How covid-19 could make a case against big government

In August 1939, Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning that “a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium” probably could make possible “extremely powerful bombs of a new type” in “the immediate future.” When the government then asked some leading physicists what they needed, they requested $6,000 worth of graphite. By 1944, investment in the Manhattan Project equaled investment in the prewar automobile industry. This was the swiftness of a serious government when facing danger. In 1947, two days before Christmas, scientists at Bell Laboratories revealed the first working transistor. By 2018, there were 15 quintillion — 15,000,000,000,000,000,000 — transistors at work worldwide, more than all the leaves on all the world’s trees. This is from Simon Winchester’s “The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World,” as is this: “In 2015, the four major chip-making firms were making 14 trillion transistors every single second.” This is the speed of modern change. “There are,” Lenin supposedly said, “decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen.” John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge cite this in their new book, “The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It.” Such is the speed of covid-19, in eight months it has reversed a decade of global gains against poverty. In the United States, it has produced the worst monthly unemployment figures since the Great Depression, and in Britain probably the steepest annual decline in output since 1706. Such social carnage has been abetted by inadequate governmental planning before, and responses during, the pandemic. This has been especially so in the United States and Britain, “when compared,” the authors say, “with countries in Asia.” They date the beginning of the decline of Western governance to the 1960s, when confidence in government, including government’s high regard for itself, peaked. Since then, government has grown bigger and more sluggish — sprawling and unfocused. In 1914, wrote historian A.J.P. Taylor, law-abiding Britons could pass through life hardly noticing the state, “beyond the post office and the policeman.” Micklethwait and Wooldridge, both British, say: “By the mid-1970s a Briton couldn’t move without bumping into the state. Leviathan was promising to deliver fairness, equality, happiness, the end of racism, and free opera for the masses. Almost half of Britain’s national income was devoted to public spending and nearly a third of the labor force


Coyote is fatally shot after attacking child, tests positive for rabies

A coyote that bit two women and a child in Rockville on Thursday tested positive for rabies after being fatally shot by police. Rockville police said in a statement that a 59-year-old woman and a small dog she was walking were attacked about 10 a.m. on Winder Court, and she was taken to the hospital with injuries that are not life-threatening. The dog was quarantined. Two other attacks followed in the area of Woodley Gardens, according to Marylou Berg, a spokesman for Rockville police: one on a woman and another on a child. The woman and the child were also hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening, Berg said. Earlier, a man saw a coyote acting aggressively about 5:30 a.m. on Princeton Place, and the animal retreated after the man raised his arms and made noise, police said. About 11 a.m., a person on a deck on Aster Boulevard saw a dog barking at a coyote from the backyard, the statement said. It’s not yet clear whether the dog was injured, according to police. The coyote was shot and killed by police about 5 p.m., according to Berg, after the area was under a shelter-in-place order for about an hour. She said the slain animal would be transported to a state lab for tests. On Friday, Rockville officials said the coyote tested positive for rabies. Police said anyone who feels threatened by a coyote should back away slowly, throw sticks or clumps of dirt in the animal’s direction — but not at the animal’s head, as that might make it more aggressive — and call 911. Running away will increase the chances of attack, according to police.


Independent restaurants urge Senate to pass a relief bill before it’s too late

in Hattiesburg, Miss., are “more than likely, if not definitely, in the fast-food industry. Drive-through windows, at least in my town, the cars are lined up out in the street. That’s a whole different segment of our industry than independent dine-in restaurants.” Bobby Stuckey, co-founder of the Frasca Hospitality Group with restaurants in Denver and Boulder, Colo., said that small, independent restaurants are giving politicians and the press a clear-eyed look at what lies ahead. With cold weather setting in, patios closing, dining room capacity at only 25 or 50 percent and people nervous about dining inside, the writing is on the wall for a sector of the economy that can frequently withstand downturns. “This is an industry that is 100 percent comfortable with hardship,” Stuckey said. “This is the first time you’ve ever heard from our industry. We went through the 2008 economic crisis. You never heard from the restaurant industry. We’re very accomplished at working under hard conditions with small profit margins. We’ll know how to use the restaurant revitalization fund to get us to the other side.” The revitalization fund will be different from Paycheck Protection Program money, the proprietors said. For starters, only about $45 billion of the first round of PPP loans went to hotels and restaurants, and even a smaller amount went to independent restaurants, said Jeff Solnet, a spokesman for the coalition. But the PPP money was also restricted, mostly to rehire employees. If used properly, the PPP loan would convert to a forgivable grant. If not, it would remain a small-interest loan for restaurateurs who could little afford more debt. The revitalization fund would issue grants to eligible independent restaurants. The grants would allow more flexibility on how the cash is spent: Owners can use them to pay vendors, cover rent, keep employees on staff or buy more protective equipment for staff and guests. They would be a “true lifeline” for small restaurants, said Caroline Styne, co-founder of the Lucques Group in Los Angeles. “This could really create a way for us to survive this. I experience this myself everyday in our restaurants,” Styne said. “We are really on the brink.” Read more on Voraciously Wildfires claim a Michelin-three-star restaurant and multiple wineries in Napa Valley Diners angry about masks and other coronavirus rules prompt training for restaurant workers In the quest for a pandemic coping mechanism, I’ve become a cookie monster


Months before coronavirus hit Trump’s circle, Iran battled a similar outbreak

aides and allies. Earlier in the pandemic, that was also true for members of Iran’s parliament — more than 10 percent of whom had contracted the virus by early March. Within another month, 31 of its 290 members had confirmed testing positive, including the parliament’s speaker Ali Larijani. In the early days of the pandemic, the virus struck the head of Iran’s emergency medical services and a deputy health minister. The virus also killed a key adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as several other senior political figures. Much more is now known about how the virus spreads than when reports of a mysterious pathogen began circulating the globe in early 2020. Indoor and poorly ventilated gatherings where people are crowded together and talking loudly are particularly risky, scientists now agree. Men and those above age 60 are at higher risk for complications. People who are asymptomatic can pass on the virus, while “superspreaders” — people who heavily shed the virus — account for a majority of known transmission. And masks, public health experts repeatedly recommend, can curb the spread of the virus, in addition to frequent hand washing and social distancing. Iran shut its parliament on Feb. 25, six days after confirming its first infections and fatalities. But with an incubation period of two weeks — and sometimes even more — it appears that move was already too late to stem the virus’s march through the country’s echelons of power once an outbreak had found its way in. In the months since, parliaments and congresses around the world have gone virtual or opted for a hybrid model to prevent these kinds of superspreading events. Occasionally, government buildings have temporarily shut and members ordered into quarantine after one of their own tests positive. In Sudan, 10 members of the country’s coronavirus task contracted the coronavirus in May. Before Trump’s infection, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was among the most high-profile world leaders to battle covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, which nearly killed him. In the spring, Iran was among the region’s hardest hit country by the coronavirus. Critics accused the government of covering up the severity of outbreaks, as hospitals, already crumbling amid an economic crisis, struggled to provide care. When its parliament reopened in April, strict social distancing rules were put in place. State-run television displayed images of some members huddled together nonetheless.


The medical briefing on Trump’s health was an insulting exercise in obfuscation

also no accounting of test results. Another physician cited cardiac, kidney and liver tests as being normal, and Conley referred to the president as having received “ultrasounds.” For covid-19, a respiratory disease, it’s inconceivable that lung studies of X-rays or CT scans weren’t conducted. What did they show? Without a full description of which diagnostic tests were performed, we are left to wonder whether other test results weren’t revealed because they were abnormal. Then there are major questions raised about the timeline of the president’s diagnosis. Conley reported that Trump developed a fever Thursday. Fever is usually a later sign that follows other symptoms of covid-19. Conley said Trump had other symptoms, such as cough, congestion and feeling run-down. When did the first of these symptoms start? The answer is important because those with the virus are most infectious 48 hours before symptom onset. Public health officials need to know in order to trace back the president’s steps and find out who else could have been exposed. In addition, Conley stated at the briefing that the president was “72 hours into the diagnosis." That would have put the time of diagnosis —presumably when there was a confirmed positive test — to be Wednesday morning. Conley has since issued a statement saying that he misspoke and that he meant Saturday was “day three,” with a diagnosis given Thursday evening. The president and White House officials are said to have daily tests. These are the rapid, less accurate tests. Presumably, Trump had a positive rapid test that came back within minutes, then his doctors conducted a confirmatory test with a more accurate test that took hours to provide results. So when was the first positive test? The public needs to know: Was the president still continuing his activities after that initial positive test? It raises alarms that Conley refused to answer a related question: When was Trump’s last negative test? If the president is in fact being tested daily, that’s one thing. But if he hadn’t been tested for a full week, say, we’d have much less information about how contagious he has been and for how long. The physicians at the briefing refused to directly address contact tracing, saying that other entities were handling this. But contact tracing is crucially impacted by when the president tested positive and showed symptoms. We now know that at least five people who took part


