Vanderbilt-Missouri game pushed back as SEC football sees first virus-related postponement

The SEC announced Monday that Saturday’s scheduled game between Vanderbilt and Missouri has been postponed until later in the year because of positive novel coronavirus tests and subsequent isolating of Vanderbilt players. It is the first pandemic-related alteration to the conference’s football schedule since the league began its season Sept. 26. The game, hosted by Missouri, has been tentatively rescheduled for Dec. 12, the league announced. “We’re playing football in a pandemic,” Vanderbilt Coach Derek Mason said Saturday after the Commodores’ 41-7 loss to South Carolina for which Mason said the team had only 56 scholarship players available. “I think everybody understands that, but as we go forward, this university is committed to not putting our student-athletes in harm’s way and making sure we’ve got as good of a roster as we can to go into ballgames, and if we don’t, we’ll make other decisions. Looking at our health from week to week is something we’ve got to do.” The SEC announced last month a minimum threshold of 53 scholarship athletes per team for its football games this season. Conference programs affected by outbreaks have the option to take the field with fewer than those 53 players or can request to have the game rescheduled. The Commodores cited “a lack of available scholarship student-athletes” Monday in announcing the postponement of the game at Missouri. The shortage, they said, was “due to the quarantining of individuals with positive tests and those designated as close contacts, along with injuries and opt-outs.” Missouri Coach Eli Drinkwitz said on a radio show Monday that he had learned his team would not be playing the Commodores this week when a charter bus service alerted the Tigers that Vanderbilt had canceled its travel arrangements. “We absolutely understand,” Drinkwitz said. “… Our number one priority is for everyone at Vanderbilt to be safe.” The matchup between the 0-3 Commodores and the 1-2 Tigers, who are coming off a 45-41 win over LSU, is the 28th game at the Football Bowl Subdivision level to be postponed or canceled since August, according to the Associated Press. That includes a Big 12 matchup, Oklahoma State at Baylor, that was originally scheduled for this coming Saturday but is now set to be played Dec. 12 after Baylor suspended football-related activities last week. “We are disappointed to postpone another game,” Baylor Athletic Director Mack Rhoades said Sunday in a statement, referring to


Nobel Prize in economics awarded to Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson of Stanford University

to place bids lower than their own estimate of the item’s value to themselves or other buyers, because they feared paying too much. Milgrom, 72, drew the nod for developing a more general theory of auctions involving values that vary between bidders. After analyzing bidding strategies in several popular auctions, he showed the best format to be one in which bidders learn more about each other’s estimated values during bidding. Auctions are embedded throughout the modern economy. Art houses use them to sell paintings and antiquities. Search engines rely on them to dispose of advertising space. And public authorities offer airport landings slots and mineral rights via auctions. Global financial markets also operate on their principles. Asked by reporters about his own use of auctions, Wilson mentioned that he had recently purchased a pair of ski boots on eBay. “It’s something you encounter a lot,” he said. The prize committee said that Milgrom and Wilson had invented new formats for simultaneously auctioning off many interrelated objects for societal benefit rather than maximal revenue. In 1994, the U.S. government first used their insights to auction off radio frequencies to telecommunications companies. “This year’s Laureates in Economic Sciences started out with fundamental theory and later used their results in practical applications, which have spread globally. Their discoveries are of great benefit to society,” said Peter Fredriksson, chair of the Prize Committee. The two men will receive a cash award of 10 million Swedish krona, worth a bit more than $1.1 million. “Amidst the pandemic, there’s not much I can use it for,” Wilson said, speaking by telephone. “Probably, I’ll just save it for my wife and children.” Monday’s announcement comes as the global economy is battling to emerge from a painful recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The International Monetary Fund expects “a partial and uneven recovery” next year. Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from 189 member nations will gather virtually this week for the annual meetings of the fund and its sister institution, the World Bank. Last year, a trio of economists shared the prize, which they received in recognition of their pioneering work developing new methods to fight global poverty. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Michael Kremer of Harvard University were honored for practical research insights that the academy said had “considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty.” Duflo, at


