Maryland can prevent a year-long health crisis from becoming a decade-long economic crisis

rate ever alongside 2008 — allowing for near-zero borrowing costs for Wall Street banks and investors. States, on the other hand, will still pay interest on their Fed borrowing. The problem of the federal response is that it leaves stimulus decisions to private banks. For the Payroll Protection Program (PPP), the Cares Act’s lifeline for small businesses, the banks set their own terms for which receive support and which do not. Underlying banking inequities are amplified: Minority-owned small businesses stand virtually no chance of receiving aid, and large restaurant and hotel chains received the maximum $10 million grant. Despite that there is no risk posed to the banks, they raked in more than $10 billion in fees over PPP’s first two weeks. In this crisis, it has become clear that banks are a public utility — just like water, energy and broadband — playing an essential role in the government’s response to overcoming the crisis. To ensure lines of credit into our communities do not dry up, Hogan must use his emergency powers to charter a state public bank. Public banks Because of the crisis, the Fed has encouraged banks to borrow from the discount window to cover all their liquidity needs, which would allow a public bank to borrow at will for near-zero cost and at no risk to the state’s funds. On its own, this would mean a profound shift in how the state and its agencies, universities and localities finance their operations — the state could lend to itself on its own terms. The recent scramble to improve Maryland’s unemployment insurance administration illustrates another key function offered by the public bank: a digital payments platform. Such a system would provide every person in Maryland with access to a digital wallet account (think PayPal or Venmo). Rather than state and local governments distributing benefits through various uncoordinated channels (prepaid cards, direct deposit, mailed checks), the bank would provide any government entity a central channel for transfers, vastly improving the efficiency of payments in a time when swift delivery is a matter of life or death. Beyond the crisis, the public bank would extend much-needed countercyclical credit into Maryland’s economy, much like the Bank of North Dakota (BND) — the only active public bank in the United States — did after the 2008 financial crisis. From 2008 to 2011, North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate, the lowest default


Local digest: Police probe possible ‘justified homicide’

THE DISTRICT A 22-year-old man was fatally shot Tuesday in the Langdon neighborhood of Northeast Washington. D.C. police said the case is being investigated as a possible justified shooting. The incident occurred about 11:10 a.m. in the Parkway Plaza Apartments in the 1800 block of 24th Street NE. Police said the victim, identified as D’Andre Mickle of Northwest Washington, had multiple gunshot wounds. Police spokeswoman Karimah Bilal said he died at a hospital. “This case is being considered a justified homicide,” Bilal said. Police said the suspected shooter was questioned by detectives but has not been charged. Police declined to comment on why they believe the shooting might be justified, citing the ongoing investigation. A police report said the victim had a small amount of marijuana, $700, bank cards, Apple iPhone ear buds and a surgical mask. — Peter Hermann A man was fatally shot Wednesday on New York Avenue in Northwest Washington, according to D.C. police. Police said the incident occurred about 12:30 p.m. in front of a carryout in the 200 block of New York Avenue NW, south of Dunbar High School and near the entrance to I-395. The victim was identified as Louis Kingsbory, 35, of Southeast. Two other people were shot in the District later Wednesday. In one case, a man was shot at about 4:10 p.m. near 19th and I streets NE. Police said the man was unconscious at the scene and that homicide detectives had been assigned to the case. — Peter Hermann D.C. police on Tuesday arrested a suspect in the fatal shooting in January of a man in the Carver-Langston neighborhood. Knico Wheaton, 23, of Southeast Washington, was charged with first-degree murder while armed. Police charged Wheaton with killing Tavon Cox, 41, who lived in Baltimore County. Cox was inside a vehicle when he was shot on Jan. 11 in the 700 block of 24th Street NE. He died at a hospital Jan. 12. A police report listed drugs as a possible factor in the shooting. The report says that before he died, Cox told police that he was involved in a transaction with two people through the front driver’s side window and that one of the people “pulled out a pistol and shot him in the head.” — Peter Hermann MARYLAND A woman died after being shot Monday in Laurel, police in Prince George’s County said. Briah Jackson, 24, of Laurel


Style Invitational Week 1382: For us, it’s still Post Time — it’s our annual foal name contest

grin! Cover up from your eyes to your chin!Cut some cloth! Sew it up! Look out, everything’s coming out noses! Don’t use plastic. Grab an old pillowcase. Add elastic! Then it will be so fantastic! You’ll be chic! Right in style When you race down the grocery aisle! Basic black or bright red, Tie it tight on your head.Just start right now and do this thing I ask!Look out, everything’s coming out noses, so just wear your mask! (Barbara Sarshik, McLean, Va.) To My Cherie Amour: I can order food, have it sent right to my homeWhere’s the fun in that? Through the store I want to roam.I miss shopping! Running into neighbors at the store,Used to think that it was such a chore.From now on I’ll never whine. Maybe someday, I’ll come back with my list in hand, No more face mask, I’ll say hi to the produce man, Oh dear grocery store, packed with people, sights and smells galore,Now I will appreciate you more.Grocery store, you are divine. (Jennifer Martin Broadway, Marquette, Mich.) Video: To “Hey Nineteen” by Steely Dan (Wayne Wilentz, Montgomery Village, Md., a First Offender) To Another Hundred People: We’re a city in danger — some go to work, some with pay, A city in danger — some stay at home, locked away,But every day, some try to play … They find each other in the empty streets near the padlocked parksOr they bike near fountains or by dusty trees with the battered barksOr they social-distance past the postered walls with the crude remarks And they meet at parties or post wildlife on chat video:“Will we pick up lunch, or just deliver in, or shall we let it go?All my stores were closed, although I went in vainCan we binge-watch ‘Tiger King’ if it begins to rain?This experience is ’Groundhog Day’ but harder to explain.”And another hundred people don’t get off of a train. (Richard Zorowitz, Bethesda, Md., a First Offender) To It Was a Very Good Year: When I turned on the news In January this year,There was a nasty bug in China, they said,Many people were dead. But the president said It would never get here, There was no reason to fear. A dozen cases popped up in February this year,Then Diamond Princess was stopped with dozens moreBut the president swore: Like a miracle here, It will soon disappear.We have no reason to


Noted coach Maggie Haney suspended eight years by USA Gymnastics

USA Gymnastics has leveled an eight-year suspension one of its more high-profile coaches, Maggie Haney, the longtime former coach of 2016 Olympic gold medalist Laurie Hernandez, following a hearing into complaints that she verbally and emotionally abused her gymnasts. USA Gymnastics confirmed the suspension, which was first reported by the Orange County Register, Wednesday night. Haney, 42, had been placed on interim suspension in January following complaints about her methods by gymnasts and parents alike, who reported that she berated and fat-shamed young gymnasts and demanded some practice and compete while injured. Until recently, Haney, a former gymnast at N.C. State who is head coach at MG Elite Gymnastics in Monmouth Junction, N.J., also coached 2018 world champion and 2021 Tokyo Olympic hopeful Riley McCusker. McCusker now trains alongside fellow U.S. national team member Jade Carey at Arizona Sunrays, where Carey’s father is their coach. Hernandez, now 19, was a member of the Final Five that won the prestigious team gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Just 16 at the time, she also claimed silver on the balance beam. After taking an extended break from the sport, which included a season on “Dancing with the Stars,” Hernandez resumed training with a different coach in southern California with an eye toward making the 2021 Olympics. The eight-year suspension takes effect immediately and will be followed by two additional years of suspension, USA gymnastics said in a statement. The decision, made by a three-member independent hearing panel, followed a Safe Sport hearing panel. The panel, which included an attorney, a club owner and former national team athlete, concluded that Haney violated the USA Gymnastics Code Ethical Conduct, Safe Sport Policy, and other policies. As a result, the statement read, Haney will not be allowed to coach any USA Gymnastics athletes or in member clubs for eight years, followed by the two-year probation. She may reapply for membership and coaching privileges after the suspension ends by submitting proof of completing certain specified Safe Sport courses. Read more How U.S. Olympians are training at home USA Track & Field defends CEO’s $4.2 million 2018 salary number Tokyo Olympics in 2021 could be canceled, not postponed, without coronavirus vaccine


U.S. passes 60,000 dead as hopes rise for a promising drug therapy

at the height of the outbreak. But Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned that holding the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 will be “impossible” if the pandemic is not contained. Originally slated to take place this summer, the Olympic Games have been postponed until July 2021. A growing chorus of Japanese scientists have warned that even a one-year delay might not be enough, and Abe on Wednesday became the most prominent voice to echo those concerns. Several top government officials have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, including Prime Minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam, the Health Ministry confirmed Wednesday. Interior Minister Botche Cande and two other cabinet members are among those who also tested positive. Health Minister Antonio Deuna said they are in quarantine at a hotel in Bissau, the capital, Reuters reported. The small country, home to about 1.8 million people, has confirmed at least 73 cases of the virus, according to a Johns Hopkins University database. The first two cases were diagnosed in March. India will permit workers, students and tourists stuck across the country to return to their homes after five weeks of nationwide lockdown, although national restrictions remain in place, the government said Wednesday. The change represents a significant shift in India’s restrictions on movement. On March 25, the government shut down all long-distance transportation — including flights, trains and buses — in this country of more than 1.3 billion to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The abrupt lockdown stranded millions of laborers in Indian cities without jobs and with no means to leave. In desperation, thousands set off on foot. The country has roughly 32,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and about 1,000 deaths. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned Wednesday of a potential “second pandemic” — of lawsuits — if his idea of shielding businesses from liability is not included in the next round of legislation crafted by Congress in response to the coronavirus outbreak. McConnell’s description came during a radio interview as he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) continued to jockey over the scope of the legislation. Democrats are insisting that it include hundreds of billions of dollars in additional aid to states and localities to make up for lost tax revenue during the pandemic. “Well, look, there’s no question that all governors regardless of party would like to have more money, and I’m open to discussing