Pandemic-related budget cuts leave travelers with rough roads, outdated airports and fewer transit options

in August and September, NCDOT spokesman Andrew Barksdale said. “We’ve really had to focus these past several months on emergency repairs,” Barksdale said. “We basically had to stop spending money on new things that weren’t mission-critical.” Transportation industry advocates are calling on Congress to provide financial aid in a second pandemic relief package. They say transportation systems are key to reviving the economy by helping businesses move freight, employees to return to work, and travelers to spend money. The funding that the Cares Act provided in March to public transit agencies and airports is running out, officials say. Congress did not provide pandemic relief for road systems. Postponing major projects also hits hard, transportation officials say, because it can take years and cost millions of dollars to get plans through engineering, permitting and land acquisition. “There’s so much involved on the front end to get these projects to shovels in the ground,” said Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). “It’s hard to see projects pushed out because the money’s not there for the construction phase.” Airport officials say their facilities continue to struggle as air travel remains down about 70 percent. U.S. and Canadian airports expect to lose $23 billion in airline fees, parking proceeds and other revenue over the 12 months that started in March, according to Airports Council International-North America. Airports for Tampa, San Francisco, Austin, New York, and Raleigh and Durham, N.C., have postponed terminal renovations, expansions and other projects, the trade group said. Without expanding terminals that average 40 years old, industry officials say, already cramped security checkpoints and gate areas will feel more so as passengers return and try to practice social distancing, Airports Council President Kevin Burke said. With air travel expected to be off for several years, he said, it’s uncertain when those expansions will happen. “That all depends on a vaccine, passenger confidence and the economy, and those variables are changing on a daily basis,” Burke said. “All airports that need work are holding back until things look a little steadier.” Some transportation industry advocates see a glimmer of good news, or at least a less dire outlook from the spring, when much of the economy came to a halt amid stay-at-home orders. Traffic that plummeted by half in April has rebounded to about 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels on average nationally, according


This is everywhere you should be sanitizing in your hotel

With infectious-disease experts saying that the worst of the coronavirus outbreak is yet to come, many organizations and companies have suspended nonessential travel for employees. President Trump restricted travel from Europe for 30 days, and several cruise lines have suspended voyages for the near future. But travel hasn’t stopped completely. People are still taking trips for both business and pleasure, with some capitalizing on the deals that have resulted from the international health crisis. If you’re planning to stay in a hotel, there are some precautions you should take. According to some experts, travelers should be sanitizing surfaces in rooms or facilities wherever it’s unknown who was using them last. “You don’t know where [previous hotel guests] come from,” says Adrian Hyzler, chief medical officer for Healix International, a company that specializes in security, international medical and travel-assistance services. “They could have just come from from Milan and [been] in there, coughing away." According to research by the U.S. government, the novel coronavirus can live as long as three days on some surfaces, the AP reported Wednesday, making wiping down touch points a good preventative measure. “I think it’s better to think of it not so much as protecting yourself from covid-19, but to say that, these are things that we can generally do to decrease our transmission to any respiratory viruses," says Nahid Bhadelia, the medical director of the Special Pathogens Unit at the Boston University School of Medicine. Some spaces in hotels, like the lobby, where credit cards are being exchanged and counters are being touched, are almost impossible to wipe down on your own. There are, however, other potentially contaminated places, say Bhadelia and Hyzler. A room may appear clean upon check-in. But you can’t be sure the room’s previous tenant was virus-free. “If you assume that someone’s been in there coughing away, it can help focus your mind to think, ‘Alright, let’s clean everything I’m going to touch,’ and just wipe it down with alcohol wipes," Hyzler says. Travelers should take a look around the room and consider all of the surfaces they’ll be touching. In addition to obvious points like remote controls, alarm clocks and the landline phone, there are the easily overlooked ones, like cabinet and drawer handles, doorknobs and door locks, light switches, desk surfaces and information booklets or brochures. “Also consider things that are in your possession that you keep touching as


Without the stage and the studio, musicians are in limbo, facing an uncertain future

Elena Lacayo “I am a full-time musician with multiple projects, including leading my own band, playing as a solo musician and touring as a guitarrón player with the female Mariachi group Flor de Toloache. Professionally, the crisis has hit me hard — all of my shows and tours have been canceled or postponed for the foreseeable future, wiping my calendar clean for what would have been my most exciting and lucrative year as a musician to date. While I deeply miss touring and performing for live audiences, I’m doing my best to use this time to stay creative, work on new skills and projects that are tailored to an online format, and stay grateful for all that I have.” Ray Lamb, “It’s had a really interesting effect on me. I’ve lost my main source of income, some students, gigs and the ability to take classes in person. But on the other hand, I’ve been able to spend more time with my girlfriend, Amy, and practice a lot more than normal. So personally, it hasn’t been ideal, but not awful.” Allyson Goodman Goodman: “The Kennedy Center was shut down mid-March and all remaining opera and ballet performances for the 2019-20 season were canceled, including two operas which were mid-run. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have any performances on the books for months like this. It’s a first for me and most orchestral musicians across the country. We are grateful for our health and are using this extra time to try new recipes and go on long hikes in Rock Creek Park.” Santo Buzzanca “We’ve always been an ‘outside of the box’ group, looking for ways to make life better through music. It was trial and error the first time we went out [to play in public during the pandemic]. We ourselves felt the pressure and burdens that the pandemic dealt everyone. The message was simple — we just wanted to bring some sort of joy to the community and help everyone get through everyday life. After playing in Old Town, Alexandria, where it was a ghost town, there were words of encouragement and thanks for all that we were trying to do. When we went home, we didn’t feel defeated but encouraged. We tried our best to help people celebrate what covid-19 would not allow us to enjoy: Life!” Chandra Cervantes, “Like so many others, my livelihood, my


Memorial held outside White House in solemn reminder of more than 200,000 Americans killed by covid-19

Nearly five months after his father’s death, Brian Walter still can’t shake the feeling that he might’ve caused it. As a New York City subway worker, Walter, 46, was exempt from the stay-at-home mandate that he hoped would keep others in his family safe. He became the designated shopper for his parents and sanitized everything he brought into their home. But despite all their precautions, Walter and his father, John, both contracted the novel coronavirus, and after 19 days in the hospital, John Walter died May 10. On Sunday, Brian Walter was one of nearly two dozen people directly affected by the coronavirus to mourn the more than 200,000 American who have been killed by covid-19 and push for a national plan for recovery. They gathered on the grassy Ellipse just south of the White House and in proximity to the Rose Garden, where those attending President Trump’s announcement of his Supreme Court nominee flouted recommendations on wearing masks and social distancing. Trump and at least eight other people who attended the Sept. 26 ceremony have since tested positive for the coronavirus. “It’s very important we get the message across that this is not a hoax or a conspiracy or a fake illness,” Walter said. “Just because it hasn’t affected you personally doesn’t mean it’s not real. The events of last weekend prove that you can be isolated for a while, but if you make one wrong move, the virus could get you.” Walter looked at 20,000 empty black chairs that had been placed on the Ellipse over the weekend, each representing 10 people in the United States who have died of covid-19. The U.S. coronavirus death toll soared past 200,000 last month, and Covid Survivors for Change, a network aimed at helping those affected by the virus locate support groups and other resources, declared Sunday a national day of remembrance. The group recruited local volunteers to set up the installation. They began removing the chairs after the event Sunday. Those who spoke reflected the myriad ways the pandemic has shaken people’s lives. A Virginia teacher who worried for the health of her students. A Black entrepreneur who is struggling to get by. An emergency room nurse who was hospitalized with the virus and lost her brother to covid-19 weeks later. While each speaker’s story was different, their message was the same: The pandemic is far from over, and a


Panda cub seems about to undergo eye-opening experience

Enlightenment and awareness may be about to arrive at the National Zoo. In a way, that is. Vision, sightedness, is coming to the 6-week-old giant panda cub, a keeper said. “The cub’s eyes are beginning to open,” keeper Marty Dearie said in a report on the newborn posted by the zoo Friday. Panda cubs accept the world sight unseen. They are born with their eyes shut and generally open them between six to eight weeks later, according to the zoo. It appears that eye-opening for a panda cub is not a sudden event. But whatever the youngster will see, it seems unlikely that it will watch anything more intently than it is being watched. A Sept. 19 exam, the zoo noted, found that its eyes had yet to open. But the zoo reported at that time, less than a month after the cub’s Aug. 21 birth, that the left eye was “not closed as tightly” and gave indications its eyes might open soon. Who knows what the cub will then think of us?


