the nation — and despite being rebuffed twice in the courts — the Trump administration refuses to end its crusade to subject abortion patients and their families to entirely unnecessary exposure risks,” Julia Kaye, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. “Forcing patients to travel during a pandemic just to pick up a pill is irrational and dangerous, which is why the medical community uniformly opposes this senseless rule. We hope the Supreme Court will deny the Trump administration’s cruel attempt to score political points by putting people seeking essential reproductive health care at needless risk.” Medication abortions require taking two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy. They have been in use since 2000, and in 2016 the FDA eliminated the requirement that the first drug be administered in a hospital, clinic or doctor’s office. FDA experts said it was just as safe for a woman to take the medications at home. But the FDA did not relax the requirement that the woman pick up the pills in person and sign for them. The challengers say that mifepristone is the only drug that the FDA requires be dispensed in a clinical setting, although patients may self-administer it at home. They said in filings in lower courts that the increased use of telemedicine, especially during the pandemic, made a visit unnecessary. “Because of the [FDA] requirements, patients who have already been evaluated, counseled, and prescribed mifepristone by a certified clinician using telemedicine or at a prior in-person visit cannot avoid COVID-19 risks by obtaining mifepristone by mail, but are forced to travel to a clinical setting solely to pick up a pill and sign a form,” Kaye wrote. She noted that the FDA had relaxed the rules for other drugs during the pandemic, including some opioids. But the administration told the Supreme Court that Chuang was substituting his own judgment for that of the experts at the FDA. “The court failed to appreciate questions that it should have left for the FDA to resolve, such as whether counseling at the


How to understand the basic statistical concept the FDA chief flubbed

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn backtracked this week after mischaracterizing the findings of a study on convalescent plasma and its effects on covid-19 patients. My colleague Aaron Blake digs into the coronavirus-specific implications of Hahn’s remarks at The Fix. But it’s worth stepping back and breaking down the broader statistical concept that tripped up Hahn, as it’s something that comes up over and over again in news reports of scientific findings. At issue is the difference between absolute and relative effects. Imagine a headline that reads, “New drug reduces covid-19 deaths by 50 percent.” That sounds like a huge effect and might lead one to expect, for example, that if 100 covid-19 patients took the drug, it would save the lives of 50 of them. But that’s not right, because covid-19 doesn’t kill everybody to begin with. Let’s say, purely for the sake of illustration, that the coronavirus has a mortality rate of 10 percent: If 100 people are diagnosed with the disease, 10 succumb to it. So if the drug reduces covid-19 mortality by 50 percent, the number of fatalities among the 100 patients taking it drops from 10 to five. In other words, five lives are saved, not 50. “New drug lowers covid-19 mortality by 50 percent” is a statement of relative effect: Mortality is reduced by half relative to the baseline. To know what the absolute effect is, you need to know that baseline. Unfortunately, that information is usually not included in news coverage of scientific results, in large part because the researchers writing the underlying reports rarely attempt to characterize absolute effects. Academic studies are written primarily for academics, who are often, and understandably, more interested in the narrow effects of a given intervention, rather than the much broader implications for an entire population. As a result, we get headlines like “Cannabis Could Increase Risks Of Psychotic Illness By 40 Percent” and “This daily ‘polypill’ can cut heart attack risk by half” and “This Type of Cancer Increases Your Risk of Severe COVID by 60 Percent.” None of these statements are inaccurate, but they’re all missing a crucial piece of information: 40 percent or 50 percent or 60 percent of what? Taken to an extreme, however, mistaking relative for absolute effects can lead to falsehoods, as when Hahn claimed on Monday that among “100 people who are sick with covid-19, 35 would have been


The Health 202: British schools reopened with little covid-19 spread, new data show

with Alexandra Ellerbeck Now we know what happened when the United Kingdom sent kids back to school. There were very few coronavirus cases — and they were mostly among teachers, not students. The United Kingdom’s new report, released yesterday, is the most comprehensive look yet at what might happen when hundreds of thousands of kids return to classrooms amid the coronavirus pandemic. The information could prove valuable and timely for schools in the United States, caught in the midst of a heated and politicized debate over the best approach for fall learning. “I was surprised by how low the numbers were, to be honest,” said Emily Oster, a professor of economics at Brown University, who analyzed the report. “I thought they would be higher.” The data, collected by the country’s public health agency, comes from reports from nurseries, preschools, elementary schools and secondary schools that reopened for a “mini” summer term in June after the country’s spring shutdowns. An average of 843,430 students and 519,590 staff members were at school facilities each day, according to the report. During the entire month, schools reported 70 cases among students — but 30 of those students didn’t seem to have acquired the virus at school, and none of the children were hospitalized for treatment of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Out of 128 staff cases, one of the staffers was hospitalized and required intensive care. Thirty-seven of those cases weren’t linked to a school, including a single case resulting in the death of a secondary school teacher who had acquired the virus from a household member. Overall, secondary schools appeared to experience wider transmission of the virus and larger outbreaks than primary schools or preschools — a finding consistent with studies indicating older children are more likely to spread the virus than younger ones. “The re-opening of schools was associated with very few covid-19 outbreaks after easing of national lockdown in England,” wrote experts from Public Health England, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and St. George’s University of London. “SARS-CoV-2 infection and outbreaks were more likely to involve staff members, emphasizing a need to improve education and infection control measures for this group both within and outside the educational setting,” they wrote. Children in England are preparing to return to school next week. While the governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland are requiring mask-wearing in schools, England’s


