Wuhan weeks before China’s report. Still, the WHO has been transparent, issuing regular updates and warning governments of likely perils. It was hobbled by inadequate data from China, whose leadership, like the U.S. administration, urged that a global alarm was not necessary. When Tedros declared a global emergency Jan. 30, there were still relatively few reported cases outside China. World leaders, including Trump, had ample opportunity to act as the virus swept across China and East Asia, then to Europe. Some countries responded. South Korea, for example, blended aggressive testing and contact tracing with social-distancing efforts. It conducted health checks and followed up on arriving travelers. As of Sunday, South Korea had just 214 deaths from its outbreak; the share works out to about 20 cases per 100,000 South Koreans, compared with 162 per 100,000 people in the United States. The White House, meanwhile, was aware of the threat. Reporting has shown that the National Security Council received intelligence reports predicting spread to the United States by at least early January, and presidential adviser Peter Navarro wrote an urgent memo on Jan. 29. Social distancing guidelines were not established until mid-March. The WHO cannot credibly be blamed for the slow U.S. response. Meanwhile, China is exercising more power at the WHO and across the international community, partly because U.S. leadership has been largely absent. The United States led global aid efforts in response to earthquakes, tsunamis, and the AIDS and Ebola crises. No such leadership emerged for covid-19, however, and China has sought to fill the breach. The U.S. failure to lead a coordinated response is sure to lengthen the duration of this pandemic. Weakening and defunding the WHO will undermine the global response — worsening the health and economic devastation to come in poorer countries. None of this will be good for Americans’ health, the U.S. economy or the political survival of U.S. leaders. Read more: Michael L. Barnett: A second, hidden pandemic will follow covid-19. We need to plan for it. Jennifer Rubin: Here’s a sensible plan to recover from covid-19. Too bad it’s not from the White House. Scott C. Ratzan, Barry R. Bloom, Lawrence O. Gostin and Jonathan Fielding: States are failing on vaccinations. The federal government must lead. Michael S. Saag: What an infectious disease specialist learned about the virus — from getting it Megan McArdle: There are reasons to be optimistic regarding the coronavirus


Number of migrant family members detained by ICE plunges 39% in a week

requiring the government to provide that information would both benefit this litigation, but would also benefit your clients.” The judge’s action came as ICE announced that no detainee at the three centers — one in Pennsylvania in Berks County and two in Texas in Dilley and Karnes City — has tested positive for the virus. The agency said populations have fallen from 51 percent to 36 percent of capacity at Karnes City; 21 percent to 18 percent at Berks County; and 23 percent to 19 percent at Dilley. Vanessa Molina, attorney with the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation, said the Berks facility is no longer admitting detainees, and the other two have accepted 76 new residents. Those whom ICE could not confirm have shown no symptoms in the past 14 days were put in quarantine. While the agency is not releasing those deemed as flight risks or awaiting imminent deportation, “ICE is actively conducting assessments . . . and that is reflected in the decrease of the numbers we have submitted,” Molina said in a 45-minute teleconference hearing. Lawyers for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, the Rapid Defense Network, and ALDEA — the People’s Justice Center filed the class-action suit on March 31 arguing their clients are “trapped and at risk of serious, irreparable harm” in conditions they called “a tinderbox” for disease spread because the facilities cannot meet Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards for hygiene and social distancing. The case tracks broader litigation before U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee in California seeking the emergency release of 6,900 detained children, including unaccompanied minors held at other facilities. Gee had ordered the release of about 3,000 children in states with higher coronavirus infection rates, which the government said that it is attempting to do but that it must first find suitable custodians. As of Monday, 72 detainees and 19 detention-center agency employees have tested positive for the virus, including unaccompanied minors in detention, ICE said. ICE has directed field offices to review whether detainees over the age of 60 or with certain health conditions that put them at higher risk of infection could be released. Families make up a small fraction of detainees, a population that has dropped to about 34,000 nationwide, according to last publicly reported figures April 4, the lowest number since 2016. Although asylum seekers are held as civil


Fourth teenager in D.C. custody tests positive for virus

THE DISTRICT A fourth youth in the custody of the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services tested positive for covid-19 last week, agency officials said Monday. Officials moved the youth into an isolation unit at the Youth Services Center on Mount Olivet Road NE, according to a statement sent Wednesday to staff. Officials placed three youths in quarantine as well. Three other youths also were tested, officials said, but their results were negative. Three other youths previously tested positive at New Beginnings, a DYRS facility in Laurel, Md. A total of 21 DYRS youths have been tested, officials said. In response to the pandemic, DYRS officials said they have reduced the number of youths who are being held and have discharged them for community supervision. The agency reports that New Beginnings has 22 youths in custody, while 20 youths are held at the Youth Services Center. — Clarence Williams MARYLAND Three in-person voting sites will be open for the 7th Congressional District special general election April 28, the Maryland State Board of Elections voted Monday. The state plans to open voting centers in Baltimore City and Baltimore and Howard counties but is urging voters to cast their ballots by mail. The site locations will be announced by next Monday, the board said. The election pits Kim Klacik (R) against Kweisi Mfume (D). “The safest way to vote in the 7th District special election is to vote by mail,” said Linda Lamone, state administrator of elections. Lamone said the decision by the board is an acknowledgment that everyone cannot vote by mail and that “the board is committed to safeguarding their voting rights.” The board said it mailed ballots to “all eligible active voters” in the district in early April. The board had initially proposed holding the election entirely by mail-in ballots. The plan was criticized by state Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Adrienne Jones (D-Baltimore), who sent a letter to Gov. Larry Hogan (R) asking for a limited in-person option. The special election is being held to fill the remainder of the term of the late congressman Elijah E. Cummings (D), who died in October. The district covers portions of Baltimore City and Baltimore and Howard counties. — Ovetta Wiggins THE REGION As Americans clear out grocery store shelves in search of essential items, some parents across the D.C. region have struggled to find baby formula.


Everyone wants sports back, but players aren’t chattel to be used toward that goal

On March 11, Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert, in the midst of his first all-star season, tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Afterward, the NBA suspended the season “until further notice.” The day after that, Gobert’s teammate Donovan Mitchell, also an all-star, tested positive. Around the same time, the impact of the virus was felt in college sports as the NCAA canceled the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. Major League Soccer and the NHL suspended their seasons. Major League Baseball canceled the rest of spring training and delayed Opening Day. The dominoes of American sports kept falling. And who were the canaries in the coal mine as the coronavirus metastasized in sports? Black athletes: Gobert, Mitchell and, afterward, the handful of other NBA players who tested positive for the virus. Some went unidentified, so it can’t be said all were black. But three-quarters of the league’s talent is black. You do the extrapolation. Similarly, upward of 70 percent of the NFL’s athletic labor is black. Yet President Trump, who upon coming into office consistently expressed disdain for black players who protested on the field against unchecked police lethality against men like them, reportedly said in a recent conference call with league commissioners that the NFL should open as scheduled in September. Major college football is upward of 60 percent black. Yet Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy and Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney argued in recent days that their games should proceed as usual because the college athletic industrial complex needs them and, Gundy added, the athletes are supermen who can withstand the virus. The first utterance underscored the human girders that college football players, particularly the dominant black stars, are to the multibillion-dollar sport for which they are inequitably remunerated and by which they are vastly exploited. The latter belief stood to exacerbate a myth birthed in black communities that we are somehow immune to catching this illness despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Data mined recently showed black people in particular and people of color in general are getting struck by the coronavirus at rates disproportionately higher than everyone else. It is amazing that some in the black community forgot this bromide: “When white folks catch a cold, black people get pneumonia.” Black athletes don’t deserve to be subjected to some sort of 21st-century Tuskegee experiment to restart our games before epidemiologists and virologists — not Trump, league commissioners or


The U.N. has appealed for a global coronavirus cease-fire

intractable conflicts? Cease-fires related to diseases have happened before The coronavirus cease-fires aren’t the first arrangements aimed at tackling the spread of infectious diseases. The new ETH/PRIO Ceasefire data set includes more than 20 cease-fires relating to infectious disease since 1989, mostly dealing with polio vaccination programs. This list includes cease-fires in conflict-affected areas in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Sudan and Syria. In most cases the cease-fires appear to have been relatively effective at achieving the medical objective, often resulting in the vaccination of millions of children. Of course, there are clearly important differences between the coronavirus threat and the danger of contracting polio. Covid-19 appears far more contagious than other viruses, though our understanding of it is incomplete — and restrictions on travel make it hard for international organizations to respond. But here’s what we know from these prior cease-fires. A USIP study details the efforts that worked owe their success to the neutrality of the international organizations involved, clearly drawn distinctions between the vaccination program and the wider conflict, and conflict parties not manipulating the arrangements for other purposes. When vaccination programs were manipulated for other strategic goals, they lost legitimacy. Here’s an example, from 2011. When people in Pakistan learned the CIA had funded a fake hepatitis B vaccination campaign to trace al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, this hampered future attempts to tackle polio. Fighting infectious disease can be particularly difficult in conflict zones. The 2019 Ebola outbreak, for instance, shows the effect on public-health efforts when conflict parties fail to reach cease-fire arrangements. The conflict parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo deliberately targeted humanitarian groups and the U.N., undermining the attempts to contain Ebola — and the result was increased spread of the disease and further suffering for the civilian population. Not all cease-fires are created equal In formal terms, cease-fires are arrangements in which one or more belligerents commit to stopping violent hostilities. But beyond this broad similarity, cease-fires vary greatly. They can range from very loose, informal and unilateral arrangements to formal, multilateral agreements. Cease-fires serve a wide range of functions that may or may not be connected to a broader peace process. While some arrangements emerge from negotiations and are a vital step toward peace, others instead serve isolated functions altogether, such as the celebration of a religious holiday, or allowing humanitarian access. Thus far, there are striking similarities among the