Vietnam offers tough lessons for U.S. on coronavirus

it is not a small, easily controllable space like Hong Kong or Iceland. It doesn’t have the charismatic leadership of New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, Germany’s Angela Merkel or other female world leaders. And it’s not liberal or democratic like other widely praised nations. Forty-five years after the war’s end, Vietnam remains a developing Communist nation, led by a coterie of middle-aged men. So what explains Vietnam’s coronavirus success? Plenty of countries test, of course, and Vietnam’s raw number of tests administered is far less than many other nations: The United States has conducted more than 5 million tests, whereas Vietnam has conducted only 200,000. However, when you consider tests per confirmed case, Vietnam is an outlier. Vietnam began testing early, ramping up domestic production of tests after the first cases of the coronavirus in the country were discovered in three travelers returning from Wuhan in January. It then undertook extensive contact tracing, with strict quarantine at government-run facilities for those suspected of having the virus. The government has used text messaging and apps to communicate with citizens during the crisis, and the government publishes extensive amounts of data and information about the outbreak on the Health Ministry’s website, a surprising move in a country known for its extensive restrictions on media freedom. Questions remain about whether data from an autocratic nation such as Vietnam is reliable, or if the lower level of tests overall mean there are missing cases, but some U.S. health experts have said they trust the figures. Vietnam was also hit by severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, but became internationally praised for being the first country to stop local transmission. It’s possible that being an authoritarian state helped it understand the early days of the outbreak. Trien Vinh Le and Huy Quynh Nguyen of the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City argue in the Diplomat that Vietnam effectively learned from the mistakes of China’s too-secretive response to the outbreak. Cybersecurity firm FireEye also claims that hackers linked to the Vietnamese government tried to access emails of China’s Ministry of Emergency Management and the government of Wuhan — an accusation that Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry denies. Memories of the war linger in Vietnam and in the United States. But the countries are no longer enemies; they normalized relations in 1995 and polls show that the United States is viewed favorably in Vietnam. If Vietnam is able


Transcript: A Conversation with Maryland Governor Larry Hogan

MR. COSTA: Welcome to Washington Post Live. I'm Bob Costa, a national political reporter at The Washington Post. This morning, we continue our Leadership During Crisis Series as the coronavirus pandemic upends all aspects of American life. Our guest today is a state executive on the front lines, Larry Hogan, Maryland's Republican Governor. He is Chairman of the National Governors Association. Governor Hogan, welcome. GOV. HOGAN: Good morning, Bob. Thanks for having me. MR. COSTA: Good morning. So, Governor, what is the latest in Maryland in terms of cases and the death toll? GOV. HOGAN: Well, so, we're still kind of climbing that curve in Maryland. We're a couple of weeks behind some of the other states because of some of the early and aggressive action we took. We just surpassed 21,000 cases and, sadly, we just went over 1,000 deaths here in the state, but we're certainly in a much better position than we would have been if we had not taken aggressive action. MR. COSTA: So, you're in a much better position, but are you ready to set a date about reopening your state? GOV. HOGAN: So, we laid out a very detailed plan just last week. And we've had a coronavirus response team made up of some of the smartest scientists and epidemiologists and public health officials in our state from places like Johns Hopkins and some of the leaders of this pandemic response really nationally advising us. We developed a plan that took into consideration the President's own coronavirus plan; the NGA plan that we put out the week before, for recommendations for all the governors; along with some--Hopkins' reopening plan and American Enterprise Institute plan put together by Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who was the former FDA Commissioner. And our plan is--as soon as we see a flattening or a plateauing of these key numbers like hospitalizations and ICU beds are the things that we're really focused on. The number of cases is going to rise as we do more testing, and so--and sadly, the deaths lag a couple of weeks behind what's actually happening now. And so, the numbers that we're most closely following on a daily basis are hospitalizations in ICU beds and we're not seeing as much of a spike. We've got a couple of days up a little bit, but it seems to be leveling out, which is a good sign. MR.


unknowingly and it just went through these nursing homes like wildfire. We now have over 4,000 cases in our nursing homes. We have about 130-some nursing home centers with outbreaks or clusters and, sadly, 46 percent of all of our deaths are nursing home patients. So, we've taken further steps to now not wait until somebody's showing signs of symptoms, but we're testing every single staff member and every single patient in all those. There are 24,000 of them in our state. So, it takes a while to get it done, we're prioritize--it just started yesterday, this new program, with our new tests from Korea. But we're prioritizing the ones where we have the outbreaks and where we have threats of potential clusters where we've got a case where we already have somebody that tested positive and we're going to work our way down that list until we get to every single one of those folks. MR. COSTA: What about prisons? Should testing be mandated there, as well? GOV. HOGAN: We are--we've taken all kinds of steps to reduce our prison population. We've set up triage centers. We've set up isolation sections in the hospitals and we're doing testing of hospital staff. That's one of our top priorities that's included in our kind of clusters and hotspots where we're focusing some of these tests, first. So, it's things like prisons; it's the things like nursing homes. Also, on health care workers, they're going to get prioritized for tests. And then, this issue like I talked about today, we have a big poultry industry on our--Maryland's Eastern Shore and we have a major outbreak there and interruption of the food chain. So, we're setting up this new thing there for the workers in the poultry industry at the Perdue plant and at Perdue Stadium in Salisbury. MR. COSTA: Let's pause on that food issue. We've got an email from one of our readers of The Post, Myla Williams [phonetic], from Maryland. She said, quote, "I heard there's no risk to Maryland's food supply chain, but grocery stores are still out of stock of many items. I switched to having my groceries delivered, but a lot of times my delivery is not arriving because things are out of stock. What's being done?" GOV. HOGAN: Yeah, I think that's--there is no interruption in the food chain and that's sort of unrelated to what


The Daily 202: Five important coronavirus questions that scientists and doctors are racing to answer

the virus can be transmitted as an aerosol — although the evidence is far from conclusive and no such infections have been documented,” Joel Achenbach and Carolyn Johnson report. “An alarming report from a restaurant in Guangzhou, China, showed that one infected person who had not yet developed symptoms infected nine other diners. Researchers suggested that an air-conditioning unit recirculating the air could have spread droplets, carrying the virus between tables. ‘This just demonstrates the terrible confusion that is created by the common misconception that there’s somehow a bright line between aerosols and respiratory droplets,’ said Donald Milton, professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. … “A study from an 11th-floor South Korean call center found that 94 people were infected in a single outbreak, most of them clustered in one half of the office. The authors wrote that the outbreak highlights that the virus is ‘exceptionally contagious in crowded office settings such as a call center.’ That does not necessarily mean aerosolized particles caused the infections. … “A report, not yet peer-reviewed, from the University of Nebraska Medical Center found virus RNA on the surfaces of cellphones, toilets, bedside tables and exercise equipment used by 13 patients with confirmed cases of covid-19. Samples from the hallway outside patient rooms were also positive for viral RNA, suggesting that aerosols could be spreading the virus, but again the research did not conclude that the hallway samples were infectious.” “There is little consensus among doctors and experts about why the fifth through 10th days, or thereabouts, seem to be so dangerous for some people,” Lenny Bernstein and Ariana Eunjung Cha report. “Learning on the fly as they confront the virus, clinicians interviewed by The Washington Post speculated about the influence of an individual’s genes, the virus’s effect on lung tissue, overactive immune responses, blood clotting and even the impact of the ventilators used to save patients’ lives. There is little, if any, current research to guide them. … Doctors report seeing patients who wait too long to seek care, including those who do not feel the symptoms of plummeting oxygen levels, such as shortness of breath, until they are in crisis. No one is sure why. Many people’s lungs remain flexible for a while, allowing carbon dioxide out and forestalling the sensation that they aren’t getting enough oxygen. … “The virus may be killing the cells


that line the air sacs of the lungs, which keep them open and allow for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, said Russell G. Buhr, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, Calif. At some point, the body simply can’t regenerate those cells as quickly as they die, he said, and a stable situation turns life-threatening. That may also help explain why covid-19 patients can linger on ventilators for up to four weeks, much longer than with other respiratory diseases, he said. … Researchers have suggested that some crashes are caused by events such as heart attacks, strokes and clots related to blood complications. … “Within the field, a debate has broken out about whether physicians are turning to ventilators too often and too early, driven by the traditional response to remarkably low blood oxygen levels in some patients who show none of the symptoms of oxygen deprivation. Some doctors have advocated a more conservative initial response that would spare more patients the sedation, intubation and side effects of mechanical ventilation. Aware of the hazards of the second week of the disease, hospitals have employed multiple tactics. Some are putting patients on oxygen earlier and using blood thinners prophylactically to prevent clots. At UCLA, caregivers more aggressively monitor ventilator pressure and use proning — placing patients on their stomachs — as much as 16 hours a day, Buhr said. The technique has been shown to increase the amount of oxygen getting into the lungs of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, a hallmark of severe covid-19.” “The government’s first rigorous clinical trial of the experimental drug remdesivir as a coronavirus treatment delivered mixed results to the medical community Wednesday — but rallied stock markets and raised hopes that an early weapon to help some patients was at hand,” Chris Rowland and Laurie McGinley report. “The preliminary results, disclosed at the White House by Anthony S. Fauci, chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which led the placebo-controlled trial, found that the drug accelerated the recovery of hospitalized patients but had only a marginal benefit in the rate of death. That falls short of the magic bullet or cure that many were hoping for in Gilead’s drug. But with no approved treatments for Covid-19, Fauci said, it will become the standard of care for hospitalized patients and serve as