An eventful day of spectacular weather

The sights and spectacles of Saturday in the Washington region occurred by night and by day against a backdrop of weather that seemed too fair and fine to be consigned to a subordinate role. Starting before sunrise and continuing through late afternoon,using the naked eye and electronic media Washington could see Earth’s only satellite and one of our neighboring planets, along with some of of our area’s presumably most eminent physicians and some of the world’s arguably fastest horses, all on one of our most meteorologically memorable days. In the early morning, well before sunrise, the Harvest Moon, still not much less than full, shone brightly in a dark and almost cloudless sky. Indoors, cold moonlight fell in bright parallelograms on household floors, while outdoors, fence posts cast their stark shadows on the ground. High in the sky, close to the moon, a smaller but also bright light shone. It was, we are told, the planet Mars. It seemed close enough to the moon to serve as its satellite, just as the moon is Earth’s satellite. And although small, it seemed possible to say Mars had a kind of reddish hue, a reminder that we often refer to it as the Red Planet. In Washington, the temperature then was in the low 50s, not too chilly to stand outdoors and crane one’s neck toward our skies in wonder. When it dawned, the day warmed into the welcoming 60s. It was in such temperatures, and under a bright October sky, that a phalanx of white-coated physicians stood outside a building at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to give a briefing on the condition of President Trump, who was hospitalized there. It was their words upon which Washington and the world fastened. But some who watched their appearance might also have devoted a stray moment to noticing how fine the day seemed. Much later, as evening approached, another event, likewise televised nationally, also served in its way to demonstrate what wonderful weather was on offer across the breadth of the Washington region. That event was the Preakness Stakes, one of the legs of thoroughbred racing’s triple crown, and held in Baltimore. An exciting race it was, with a tense and gripping finish. But the afternoon seemed appropriate to the event. In its way, the day seemed to match the competitors stride for stride, summoning all the resources of autumn in


5 big questions on the White House’s botched handling of Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis

clarified that is not actually the case. “It is a combination of two monoclonal antibodies — meaning each was produced by making identical copies, or clones, of an antibody gene in a single B cell,” Regeneron’s Alexandra Bowie told NBC News. “Polyclonal antibody cocktails refer to antibodies made by mixtures of B cells.” These may seem like pedantic quibbles, but they yet again raise questions about how rigorous the White House’s review of the situation has been, along with Conley’s attention to detail when it comes to informing the public about it. The White House decisions that have led to the growing outbreak have already been put under a microscope. In addition to Trump traveling to New Jersey after Hicks’s diagnosis Thursday, the White House held a largely mask-free announcement for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett last weekend. Several people who attended the outdoor event and then an indoor reception have since tested positive, including two GOP senators who sit on the committee that will consider Barrett’s nomination. And another person who attended, University of Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins, has said attendees “were told that it was safe to remove our masks” because they had been tested beforehand. Health officials have long said that negative tests are not guarantees that you are virus-free, given that there is an incubation period of several days and tests may not be 100 percent accurate. Despite all this and despite the growing number of infections among people who have been around Trump, the White House has determined that one high-ranking official can continue business as usual: Vice President Pence. “Under the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control, the vice president is not considered a close contact with any individuals who have tested positive for the coronavirus, including President Donald Trump,” Pence’s doctor, Jesse T. Schonau, said Friday, noting that Pence had tested negative. “Vice President Pence does not need to quarantine. Vice President Pence remains in good health and is free to go about his normal activities.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines “close contact” as being within six feet of someone who has been infected for at least 15 minutes, and it recommends quarantining for anyone who has been around an infected person in the two-day period before their symptoms begin or before they test positive. Depending upon when Trump first developed symptoms — which is also


What Mike Pence needs to tell us about coronavirus

and you may be required to assume duties, why are you planning public events that could expose you to the virus? Now that Trump has contracted the virus, do you regret urging states where there are covid-19 outbreaks to reopen, or urging schools in high-infection areas to open quickly? Given the rise in cases in so many states, do you think you have “succeeded” in conquering the virus? Did you agree with those decisions despite experts’ warnings? What would you do differently to warn Americans about the dangers of covid-19 and possibly avoid more than 208,000 American deaths? Has the White House pressured the CDC or any other government agency to change its advice on covid? Has the president been given hydroxychloroquine in the hospital, even though the Food and Drug Administration reversed its emergency-use authorization this summer? Should Trump have hawked the drug to unsuspecting Americans? Did you know when Trump was first informed that the novel coronavirus was airborne and much more serious than the flu? If not, are you disturbed that this information was not shared with you? If so, why did you go along with deceiving the American people? The president has personally attacked Anthony S. Fauci and contradicted Fauci’s expert advice. Was that a mistake? Isn’t Fauci one of the world’s leading authorities on infectious diseases? Should Americans concerned about the viral threat listen to a leading world expert or to the president who mocked mask-wearing and contracted the virus himself? If the president dies or is incapacitated and you assume the presidency, the next in line would be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Would you make clear that the chain of succession would have to remain unbroken in the event of your own incapacitation? Can you assure us that the White House would, if events came to that point, recognize her as president? Read more: Leana S. Wen: The medical briefing on Trump’s health was an insulting exercise in obfuscation The Post’s View: How sick is the president? When did he know? Americans need real answers. Jennifer Rubin: Here’s how Trump’s recklessness affects us all and the VP debate Leana S. Wen: What to watch for in the aftermath of Trump’s positive coronavirus test Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman: Trump’s recklessness is now putting GOP senators in danger Megan McArdle: The coronavirus is all reality, no show. That’s why Trump’s diagnosis is so nerve-racking.


Fact-checking President Trump’s acceptance speech at the GOP convention

and by our count, at least 38 countries took similar action before or at the same time the U.S. restrictions were put in place. The president said he took bold action that was criticized. News reports say he was reluctant to impose the ban, citing his relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, but the action was urged by his top health advisers. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters on Feb. 7: “The travel restrictions that we put in place in consultation with the president were very measured and incremental. These were the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials here at HHS.” Any criticism was scattered and relatively muted. Trump points to a comment by former vice president Biden — “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia … and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science” — but Biden says that did not refer to the travel restrictions. The virus was already spreading through the United States, and there is little evidence the travel restrictions on China saved lives, especially because the Trump administration did not rapidly set up an effective testing regimen, as did many other countries. Trump also touts his restrictions on travel from some countries in Europe as effective. But a Washington Post examination found that his abrupt decision led to one final viral infusion before the country was forced to shut down. “The lapses surrounding the spread from Europe stand alongside other breakdowns — in developing diagnostic tests, securing protective gear and imposing social distancing guidelines — as reasons the United States became so overwhelmed,” The Post reported. “The travel mayhem was triggered by many of the same problems that plagued the U.S. response to the pandemic from the outset: Early warnings were missed or ignored. Coordination was chaotic or nonexistent. Key agencies fumbled their assignments. Trump’s errant statements undermined his administration’s plans and endangered the public.” “The United States has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country in the world.” — Trump This is false. Case fatality measures how many people known to have gotten covid-19 eventually die of covid-19, and the U.S. rate is currently 3.1 percent. Johns Hopkins University says that puts the United States 11th among the 20 countries most affected by the disease; the United States ranks fourth for deaths per 100,000 population. Trump’s phrasing appears to turn


The Technology 202: Twitter's response to Trump's coronavirus diagnosis highlights inconsistencies in company's handling of abuse

with Tonya Riley Twitter’s swift response to President Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis highlighted the company's inconsistency in enforcing its policies against hate and abuse. The company on Friday reminded users of its policy banning tweets that wish harm or death in light of Trump’s diagnosis. But many Twitter users -- including four progressive lawmakers known as “The Squad” -- promptly called out the president's favorite social media platform for failing to address death threats directed at them. From Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.): Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) also responded to the company’s tweet. Twitter on Saturday said it would do better: The episode highlighted the broader issue of social media abuse directed at female politicians Female congresswomen are far more likely than their male counterparts to be targeted with abusive posts on Facebook and Twitter, according to a new analysis from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue shared exclusively with The Technology 202. And the research shows that Ocasio-Cortez and Omar received the highest proportion of abusive comments. The findings are particularly important in the final weeks of a contentious presidential election, where a Black and Asian American woman is for the first time on the presidential ticket. They're also a reminder that vice presidential candidate and Sen. The report’s authors note their findings have stark implications in light of other research revealing online abuse can cause lawmakers to step down or otherwise limit their political activities. The report's authors analyzed all tweets specifically tagging ten members of Congress during an 11-day period between June 25 and July 6. They also used the Facebook data aggregator CrowdTangle to review content from “ The report's authors also say democratic governments have a role to play, and they encourage regulation that forces greater transparency of the processes and systems to moderate content. They also call for mandatory government access to algorithmic systems. “Abuse of women on the Internet is a serious problem, one we tackle in a variety of ways And Twitter said it's committed to respond to concerns “through action, not empty words.” The company has taken recent steps to limit abuse on the platform, such as allowing people to restrict who replies to their tweets. “Twitter being abused to instill fear, to silence your voice, or to undermine individual safety, is unacceptable,” Twitter spokesman Trenton Kennedy said in a statement. “We appreciate the open


Homicide reported in Upper Northwest, D.C. police say

One person was shot and killed early Monday near one of the major intersections in upper Northwest Washington, D.C. police said. The shooting occurred about 1:30 a.m. near Connecticut and Nebraska avenues NW, according to a police official. The victim was not identified immediately but appeared to be a teenager or young man, police said. It appeared that he was shot twice, the official said. No motive was known. He was shot in the vicinity of a service station close to the intersection, the police official said. Homicides in that section of the city are extremely uncommon. A firefighter who answered the telephone at a firehouse near the scene declined to comment. The killing was at least the 147th in the District this year, an increase of about 14 percent from the same time last year.