These subscription boxes are a fun way to treat yourself — and support local businesses

potted in a terra cotta planter. Though the shop is sold out, new memberships will be available starting Oct. 14 — and come with access to a portal full of advice, plus free “office hours” for those who need assistance with their plants or repotting. The co-owners post tips and hacks on Grounded’s Instagram account (@groun.ded), such as explainers on how different types of water affect plants. “We’re really big on introducing plants to our community and shedding light on the fact that everyone can own a plant,” Hemsley says. She notes that, as a Black-, women-owned business, Grounded can reach people who aren’t aware of plants’ healing benefits, and who often shy away from discussing issues like depression and anxiety. “We have a big focus on mental health, and how plants can help your mental health.” grounded-plants.com. If you love cheese — a rather universally relevant statement — Each Peach Market in Mount Pleasant might just brie (ahem) home to your favorite subscription box. The shop’s monthly “I Love Cheese” box offers two or three cheeses paired with condiments or snacks. Expect a different theme with each delivery: Past favorites include an Italian-themed box; apples and cheddar; and “it’s all Gouda.” “The first one we did was an introduction to our cheesemongers, so each cheesemonger chose their favorite cheese and included a little description of why they liked it,” says the market’s co-founder, Emily Friedberg. “February was about cheeses that had love stories around them, and March was ‘Ladies of the Curd’ — all female cheese producers.” October’s theme is cheeses that melt. Each box comes with “a pretty sizable amount of cheese — almost half a pound,” as Friedberg puts it. It’s $200 for a three-month subscription, and $350 for six months. eachpeachmarket.com. Ali Chrisler’s mobile floral business was less than six months old when covid-19 put the brakes on street vending. She could no longer cruise the District’s streets in her powder blue truck, talking customers through which blooms they ought to take home. So she started offering contactless delivery and subscriptions. “I try to use a wide variety of flowers,” Chrisler says, noting that bouquet designs change every week and depend on what’s in season. She aims to include at least a few unique flowers that you can’t easily find at grocery stores, plus one big, focal flower — think sunflowers, pincushion proteas, zinnias and peonies.


The Daily 202: RBG’s memory shadows Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing

world. It’s a need to believe in something.” (Travis Andrews) “A Nevada man became the first published case of Covid-19 reinfection in the U.S., adding to a number of examples world-wide signaling that patients who have recovered from the viral disease might still be at risk of getting it again,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “In a paper in the medical journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, a group of authors including University of Nevada researchers recount the case of a 25-year-old who suffered two bouts of Covid-19 infection, one confirmed through testing in mid-April and the second in early June. Symptoms of the second case started in late May, a month after the patient reported his initial symptoms as having resolved. The two strains of virus were genetically distinct, signaling that it is unlikely that the man simply remained unknowingly infected with the virus in one, longer bout, the authors wrote. "The paper notes that the patient’s second case of Covid-19 was more severe than his first, requiring supplemental oxygen and admission to a hospital after he suffered from shortness of breath. The Nevada case comes after similar reinfection case reports from locations including Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ecuador. The growing number of examples in medical literature bolsters evidence that immunity to SARS-CoV-2… might in at least some cases only last for a limited period, similar to coronaviruses that cause the common cold, researchers said.” “A document sent to outside researchers running the 60,000-patient clinical trial states that a ‘pausing rule’ has been met, that the online system used to enroll patients in the study has been closed, and that the data and safety monitoring board — an independent committee that watches over the safety of patients in the clinical trial — would be convened,” STAT News reports. "Some of the states setting records on Monday — including Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming — have been witnessing a surge in infections for weeks. But new highs were also reported in Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and West Virginia. Six states — Arkansas, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wisconsin — additionally set records for coronavirus-related hospitalizations on Monday,” Antonia Farzan and Jacqueline Dupree report. “England has seen new coronavirus cases quadruple in the past three weeks and now has more covid-19 patients hospitalized than before the government imposed a