The Energy 202: Biden tweaks his environmental campaign message amid coronavirus pandemic

had backed Sanders, has been talking to the Biden campaign since Super Tuesday about “what they could do to be aligned with the movement,” Weber added. The Biden campaign said it is working on building out its environmental agenda, including ideas for addressing “environmental justice,” which posits that poor and minority communities are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. “We are in the midst of that process now and look forward to announcing at a later date some additional policies,” said Stef Feldman, Biden’s policy director. Trump’s EPA chief, Andrew Wheeler, told my colleague Jacqueline Alemany last week it is “premature to put too much weight on a study that hasn’t been finalized or peer reviewed yet.” And the Trump campaign sees Biden’s efforts to link covid-19 to his environmental agenda as a chance to paint Biden as out-of-touch with voters who both candidates are courting. “This is the kind of nonsense you hear in the halls of Berkeley, not the grocery stores of Scranton,” the Trump campaign wrote in a news release last week. “Only a Washington politician would view a deadly global pandemic and millions of Americans artificially out of work as a ‘wake up call’ for climate change justice.” That’s according to the International Energy Agency, which found in a new report that the “world’s CO2 emissions will plunge 8 percent this year, a reduction six times as large as the previous global record set in 2009 when the financial crisis rocked the world economy,” Steven Mufson reports. But the agency warned such declines during past economic downturns were not permanent. “After previous crises, the rebounds in emissions were larger than the declines,” Mufson writes. “The agency said the world needed a wave of investment to restart the economy with ‘cleaner and more resilient energy infrastructure.’ ” Coronavirus-fueled lockdowns mean reduced traffic from shipping and freight transportation. And now the California Air Resources Board wants to assess the impact of air pollution on public health, and especially on the vulnerability to the disease caused by the virus. “Researchers are comparing vehicle miles traveled, air pollution, traffic counts, and freight traffic to days before the spike in Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. They also plan to do a California-focused study similar to one conducted by Harvard University that looked at how air pollution affects susceptibility to the disease that is spreading across the globe,” Bloomberg News reports.


are running experiments that simulate rising temperatures in an effort to understand what changes are ahead. The “boldest part of the experiment is known as ‘assisted migration’ — planting of trees that once would not have been found here, but that are expected to flourish in the future that scientists foresee in Minnesota’s North Woods.” A record strong Arctic weather pattern that contributed to the East Coast’s mild winter is also helping keep the largest-ever Arctic research expedition on course during a global pandemic, Maddie Stone reports for The Post. “In May, the expedition’s flagship research vessel, the R/V Polarstern, will temporarily leave its icebound perch in the central Arctic Ocean, where it has been drifting along with the sea ice since October, and rendezvous with two German research vessels off the north coast of Svalbard, Norway. These ships will allow it to pick up additional supplies and conduct its third crew swap.” “According to expedition leader Markus Rex, an atmospheric scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, the Polarstern is well-positioned to make this unanticipated detour in part because of weather associated with an unusually strong polar vortex this winter.” A lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental organizations challenges the EPA’s move to remove federal protections from many wetlands and streams that feed into the nation’s largest rivers. “Our nation’s majestic waterways depend for their health on the smaller streams and wetlands that filter pollution and protect against flooding, but the Trump administration wants to ignore the science demonstrating that,” Jon Devine, director of federal water policy at the NRDC, said in a statement calling the regulation “plainly unlawful.” A University of Pennsylvania research project has enlisted the help of eight Labrador retrievers to determine whether the dogs can detect an odor linked with the coronavirus. The research could help as experts point to the need to ramp up testing and to determine asymptomatic carriers. If the research finds dogs can sniff out the virus, canines could be eventually “used in a sort of ‘canine surveillance’ corps, the university said — offering a noninvasive, four-legged method to screen people in airports, businesses or hospitals,” Karin Brulliard reports. Cynthia M. Otto, director of the Working Dog Center at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, who is leading the project, said


The pandemic challenges democracies — but really hurts dictators

The covid-19 pandemic poses enormous threats not only to public health but also to government. Democracies around the world face unprecedented challenges. But turmoil among dictatorships may be one of the pandemic’s most enduring legacies. Democracies have to figure out how to maintain checks and balances when legislatures can’t meet in person, how to uphold civil liberties amid quarantines and how to ensure the government does not overstep its bounds while intervening in private enterprise for the public good. The prospect of mass tracking and surveillance to monitor the spread of the virus also poses unprecedented threats to privacy. For some democracies, these delicate trade-offs may prove too much. Democratically elected leaders like Victor Orbán in Hungary have used the pandemic as a pretense to extend their power. Orbán indefinitely suspended parliament and elections, and is ruling by decree. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu placed the courts — which were slated to investigate him on corruption charges — on recess. Bolivia postponed its much-anticipated elections that were intended to resolve the ousting of former president Evo Morales last year. American democracy is also feeling the strain. President Trump faced off against state governors over who has the authority to set and enforce guidelines on shelter-at-home and quarantine orders. Trump also threatened to adjourn Congress to unilaterally appoint nominees to federal positions. Protesters in several U.S. states are demanding governors roll back lockdown orders, citing their right to move freely — while governors and health experts warn reopening too fast or ignoring quarantine orders puts people at risk from second-wave outbreaks. This week, Attorney General William P. Barr ordered federal prosecutors to watch for potential overreach in state and local coronavirus restrictions. A Pew survey last month suggests Americans generally agree their state and local officials are handling the coronavirus threats well. But other research suggests a bitter partisan divide is shaping how people view the dangers posed by coronavirus and the government response, threatening to further erode trust in government. Dictatorships are also vulnerable to crises in the current pandemic — but for different reasons than democracies. Dictatorships, of course, are not premised on a balance of power between citizens and the government, and between major political groupings in society. Dictators instead tend to fall through internal purges, coups, citizen uprisings and hardball competition. Critical regime insiders like the military are often decisive in toppling an incumbent, whether by directly intervening


enforce guidelines on shelter-at-home and quarantine orders. Trump also threatened to adjourn Congress to unilaterally appoint nominees to federal positions. Protesters in several U.S. states are demanding governors roll back lockdown orders, citing their right to move freely — while governors and health experts warn reopening too fast or ignoring quarantine orders puts people at risk from second-wave outbreaks. This week, Attorney General William P. Barr ordered federal prosecutors to watch for potential overreach in state and local coronavirus restrictions. A Pew survey last month suggests Americans generally agree their state and local officials are handling the coronavirus threats well. But other research suggests a bitter partisan divide is shaping how people view the dangers posed by coronavirus and the government response, threatening to further erode trust in government. Dictatorships are also vulnerable to crises in the current pandemic — but for different reasons than democracies. Dictatorships, of course, are not premised on a balance of power between citizens and the government, and between major political groupings in society. Dictators instead tend to fall through internal purges, coups, citizen uprisings and hardball competition. Critical regime insiders like the military are often decisive in toppling an incumbent, whether by directly intervening or by throwing their weight behind a challenger during sham elections. Here’s the new twist: The burgeoning pandemic promises to shake up dictatorships by radically reshaping the resources that disparate groups hold at their disposal. Most authoritarian regimes — like democracies — are facing major economic slowdowns due to the pandemic. This will shrink the size of the economic pie. It will also generate new winners and losers as some groups bear more of the economic shocks than others. These shocks will in turn provide grist for leadership challenges and perhaps even rekindle dormant civil conflicts, if the balance of power between opposing groups changes on the ground. Research shows all of these factors can spur leadership change within dictatorships. Furthermore, if critical groups like the military feel they are getting short shrift in a new age of austerity, they may be willing to turn against their patrons. For the past two years, Venezuela has been mired in a nearly unparalleled peacetime economic crisis. Its economy has shrunk by half. Diseases long thought eradicated have returned to ravage the population, hunger is widespread, and more than 50 countries do not recognize its president, Nicolás Maduro. Against this already dire backdrop,


nearly unparalleled peacetime economic crisis. Its economy has shrunk by half. Diseases long thought eradicated have returned to ravage the population, hunger is widespread, and more than 50 countries do not recognize its president, Nicolás Maduro. Against this already dire backdrop, the covid-19 pandemic helped to further sink oil prices — which the Venezuelan economy relies on heavily to fund its budget — and threatens to exacerbate the country’s public health crisis. The Trump administration is seizing this moment of vulnerability to exert geopolitical leverage on Venezuela. Several weeks ago, the United States indicted Maduro on drug trafficking charges — recalling a similar U.S. move in 1988 against Panama’s military government in advance of a December 1989 U.S. invasion that deposed Manuel Antonio Noriega. The Trump administration also put forth a political transition plan to ease Maduro from power. And it deployed Navy ships closer to Venezuela, ostensibly for counternarcotics operations. Venezuela’s top military brass has so far remained unified behind Maduro despite desertions and waning prestige. But the pandemic is shifting two key factors that could have an impact on their calculus. The first is that revenue from the drug trade, which the military is deeply implicated in, is likely to take a major hit as commerce and mobility grind to a halt under strict quarantines in their largest markets: the United States and Europe. The second is that critical support from allies such as Russia and China may wane as those countries concentrate their resources on fighting the pandemic domestically. Either of these shifts, conceivably, could encourage Venezuela’s military to oust Maduro in pursuit of a better alternative. The covid-19 pandemic is only just beginning to upend politics. The economic carnage being unleashed could take years to repair. Long-standing domestic political alliances will be frayed. Government powers to intervene in society are being dramatically expanded. International partnerships are being rewired. These uncertainties provide a window of opportunity for leaders and political groups to try to seize more power. What can citizens of democracies do, other than remain vigilant to ensure democracies survive? There’s reason to also pay equal attention to the radical changes afoot in the world’s dictatorships. After all, these shifts could be the source of the world’s next wave of democracy — or merely the changing face of despotism. The TMC newsletter is changing shape! Sign up here to keep receiving our smart analysis. Michael Albertus


Do you live in a state that has reopened or is planning to reopen soon? The Washington Post wants to hear from you.