social distancing and mask-wearing. There was a “strong correlation” between coronavirus outbreaks and regional incidence of the virus, the report says. “I think we’re increasingly getting a sense of when schools are opening, where prevalence is relatively under control, we’re not seeing a lot of cases,” Oster said. Under this philosophy, you might expect more virtual school in high-transmission areas and more in-person school in low-transmission areas. School districts in northeastern states — including New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts — are going all-virtual, even though cases and deaths are well below the levels seen in April and May. “I feel like in some ways the choice about reopening appears to be driven entirely by politics and very little by science,” Oster told me. Many districts in Southern states have opened their doors but are already walking back in-person learning amid positive tests and outbreaks. These include K-12 schools in Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee — all states where daily new cases are still elevated well above levels in the spring. “While a growing number of schools have backed off reopening, opting instead for online classes, others are hoping a host of new rules and adaptations can keep the coronavirus at bay,” Hannah Knowles writes of colleges and universities. “They are requiring masks, mandating testing and threatening students and campus groups with penalties for partying,” she writes. “Ohio State University alone said this week that it has suspended 228 students over virus-related violations.” On Night 2 of the RNC, Melania Trump praised the administration’s efforts to combat the opioid crisis. “Our administration has also devoted historical resources and produced lifesaving results by raising awareness around opioid addiction and drug abuse, especially for children,” the first lady said. The opioid epidemic, which did not receive much attention during last week’s Democratic National Convention, got significant play on the second day of the Republican convention. Ryan Holets, a police officer from New Mexico who was invited to speak at the convention, described his decision to adopt a baby from a homeless woman who was using opioids and his subsequent friendship with the mother. Holets praised the president’s leadership in fighting the opioid crisis, pointing out that drug overdose deaths decreased in 2018 for the first time in 30 years.Recent data, however, does not look as optimistic. Drug overdoses may be increasingduring the pandemic, possibly fueled by unemployment and less access to mental health


How the striking lack of diverse leadership at UNC is exacerbating its covid-19 crisis

North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced it would be moving to remote instruction for all undergraduate classes. The move came after a series of coronavirus clusters erupted in university residence halls, with more than 135 reported new cases during the first week of classes. Within three days, North Carolina State had followed suit. So ended the dangerous experiment with face-to-face instruction at North Carolina’s two leading public universities, which form part of a 16-campus statewide system. When UNC-Chapel Hill abruptly announced in-person classes would end, campus and system officials scrambled to explain this was all according to plan. They argued they had always prepared to take an “off-ramp” if and when covid-19 cases spiked; the UNC System president went as far as to blame students for the outbreaks. As of Tuesday afternoon, UNC-Chapel Hill has 566 confirmed cases of covid-19 among students and a 13.6 percent positivity rate for the most recent tests. The fast-developing public health crisis in the UNC system made national news, and the editorial board of the Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s student newspaper, headlined with an expletive to describe the debacle. This whole crisis could have been avoided, however, had university officials paid more attention to the concerns of students, faculty, and staff of color and their allies. Throughout the summer, students, faculty, and staff shared their concerns about UNC-Chapel Hill’s reopening and also proposed alternatives to the university’s “Roadmap to Fall 2020.” In early August, a group of 30 tenured UNC-Chapel Hill faculty wrote an open letter to students telling them to stay home. On Aug. 10, faculty and staff throughout the system filed a class-action lawsuit against the UNC system and UNC Board of Governors. The lawsuit charged that campus reopening plans were creating an unsafe workplace. Local public health officials also urged university leaders to delay the reopening of campus and only provide remote instruction for the first five weeks. Low-wage service workers were one of the major, and often overlooked groups, in the university’s reopening plans. The UNC-Chapel Hill administrations’ inability — or unwillingness — to respond to the needs of staff of color exposed an equally pressing crisis of racial inequity in higher education. While the top leadership at universities such as UNC-Chapel Hill is overwhelmingly White, a high percentage of housekeeping, grounds-keeping and other service staff are people of color. Nationwide, people of color comprise 42 percent of service and


Transportation initiatives are shiny projects with rough consequences

Regarding John Kelly’s Aug. 19 Metro column, “Opponents of Hogan’s Beltway project are scrambling to read 18,000 pages”: Losing sleep over transportation projects? We are, as we tackle the unwieldy Beltway expansion draft environmental impact statement and anticipate another tome in early 2021 for the proposed superconducting magnetic levitation (SCMaglev) train project. Baltimore Washington Rapid Rail and the Northeast Maglev are dangling shiny objects to promote the SCMaglev, including promising a dubious number of enduring jobs and nationally promoting fast travel from D.C. to New York. However, D.C. to Baltimore would be a stand-alone segment serving travelers bypassing Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties. I support the no-build option for these projects because of weighty statewide economic, environmental and social injustice concerns. Taxpayers would bear the brunt of inevitable cost overruns (e.g., the Purple Line) associated with the completion of these mammoth aboveground and underground construction projects. The environmental issues are so numerous that many would be unanticipated and need to be redressed during construction. The promised mitigation does not mean causing no irreparable harm. Our communities, many of them modest-income multiracial and multicultural hubs, must no longer be targeted for the deliberate placement of multiple competing, invasive transportation projects. We are the linchpin of the Northeast Corridor, a lifeline for our nation’s capital and many vital federal properties. Elected officials and the public must collaborate to discuss transportation issues and explore robust, outside-the-box alternatives, not meekly bend to the will of an ambitious governor and his powerful cronies. Susan R. McCutchen The writer is a community liaison for Bladensburg Citizens Against the SCMaglev. Read more letters to the editor.


The Technology 202: Trump administration unveils $1 billion quantum and artificial intelligence initiative

with Tonya Riley The Trump administration today unveiled An influx of cash for research in quantum and artificial intelligence is designed to help build more powerful computers and other tools for processing information, which could accelerate research and other scientific developments –- a goal that has taken on new significance amid a global race to develop a vaccine and treatments for coronavirus. The announcement is a shot across the bow in the broader tech race with China – and seems positioned to be a feather in Trump's cap during the week of the Republican National Convention. Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and senior adviser who is speaking at the convention this week, credited Trump with this “defining achievement A significant chunk of the funding China has made significant investments in these fields, raising questions about the United States's ability to retain its technological edge. The Trump administration is not viewed as science friendly and has made major cuts to science research. But it has continued to prioritize quantum and artificial intelligence as a national security issue, as China names these fields as priorities in its own research initiatives. However, the Trump administration’s investment pales in comparison to the investments that China says it has made. The country announced a $10 billion investment in one of the largest quantum labs, and it has made some achievements in the field, such as the first quantum satellite. Academics however have questioned media reports about this and concluded the Chinese government isn't likely dramatically outspending the United States in artificial intelligence. “As the 12 new Institutes demonstrate, the United States will continue to lead in AI and QIS thanks to an innovation ecosystem that is the envy of the world,” U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios told me. “We will succeed because the federal government partners with private-sector and academic leaders from all across the country to accelerate foundational research and promote free-market innovation and commercialization.” An administration official said that today's announcement is just part of a broader research and development investment in these technologies. The person said the administration is on track to double its spending on quantum and artificial intelligence in two years. The private sector in the United States has also been heavily investing in these technologies – with venture capitalists and large tech companies pouring billions into technology in the fields. Several prominent tech companies – including IBM, Intel


Man, 31, fatally shot in Northwest Washington

A 31-year-old man was fatally shot Tuesday night in Northwest Washington. Police said the victim, later identified as Adam Fongyen of Northwest, was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident unfolded around 11:30 p.m. in the 1300 block of Clifton Street NW near Florida Avenue NW in the Columbia Heights area. Police responding to a report of a shooting found Fongyen with a gunshot wound. Detectives are trying to figure out a motive and a suspect or suspects. A reward of up to $25,000 is being offered for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case. The city has registered 123 homicides this year. That is a roughly 13 percent jump from the same period a year ago, according to tracking by The Washington Post.