The Daily 202: South Korea, a coronavirus success story, warns against easing social distancing guidelines too soon

nation-building during the Cold War,” he explained. “The quick response can be attributed to the lessons South Korea learned during the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in 2015,” former National Security Council Asian Affairs director Victor Cha notes in Foreign Affairs. “During that epidemic, South Korea suffered the largest number of cases outside of Saudi Arabia, in part because the government’s response was slow and inadequate.” Some victims see their conditions collapse so fast that doctors, and loved ones, are reeling. Such was the case of 59-year-old Keith Redding, Sarah Kaplan reports. “Swathed in protective gear, Dana Redding knelt beside her husband’s hospital bed and repeated over and over the only words of which she could think: ‘I love you. I love you.’ She reached through the tangle of tubes that were taking the blood from his body and flushing it with oxygen and clutched his limp hand in one of her gloved ones. … It had been barely three weeks since [Keith] started feeling weary and nauseated. Then came the diarrhea and the hoarse, hacking cough — early symptoms of covid-19, though neither Redding knew it then. By the time Dana, 48, drove Keith to the emergency room on March 11, a week after his symptoms first appeared, some 30 percent of his lungs had been damaged. On a rare three-dimensional CT scan of his chest, the profusion of viral particles and dead cells showed up like scattered bits of broken glass. His condition declined as the disease spread throughout his body, a storm of inflammatory proteins overwhelming his vital organs one by one. … “More than a million people worldwide have been diagnosed with covid-19 … The majority are able to fend off the infection without hospitalization. But for reasons doctors still don’t understand, far too many others have been like Keith. After a week of mostly mild symptoms, their besieged immune systems seem to go into overdrive. Their bodies are bombarded by their own protective cells. Their lungs seize up, their hearts break down. … ‘There is no parallel that I or other physicians I’ve been working closely with can compare this to,’ said Keith Mortman, 51, a thoracic surgeon at George Washington University Hospital, where Keith was treated. … Keith’s lungs, Mortman said, had come to resemble an oversaturated sponge — an oppressive, wet weight in his chest cavity. … Keith didn’t have any [preexisting conditions],


until Saturday morning. “The mayor’s top aides said he called Mr. Cuomo just a few minutes before he was to announce the news to the public. Mr. de Blasio did not get through,” the Times reports. “So the mayor sent a text message. Less than three hours later, Mr. Cuomo used his news briefing to discount the mayor’s decision as a mere ‘opinion’ and insisted that he, and not Mr. de Blasio, controlled the destiny of the city’s own school system, the nation’s largest. … The disagreement between the mayor and governor frustrated and confused parents, teachers and other school employees, many of whom have scrambled to adapt to the extraordinary challenge that online learning has created and have been anxious for news about the rest of the school year.” The number of known infections grew to 15,397 in the region. “Maryland for the first time Sunday began reporting infections by Zip code. The hardest-hit area in the state is a part of Baltimore City with a mostly African American population, followed by three Zip codes in Montgomery County,” Rebecca Tan, Ovetta Wiggins, Marissa Land and Rachel Weiner report. “In television interviews Sunday, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) lamented the impact the virus has had on African Americans and said they could not predict when strict social distancing measures would be lifted. … In Montgomery County, the next three hardest-hit Zip codes are all in northern Silver Spring, including the area home to the sprawling retirement community of Leisure World. … Bowser said the District remains on track to see coronavirus hospitalizations peak in June, well after other cities … The D.C. government has relied on a disease forecasting model that differs from the one used by the federal government, which predicted the outbreak would peak in mid-April…. Bowser has said the IHME model used by the White House overestimates the effectiveness of social distancing practices on reducing infections.” “The pandemic could be particularly devastating for Langley Park, a neighborhood just seven miles from the White House where more than 80 percent of adults are not U.S. citizens — one of the highest rates in the United States — and many are undocumented. Here, countless cooks, construction workers and cleaners are suddenly out of a job without any chance of unemployment benefits or federal stimulus checks. Those who still work often do so


As stimulus payments begin, a rural pawnshop keeps an already-struggling town afloat

Jeremy Rowland woke up alone, away from his wife and teenage son, in the back office of the pawnshop he now calls home. He pulled himself out of his brown recliner, counted the cash in his register and posted the day’s deals on Instagram. Lysol and hand sanitizer within reach, he perched beside the shop’s new drive-through window. In the thick of a global pandemic, Triple R Pawn was still open. Rowland had closed the store for 10 days in March, fearful he would bring the coronavirus home. Then came the questions from concerned customers who had already secured loans against their property, and who would need him in the months to come. Rowland needed them, too. “I can’t go home,” he said, fielding calls from three cellphones. “We have bills to pay, we have a livelihood. We discussed it as a family, and we made the decision that I’m the sacrificial lamb.” In Ash Flat, Ark. — a city of 1,082 where more than a quarter live in poverty — the coronavirus first felt like a distant threat. The abrupt recession that has since catapulted more than 17 million Americans out of work didn’t immediately register in this rural outpost near the Missouri border. But Rowland’s pawnshop has long been indispensable for customers just getting by. And it was only a matter of time before the economic pain rippling across the nation exacerbated the hardship many in town knew all too well. When the recession did touch down, the residents of Ash Flat and surrounding Sharp County wouldn’t only wonder whether they should stock up on essentials. They’d worry how to pay for them. “A lot of people think it’s a choice to just go to the grocery store,” said Jeremy’s wife, Pamela, who’s managing the business from home. “It’s not here.” The coronavirus has unleashed an unprecedented economic crisis, one so pervasive that Washington is rolling out trillions of dollars to support individuals and businesses. But pawnshops operate in a slice of the economy that was bypassed by the nation’s prosperity of recent years. Many of their of customers don’t have bank accounts and would be hard-pressed to borrow from more mainstream lenders. They could also face longer waits for their stimulus checks — $1,200 for millions of adults — because the program prioritizes direct deposit. Pawnshops allow people with few alternatives to borrow against their possessions. In


came well before New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) started broadcasting live updates about the outbreak; it was when the travel industry began to bleed. A worker at a nearby Times Square hotel came into Modell’s 47th Street location saying his hours and pay had been cut. The man pawned a watch and gold items for several thousand dollars. One day last month, a high-end jewelry manufacturer whom Modell has known for years brought in his entire product line. The jeweler told Modell he didn’t know how he would make rent or pay his employees. “It was a hard thing to see,” Modell said. “He was trying to be proactive, but he knew he needed a significant amount of money. I think I gave him half of what he needed, but that’s all I could do.” The full weight of the coronavirus recession may have yet to hit Sharp County, but any support would be welcome. Under the federal relief package, small businesses of fewer than 500 employees can apply for loans. In rural Arkansas, “small businesses can be one, two or three employees — mom and dad and son and daughter running the business,” Barnes said. He added that the individual stimulus checks of $1,200 would be a “blessing from the sky” for many families. “We’ll have to see how long we have until we, unfortunately, exhaust our other resources to get by, to even buy groceries,” Barnes said, “maybe buy a few extra cleaning supplies.” Triple R Pawn will be there. On weekdays, Rowland closes the shop around 4:30 p.m., though the phones ring for hours beyond that. He might fill evenings or weekends scrolling through Twitter and TikTok, or taking his boat out to “social distance in the middle of the lake.” Pamela has been trying to prepare and pack healthy dinners for Jeremy, though she’s still satisfying his sweet tooth with his favorite German chocolate cake. For the Rowlands, the test of these times — the pandemic, living apart, hauling generators out of peoples’ trunks — briefly fades away sometime after 9 p.m. Jeremy settles into the brown recliner in his makeshift home. And once more, his cellphone lights up, this time with a FaceTime call from Pamela and Ty, their 18-year-old son. Photography by Terra Fondriest for The Washington Post. Photo editing by Annaliese Nurnberg. Design by Audrey Valbuena. Copy editing by Karen Funfgeld.