Many cities and states have issued stay-at-home orders in an effort to contain the coronavirus outbreak. But with the economy under enormous strain, some states are now reopening businesses and getting people back to work. Residents are beginning to experience “quarantine fatigue” and venturing out more often, according to researchers tracking cellphone data. More than a dozen states have partially reopened or will ease restrictions by Friday. Georgia has opened almost all businesses, while other states, like Colorado, are moving more slowly. If you live in a state that has reopened, or is planning to reopen soon, The Washington Post wants to hear from you. Are you planning to return to regular routines? If you are a business owner or an employee physically returning to work, what are your concerns? What guidance are you receiving to stay safe? Let us know in the form below, or at this link. A reporter may follow up with you. If you would like to contact us anonymously, you can submit a secure and confidential tip.


U.S. reports 66,000 more deaths than expected so far this year

National Center for Health Statistics shows 33,756 covid-19 deaths and 32,325 from all other causes since Jan. 1. Other causes include heart attacks, accidents, overdoses, cancer and a wide variety of other fatal diseases. It also could include people who died of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at home but whose deaths were incorrectly attributed to another cause. The numbers are almost certainly a substantial undercount of the actual total. The report notes that information on the cause of deaths can take as long as eight weeks to reach the federal government and be tallied. On Wednesday, the death toll from the coronavirus alone passed 60,000 since Feb. 29, according to data collected by The Washington Post. But the official statistics support the findings of independent efforts to determine the pandemic’s hidden toll — including reporting by The Post and other newspapers showing that excess U.S. deaths soared in the early weeks of the pandemic. They also buttress fears that people with heart conditions, strokes and other life-threatening conditions might be dying at home in greater than usual numbers. Doctors have worried that people are not going to hospitals because they are afraid of contracting the virus. On Monday, The Post reported that from March 1 to April 4, the United States saw 15,400 excess deaths — nearly double the total attributed to covid-19 for that period. Officials with the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were not available to comment on the data after it was released Wednesday evening. The numbers paint a statistical portrait of the national devastation of the past 120 days. There have been more than 17,000 excess deaths in New York City alone, 10,000 more in New York state and nearly 8,000 in New Jersey. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia and Massachusetts all suffered more than 2,000 excess deaths. West Virginia, which has reported just 40 coronavirus deaths, nevertheless has suffered 2,182 excess deaths so far this year, according to the new data. California has experienced just 807. At the bottom of the list, Hawaii and Nevada have seen 12 each. Since Jan. 1, 2017, the data show, the nation has only exceeded its normal expected death threshold twice: in the weeks around Jan. 1, 2018, when a record flu season struck the nation, and in the weeks surrounding April 1 of this year.


Our meat is more important than meatpacking workers, according to Trump

in Iowa, 90 percent are connected in some way to the plant. Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, is allowing most of the state to begin a partial reopening this Friday. Like the other states prematurely trying to send citizens back to work, Iowa does not come close to meeting the goals of declining infections set out in the Trump administration’s guidelines. Reynolds, however, is one of a smaller number of governors who have announced that furloughed workers who are told to resume their jobs and refuse to do so — even out of justified fear for their health and that of their families — will have their unemployment benefits cut off. Maintaining an adequate flow of food to grocery stores and still-functioning restaurants is necessary. But the meat industry, which has been criticized for decades over its working conditions, turns out to be an ideal environment for spreading the highly contagious coronavirus. Because of the way workers are stationed, and because of the high speed at which processing lines are designed to run, it is difficult to implement social distancing without upending the entire production process. If the fight against covid-19 is a war, workers ordered to go back into these plants have every right to feel like cannon fodder. It comes as no surprise that the Trump administration, with its reflexively plutocratic orientation, would think nothing of sending poor, powerless workers into danger. It’s fully in character. But it’s also really stupid. The virus does not respect property lines or wait to infect people until they’ve clocked out. A cluster of infections at a plant quickly spills out into the larger community. Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson said on Wednesday that he is seeing cases at long-term care facilities that health officials have traced back to the Tyson plant. He said that two of his employees who work at the county jail have tested positive — a kitchen worker whose roommate works at Tyson, and a nurse. Trump could have saved lives by issuing tough, specific, mandatory requirements for meat processors to slow down their lines, institute proper social distancing, frequently shut down plants for deep cleaning and repeatedly test all workers to isolate the infected. But no: That would have meant asking the nation to survive on fewer bacon cheeseburgers for a while. Bon appétit! Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe


With census field operations suspended, government tries to stay flexible

Every ten years, the United States counts its residents in a multistage, meticulously planned operation that culminates in spring and summer, with hundreds of thousands of workers fanning out to public events and private homes to help complete the survey. But this year, just as Census 2020 activities were set to roll out on a mass scale, covid-19 shut the country down. Now, instead of following the strict timeline developed and refined over years, the Census Bureau has been forced to embrace a flexibility in implementing the constitutionally mandated survey. “The coronavirus is in the driver’s seat,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former staff director of the House census oversight subcommittee. “The course of the epidemic will determine when and how the Census Bureau can carry out all of the major operations that have been disrupted in one way or another, which in turn will affect its ability to produce accurate results in the end. There are more uncertainties than not at this stage.” Like many whose plans were interrupted by the pandemic, the bureau initially made minor adjustments, tweaking its schedule by a couple of weeks and redirecting advertising from public arenas to digital, radio and television — changes that still will allow it to deliver results to the president by the Dec. 31 due date. But as it became clear the country could remain in some form of lockdown well into summer, the government shifted its approach. On April 13, the Trump administration told the House Oversight Committee it wanted more time to gather and deliver the data, which is used to determine a decade’s worth of congressional reapportionment and redistricting, as well as $1.5 trillion in federal funding annually. Congress must approve any change in the deadline for delivering apportionment counts to the president; the Trump administration requested an additional four months, to April 30, 2021. The bureau also said it is planning a four-month extension of the deadline for delivering redistricting data to states, to July 31, 2021, and pushed the deadline for data collection from mid-August to Oct. 31 of this year. The committee has yet to say whether it will approve the request to move the reporting deadline for apportionment. Its interactions with the administration over the census have been tense, with Democratic members accusing the government of withholding information related to its unsuccessful effort to add a citizenship question to the survey. Now,


More airlines move to make masks mandatory for travelers to combat covid-19

leaders of the Transportation Committee made an appeal to Nicholas E. Calio, chief executive of Airlines for America, a leading industry trade group, to help address a number of issues related to air travel and the pandemic. They strongly urged him to encourage member airlines to develop “clear, enforceable policies” to require passengers to wear masks or face coverings. Airlines for America declined to say whether it would support such a policy, saying only in a statement: “The safety and well-being of passengers and employees is the top priority of U.S. airlines. U.S. carriers have worked since the early stages of this outbreak to increase communications with passengers and implement travel policies to provide flexibility for customers. U.S. airlines remain committed to making accommodations that are responsive to travelers’ needs during this unprecedented time.” According to estimates from employee unions, more than 600 flight attendants have been infected and at least five have died of the coronavirus. Among pilots, there have been at least three deaths and more than 230 infections. “We’re happy to see airlines taking action to require masks or face coverings for passengers, crew and other front line employees,” Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said in a statement. “We continue to call on the federal government — whether it be DOT, FAA, HHS, CDC — to require masks for crew, front line employees and all passengers.” As part of its new policy, American Airlines said it would begin providing masks as well as hand sanitizer and wipes to passengers beginning in early May, with the goal of offering them to passengers on all flights when supplies become available. In addition to requiring that all passengers wear masks beginning May 8, Frontier Airlines said travelers also will have to fill out a health acknowledgment form before check-in, certifying, among other things, that no one in their household has exhibited covid-19-related symptoms in the past 14 days. Very young children, who are unable to wear a face covering, are exempt from the policy, the airline said. “We want our passengers to feel comfortable when flying with us by protecting themselves and their fellow travelers as we all navigate the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Barry Biffle, Frontier’s chief executive officer. “This new measure is aligned with CDC recommendations and those of many municipalities within the U.S. that include wearing a face covering when out in public.”


Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk win contracts for spacecraft to land NASA astronauts on the moon

to the moon fast. We’re not going back to the moon to visit. We’re going back to the moon to stay.” Bob Smith, Blue Origin’s CEO, said at a news conference that the effort would “humbly stand on the shoulders of Apollo. … I know I speak for many on our team that going to the moon is the reason why we got into this business, and we couldn’t be more excited about that." NASA said that Blue Origin was furthest along with its project and awarded it the largest award, $579 million. Dynetics, which has paired with the Sierra Nevada Corp., would receive $253 million and scored the highest marks, according to NASA’s source selection document. SpaceX, which bid its Starship spacecraft, won $135 million. The contracts are for the first stage of the program and would last through February 2021. After that, NASA could decide whether to proceed with all three partners or chose two of the three. The award was the latest in a string of wins for SpaceX, which is poised to fly NASA’s astronauts to the space station on May 27. NASA had previously awarded SpaceX a contract, worth as much as $7 billion, to resupply the Gateway with cargo. During the news conference Musk said the announcement would ultimately help move humanity into deep space. “I think we’ve got potential for an incredibly exciting future in space, with a base on the moon and ultimately sending people and having a self-sustaining city on Mars,” he said. While the Gateway likely won’t be used for the next lunar landing, Bridenstine said the agency is “100 percent committed to the Gateway. That being said, we are also committed to going as fast as possible.” Bridenstine said SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket could be used to launch the habitat and power and propulsion elements of an orbiting space station after they are assembled on the ground. Though the astronauts would only be on the surface of the moon for a number of days, as in Apollo, the goal would be to study the region around the moon’s south pole to help NASA set up a permanent presence there. NASA is particularly interested in the ice discovered in the perpetually shadowed craters, and how it could be used to sustain life and even be converted into rocket fuel. “I view this as learning to fly to the moon again


In rural Louisiana, ‘a serial killer on the street that we cannot see’

82 — one of the sisters Judge Jasmine lost during the pandemic — died while he was in the hospital. She was never tested and did not have symptoms when she failed to wake up from a nap. The family attributes her death to her fears about the virus that has invaded her family and her community. Joslyn Jasmine Gastearl, 65, the second sister who died, was hospitalized on the same day one of her brothers came home following his recovery from covid-19. Gastearl suddenly had trouble moving and couldn’t talk to relatives. The hospital told the family she tested positive for covid-19. “We have been working our brains” to figure out how the virus penetrated the family, said Judge Jasmine, who tested negative when she came down with a fever shortly before her younger sister fell ill. “This is going to end soon, hopefully — but it’s not going to end for us,” she said, thinking of those who have died. The Southeast Louisiana Veterans Home — a residential nursing center in the east-bank community of Reserve — has been ground zero for St. John’s outbreak. Subtracting the cases of infected veterans, the parish’s mortality rate falls closer to the state average, though still higher than the national average. Residents’ relatives say they can’t understand how the virus became so rampant in the home — 79 positive cases, 26 deaths, 20 staffers infected — when three of the state’s other veterans homes had no positive cases and the fourth had only one. “How negligent was the nursing home so that that number of people could get infected with coronavirus?” said Neal Hebert, whose father, Berlin Hebert Jr., died of covid-19 at the home April 3. “He couldn’t move well enough to touch anyone else,” he said. “So if my dad caught it, everyone must have been exposed.” Lack of testing may have obscured the extent to which the virus was taking over the veterans home in the early days of the pandemic. The first veteran tested positive on March 23 — 11 days after the home had closed to visitors. Six days later, Barbara Serpas received a call from the home informing her that her father, Raymond Doran, 98, had died. Serpas suspected covid-19, calling her father’s health previously “perfectly fine.” She asked for a posthumous test for her father, who had repaired B-24 bombers during World War II,


India is using the pandemic to intensify its crackdown in Kashmir

brought home the high human cost of India’s refusal to begin a process of negotiation with Pakistan and the people of Kashmir for the eventual resolution of the dispute. Down in the valley, the repressive actions of the Indian state are only adding more fuel to that large pool of misery and recrimination out of which resistance to India emerges. Nearly 2,500 people have been arrested, a thousand vehicles impounded and scores of grocery stores “sealed” for “defying government orders.” Now, to crush dissent and criticism, India is bringing its heavy weight to bear on journalists. Three colleagues — Masrat Zahra, Peerzada Ashiq and Gowhar Geelani — are currently under investigation, with two of them booked under a draconian anti-terrorism law that could result in imprisonment for up to seven years. At least a dozen reporters have been summoned recently to a notorious detention center in Srinagar, where they were told in chilling terms that there would be repercussions for criticizing the government. As a journalist, I fear this attempt to silence us. But I also feel the helplessness and anxiety of my fellow citizens. Last week I went out to buy groceries and medicine for my family in Srinagar. I bought food from a small store in a back alley. The man at the counter was jumpy, with eyes darting around, on guard for the police. While driving back home, I was stopped at a checkpoint. I pointed the policeman to the grocery bags in the car. He said I couldn’t return home because they had blocked off the street. I protested and his eyes flashed with anger from above his black face mask. I had no desire to endure a beating because there lingered in my mind the memory of the beating I had received as a reporter for the Indian Express newspaper some 16 years ago. Nothing much has changed; I turned back and took a five-mile detour to reach home. The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us. Read more: Barkha Dutt: India should begin easing its lockdown. Too many are suffering. Rana Ayyub: Journalism is under attack in India. So is the truth. The Post’s View: The world’s largest democracy should set a pandemic-response example. So far, it hasn’t. The Post’s View: India’s repression in Kashmir is not compatible with democracy


Scientists know ways to help stop viruses from spreading on airplanes. They’re too late for this pandemic.

of developing new features and getting them certified by the FAA. But those high costs also underscore the key role for government, he said. “Regulation is very important. If you regulate that, then they will have to do something.” The FAA declined to answer a question about why it has avoided setting requirements to address the spread of viruses on planes. A spokesman instead pointed to comments FAA Administrator Steve Dickson made March 11 on Capitol Hill. Pressed on what requirements the FAA has affecting the “possible transmission of contagious diseases on commercial flights,” Dickson, who took the top regulator job less than a year after leaving Delta Air Lines, instead discussed rules covering “noxious fumes.” He also echoed statements from airlines during the pandemic. “The risk to the public is no higher than it would be in any area where you have folks gathered,” Dickson told Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.), saying the air on planes is “on par” with that in homes. “The research that’s been done over the years is that there’s really not any significant difference in what you would have in a building such as we’re sitting in today, in terms of air quality,” Dickson added, before taking a question from Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.). A week later, Dickson said he would be self-quarantining after a “brief encounter” before the hearing with Diaz-Balart, who tested positive for the virus and eventually recovered. As the coronavirus spread globally, the message from the airline industry to would-be customers was that planes were safe and that extra precautions were being taken. But the science behind cabin air quality has been lost in some of the messaging. As President Trump downplayed the threat of the virus, the White House offered reassurances. Asked March 2 if he would be comfortable traveling with his family to Disney World, Vice President Pence said that “there’s been no recommendation about any limitations on travel” in the United States, adding that he travels “all the time.” The TSA screened more than 20 million people over the next two weeks, both passengers and workers, as travelers continued to process the dangers and the virus continued to spread. On March 16, Trump advised against unnecessary travel. Unions representing aviation workers, who have complained about the lack of masks and other protective equipment, say hundreds of flight attendants and pilots have tested positive for covid-19, and at


cited by Alaska Airlines focused on certain chemical contaminants, not viruses. “To be honest, airplanes are not designed to prevent infectious-disease transmission,” said Chen, who was co-director of the FAA-funded Airliner Cabin Environment Research center from 2004 to 2010. “They’re not designed to do the job.” Experts agree that HEPA filters are highly effective at capturing everything from viruses to skin flakes. But that is only part of the picture. The problem is passengers can still breathe in tiny floating droplets from a coughing passenger seated nearby — before the air carrying those droplets can be vented out of the cabin and filtered. Precisely how far the droplets might float before being pulled out and cleaned has been the subject of intricate scientific observation, airflow modeling and disease tracing, from the onboard flu cases in Alaska to an earlier coronavirus outbreak in 2003, when severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) killed 774 people around the world. On March 15 of that year, a Boeing 737 took off from Hong Kong for a three-hour flight to Beijing, with a feverish 72-year-old man sitting in 14E, a middle seat. Of the 120 people on board, 22 were later diagnosed with confirmed or probable cases of SARS, according to a reconstruction published in the New England Journal of Medicine that year. Researchers said the “most plausible” explanation was that they were infected on the plane by the man in 14E. He died of atypical pneumonia a few days after the flight. The World Health Organization had defined “contact” with a SARS patient as sitting in the same row, or in the two rows ahead or behind the infected person. The researchers found that the risk for those in the three rows in front of the man in 14E, or in the same row, was much higher than for those sitting elsewhere. But two people seated as far as seven rows in front of him were also infected, as were two flight attendants. Five passengers later died. People moving around or touching surfaces may have played a role, or the virus may have floated in the air for longer than expected, the researchers concluded. A decade after the SARS flight, Emory University researchers, with support from Boeing, sought to address those findings. Public health students carrying iPads on 10 flights from Atlanta built a “network model” of passenger contacts and infection risks. The authors, including