Coronavirus cases are rising in U.S., sparking worries the next big wave has begun

in the reporting of cases, experts often look at the seven-day average of case counts to accurately spot trends. In 40 states, cases are higher when compared with the week before. Indiana, Minnesota and North Dakota have set a new average high for cases each of the past eight days. More than a dozen other states have set new average highs in recent days. “A lot of the places being hit are Midwest states that were spared in the beginning,” said William Hanage, a Harvard University infectious-diseases researcher. “That’s of particular concern because a lot of these smaller regions don’t have the ICU beds and capacity that the urban centers had.” Even D.C. and some Northeastern states — including Connecticut, New Jersey and New York — are beginning to see case counts creep back up. Hospitalizations for covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, have also begun rising in almost a dozen states — including Ohio and Pennsylvania — raising the specter that increasing death counts will soon follow. On Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) warned in a tweet: “In all likelihood, things will get worse before they get better. This virus is sneaky and cunning and won’t give up. It has a mind of its own.” Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Monday he hopes the numbers “jolt the American public into a realization that we really can’t let this happen, because it’s on a trajectory of getting worse and worse.” In a CNN interview, he called the rising numbers “the worst possible thing that could happen as we get into the cooler months.” At least 215,000 people in the United States have died of covid-19, according to an analysis by The Post. One prominent model — by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington — forecasts that U.S. deaths could rise to more than 394,000 by Feb. 1. The U.S. trajectory highlights the urgent need for action by federal and state leaders as well as everyday Americans before transmission grows out of control, experts said. Many experts, including Fauci, have emphasized that such actions do not have to be as drastic as the shutdowns of the spring. Public health experts say that if Americans adopted even the simplest measures discussed for months, it could make a big difference. That includes universal mask-wearing, physical


Nobel laureate: Tens of millions of children worldwide at risk of exploitation, forced labor during pandemic

We read a great deal about the damage that children in the United States are suffering because of the coronavirus pandemic, but less so about the consequences for tens of millions of young people around the world who face dire futures without more support. In this post, Kailash Satyarthi, who was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for his global advocacy for children’s rights, explains what is at stake for many children. He is the founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, a nonprofit organization in India that works to protect children, and he is a member of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. In early August, the 187th — and final — member of the U.N. International Labor Organization (ILO) ratified Convention No. 182, a treaty to protect children from the worst forms of child labor, including slavery, prostitution and trafficking. It’s a powerfully important achievement more than two decades in the making. Never before in history has there been, from every corner of the planet, an absolute consensus to eradicate the exploitation that deprives children of their most basic of freedoms and robs them of the personal peace, promise and prosperity every human being deserves. We reached this remarkable milestone as the covid-19 pandemic was continuing to envelop and frighten the world, leaving millions sick and dead, economies in ruins, and driving more than 90 percent of the world’s children — or about 1.6 billion — out of school. When the poorest and most marginalized children are out of school, we already know they can be forced into child labor and exploitation, and they endure the most violent suffering. Also, the longer they stay out of school, the less likely they will ever go back. At the same time, child laborers are prone to drop out of school, if they ever go at all. With hundreds of millions of children now locked out of education, these multiple threats have become widespread. Many children are now more exposed to sexual abuse at home, which will likely drive a spike in child marriage and teenage pregnancies that too often mean the end of formal schooling for girls. They become fodder for online child sexual commercial exploitation, which is expanding to meet growing demand from locked-down abusers. Moreover, the collapse of whole economies and family livelihoods is predictably pushing more children into work and the worst forms of child labor, including