Hard evidence at last that shreds Trump’s lies about a Russia ‘hoax’

operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election” — the assault on Democratic emails that was the centerpiece of the Kremlin’s election-meddling campaign. Kilimnik wasn’t the only Russian intelligence conduit to Manafort and the campaign. Another was Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch whom Manafort has known since 2004. The Senate report describes Deripaska as “a proxy for the Russian state and intelligence services” who “has managed and financed Kremlin-approved and -directed active measures campaigns, including information operations and election interference efforts.” A shocking finding was that the Kremlin sought to use this network even after the election to hide its dirty work. Read this passage and consider what it tells us about Trump and his apologists: “The Committee observed numerous Russian-government actors from late 2016 until at least January 2020 consistently spreading overlapping false narratives which sought to discredit investigations into Russian interference.” One goal of this coverup was to “promote the narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 U.S. election,” the Senate report says. Sound familiar? It should. This lie has been voiced repeatedly by Trump and his defenders. Participants in the deception included Manafort, Kilimnik, Deripaska and others, the Senate report says — but the real purveyor in chief of the disinformation operation was Trump himself. Russian operatives used their Trump contacts for favors large and small. Kilimnik pressed Manafort to support a pro-Russia peace plan for Ukraine in August 2016 and did so again after Trump’s election. In Montenegro, well before Russia’s October 2016 coup attempt, Manafort helped Deripaska advance Moscow’s interests there. The report includes hundreds of pages of other damning information. One particularly vivid passage describes Trump’s attempts to ingratiate himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was hosting the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in November 2013. “I am a big fan of yours,” Trump had cooed back in 2007 in a congratulatory letter. As the pageant approached, Trump went into overdrive. In a June 26, 2013, letter, he invited the Russian dictator to attend as a “guest of honor” and added a handwritten note in his distinctive block letters: “THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN!” For the next three years, Trump’s family and fixers tried unsuccessfully to build his cherished “Trump Tower Moscow” with the help of Putin cronies. “Facts are stubborn things,” said John Adams, our second president. And the facts of the Trump team’s interactions with Russian intelligence are clearly


‘Superspreading’ events, triggered by people who may not even know they are infected, propel coronavirus pandemic

average a single individual infects. In measles, that number is very high — somewhere between 12 to 18. In Ebola, it’s about 1.5. For the novel coronavirus, it’s thought to be somewhere in between, around two to three. But researchers say that number obscures what is really happening on the ground. A growing body of evidence suggests that SARS-CoV2, like other coronaviruses, expands in a community in fits and starts, rather than more evenly over space and time. Adam Kucharski of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has estimated that the value of what’s known as the k-parameter — a measure of how much a virus tends to cluster — indicates that just 10 percent of people may be responsible for 80 percent of novel coronavirus cases. Real world data corroborates the skewed transmission pattern. In a detailed analysis of outbreaks in Hong Kong, for example, researchers found three distinct groups of incidents. The superspreading individuals, representing 20 percent of the total, were responsible for 80 percent of transmissions. A second group, involving about 10 percent of cases, transmitted the virus to one or two others. The final group, 70 percent, did not infect anyone else at all. In Israel, investigators looking at 212 cases concluded that they could be linked back to 1 to 10 percent of people. And in an outbreak in a South Korea office tower, investigators found that about 45 percent of 216 workers got the virus from a single person. In the United States, an analysis from five counties in Georgia found that superspreading appeared to be “widespread across space and time,” and that 2 percent of the infected seeded 20 percent of the cases. Most of these events took place in coronavirus hot spots of which most people are now aware: buildings where people live in close quarters, such as nursing homes, prisons, worker dormitories and cruise ships. There have been a fair number of clusters at meat-processing and frozen food factories, as well as at a curling event in Edmonton, Canada, leading some to speculate that temperatures could be a factor. “It is possible that the cold atmosphere in this setting has facilitated the spread of the virus,” Gwenan Knight and others at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine wrote in an analysis of 201 events that was published in Wellcome Open Research. The rest of the known superspreading


during speech than do their peers, might have contributed to this and previously reported covid-19 superspreading events.” William Nazaroff, an environmental engineer from the University of California at Berkeley, explained that when people are indoors, they are literally breathing the same air as everyone else in the room. If the virus can be airborne, which he believes it can, then he said we need to consider whether every building that’s open should modify its ventilation systems to be able to filter out more virus or use ultraviolet lights to kill it. “It has to do with the plume of what is emitted and the extent it can infringe on your breathing zone,” Nazaroff said. While it’s often impossible to identify the person who triggered an outbreak, there have been some commonalities among those who have been pinpointed as the likely source in studies. They tend to be young. Asymptomatic. Social. Scientists suspect these “super-emitters” may have much higher levels of the virus in their bodies than others, or may release them by talking, shouting or singing in a different way from most people. Research based on the flu, which involved college students blowing into a tube, showed that a small percentage tended to emit smaller particles known as aerosols more than others. These particles tend to hang or float, and move with the flow of air — and therefore can go much farther and last longer than larger droplets. In a study published in Emerging Infectious Diseases by Japan’s Hitoshi Oshitani at Tohoku University of 22 superspreading individuals with the coronavirus, about half were under the age of 40, and 41 percent were experiencing no symptoms. Julian Tang, a virologist at University Hospitals of Leicester in Britain, emphasized that whether someone triggers an outbreak often comes down to happenstance. Unlike some other viruses that may be contagious for a lifetime or months, the coronavirus has a very short window of infectivity — at most, four to nine days — according to multiple studies. Tang said studies of other diseases have shown the asymptomatic can sometimes shed more virus for longer periods, although whether this applies to the coronavirus is unknown. “Normally if you get very sick, you clear the virus quickly," he explained. "Ironically, if you are quite mildly ill, or not ill at all, your immune system might tolerate it more and you will shed longer with higher viral