Power Up: Just how sick is Trump? Washington eager for details amid conflicting messages from White House

as the White House offers contradictory information about the status of his health. The White House has thus far painted an incomplete picture of the situation that required Trump to be admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday. They gave notice that Trump has begun a steroid treatment usually reserved for patients with severe illness and that he's suffered twice from bouts of low oxygen. Yet Trump and his medical team contend that he is doing well and could be discharged from Walter Reed as soon as Monday. Piling onto the confusion An admission by White House doctor Sean Conley is fueling criticism of a lack of transparency: “Trump’s medical team tried to clear up the muddled picture it had created the previous day when White House doctor Sean Conley falsely suggested that Trump had not been given supplemental oxygen The confusion has penetrated the halls of the White House, too: THE NEXT CLUE: Whether Trump is actually released today. CONCERNS ABOUT A POLITICALLY-MOTIVATED RELEASE: Even some of Trump's aides are concerned that Conley will release Trump from the hospital too early. ‘DON’T TELL ANYONE': The president's prognosis has brought the White House's credibility crisis to a head. DETAILS WE DON'T KNOW: Information has been scarce for those potentially caught in the White House outbreak, too. “Ninety percent of the [White House] complex most certainly learned about it in the news, as has been the case ever since,” a senior White House official told New York Magazine's Olivia Nuzzi and Ben Jacobs on Saturday. “There are reports that COVID is spreading like wildfire through the White House. There are hundreds and hundreds of people who work on-complex, some who have families with high-risk family members. Since this whole thing started, not one email has gone out to tell employees what to do or what’s going on.” SUPERSPREADING: COURT WATCH: TRUMP CAMPAIGN HALTED AT TRICKY TIME: The Biden campaign has taken down its negative ads, but don't expect any major changes: “ HEALTH EXPERTS NERVOUS ABOUT DEBATES: But that arrangement is not virus proof: A remote debate is not unprecedented: The debate itself is receiving an increased focus: CASES ARE RISING IN PARTS OF THE COUNTRY: OTHER COVID NEWS: New York City is adopting targeted shutdowns: A memorial was held outside of the White House to mark the more than 200,000 deaths: RELIEF DEAL STILL NOT IN SIGHT:


Coronavirus deaths keep stacking

Regarding the Sept. 24 editorial “More could have been done”: I am a recently retired science teacher who worked for Montgomery County Public Schools for 28 years. I always liked to use visual representations to help illustrate difficult concepts for my students. On May 28, The Post ran a feature that was called “The lives lost.” There were 48 pictures and bios of coronavirus victims on two pages. I wondered what 100,000 would look like. I calculated it would take approximately 4,200 pages to represent that many people. The pile of newspapers grew to approximately 10 inches thick. Unfortunately, now we face a new grim milestone that doubles the thickness of the stack. I hope that stack does not double yet again. Randy Blair Read more letters to the editor.


Iceland, an early coronavirus role model, closes bars and gyms as cases rise

Monday also voiced concern over a growing number of people testing positive for the virus who had not previously been identified as having been exposed to it — a first indication the country’s contact tracing system may be starting to buckle under the strain of new cases. Iceland’s tracing program, implemented earlier this year, earned praise early in the pandemic, alongside an ambitious testing plan, in which the country teamed up with a biotechnology company to offer free tests for anyone who wanted them. Earlier than many other governments, Iceland vowed to ensure paid leave for anyone forced to self-quarantine or self-isolate. In March, the Icelandic Confederation of Labour announced “employees of private companies will not have to use their sick leave entitlements” if they self-isolate and will continue to receive their salaries. “It is not acceptable for anyone to be in uncertainty about their income in a situation like this,” Drifa Snaedal, the president of the labor confederation, said at the time. By May, cases were so few that the country reopened bars and gyms. The country’s strategy appeared to pay off — the number of daily new cases largely hovered in the single digits this summer. As with New Zealand, Iceland’s remote location could have enabled the country to effectively stamp out the virus. But with tourism accounting for around 8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product before the pandemic, it reopened its borders to many European and some other travelers over the summer. At least some of Iceland’s recent cases have been linked to tourism. State epidemiologist Gudnason recently blamed two French travelers — who both tested positive for the virus but did not self-isolate in mid-August — for a cluster of about 100 coronavirus cases on the island, the Guardian reported. The two travelers had visited several crowded spaces, including a pub and a restaurant in the capital, Reykjavik. Iceland’s restrictions come as new measures to curb the spread of the virus are also imposed in other parts of Europe, with bars and nightlife activities in particular facing mounting scrutiny. Paris announced Monday that, starting Tuesday, the capital will shut all bars for at least two weeks amid a spike in coronavirus cases. Meanwhile, one of Germany’s 16 federal states is requiring travelers from several Berlin districts to self-quarantine, after infections linked to parties or crowded events in enclosed spaces surged there in recent weeks.


The Health 202: Trump is taking Regeneron's new coronavirus treatment. It's used for mild symptoms.

reviewed. Conflicting and incomplete reports from the White House and Trump’s doctors provoked a flurry of questions about exactly how sick the president was. Trump's doctors said he had a “high fever” on Friday and his blood oxygen levels dropped that day and again on Saturday. “We’re getting great reports from the doctors,” Trump said in the video before promising a “little surprise” to his supporters. “It’s been a very interesting journey. I learned a lot about covid.” The attending physician at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center noted the risk to Trump's Secret Service agents: The White House also still won’t say whether President Trump is on Day 5 or further along in the course of his coronavirus infection, prompting widespread confusion over when the president first contracted the virus. That’s great timing, if Friday was only the second day of Trump’s infection. “He’s got therapy so early, I think he’s out of the woods,” said Carlos Del Rio, professor of medicine and global health at Emory University. But it’s not entirely clear Trump was infected with the virus on Thursday. Some medical professionals have pointed out it's unusual to develop serious symptoms so quickly after contracting the virus. Trump was given supplemental oxygen on Friday, his doctors said. Leana Wen, former health commissioner of Baltimore: Bloomberg News's Steven Dennis: It’s possible, some have suggested, that Trump was first infected with the virus days earlier and only received a test after his aide Hope Hicks tested positive. But if that’s the case — and Trump is farther along in his illness — there’s still reason to believe he’s out of the woods. Doctors have found that older patients, particularly those with underlying conditions such as obesity, are most likely to develop respiratory complications from covid-19 in days five to 10 after first becoming infected. “That second wave is often when patients deteriorate substantially, and that occurs usually around day seven to 10,” said Leana Wen, an emergency room physician and public health professor at George Washington University. It could help determine how long the president may have been contagious — and how many people he may have put at risk by traveling frequently, eschewing masks and meeting with large crowds against the advice of public health guidelines, The Washington Post’s Toluse Olorunnipa, Josh Dawsey and Amy Goldstein report. “Hicks tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday morning — long


Trump may be prematurely declaring victory over the coronavirus. Again.

As is often the case with new coronavirus infections, it’s not clear when President Trump first contracted the virus or from whom. Because of the uncertain starting point that generally accompanies a confirmed case, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses either a positive test or the first manifestation of symptoms of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, as the starting point for tracking the disease’s progression. For Trump, that starting point would then be either Wednesday or Thursday of last week. It’s reported that he was feeling fatigued during his events in Minnesota on the former day, and a test that came back positive was administered on the latter. In other words, we are, in the view of the CDC, either four or five days into Trump’s diagnosis, assuming the time frame above is accurate. What does that mean? It means that, despite the insistences from Trump’s team that he’s ready to leave Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after having been admitted there Friday, he is on the brink of a dangerous period in his illness. “Clinicians should be aware of the potential for some patients to rapidly deteriorate one week after illness onset,” the CDC’s guidance on the disease’s progression states. Over the weekend, Trump’s team kept saying that the ensuing 48 hours were important, but the CDC’s assessment suggests that the next few days are, too. The earliest symptom to generally appear in patients with more-problematic cases of covid-19 is labored breathing, something Trump’s medical team says he hasn’t experienced. The median period in which that kicks in is five to eight days after onset — or right about now. The onset of acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, usually occurs about eight to 12 days after onset, with admission to intensive care occurring a median of 10 to 12 days after a positive test or symptoms. Trump, of course, is already in the hospital, where he has been since Friday evening. The median length of hospital stays is 10 to 13 days, though, of course, it is uncommon for patients to be proactively admitted to the hospital before they show severe symptoms. The CDC data suggests that just over a quarter of covid-19 patients end up in the hospital. The odds that those individuals contract ARDS is higher than among patients overall, though that likelihood is still lower than the frequency of ARDS


Trump administration revokes the visa of a Ukrainian political fixer tied to Giuliani

been interacting regularly with Giuliani, as the former New York mayor sought to obtain information from Ukraine that would help Trump’s electoral chances. On Monday, in a statement on the Derkach designation, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said that anyone who does business with a sanctioned person could themself be subject to sanctions. Derkach has not responded to requests for interviews since he was sanctioned but in a statement on Facebook described the U.S. action as a “preventive response to my next press conference . . . It is revenge against me, as a representative of the team of investigators.” The U.S. moves, officials say, show an administration willing to target people furthering Moscow’s efforts to stoke political divisions in American society. They come despite the president’s aversion to acknowledging the Kremlin’s interference activities. A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Telizhenko’s visa revocation. Giuliani didn’t respond to phone calls and emails requesting comment. The Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Volodomyr Yelchenko, praised the administration’s actions against Derkach and Telizhenko. “They are just ruining our efforts to preserve bipartisan support for Ukraine,” he said of the two Ukrainians in an interview. “They’ve tried to torpedo our relationship. When they come up with unsubstantiated stories to help one side on the eve of elections, that’s concerning. I’m glad the United States has seen them for what they are.” Telizhenko has denied any involvement in Russian interference or disinformation operations and denied working with Derkach. Derkach has denied he is a Russian agent. Telizhenko told The Washington Post several times over the last two weeks that he had no knowledge of his U.S. visa being revoked. “I didn’t hear anything of that at all,” he said. The State Department usually notifies an affected individual of a visa revocation, but as a rule does not make the information public. Telizhenko provided The Post with documentation purporting to show that he traveled from Kyiv to New York in September. However, a Ukrainian government official and another person familiar with his travel said he did not board that flight — the only flight from Kyiv to New York in September — and did not leave the country that month. Telizhenko declined repeated requests to provide proof of his entry or his stay in the United States. He said that for “security reasons” he is shielding information about his movements. Telizhenko