No, Trump has not been ‘tough’ on Russia

that. It delayed implementing the law and missed key deadlines, grudgingly conceding only after intervention by congressional leaders. Nervous tycoons scrambled to hire Washington lobbyists to keep themselves off a blacklist mandated by the law. But the Trump team made a mockery of the effort by merely copying and pasting from a Forbes list of Russian billionaires. That reassured the Kremlin that the sanctions would never be used as intended. Trump’s most egregious act of sanctions malfeasance, however, came in April 2018. That was when the Treasury Department — acting with support from then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster, on his way out of the White House — imposed the first consequential Russia sanctions of the Trump years, targeting the oligarch Oleg Deripaska and his aluminum company, Rusal. The impact was swift: Rusal’s shares nosedived by more than 50 percent. Instead of using this leverage to extract concessions from Moscow, the Trump administration immediately defanged the sanctions and eventually expunged Rusal from the sanctions list. To make matters worse, the Trump administration cut a deal with Deripaska, whom the Senate Intelligence Committee described as a “proxy for the Russian state and intelligence services,” allowing him to maintain control of his businesses through allies. This episode sent an unambiguous message to both Moscow and the private sector: The Trump administration had no stomach for tough sanctions against Russia. Meanwhile, the administration dragged its feet on imposing consequences for the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. It delayed chemical weapons sanctions required by law, only moving forward after formal requests and demands from bipartisan congressional leaders. Unsurprisingly, when the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was recently poisoned with a similar agent, the Trump administration said — and did — nothing. Ahead of the 2018 midterms, bipartisan legislation to deter Moscow from interfering in future U.S. elections gained momentum in the Senate. Trump cut it off at the pass, signing an executive order mimicking its language but lacking the critical piece: automatic sanctions against Russian banks and energy companies if the Kremlin’s attacks on American democracy persisted. It was this executive order that the Treasury Department used in September. Trump’s policy on Russia sanctions has been an elaborate ruse, designed to project toughness while actually doing little to follow through. The reality is that Trump, far from taking a tough line, has proactively undermined sanctions from Day One of his


The Washington Post names Lily Kuo its China bureau chief

Announcement from Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl and Deputy Foreign Editor Eva Rodriguez: We’re thrilled to announce that Lily Kuo will join The Washington Post later this year as the China bureau chief. Lily has distinguished herself the past two years as the Guardian’s Beijing bureau chief with clear, accessible and compelling storytelling that illuminates its evolving role in the world. She has reported nearly nonstop from China since the pandemic began in January, and she has worked adroitly to navigate a challenging environment. She has delivered vivid portraits of ordinary life while unearthing details about China’s efforts to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic, while also producing a series of scoops, including a revealing interview with a Central Party School professor expelled from the Communist Party in August over her criticism of President Xi Jinping. Her reporting has exposed large-scale razing of mosques and shrines in Xinjiang and the mass internment of Uighur Muslims, revealed the use of forced foreign prison labor, and provided nuance and insight into China’s tightening hold over Hong Kong through the new national security law. Lily has been covering China for most of the last decade after first moving to Beijing in 2008 to pursue a career in journalism. Since then she has reported for Reuters, from Washington and New York; and for Quartz, from New York, Hong Kong and Nairobi, where she covered China’s influence in Africa. Lily is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Peking University and the London School of Economics. She grew up in North Carolina, and she speaks Mandarin and Spanish. She joined the Guardian in 2018. Lily will take on the bureau chief role at a particularly fraught moment. For the first time in decades, The Post does not have an accredited correspondent in China, a byproduct of tensions between the United States and China that have led each side to tighten restrictions on the others’ journalists. Until her accreditation is approved, Lily will report on China from outside the country, joining an Asia-based team that includes correspondents Gerry Shih (who was among a dozen American journalists expelled from China in March) and Eva Dou (who is now covering China for The Post from a base in South Korea, while waiting for her own accreditation). Lily will start work on Dec. 14. Please join us in welcoming Lily to The Post.