These nursing homes failed to isolate covid-19 patients. Now they face six-figure fines.

among the most serious actions taken against nursing homes in Maryland since the start of the pandemic. “The regulatory and quality of care violations outlined and alleged in these state documents are gravely serious, and extremely concerning,” said Joseph DeMattos, president and chief executive of the Health Facilities Association of Maryland. “Some of the violations are related to covid-19 and some are not. And while these centers have the right to appeal, we all have a sacred obligation to work with federal, state leaders and others to ensure the quality and safe care of our loved ones.” Family members of residents who contracted the virus at these facilities said the inspection reports confirmed what they had suspected for months. “Downright negligence — they did not protect their patients,” said Mike Sheppard, whose mother, Lorraine Sheppard, died of covid-19 three weeks after moving into Potomac Valley in April. Lisa Jacobi, whose father-in-law, Robert Jacobi, also died soon after being admitted to Potomac Valley, said the $120,000 fine “feels like nothing, like a slap on the wrist and nothing else.” Like other states across the country, Maryland struggled for months to contain the spread of the virus in long-term-care settings. As of this week, nearly 15,000 staff and residents at nursing homes and assisted-living facilities have tested positive for the coronavirus. Two thousand have died of covid-19, which is more than half of the state’s death toll from the pandemic. Maryland was sharply rebuked by the Trump administration earlier this month for lagging behind other states in nursing home inspections. In May, Sagepoint Senior Living in La Plata, the site of one of the state’s worst nursing home outbreaks, was fined $320,000, although the company has said that it is contesting the punishment. In June, more than two dozen other nursing homes were ordered to pay several hundred dollars each for failing to report covid-19 information to the state. But fines exceeding $100,000 have been rare in the state — and in neighboring Virginia and D.C. As of Aug. 14, all 226 nursing homes in Maryland had been inspected, officials said. Of 100 facilities surveyed from June 21 to Aug. 16, 75 were in compliance with state and federal requirements and 22 were cited with deficiencies but not fined. The remaining three were Potomac Valley, Collingswood and Kensington Healthcare. At Potomac Valley, a 175-bed facility owned by Vita Healthcare Group, staff members


Child-care center in Maryland with covid-19 case closes for two weeks

A child-care center in Prince George’s County closed for two weeks following notice that a staff member tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Officials at Georgetown Hill Early School at Greenwood said in a letter to parents Tuesday that while they could not identify the positive employee because of health privacy laws, it was best to “assume that all staff and children have had some form of exposure.” Health officials were immediately notified, and families and staff were advised to quarantine at home for 10 days. The center, in Hyattsville, is run by the nonprofit Georgetown Hill Early School, which operates 11 preschools in Prince George’s, Montgomery and Frederick counties. The case is the first at any of the 11 centers since the pandemic began, said Kristen Till, regional director for Georgetown Hill. No additional cases related to Greenwood have been reported, Till said, and the positive employee was not on site while symptomatic. “We followed every single protocol,” she said. “We took extra steps that go above and beyond CDC guidelines to ensure children’s and teachers’ safety.” Statewide, a total of 38 covid-19 outbreaks in child-care facilities have been reported to the Maryland Department of Health amid the pandemic, according to state data compiled Wednesday. More than 5,700 child-care centers are currently open across Maryland, the state said. Twenty-five outbreaks were in child-care centers and 13 were in family child-care homes, according to the data. More than 105 confirmed cases are associated with the outbreaks. The child-care center at Greenwood, which has a contract to serve federal employees, was operating with 20 staff members and about 50 children; it typically enrolls children from infancy to age 5. Its safety measures included temperature and health checks before any child or staff member entered the building. No parents or visitors were allowed inside. Staff members changed clothes and shoes as they arrived, and children changed shoes. Bins of toys and art supplies were kept separate for each child. Hand-washing and sanitizing — of toys and play equipment, among other things — were frequent. Social distancing was a constant, Till said. Staff and children ages 3 and older wore masks. Two of Georgetown Hill’s 11 centers opened in April to serve essential workers, and the other nine resumed operations, with reduced class sizes, in June. The center has asked Greenwood staff and families to inform them if symptoms arise, so that center


Maine sleep-away camps prevented coronavirus spread among more than 1,000 people, CDC report finds

study, said the key to limiting spread of the coronavirus and covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, at the four camps was keeping the 1,022 campers and staff members in separate bubbles, or cohorts, for the entire time. That way, “if we had a case, we wouldn’t have to scramble to identify the contacts. We knew who they were, and we could very quickly quarantine those contacts,” said Vergales, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia. He added: “The fact that we had no known secondary spread is luck. The fact that we didn’t have an exponential outbreak is planning.” Vergales and the other researchers said their findings have implications for the successful implementation of covid-19 mitigation strategies in other overnight camps and in residential schools and colleges. But they and other experts acknowledge that the extensive measures taken by the camps may not be as feasible in K-12 schools, where it’s harder to limit student interaction with the community. Schools and universities that are reopening for in-person classes, or a hybrid approach of in-person and virtual learning, have reported rapidly rising coronavirus cases among students. Some universities have abandoned plans to hold in-person classes amid outbreaks in the first weeks of class. “As schools reopen, I think it’s really useful to have data or case reports from places that have successfully reopened high-risk settings or activities, so I’m glad for this report,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It sounds like they effectively created a bubble through a combination of serial testing and limiting outside contacts. We’ve seen other examples of the bubble approach being successful, and this is further evidence of that.” It will be difficult to get the same results in a K-12 school, she said. Students and families remain part of the larger community, “so they won’t be able to effectively create a bubble,” Rivers said in an email. Physical distancing, mask-wearing, hand-washing and keeping students in the same groups can reduce transmission, and repeated testing can reduce risk, too, she said. “But it won’t be possible to completely wall off new introductions of the virus like the camps were able to do.” The Maine camp sessions ranged from 44 to 62 days from mid-June to mid-August. The camps are not identified for privacy reasons, Vergales said. Campers had to quarantine with their families for


