So many people are convinced that they had covid-19 already

I had it, I think I had it.’ ” No one wants to have covid-19 And recent research suggests that many people have already had it without knowing. Epidemiologists have said that the number of infections greatly exceeds the official count of cases, potentially by a factor of 10 or more, since people can be asymptomatic carriers of the illness, and because not every victim has been tested. The World Health Organization has cautioned against the assumption that those who have already had the illness can’t get it again. Researchers are still learning about the protective benefits that the disease’s antibodies might bestow on survivors. But after two long months of bad news about the painful effects and unpredictable deadliness of covid-19 — the sudden crashes, the mysterious strokes, the wide-ranging attacks on the body — who could be blamed for wondering, optimistically, about whether they’ve already joined the ranks of the Recovered? JoAnna Fischer is sure she had covid-19. She lost her sense of smell, and for three months, she had a cough and chest pain so bad she needed supplemental oxygen. Her husband came down with a respiratory illness, and so did her cat. One problem: Fischer fell ill all the way back in September, when she was living in northeastern Pennsylvania. That’s far earlier than epidemiologists believe the disease could have come to the United States. “There is 0.0% probability that #SARSCoV2 was circulating with community transmission in the US in or before Nov 2019,” tweeted Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who has been tracking the virus’s genetic code and spread. Fischer isn’t willing to give up her theory. “When you’re thinking about how this thing spread so fast,” the 63-year-old says, “it couldn’t have just gotten here in December.” Bendavid, the Stanford professor, said one person who wrote to him believed they caught the virus in 2018. “That, I think, is stretching it,” says Bendavid. Thinkihadititis usually involves stretching the imagination to some degree. After all, covid-19 shares some symptoms with the seasonal flu and common allergies. Currently fewer than 20 percent of covid-19 tests are coming back positive, according to data reported to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, suggesting that the great majority of people who thought they had it — even in the middle of the pandemic — didn’t actually have it. To the extent that


ill all the way back in September, when she was living in northeastern Pennsylvania. That’s far earlier than epidemiologists believe the disease could have come to the United States. “There is 0.0% probability that #SARSCoV2 was circulating with community transmission in the US in or before Nov 2019,” tweeted Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who has been tracking the virus’s genetic code and spread. Fischer isn’t willing to give up her theory. “When you’re thinking about how this thing spread so fast,” the 63-year-old says, “it couldn’t have just gotten here in December.” Bendavid, the Stanford professor, said one person who wrote to him believed they caught the virus in 2018. “That, I think, is stretching it,” says Bendavid. Thinkihadititis usually involves stretching the imagination to some degree. After all, covid-19 shares some symptoms with the seasonal flu and common allergies. Currently fewer than 20 percent of covid-19 tests are coming back positive, according to data reported to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, suggesting that the great majority of people who thought they had it — even in the middle of the pandemic — didn’t actually have it. To the extent that having already beat covid-19 is preferable to wondering if you’re one of the people it’s going to put in the hospital, thinkihadititis may be a form of positive thinking. Humans are hardwired to anticipate positive outcomes, says Tali Sharot, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University College London who studies optimism and expectations. “When there is something we want to believe, we are very good at interpreting the evidence in a way that would support that belief,” Sharot says. The reverse is also true. “Say there was a doctor saying that if you had it before, then the likelihood that you would get it again is higher, and it would be even more dangerous,” says the professor. If that were the case, people “would probably look back to their illnesses and interpret certain symptoms as definitely not covid-19.” Whether it’s a comfort or a source of anxiety, thinkihadititis represents a state of limbo. The good news? There’s a cure. Kind of. "The only way to know Ayscue, 47, lives in the suburbs of Raleigh, N.C. On Jan. 6, she felt sick, and before long she was coughing so much that it sometimes hurt to breathe. Then her daughter got


were the case, people “would probably look back to their illnesses and interpret certain symptoms as definitely not covid-19.” Whether it’s a comfort or a source of anxiety, thinkihadititis represents a state of limbo. The good news? There’s a cure. Kind of. "The only way to know Ayscue, 47, lives in the suburbs of Raleigh, N.C. On Jan. 6, she felt sick, and before long she was coughing so much that it sometimes hurt to breathe. Then her daughter got sick, too. Raleigh didn’t see its first confirmed covid-19 case until March 3, but Ayscue wondered whether the tech workers of the Research Triangle had traveled to Asia over the holidays and brought the virus back. (Epidemiologists believe the earliest American cases originated in Europe, not Asia.) Antibody tests may provide relief from the fever of doubt. Also known as serology tests, they determine whether a patient’s blood contains antibodies, which are proteins that help us fight off infection. The presence of antibodies means the patient’s immune system has already been exposed to the virus. Those tests are now becoming available nationwide, although experts warn that their accuracy can vary. Since it began offering appointments for antibody tests, the telemedicine provider PlushCare saw “a pretty overwhelming response [from] people who are interested,” especially in harder-hit areas like New York, says James Wantuck, the platform’s chief medical officer and co-founder. PlushCare’s doctors remind patients that immunity is not a given and that they must continue social distancing and other protective measures. And if the tests come back negative, some patients — confident in their self-diagnosis and wary of possible testing inaccuracies — might not believe them. “Some of the patients are certainly disappointed,” says Wantuck. “I think everyone wants to have this in their rearview mirror or feel some sense of relief.” Fischer, the woman who got sick last September, says she couldn’t be convinced so easily. “If I get tested,” she says, “and I don’t have the antibodies, I think I would ask for a different test.” Ayscue says she plans to get an antibody test if she can, but she doesn’t need one to feel comfortable returning to life as usual. She does not hesitate to go to the grocery store, sometimes without a mask. She says she supports the protesters who have demonstrated against strict lockdown rules in North Carolina. “I’ve chosen not to be afraid,” she says.


Coronavirus researcher killed in Pennsylvania murder-suicide, police say

A University of Pittsburgh researcher on the cusp of making “very significant findings” about the novel coronavirus was killed over the weekend in what authorities say was a murder-suicide. Bing Liu, 37, was shot multiple times in his townhouse around noon Saturday in Ross Township, Pa., police told WTAE, an ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh. As a research assistant professor, Liu focused on using computational models to study biological processes. He was working from home during the pandemic and studying the virus, his supervisor said, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Officials told the newspaper Liu was shot by another man and suffered gunshot wounds to the head, neck, torso and extremities. The man, later identified as 46-year-old Hao Gu, then got into his car about 100 yards away and killed himself. Neighbors told the paper they didn’t hear any gunshots the day Liu was killed. The front and rear patio doors of Liu’s home were open at the time of his death because of the springtime weather, the Post-Gazette reported. His wife wasn’t home at that time. No items were stolen from the home, according to the paper. Ross Township Detective Brian Kohlhepp told WTAE that police don’t believe the relationship between the two men had anything to do with Liu’s research on the coronavirus. It is unclear how the two men knew each other, and police are investigating whether there was any confrontation before the shooting. A possible motive for the murder also is unclear, the Post-Gazette reported. In a statement, Liu’s department at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine called him a prolific researcher and generous mentor. Shortly before his death, he had begun researching the cellular mechanisms that underlie coronavirus infections and the cellular basis of ensuing complications. Ivet Bahar, his supervisor and the head of his department, told the Post-Gazette Liu had just started to receive interesting results. Bahar had sent several emails to Liu over the weekend about his work and was surprised that the normally prompt researcher wasn’t responding, according to the Post-Gazette. After a conversation with a colleague about the crime, she confirmed Liu was the victim, the paper reported. He had not expressed any fear for his life to her, she told the paper. “We will make an effort to complete what he started in an effort to pay homage to his scientific excellence,” the statement said. Liu and his wife had


Trump’s covid-19 inaction killed Americans. Here’s a counter that shows how many.

The National Debt Clock hangs above New York City’s Avenue of the Americas as a persistent reminder of a clear message: The United States is recklessly living beyond its means, and this will have grave future consequences. In the same symbolic spirit, it is time for the establishment of a national “death clock” to measure the cost in human lives of President Trump and his team’s reckless handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Reports show that as early as January, the president was advised by both his own experts and the intelligence services of the need for urgent mitigation measures against the spread of the virus. Instead, he engaged in petty political feuds and Pollyannaish predictions minimizing its significance. Finally, on March 16, he reversed his previously dismissive stance and announced “new guidelines for every American to follow.” But by then it was too late; The United States was already the world leader in its rate of covid-19 infection and has since become home to one-third of the world’s cases and five times as many as any other country. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has stated that, had the guidelines been implemented earlier, a crucial period in the exponential spread of the virus would have been mitigated and American lives saved. Leading epidemiologists have put a finer point on this, estimating that 50 to 80 percent of covid-19 deaths in New York and approximately 90 percent of all American covid-19 deaths can now be attributed to the administration’s delay between March 2 and 16. This suffering cannot be forgotten. As of today, tens of thousands of Americans have lost their lives as a consequence of the administration’s failure to act sooner, so it’s no wonder the president excoriates reporters who ask him why he waited so long to implement the guidelines. Trump’s fallback when he is under scrutiny is to deflect, attack, and distract. But will this work when his decisions have led to a loss of American lives? How will the President be held responsible? It’s all in the branding, that stuff Trump himself does so well when he applies derisive nicknames to his rivals or attaches the name of a foreign power to a global pandemic. Accountability needs a brand, and the National Debt Clock is a helpful precedent. It demonstrates how to plant a symbolic flag in the numbers


Va. governor says state could start reopening on May 15

The number of known coronavirus cases in the District, Maryland and Virginia was 51,070 on Monday, with 26,408 cases in Maryland, 19,492 in Virginia and 5,170 in the District. The number of virus-related deaths reached 1,317 in Maryland, 684 in Virginia and 258 in the District, for a total of 2,259 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: • Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Monday extended the state’s business shutdown until the night of May 14 but said he expects to begin rolling back restrictions after that, marking the first shift in the Washington region toward the next phase in the fight against the novel coronavirus. • The national capital region, including the District, Maryland and Virginia, added 67 new deaths Monday as case numbers exceeded 50,000. • Latinos are seeing the worst coronavirus infection rates in the nation’s capital and the heavily Latino Columbia Heights neighborhood has become among the hardest hit, D.C. officials said Monday. • The Department of Justice filed a statement supporting a Virginia church that is pursuing a federal lawsuit against Gov. Ralph Northam over coronavirus restrictions they say violate the freedom of religion. When might local restrictions ease?