sitting with a SARS patient in a seven-row section of a Boeing 767 would have a 1-in-3 chance of getting sick from a five-hour flight. On a shorter 737 flight, the risk was 1 in 5. But they found that changing the existing ventilation system — essentially by having air flow into the cabin from near the floor rather than from above — would make a big difference, cutting the risk by half or more. Chen said droplets were swept away from passengers more efficiently using alternative systems, one tested by Airbus engineers and another developed by Chen and his team. One reason: The warmth of the passengers’ bodies helped the flow of air coming up from underneath, since warm air rises, he said. Going with that flow, rather than fighting against it, lessened the turbulence that could keep germs on top of passengers. “We try to not mix your air with your neighbors’, ” Chen said. The study assumed the virus that caused SARS could stay airborne for long periods, which is different from what the CDC says is typically occurring with the novel coronavirus. Scientists and public health officials said covid-19 is largely spread from one person to another through droplets, such as when people cough or sneeze. Such relatively large droplets, brimming with viruses, generally travel only a limited distance before being pulled down by gravity, sort of like ping-pong balls falling back to the table after being whacked. That is why social distancing guidelines have emphasized the six-foot distance and call for incessant hand-washing, to avoid picking up fallen droplets and bringing them to your face. Fortunately, experts said, the coronavirus does not behave like the fearsomely infectious measles virus, which can stay aloft for up to two hours, more like the balls bobbing and floating around an old-school lottery machine. But Chen — whose background is in mechanical engineering and fluid dynamics, not medicine — said the uncertainties around covid-19 remain a cause for caution. The World Health Organization said droplets are the main path for infection, but noted research showing that the coronavirus has become airborne in some hospital settings, including during intubation to help breathing. U.S. researchers reported suspending coronaviruses in the air and said such infections are “plausible.” The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on April 1 pointed to evidence that the coronavirus can spread by air through “normal breathing,”


Coronavirus cited as House leaders abandon plans to return to D.C. next week; Maryland surpasses 1,000 covid-19 deaths

The number of known coronavirus cases in the District, Maryland and Virginia was 38,490 on Tuesday, with 20,128 cases in Maryland, 14,364 in Virginia and 3,998 in the District. The number of virus-related deaths reached 1,023 in Maryland, 498 in Virginia and 191 in the District, for a total of 1,712 fatalities. Here are some of the most significant recent developments as the region responds to the pandemic of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19: • House leaders abandoned plans to return to Washington next week, less than 24 hours after members were told to prepare to meet. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters the change was made in light of advice from the attending physician at the Capitol and because of the continued spread of the virus in Washington and its suburbs. “The numbers in the District of Columbia are going up, not down,” he said. • Maryland’s covid-19 fatality count climbed past 1,000 Tuesday after officials disclosed 71 additional deaths. The District, Maryland and Virginia have lost 1,712 people in the pandemic after adding 110 deaths Tuesday. The single-day rise is on par with increases seen over the past week. • As parents avoid the doctor’s office, fearing the risk of exposure to covid-19, pediatricians across Virginia are reporting a troubling decline in vaccination rates, a drop they fear could lead to another public health crisis. • Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D) said Tuesday the state has agreed to waive the requirement that a witness must sign off on ballots cast by mail in the June 23 primary election amid the coronavirus pandemic. When might local restrictions ease?


The Daily Break

to be postponed. The novel coronavirus outbreak placed Arkansas, and most other states, in a lockdown. But despite the order to stay home, Drew Irvin — the orchestra’s co-concertmaster — came up with a way to play some music. Every night around 9 o’clock in Little Rock, Irvin and other members of the orchestra have been uploading performances on Facebook. The series is called “Bedtime With Bach,” and it’s a way to provide some live music when so many are stuck at home. This story, written by Teddy Amenabar, was originally published on March 25, 2020. Other Links: Concerts are canceled. So Coldplay, John Legend and Keith Urban are playing right in your living rooms. More older adults learn it’s never too late to pick up a musical instrument Musicians are used to playing in front of a crowd, feeding off the energy of the audience. But with venues closed and concerts canceled, artists like John Legend and Coldplay’s Chris Martin are playing sets from home with the hashtag #TogetherAtHome. And you can find Yo-Yo MA recording his set on Twitter. Plenty of homebound amateur musicians are picking up their own instruments and joining a Zoom band, because, hey, we can all use a mood boost. Hillary Harris was adopted as an infant. She searched for her birth family as an adult, and after many years, her search was incomplete. She knew she had a half sister, and she knew the sister’s name from her adoption file, but she couldn’t find her. At night, Harris would Google her sister’s name — Dawn Johnson — and scour Facebook photos of the thousands of Dawn Johnsons out there. She would peer into their faces, trying to see if any of them looked like her. Maybe just a little? Then one day, in 2017, a couple moved in next door to the home Harris and her husband own in Eau Claire, Wis. The woman’s name was Dawn, and she was from Greenwood, Wis., the same place Harris’s sister lived, according to the adoption file. Harris would watch Dawn from a distance. “I was always looking at her, thinking, ‘Could it be her?’” Harris said. “I never had the courage to ask. I didn’t want to be nosy and pry into her life.” She finally got the courage to text her. This story, written by Allison Klein, was originally published on June 27, 2018.


The Daily Break

I’ve known for a good part of that 20 years. Rarely a week goes by when we don’t go for drinks after work. The three of us (with a shifting crew of other co-workers) have long tracked the happy-hour options around our office. It has long been mostly chain restaurants and bad sports bars, so imagine our joy when a new craft beer bar opened five minutes away. It had great IPAs, a smart server who was generous with her pours, and a patio where we could sit in the sun, washing off the workday with rivers of hops. We drank there for years — for birthdays, to farewell colleagues, to celebrate engagements, to commiserate over divorces and illness. This column, written by M. Carrie Allan, was originally published on March 19, 2019. Other Links: 5 local beers you should be drinking Have your beer and cook with it, too, thanks to these 9 recipes The Irish may have St. Patrick’s Day, but here in the United States we also have National Beer Day. And it’s today. Franklin D. Roosevelt repealed the prohibition of beer in 1933, and after signing the legislation, Roosevelt famously said, “I think this would be a good time for a beer.” As the reality started sinking in across the country that Americans would be urged to stay home for an indefinite period of time during the covid-19 crisis, people have been buying large volumes of beans and rice and soap. And also puzzles. The Puzzle Warehouse, a family-owned shop in St. Louis with a huge selection of puzzles, suddenly found itself overwhelmed with business in mid-March. “This is beyond even Christmas volume,” said Brian Way, who has owned the store with his wife, Susan, for about 10 years. “That’s just insane.” This story, written by Allison Klein, was originally published on March 24, 2020. Other Links: Puzzling over language: A computational linguistics researcher crafts a crossword for Johns Hopkins 12 board games that allow homebound Americans to travel in their imagination Check out more Washington Post games Puzzles are having a moment. They’re selling out at major retailers and small shops as people stuck at home crave the meditative effects of puzzling during these stressful times. One store in St. Louis is still stocked and getting shipments — and is doing 10 times its normal business. In fact, they’re hiring. Soft cries came from the


A letter from executive editor Martin Baron on Washington Post coronavirus coverage

Dear reader, On January 8 this year, Washington Post reporters Gerry Shih and Lena Sun reported an outbreak of an “unidentified and possibly new viral disease in central China” that was sending alarms across Asia in advance of the Lunar New Year travel season. Already, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines were contemplating quarantine zones and scanning travelers from China for “signs of fever or other pneumonia-like symptoms that may indicate a new disease possibly linked to a wild animal market in Wuhan.” Gerry is a correspondent for us in China, with extensive journalistic experience in the country. Lena, a former Beijing bureau chief for The Post, is a veteran national reporter covering health, with a particular focus on public health and infectious diseases. Both are fluent in Mandarin. These two reporters launched our coverage of the coronavirus and the disease Covid-19, declared this month to be a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Lena and Gerry are emblematic of the highly skilled journalists The Washington Post has deployed to cover this complex, ever-expanding and profoundly serious story. We have drawn on our entire staff – throughout the world and in the United States – to bring you essential health information and the latest news while also digging into the reasons for the rapid spread of this disease, the sometimes chaotic and counterproductive decision-making by governments and the impact on citizens and medical systems. Hundreds of our journalists have been enlisted in this effort, and they are working tirelessly around the clock. As the spread of coronavirus has touched our beloved schools, our favorite sports teams, our places of work and prayer, our entertainment venues and our family incomes and investments – just about every aspect of our daily lives – we at The Post fully understand our responsibility to keep you informed. We also aim to keep close watch on what public officials, private companies, health providers and others are doing – or failing to do – to respond to a crisis of sprawling, unprecedented proportions. I’m proud of the dedication and talent my colleagues have brought to this important story. They need stamina, too, and they have plenty of it. We’re prepared to cover every aspect of this story for a long period, with the clarity and command of the subject that is required. We are deeply grateful to our subscribers for making this coverage