A hurricane in the middle of a pandemic: Medical facilities say they’re ready

universal and accommodations allow for social distancing, he said. About 30 patients with covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, are being kept separate from others in the hospital. At the Medical Center of Southeast Texas in Port Arthur, another of the three major hospitals in the area, officials have transferred about 65 percent of patients to hospitals further inland, according to Chief Medical Officer Gary Mennie. That includes patients from intensive care units, some of whom were unconscious and on ventilators because they were receiving treatment for covid-19, he said. One by one, they were moved in ambulances equipped with ventilators to other Texas hospitals, Mennie said. All patients receiving kidney dialysis were transferred in case the water supply — needed to provide the treatment — is disrupted, he said. Covid-19 patients who are not critically ill also were moved, he said, and staff — all of whom volunteered to stay — will spend the night at the hospital. “We’ve gone through several hurricanes,” Mennie said. “We’ve gone through Rita. We’ve gone through Ike. We’ve gone through Harvey. We’ve gone through Imelda,” he said, ticking off the major storms that have battered the region during the past 15 years. The county’s nursing homes also have been emptied, said Allison Getz, a spokeswoman for Jefferson County. Most were transferred by the facilities themselves, but a few were transported by the county, which helped about 1,000 people leave for Austin and San Antonio, she said. That effort required more buses than usual, Getz said, because coronavirus protocols limited passengers to 15 or 20 per vehicle, rather than 50. All were required to wear masks. In all, Getz said, about half of the county’s population of 250,000 remains. “Which is too many,” she said. The number of people with covid-19 has declined since a peak several weeks ago, authorities said. With people prepared and hunkered down to ride out the storm, there should be no spread of the virus during the hurricane, Getz said, as there was following the mass panic that followed an explosion in Beirut this month. The aftermath of the storm poses another challenge. “After storms, the hospitals become sort of like meccas that people come to,” Mennie said. Hospital officials will triage anyone with covid-19 symptoms into a separate waiting room equipped with negative pressure to contain the virus, he said. “To have a hurricane on top of


Sports come to a halt: NBA, WNBA, MLB, MLS postpone games as players protest Jacob Blake shooting

on the four-year anniversary of the first time former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick did not stand for the national anthem in protest. On Tuesday, the Detroit Lions canceled practice and players addressed reporters huddled around a whiteboard reading, “The World Can Not Go On.” On Wednesday night, Washington Football Team Coach Ron Rivera announced Thursday’s practice was postponed, and several NFL players expressed support for the Bucks on social media. “NBA is showing us how it’s done,” wrote Houston Texans wide receiver Kenny Stills, who has frequently knelt during the national anthem. “Time to connect with local activists to help formulate demands.” “I don’t think it’s surprising it has spread to other leagues,” Harry Edwards, a sociologist who in 1968 organized the Olympic Project for Human Rights, said in a phone conversation. "[NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell] has to be blind not to see he has some issues here that he’s going to have to deal with up front with the players. This one could spread very, very rapidly, especially if there’s yet another killing between now and the opening of the NFL season, which in my estimation is not unlikely. That’s what we’re up against here.” All but one of the six Major League Soccer matches were postponed after one or both teams decided not to play. The only one to commence as scheduled was Nashville SC at Orlando City. The start of the Atlanta-Miami game in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was delayed 20 minutes before being postponed. The players and referees gathered in solidarity at midfield. The same scene played out in Utah, where Real Salt Lake had been scheduled to host Los Angeles FC. Before the first game of the MLS tournament at Disney World this summer, more than 100 players participated in a demonstration protesting racial inequality and supporting social justice causes. Throughout the month-long competition, players and coaches wore “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts and wore messages on their game jerseys. Naomi Osaka, a two-time Grand Slam tennis champion, announced that she would not play her semifinal match in the Western & Southern Open in New York, a U.S. Open tuneup, hours after winning her quarterfinal. A few hours after Osaka’s announcement, the sport’s organizers said play at the event would be paused Thursday and would resume Friday. Osaka’s announcement came with some heft; the 22-year-old is the highest-paid female athlete in the world, having brought in more


Eight Nebraska football players sue Big Ten over conference’s decision to cancel fall season

lawsuit says that even though the conference’s decision “significantly and directly affects the rights and opportunities of student athletes at its member institutions, the Big Ten has rejected calls for transparency and refuses to provide documents supporting its claim that a vote was taken or that a proper process was followed.” According to the lawsuit, the Big Ten’s governing documents require the presidents and chancellors to vote on such a decision and that at least 60 percent of those university leaders must vote in favor of the decision for it to take effect. With 14 member schools, at least nine presidents would have needed to vote in support of postponing the season. The lawsuit mentions how multiple university presidents have publicly said that the council did not take a formal vote. The plaintiffs argue that the Big Ten breached its contractual obligations by not properly voting on this decision and that breach harmed the athletes. The lawsuit says the athletes “will be unable to participate in any games, showcase their talent to professional scouts, or effectively develop their brand to set them up to market their name/image/likeness under recent changes in Nebraska law.” The suit argues that the Big Ten’s decision was based on “flawed data” because the conference relied on studies that involved older patients who are not similar to college football players. “This lawsuit isn’t about money or damages, it’s about real-life relief,” Mike Flood, the lead attorney representing the athletes, said in a statement. “These student athletes have followed all the precautions, underwent regular testing, and lived according to the prescribed guidelines of the world-class experts at UNMC all for the chance to play football in September.” “On August 11th, six days after announcing the fall football schedule, a decision was made to cancel everything with vague reasoning and no explanation,” the statement continues. “Our Clients want to know whether there was a vote and the details of any vote, and whether the Big Ten followed its own rules in reaching its decision.” Read more on How college football players discovered their power and why it’s just the beginning The College Football Playoff is a go for 2020, despite a reduced field and an active pandemic The college football AP top 25 poll has nine teams that won’t play this fall Iowa cuts four sports, becoming the first Big Ten school to ax programs during the pandemic