Is it safer to fly or drive during the pandemic? 5 health experts weigh in.

as requiring passengers to wear masks or not filling middle seats, keeping six feet away from anyone else for extended periods is likely to present a challenge. “There are fewer flights, we’ve all seen those pictures of people kind of crammed in on a flight,” Watson said. “That could happen, and you could be stuck sitting on a plane that is full capacity for an extended period of time.” Robert Quigley, senior vice president and global medical director at the risk mitigation company International SOS, said he understands that people are eager to travel again, but he still recommends people only travel when necessary at this time. “By physically moving regions, you are not only exposing yourself to a larger population who may be infected, but you also run the risk of exposing a larger population should you be an asymptomatic carrier,” Quigley said. He warned that road trips and air travel carry their own risks. “Both of them have their challenges, but I think the one you can control a little better is the motor vehicle as opposed to the airplane,” he said. While HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filters on commercial aircrafts can capture over 99 percent of air impurities, which cover respiratory droplets, they are not perfect since they do not cover free viral particles, Quigley said. For people traveling by car, Quigley recommends doing significant research and planning. He warned that even when driving, travelers will encounter all manner of hazards in the form of gas pumps, doorknobs and other areas that see high traffic. “I think that there’s no better time than now to really do your homework,” he said. “Where am I going, how many miles per gallon do I get, where do I stop, do I need gloves to go into that place, where can I eat?” He said it is important for travelers to figure out where they will stop to sleep during a long trip, find the hotels in that area and call around to ask what practices they use to mitigate coronavirus transmission. Carlos del Rio, executive dean at Emory University School of Medicine, feels comfortable about flying during the pandemic, and he believes airlines have done enough to keep passengers safe. “I think my biggest concern flying is honestly when people start eating their snacks and taking their masks off,” he said. For those traveling by plane, del Rio recommends


Live shows are the heart of jazz. With nightclubs silenced, musicians are keeping its spirit alive.

happenings take place at the Kennedy Center, which, unlike the city’s other performance spaces, receives support from the federal government. Local spaces, and the local musicians who fill them, are far less secure: At least three venues that hosted jazz — Twins, Sotto and Eighteenth Street Lounge — have closed permanently. In July, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) signed legislation that allocated $100 million in relief for small venues in the District. “But there was a caveat,” says Harry Schnipper, owner of the storied D.C. jazz club Blues Alley. “The $100 million would not be released until Phase 3 of the reopening went into effect. Well, guess what didn’t happen?” Before July was over, Schnipper was forced to let his senior staff go. “This thing is really rough,” says Rev. Brian Hamilton, pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Southwest Washington. After Blues Alley, the church’s weekly Friday “jazz night” gatherings make it the District’s longest-lived venue. “It’s going take years, maybe decades, to right-size this thing. It’s brutal.” Its concerts curtailed, Westminster established a GoFundMe account, which has so far distributed over $25,000 in funds to musicians. But the players are not Hamilton’s only concern. “We get calls constantly from folk who wonder when we’re going to start again, many of them being older folk who are most at risk,” Hamilton says. “Jazz at Westminster has been part of their life, part of their culture.” Rather than gigging, then, musicians have searched out whatever alternatives they can find. Several have applied for and received grants targeted specifically to musicians. Some have become drivers for Uber or Grubhub. “We’re just trying to do the best that we can to keep our lights on, our gas on, our rents or mortgages paid,” says Abadey. The drummer is a professor at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. Many other musicians have likewise focused on teaching, whether through schools and universities or in private lessons. For tenor saxophonist Elijah Balbed, the crisis opened a door in that regard. “It facilitated the way to my having my own private lesson studio,” he says. “I had been not as into that in the previous years, but recently have gotten more into education in general, and I thought, ‘Now’s the time to take my private lessons seriously.’ ” Still others have turned to live-streaming performances, which have become ubiquitous throughout the musical landscape during the coronavirus. Some are


Everything you should and shouldn’t do to stay healthy on a plane

The new coronavirus, or covid-19, outbreak has changed air travel completely. From airlines cutting domestic flights and eliminating onboard amenities, to employers putting restrictions on personal and business travel, measures are being taken on all sides of the travel industry to curb the spread of the virus. Although some people are choosing to forgo travel while the global health crisis looms with uncertainty, many are continuing to fly. Here’s what you need to know about staying healthy if you board a plane. Before booking your flight, make sure you’re aware of the status of the coronavirus outbreak in your final destination. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a searchable covid-19 risk assessment by country on its website for anyone concerned about their travel plans. Both China and Iran have been issued Level 3 Travel Health Notices, meaning the CDC recommends holding off on nonessential travel to those countries. The State Department is updating its own travel advisories in response to the outbreak. The CDC asks individuals to self-quarantine for 14 days after a trip to a high-risk area. You’re also asked to practice social distancing, meaning avoiding public transportation, ride-share services, taxis, crowded places, as well as staying about six feet away from other people. There’s a reason everyone’s talking about washing their hands: It’s one of the best ways to protect yourself from spreading diseases. Although there’s no vaccine to prevent contracting covid-19, the CDC recommends washing your hands “often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing.” In between hand-washing, do your best to avoid touching your T-zone, the area of your face with mucous membranes. “It’s the one behavior that would be better than any vaccine ever created,” William Sawyer, a family doctor in Sharonville, Ohio, and founder of Henry the Hand, a nonprofit organization that promotes hand hygiene, told The Washington Post about not touching one’s face. “Just stop this simple behavior. Stop picking, licking, biting, rubbing — it’s the most effective way to prevent a pandemic.” If you don’t have access to soap and water, opt for an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol. You’ll see plenty of people traveling through the airport wearing face masks, but the practice isn’t something recommended by health experts. According to the CDC, healthy people do not


American Andrea Ghez, two others win Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries about black holes

later, she spoke by phone to reporters in Stockholm, discussing the thrills of her research and her hopes that this new recognition will inspire more women to enter the field of physics. Asked what she thought when she first saw signs that something mysterious was lurking at the center of the galaxy, she said: “I think the first thing is doubt. You have to prove to yourself you’re really seeing what you think you’re seeing. Doubt and excitement.” She added, “We have no idea what’s inside the black hole, and that’s what makes these things such exotic objects.” Ghez has received many honors, including a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award. She was the first woman to receive the Royal Swedish Academy’s Crafoord Prize. A graduate of MIT, where she majored in physics, and the California Institute of Technology, where she received her doctorate, she has been on the UCLA faculty since 1994. On Tuesday, she told reporters she feels particularly passionate these days about the teaching side of her profession. “I take very seriously the responsibility of being the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize,” Ghez said. “I hope I can inspire other young women into the field. It’s a field that has so many pleasures, and if you’re passionate about the science, there’s so much to be done.” This year’s physics Nobel honored the theoretical side of black holes — Penrose’s work — and the observational side, the investigations of Ghez and Genzel. There is no shortlist for a Nobel, and laureates find out they have won only when they get the early-morning phone call from Sweden. This year, as has happened in the past, the announcement was delayed briefly while the academy attempted to reach one of the laureates. The fact that this year’s prize would somehow involve black-hole physics was hinted at by Hansson in his opening statement: “This year’s prize is about the darkest secrets of the universe.” The usually packed room at the academy was mostly empty amid restrictions in place because of the coronavirus pandemic. Hansson said this year there would be no in-person Nobel celebration in Stockholm in December. Genzel, 68, is a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics near Munich and also has an appointment at the University of California at Berkeley. Penrose, 89, is an emeritus professor at the University of Oxford who a half-century ago collaborated with


the first direct image of a black hole — a supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87, a galaxy in the constellation Virgo. Ghez and Genzel, backed by teams of researchers and using some of the world’s largest telescopes, separately published findings in the 1990s and 2000s that provided observational support for the existence of a supermassive black hole — or something acting suspiciously like one — in the center of our own galaxy in a region known as Sagittarius A*. The tremendous speed at which stars move in that region suggests they are influenced by the gravity of a supermassive object. What that object is, exactly, is unknown, but as the Swedish Academy put it in announcing the prize, “a supermassive black hole is the only currently known explanation.” While they did not observe the black hole directly, they instead scrutinized individual stars whose motion implied the presence of something creating a powerful gravitational field. Our sun makes a full orbit of the galaxy over the course of about 230 million years, but near the center of the galaxy, a few speed-demon stars have orbits of less than 20 years, including one of just 11.5 years described in a 2012 paper in the journal Science co-authored by Ghez. The mysterious “something” at the galactic center appears to have the mass equal to 4 million suns. The observations of the stars in the galactic center were technically challenging, even with huge telescopes employed by Ghez in Hawaii and Genzel in Chile. The core of the galaxy is crowded with stars, and the scientists needed to pick out individual stars amid the swarm. The distances involved are immense — about 26,000 light-years — and the motions of those faraway stars hard to detect. The observations took many years, even decades. Abundant dust interfered with the view, so the scientists had to observe in the dust-penetrating near-infrared portion of the spectrum. And they had to find a way, through what is known as adaptive optics, to correct for the distortions created by Earth’s atmosphere. Tuesday’s announcement came as something of a surprise to the physics community, simply because the academy usually rotates the prize through areas of the sprawling field, which covers everything from the smallest subatomic particle to the vastness of the universe. But for the second year in a row, the academy honored work in cosmology and astrophysics.