Five myths about vaccines

a vaccine almost always takes far longer. Jonas Salk, was working on the polio vaccine when he received a grant from the March of Dimes in 1951 and announced positive results in 1953. Large-scale trials began in 1954 — a rushed process that culminated in the vaccine’s approval for use in 1955. “Vaccine development is a long, complex process, often lasting 10-15 years and involving a combination of public and private involvement,” according to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. That process includes assessments to ensure that a vaccine elicits an immune response and the gathering of laboratory and real-world evidence that this immunity will prevent disease. Most important, it also includes long-term evaluation of whether the vaccine causes unexpected damage. These activities require time, and improved technology does not accelerate them. Rushing these procedures — and there will certainly be pressure to do so — escalates the risk of an ineffective or dangerous vaccine. Indeed, the Salk vaccine for polio was rushed, and improper manufacturing led to unnecessary deaths. Myth No. 4 “Things won’t go back to truly normal until we have a vaccine that we’ve gotten out to basically the entire world,” Bill Gates said in early April. According to Axios, “The world is pinning its hopes on a vaccine for COVID-19 to save lives, return to normal and emerge from an economic recession.” But it’s unclear whether prior infections with the novel coronavirus or a vaccine would confer durable protection. Work on related coronaviruses, such as SARS and the Middle East respiratory syndrome virus, suggest that some protective immunity might be generated by vaccine candidates or natural exposure, but the length of protection remains uncertain: One Oxford University study suggests that protection may last only two or three years. Vaccination can eliminate some diseases in the wild, such as smallpox and polio, because only humans harbor these viruses. It is unclear whether animals and humans can give SARS-CoV-2 back to one another, but there have been reports of lions, tigers, dogs and house cats infected with the virus, and many other species, including fruit bats and ferrets, may harbor it as well. Myth No. 5 During protests in April against social distancing orders in Michigan, one woman told an NBC affiliate that she doubted the wisdom of “so-called scientists” and that she believes “very strongly in herd immunity.” Similarly, Dan Erickson, a doctor who appeared on Fox


Five myths about vaccines

According to Axios, “The world is pinning its hopes on a vaccine for COVID-19 to save lives, return to normal and emerge from an economic recession.” But it’s unclear whether prior infections with the novel coronavirus or a vaccine would confer durable protection. Work on related coronaviruses, such as SARS and the Middle East respiratory syndrome virus, suggest that some protective immunity might be generated by vaccine candidates or natural exposure, but the length of protection remains uncertain: One Oxford University study suggests that protection may last only two or three years. Vaccination can eliminate some diseases in the wild, such as smallpox and polio, because only humans harbor these viruses. It is unclear whether animals and humans can give SARS-CoV-2 back to one another, but there have been reports of lions, tigers, dogs and house cats infected with the virus, and many other species, including fruit bats and ferrets, may harbor it as well. Myth No. 5 During protests in April against social distancing orders in Michigan, one woman told an NBC affiliate that she doubted the wisdom of “so-called scientists” and that she believes “very strongly in herd immunity.” Similarly, Dan Erickson, a doctor who appeared on Fox News, told host Laura Ingraham, “I think the key is the vaccine helps get you to herd immunity, but also, you can get to herd immunity without a vaccine.” A problem with herd immunity is that the share of people who must be protected against infection varies from pathogen to pathogen. Protection from smallpox requires that 95 percent of individuals be able to resist the disease, whereas 85 percent should be resistant to polio. Measles requires 80 percent protection for herd immunity, which explains outbreaks in areas that have experienced even marginal increases in anti-vaccine sentiment. An even greater fraction of the population must be immunized against some pathogens, since certain people (e.g., the elderly, cancer survivors and other immune-suppressed individuals) may be susceptible to infection even if they received a prior immunization. Consequently, immune-suppressed individuals should be counted among the nonimmunized. We don’t yet know the threshold of protection that will be protect against SARS-CoV-2, butbut what it certain is that the virus is highly transmissible between people and has the potential to create asymptomatic “super-spreaders,” who could unknowingly begin anew waves of new infection. Consequently, we need to push on all fronts to deploy safe and effective medicines


Readers critique The Post: Lists of the best sports films and songs left off these classics

and not seven. Easter in the Orthodox and other Christian faiths is a lunar holiday. Easter is on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. The difference is that in the Orthodox faith, Easter has to come after Passover. Panos Varangis ● As my husband and I sat at our breakfast table, with the April 19 Post before us, he looked at the front-page photograph of downtown Charleston, W.Va. — with empty old buildings in dark colors, and only one person — then pointed to the Edward Hopper print on our wall — showing a rural old-fashioned filling station with only one person — and we agreed without saying a word: The photographer, Michael S. Williamson, evoked the Hopper atmosphere. The same effect was captured in an April 17 front-page photo. Nick Hagen’s photo of an empty hot dog shop at dusk reminds me of Hopper’s “Nighthawks.” Excellent photographic artistry, great editorial choice. Janet K. Gerson ● Can we please avoid further anti-scientific misinformation? The shameful death rate from the novel coronavirus in the United States bespeaks a horrific toll from scientific illiteracy, as do the (not-quite grass-roots) misinformed protests against science-based statewide closures. So when this occurs on the pages of The Post, it should be called out. Kathleen Parker’s April 19 op-ed, “Amid the din of pandemic, a whisper of sanity,” rightly called for us to “come away from this nightmare with a greater appreciation for the fragility of life.” I concur but further urge that we also need a greater appreciation for science, which could start by not stereotyping bats as “hideous, winged beast[s].” Bats play a vital and beneficial role in the ecosystem and are often considered keystone species. They play an important role in insect and pest management, as pollinators and as seed-dispersers. Calling them hideous is inaccurate and subjective at best. It is humans’ inability to respect bats, and nature in general, that led to the coronavirus becoming a human bane. Leave the bats alone. Arina van Breda ● I could not believe my eyes! The first clue in the April 21 Jumble was “Desert site,” and the letters provided allowed for no answer but “mirage.” Given that a mirage is an optical illusion without a specific actual location, shouldn’t the clue have read “Desert sight”? “Sight” as in seen rather than “site” as in place. Joan Hartman Moore


The Daily 202: Biden struggles to balance denial of assault allegation with respect for #MeToo movement

It’s really gunning for him now. “On Thursday, the U.S. intelligence community released an assessment formally concluding that the virus behind the coronavirus pandemic originated in China. While asserting that the pathogen was not man-made or genetically altered, the statement pointedly declined to rule out the possibility that the virus had escaped from the complex of laboratories in Wuhan that has been at the forefront of global research into bat-borne viruses linked to multiple epidemics over the past decade,” Joby Warrick, Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris and Anna Fifield report. “While intelligence analysts and many scientists see the lab-as-origin theory as technically possible, no direct evidence has emerged suggesting that the coronavirus escaped from Wuhan’s research facilities. Many scientists argue that the evidence tilts firmly toward a natural transmission: a still-unknown interaction in late fall that allowed the virus to jump from a bat or another animal to a human.” (Our Fact Checker team has more on why scientists say the idea the virus came from a lab is almost certainly wrong.) “The contrast shows the effect of Europe’s starkly different approach to fighting the economy-busting effects of the pandemic, with many governments intervening to subsidize private-sector salaries,” Michael Birnbaum reports. “The philosophy in Europe is that the financial blow of the pandemic can be softened if workers are able to keep paying their bills and if businesses do not have to hire and train an entirely new set of employees as the crisis abates.” “According to the Afghan National Security Council, the Taliban has carried out an average of 55 attacks a day since March 1 — a spike that has doubled casualties among Afghan security forces in some parts of the country,” Sharif Hassan and Susannah George report. “Taliban leaders have balked at calls for reduced violence, blaming the Afghan government and U.S. forces for the continued hostilities. After appeals from the United Nations and the Afghan government for a cease-fire to mark Ramadan and to stem the spread of the coronavirus, a Taliban spokesman accused the government of creating ‘hurdles’ to peace by delaying a planned release of prisoners and said the United States had violated the peace deal by delivering ammunition to Afghan forces.” Trump appears not to have his eye on the ball: CNN anchor Anderson Cooper announced the birth of his son: Stephen Colbert doesn’t think Trump knows what he’s talking about: And Trevor Noah


771 lawsuits — and counting: Wave of virus litigation hits businesses across the U.S.

has filed a response in court yet, and a spokesperson declined to comment. In response to calls on Capitol Hill for an investigation, Ticketmaster said last month that it had passed $2 billion on to event organizers in connection to 30,000 canceled or postponed events — “making it impossible to issue refunds to fans before recouping sales receipts from the organizers, as we’ve done in the past.” The letter, from the company’s president, Jared Smith, said Ticketmaster is working with vendors to refund customers. Disrupted travel accounts for several claims. The nation’s major airlines — now on life support, dependent on billions in government relief funds — have been sued over policies preventing customers from obtaining cash refunds for travel that never transpired because of the pandemic. Farah and Mohammed Toutounchian, of Los Angeles, were aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan for weeks after excursions in and around China in late January and early February. The couple’s attorney, James Urbanic, said the crisis on board was badly mishandled. With passengers quarantined and illness spreading among the ship’s food service staff, meals brought to the couple’s cabin were uncovered and traveled through the boat’s contaminated passageways, Urbanic said. The husband suffered from double pneumonia and still has trouble breathing. He and his wife have “extreme insomnia” from muscle aches and other ailments which have left them feeling “like they have aged about 10 years,” the lawyer said. “Cruise ships have life rafts and life jackets, but illnesses kill more people on cruise ships than shipwrecks,” Urbanic said. “Cruise ships have not taken outbreaks seriously. The coronavirus really is the new iceberg.” A spokesperson for Princess Cruises said it would not comment on pending litigation but defended the company’s handling of the outbreak. “Our response throughout this process has focused on the well-being of our guests and crew within the parameters dictated to us by the government agencies involved and the evolving medical understanding of this new illness,” the statement said. Torsten Kracht, an attorney with Hunton Andrews Kurth, the law firm managing the “Covid-19 Complaint Tracker,” said that early on, many of the cases were filed on behalf of inmates seeking release from detention facilities. “We’re starting to see those cases plateau a little bit,” he said. Employment termination and wage-based claims are rising, as are wrongful-death claims, contract disputes and liabilities centered around “acts of God.” Kracht