Trump’s silence on Navalny’s alleged poisoning

Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday, along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? The suspected poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has drawn global condemnation. But so far, the leader of the United States has not added his condemnation to the list. Asked about the case last Thursday, President Trump said he would be “looking into it” with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo but offered no details. Since then: Crickets. Trump’s silence is easy fuel for his critics, who have long said that he is too weak on Russian President Vladimir Putin after alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. “Any other U.S. President would have condemned the attack immediately,” Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) tweeted on Wednesday. It has also angered Russian opposition leaders who argue Putin acts with impunity. “There is a historical term for this kind of policy, and that historical term is appeasement,” Vladimir Kara-Murza, an activist and writer who has himself survived two suspected poisonings, told MSNBC over the weekend. The muted presidential response is hardly a surprise, however. From the earliest days of his presidency, Trump has shown little desire to criticize Putin, even when his own officials pushed for sanctions and other reprimands for Moscow. Trump has shown scant sympathy for political activists anywhere in the world, let alone in Russia. After German doctors said Navalny was probably poisoned with a nerve agent this week, the U.S. did finally offer substantial official statements on Tuesday — albeit not from Trump. Pompeo said the United States was “deeply concerned” about the case, while U.S. ambassador to Russia John Sullivan called for an “immediate, comprehensive, and transparent investigation.” There could be more to come. In Moscow this week, Deputy Secretary of State Steve Biegun warned Russian officials that the U.S. response could be harsher than after the alleged election interference, according to an account from the Russian Foreign Ministry — though State Department accounts of the meeting do not mention the threat. But even such private warnings, if accurate, contrast with the strong public stances of other nations. Britain’s Boris Johnson joined the chorus Wednesday by publicly demanding an investigation. “You really have to ask yourself what has gone on here, and I think what we want to see is a full, thorough, transparent investigation into the poisoning of Alexei Navalny,” Johnson later


The Finance 202: Stock market investors are increasingly focused on the election. History shows it may not matter.

weighting in the price-weighted average.” Weekly jobless claims out this morning expected to remain high “New applications for unemployment benefits have stagnated around one million a week recently, significantly lower than a peak of near seven million in March but well above the pre-pandemic levels of about 200,000 claims a week. There are signs the labor market is healing, albeit more slowly than in the spring.” The White House chief of staff also said he's not optimistic about a stimulus deal: "It was unclear how the administration could act on its own to extend aid to airlines or take steps that would prevent furloughs. Meadows did not elaborate and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comments. Where relief plan talks stand: The big business lobby's move comes as it tries to stay relevant amid shifting political winds Kevin Mayer was only in the role for three months: “ “Trump issued an executive order earlier this month announcing TikTok would be banned in the U.S. beginning the week of Sept. 20 because of national security concerns due to the company’s Chinese ownership … Mayer’s departure throws more uncertainty into the mix for the embattled TikTok, which has been a high-profile example of escalating tensions between the U.S. and China. Mayer’s hiring was a key move in TikTok’s public relations strategy to appeal to U.S. regulators as an American friendly company.” Athletes have lost patience with the pace of change amid social unrest: “The league announced the cancellation of all three games scheduled for Wednesday as a result, and a meeting of NBA players later Wednesday night cast doubt on whether the postseason would continue at all. The unprecedented decision to postpone the games was quickly followed by a similar decision by the WNBA, which postponed three scheduled games across the state in Bradenton, and by teams and players in numerous other professional sports.” Media companies think college football's cancellation might be a good thing: “The idea upends common wisdom about the pandemic, which holds that cancellations of any kind are bad for business. And it can seem counterintuitive. But conversations with industry experts and a dive into the numbers highlights a dirty secret: Buying the rights to college games has become so expensive that sometimes networks are better off if the games aren’t played at all.” Jeff Bezos is now worth a whopping $200 billion (CNN) Today:


America’s excessive reliance on sanctions will come back to haunt it

Under the Trump administration, the United States has withdrawn from so many international agreements, broken with so many precedents and angered so many allies that it can be difficult to cut through all the noise. But one particular approach could irreparably damage America’s superpower status: its promiscuous use and abuse of sanctions. Currently, the United States has more than 8,000 sanctions in place against individuals, companies and countries. While the United States has used sanctions for decades, they have proliferated dramatically in recent years, especially under President Trump. He has instituted more than twice as many sanctions per year as his two predecessors, including 700 on a single day in 2018 (on Iran). Sanctions against countries such as Iran and Venezuela are so broad that they prompted U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to warn that they are putting health-care systems at risk of collapse and endangering the lives of millions of ordinary people. But it is not just against America’s foes that Trump wields sanctions. He has brandished them against partners such as Iraq and Turkey — threatening to destroy both those countries’ economies if they didn’t do what he asked. Earlier this month, three Trump allies in the Senate sent a letter to a Baltic Sea port operator in Germany threatening “crushing legal and economic sanctions” if it proceeds with the Nord Stream 2 project, a gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. The threats have been badly received in Germany, where senior politicians are accusing the United States of “blackmail” and “neo-imperialism.” Why is the United States gravitating toward sanctions as a preferred tool of foreign policy? Because they are a seemingly cost-free way of forcing countries to change course. They require neither the commitment of U.S. troops nor the appropriation of large sums of foreign aid. They allow Washington to register disapproval and show it is doing something without having to make hard choices and sacrifices. As scholar Eliot Cohen once said of air power, sanctions are seductive because, like modern courtship, they offer gratification without commitment. In fact, they do have costs. As with tariffs, the average American consumer pays for these policies, but the costs are spread thinly across the citizenry. And though sanctions can cause real pain to the target, they have rarely been effective at what is often the underlying goal: regime change. The governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and North