Exercise can be hard to get right now. Here’s what that means to your body.

Jenny Solpietro had been doing well with her exercise routine, getting out for regular runs and practicing martial arts on a consistent basis. She’d been eating well and tracking her calories, too, feeling good after what had been a tough couple of years because of injury and job stress. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. “I have anxiety and it brings out self-destructive behaviors, like self-medicating with food and making excuses not to exercise,” the 39-year old software engineer from Columbia, Md., says. “Social media doesn’t help, either — I see pictures and videos of people doing at-home workouts or talking about how much they miss the gym, and I feel even more inadequate.” With all the bad news, Solpietro has found her main fitness effort now is “burrowing into the couch.” Ryan McGrath, a 38-year old competitive runner and triathlete from Baltimore, is encountering a similar lack of motivation right now. “I stayed in shape for most of winter, but was starting to gear up for spring and summer races,” he says. “When they all started canceling, I just lost my desire to train.” Like Solpietro, McGrath has found he’s having a hard time following good dietary habits that can be important for a competitive athlete. “Right now, I’m eating fast food like fried chicken sandwiches, cheesesteaks and burritos several days a week,” he says. “I’m not overly concerned with weight gain, but I hate feeling sluggish like I do right now.” Solpietro and McGrath are not alone in finding themselves unmoored when it comes to their health routines in the middle of a pandemic. Darrell Gough, a National Academy of Sports Medicine-certified personal trainer, says that many people struggle with motivation when they feel isolated. In normal times, he says, “I lead a big boot camp class and I’m seeing lots of those members now miss the group dynamic. I’m trying to use Zoom and social media to help them stay connected and inspired to keep going.” But for many people, that is hard. If you lose your exercise mojo, how quickly will fitness disappear? And how long will it take to regain it? The old exerciser adage, “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” is fact-based and certainly applies now, trainers say. “Early studies on deconditioning used bed rest as the marker for inactivity,” says Tony Boutagy, an Australian exercise physiologist, and owner of the Boutagy Fitness


‘Frostbite’ toes and other peculiar rashes may be signs of hidden coronavirus infection, especially in the young

As a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Esther Freeman was prepared for things to be a bit quieter during the pandemic lockdown. But not too long after it began, she started getting urgent calls about odd frostbite-like patches showing up on people’s toes. The rash itself was rather harmless. While some complained of a burning sensation, the inflammation usually disappeared on its own in two to three weeks without treatment. What was striking is that many of those patients had tested positive for covid-19. “My inbox and my telemedicine clinic are full of just toes. It’s all about toes. I have never seen so many toes,” Freeman said. The curious phenomenon has also caught the interest of researchers in hot zones such as France, Italy and China. But the reports had been mostly limited to individual case studies and first-person observations, making it difficult to determine what these rashes mean, why they are occurring and how they are linked to the virus. Now a U.S.-based group is preparing to publish the first in-depth look at covid-19’s dermatologic effects, based on a registry of nearly 300 patients confirmed or suspected of having the virus. The report, expected out as soon as this week, offers some tantalizing clues about the pathogen and its wildly different effects on different people. Four months into the battle with the novel coronavirus, the paper is part of a flood of scientific evidence that is challenging early assumptions that covid-19 primarily affects the lungs. While the majority of cases turn out to be mild and may involve no symptoms at all, we now know infection can sometimes result in devastating injury to the kidneys, heart and other major organs. And in the same way the first sign of infection for some may be loss of smell and taste — those are among the six new covid-19 symptoms the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added to its list Monday — the toe rashes may be an early marker of disease, or possibly one that it has resolved and passed. One of the clearest findings of the new paper is that most patients with “covid toes” were asymptomatic or had only mild symptoms. Another is their age. Nearly all were children or adults in their 20s and 30s — a group that as a whole tends to have a less severe bodily response to the disease


soon as this week, offers some tantalizing clues about the pathogen and its wildly different effects on different people. Four months into the battle with the novel coronavirus, the paper is part of a flood of scientific evidence that is challenging early assumptions that covid-19 primarily affects the lungs. While the majority of cases turn out to be mild and may involve no symptoms at all, we now know infection can sometimes result in devastating injury to the kidneys, heart and other major organs. And in the same way the first sign of infection for some may be loss of smell and taste — those are among the six new covid-19 symptoms the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added to its list Monday — the toe rashes may be an early marker of disease, or possibly one that it has resolved and passed. One of the clearest findings of the new paper is that most patients with “covid toes” were asymptomatic or had only mild symptoms. Another is their age. Nearly all were children or adults in their 20s and 30s — a group that as a whole tends to have a less severe bodily response to the disease than their older counterparts. Freeman, a Harvard Medical School researcher who led the analysis in collaboration with the American Academy of Dermatology, said the information should be comforting to those who have seen the lesions on themselves or loved ones. “Most of the patients were young, healthy and had a benign clinical course,” she said. “The message to the public is not to panic,” she added. “I don’t want people to think if they are having purple spots on their toes that they are going to end up on a ventilator in the ICU. That is not what we are seeing in the data.” One of the earliest reports of issues in toes came in early April, when a French dermatology group warned of “pseudo-frostbite” of the extremities and transient hives, and urged patients with such problems to consult a dermatologist. “We alert the population and the medical profession to detect these potentially contagious patients — who may not necessarily have respiratory signs — as soon as possible,” they wrote. Then on April 18, a report in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology detailed purplish lesions on the feet of a 23-year-old student in Belgium. He had a


New medical marijuana drive-through is first in Maryland

said Annapolis resident Yony Cruz, a Mana patient. “They’re keeping the workers safe, they’re keeping everything on the inside more sanitary because there’s less volume of people inside, and everyone is getting their medicine.” The process is similar to picking up fast food or a pharmacy prescription but is designed to mirror an in-person appointment. Patients drive to the dispensary and pull up to a video intercom to have their state medical cannabis card checked. The patient then loops around the building and gets into the drive-through line. Prescriptions are ordered ahead of time on Mana’s website or apps such as Weedmaps and Leafly, since patients can no longer enter the store. The car enters a garage door that closes behind it for security. Patients consult with staff via video and place cash and their ID to be checked again. The card is returned with cannabis through the drawer, and the patient drives off. The process takes about five minutes. “It’s just efficient,” Cruz said. Following closures and government mandates at the start of the country’s public health crisis, grocery stores, liquor stores and cannabis dispensaries experienced a spike in customers stocking up on supplies. Mana saw a 35 percent increase in sales in three weeks. Cars waited in a line that snaked through its small parking lot immediately following Hogan’s stay-at-home order. More than 100 cars visit the drive-through daily. “I call it the toilet paper run,” Jensen said. “People are afraid they’re not going to be able to get to their medicine.” Cruz, a Marine Corps veteran, experienced persistent pain from a previously torn meniscus and relentless migraines after a traumatic brain injury. He was prescribed a variety of opioids before getting a medical marijuana card. “I’d be taking four or five medications for anxiety and migraines and the nausea in the mornings and all this other stuff when you have one basically main relief with marijuana,” he said. Kalatschan uses cannabis to manage chronic pain, ADHD, anxiety and depression. Mental health concerns have become prevalent during the pandemic, as the time people are confined to their homes stretches into months, while the number of deaths from covid-19 continues to rise. “People are dealing with a lot of anxiety right now,” Jensen said. “We’re all stuck at home, some people have compromised immune systems, there’s anxiety about the next paycheck and going back to work.” — Baltimore Sun