Amazon, Instacart workers launch May Day strike to protest treatment during the coronavirus pandemic

to shoppers and handing out bonuses. Meanwhile, Target is deep-cleaning checkout lanes, limiting customer traffic and adding plexiglass partitions, spokeswoman Danielle Schumann said. “While we take them seriously, the concerns raised are from a very small minority,” she said in an email. Schumann said the company was aware of fewer than 10 workers who protested Friday. Amazon expects to spend more than $800 million in the first half of 2020 on covid-19 related improvements for hourly employees and partners, including raising wages by $2 an hour through May 16, said spokeswoman Rachael Lighty. “While we respect people’s right to express themselves, we object to the irresponsible actions of labor groups in spreading misinformation and making false claims about Amazon during this unprecedented health and economic crisis,” Lighty said. “The statements made are not supported by facts or representative of the majority of the 500,000 Amazon operations employees in the U.S. who are showing up to work to support their communities.” Lighty said operations were not impacted by the protests Friday. She said the company observed less than 100 people at a handful of protests. Whole Foods spokeswoman Rachel Malish echoed those remarks, saying the action isn’t representative of the company’s 95,000 employees and that organizers have misrepresented “the full extent of Whole Foods Market’s actions in response to this crisis.” “We continue to operate our stores and serve our customers without interruption,” she said. Solis said message boards made up of Shipt supporters were blowing up with activity Friday, from gig workers across the country expressing support. More than 62,000 people have died in the United States of covid-19, prompting federal, state and local governments to order millions of people to stay home. The subsequent economic crisis has led to thousands of layoffs, and only essential businesses have been allowed to stay open. Fueling workers’ concerns, grocery store employees have died of the virus across the country, pushing others to stay home or quit. Amazon, Instacart and Shipt have been slammed by orders as people shop online for necessities. On Thursday, Amazon reported a 26 percent spike in revenue for its first quarter but said profits were hit as it spends $4 billion on covid-related expenses, including worker safety. Amazon workers in dozens of warehouses have tested positive for covid-19, and at least one worker has died. Companies posting profits in the midst of the pandemic are under a microscope.


Republican senator: Yes, Congress should send money to state and local governments

bankruptcy would crater the $3.8 trillion municipal bond market. Many states, including Louisiana, have to balance their budget every year. Some states are already acknowledging the shortfall and the pain it will cause. They all will soon. If we do not provide stability for states, we risk wasting all the money spent to save small businesses. These small business need basic government services. Who will eat in a restaurant if garbage and rats are out front because a city has laid off sanitation workers? Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and I crafted the Smart Act (State and Municipal Aid for Recovery and Transition) to deliver critical, federal resources to the states and communities on the front lines of the covid-19 fight. The bill, which we will formally introduce when the Senate reconvenes Monday, would create a $500 billion fund to plug revenue losses and target additional funding toward coronavirus hot zones to combat the pandemic head-on. Specifically, the legislation would deliver funding to all state and local governments, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia in three equal tranches based on a new formula that takes into consideration areas of the country with the greatest need. One-third is based on population size, another on the number of covid-19 cases and the last on revenue losses relative to pre-covid-19 projections to target the urgent economic challenge. To be sure, there must be guardrails on how the money can be used. States cannot use it to make up for years of mismanagement of pension funds, bonuses for government employees or a wish list of unfunded projects. We can and will get through this pandemic. Our country and its residents will be stronger because of it. But timidity and half measures will not restart our economy. Only by passing common-sense solutions such as the Smart Act can we begin to see the daylight. The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us. Read more: Jennifer Rubin: Mitch McConnell isn’t a ‘stable genius,’ either The Post’s View: We are nearing the end of the beginning of the covid-19 crisis. Bigger challenges lie ahead. Paul Waldman: A lot of bad things got into the rescue package. Here’s a list. Catherine Rampell: States and cities should brace themselves for a downward spiral Helaine Olen: The stimulus package is a missed opportunity for American workers


East Africa has weathered pandemics — and has a few things to teach the U.S.

before any cases had been detected. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was particularly eloquent and detail-oriented, explaining what the virus was, how it was transmitted and who was at risk, before laying out a plan to systematically close schools, churches and borders, to begin social distancing, and to put a hold on weddings and funerals. South Sudan, Kenya and Uganda all shut down cross-border air and ground travel for passengers, while maintaining the regional cargo links that are especially important for landlocked South Sudan. Notably, all of these measures were rolled out in a controlled manner without political posturing, and with reasonable time built in to set the guidelines in motion. Kenya gave 48 hours for foreign visitors to leave the country or enter quarantine; Uganda systematically shut primary schools and then universities over the course of a week. While economic costs were noted (the travel restrictions effectively killed the major tourism sector for Kenya and Uganda), the governments put public health over profits. Second, experience seeded these states’ ability to respond quickly and effectively; this is not their first time dealing with a deadly pandemic. Cholera, influenza, HIV-AIDS and Ebola preceded covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The United States has also had its share of pandemics: yellow fever, the 1918 flu, HIV-AIDS and SARS. The difference may be a willingness to put lessons learned into action. As Museveni put it, “By confronting this disease with enlightened, scientifically based actions, we shall defeat it as we did with Ebola three times, with Marburg and with AIDS.” As a result, case counts and fatalities have so far been extremely low in Africa generally (not quite 40,000 cases and 1,640 deaths so far across a continent with a population of over a billion, according to Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and particularly low in East Africa. Most countries in this region have fewer than 500 recorded cases. And a third reason for the region’s preparedness, relative to that of the United States, is an emphasis on international cooperation. These countries make up the membership of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). The organization met March 30 by video-teleconference and resolved to jointly formulate a regional response, establish an emergency fund and mobilize support from the global community and from IGAD medical professionals in the diaspora. The crisis has even caused some prominent local leaders to double down on


a global approach to economic policy, with Museveni saying: “I have warned our people to stop talking like the selfish foreigners by trying to stop the little we have being exported to other African countries. We can keep a bit for ourselves, but we shall share with the others whatever we have.” The arrival of the virus on the continent has also given rise to local innovation. Researchers at Uganda’s Makekere University are developing a faster, cheaper coronavirus test, while college students and manufacturers in Kenya are piloting ways to assemble ventilators from locally sourced components. The region has willingly benefited from international beneficence: Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has donated millions of test kits and face masks, and tens of thousands of sets of protective equipment to African states; the United States, Canada, Germany and China have given millions of dollars in coronavirus-related aid to South Sudan alone; and there is already an extensive network of humanitarian organizations operating in the region, which can help shore up countries whose national medical infrastructure is weak. None of this means that IGAD states will remain largely immune to the impact of the global pandemic. As in most of the world, testing has remained limited, and in Africa, communicable diseases (lower respiratory tract infections, HIV, diarrhea, malaria and tuberculosis) already account for 35 percent of all deaths. Respiratory illness and malaria have symptoms similar to covid-19, so the actual infection and death rates may be grossly underestimated, with those who die and those who recover being written off as just having had a case of malaria. Conversely, absent testing, those showing such symptoms as fever, chills, headaches and stomach pain may be assumed by local populations to be suffering from covid-19, as opposed to malaria. This could drive panic and even persecution of the victims and their families. What is notable about these East African states, however, is their proactive and symbiotic approach to the overall crisis, and their apolitical information management. For example, while most IGAD states halted their international and regional passenger flights, Ethiopia kept a single air connection into the region open to the rest of the world, thus minimizing the regional risk of contagion while keeping a pipeline open for such critical cargo as the donations from Ma and for aid workers and medical personnel to enter under strict guidelines. South Sudan, which had formed its Transitional Government of


remained limited, and in Africa, communicable diseases (lower respiratory tract infections, HIV, diarrhea, malaria and tuberculosis) already account for 35 percent of all deaths. Respiratory illness and malaria have symptoms similar to covid-19, so the actual infection and death rates may be grossly underestimated, with those who die and those who recover being written off as just having had a case of malaria. Conversely, absent testing, those showing such symptoms as fever, chills, headaches and stomach pain may be assumed by local populations to be suffering from covid-19, as opposed to malaria. This could drive panic and even persecution of the victims and their families. What is notable about these East African states, however, is their proactive and symbiotic approach to the overall crisis, and their apolitical information management. For example, while most IGAD states halted their international and regional passenger flights, Ethiopia kept a single air connection into the region open to the rest of the world, thus minimizing the regional risk of contagion while keeping a pipeline open for such critical cargo as the donations from Ma and for aid workers and medical personnel to enter under strict guidelines. South Sudan, which had formed its Transitional Government of National Unity just weeks before, has a covid-19 task force, led by First Vice President Riek Machar. The task force publishes detailed updates almost daily, and President Salva Kiir has made public addresses calling on the population to remain calm and not blame aid workers for the crisis. The East African situation has implications for the United States. First, there is a high probability that the difference between the American and Chinese approaches to helping the countries deal with the pandemic will further tilt the region toward China’s sphere of influence. This could be exacerbated if the American military and diplomatic planners choose to pull their people out, as has already happened with the Peace Corps, whose forced evacuation of all volunteers resulted in over 1,000 “ambassadors of goodwill” leaving East African countries at a time when they are needed most. Such a move, even done in the name of risk avoidance, would most likely cause irreparable reputational harm to the United States in a region that may be one of the great emerging markets. The United States and powerful developed countries can benefit from the example of Africa, where humility about the capacity to treat diseases makes societies favor