Pandemic highlights the staying power of two 20th-century masterpieces

allegory about fascism. But during a global pandemic, it reads as straight reportage. Doctors are supposed to take care of their patients, to save lives. But during the plague Rieux struggles to save anyone. House visits in the quarantined town “were becoming unbearable,” we are told. “Diagnosing the infection meant quickly removing the patient. And here the difficulty and the abstraction began because the family knew that they would not see the patient again until he or she was cured or dead.” Rieux, like medical workers today, must obey the demands of an abstraction — harm minimization — giving them priority over more human impulses: touch, affection, mercy, pity. Harm minimization takes precedence not only over the ordinary understanding of what it means to “take care” of people but also over the idea that humans have “rights.” We do not, it turns out, have rights. They are a glorious fiction. The more urgent abstraction — defeating the plague, or in today’s parlance, “flattening the curve” — renders them provisional, at best. Of course Rieux feels pity. Of course he believes that people should be allowed to die surrounded by loved ones and should be buried with dignity. But in the emergency of the plague, what good is pity? Incredible as it seems, hospital workers around the world now find themselves in similar territory. Recently, in a Washington Post video report, Monica Ghitan, a brave infectious disease doctor at Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center, sounded almost ashamed when she said she had specialized in infectious diseases “to make people better.” Now, she confessed, “we have very little, if anything, to give.” In “The Plague,” Rieux — like Omar Taha, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at Maimonides who compared his role to soldiering — understands that the only certainty is work. “The rest hang by threads and imperceptible movements; one could not dwell on it. The main thing was to do one’s job well.” Reading “The Plague” right after “Disgrace” was sobering. I became fascinated by surprising points of overlap among the experiences of Camus’s admirable protagonist, Coetzee’s less sympathetic one and the medical workers at the front lines today. In the aftermath of Professor Lurie’s scandal in “Disgrace,” he is introduced by his daughter to her friend, Bev. Bev runs an animal shelter, where Lurie, for want of anything better to do, helps out. Before long, he finds himself performing a


Inmates sharing sinks, showers and cells say social distancing isn’t possible in Maryland prisons

close to release, or associated with minor, nonviolent crimes. This week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland filed an emergency petition asking the state’s highest court to help speed the release of hundreds or thousands of inmates. The ACLU’s request came days before the state announced it was collaborating with the Army Corps of Engineers to construct medical tents at two prison facilities in Jessup and Hagerstown to treat inmates as needed. “The surge is coming. It’s just an inevitability,” said Paul DeWolfe, Maryland’s chief public defender, who is seeking the release of inmates who are old, medically vulnerable or nearing their release terms. “Our jails and prisons are virtual petri dishes.” As of Wednesday afternoon, Maryland's Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services had 57 confirmed cases of covid-19 within its system, including 10 inmates, 22 correctional officers and 19 contract workers. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has so far rebuffed calls for early release of inmates, with his office saying they have taken precautions to protect inmates. “They’re safer where they are,” Hogan said last month. Maryland state prison officials said they are pushing for as much social distancing as they can. For weeks, inmates have gone without in-person visits. Inmates are being asked to stay in their cells longer, while being released in smaller groups for exercise, recreation and meals. “In the environment that we have, we’re doing everything in our power to keep people safe,” said Robert Green, secretary of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. “We’re working to save Marylanders’ lives.” Maryland inmates also have sewn 12,000 cloth sneeze guards, available to all correctional officers and soon to be received by all inmates. Inmates with confirmed or suspected covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, are quarantined or isolated with surgical masks. The crisis is playing out inside institutions where tensions can turn deadly. “Give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and a wide berth,” Maryland prison officials recommended to their correctional officers in a recent operational update. “A lot of cooped up time can bring out the worst in everyone.” Julie Magers, who is a petitioner on the Maryland ACLU action, said her husband, an inmate at Roxbury Correctional Institution, suffers from multiple sclerosis and heart disease and is blind. “He is very scared,” Magers said. “There’s no way for him to be proactive to stay safe. We’ve been


D.C.’s official bird, the wood thrush, has been disappearing from these parts

the poster child of declining forest songbirds,” says Calandra Stanley, a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center who’s studying how to protect the wood thrush. “There’s a mixture of factors. But the big one is habitat loss.” Wood thrushes make their home here in the spring and summer, then migrate south to the warmer climates of Central America in the winter. They return to the D.C. region to breed in mid-April to early May, a million songs announcing their presence. Wood thrushes can produce two clutches of eggs a year with three to four eggs per clutch. That means potentially six to eight chicks annually. However, it’s a tough life for a migrating bird. Rauch explains: “A small bird, traveling thousands of miles — just think of all the things they could run into: predators, cars, glass, power lines, hunters, storm systems.” Rauch estimates that even under ideal conditions, about half live through their first year. But if that were the case, wood thrush numbers would be rising. Instead, they are declining as suitable habitat disappears. Wood thrushes need vibrant, large wooded areas to survive. They nest in shrubs and eat caterpillars and larvae that live in the undergrowth, and the tree canopy helps limit hungry hawks’ field of vision. The D.C. region has had a massive reduction in forests in recent years due to urban development. As forests become fragmented, the birds are forced into smaller and smaller areas. It’s like being forced to move from a six-bedroom mansion to a studio apartment. “There may be a lot of trees in the D.C. area, but there isn’t a lot of complete forest cover,” Stanley says. This has left the wood thrush even more vulnerable to other factors, such as climate change and, specifically in Rock Creek Park, an ever-increasing deer population. According to the National Park Service, a healthy deer density is 15 to 20 per square mile. In recent years, that density has reached 100 per square mile, prompting the need for an annual park culling. “Deer are grazers and eat everything on the ground: acorns, sapling trees and lots of native plants,” affecting birds that nest closer to the forest floor like the wood thrush, says Scott Sillett, head of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. “[Deer] can shut down the forest’s natural cycle of regeneration, which can compositionally change the forest and lead to the


Artists are struggling to find inspiration in isolation

Waters Across America,” a musical exploration of the civil rights movement, was cut short after its opening performance in Nashville. And, after six years in development, his fourth musical, “Grace,” was called off as they were building the set for its March premiere at the 2020 Humana Festival of American Plays in Louisville. On the day “Grace” would have opened, Williams instead invited cast members to record their individual vocal parts from one of the play’s central numbers, “When Gran’Me Cooked.” He plans to release it online Sunday. “Walking back from the theater to the hotel that day [in Louisville] was probably one of the saddest, loneliest walks that I can actually remember,” he says. “And when I came back to D.C., for the first several days, in an uncharacteristic manner, I found myself binge-watching television shows like crazy and sleeping.” All isolation is not the same. When it’s a choice made for you, you can only respond with choices of your own. “Even though this is imposed,” Williams says, “you can establish a level of normalcy for yourself. It’s been a very slow and very intentional process of working through the melancholy that comes with the uncertainty. You’ve got to find in this new normal a place, and create space to be creative.” “I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be a composer right now,” says Sarah Darling, 40, a Boston-based violist and violinist who splits her time between musical eras and outfits as a member of Boston Baroque and the conductorless orchestra A Far Cry. During the first few weeks of the crisis, Darling and the other 15 members of A Far Cry had so many emergency meetings and family obligations to attend to, there was barely time to worry about the art part. Strangely, this flurry of activity at the outset of the pandemic felt familiar — reminiscent of the feast-or-famine nature of working in music. “Right now I’m feeling very grateful to be well-versed in those feelings,” she says. “In a way, this still feels normal, it feels like a fallow period. And we know what we do during fallow periods: We get together and program and talk about what’s coming next and we plan.” Like many other ensembles, A Far Cry replaced its docket of canceled concerts (including its March 31 debut at the Kennedy Center) with intimate living room webcasts and assorted


Eastern tiger salamanders, once nearly gone from Maryland, make a comeback

One rarely seen, colorful salamander species with clownish fixed smiles is prompting a lot of smiles among biologists in Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR). In the 1990s, as development, pollution and evolving land uses intruded on breeding sites, Eastern tiger salamanders — the largest land-dwelling salamanders in North America — almost became extinct in the state. These amphibians are making a significant comeback. “Salamanders are one of the first species many of us encounter as kids,” noted Scott McDaniel, director of the Susquehannock Wildlife Society in Darlington. “Their seemingly smiling faces and bright colors excite the imagination as you flip a rock over or roll a log to find such a unique treasure hiding underneath.” “Fluffy or feathered things get more attention than scaly, slimy things,” said DNR biologist Beth Schlimm, who works with numerous reptiles and amphibians. “I’m partial to the scaly, slimy things.” Salamanders are scaleless, but some secrete a toxic, sticky substance from glands in their tails to ward off predators. Like other amphibians, tiger salamanders are important to the ecosystem because they are predators to smaller organisms and prey for larger creatures. “Since they partially breathe through their skin and require wetlands to breed, lay eggs and develop in their larval stages, they are indicators of a healthy habitat,” McDaniel said. “Tiger salamanders are also very picky about which breeding pools they like,” said Emilio Concari, who volunteers with DNR population surveys. Schlimm recently explored one of several seasonal wetland areas on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where extensive vegetation management over the past decade helped restore natural breeding habitats of these salamanders. “Female tiger salamanders need fishless freshwater ponds that have a lot of sunlight for their eggs,” Schlimm said. Egg masses attach to upright vegetation, so water depth is critical. “Too shallow, they dry out; too deep, and sun won’t get to the egg masses.” Carefully making her way through knee-high water, Schlimm checked sites where their egg masses flourish. Egg mass counts are the most efficient method to answer the question: “How are Eastern tiger salamander populations doing in Maryland?” “A really rough population estimate would be 1,000 to 2,000 individual tiger salamanders,” said DNR biologist Scott A. Smith. They are concentrated in Caroline and Kent counties. Tiger salamanders can grow to 14 inches long. They are called “mole salamanders” because they dig underground burrows in loose, sandy soil, where they spend most of