A conflict is brewing on the Nile — and the Trump administration is making things worse

potential, condemning them to inadequate living standards and sluggish economic prospects. Yet to dam a river that provides 90 percent of Egypt’s freshwater will deepen that country’s perilous water crisis. In recent years, Egypt’s persistent water deficit has strained its agricultural industry and upended life in many parts of the country. For Sudan, stuck in the middle, the cheap energy and flood regulation benefits are attractive, but the possible water shortages are too great to overlook. Khartoum has weighed in on the side of its downstream partner, Cairo. The issue is complex and requires careful mediation, but the Trump administration has taken a different approach. By cutting aid to Ethiopia, Washington appears to be pressuring it to accept Egypt’s demands: to slow the dam’s filling and sign up for deferential water-sharing quotas. In practice, the abrupt move has worsened the dispute — hardening Ethiopia’s resolve, emboldening Egypt’s nationalism and undermining the United States’ own credibility as an international mediator. There is now little room for maneuver. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has begun filling the dam at haste, threatening to mobilize “millions” of people if Egypt gets in the way. The Egyptians in turn have tested Abiy’s words, launching cyber strikes against Ethiopia and leaving haunting warnings: “Prepare the Ethiopian people for the wrath of the Pharaohs.” As the two sides clash, many warn of a “water war,” the sort of resource scarcity crisis that may pull many neighbors apart in the future. With fears of sabotage still growing, Ethiopia took the extraordinary and ominous step this week of banning all flights over the dam. If Washington still hopes to stave off war between two of its closest allies on the African continent, it will need to reverse course. Fortunately, the path forward does not rely on the United States. Negotiations will now be led by the African Union, a more honest and informed broker. However, the United States can still help. The right strategy for defusing tensions is not to strip Ethiopia of 25 percent of its non-humanitarian assistance. That decision, made with little public warning or explanation, has left Ethiopia undaunted. While Ethiopia’s government has coolly requested that Washington “reconsider” its decision, Ethiopian civil society has been incensed by what they see as a betrayal. Ethiopian commentators place the move within the “legacy of British colonialism” and view it as “another example of Trump’s disregard for Africa,” harking


Going back to school: The good, the bad and the ugly

Going back to school during the coronavirus pandemic has elicited a jumble of emotions for teachers, students and parents, who have both wanted to see kids back in school buildings but also have feared the risk of contracting covid-19. This post reports on the experiences of people who have returned to school for the 2020-2021 school year in various school districts. It was written by Carol Burris, an award-winning former principal and now executive director of the Network for Public Education, a nonprofit advocacy organization that supports traditional public school districts. The organization has been tracking 37 school districts in Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania, representing more than 195,000 students plus thousands of staff in areas with county covid-19 rates ranging from 0 percent to 5.9 percent. All school districts require the wearing of masks, and Pennsylvania schools have active sports programs. The districts studied were in counties that had low coronavirus rates and required wearing masks. Burris was the long-serving principal of South Side High School in New York’s Rockville Centre School District; the high school is mentioned in her report below. In 2010, she was recognized by the School Administrators Association of New York State as its outstanding educator of the year, and in 2013, she was recognized as the New York state high school principal of the year. No one could have been happier than Cooper Knorr when he returned to school this September. Cooper, who bravely battles osteogenesis imperfecta, commonly known as brittle bone disease, had just recovered from his 10th major surgery following his 90th broken bone when his school shut down last spring. “My eyes would hurt from looking at the computer screen,” he said. “In school, it is so much easier to learn.” “School is his life,” his mother told me. “He is so excited to be back.” At the same time that she was delighted for him, however, Christine Brown was battling anxiety about returning to the high school where she teaches English. “I was worried. I wished I could stay home,” she said. … I’m not a frontline worker. But seeing the excitement of my own children going back and how grateful they are, my opinion shifted.” Brown and Cooper Knorr were among the 15 teachers, administrators, parents and students I interviewed about returning to in-person schooling. Their school districts were in New York or Pennsylvania in areas where covid-19 is


Americans want to trust the experts on the coronavirus. That isn’t easy.

Covid-19 continues to disrupt. Should people — including the president — wear a mask? Will a vaccine solve the pandemic crisis? How do we safely open restaurants, schools and businesses — and keep the U.S. economy ticking along? Early on, President Trump advocated repeatedly for easing restrictions to preserve the economy. Despite many epidemiologists and economists agreeing best practice for the economy was to protect public health, the “reopening debates” at the national and local levels posed public health and economic health as trade-offs. People had to wade through large amounts of conflicting information about the virus from politicians and media sources. Under these circumstances, how did ordinary citizens make sense of the reopening debates? My research As they grew increasingly aware of the partisan divide on the question of reopening, participants’ attitudes divided along party lines. They also worked to frame their opinions as scientifically valid, arriving at opposing interpretations of the same evidence. I conducted 117 in-depth interviews from March through May, speaking by phone with 75 residents of three Midwestern counties. The sample comes from a larger, longitudinal study of these communities throughout the 2020 presidential election, which began in the summer of 2019. When covid-19 interrupted data collection, I refocused the research to incorporate voters’ assessments of the pandemic response. I selected these counties because they all have small towns of between 15,000 and 30,000 residents who are predominantly White and employed in the manufacturing, transportation, education and service sectors. Despite these similarities, these communities have voted differently in presidential elections since the 1960s: Iverson, Wis., is staunchly Democratic; Meriville, Ind., is devoutly Republican; and Williston, Minn., could go either way in any given election. During the summer of 2019, I recruited participants to achieve a sample with balance and variation across age, gender, occupation, depth of religious beliefs, strength of partisan attachment and level of political information. I also conducted a first round of in-person interviews at that time. I then conducted a first set of covid-19 interviews with a subset of participants at the start of stay-at-home orders in March and a second round of questions as communities were hotly contesting stay-at-home orders, which eventually eased in April and May. While the larger study focuses on comparison across each community, the timing of the interviews also sheds light on how people’s thinking changed between these two conversations. Here are some of the key findings.


Why the WHO deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

Mark Leon Goldberg is editor of On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee will announce the 2020 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. This year, the Nobel Committee has the opportunity to bolster international efforts to combat the covid-19 pandemic by conferring the honor on the World Health Organization — and in so doing, push back against the Trump administration’s dangerous moves to undermine a vital multilateral agency. In recent years, arguments in support of multilateralism have resonated with the committee. Over 20 percent of the Nobel Peace Prizes awarded in the 21st century have gone to the United Nations and its entities. This includes the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2013; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007; the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2005, and, in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks, to the United Nations itself “for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.” Each of these awards was conferred during a moment of great global stress, often exacerbated by an obstreperous U.S. president. The administration’s campaign against the WHO has been swift and severe. In May, the Trump administration announced its intent to withhold funding from the WHO. Weeks later, the administration said the United States would fully withdraw from the world body by the middle of next year. Now, the Trump administration is even prohibiting most U.S. government officials from routine contact with the WHO. The ostensible justification for this diplomatic onslaught is accusations that the WHO responded poorly to the pandemic. Targeting of the WHO also happens to serve Trump’s domestic political agenda and shift blame for his own terrible handling of pandemic in the United States. Whatever the reason, the WHO suddenly lost its single largest funder and most important political backer in the midst of an unprecedented global health emergency. Still, the WHO has been able to mount a global response to the pandemic that is succeeding in two key ways that are particularly salient to the considerations of the Nobel Committee. First, the WHO is successfully holding the line against covid-19 from spreading through the world’s most vulnerable populations. This is a major victory against the disease, though perhaps one that is underappreciated in Western countries where the disease is running rampant. As the pandemic ravaged Europe and the United States this spring, epidemiological modeling predicted it would spread like a wildfire to poorer countries


deaths. The WHO’s early decision to focus its pandemic response on places with weak health systems has saved countless lives. The WHO is also at the center of a global cooperative effort to distribute a covid-19 vaccine worldwide. In April, the WHO, in partnership with a number of global health organizations, launched the “Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator” to catalyze the development and distribution of tests, treatments and, crucially, vaccines for covid-19. It is through this accelerator that a complex platform for the international cooperation around the development and manufacture of a covid-19 vaccine was swiftly created. The Covax Facility, as it is known, makes early investments in promising vaccine candidates and in the vast infrastructure needed to make that vaccine as widely available as possible. These investments are backed by pledges of participating countries to purchase doses for their population. (Two of the most promising vaccine candidates currently in late stage trials — the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine and the Moderna vaccine — received early support through Covax.) As part of its campaign against the WHO, the Trump administration declared that the United States would not participate in the Covax Facility. This did not deter the WHO from successfully soliciting the participation of most of the rest of the world in this collective effort. As of Sept. 21, 156 economies, representing nearly two-thirds of the global population, are committed to or eligible to receive vaccines through Covax. When a vaccine is available, most of humanity will get it through efforts backed by the WHO. This is what will ultimately end the pandemic. Conferring the Nobel Peace Prize on the WHO would be interpreted in the United States as a political act — and it will be. The WHO is simultaneously playing offense against covid-19 and defense from domestic political forces in the United States that seek to scapegoat the WHO for Trump’s handling of the crisis. Awarding the WHO the Nobel Peace Prize would provide the organization a much-needed morale boost while affirming the fundamental premise that a global pandemic can be confronted only through global solidarity. Read more: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: Everyone will be affected by the U.S.'s withdrawal from the WHO John Pomfret: Taiwan must participate in the WHO. Global health is too important to play politics. David Ignatius: How did covid-19 begin? Its initial origin story is shaky. Carl Bildt: The post-American world is now on full display