Photos show El Salvador’s crackdown on imprisoned gang members

to ensure gang members could not communicate with one another. “Not a single ray of sunlight is going to enter any cell,” prisons director Osiris Luna Meza threatened Monday on Twitter. Human rights organizations have warned about the coronavirus spreading with deadly consequences through Latin America’s notoriously overcrowded detention facilities. Bukele ordered an early and aggressive quarantine in El Salvador, before the country had reported any cases. As of Tuesday it had reported 323 cases and eight deaths. El Salvador was until recently one of the world’s deadliest countries. Homicide rates soared to 105 per 100,000 people in 2015, according to the World Bank. They fell below 62 per 100,000 two years later. Criminal groups such as MS-13 and the 18th Street gang still control large swaths of territory. But murders have plummeted under Bukele, and he has enjoyed some of the highest popularity ratings in Latin America. José Miguel Cruz, an expert on El Salvador’s gangs at Florida International University, said the recent surge in homicides “destroyed the idea that the government has absolute control of the crime situation.” While authorities claimed that their security policies were bringing down violence, Cruz said, the gangs also played a role. “Gangs didn’t disappear,” he said. “They were there and they continued extorting the population.” Cruz said the gangs apparently chose to refrain from murders in recent months — but then they decided “to basically kill in a very visible way to attract attention.” Their goal, he said, was unclear. Political and security analysts have speculated that the sharp decline in violence over the past year reflected some kind of deal between the government and the gangs. Authorities have denied negotiating with gangs. The wave of killings began Friday, with 23 people slain — the most in a single day since Bukele was sworn in last June. It was not immediately evident what touched off the bloodshed. But 13 more people were killed Saturday, 24 on Sunday and 16 on Monday, according to police and local media reports. The violence was all the more unusual for coming amid the coronavirus pandemic. With Salvadorans ordered into a strict quarantine, there had been an average of two homicides a day since mid-March. Gangs had even enforced social distancing measures, threatening citizens strolling in the streets without masks. But while police focused on the coronavirus, authorities said, criminals took advantage. Government officials said they planned


Peru took early, aggressive measures against the coronavirus. It’s still suffering one of Latin America’s largest outbreaks.

here jumped from 7,519 on Sunday to 13,489 on Friday. In Latin America, only Brazil, with a population seven times greater, has more. An outbreak that started in Lima has spread across the country, even reaching indigenous communities in the Amazon. “The government has got a lot of things right,” says Ciro Maguiña, an epidemiologist and vice dean of Peru’s medical association. “But its approach has been hospital-centric — are there enough beds and ventilators? — rather than community-centric. There needs to be a lot more work in the communities to prevent transmission.” The rise in confirmed cases is partly attributable to expanded testing. With the arrival of new kits, the government of President Martín Vizcarra moved this week from testing about 1,000 people per day to 10,000. But the people in the new cases will have been infected during one of Latin America’s strictest lockdowns, now in its fifth week. Private vehicles are all but banned from the roads, people may leave their homes during the day only to buy food or for medical reasons, and there’s a curfew from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. each night. But there are some conditions that quarantines can’t defeat. Many poor Peruvians live in cramped, unsanitary dwellings. Nearly a million in Lima alone lack running water. And cultural practices aren’t helping, either. Peruvians are tactile; a 2017 study showed only Argentina had a more limited sense of personal space. Peruvians typically stand several inches closer to strangers than would Americans. Some Peruvians, meanwhile, have been flouting the lockdown. So far, nearly 60,000 people have been arrested for violating the rules. They include police officers caught drinking beer together at banned private gatherings. In one notorious case, an officer in the Cusco region faked symptoms of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, to get sick leave and was then caught drunk in the town square. But single mothers have also been detained, mainly for violating a controversial gender-based requirement for men and women to go out on alternate days. That measure, aimed at encouraging households to designate a single shopper, was quickly scrapped. Peru’s upward trend could be a harbinger of things to come in other developing nations with poor sanitation, weak public institutions and frayed trust in authority. Vizcarra’s handling of the pandemic has been widely praised here. He gives daily television addresses similar in style to those of New York


live in cramped, unsanitary dwellings. Nearly a million in Lima alone lack running water. And cultural practices aren’t helping, either. Peruvians are tactile; a 2017 study showed only Argentina had a more limited sense of personal space. Peruvians typically stand several inches closer to strangers than would Americans. Some Peruvians, meanwhile, have been flouting the lockdown. So far, nearly 60,000 people have been arrested for violating the rules. They include police officers caught drinking beer together at banned private gatherings. In one notorious case, an officer in the Cusco region faked symptoms of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, to get sick leave and was then caught drunk in the town square. But single mothers have also been detained, mainly for violating a controversial gender-based requirement for men and women to go out on alternate days. That measure, aimed at encouraging households to designate a single shopper, was quickly scrapped. Peru’s upward trend could be a harbinger of things to come in other developing nations with poor sanitation, weak public institutions and frayed trust in authority. Vizcarra’s handling of the pandemic has been widely praised here. He gives daily television addresses similar in style to those of New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. His approval rating has hit nearly 90 percent, according to a poll conducted by Ipsos on WhatsApp. Despite the jump in confirmed cases, Vizcarra insists the underlying trend is starting to slow. The government has launched a $26 billion relief package, equivalent to 12 percent of the gross domestic product, including direct payments to individuals. Yet many are being left out. They include Matto. Before the outbreak, she earned around 45 sols a day — around $13 — collecting fares on a combi, one of the ramshackle minibuses that serve as public transport here. Now Matto, her husband and their 9-year-old son are living off savings. The strain is starting to show. This week, a convoy of hundreds of desperate families left Lima on foot to trek eastward up the hair-raising Central Highway to return to homes in the Andes. They were met by security forces; after an initial standoff, authorities persuaded them to take coronavirus tests and are now attempting to arrange transport. Forty-two of the migrants tested positive. They are now being quarantined. Peru is also home to an estimated 1 million Venezuelan refugees, often working low-paying informal jobs that have evaporated in the


Swimmer Phoebe Bacon is training toward Olympic-sized dreams in a friend’s 15-meter pool

If the postponed Tokyo Olympics mix up their event offerings and decide to add a lightning-fast 15-meter swimming race, Phoebe Bacon will be ready. Like elite swimmers all across the country, the 17-year-old found herself scrambling for a place to train in March when pools and swimming facilities abruptly shut down amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. With little notice, the 25-meter short-course pools closed, the 50-meter Olympic-size pools were shuttered, and training ground to a halt. Bacon’s solution: A family friend had a covered, 15-meter pool attached to their home in the Maryland suburbs, and that allows her to get in at least some training while much of the sports universe remains at a standstill. “I think it is important for me to stay in the water a little bit and just keep training,” said Bacon, who had qualified for the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in four events and is vying for a spot at her first Summer Games. “I know there really isn’t any competitions at the moment, at least on my radar. But being out of the water can be a very big disadvantage. For me, it’s kind of like, ‘If I have the ability to be in the water, I want to take advantage of it.’ ” That certainly wasn’t how this spring was supposed to go. Bacon is wrapping up her senior year at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda. Any dreams of prom, a high school graduation ceremony and Olympic trials were upended last month, and now Bacon is just trying to make the most of the time she has — including an extra year to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics. In 2016, Bacon was just 13 when she competed at her first Olympic trials in Omaha. Since then, she has grown stronger and faster, winning gold in the 100-meter backstroke at last year’s Pan American Games in 59.47 seconds. Following a similar path as Katie Ledecky, another swimming prodigy from Stone Ridge, Bacon was looking forward to a breakout meet in Omaha this year. Her final high school season was strong — she broke the national high school record in the 100-yard backstroke — and she was supposed to attend a training camp last month at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. But that was canceled when the facility closed. She got in a couple of days of training


The Technology 202 Network: A survey of top tech leaders in government and industry

of the Royal Society of Arts, a music photographer and a board member of the nonprofit BBC Media Action. @nickpickles Heather Podesta is the founder and chief executive of Invariant, a government relations firm, which represents more than 40 clients, including start-ups and large corporations. Podesta previously worked on Capitol Hill for members of Congress on the tax-writing committees. Frida Polli is the founder and chief executive of Pymetrics, a talent matching platform that uses behavioral data and audited AI to help companies such as Unilever, LinkedIn and Accenture better understand their workforce as well as make fairer and more predictive decisions. Polli is a Harvard- and MIT-trained neuroscientist. @fridapolli Michael Powell is a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and served as a member of the FCC for eight years. In his current role as president and chief executive of NCTA, the Internet and Television Association, Powell represents the broadband, communications and content industries. @chairmanpowell Matthew Prince is the co-founder and chief executive of Cloudflare, which offers services to prevent malicious activity from hitting websites. Prince is a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, winner of the 2011 Tech Fellow Award and serves on the board of advisers for the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law. @eastdakota Jessica Rich is an expert consultant on privacy and consumer protection issues. Rich served as director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection from 2013 to 2017. Following her departure from the FTC, Rich served as the vice president of advocacy for Consumer Reports. Kevin Richards is a vice president and head of U.S. government affairs for SAP, an enterprise application software company. He previously served as senior vice president of federal government affairs for TechAmerica; senior manager of U.S. federal government relations for Symantec, a cybersecurity company; and spent 13 years in the Senate serving on the staff of Edward M. Kennedy as his legislative assistant and economic policy adviser. Richards represents SAP on the board of directors and councils of business advocacy organizations, including the Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC) board of directors and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Chamber Technology Engagement Center (C_TEC) advisory board. Chad Rigetti is a quantum computing physicist and the founder and chief executive of Rigetti Computing. Previously, he worked in the quantum computing group at IBM. Rigetti has a bachelor’s degree in physics


Is it possible to plan a “safe” vacation?