Israelis and Arabs accuse each other of exploiting coronavirus for political gain in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM — The arrival of coronavirus has brought no pause in tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the eastern neighborhoods of this contested city, where both sides of the conflict accuse the other of using the pandemic to advance their political purposes. Some Palestinians complain that Israeli officials, who provide health and police services in East Jerusalem, have been slow to offer virus testing and Arabic-language information in this part of the city and, in some cases, have thwarted the Arabs’ own efforts to respond to the outbreak. Israeli officials, in turn, contend that the Palestinian Authority, which governs the adjacent West Bank, is exploiting the outbreak to meddle in Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods. The acrimony belies corona-cooperation in other areas, where Israeli and Palestinian agencies have worked together to distribute testing kits and control movement of people in the West Bank and facilitated the passage of critical supplies into Gaza. But tensions in Jerusalem threaten to mar what both Israel and the Palestinian Authority increasingly see as successful efforts to prevent the high death counts suffered by some countries. Beleaguered residents of East Jerusalem neighborhoods say they are caught in the war of words between the two sides, and not for the first time. “Everybody wants to control us but nobody wants to help us,” said a young Palestinian man sitting on a car hood in the impoverished ridge-top neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber on a recent afternoon. He would only give his first name, Abdel, because he feared reprisals from both governments. “We fall in the middle.” The most recent flare-up of tensions began early in the outbreak, when Israeli and Palestinian activists criticized the Israeli Ministry of Health for failing to provide covid-19 information in Arabic, the first language of Palestinians who make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population. The ministry increased its Arabic updates soon after a legal advocacy group documented the lack of timely Arabic updates on its website in early March, and it has since instituted dedicated Arabic briefings on social media and television. There is little indication that East Jerusalem is harboring a significant outbreak. The health ministry’s official map of coronavirus cases showed only two incidents of infection last week in the city’s Arab sections. But health experts warn the low count could reflect a lack of testing. Israel has established a number of drive-through testing centers around the country, including one in


Trump activates National Guard in three states in response to coronavirus pandemic; Canadian Olympic Committee says it will not send team to Tokyo Games in 2020

The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committees will not send athletes to the Tokyo Summer Games if the event is not postponed, they said late Sunday, another sign of mounting pressure to push back the Olympics amid the novel coronavirus. President Trump announced Sunday that the federal government has activated the National Guard to assist New York, California and Washington, three of the states hit hardest by the novel coronavirus. During the task force briefing, Trump also appeared to make light of the news that Sen. Mitt Romney is self-quarantining because of his contact with Sen. Rand Paul. Earlier Sunday, it was announced that Paul (R-Ky.) has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, becoming the third member of Congress and the first senator to confirm infection. Sen. Mike Lee and Romney, both Utah Republicans, announced that they would self-quarantine because of their recent contact with Paul. Here are some significant developments: Sign up for our coronavirus newsletter


Virginia reports first death from coronavirus; D.C. officials weigh emergency legislation

The District, Maryland and Virginia entered an increasingly anxious shutdown mode because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, with public schools set to close in many districts and large gatherings canceled in Maryland, major tourist sites shuttered throughout the region, and the District and Virginia joining Maryland in declaring states of emergency. Here are some of the significant and most recent developments: Coronavirus in the DMV: What you need to know | Known coronavirus cases in D.C., Maryland and Virginia


Spain, France take drastic measures to fight coronavirus; Georgia delays presidential primary

President Trump has tested negative for the virus, according to his physician, after days of his apparent reluctance to get tested. Spain announced a nationwide lockdown as France moved to close all nonessential businesses — including cafes, restaurants and movie theaters — in the latest testament to the coronavirus pandemic’s profound impact on daily life around the globe. Upheaval continued in the United States, as well, on Saturday as Georgia followed Louisiana’s lead in delaying its presidential primary and three states reported their first coronavirus-related deaths. The United States will be banning travel from the United Kingdom and Ireland beginning Monday at midnight, officials said. Here are some other significant developments: Sign up for our coronavirus newsletter


Fears grow of a coronavirus pandemic as markets stumble again; Japan shuts schools

U.S. markets fell sharply Thursday after the first coronavirus case in the United States that could not be linked to foreign travel was confirmed. California is calling the case, first reported by The Washington Post, its first instance of community transmission. The hospital is monitoring the health of scores of staff members who may have come in contact with the patient. The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus also raised the specter of a global pandemic as governments ramped up their emergency responses and international financial markets slumped again Thursday, despite signs that the outbreak may be easing in China. Japan told schools to close through the spring break, which for most students typically means early April. Australia’s leader warned that a pandemic was inevitable, and an Iranian lawmaker said he has tested positive for the virus. New infections and deaths from covid-19, as the disease caused by the coronavirus is known, emerged from the Middle East to Europe and South Korea. The State Department, meanwhile, issued a Level 3 travel advisory for South Korea, portending extended economic disruption in Asia. Here are the latest developments: Mapping the spread of the coronavirus


How mortality predictions in a leading coronavirus model dropped over time

By now, there were supposed to have been more than 1,000 people dead in Alabama. Well, to be fair, there were supposed to have been between 607 and 1,667 people in the state who had died of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Somewhere in that range, according to a model of the virus’s spread created earlier this month by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Happily, that estimate was wrong. As of Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, only about 100 Alabamians have died of the disease. Modeling, as White House coronavirus task force member Anthony S. Fauci would remind us, is a forward-looking estimate. It is an educated guess, based on the available data, used to make decisions about resource allocation and strategies. As data come in, the model should and will change. As the IHME model did. Its initial estimates of how the virus would affect the United States were based on the effects of social distancing measures in Wuhan, the city in China where the virus first emerged. When more data became available from Italy and Spain, that was included in the model and the estimated death toll nationally was reduced. More data from the United States pushed the estimates lower still last week. In an update this week, they were revised back upward a bit, with an estimated 69,000 deaths nationally by Aug. 1 — assuming social distancing measures are maintained through May and, well, that new data don’t point somewhere else. Alabama was one of the model’s most problematic estimates. Comparing the highest number of deaths predicted in four iterations of the model released this month (considering the mean predicted figure, not the upper end of the model’s estimate range), states are on average at about half the number of coronavirus deaths as the model suggested. Nationally, the estimate was a bit better. The April 6 iteration predicted 31,000 deaths nationally by April 13 vs. the 23,500 actually included in the toll. But Alabama isn’t alone. The interactive below shows the mean predicted death toll in four iterations of the IHME model, comparing them to what was actually recorded. Clicking a state will show a large version of the graph. Lines are relative to the peak predicted death toll by July 1, shown at upper right. Some states, like Hawaii and North Dakota, have


There are patterns in the covid-19 crisis. Here’s what they tell us.

President Trump and many governors are openly talking about when and how to reopen the nation’s economy. They should be looking closely at the regional data regarding coronavirus infection rates as they make these decisions. Different parts of the country show much different rates of infection, suggesting that some places might be able to reopen earlier than others. The data shows that the United States has a national problem with severe regional crises. As of Monday, the country had about 579,000 recorded cases of covid-19. Data from the New York Times shows that nearly half —almost 256,000 cases — were from the New York metropolitan area. Broaden that out to other counties in the New York area, and you add 19,000 more cases. An area that contains less than 7 percent of the national population had nearly 50 percent of the nation’s cases. A mere four other regions of the country combined for roughly 68,000 more cases. The Boston and Detroit combined statistical areas had almost 47,000 cases between them, while the regions in eastern and southern Louisiana, including the New Orleans and Baton Rouge metro areas, had 17,000. Add the Hartford, Conn., metro area and the western part of Massachusetts to these areas and New York, and you’ve accounted for 60 percent of the nation’s cases. The disparities become even clearer when one looks at the number of cases per million inhabitants. In addition to the crisis areas mentioned above, only 15 of the 80 metro areas with 750,000 people or more have infection rates greater than 1,000 per million people. This includes large cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Phoenix. Assuming the data, which comes from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, is accurate, most Americans live in places where covid-19 infections are rare and deaths are few. There are hot spots outside the major metro areas. Certain counties in the Rocky Mountains with ski resorts, such as Eagle and Gunnsion counties in Colorado, Summit County, Utah, and Blaine County, Idaho, have rates of infection as high as 20,000 per million. A collection of counties in southwestern Georgia have infection rates between 3,000 and nearly 13,000 per million. Minnehaha County in South Dakota and Navajo County, Ariz., had more than 3,000 infections per million. There are nearly 100 other counties with infection rates at or above those found in the hardest stricken metro areas.


Lung bypass machines can keep covid patients alive. But when should we use them?

and inserted a large tube into each. We hooked the patient up to the ECMO machine, and the color of his blood went from dark to bright red as the artificial lung infused it with oxygen. His oxygen levels increased to 100 percent. I thought to myself, why don’t we do this for every patient struggling to live on a ventilator? But as I learned over time and after many ECMOs, the procedure is a resource-intensive, costly and risky treatment with many complications. And it may only improve survival for a small number of covid-19 patients — though the data is limited. So this raises the question: Should we be adopting widespread use of ECMO for covid-19 patients when our health-care system is struggling with a lack of simpler resources? Right now, some hospitals across the country are discussing rationing ventilators and considering “do not resuscitate” orders for covid-19 patients because treating some of them may be futile and because we can’t protect health-care workers. On the other hand, many patients and families understandably want to try everything possible, including ECMO, even if the chances of survival are slim. Just last week, ECMO was used to save a covid-19 patient’s life in Chicago. There are a handful of reports of ECMO being used for covid-19 patients across the country as well. Some projections have suggested that as many as 12,000 to 32,000 covid-19 patients across the United States may need ECMO, depending on how quickly the virus spreads. That would far exceed the number of ECMO for respiratory illnesses that we do yearly in this country. In response to this potential need, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently issued guidance to help expand the availability of devices that could be used for ECMO. But the procedure isn’t an option for everyone. The high-risk complications, such as uncontrollable bleeding, stroke and infection — coupled with the low chance of survival even with bypass — mean that the risk often outweighs the benefit. Many of the patients that we put on ECMO suffer from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), the same condition that is making covid-19 patients sick. In non-covid patients with ARDS, studies show that survival with ECMO is about 50 percent in carefully selected patients, and a number of patients who survive suffer disabling complications. Whether these numbers apply to covid-19 patients is unclear. Initial data from Wuhan, China,