Trying to reach herd immunity is ‘unethical’ and unprecedented, WHO head says

The head of the World Health Organization said Monday that allowing the novel coronavirus to spread in an attempt to reach herd immunity was “simply unethical.” The remark was a sharp rebuke of the approach amid mounting new infections around the world. Recent days have seen the most rapid rise in cases since the pandemic began in March. “Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a Monday media briefing. “It is scientifically and ethically problematic.” In a public health context, herd immunity typically describes a scenario in which a large enough share of the population is vaccinated against a disease to prevent it from spreading widely, thereby providing default protection to a minority of people who have not been vaccinated. But as there is still no vaccine for the coronavirus, achieving herd immunity in the current environment would require a large number of people to contract the virus, survive covid-19, and then produce sufficient antibodies to provide long-term protection. While the scientific community has roundly rejected herd immunity the approach, public interest in it has waxed and waned amid pressure to reopen schools and economies. Last month, President Trump appeared to praise the idea during a town hall in Pennsylvania. “You’ll develop herd — like a herd mentality,” he said. “It’s going to be — it’s going to be herd developed — and that’s going to happen.” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government initially expressed interest in the theory before backtracking amid public outcry over the dangers of letting the virus spread. Johnson himself was hospitalized with a severe case of covid-19, which he said could have killed him. Tedros, noting that there had been “some discussion” about the concept recently, told reporters Monday that allowing people to be exposed to a deadly virus whose effects are still not fully known was “not an option.” “Most people who are infected with the virus that causes covid-19 develop an immune response within the first few weeks, but we don’t know how strong or lasting that immune response is, or how it differs for different people,” he said. Though rare, there are multiple documented instances of people being infected for a second time after recovering from covid-19. An 89-year-old woman in the Netherlands died after being infected with


I stayed at 3 hotels during covid-19. The best option surprised me.

Until last week, the last time I stayed at a hotel was back in March. Since the pandemic began, I spent months locked down alone in my D.C. apartment, then with family in Upstate New York. I took bike trips and road trips to go camping, but I avoided hotels completely. In the meantime, hotels, like the rest of the travel industry, were suffering. According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association, hotels are facing a debt crisis and a historic wave of foreclosures as the pandemic’s economic impact on the industry is estimated to be nine times greater than that of 9/11. As a result, they’ve been doing everything they can to attract business. For some, that means promoting packages for remote workers or encouraging families to take remote-school vacations. For most, it means amplifying their new coronavirus precautions so that customers feel safe booking (and staying at) hotels again. Once the pandemic revealed its severity, hotel brands began developing and promoting new cleaning procedures. Hotels knew that “hygiene theater” would show customers that the services were taking coronavirus sanitation seriously. Hand-sanitizing stations and sneeze-guards were installed in lobbies, masks became mandatory for staff and guests, and Hilton began placing seals on room doors to show they had been cleaned and left vacant since. With the pandemic wearing on and travel beginning to increase, I wanted to venture out and see how hotels have adapted. So I booked the cheapest room option at a budget hotel, a mid-level hotel and a luxury hotel in New York City to investigate firsthand how hotels are handling the situation eight months into the covid-19 era. When I travel on my own dime, I book the cheapest accommodation 80 percent of the time, from motels to hostels to a space on the floor of a shared Airbnb. The corporate-beige lobby of the Holiday Inn Express was familiar to me from the moment I walked through the automatic doors (a comforting feature during the pandemic when we’re supposed to be mindful about touching public surfaces). There were stickers on the floor noting appropriate social distancing for guests — although I was the only guest checking in — and hand sanitizer dispensers were readily available. The front desk was barricaded with tables from the kitchen area to create more distance between guests and staff, and plexiglass panels propped up to further separate staff and guests.


The red-state coronavirus surge resembles what’s happened in Brazil

new cases stemmed from red counties in red states. As a function of population, the nature of the pandemic shifts a bit. Red states make up more of the United States’ cases, though the gap between red and blue states on per-population cases is narrower. Because blue states saw bigger surges in new cases earlier in the pandemic, as medical experts were learning how best to treat covid-19 and when cases spread more easily in elder-care facilities, the number of deaths in blue states is substantially higher on a per-population basis. The number of total covid-19 deaths in red states, though, has nearly matched the blue-state toll. You can see the difference in how the number of covid-19 deaths is increasing in the graph at left above. The cumulative number of deaths in blue states is flatter, meaning it’s growing more slowly. Again, that’s because, as a function of population, new cases and new deaths are mostly centered in red states. It remains the case that the United States broadly has done a bad job containing the virus. Both red and blue states compare unfavorably with our immediate northern and southern neighbors on new cases, both cumulatively and as a function of population. That’s in part because Mexico probably undercounts its case totals. The number of deaths in Mexico — a harder metric to miss — tracks more closely with the tolls in both blue and red states. The recent increase in deaths in red states has put them on a close track with Mexico’s death toll on a per-population basis. Since August, and excepting a recent spike in Mexico’s death toll, the number of new deaths per population in red states has tracked closely with Mexico’s. The red state numbers match the evolution of the pandemic in Brazil even more closely. Brazil and India are two of the hardest-hit countries internationally, though India’s far-larger population means that the effects of the pandemic have been more muted on a per-person basis. Since the pandemic began, the number of new cases in red states has tracked closely with the total in Brazil, which is about 14 percent larger. The number of deaths in Brazil has been higher than in blue states, red states or India — each of which has about an equivalent number of deaths at this point. The per-population trend in new cases and new deaths in Brazil overlapped