But passengers are unhappy with the way airlines have handled their money. When carriers canceled flights, they pushed passengers to accept vouchers instead of the legally required full refunds. No one knows what future refund policies will look like, but travelers are certain they will favor the airlines. “While airlines were lenient and understanding with flights affected by the first waves of infection, travel booked during stay-at-home and quarantine orders may have different rules and regulations,” says Matthew Bradley, the regional security director for the Americas at International SOS. Cruise lines “When cruising resumes, I expect them to be much safer than they were just a few months ago,” says Tanner Callais, founder of the cruise website Cruzely.com. Health experts warn that diseases can spread rapidly on cruise ships, and they recommend avoiding them if you are in a high-risk group. “Even if there are doctors onboard, they may not be able to provide adequate care should someone become severely ill, and they may not be able to get that person to necessary care in a timely manner,” says Chris Worsham, a research fellow at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Hotels But during the early days of the covid-19 outbreak, hotels were reluctant to let guests off the hook for nonrefundable stays. Some resorts also refused to refund money, forcing customers to accept vouchers instead. As the current outbreak progresses, be on the lookout for cancellation terms that protect hotels from another wave of pandemic-related cancellations. Of course, the definition of “safe” differs from one person to the next. For some travelers, a July vacation involving a discount cruise and nonrefundable airfare may seem safe enough; others won’t leave their homes until there’s a covid-19 vaccine. After some contemplation, Smiler, the retired veterinarian, has decided to go to Maui anyway. But he’s taking one more precaution. “I’m going to protect my trip with cancel-for-any-reason travel insurance,” he says. “This will at least cover some of my possible losses.” The one thing many of us seem to have plenty of is time. Molly Fergus, general manager of the travel site TripSavvy, recommends taking advantage of it, but not necessarily to plan short-term travel. “Take this time to plan those long-lead bucket-list vacations that require detailed planning,” she says. “That way you’re not rushing into another trip during uncertain times, but still have something to look forward to.”


Too few masks, tests and workers: How covid-19 spread through Maryland nursing homes

medical professionals to assist with staffing. But a top nursing home executive told Maryland lawmakers Wednesday that the testing has not yet materialized. And nursing home employees said the additional staffing won’t cover yawning gaps at the state’s 226 facilities. At Sagepoint, when Evans learned that the man with the cough had tested positive for the coronavirus, she thought of all the residents she might in turn have exposed in the three days since tending to him. She asked to be sent home but says her manager told her to finish her shift. Evans began quarantining the next day. She developed a chickenpox-like rash that has been associated with the virus, but says her doctor told her she did not have enough other symptoms to get tested. As of Wednesday, according to state data, the 165-bed facility in La Plata, Md., had recorded 35 fatalities attributed to covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. Among the dead: the man with the cough. The death toll at Sagepoint is the highest among nursing homes in Maryland, where long-term-care facilities accounted for more than 6,000 of the state’s coronavirus infections as of Wednesday and 804 confirmed covid-19 deaths. More than 1,900 employees of such facilities had contracted the virus, according to a state database. Some employees at Sagepoint have resigned over the coronavirus response, adding to staffing problems. Others remain, working double shifts. A longtime nursing assistant died of covid-19. Sagepoint spokeswoman Joyce Riggs said in a statement that the nursing home followed guidelines issued by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said on March 20 that only staffers working with patients who had tested positive for the coronavirus were required to wear masks. On April 2, the agency mandated that all staffers wear masks in long-term-care facilities. “The dedication was there — we tried the best we could,” said Evans, who resigned from her job April 20. “But there were so many things that could have been done to prevent this that weren’t done.” While the number of deaths at Sagepoint is an outlier, the conditions its staff described are not, according to interviews with eight current and former employees at six facilities. An employee at Potomac Valley Rehabilitation and Healthcare in Rockville, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution, said staffers pleaded with administrators for protective equipment throughout March, to no avail. Documents


Disproportionately black counties account for over half of coronavirus cases in the U.S. and nearly 60% of deaths, study finds

Georgia, Texas, Alabama and South Carolina — to see what effect loosening social distancing and sheltering requirements will have on covid-19 cases and deaths. Researchers at Amfar and the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Georgia led the study team, which included investigators from Johns Hopkins, the University of Mississippi, Georgetown University and the nonprofit PATH. The study adds to a growing body of data that has shown that black people have been infected and killed at disproportionate rates by the novel coronavirus. It also raises concern, as have other studies and analyses, about gaps in data collected and reported by county, state and federal officials about the race and ethnicity of virus sufferers, including testing, cases, hospitalizations and deaths. The Amfar study, based on data collected April 13, focused on counties in which black people made up more than 13 percent of the population. Disproportionately black counties account for 22 percent of all U.S. counties but have been home to 52 percent of coronavirus cases and 58 percent of deaths from covid-19, the disease the virus causes. Almost all disproportionately black counties have had at least one person diagnosed with the coronavirus, compared with 80 percent of other counties, and nearly half of counties with large black populations, 49 percent, have had at least one person die of covid-19, the study found. The higher diagnoses were found in disproportionately black counties in urban, small metro and rural areas. Death rates were higher in smaller metro areas and rural communities. The study compared 677 disproportionately black counties in the country with 2,565 other counties. As of April 13, the United States had recorded 547,390 cases of covid-19 and 21,634 deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges “a disproportionate burden of illness and death” among people of color. The agency is still criticized by civil rights groups for providing incomplete information about race and ethnicity for covid-19 cases and deaths. Although public health experts and political leaders have attributed the high rate of serious illness and deaths from covid-19 among black Americans to underlying health conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes, the Amfar study found that those factors were not the primary cause of the disparities. Rather, other social determinants, including employment, access to health insurance and medical care and poor air and water quality, were more predictive of infection and death from covid-19. Millett,


In America, lies are preferable to a ministry of truth

as right-wing, gun-toting vigilantes, ignorant in their resistance to state-mandated health directives. Some of them do carry guns, of course, but far from all, and it is worth noting that where many of us live, “gun toting” is not a pejorative description. It’s a constitutionally protected, law-abiding act perfectly acceptable to be publicly demonstrated. We would like to believe that we can trust our institutional media outlets to separate the informational wheat from the chaff. Sadly, when the media is presented with the chance to demonstrate its reliability, it too often chooses to perpetuate its grudge against a president it detests, as it did by spreading the lie that Trump had suggested that Americans should inject themselves with disinfectant. In fact, Trump merely expressed a hope that an injection — he did not say an injection of disinfectant — could someday kill the virus in people the way that disinfectant kills it on surfaces. You may have heard this falsehood so many times now you don’t believe me. Read Politifact’s analysis and judge for yourself. It’s important to correct misinformation, which requires hearing or reading it in the first place, something we shouldn’t fear. Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, two urgent-care doctors in Bakersfield, Calif., recently held a news conference to share their opinions of the coronavirus. The doctors had concluded that the negative effect of the virus has been exaggerated, and that most lockdowns should be lifted. The video of their news conference went viral on YouTube. In a story headlined “Dubious coronavirus claims by California doctors condemned by health experts,” CNN reported that the American College of Emergency Physicians and American Academy of Emergency Medicine issued a joint statement calling the doctors’ claims “reckless and untested musings” that “are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19.” A strong and clear statement by two authoritative bodies, but it wasn’t enough. The doctors’ good-faith viewpoints were considered so damnable that YouTube removed the video for “violating the platform’s policy on misinformation.” In fact, YouTube’s policy is to remove any content that contradicts the World Health Organization’s stance on covid-19, according CEO Susan Wojcicki. That’s frightening. If the California doctors are wrong, say so and explain why. But don’t fear allowing Americans to hear and consider their opinions. Americans will sometimes fall for lies. But more often than not, they can be trusted to decipher the difference between the War


Tyson says nation’s pork production is down 50%, despite Trump’s order to keep meat plants open

20 for deep cleaning. The company slowed and then closed its largest pork plant, in Waterloo, Iowa, on April 22 after 182 cases of covid-19, the disease the novel coronavirus causes, were linked to the facility. And a fourth pork plant, in Logansport, Ind., halted operations April 25 after nearly 900 employees, or 40 percent of the workforce, tested positive for the coronavirus. Although pork processing was most affected, the Tyson beef supply is also threatened, with sick workers forcing shutdowns. The Tyson Fresh Meats beef plant in Pasco, Wash., closed, and Tyson said last week it would temporarily suspend operations at its Dakota City, Neb., beef processing plant after a surge of hundreds of coronavirus cases linked to the facility. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, 115 meat and poultry processing facilities in 19 states had reported covid-19 cases as of Friday. Among approximately 130,000 workers at these facilities, 4,913 cases and 20 deaths have been recorded. Dermot Hayes, an economist at Iowa State University, said Tyson has been hit particularly hard for two reasons. It was hit first, so the spread has had longer to play out. And more recently, Tyson has been checking everyone at its plants and finding many workers testing positive for the virus. “At one in Missouri, they tested 2,000 workers and 350 workers were positive,” Hayes said. “None of them had symptoms.” Tyson announced last week that it plans to resume limited production this week at the Logansport facility, after a plant tour with local health and government officials, a union representative and medical professionals. “We’ve taken additional precautions to reassure team members that they are returning to a safe work environment and have made additional changes to continue supporting them during this global health crisis,” said Todd Neff, senior vice president. “While the facility was idled, we added more workstation barriers, installed more hand sanitizer dispensers and did additional deep cleaning and sanitation. We’re also now screening employees for additional symptoms.” But according to Meyer, if consumers’ neighborhood grocery stores have exclusive purchasing contracts with any of the multinational corporations that have been hit particularly hard, there could be shortages. “You’re going to see empty shelves,” he said. “Not all the time, and it won’t last forever.” Hayes said part of what will increase prices is that consumers will probably see a scarcity of pork, beef and chicken