Leaders of developing countries are particularly vulnerable during this pandemic

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s hospitalization and time in the intensive care unit after he contracted the novel coronavirus is a reminder of the dangers the pandemic poses to world leaders. Johnson is relatively young at 55, and had access to world-class health care to treat the disease covid-19 before his release. But for older leaders, particularly those in developing countries, the coronavirus poses an even greater threat. Worryingly, the psychological and practical impacts of these age dynamics can have a detrimental effect on decision-making and the global response to the pandemic. People older than 60 have a significantly higher risk of mortality and severe illness from covid-19. This group includes heads of state worldwide, and the majority in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean. While any head of state or minister will probably have the best health-care available, that might not be enough in a developing country with a weak and overwhelmed health system. Many African countries, for example, have fewer intensive care unit beds nationwide than the average American hospital. Normally this isn’t a problem for elites because they can go abroad for quality care, but travel restrictions make that option unavailable. These leaders regularly face stress and crises, but their security, money and access to medical care normally shield them from the personal vulnerability that they feel right now. The coronavirus pandemic is unlike economic shocks, natural disasters, or other infectious diseases that do not discriminate based on age or, as is often the case, principally endanger the young and poor. So, while faced with perhaps the greatest challenge of their careers, leaders who are senior in both age and responsibility will also naturally be preoccupied with their personal health and safety, which could impede their response to the coronavirus crisis. Many leaders could likely make poorer decisions, because heightened stress and prolonged uncertainty can impair cognitive functions and make it harder to see and weigh options. Leadership during any crisis is stressful, but extrapolating from psychology research, the personal risk involved could make leaders even less able to think creatively, solve problems and carry on important functions. These instinctive pressures work against what is most needed in times of crisis, such as inclusive decision-making, resisting impulsive actions and projecting empathy and hope. Leaders’ fears might also trigger a self-preservation instinct as they weigh trade-offs between efforts to slow the spread of the disease


The games are paused, but the clock keeps ticking for some of our brightest sports stars

of this virus. The larger point is that, although life seems eerily still at the moment, we are not standing in place. We’re not moving, but we are being moved. Rather than wishing for normalcy, it is more pragmatic to contemplate what can be salvaged when this unwelcome shift concludes. Biles, who has revolutionized gymnastics with her stunning athleticism, skill and tenacity, can provide eloquent insight into her mental struggle. She was primed to dominate the Olympics for a second time this summer before the 2020 Tokyo Games were postponed for a year. If the Olympics go on as scheduled in 2021, she will be 24. Already well beyond her supposed physical prime, she will have to foil Father Time again. But she is more worried about the emotional toll. She is not just chasing history. She is attempting to carry USA Gymnastics through the shame of a sex abuse scandal, all while dealing with her distrust of the organization. Now she must carry all of that, in addition to her training, for another year. She admits to crying about the postponement. “It’s just the mental strain of going in the gym, day in, day out, day after day, putting in that work going toward that goal,” Biles told The Washington Post’s Liz Clarke in a recent interview. “I feel right now we’re kind of emptying our gas tank. I was so ready to have that experience in three months; now it’s pushed back another 15 months. That takes a toll on your mind.” A few days ago, Biles went on Twitter and wrote that she “can’t describe the pressure I be putting on myself.” Athletes on her level don’t like acknowledging pressure, but they all must feel it. It makes me think about James, who had the Los Angeles Lakers in position to make a championship push before the NBA season was interrupted. If the NBA doesn’t return this summer, James will have other chances to win a fourth title. But at 35 and with his superpowers still intact, this might be his best chance. He has Anthony Davis as his running mate, so that widens the window, but James wants to win it all in Los Angeles as the LeBron we all know: the consensus best player in the league. Considering how well he cares for his body, he figures to be an all-NBA player for another three


The Daily 202: Coronavirus keeps Joe Biden a bystander, even as Bernie Sanders endorses him

am essential,’ he said of remaining open, adding, ‘I’m a preacher — I talk to God!’ On Sunday, his church announced ‘with an exceedingly sorrowful and heavy heart’ that the pastor had died a week after being diagnosed with COVID-19.” “‘Papa Joe’ Migliucci was the fourth-generation owner of Mario’s, a 101-year-old red-sauce restaurant on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. Moe Albanese was known affectionately throughout Manhattan’s Little Italy as ‘Moe the Butcher.’ Both men — ages 81 and 95, respectively — were among the more than 2,000 New Yorkers who died citywide last week from the coronavirus pandemic. Statistically speaking, their deaths are insignificant. But try telling that to the city’s tightly knit Italian American community,” Richard Morgan reports. “As New York state’s confirmed covid-19 infections have now surpassed those in all of Italy (or any other foreign country) and the U.S. death toll now outnumbers that of Italy, Europe’s epicenter, Italian-Americans here described their lives and their identities as imploding on both ends of their hyphen. … Cuomo [the governor and the grandson of an Italian immigrant] informed New Yorkers on Monday that while the ‘worst is over,’ life here won’t fully return to normal for another 12 to 18 months, when there is likely to be a vaccine against the coronavirus.” “Communities across the South on Monday began the grueling work of cleaning up the wreckage left behind by a string of deadly tornadoes, tasks made more treacherous by the threat of the coronavirus pandemic. The storms began sweeping through the region on Easter Sunday, killing at least 30 people and knocking out power to more than a million homes,” David Montgomery, Richard Webster, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Frances Stead Sellers report. “In almost all of the hardest-hit communities, covid-19 … has forced people to isolate indoors, packed hospitals and stressed the emergency workers who are the first to respond to a natural disaster. The overlapping crises have made responding to both a dangerous gambit, now and in the months to come. How do you get people to shelter-in-place when hundreds of homes are damaged or destroyed? ‘This is like a double whammy for our community,’ said Clarksdale, Miss., Mayor Chuck Espy on Monday, as he toured the 47 homes that had been damaged in his city of 17,000. ‘It’s already a trying time for everybody. If we don’t have any additional coronavirus fatalities, I think we’d


students in the high-poverty Baltimore City Public Schools had computers. … In Atlanta’s public schools, about 6,000 children still don’t have computers, and about 10 percent of students have not yet logged in to the remote-learning system … In Philadelphia’s public schools, teachers have been told not to teach new material because of concerns that lessons cannot be equitably provided to all.” A Florida police chief was placed on leave after allegedly linking a deputy’s covid-19 death to homosexuality. Davie Police Chief Dale Engle allegedly made the remarks in a tirade against officers four days after the sheriff’s deputy, Shannon Bennett, died from the virus. (Samantha Pell) Pawnshops are operating in a slice of the economy that’s missed out on the gains of recent years. Many of their customers face longer waits to receive stimulus checks because the government’s program prioritizes those who have direct deposit. So the shops face a choice of closing, cutting off those who depend on them for cash, or accepting the health risks to their employees of staying open. (Rachel Siegel) “The number of virus-related deaths was 263 in Maryland, 149 in Virginia and 53 in the District, for a total of 465 fatalities,” Dana Hedgpeth reports. “A group of scientists advising Virginia’s government said Monday that social distancing in the state appears to be working, and their models show the state’s hospitals have enough beds to handle the novel coronavirus pandemic for the next few months if current trends continue. D.C. officials said Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) will decide this week whether to extend school and business closures beyond the current end date of April 24, and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said he is talking with scientists, doctors and business leaders about how and when to safely lift Maryland’s restrictions.” Italian officials announced 3,153 new confirmed cases on Monday, the lowest daily increase since April 7, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 159,516. In Spain, the death toll reached 17,489 as some measures were relaxed since officials believe the outbreak there has passed its peak, per Adam Taylor. France, which neared 15,000 deaths, has extended its full lockdown until mid-May with only partial relaxation afterward, James McAuley reports from Paris. “Hundreds of thousands of civilians are besieged amid increased shelling and massive water and electricity cuts. Hospitals are being targeted just as the coronavirus is threatening an already shattered health


Weed is deemed ‘essential’ in California, but many pot businesses are on the brink of failure

lack of a safety net, access to banking or the ability to tap into federal stimulus dollars means the tiniest misstep could lead to bankruptcy. “We saw the potential to lose everything and then have the state or federal government not have our backs at all. It was very scary,” said Dave Wingard, who owns Flora Terra, a marijuana cultivator and dispensary in Santa Rosa, Calif., with his wife, Alicia. They had finally gotten their business up and running last fall after a year and a half of cutting through red tape. On March 16, when many Americans were still trying to figure out whether the coronavirus was a big deal, six counties in the San Francisco Bay area ordered residents to “shelter in place,” effectively shutting down the economy that is home to Silicon Valley, including the cannabis industry. For many Californians who rely on marijuana for everything from stress relief to treating post-traumatic stress disorder and cancer, the decision to bar marijuana businesses from operating was a blunder. The backlash was swift and deafening. Matt Haney, a San Francisco supervisor, voiced support on Twitter. “They shouldn’t be told to close. They obviously serve as pharmacies for a lot of people,” he said. The next day, the San Francisco Department of Public Health reversed the decision, calling marijuana an “essential service.” Other states like Vermont, Illinois, Michigan and Colorado followed suit, allowing marijuana businesses to stay open during shutdowns. “The fact that yesterday’s vice is considered today’s essential service suggests that we got the potential costs and benefits of marijuana use radically wrong,” said Joseph E. Kennedy, a law professor at the University of North Carolina. “It’s evidence of the schizoid attitude our society has toward drugs in general and toward marijuana in particular." The designation by Bay Area governments was a major milestone for an industry that was ravaged by a war on drugs and survived years of turmoil since legalization. California was the first U.S. state to legalize medicinal marijuana in 1996, but the industry was marred by periodic crackdowns by federal law enforcement. In 2016, following Colorado and other states, voters approved recreational sales, prompting an investment boom. Many predicted that it would bring it out from the shadows, turning the once underground drug into an over-the-counter commodity. The opposite happened. The state began heavily taxing the product, and local municipalities tacked on their own taxes