We don’t need to reach herd immunity to begin to get the virus under control

to covid-19. Other coronaviruses do not appear to confer permanent immunity, and reinfection with covid-19 has been recently documented. Even if we aren’t permanently protected against covid-19 after infection, though, immunity will not go away all at once for everyone, and we will likely be at least partially protected for years. So when the disease returns, there will be some level of community immunity to help combat it, and less extreme control measures will be needed. Over time, this process should lead to less severe covid-19 epidemics. Combined with changes in the age distribution of infection, that may even make the disease disappear as a major threat to human health. But whether community immunity is enough to bring down infections depends on context. If the situation changes, due to seasonal effects or changing behavior, levels of community immunity may no longer be adequate to prevent epidemic growth, and covid-19 can still come roaring back. This means we need to be careful about declaring the epidemic over in a given location simply because cases have started to decline. What may be adequate immunity to stem the virus in summer may not be enough to stop epidemic spread in the winter — a phenomena seen in each of the four modern influenza pandemics, where an initial summer wave quickly receded only to be followed by a large epidemic in the fall or winter. Likewise, as control measures are lifted or people just become less cautious, a community where the virus was on its way out might become fertile ground for a resurgent epidemic. Even if we are at a point where herd protection has been “achieved,” this does not mean there are no benefits to additional immunity. Let’s say community immunity is around 70 percent, and the average number of infections a case causes is slightly less than one. That number is just an average, and sometimes, during so-called superspreading events, 10 or more people might be infected by a single person with the virus — enough to spark a local outbreak (we see this frequently with measles, and have seen it already in the coronavirus pandemic). If community immunity could be increased to 90 percent, this same event would only cause three infections, and we would be far less likely to see any large outbreak. The long fight against covid-19 is far from over, and we will likely be living with


After all this death, Trump is still treating the pandemic as a PR problem

the numbers would look lower: “When you do testing to that extent, you’re gonna find more people, you’re gonna find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’” The point is, this isn’t some kind of passing whim on Trump’s part. Every time he’s asked about the enormous number of Americans who have been infected with covid-19 — now more than 5.8 million — he insists that the number is only so high because we do so much testing. The White House task force knows this. The CDC knows this. By trying to reduce the number of tests, they’re doing what the boss wants. And the inevitable result will be more infections and more deaths. But they’re not the only administration officials trying to shape the narrative, which brings us to our second story. On Wednesday, the Justice Department demanded information from states on their decisions regarding covid-19 and nursing homes, writing that they “may have resulted in the deaths of thousands of elderly nursing home residents.” The purpose, wrote the Justice Department, is to determine whether to initiate investigations under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), which “protects the civil rights of persons in state-run nursing homes.” Did they make this demand of all 50 states? No. All the states that have had serious outbreaks in nursing homes? No. They’re considering investigating just four states: New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania. States with Democratic governors. Samuel Bagenstos, a University of Michigan Law School professor, told me Thursday that, though the covid situation in nursing homes and the broader problem of warehoused vulnerable people in nursing homes are both extremely serious, the department’s letter is blatantly partisan. “DOJ’s CRIPA authority is limited to public facilities, but the overwhelming majority of people in nursing homes are in privately operated facilities,” emailed Bagenstos, who supervised the CRIPA program in the Obama administration. He continued: All available agencies of government (including those such as the CDC and the Justice Department that we used to think were above partisan politics), are being mobilized not just to help Trump’s reelection but also to convince us that Trump’s disastrous handling of the pandemic never happened at all. We only have so many cases because we’re doing too much testing. Whatever went wrong is the fault of Democrats. If you tune in to the Republican convention, you get the


TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer resigns as U.S. ban approaches

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer resigned Wednesday amid an impending ban imposed by the Trump administration that would restrict the video app in the United States beginning in mid-September. Mayer, a former Disney executive, was in the role for only three months. In a letter to employees Wednesday, Mayer said that “the political environment has sharply changed” since he accepted the role in May and that a new resolution for the company is expected soon. “I understand that the role that I signed up for — including running TikTok globally — will look very different as a result of the US Administration’s action to push for a sell off of the US business,” he wrote in a letter obtained by The Washington Post. The Financial Times earlier reported Mayer’s departure. President Trump issued an executive order earlier this month announcing that TikTok would be banned in the United States beginning the week of Sept. 20 because of national security concerns stemming from the company’s Chinese ownership. A week later, Trump issued another order requiring TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, to divest an acquisition that created TikTok’s popularity in the United States. TikTok sued the administration Monday, alleging that it was not given due process and asserting that it is not a national security threat. Mayer’s departure throws more uncertainty into the mix for the embattled TikTok, which has been a high-profile example of escalating tensions between the United States and China. Mayer’s hiring was a key move in TikTok’s public relations strategy to appeal to U.S. regulators as an American-friendly company. The company, which has about 1,500 employees in the United States, has denied that it’s a security threat. It says it keeps U.S. customer data stored only within the country and Singapore, and does not share it with the Chinese government. TikTok’s popularity has surged in the United States over the past year. The company has said it had 91.9 million monthly active users in the country in June, up from 26.7 million in February 2019. On a quarterly basis, the company says that 100 million in the United States use the app. TikTok spokesperson Hilary McQuaide said General Manager Vanessa Pappas will serve as interim head of TikTok. “We appreciate that the political dynamics of the last few months have significantly changed what the scope of Kevin’s role would be going forward, and fully respect his decision,” McQuaide said in a


The NBA’s short playoff halt was the sports world’s boldest push for racial justice in decades

Jonathan Eig is a journalist. His books include “Ali: A Life” and “Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season.” Suddenly, the NBA playoffs are about something bigger than sports. The Milwaukee Bucks essentially went on strike Wednesday, refusing to play their scheduled game against the Orlando Magic to protest the police shooting of a 29-year-old Black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wis. The rest of the NBA playoffs soon halted, and teams in other sports joined the temporary shutdown. It was perhaps the sporting world’s boldest move for racial justice since two black-gloved fists were raised in the Mexico City Olympics. In 1968, those fists were raised in isolation. Today, the political advocacy of the nation’s most integrated sport — home of its best-known and wealthiest Black athletes — seeks to change the world by building a broad coalition for widespread social, political and economic change. With players isolated in the NBA pandemic “bubble” in Orlando, many athletes have had time to reflect on what’s important to them. In a college campus-like environment they’ve studied history, discussed politics and watched the news — doing all this as a group, undistracted by travel and personal lives to an extent that would not have been possible outside the bubble as illness, violence and chaos have swirled outside. The bubble has been politicized from the start. Instead of names on their uniforms, players have been wearing messages related to social justice. “BLACK LIVES MATTER” is painted on the court on which they’ve been playing. LeBron James, the league’s biggest star, recently announced that he and other athletes would lead a multimillion-dollar campaign called More Than a Vote to increase the number of poll workers in Black electoral districts and fight voter suppression efforts before Election Day. Some of their rebellion was sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in May; some of it came in the afterlife of the controversy surrounding football player Colin Kaepernick, who was ostracized by the NFL and villainized by politicians. Several teams, in quarantine, watched the documentary “John Lewis: Good Trouble” about the late representative from Georgia. NBA players have found a kind of unity and strength in numbers that their Black activist predecessors never imagined. In 1947, Jackie Robinson lived alone in an entirely different kind of bubble. When he became the only Black player in baseball’s major leagues, he couldn’t stay in the


The Health 202: Pence offers revisionist history of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.