everyone at its plants and finding many workers testing positive for the virus. “At one in Missouri, they tested 2,000 workers and 350 workers were positive,” Hayes said. “None of them had symptoms.” Tyson announced last week that it plans to resume limited production this week at the Logansport facility, after a plant tour with local health and government officials, a union representative and medical professionals. “We’ve taken additional precautions to reassure team members that they are returning to a safe work environment and have made additional changes to continue supporting them during this global health crisis,” said Todd Neff, senior vice president. “While the facility was idled, we added more workstation barriers, installed more hand sanitizer dispensers and did additional deep cleaning and sanitation. We’re also now screening employees for additional symptoms.” But according to Meyer, if consumers’ neighborhood grocery stores have exclusive purchasing contracts with any of the multinational corporations that have been hit particularly hard, there could be shortages. “You’re going to see empty shelves,” he said. “Not all the time, and it won’t last forever.” Hayes said part of what will increase prices is that consumers will probably see a scarcity of pork, beef and chicken all at the same time because of the plant closures. Consumers can’t just substitute a cheaper animal protein, because all are likely to cost more. “Usually pork loin is $2 per pound at Costco,” he said. “That could go to $3.” Costco announced on Monday some restrictions as supply tightens, saying fresh meat purchases are temporarily limited to three items per warehouse member among the beef, pork and poultry products. If prices increase significantly, Hayes said, it will tank exports. “We export huge quantities of meat all over the world, about 30 percent of what we produce,” he explained. “Those export customers are much more price sensitive, so price increases will result in less exports.” He said it remains to be seen whether that would boost quantities available for domestic retail. The president invoked the Defense Production Act last week to classify meat processing plants as “critical infrastructure,” a move that was widely seen as giving processors protection from liability for workers who fall ill on the job. “If it works,” said Hayes, “consumers will see a modest increase in prices. If it doesn’t work, they’ll see a big increase.” The executive order came on the heels of Tyson Foods


Which pandemic model should you trust? Here’s how to evaluate them.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) model has been crucial in debates over the novel coronavirus. It is relied on by the White House and other policymakers. Yet Vox.com recently published an article arguing (in the headline) that “This coronavirus model keeps being wrong. Why are we still listening to it?” More recently, there has been intense political debate over three models that have been discussed within the White House: the IHME model, a different model being developed by Johns Hopkins University researchers, and a “cubic” model developed by Kevin Hassett and the Council of Economic Advisers. These models make wildly different predictions: The Hopkins model suggests that coronavirus cases will surge to 200,000 a day, with 3,000 daily deaths by June 1, while the cubic model predicts that deaths will go to zero by the middle of May. So how do you make sense of these different models and their different predictions? The best way to evaluate models is to ask four questions. First, how accurate has the model been so far? Second, how do scientists come up with the projections? Third, how will people respond to the model and change its predictions? And fourth, how can you best use them? To understand model accuracy, start with the IHME. The IHME (like other models of the pandemic) produces graphs of projected number of cases and fatalities. For June 1, the current IHME model’s best estimate is that there will be 890 fatalities (shown by the dotted line) and that 95 percent of the time, the number of fatalities will be somewhere between 250 and 2,750 (the “confidence interval”). Both the best estimate and the confidence interval provide useful information — they tell us that we should expect about 900 cases but prepare for upward of 2,500. These predictions can change quickly: In just one week, the model’s best estimate for June 1 fatalities increased twentyfold, while its worst-case scenario jumped about twelvefold. That said, the IHME can be quite impressive. On March 25, the IHME model’s best estimate for fatalities on May 1 was 1,282, with a range between 551 and 2,570. The reported number was 2,343. The actual number lies within the confidence interval (barely), and the point estimate is off by half. Good luck being that accurate without a model. Predictive models are either curve-fitting models or microfoundation models. A curve-fitting model, like the early


MLB planning proposal unveiling conditions for summer start to 2020 season

several weeks but one that would require ample lead time to allow teams and players to begin mobilizing — which is why the process is beginning now. However, the proposal hardly changes the difficult calculus confronting the sport, which was effectively shut down by the novel coronavirus pandemic March 12, two weeks before its scheduled Opening Day. The targeted June/July dates remain only a distant hope dependent on significant, thorny issues both outside and within baseball’s control. Most importantly, the fate of the 2020 season is at the mercy of the public health situation. Enough states and cities must open back up to make a competitive season feasible, and enough tests must be made available to implement a strict testing regimen without diverting resources from the general public. Baseball would like to stage games, without fans if necessary, at teams’ home stadiums — rather than in one or more centralized hubs — but different states and cities are at different stages in terms of both the containment of the coronavirus and their governments’ plans to ease restrictions. Another major obstacle is negotiating the financial terms with the players’ union, an issue that increasingly looms as a potential roadblock. The union contends the agreement the sides reached in March locked in a prorated scale that would pay players based on the number of games contested; MLB contends that agreement pertained only to games with fans and that games without fans require a different formula to account for the loss of revenue from tickets, concessions, parking and other on-site streams. There also would be rule changes to discuss, including the potential for a universal designated hitter, expanded rosters and an automated strike zone (to better facilitate social distancing between catchers and home plate umpires). Finally, even as they contemplate best-case scenarios, the sides would also need to account for worst-case ones, such as what to do if one or more players tests positive for the coronavirus. But for there to be baseball in 2020, the process needed to begin at some point. And if there is any faint hope of a midsummer launch, that point is very soon. Read more on MLB MLB teams expected to update ticket policies this week for games lost to coronavirus Baseball is returning in South Korea — just without fans, high-fives or spitting As MLB shutdown continues, team employees are wondering how long they’ll be paid


Arizona halts partnership with experts predicting coronavirus cases would continue to mount

Going forward, Arizona will use modeling developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that “ensures our hospitals have capacity for any situation,” Ptak said. But Humble said the state is eluding accountability by relying on nonpublic modeling. The academic partnership yielded public reports, the most recent of which predicted that the state’s peak of cases would not arrive before mid-May. Ptak said the state is working to see if Arizona-specific projections can be made public. “Good practice is always to use multiple models and multiple inputs,” said Elizabeth Carlton, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health. “A smart state program will consult a lot of different data sources.” Efforts in other states to selectively interpret and display coronavirus cases to suit political ends are also raising concerns among epidemiologists. Iowa experts who presented the state with models saying it was too early to reopen said they were ignored. “My concern is that the [Iowa Department of Public Health] — they’ve been saying the curve has been declining for a month now and it never really has,” said Eli Perencevich, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and a member of the team preparing modeling for state health officials. The way the state is counting cases, he said, “it’s always going to look like it’s going down.” Georgia and Iowa are among more than a dozen states marking new coronavirus cases primarily by the date of symptom onset, rather than when a test came back positive — the effect of which is to lower current case counts. Nadia Abuelezam, of Boston College’s Connell School of Nursing, said charting cases by date of symptom onset “shifts all of the positive tests back one or two weeks” because people rarely get tested right away. “If those numbers are trending down because we’re displacing cases backward, I think that could have significant ramifications,” she said. A spokeswoman for the Iowa Health Department did not return a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the Georgia Health Department acknowledged a lag in the data but noted all cases are still counted, just not the day they are reported. “How much is our data helping inform decisions?” asked Dr. Christine Petersen, director of the University of Iowa’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases. “I think it’s been answered.”


Americans are fighting coronavirus misinformation on social media

Conspiracy theorists have burned down mobile phone towers in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada and other countries in recent weeks. Why? There’s a rumor circulating on social media that 5G technology is causing the global covid-19 pandemic — a rumor without any evidence, which has been debunked by the WHO and prominent fact-checkers. Misinformation is always a problem. Misinformation about breaking news, like the coronavirus, is particularly problematic. Sharing misinformation about covid-19 is widespread — a white paper we recently published shows that people shared links on Twitter to misinformation sites almost as often as links to credible health websites like the WHO. Misinformation isn’t going anywhere — but our research, described below, suggests one solution. Experts, social media platforms and social media users can correct others when they see misinformation on social media. Our recent survey suggests that many people are doing just that and recognizing others are, too. Attitudes about this kind of correction suggest that people generally think we could all be doing even more. How people tackle misinformation on social media People often blame social media for propagating misinformation, but these channels also offer an opportunity to mitigate the problem. Our work, and the work of others, demonstrates that observational correction — correction that occurs on social media where people can observe other people being corrected — reduces misperceptions. Observational correction works because of the nature of social media. Correcting a friend, family member or stranger in person, on email, or in some other relatively private communication may set that person straight about the facts on that topic. But doing the same on social media means that dozens of people — and perhaps thousands — can witness the correction. In addition to the sheer scale that social media networks offer, other structural elements may improve correction efficacy. First, the correction occurs in proximity (temporally and spatially) to the original misinformation, increasing the likelihood that people hadn’t had a chance to absorb the misinformation at all. Second, witnessing someone else being corrected may be less threatening than being corrected directly, but with all the same benefits. Expert correction Correction can also come from social media platforms themselves. For example, Facebook uses its “related articles” function to display debunking information from third-party fact-checkers. Our work shows that exposure to this type of information reduces public misperceptions. Additionally, social media users can correct one another. Such corrections are