Nationals postpone season ticket payments with baseball on indefinite hold

much longer, and it is now unclear whether the season will happen at all. That reality has financial ramifications for thousands beyond players, coaches and executives. Season ticket holders are among those affected. MLB, like all professional sports, is weighing a dreary present against an uncertain future. Teams are not refunding tickets for games that have not been officially canceled. They are holding off on exchanges for missed games — the ones that would have been played in the past three weeks — until they know what the schedule may look like. But individual clubs can choose to suspend or postpone charges, which the Nationals did for fans paying for season plans across a 10-month period. The Nationals have postponed the April payment, which is now due in July. They have not decided on May or June payments. In interviews with The Washington Post, more than a dozen season ticket holders lamented a lack of communication from the Nationals before Monday’s announcement. The phrase “radio silence” was used by four fans. Six others said that, by paying for games that may not happen, they feel as if they are giving a no-interest loan to a professional sports franchise. They were frustrated and confused before Monday’s announcement, and some still see a full refund as the only reasonable solution. When asked about fans’ concerns about communication, a Nationals spokeswoman wrote in an email: “Our ticket reps have been in regular contact with fans via calls, emails, videos and newsletters. Given the lack of clarity surrounding the 2020 season, few specifics regarding refunds can be offered at this time.” In regard to refunds, whether they be for single-game tickets or season-plan payments, the spokeswoman wrote, “Currently, MLB has only postponed games — not canceled — and has asked teams to wait for their guidance on how to handle tickets.” “Everyone’s situation is different, but I could really use the refund with all that’s going on,” said Patty MacEwan, who was a season ticket holder for five seasons, took off last year while dealing with health complications, then opted into a half-season plan for 2020 so she could have a chance at lower-priced World Series tickets. “That $2,400 would go a long way rather than getting it maybe a year from now.” Many season ticket holders who opted in for 2020 at the end of last summer were on a 10-month payment plan


The industry says we have enough food. Here’s why some store shelves are empty anyway.

Tempers are getting short. Supplies of ground beef even shorter. People are looking into each other’s shopping carts. Is that guy really going to use all four cans of chickpeas? That’s a lot of emergency hummus. But maybe a little supermarket paranoia is warranted after all. A month ago, as the economy began to shut down and Americans started hoarding canned goods and other foods out of fear of shortages, industry giants offered assurance there was plenty of food and no reason for worry. Yet availability remains spotty around the country, some shelves stocked and others empty, with Americans having particular difficulty locating all-purpose flour, yeast and beef. And even as the industry rushes to get distribution problems smoothed out, other red flags are emerging. JBS SA, the world’s top meat company, shuttered its beef facility in Greeley, Colo., this week because of a coronavirus outbreak. In South Dakota, more than 300 workers at a Smithfield Foods pork processing plant tested positive for the virus, shutting the plant down. The closure of the latter plant, which accounts for 5 percent of the nation’s pork production, is “pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” said Kenneth Sullivan, president and chief executive of Smithfield. Experts agree there is no aggregate shortage of food or other retail items offered at the supermarket. But many factors are causing product deficits in particular regions and in particular stores. The biggest is that while about half of American expenditures for food used to be at restaurants and other such establishments, now almost all meals are being made in the home kitchen, so a distribution system that was built to supply restaurants with bulk items is struggling to adapt to far smaller packaging for home use. In addition, while supermarkets and food companies have based their business model in the past on offering a wide variety (grocery stores often have 40,000 items), now most consumers focus on a smaller sliver of products, so supply chains are overwhelmed. Consumer goods become hot-ticket items with little warning: This week’s unexpected supermarket product is hair dye, as people go without a visit to the salon. And finally, both in grocery stores and in the food distribution system, significant new efforts are being undertaken to protect workers — but they introduce delays and complications in getting food to its final destination. Fred Boehler, president


said Kenneth Sullivan, president and chief executive of Smithfield. Experts agree there is no aggregate shortage of food or other retail items offered at the supermarket. But many factors are causing product deficits in particular regions and in particular stores. The biggest is that while about half of American expenditures for food used to be at restaurants and other such establishments, now almost all meals are being made in the home kitchen, so a distribution system that was built to supply restaurants with bulk items is struggling to adapt to far smaller packaging for home use. In addition, while supermarkets and food companies have based their business model in the past on offering a wide variety (grocery stores often have 40,000 items), now most consumers focus on a smaller sliver of products, so supply chains are overwhelmed. Consumer goods become hot-ticket items with little warning: This week’s unexpected supermarket product is hair dye, as people go without a visit to the salon. And finally, both in grocery stores and in the food distribution system, significant new efforts are being undertaken to protect workers — but they introduce delays and complications in getting food to its final destination. Fred Boehler, president and CEO of Americold, which provides a temperature-controlled supply chain to manufacturers, said U.S. grocery stores, food-service distribution centers, regional distribution centers and manufacturing facilities traditionally each hold up to about 30 days of product. Together, that’s four months of food in the system. “But at the flip of a switch, the food-service sector slowed down and people wiped the grocery stores clean,” he said. “It’s sitting in everyone’s home fridges and freezers, and we have to backfill the grocery stores.” In one of the two Safeway stores in Butte, Mont., cashiers work behind sneeze guards and daily customer traffic has slowed from 2,000 a day two weeks ago to 1,400 last week. As with many stores around the country, this Safeway reduced hours to allow for deep cleaning and restocking, instituted special hours for seniors and people with compromised immune systems, and will soon install one-way paths through the store to maximize space between customers. Nonetheless, essentials are flying off the shelves: toilet paper, hand soap and sanitizer, pasta, rice and beans. For the most part, people have been friendly and understanding, but more customers than usual have been short-tempered. “I haven’t been yelled at as much in nine


South Dakota’s governor resisted ordering people to stay home. Now it has one of the nation’s largest coronavirus hot spots.

offers plenty of peril. Reopening the country by May is “not even remotely achievable,” said TenHaken, who, like Trump and Noem, is a Republican. “We’re in the early innings of this thing in Sioux Falls.” Already, the experience has been harrowing: As of early April, the city had relatively few cases. But over the course of last week, the numbers surged as the virus ripped through the city’s Smithfield Foods production plant, a colossus that employs 3,700 people — many of them immigrants — and churns out 18 million servings of pork product per day. On Monday alone, 57 more workers were confirmed to have positive diagnoses, bringing the total well above 300 — and making it one of the country’s largest clusters. Other major clusters include Cook County Jail in Chicago and the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier. The Smithfield cases amount to more than a third of the state’s overall total, which stood at 868 on Monday, including six deaths, in a state of nearly 900,000 people. Over the weekend, Smithfield bowed to growing pressure and said it would shutter the facility indefinitely in a bid to contain the spread — though Smithfield leaders cautioned that the action could severely disrupt the nation’s food supplies. The factory, like other food production facilities, had earlier been deemed essential by the federal government. The shutdown of the Sioux Falls plant, coupled with other closures, “is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” Kenneth Sullivan, Smithfield president and chief executive, said in a statement. “It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running.” Before the closure, workers had complained that they were not given sufficient access to protective gear, such as masks. The company said Thursday that it had taken steps to reduce the spread, including “adding extra hand sanitizing stations, boosting personal protective equipment, continuing to stress the importance of personal hygiene.” But workers said they were required to work so closely together that it was impossible to stay healthy. “There is no social distance,” said Lily, a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant who had worked at the plant for nearly 13 years but quit because she feared bringing the coronavirus home to her husband and young daughter. Lily, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be published for fear of retribution, said it is not


After tornadoes batter the South, residents question how to rebuild amid coronavirus threat

His family had been strictly adhering to the stay-at-home guidance. But the tornado’s destruction temporarily replaced the pandemic in their list of things to worry about. “Ever since this has happened I haven’t given much thought to corona,” Collins said. “You have to receive aid; you’re going to be around a lot of people . . . It’s hard to think about dealing with the corona when you have to think about this stuff.” Fifteen members of Pinnacle Search and Rescue, a relief organization based in Walker, La., traveled to Soso, Miss., carrying chain saws for downed trees, tarps for damaged roofs and N95 masks for their own vulnerable mouths and noses. Founder Jon Bridgers said his volunteer group was learning on the fly how to do volunteer work in the age of coronavirus. The threat of covid-19 is always in the back of their minds, he said, but “when it comes to rescuing people, saving lives and trying to help one another out, you kind of don’t worry about it as much as you normally would. If you’re going to get sick, you’re going to get sick.” Aid volunteers in Tennessee have already been navigating the line between aid work and covid-19’s risk. Hands On Nashville, an organization that has coordinated a massive volunteer response to the tornadoes that struck Tennessee last month, was deluged with offers from volunteers willing to wield chain saws or serving spoons before the coronavirus lockdowns started. But it has since advised volunteers unsure about their potential exposure to the virus to “feel free to . . . remove themselves from projects.” The group is coordinating efforts at an 80,000-square-foot community resource center stacked high with rolls of toilet paper, bottles of cleaning supplies and 1,000 mattresses. Normally, a small army of volunteers would respond after a severe weather outbreak, but to protect people from the pandemic, that number has been reduced to teams of 10, and the group has narrowed its focus to urgent needs like food and shelter to cut down on undue exposure. In the suburbs of Nashville, teams of volunteers who were helping salvage possessions at Melissa Davis’s house, heavily damaged in the March tornadoes, have disappeared. “They can’t come now,” said Davis, who has been laboriously sifting through the wreckage with her husband. “I know there are people just waiting to help us when they can.” david.montgomery@washpost.com cleve.wootson@washpost.com frances.stellers@washpost.com