Joe.” Some Trump critics thought that the tactic could backfire, while others suggested Biden should set his own preconditions. Never Trump conservative and political commentator Bill Kristol: “As COVID-19 continues to spread, an increasing number of rural communities find themselves without their hospital or on the brink of losing already cash-strapped facilities,” Kaiser Health News's Sarah Jane Tribble reports. Before the pandemic, rural hospitals were already stretched thin. A record 18 hospitals closed in 2019. Since then, another 14 have closed in the first half of 2020. Experts say that more would have closed if it weren't for grants and loan money approved by Congress through the Cares Act. But now many hospitals have already gone through that relief money and are unsure how they will pay back federal loans, even as they are bracing for a possible increase in coronavirus cases over the winter. Of the 1,300 small critical care hospitals across the United States, 859 took advantage of Medicare loans. “For us, this was survival money and we spent it already,” Paul Taylor, the chief executive of a 25-bed hospital in northwestern Arkansas, told Kaiser Health News. The FDA granted an emergency use authorization to Abbott Laboratories for the rapid-response test, which can be administered at a doctor’s office or a school nurse’s office. “The emergency approval comes as demand grows for greater access to Covid-19 diagnostic tools that deliver results in minutes, rather than days to help quickly contain infections,” the Wall Street Journal's Sarah Krouse reports. Some public health officials say that low-cost rapid tests will be crucial as workplaces and schools reopen. Politico's Alexander Gaffney: The card-like test uses a technology similar to that is used in home pregnancy tests to search for virus proteins in samples taken from a nasal swab. The antigen test accurately detects about 97 percent of positive cases, but is not thought to be as sensitive as some lab tests. Abbott Laboratories has said that it intends to ship millions of the tests across the country in September and plans to ramp up production to 50 million tests in October. Production at that level could double the number of tests in the United States compared to June, Sarah reports. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the FDA: “Scientists, public health officials and lawmakers are worried that the Trump administration will pressure the FDA to authorize a COVID-19 vaccine in advance of


Amazon launches new grocery store with ‘smart’ shopping carts and Alexa guides

Whole Foods Market and its more than 460 stores in the United States, Canada and Britain. Since then, Amazon has continued to advance its supermarket business with an emphasis on ease and speed. Amazon also is responding to heightened demand for groceries during the pandemic, as Americans spend much more time at home. Restaurants have shuttered or limited their capacity and hours, and with millions of employees working remotely, home cooking has replaced much of what would have been workday lunches at nearby office eateries. Amazon has increased its capacity to deliver groceries by more than 160 percent, according to its latest earnings report, which captured May, June and July. The company also tripled its online grocery sales compared with the same period last year. The e-commerce giant already operates more than two dozen Go stores that allow customers to walk in and out without standing in a checkout line, with an array of cameras and sophisticated data-gathering tools tracking a shopper’s behavior. But the Fresh store will differ from the smaller grab-and-go markets. Customers will have the option of using either a “smart” cart or a traditional one and paying at a checkout lane with cashiers. They can also ask Alexa-powered devices for help, such as: “Alexa, where can I find the hot sauce?” With the new store, Amazon is targeting different customers than those who frequent Whole Foods, which is known for its vast selection of natural and organic products. Fresh stores will have a wide array of national food brands in addition to meat, produce, seafood and prepared foods made on location daily. “It’s likely Amazon Fresh will directly target the customer base that is in between their Whole Foods brand, which typically caters to more health-conscious and affluent customers, and discount grocery retailers like Aldi and Lidl,” said Gregory Ng, chief executive of digital consulting firm Brooks Bell. “This puts their sights directly on competing with Target and Walmart.” Amazon has confirmed plans for a handful of other Fresh locations in Southern California and the Chicago area, which it said it will continue to operate and grow alongside its Whole Foods business. “Obviously, they thought that building something from scratch would be better than to try to retrofit a Whole Foods store, which is what it looks like they are doing here,” said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester Research. “It also looks like they


of employees working remotely, home cooking has replaced much of what would have been workday lunches at nearby office eateries. Amazon has increased its capacity to deliver groceries by more than 160 percent, according to its latest earnings report, which captured May, June and July. The company also tripled its online grocery sales compared with the same period last year. The e-commerce giant already operates more than two dozen Go stores that allow customers to walk in and out without standing in a checkout line, with an array of cameras and sophisticated data-gathering tools tracking a shopper’s behavior. But the Fresh store will differ from the smaller grab-and-go markets. Customers will have the option of using either a “smart” cart or a traditional one and paying at a checkout lane with cashiers. They can also ask Alexa-powered devices for help, such as: “Alexa, where can I find the hot sauce?” With the new store, Amazon is targeting different customers than those who frequent Whole Foods, which is known for its vast selection of natural and organic products. Fresh stores will have a wide array of national food brands in addition to meat, produce, seafood and prepared foods made on location daily. “It’s likely Amazon Fresh will directly target the customer base that is in between their Whole Foods brand, which typically caters to more health-conscious and affluent customers, and discount grocery retailers like Aldi and Lidl,” said Gregory Ng, chief executive of digital consulting firm Brooks Bell. “This puts their sights directly on competing with Target and Walmart.” Amazon has confirmed plans for a handful of other Fresh locations in Southern California and the Chicago area, which it said it will continue to operate and grow alongside its Whole Foods business. “Obviously, they thought that building something from scratch would be better than to try to retrofit a Whole Foods store, which is what it looks like they are doing here,” said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester Research. “It also looks like they are looking to experiment with a slew of different technologies like automated shopping carts, a micro-fulfilment center and probably a number of other things we haven’t even learned about yet.” She added that it wouldn’t be surprising if the store in Southern California is a showcase to try to sell the technology to other companies rather than being the future of an Amazon-branded commerce experience.