Commerce Department aims to relax one part of Huawei export ban

The Commerce Department is preparing to ease one aspect of its Huawei export ban to allow U.S. companies to participate in international organizations that set technology standards, according to people familiar with the matter. The proposed change comes after heavy lobbying by tech companies, which complained that the export ban was preventing them from shaping industry standards that help determine future sales. The new rule, reported earlier by Reuters, would allow U.S. companies to share technology that is not sensitive in nature with Huawei as part of group discussions at the standards bodies. Companies from around the world typically participate in the talks, which establish technical rules underpinning global technology. The Commerce Department’s proposed revision still must be endorsed by the State Department and Defense Department. It is unclear when the Commerce Department will ask other agencies to review the proposal, according to people familiar with the matter. In an emailed statement, the Pentagon said: “We are aware of the proposed rule change, but we aren’t going to comment publicly while interagency discussions are ongoing.” The Commerce and State departments didn’t respond to requests for comment. There are hundreds of standards-setting organizations that discuss and endorse specifications for all types of technology. Their work ensures that a USB stick made by one company fits into a USB port built by another or that any laptop can connect to WiFi anywhere in the world. Some of the main groups are the International Organization for Standardization, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the 3rd Generation Partnership Project. Huawei participates in many of these standards discussions, including those setting the rules for ultrafast 5G mobile networks. The Commerce Department last year banned the sale of U.S. technology to Huawei, saying it had “reasonable cause to believe” the Chinese company was “involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.” U.S. officials have said that Huawei has links to the Chinese government and that its telecom equipment could be used to disrupt or spy on American communications. Huawei denies these claims. The Chinese company is one of the world’s largest sellers of telecom equipment and smartphones, and before the export ban was a large consumer of U.S. semiconductor chips and software. Most U.S. companies took the export prohibition to mean that they weren’t allowed to discuss technical specifications with Huawei at standards-setting meetings, which has


Baltimore’s school nurses redeployed for a pandemic battle

BALTIMORE — When Maryland schools shut down in March, Lansdowne Elementary nurse Kristi Lowman reported for work instead to a Towson office building, where she sat at a long folding table and answered calls to Baltimore County's covid-19 hotline. “I learned, honestly, the mental strain that it was putting on people,” said Lowman, who answered calls at the county’s Drumcastle Government Center for two weeks. “They just wanted someone to talk to.” These days, Lowman works from her dining room table in Catonsville, but she’s still part of the county’s fight against the coronavirus. Armed with a cellphone and laptop, she makes cold calls to county residents who have tested positive for the virus — one of 16 county school nurses redeployed to help the local health department during the pandemic. An additional eight school nurses are set to soon join the team, which works in shifts seven days a week. Working from home, they collect data and explain to patients how to isolate themselves and best protect their family members. They also conduct interviews to determine who these residents recently had close interactions with — a first step in a process known as contact tracing that experts say will be vital to containing the virus and allowing governments to lift stay-at-home orders. The health department then notifies the people with possible exposure so they can quarantine. Baltimore County is among the hardest hit by the virus outbreak in Maryland — and it needs many more people to do this type of work. County officials say they have 52 people working on contact tracing, including the school nurses, and want to hire about 60 more people by July. Contact tracing helps “stop this virus in its tracks” because people who may not yet be symptomatic but are still contagious are notified quickly, said county health officer Gregory Wm. Branch. “We tell all of them, ‘You need to be in quarantine,” Branch said. “They then don’t spread it to other people.” Experts say the nation will need to vastly ramp up its contact tracing capabilities — in addition to testing — to start reopening. A report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security suggests the country will need 100,000 workers to conduct contact tracing at a cost of $3.6 billion. For now, local governments across the region are looking to school nurses as a resource. In Anne Arundel County, they’ve


Telling apart the ‘murder hornet’ from hornets in the Mid-Atlantic region

residents contend with. Famous said baldfaced hornets are most common in the region. “You can see their gray, bell-shaped paper nests hanging in trees and bushes all over the area,” he said. They’re about the same size as European hornets (and thus smaller than Asian giant hornets) and more black than yellow. And, as many of us know from firsthand experience, they’re aggressive when disturbed. But Famous doesn’t have issues with European or baldfaced hornets raiding his beehives. “The European hornets typically snoop around the beehives, one at a time, in midsummer, looking to snatch a bee or two if they can. They’re a nonissue,” he said. “Yellow jackets create problems for the hives, but the Asian giant hornets pose a whole different class of threat.” Regarding Asian hornets, Famous said: “They send out single scouts to investigate honeybee colonies. They enter, check it out, and if they like what they find, they go back to their nest, gather reinforcements and return en masse to rob, pillage and plunder everything in the colony. We better eradicate them swiftly and thoroughly, so we don’t have to deal with them as a regular threat to our honeybee colonies." Jonathan Beamon has exterminated wasp and hornet nests for decades in North Carolina. He claims to have found dozens of nests built by enormous yellow hornets he calls hybrid Japanese hornets. According to N.C. State University’s Entomology Extension, however, the hornets Beamon found are most likely European hornets. “Asian giant hornets are not an issue for us at this time and not likely to be one in the near future barring some accidental introduction (as was likely the case in Washington),” an article on the university’s entomology websites states. “However, everyone needs to be aware that we have a resident hornet species that, at first glance, appears similar to the Asian giant hornet.” But Beamon is adamant he has encountered Asian hybrid hornets. Over many years of eradicating hornets, Beamon said he was only stung once by a giant yellow hornet. He remarked, “It felt like I was shot in the leg, and the sting left a welt for a month.” Beamon also noted the European hornet nests he exterminated had a putrid smell, like rotting flesh. European and Asian hornets are protein eaters, and they bring back partially chewed “meatballs” to feed to their young. “It’s the worst smell imaginable,” he said. “But


Understanding the twists and turns in the Michael Flynn case

“It’s the biggest story in the world a year ago and a year and a half. ‘Flynn, Flynn, Flynn.’ And then he’s essentially exonerated. Now, that’s not official yet. But when you read the notes, how could you do anything else?” — President Trump, “Clear now that General Flynn was set up by dirty cops at the highest levels of our government…” — Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), “Not only should general Flynn’s charges be dropped immediately but the treasonous actors who set him up should be in jail!!!” — Donald Trump Jr., Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in 2017. But now that Flynn is seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, Trump and his close allies have turned the case into a cause celebre. In the latest twist, they argue that documents released last week show that Flynn was set up by FBI agents. Flynn’s case has dragged on so long, readers may need a refresher course on how it started and what the Justice Department and the courts have said in rejecting conspiracy theories that Flynn was the victim of a “deep state” plot. (Update, May 7): President Barack Obama imposed new sanctions on Russia for interfering in the 2016 election, which took effect Dec. 29, 2016. That day, Flynn spoke with Sergey Kislyak, at the time the Russian ambassador to the United States. Flynn requested that Russia not escalate the situation, but respond to the new sanctions in a reciprocal manner, according to his guilty plea. Kislyak called back on Dec. 31 and said that, in response to Flynn’s request, Russia had chosen not to retaliate. Flynn was fired by Obama in 2014, and his moves potentially ran afoul of the Logan Act, which makes it a crime for unauthorized Americans to negotiate with a foreign government in a dispute with the United States. FBI agents interviewed Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017. It was days after Trump’s inauguration, and the FBI was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and Russian contacts with Trump’s campaign. Flynn told the FBI that he did not ask Kislyak to refrain from escalating the situation, which was false. Flynn also said he did not recall Kislyak calling back two days later to tell him that Russia had abided by Flynn’s request. Flynn also


Illegal border crossings fell dramatically in April, as U.S. expels thousands using Trump’s coronavirus emergency authority

confirmed cases and more than 75,000 deaths. The U.S. cases are approximately 33 percent of the worldwide total, and the deaths are 28 percent of all virus-related fatalities across the globe. The United Kingdom has the second-highest death total, with just fewer than 31,000 deaths, and Italy is third, with just fewer than 30,000. Among the countries that are the largest source of migrants to the U.S. southern border, Mexico has reported 27,634 cases and 2,704 deaths; Honduras has reported 1,461 cases and 99 deaths; Guatemala has reported 798 cases and 21 deaths; and El Salvador has reported 695 cases and 15 deaths. Mexican authorities have agreed to accept expelled foreign nationals from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, as well as their own citizens, and the four countries account for approximately 95 percent of all illegal crossings, according to CBP figures cited by Morgan. Single male adults from Mexico accounted for 68 percent of border detentions, Morgan said. About 25 percent of those expelled under the emergency measures are rearrested. CBP encountered its first border crosser with the coronavirus on April 23, an Indian national detained in California’s El Centro sector, according to Morgan. The individual was handed over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation, he said. Border agents were able to minimize exposure to staff and other migrants because they have so much spare capacity in the holding cells of border stations as a result of the expulsion measures, Morgan said. “Fewer CBP employees are unnecessarily exposed to this deadly virus,” he said. “Fewer American citizens. Fewer U.S. health-care workers, and fewer migrants themselves.” The CBP enforcement statistics for April were the second-lowest monthly tally since Trump took office, amounting to an 85 percent reduction from April 2019, when border authorities detained 109,415 amid a record-breaking influx of Central American families and children seeking asylum. The Trump administration embarked on a broad crackdown along the border last summer that had already curbed access to the U.S. immigration system for asylum seekers, but the emergency health orders have gone a step further. The suspension of anti-trafficking laws has also allowed CBP to expel underage migrants, who are turned over to authorities in Mexico and Central America. Morgan also said his agency is accelerating construction of the president’s border wall, with 179 linear miles now complete and crews on track to finish 450 miles by the end of 2020.