Man fatally shot in Northwest Washington’s Brightwood neighborhood

A man was fatally shot Monday night in Northwest Washington’s Brightwood neighborhood, according to D.C. police. The man was the 11th person to be shot in the District since Easter Sunday and the second person to die. The shooting marked the end of a deadly two-day stretch in the city. Police said Monday night’s shooting occurred about 11:20 p.m. in the 700 block of Longfellow Street NW, a residential area three blocks east of Georgia Avenue. According to a report, police responded to a call for sounds of gunshots and found the victim lying unconscious in the street. Police said he was pronounced dead at a hospital. The report said he was shot in the upper body. Police identifed the victim as Clarence Skrine, 25, of Northwest. He lived in Brightwood Park, a short distance from where he was shot. Authorities did not discuss a possible motive, and no arrest has been made. Gunfire damaged the front windshield a parked Toyota Avalon. Since Sunday evening, police in the District have investigated the shootings of 10 other people in the Northwest, Northeast and Southeast quadrants of the city. A 19-year-old man, Antonio Lee Burnett Jr. — one of three people shot at the Mayfair Mansions apartments in Northeast — died. Several shootings Sunday night were concentrated in the Southeast Washington neighborhoods of Garfield Heights, Congress Heights, Benning Ridge and Shipley Terrace. Police were trying to determine whether any were related. The spate of violence over the holiday weekend, and while residents are under orders to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic, frustrated D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham, who said social distancing and covid-19 do not seem to stop the city’s most violent assailants. “They are continuing the way they normally would,” Newsham said, speaking before the shooting on Longfellow Street but after the shootings of 10 other people. Although robberies and some other categories of crime have dropped since residents in the District began social distancing practices, shootings and other assaults have gone up over the past month. There have been 44 homicides in the District this year, up from 43 at this time in 2019. Assaults with firearms are up 22 percent in the past month. peter.hermann@washpost.com


Local Digest: Man fatally shot in D.C.’s Brightwood neighborhood

THE DISTRICT A man was fatally shot Monday night in the Brightwood neighborhood, according to D.C. police. The man was the 11th person to be shot in the District since Easter Sunday and the second person to die. Police said Monday’s shooting occurred about 11:20 p.m. in the 700 block of Longfellow Street NW, a residential area three blocks east of Georgia Avenue. According to a report, police responded to a call for sounds of gunshots and found the victim lying unconscious in the street. Police said he was pronounced dead at a hospital. Police identified the victim as Clarence Skrine, 25, of Northwest. Authorities did not discuss a possible motive, and no arrest had been made. — Peter Hermann MARYLAND A woman who was found dead in a burning apartment in Prince George’s County last week had been shot, police said Monday. Police are searching for a man in connection with the killing. Police identified the victim as Zena Nichols, 23, of the District. They said her burned body was found Friday in the 7000 block of Highview Terrace in Chillum. She was shot in the apartment and a fire was set, police said. They said an autopsy found Nichols died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds. Police said Monday that they have obtained an arrest warrant for Jerome John Harris, 42, who lived in the apartment where Nichols was shot. Police said he is charged with first- and second-degree murder as well as arson. The woman and Harris were in a relationship, police said. They said the motive for the killing remains under investigation. — Martin Weil


Doctors fear the coronavirus. Is that affecting their medical decisions?

and die. And fear that the virus, which was invisibly present throughout the room, would infect my lungs, blood and brain despite my best efforts. Fear can be healthy or unhealthy. This fear was unhealthy — like a barrier keeping me from the man I was there to try to help. I began to wonder whether this fear is driving some of the striking deviations away from standard care that we are seeing for covid-19 patients. These deviations are potentially dangerous for patients, and they are contributing to ventilator and bed shortages that are predicted to get worse. Such changes from standard guidelines include earlier intubations, deeper and lengthier sedation courses, prolonged immobilization. This leads to each patient occupying the ventilator and ICU room longer than usual, which contributes to resource shortages. When I trained in the 1990s, a culture of care in ICUs around the world had evolved in which we treated patients on ventilators with high doses of benzodiazepines and narcotics for a week or more so we could remain in total control of patients on life support. It was only an illusion of control: We had unknowingly created an invisible engine of new disease that no one understood. After decades of doing this to people, we finally studied for long-term effects and found that it was very harmful to patients to keep them in this suspended state of animation. It led to profound harm from new diseases of the brain and body now called PICS, or the Post Intensive Care Syndrome. People suffering from PICS are unable to walk and think like they did before their ICU stay, and this can last for months, even years. Because of PICS-related physical and cognitive disabilities, they lose their jobs, get divorced because relationships break down, have memory deficits that mirror Alzheimer’s disease, have depression and PTSD, become suicidal and come weekly to special clinics and support groups popping up around the country like the one at Vanderbilt University Medical Center run by two of my colleagues, Carla Sevin and Jim Jackson. To help prevent these problems, investigators from around the world developed protocols, studied them and proved that programs called ICU Liberation and Thrive can lighten sedation, get people off ventilators faster and get them moving again sooner. A protocol called the A2F bundle has been implemented in the care of tens of thousands of people and shown to


Now joining the fight against coronavirus: The world’s armed rebels, drug cartels and gangs

In Afghanistan, the Taliban has dispatched health teams to far-flung provinces to confront the coronavirus. In Mexico, drug cartels are offering aid packages to those feeling its economic impact. In Brazil and El Salvador, gangs enforce curfews to prevent its spread. As governments around the world have responded to the coronavirus, so too have armed insurgents and terrorist groups and drug cartels and gangs, a parallel underworld of public health policy and strategic messaging. It is hardly the first time such groups have attempted to fill the role of government. But few crises in modern times have tested the limits of the world’s nation-states as the coronavirus has, providing an opening for armed groups to step in where presidents, police forces and parliaments have failed. Some groups have attempted to weave governments’ failures to control the virus into their own propaganda narratives. In Somalia, al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab fighters say the pandemic was spread “by the crusader forces who have invaded the country.” The Islamic State has told followers to prepare to exploit their enemies while they are overwhelmed by outbreaks. In Yemen, Houthi rebels have accused Saudi Arabia of airdropping masks infected with covid-19. In eastern Afghanistan, where the Afghan government and the Taliban have clashed for nearly two decades, the rivalry over which group has a more effective health policy is now on full display. Esmatullah Asim, a provincial council member from Wardak province, watched the arrival of Taliban forces in medical gear this month and was impressed. Asim said the government quarantines only those who show symptoms at the border, but the Taliban quarantines every person who has returned recently from Iran. “The Taliban quarantine is much better than the government,” he said. The group also raises awareness about the virus in the territory it controls, he said. “They stop the vehicles, telling the passengers how to prevent the spread of the virus.” Even the U.S. State Department conveyed kudos. “We join the Afghan Ministry of Public Health in welcoming the Taliban’s efforts to raise awareness against #COVID19 and their offer of safe passage to health workers & international organizations working to prevent the spread of the virus,” the department wrote in a tweet. Analysts who study the organizational structure of armed groups are now cataloguing dozens of instances of rebels and bandits making forays into public health policy. “In some cases, the government just isn’t coming to help,


Keep parks open. The benefits of fresh air outweigh the risks of infection.

In the midst of a pandemic, urban life goes on. People are mourning the loss of a spouse, battling cancer and dealing with anxieties and stress from everyday life on top of new anxieties and stress from the coronavirus, all of which is often made worse by economic insecurity and extended duties of caring for children and elderly relatives. What public-health and well-being policies can help alleviate some of the extraordinary stressors that urbanites are feeling across the nation right now? Part of the answer is baked into every city in the country. It is our public green spaces, our parks, botanical gardens and arboreta right outside our doors or down the street. Regrettably, though, many public green spaces across the country have been closed. Yes, in most cases, there have been good reasons for the specific closings: overcrowding with parking lots jammed, egregious disregard for proper social distancing and respect for others, and the prospect of drawing people from afar who would be better off spending time in nature closer to their front doors. But closing parks and public gardens should be a temporary, last-resort measure for disease control. lf visitors persist in violating physical distancing, officials could employ capacity controls like those now in use in supermarkets, timed entry or other measures to reduce crowding, such as limiting parking, extending hours, or putting up signs and enforcing limits. Maintaining the benefits of public green spaces is critical as we also make our best efforts to restrict covid-19 transmission. Public parks (though not playgrounds or sports facilities, which are much harder for maintaining social distancing while using), botanical gardens and arboreta are essential to the public health and well-being of the more than 80 percent of Americans who live in urban areas. The science could not be clearer: The benefits of getting outside vastly outweigh the risk of getting infected in a park. Study after study Anxiety is understandably high, and many might be fearful of heading out to a public green space. But before you hesitate to visit a park, botanical garden or arboretum, it’s worth looking at the science to disentangle real from perceived risk. There are simple strategies you can take to head outside with confidence. First and foremost, maintain physical distancing. That means staying at least six feet away from others for the vast majority of time. But walking past someone should not induce fear