Trump leaves military hospital and enters ‘uncharted territory’

we can’t safely conduct down home.” But Conley acknowledged that the medical team is in “uncharted territory” with the mix of medications the president has been given and that the dangerous period for the infection is not over. He’s “looking to this weekend” for assurance that Trump has cleared rough waters. “If we can get through to Monday” of next week, he said, doctors will “take that final deep sigh of relief.” Conley declined for the third briefing in a row to answer additional questions about X-rays and other images taken of Trump’s lungs, and about other key data, such as when he last received a negative coronavirus test before falling ill. Instead, Conley emphasized symptoms the president was not experiencing: A “slight cough” was gone. There were never complaints of muscle aches. And fever-reducing drugs had not been deployed for at least 72 hours. “He’s up and back to his old self, predominantly,” Conley said. In the White House, Trump’s doctors will be vigilant for sudden changes, specialists predicted. “You would want to be prepared to take care of any sudden unanticipated or very concerning event,” said Jeanne Marrazzo, an infectious-diseases expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The biggest risk, she said, would be the sudden onset of acute respiratory distress syndrome, which sometimes occurs with covid-19. Patients’ lungs fill with fluid, and they can’t breathe on their own. While Trump could get supplemental oxygen at the White House, “if I were that sick, I would want to be at Walter Reed,” she said. Marrazzo said she would also be on the lookout for cardiac abnormalities, especially given Trump’s age and lack of exercise. She said covid-19 causes heart problems including myocarditis, heart failure and clotting. While Trump could be whisked back to Walter Reed in the Maryland suburbs if problems developed, she said, “lots of things can happen in 20 minutes, lots of things can happen in five minutes.” Daniel Kaul, an infectious-diseases expert at the University of Michigan, said people of Trump’s age and with similar severity of illness — to the extent that is known — “usually have a pretty slow recovery, with weeks and sometimes months of cognitive difficulties, shortness of breath, severe fatigue.” Like other experts, Kaul said it is highly likely that Trump had covid pneumonia. At the briefing, Conley selectively invoked health privacy laws known as HIPAA — the Health


Covid-19 isn’t the flu. Trump’s comparison is reckless.

English literature has a long tradition of cruel or feckless characters who become gravely ill near the end of a book and either repent on their deathbed or survive to reform themselves thoroughly. On Oct. 2, the day President Trump went into the hospital for treatment of covid-19, Baylor University English professor Alan Jacobs offered the example of wayward heir Tom Bertram’s reform in Jane Austen’s “Mansfield Park” and suggested, “That’s what we should most hope when we hear that a thoughtless, unreflective, self-centered person has contracted a serious illness: that he learns to think; that he experiences self-reproach; that he emerges from the illness steadier, quieter, and more useful to others.” I certainly hope all those things for our president. In the meantime, however, Trump is doubling down on his bad, old ways. He spent Monday suggesting we don’t need to be afraid of covid-19. On Tuesday morning, he even brought back a golden oldie from March, coronavirus-is-just-like-the-flu. “Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!” We could count the ways that this is wrong, and that the president of the United States, who has the best medical experts in the world at his command, ought to know better: First, going back to 2010, none of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s flu estimates exceed 100,000 deaths; in the worst year, 2017-2018, an estimated 61,000 people died from influenza. This is less than a third of the number of Americans known to have already died of covid-19. Second, the CDC’s flu estimates cannot be directly compared to America’s covid-19 deaths, because they are just that — estimates. Reported covid-19 deaths are actual counts of people who tested positive for the novel coronavirus and then shortly thereafter died from one of its known complications. Are a few of those deaths mislabeled — as some conservatives like to say “with covid but not of covid”? Undoubtedly; no statistic is perfect. And unfortunately, we don’t collect comprehensive data on influenza deaths. But if we did, virtually every expert agrees that, in apples-to-apples comparison, covid-19 would be many times deadlier than the flu. Moreover, covid-19 is more contagious, because


Man slain in D.C. near North Capitol Street on Monday, police say

A man was shot and killed Monday afternoon near North Capitol and K streets NW in the District, police said. Demetri Harvin, 33, of Northwest, was shot in the 1100 block of First Street NW. The shooting apparently occurred outdoors. Police went there after they heard shots. Harvin was taken to a hospital where he died, police said. No information was available late Monday about who shot him or why.


Virginia governor develops mild covid-19 symptoms, scorns Trump for downplaying disease

RICHMOND — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said this week that he has developed "mild" symptoms of covid-19 more than a week after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, but he is continuing to conduct business remotely. “I had a little bit of cold-like symptoms over the weekend and lost my sense of taste or smell, but other than that, I feel fine,” Northam (D) said Monday afternoon in a telephone interview. But Northam, who is a physician, said he was alarmed that President Trump was playing down the severity of the disease while apparently suffering a more serious bout. “Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life,” Trump tweeted Monday in announcing that he would leave Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was hospitalized on Friday after reportedly suffering low oxygen levels and receiving an aggressive series of treatments. “That’s absolutely the wrong message,” Northam said, pointing out that more than 200,000 Americans have lost their lives to covid-19 and more than 7 million have been infected. “It’s irresponsible to make a statement like that.” A former Army doctor, Northam said he had served on the staff at Walter Reed and knows that Trump “has access to the best medical care, medications, treatments other people don’t have access to.” Northam, 61, learned on Sept. 25 that he and first lady Pam Northam had tested positive after a staff member who works closely with the family in the Executive Mansion had been infected with the virus that causes covid-19. “I haven’t had any fever nor shortness of breath, no coughing. My oxygen level is doing well. Pam is doing well also,” Northam said Monday, several hours after posting a video on Twitter in which he discussed his symptoms and urged Virginians to continue following public health protocols. Northam said he and his wife have not received any treatment for the disease but are taking steps to monitor their health. Shortly after getting their test results, Northam said, he asked a security staffer to go to a drugstore and buy a pulse oximeter so they could check their blood oxygen levels. Because the disease sometimes causes blood to clot more easily, Northam said, he is staying hydrated and getting regular exercise. He walks on a treadmill, he said, and he and his wife take their two dogs out to the gardens behind the Executive


LSU football to remove CDC wellness checks, resume alcohol sales at Tiger Stadium

interview Tuesday morning. Louisiana has the nation’s most reported coronavirus cases per 100,000 people and the fifth-most coronavirus deaths per 100,000 people. Under LSU’s stadium procedures and guidelines, sections outlining covid-19 screening have been crossed off, with a note that the requirement had been removed Sept. 28. The notice stated that ticket holders 18 or over must undergo a CDC Facilities covid-19 screening, which could also be completed on the LSU sports mobile app. Fans were then directed to the four screening questions on the CDC website. The questions can be completed in less than a minute. With coronavirus protocols capping capacity at 25 percent, the Tigers hosted more than 21,000 fans in their 102,000-seat stadium for their Sept. 26 season opener against Mississippi State. Tailgating on LSU’s campus, including setups such as “tents, trailers, outdoor cooking, generators and communal food and beverage areas,” has been banned for this season. Munson said there were no violations of the 2020 tailgating policy during the opener. “We closely monitored all aspects of game day with the new protocols in place knowing there would be areas for improvement,” Munson said in a news release Monday. “Among numerous tweaks and adjustments, observations and data gathered from fans highlighted five primary areas for modifications to our procedures and some areas of emphasis for fans.” Alcohol sales will now also be allowed at Tiger Stadium. Fans purchasing alcohol must be wearing masks covering their nose and mouth and must consume it at their seats and not in any standing areas. LSU noted in Monday’s announcement that fans wearing masks over their mouths and noses in the season opener “wore those masks in corridors, concessions and restroom lines. However, a large percentage of fans removed their masks while in their seats in Tiger Stadium. LSU Athletics is reminding fans to wear their masks while in their seats.” Officials also reminded fans to stay in their ticketed seats and that they will “increase monitoring of seat locations.” Munson said LSU had more Tiger Stadium game day staff for 25 percent attendance in the season opener than ever at full capacity. He added that fans took off their masks for multiple reasons, including the heat and humidity as well as fans feeling too comfortable with how physically distant they were from one another. However there were no reported incidents of fans refusing to put their masks back on and


The Technology 202: Trump's 'Don't be afraid of Covid' post tests Facebook and Twitter

and is prolifically posts to their platforms. New Cornell University research published last week identified Trump as the “single largest driver” of covid-19 misinformation during the early months of the pandemic. The study was based on an analysis of 38 million English-language articles, and found that mentions of Trump made up nearly 38 percent of the overall “misinformation conversation.” The study also underscored how traditional media, in addition to social media, plays a role in amplifying the president's claims. The president's claims about coronavirus aren't the only concern. As my colleague Joseph Marks wrote this morning, Trump attacked the integrity of the election in a tweet before he even left the hospital yesterday. Democrats and civil-rights groups have slammed tech companies for failing to take enough action when Trump posted content they believe is misleading or hateful. Both companies have traditionally taken a more hands-off approach to moderating posts from politicians that could be considered newsworthy, and Facebook particularly has resisted refereeing political speech. However, experts generally agree platforms have been more proactive in stamping out covid-19 misinformation. And they've shown, in some instances, they will take action against misinformation from world leaders about the disease. Twitter and Facebook also recently tightened their policies on election-related misinformation. Twitter has labeled, and in some instances even limited, the distribution of tweets shared by the president that violate its policies. Just yesterday, one of the president's tweets including a reporter's email address was removed from Twitter with a label saying it violated company policies. Republicans on the committee will reject potential Democratic proposals including new legislation to make it easier to break up online giants including Amazon, Google and Facebook, Cristiano Lima at Politico reports. “We agree that antitrust enforcement agencies need additional resources and tools to provide proper oversight,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo) wrote in a minority report shared with the press. “However, these potential changes need not be dramatic to be effective.” The Republican report also rebukes Democrats for failing to address how big tech companies have allegedly used their market influence to silence conservative voices. Top Republicans including the president have accused tech companies of being biased against conservatives without providing meaningful evidence. Potential areas of agreement between Democrats and Republicans include legislation to strengthen the burden of proof for mergers and acquisitions and greater data portability and interoperability, according to Bucks' report. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai


A giant, collaborative puzzle helped occupy participants during lockdown

While his peers gravitated to baseball fields and basketball courts growing up, David Leschinsky stayed home and fidgeted with any puzzle he could get his hands on. To Leschinsky, there are few activities more relaxing than completing a puzzle. He loved jigsaws so much that he left the tech industry 16 years ago to start Eureka! Puzzles, a jigsaw store in Brookline, Mass. When the novel coronavirus began consuming the U.S. in March, Leschinsky wanted others to have access to his go-to leisure activity during a time when many people were stuck in their homes. He distributed parts of a 40,320-piece puzzle to nearby residents, hoping to join the components when the health crisis subsided. This jigsaw project was Eureka! Puzzles’ way to build a small community and provide a fun activity for Massachusetts residents during the pandemic. “Having that puzzle to work on,” said Malka Benjamin, one of the project’s participants, “I think is the reason I got through the shutdown in the mental form I’m in.” The puzzle features 10 parts that each includes about 4,000 pieces. Each square features a photo from the Disney movies “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Peter Pan,” “Fantasia,” “The Jungle Book,” “Dumbo,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Bambi,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Cinderella” and “The Lion King.” Near the beginning of 2019, Eureka! Puzzles bought the jigsaw from Ravensburger, a German puzzlemaker, to add to its collection of more than 5,000 items. Until March, the largest jigsaw Eureka! Puzzles owned sat on a top shelf in the small store. When glancing at it one day in March, Leschinsky asked his employees about distributing parts of the $600 puzzle to customers free. They thought nobody would be interested. Instead, when Leschinksy sent an email to customers, he said more than 150 people replied. Leschinsky’s family took on a section, and he found nine other people near Brookline to whom he would send about 4,000 pieces of the puzzle. Participants picked up their puzzle pieces and a foam board at the store before it closed in late March. Leschinsky created a social media hashtag, #EurekaTogetherApart, and asked contributors to share their progress on Instagram. Participants bonded over a common goal of completing a large puzzle, and they could share their shortcomings and achievements virtually. “There is so much animosity in the world,” said Leschinsky, 65. “Things are so polarized that it always seems that everything


Metro selects Hitachi Rail to build its next-generation rail car

become a source of new rail cars and jobs for years. Hitachi Global is a more than 100-year-old Japan-based corporation with rail subsidiaries based across the world. Its main rail headquarters is in Italy. The Washington-based limited liability corporation is a new entity. Records show that the LLC was founded and based in Medley, Fla., in May 2019, according to business data provider Dun & Bradstreet. The lone employee listed in records is Giampaolo Nuonno, the chief executive of Hitachi Rail USA. Metro’s long search for a manufacturer of the 8000-series cars has been an eventful one, marked by protests from lobbyist groups, overtures from a controversial Chinese rail manufacturer and even the passage of a federal law that limited whom the transit agency could partner with for the deal. The new cars will be Metro’s eighth generation of rail car since the system opened 44 years ago. In selecting Hitachi Rail, Metro is turning to a familiar maker. Three of its first four models of rail cars were built by Breda, a company that was later sold to Hitachi Rail. The 256 cars in Metro’s first order would replace all 2000- and 3000-series cars in its fleet. The series, both of which were built in the 1980s, are the system’s oldest. Rail cars have a shelf life of about 40 years, according to Metro. Kawasaki Heavy Industries Rolling Stock Co. of Japan built Metro’s late-model 7000-Series cars, which were assembled at a plant in Lincoln, Neb. In late February, Metro received the last of 748 cars ordered from Kawasaki. The 7000 series, which cost about $2 million each, now make up more than half of Metro’s fleet. The 7000 series marked a dramatic design shift from previous models’ tight benches, cushioned seats and, at one time, carpeted floors. The newer trains have easy-to-maintain flooring, broader blue benches, digital screens, automated announcements and wider aisles. The 8000 series is not expected to deviate much from the 7000 series except for the addition of real-time digital maps, digital advertising signs and power outlets for riders’ mobile devices. Kawasaki, which has a multiyear contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York to build between 535 and more than 1,000 rail cars, was not expected to bid aggressively on the Metro contract. Metro began soliciting bids for the 8000-series contract in September 2018, when it put out a formal request for proposals.


210,000 deaths later, Trump reverts to comparing the coronavirus to the flu

In the pantheon of Donald Trump tweets that didn’t age well — an enormous institution by this point — few stand out with the distinction of one he offered on March 9 of this year. For the next seven months, people did indeed think about that. They thought about it when the toll of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, passed 27,000 deaths on April 13. They thought about it when the toll passed 37,000 on April 17. They thought about it when the toll passed 70,000 on May 5 and 100,000 on May 28 and 200,000 last month. The devastation from the coronavirus was not akin to the seasonal flu. After all, those deaths occurred even with the economy stopping and then restarting only slowly, and those deaths happened even with broad efforts by people in most states to wear masks and maintain safe distancing practices. While fewer deaths would have occurred had the government acted more quickly, had life simply continued as normal, the toll would obviously have been far higher. Or, perhaps, not obviously. After President Trump contracted the virus at some point in the past two weeks, it seemed like a moment in which the gravity of the pandemic might finally weigh on him in a way it perhaps hadn’t since the outbreak began. But after a quick stint in the hospital, Trump emerged on Monday claiming to feel as good as he did 20 years ago — and resuscitating his rhetoric from seven months ago. This is wrong both in the specifics and the abstract, and obviously so. There are two ways that epidemiologists measure the toll from each flu season. Each week, the government tallies hospital visits, confirmed flu tests and flu-related deaths. Those data are used to build out estimates of the overall spread of the virus over each winter, what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls the “flu burden.” Some seasons are worse than others. The graphs below show the flu burden each year from the 2011-2012 season to estimates for the 2019-2020 season. In the 2012-2013 season, identified in blue, the CDC estimates that about 9.3 million Americans were symptomatic and 12,000 died. (The horizontal lines mark the estimate; the bars above and below are the range of possible values.) In the 2017-2018 season (dark orange), 45 million people were infected, and an estimated 61,000 died. You will


When a college cuts a sports program, these are the lives upended

has historically touted the athletic department’s vast array of varsity programs. Athletes with ties to the school have won 270 Olympic medals, so Stanford’s decision to cut 11 programs alarmed those invested in Olympic sports. Alexander Massialas’s fencing equipment is on display in the Home of Champions. Massialas won two medals at the 2016 Olympics, and after taking a year off to train, he returned for his final collegiate season. Massialas had a small athletic scholarship but primarily relied on financial aid, which he no longer received upon his return. When he asked if the athletic department could help, it didn’t. “That’s where I felt this disconnect,” Massialas said, noting how much his school publicized his success but didn’t offer more support. When Stanford cut fencing this summer, the decision prompted a similar dissonance. Massialas always felt like Stanford appreciated all its teams. Before this decision, Massialas thought the athletic department operated well, particularly from a values standpoint, he said. “We still love the school,” Massialas said of the alumni advocating for the school to reinstate the programs. “We want them to make the right decision for its undergraduate population, for the students that are going to come in the next generation.” In the days after one of these decisions, petitions and fundraising campaigns emerge. Current athletes channel their emotion into these efforts. Alumni, who still feel tied to the program, organize efforts to push back. They plead for their programs to be reinstated, usually to no avail. Former East Carolina swimmers connected on Facebook just after the announcement and rallied to build their campaign. They asked for donations and pledges for the future. They disseminated the email addresses of university leaders. Shuman, who works in communications, filed public records requests so they could analyze the athletic department’s finances and conversations that may have led to the decision. Alumni poured evenings and weekends into this initiative. “It’s worth the fight because of the experience we had,” said Lindsay Takkunen, another former swimmer. They want an opportunity to find solutions, but these former swimmers said athletic department leaders haven’t engaged in conversations. Now four months since the announcement, they are focusing on long-term efforts. The program might not return this year, but they hope it will one day. “We’re stuck,” Takkunen said. “So we just keep plugging away until we decide that’s it. But we’re still there now.” Read more on


Washington Post Live to host "Primary Care in the time of COVID-19″ with presenting sponsor UnitedHealth Group

On Thursday, Oct. 8 at 10:00 a.m. ET, Washington Post Live will host “Primary Care in the time of COVID-19,” a virtual event focused on addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our primary care system and family physicians. The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical role of the family physician and primary care providers in our health system. Doctors, nurses, and other health care workers in hospitals and emergency rooms have responded with bravery and resilience to the pandemic. Mike Varshavski, DO, Stream live here Presenting sponsor