Pandemics come and go. The way people respond to them barely changes.

Pandemics have been afflicting humans for millennia, probably for as long as we’ve lived in large groups. Outbreaks struck the ancient Greeks, the Byzantines, the Incas and the Native Americans, among others. A century ago, the so-called Spanish Flu, which as you probably know by now didn’t actually originate in Spain, killed about 50 million people, and perhaps many more, around the world. I’m a historian who studies medicine in 17th century England, and lately I’ve been thinking about one particular pandemic: the bubonic plague that struck Britain in 1665, killing at least 200,000 people, including about 15 percent of the population of London. As we struggle to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, what strikes me most is how similar our experiences and responses are to those of the people living in England more than three centuries ago. No Zoom, no Instacart, no “Tiger King,” but human behavior in the face of plague seems remarkably familiar. Just as today, a global economy was a key driver of the English epidemic. Bubonic plague, which is bacterial rather than viral, is typically spread to humans by fleas who have fed on the blood of infected rats. Earlier plague epidemics — such as the Black Death of the 1300s, which may have wiped out half the population of Europe — came to Europe via merchants traveling back from Asia along the Silk Road. In the same way, contemporary observers reported that the 1665 epidemic may have been brought to London by Dutch trading ships; the epidemic had already spread there a year earlier. In the months before it reached England, authorities had tried, obviously without success, to quarantine ships from the Netherlands and other plague-affected places. Another conspicuous resemblance is socioeconomic. In the United States, we’ve seen that covid-19 is disproportionately affecting poor people, as well as blacks and Latinos. Overall, these groups tend to have poorer health and less access to health care, and they are more likely to live in crowded, unhealthy conditions and to work in jobs that require them to come into close contact with others who may be infected. In New York for example, the death rate among blacks is twice as high as it is for whites; for Latinos, it is 60 percent higher. In Louisiana, blacks make up a third of the population but so far account for almost 60 percent of covid-19 deaths. About 5,000


wigs were the height of fashion for both men and women. During the epidemic, however, people came to fear them as a source of disease — they were made from human hair, and who knew where it came from? Other rumors spread, too: Perhaps the two comets seen a few months apart had presaged the plague. Stories of women taken to plague hospitals against their will, and houses suddenly shut up, spread rapidly. All the while, city church bells rang incessantly to mark the passing of parishioners. Over the past few months, we’ve also seen officials and others use scapegoats to explain the pandemic. In the United States, China, where the virus originated, has been the most common target. Unsubtly, some leaders and media figures have called the pandemic the Chinese virus, or the Wuhan virus, after the city in which it first appeared. In recent months in the United States, there has been a sharp increase in anti-Asian bias, and 30 percent of people in a recent survey said they had witnessed an incident of such bias. Past outbreaks have been no different. During the bubonic plague of the 1300s, Jews were accused of poisoning wells and food supplies, and pogroms destroyed thousands of communities across Europe. Other European cities blamed prostitutes and ran them out of town when a plague threatened. In 1665 in England, those Dutch ships were all too easy to blame because the English were at war with the Dutch at the time. It’s worth noting that these ways of thinking have recurred more recently: At the turn of the 20th century in the United States, tuberculosis was called the “Jewish disease,” and Italian immigrants were blamed for outbreaks of polio. By early 1666, the outbreak had abated, to the point that the king and other well-off Londoners returned. Life slowly returned to normal. For reasons that remain mysterious, this was the last large outbreak of bubonic plague in England. Today, as we face another disease, one that we still don’t understand very well, 17th-century England reminds us that despite the enormous leaps we’ve made in science and technology, humans themselves remain in many ways the same: imperfect, not always rational and still deeply vulnerable to novel nasty microbes. Read more: Testing positive, Boris Johnson ducks into the isolation he has brought to Britain Why treating the coronavirus like the Black Death is so dangerous


‘Egypt has found a cure for covid-19’ — and other outlandish tales from Cairo’s propaganda machine

Samuel Tadros is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom A few days ago, a revealing WhatsApp message popped up on my iPhone: “Egypt is defeating the conspiracy and saving the world.” The text that followed explained how covid-19 was part of an intrigue engineered by the West and how Egypt’s heroic intelligence service had neutralized the devious plot. The Egyptian health minister had paid visits to China and Italy, the anonymous author explained, to provide the two friendly nations with the cure Egyptians had devised. Even President Trump was begging Egypt for help. Cairo’s officials had cleverly thwarted a pandemic aimed at the country, so the story went — and once again asserted Egypt’s global leadership. Egypt is hardly unique in its attachment to conspiracy theories. For decades, the Middle East has been a hotbed of imagined intrigues (often involving Jews), from the 9/11 attacks through the 2008 financial crisis to the emergence of the Islamic State. Over the past decade, Arabic-language propaganda outlets in Russia and Iran have additionally boosted these narratives, usually with a strong anti-American twist. Lately, though, these tales have taken on a uniquely Egyptian slant: specifically, the idea that the dark forces plotting against Egypt are doing so because of its presumed role as a leading power in the Middle East and the world — and that its success in combating them affirms this proud status. The prominence of such claims owes a great deal to the concerted efforts of the Egyptian state as well as the population’s intense longing for national pride. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi has managed to meld these factors to powerful effect. Since he came to power in 2013 in the wake of the Arab Spring, state-run media have propagated many narratives based on an alleged Western attempt to undermine Egypt and divide the region’s countries — a threat often described under the heading of “fourth-generation warfare.” Sissi used one of his speeches to army officers to identify a particular vulnerability: the relatively open media environment and the flourishing civil society organizations that he inherited upon his ascent to power. In the past few years, he has attempted to rectify this problem. The spread of covid-19 has given the state’s propagandists a rich new source of material. One widely shared post on Facebook links the coronavirus to a 10-year-old plot linked to the rollout of


Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider showed us that computers can be love machines

I knew the 21st century was in full swing on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in 2013 when I watched two friends walk down the aisle to Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love” and it didn’t feel weird. Some of the wedding guests reached for tissues. Others pulled out their handheld computers to snap photographs, sealing memories in pixels. The future was here and it was lovely. Is that Kraftwerk’s real legacy? It’s tough to name a more widely influential pop group, but Kraftwerk’s impact goes even further than Afrika Bambaata, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, OutKast and every techno record ever made. Ultimately, Kraftwerk taught us that the future isn’t something to be afraid of. Where science fiction warned us of technocratic dystopias and AI run amok, these German futurists promised that our machines would enrich our lives. For starters, they could make us dance. The group got much of its supremely funky tomorrow-vision from co-founder Florian Schneider, who died in April of cancer at 73. Schneider has been credited with naming and conceptualizing Kraftwerk, but it’s difficult to locate the personal touch he brought to the music when so many Kraftwerk songs rolled off the band’s assembly line devoid of human fingerprints. And while Schneider was famously secretive about his role in the music, the group’s genius was easy to grasp: Kraftwerk knew how to funnel genuine human feeling through cutting-edge technology to create impeccable pop music. Frequently dismissed as a gimmick throughout the ’70s, the band’s collision of high art and high tech came with a necessary wink. In concert, Schneider and his bandmates would play up the music’s artificiality by pretending to be robots, faces frozen, limbs locked. Imagine the restraint that took. Better yet, cue up the songs. If you can make it through the cybernetic funk of “Trans-Europe Express” or the itchy-glitch of “Numbers” without dancing, you’re definitely the robot. Schneider rarely gave interviews, but when he spoke about Kraftwerk’s efforts to bridge the chasm between man and machine, his words carried the playfulness of performance art and the heft of truth. “It’s rather a more sophisticated relationship,” Schneider said in a 1978 interview cited in “Kraftwerk: Publikation,” David Buckley’s book from 2015. “The machine helps the man and the man admires the machine.” Then Schneider gestured to a Sony cassette recorder. “This is the extension of your brain. It helps you remembering,” he said. “As for ourselves,


The covid-19 crisis could strengthen Iran’s ‘invisible government’

Could the coronavirus pandemic bring about regime change or a major behavioral shift in the Islamic Republic of Iran? U.S. policy hawks and a wide range of regime critics are increasingly convinced it might. That’s not likely, however; this view misreads the influence of Iran’s nonelected political institutions. Rather than regime change, the coronavirus pandemic and escalating U.S. pressure appear more likely to reinforce the position of Iran’s religious and military institutions. Here’s what you need to know. Since the government announced the country’s first covid-19 case in late February, Iran has ranked among the top 10 countries affected by the virus. But unlike other countries hit hard by the pandemic, Iran has an economy that was already on the edge of collapse. Mismanagement and corruption, U.S.-led sanctions and falling oil prices had brought Iran its highest stagflation rate in its modern history — with 41 percent inflation in 2019 — along with a negative 7.6 percent growth rate and a 20 percent national budget deficit projected to double this year. Widespread protests over economic conditions rocked the country in recent months. The U.S. has not eased up on sanctions As with many other areas of government, the Trump administration’s official policy on Iran is designed to undo policies made by the Obama administration. The Trump administration pulled out of the nuclear deal that Iran signed in 2015 with the United States, China, France, Germany, Russia and Britain. By leaving the deal, the United States launched a maximum-pressure campaign, including severe economic sanctions, to force Iran to constrain its interventions in the Middle East. The Trump administration has refused demands from Iranian leaders — as well as from European leaders, House and Senate members, and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden — for temporary sanctions relief. Last month, the U.S. government opposed Iran’s request for a $5 billion emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund. Iran’s government claims the sanctions leave Iran hard pressed to handle the pandemic and the post-pandemic economic fallout. The U.S. State Department and its Persian social media have sought to convince the Iranian people that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and his subordinate foundations have the resources to fight the pandemic, so there is no need for external funds. In March, a State Department covid-19 Disinformation Fact Sheet noted the regime has considerable assets that could be allocated to the health-care needs of the population.