Officials: Social distancing efforts appear to be working and should stay in place

said will help the city prepare for the worst. “We are a few weeks behind where the New York metropolitan area is in terms of our new infections, so we would still have to continue to analyze our data,” Falcicchio said. The number of known cases in the region climbed to 16,661 on Monday, with 464 deaths. Virginia reported 473 more coronavirus infections, about half of which were in the D.C. suburbs, for a total of 5,763. The state’s total fatalities hit 149. Maryland reported 711 new infections for a total of 8,939, with 263 deaths. An inmate at Jessup Correctional Institution was the first state prisoner to die of covid-19, and officials in Carroll County announced six more deaths connected to the Pleasant View Nursing Home, bringing the total number of fatalities at the 104-bed facility to 24. The District added 80 cases, for a total of 1,959, with 53 deaths. Officials also announced the first death of an inmate in the D.C. jail. Deon Crowell, 51, had been held awaiting trail on charges of first-degree murder. According to data analyzed by The Washington Post, Maryland has led the region in hospitalizations. Between Friday and Sunday, Maryland hospitalized more than 560 people — the state’s highest three-day total so far during the pandemic. Virginia hospitalized about 50 people within the same period. Virginia reported 903 coronavirus-related hospitalizations on Monday, with 218 of them in the Fairfax health district. Maryland said it has hospitalized 1,975 individuals. Data analyzed by The Post shows that 11 of the 15 Maryland Zip codes with the highest rates of covid-19 cases are in Prince George’s County, a majority-black suburb of about 900,000 people just outside Washington. The remaining Zip codes in the top 15 are northwest of Baltimore and in rural parts of Frederick County. As officials discuss how to eventually and safely ease restrictions, they are considering factors including the availability of testing kits and antibody testing. The District received its first batch of rapid testing kits this week and expects to increase the capacity of its public health lab to 500 a day, officials said Monday. They said they are still determining how to deploy the kits. “Testing is going to be ongoing, it’s going to be necessary at every stage of our response and recovery,” Bowser said. Officials also said the District would be prepared to conduct antibody testing in May.


Michigan hospital system will test workers’ blood in effort to help reopen country

The biggest hospital system in Michigan is launching what’s believed to be the nation’s largest test for novel coronavirus antibodies. The study could determine who has already been infected with the virus and may now be immune to it — information that public health officials say is vital to decisions about reopening society. Beaumont Health will test blood samples from its 38,000 employees, as well as thousands of additional physicians and affiliates, officials said in interviews. Participation is voluntary, but officials said they expect many employees will want the test, particularly those working in emergency rooms and intensive care units who are at high risk of contracting the virus. Michigan has the third-highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases of any U.S. state. Many public health officials have advocated such testing on a broad scale to find out how extensively the virus has circulated in the United States and who may have immunity and be able to return to work first. The tests are used not to diagnose the illness but to find disease-fighting proteins the body creates to neutralize the virus. They can identify people who may have been infected without showing any symptoms or who had mild symptoms that may have been mistaken for something else. “We want to reassure our health-care workers,” said Matthew Sims, Beaumont’s director of infectious-diseases research and the principal investigator for the antibody study. “And then, we really want to start to answer the question: If you have the antibodies, are you protected against getting the infection again? Nobody has the answer yet.” Beaumont researchers hope that with such large-scale serological testing, “we could inform critical medical and public health decisions,” said Barbara Ducatman, chief medical officer at Beaumont’s Royal Oak Hospital. “That’s critical to make decisions as a society.” By examining a single health-care system, Beaumont researchers also hope to learn more about how the coronavirus spreads and why some people develop covid-19, the disease it causes, but others don’t. Several hundred health-care workers there have tested positive for the virus, and more have shown symptoms. “The current testing across the country . . . is very good for detecting disease in people who have symptoms,” said Nick Gilpin, Beaumont Health’s director of infection prevention. “But the test is less reliable for those who don’t — and not particularly useful for understanding the scope of the pandemic.” The Centers for Disease Control and


D.C. mayor orders closure of farmers and fish markets without social distance plans, Va. congressional primary elections delayed

The number of known coronavirus cases in the District, Maryland and Virginia reached 10,634 on Wednesday, with 5,531 cases in Maryland, 3,659 in Virginia and 1,444 in the District. The number of virus-related deaths was 75 in Virginia, 124 in Maryland and 28 in the District, for a total of 227 fatalities. Here are some of the most significant and recent developments as the region responds to the pandemic of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19: • A surge in new coronavirus cases announced Wednesday lifted the total in the District, Maryland and Virginia to more than 10,000. Officials attributed much of the spike to increased testing after a backlog. •D. C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) removed golf and tennis from the list of allowable recreational activities under her “stay-at-home” order. She also ordered the closure of farmers and fish markets until they demonstrate to the D.C. government that they have a plan for enforcing social distancing. New restrictions were also placed on grocery stores to limit crowding in aisles and exposure to staff. • Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) ordered a two-week delay in the congressional primary elections scheduled for early June. He said he would ask the General Assembly to postpone May’s local and special elections until November. • A dozen federal lawmakers representing the national capital region urged the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to prioritize supplies to D.C., Maryland and Virginia, days after the House Oversight Committee revealed that the Washington region received a fraction of the supplies that officials requested. What a stay-at-home order means for you


Aggressive testing, contact tracing, cooked meals: How the Indian state of Kerala flattened its coronavirus curve

potentially disastrous challenge: a disproportionately high number of foreign arrivals. Popular for its tranquil backwaters and health retreats, the coastal state receives more than 1 million foreign tourists a year. One-sixth of its 33 million citizens are expatriates, and hundreds of its students study in China. Screening at airports was tightened, and travelers from nine countries — including coronavirus hot spots such as Iran and South Korea — were required to quarantine at home starting Feb. 10, two weeks before India put similar restrictions into place. In one instance, more than a dozen foreign nationals were removed from a flight before takeoff because they had not completed their isolation period. Temporary quarantine shelters were established to accommodate tourists and other nonresidents. Still, some slipped through. The arrival of a local couple from Italy in the last week of February who did not report to health officials caused alarm. By the time they were detected, the couple had attended several social gatherings and traveled widely. Nearly 900 primary and secondary contacts were traced and isolated. Robin Thomas, 34, the son-in-law of the couple who returned from Italy, tested positive for the coronavirus, as did his wife and his wife’s grandparents. He said in addition to the “excellent treatment” he received, the medical staff also helped them overcome stigma. “People were blaming us on Facebook and WhatsApp,” he said. “The counselors called us over the phone regularly and gave us confidence. Shailaja, the health minister, said six states had reached out to Kerala for advice. But it may not be easy to replicate Kerala’s lessons elsewhere in India. The state, where communists have held power for more than 30 years in several different governments since the 1950s, has invested heavily in public education and universal health care. Kerala has the highest literacy rate and benefits from the best-performing public health system in the country. It tops India’s rankings on neonatal mortality, birth immunizations and the availability of specialists at primary-care facilities. The strength of its health-care system allowed it to follow the WHO’s recommendation on aggressive testing, even as central agencies maintained that mass testing was not feasible in a country like India. Through the first week of April, Kerala had conducted more than 15,000 tests. By comparison, Andhra Pradesh, a more populous state with a similar number of cases, had carried out nearly 8,000 tests, while Tamil Nadu, with more than


As coronavirus deaths rise, funeral directors struggle with tending to the living and the dead

like the coronavirus causes covid-19. “Now that we know more about AIDS and HIV, the fear is not there anymore,” Duggan added. “But we don’t quite know enough about the coronavirus yet.” Many funeral directors now act as though all bodies could be infected. “From white gloves to latex gloves,” said Major Clora Jr., president and founder of Clora Funeral Home, which has three locations in the Detroit area and has handled dozens of confirmed and suspected coronavirus cases. Some staffers, recognizing they might be exposed in the course of their work, have started sleeping in their basements while their spouses sleep upstairs, Clora said. “It’s just presumed right now,” said Patrick Schoen, managing partner of Jacob Schoen & Son Funeral Directors, a New Orleans funeral home founded in 1874 in response to a local outbreak of yellow fever. “Either [the bodies] weren’t tested, or the test hasn’t come back yet. And the family doesn’t know, and we don’t know either,” Schoen said. “So we just treat everyone like it’s covid.” He added: “It’s very, very stressful for all of our employees to be working right now.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that funeral homes can continue to embalm bodies, but it has advised morticians to wear protective gear, a commodity that some are struggling to obtain. Keila Crucet, the funeral director in charge at Serenity Funeral Home in North Lauderdale, Fla., said her facility’s orders of protective equipment have been canceled. “We’re not doctors and nurses. . . . We’re not front lines,” Crucet said. “But we’re also working on these cases.” Duggan said he acted quickly to obtain protective gear after the virus reached the United States. The desks and doorways at his Bay Area facilities are now furnished with industrial hand sanitizer dispensers. Staffers wear masks at all times. And bodies are double-bagged at hospitals. Despite the precautions, Duggan decided that any bodies destined for embalming must be left in their bags for at least a few days. “That’s just an internal decision we made here, just hoping the virus starts to be less vibrant after three to four days,” he said. In New York and New Jersey, the stress of exposure has been compounded by a crisis of space. “Every funeral home that I know of in New York City is operating at peak capacity,” said John O. D’Arienzo, who runs a