There are lots of yogurts out there, but which ones are healthy?

Most people shop by habit and choose the same brands time after time. But with the recent increase in online grocery shopping and the possibility that your favorite brand is unavailable, you may be spending more time reading food labels and trying new things. One of the largest grocery categories is yogurt. According to a report last year from the sales and marketing firm Acosta, there were more than 300 yogurt products to choose from in the average U.S. grocery store. That’s a lot of options to wade through. Some yogurt decisions are based on your palate — whether you prefer a whipped or creamy texture, a thick or thin consistency, fruit on the bottom or mixed throughout. But the nutritional value of yogurt is more objective. If you’re seeking a yogurt for a specific health reason, perhaps because it’s high in protein and calcium or filled with probiotics, you’ll have to resort to some close label reading. Before you compare the nutritional information between yogurts, check the Nutrition Facts panel for the serving size. Most yogurts are 150 grams, but some are 125 grams, 170 grams or 225 grams, so keep that in mind when you comparison shop. Beyond that, here are some factors to consider. Nutrition researchers use a food classification system called Nova to segment foods based on how processed they are, and yogurts can be found in both the least processed and the most ultra-processed categories, depending on how they’re made. This classification is important because research shows that people who eat the most ultra-processed foods have an increased risk of heart disease and certain types of cancer. And on average, Americans already get 57.9 percent of calories from ultra-processed foods. Plain, unflavored yogurt has two ingredients: milk and bacterial culture. Fermenting milk to create plain yogurt is considered a minimal way to process food. When you take plain yogurt and add sugar, artificial sweeteners, thickeners and color, it becomes an ultra-processed food — with flavors that include cotton candy and key lime pie. If you are choosing yogurt based on health value, then, stick with any plain, unflavored, traditional, Greek or skyr yogurt instead of a flavored, ultra-processed one. I’m especially not a fan of “light” yogurts, in which sugar is replaced by artificial sweeteners and fat is replaced with gums and thickeners. In terms of sales, Americans are divided almost evenly between Greek yogurt


Blacks in Britain are four times as likely to die of coronavirus as whites, data show

complicated by a number of factors — including age, underlying medical conditions, deprivation and geography — but that the government was taking the issue seriously. "You'll have worked out that I'm from an ethnic minority group," he said at a Downing Street news conference, "and we will get to the bottom of this." Health leaders in Britain have said they will pore through thousands of records and report at the end of May on how issues such as ethnicity, obesity and gender affect risk to covid-19. London, where ethnic minorities make up more than 40 percent of the population, has been hit particularly hard. Mayor Sadiq Khan said Thursday that minorities in the British capital are "more likely to work in lower-paid jobs, live in overcrowded accommodation and suffer from underlying health conditions, and this is clearly putting them at greater risk from coronavirus." The ONS said some of the reasons for the differences remain hard to pin down. According to the ONS report, when adjusted for age, black males are 4.2 times as likely to die of covid-19 as white males, and black females are more than 4.3 times as likely as white females. When it factored in variables such as demographics and self-reported health issues, the statistics agency found that black male and females were 1.9 times as likely to die of covid-19. Similarly, males of Bangladeshi and Pakistani ethnicity were 1.8 times as likely, and females of Bangladeshi and Pakistani ethnicity were 1.6 times as likely. "These results show that the difference between ethnic groups in COVID-19 mortality is partly a result of socio-economic disadvantage and other circumstances, but a remaining part of the difference has not yet been explained," the agency said. Separate research from the University College London, published Wednesday, found similar trends. Rob Aldridge, the lead author of the study, said the findings supported "an urgent need to take action." "Actions to reduce these inequities include ensuring an adequate income for everyone so that low-paid and zero-hours contract workers can afford to follow social distancing recommendations, reducing occupational risks such as ensuring adequate PPE [personal protective equipment], reducing barriers to accessing health care and providing culturally and linguistically appropriate public health communications." Speaking at a parliamentary select committee hearing on Wednesday, Michael Marmot, director of University College London's Institute of Health Equity, said, "The pandemic has exposed and amplified underlying inequalities in society." miriam.berger@washpost.com


We need to protect reopened businesses from a lawsuit pandemic

Now, after almost two months, you are being told you can reopen. You know opening up is a risk, because the virus has not yet been defeated, but you have no choice. So, you do everything you can to operate safely. You follow all the guidelines that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and your local health authority recommend — cleaning equipment regularly and requiring your workers and customers to wear masks and practice social distancing. But despite your best efforts, one of your employees gets sick — and sues you for negligence. Or perhaps you seek to verify an employee’s covid-19 status or their vulnerability due to underlying health conditions, and they sue you for violating their health privacy. Or maybe you decide not to hire an at-risk worker, and they sue you for age or disability discrimination. Or perhaps shortages of masks and protective gear persist, and so you allow your workers to provide their own — and are sued for failing to supply or train your employees in the use of personal protective equipment. And it’s not just reopened businesses like yours that need protection. Think of all the grocery stores, pharmacies and other firms that continued to operate through the worst of the pandemic. Are we as a country going to reward them for keeping us supplied during the lockdown by exposing them to frivolous litigation? How about companies that shifted operations to make items that are new to them, such as cleaning products and hand sanitizers? Should they be subject to lawsuits because they stepped up in a crisis to produce things our country desperately needed? The trial lawyers’ lobby cites a poll showing Americans oppose giving businesses “guaranteed immunity” against covid-19-related lawsuits. But no one is arguing for that kind of blanket protection. Republicans are asking for limited, temporary, targeted liability protections during the covid-19 national emergency and recovery period — and Americans support that by overwhelming margins. According to a U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform poll, 82 percent of Americans agree that when restaurants, stores and other businesses are allowed to open again they should be not be “sued by people who claim they contracted the coronavirus at that place of business unless the business was grossly negligent.” And 84 percent support “protecting businesses like grocery stores and pharmacies, which have been allowed to stay open as essential businesses, from lawsuits


PM Update: A good evening for gazing at the moon as we await more rain Friday

* It was a much-deserved beauty of a day across the region. Despite some gusty breezes, highs in the mid-60s felt quite nice under that August-like sun. The clear skies of the day will become increasingly cloud-filled tonight, but first we’ve got a decent evening in store. Listen to our daily D.C. forecasts: Apple Podcasts | Amazon Echo | More options Through Tonight: View the Tomorrow (Friday): See David Streit’s forecast through the beginning of next week. And if you haven’t already, join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. For related traffic news, check out Gridlock. Pollen update: Look up: Want our 5 a.m. forecast delivered to your email inbox?


FAQ: Rent strikes during the pandemic

For the tens of millions of people unemployed and others who still have jobs but whose income has been severely reduced, the novel coronavirus has made it harder to keep a roof over their heads. But even before this worldwide health crisis, many families were living on the financial edge. And now, the fallout from the pandemic has pushed them over. A Tenant groups and community advocates have organized one nationwide strike called We Strike Together in an effort to push the federal government to provide more coronavirus-related financial aid to renters. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has endorsed the rent strikes. “People aren’t striking because they don’t feel like paying rent, Ocasio-Cortez said in a video posted on her Facebook page. “People are striking because they can’t pay rent. They can’t. It doesn’t matter how many threatening text messages a landlord or building sends to its tenants. It doesn’t matter how much you threaten legal action. It doesn’t matter how much you intimidate anybody. People can’t pay.” This movement is not without merit. Covid-19 has exacerbated the affordable housing crisis. And the start of each new month brings more financial anxiety. “Rent strikes reflect public anger over the way that the housing system is designed to benefit real estate interests over the rest of society,” said Shamus Roller, executive director of the National Housing Law Project. “The federal government needs to step in to help protect renters and struggling landlords by providing rent relief.” The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey found that in 2018 there were 44 million renter households. The covid-19 crisis has disproportionately affected renters, according to a recent report by Laurie Goodman, vice president at the Urban Institute and co-director of its Housing Finance Policy Center, and Dan Magder, chief executive of Center Creek Homes. The lack of affordable housing forces renters to spend too much of their monthly income for housing — more than half of their income in high-cost areas. This leaves little room to save for a financial crisis. “Policymakers need to address the stress that renters have from the covid-19 crisis and head off a worsening situation that could include mass evictions, deteriorating housing stock, and even a real estate or housing market crash,” Goodman and Magder wrote. One solution would be a national rental assistance program that would provide rental vouchers to tenants or rental payments to property owners, Goodman and Magder