How covid-19 amplified the anti-vaccine movement

Post Reports is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post. For your ears. Martine Powers is your host, asking the questions you didn’t know you wanted answered. Listen online. How Amy Coney Barrett would view her role on the court. How anti-vaxxers are using covid-19 to further their agenda. And when mail ballots get counted. Read more: During the first day of questioning in Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, she told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she has made “no commitment” to the White House or senators on how she would rule on major cases on the Affordable Care Act, abortion and election disputes. Amber Phillips breaks down how Barrett says she would view her role on the court. The pandemic is amplifying the U.S. anti-vaccine movement — and globalizing it We’ve been taking your questions about voting this year, and how it will be different because of the pandemic. If you have more questions check out The Washington Post’s guide: How to vote in your state in 2020. And if you want to know exactly when mail-in ballots are processed in your state, here’s a comprehensive guide to that. More than a week after we learned the president was sick with covid-19, we still don’t know much more than that. Washington Post podcast Can He Do That? looked at why that matters. Subscribe to The Washington Post: https://postreports.com/offer


The World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize. Does food aid boost peace?

Last week, the Norwegian Nobel Committee named this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, recognizing the World Food Program (WFP) for “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.” With the World Health Organization under pressure and countries such as the United States emphasizing isolationism over international collaboration, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is a push for “international solidarity and multilateral cooperation,” the head of the Norwegian committee said. It is not surprising, therefore, that last week’s announcement was met with near-universal praise, with commentators describing the award as “highly deserved” and “badly needed.” But is there a direct relationship between combating hunger and building peace? Our research helps explain why these linkages are so complicated. Global hunger is on the rise After a steady decline in the prevalence of global undernourishment, the trend has deteriorated in recent years. The covid-19 pandemic is making things worse. WFP estimates that without international assistance, the number of acutely food-insecure people in high-risk countries may nearly double (from 149 million to 270 million) before the end of the year. From conflict to food insecurity … The Nobel committee’s announcement describes the link between hunger and armed conflict as a “vicious circle,” where conflict can cause food insecurity and food insecurity may trigger violence. The first part of this link is clear — almost all of today’s major food crises are in countries experiencing endemic conflict and violence. The WFP spends over 80 percent of its operational budget on humanitarian operations in conflict zones. In September, WFP Executive Director David Beasley wrote, “we can’t end hunger unless we put an end to conflict.” Experts sometimes describe war as development in reverse. Wars often trigger displacement of agricultural livelihoods, or can lead to armed groups looting or destroying crops. And wars can set back progress toward food security for decades. Add in a global pandemic and extreme weather events and it’s easy to see why the United Nations is now warning of the potential for famines of “biblical proportions.” … And food insecurity to conflict But the link from hunger to conflict is less obvious. True, persistent or increasing levels of food insecurity can produce widespread grievances that can motivate people to form groups and


Virginia governor is critical of Trump’s coronavirus response in first appearance since testing positive

the Northams were told to self-quarantine for two weeks. Northam said none tested positive, which he called a “testament” to the value of wearing masks. He noted that masks protected several staff members who could not physically distance from him before he tested positive, including a press secretary, photographer and security detail who traveled in an SUV and airplane with Northam. He contrasted that with the largely mask-free Rose Garden ceremony last month that Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, has called a superspreader event. Trump, first lady Melania Trump and several others subsequently tested positive for the virus. “No masks, no social distancing — and look at the number of people that tested positive,” Northam said Tuesday, referring to the White House event. “We talk about science, it doesn’t get any clearer than that . . . I would remind every Virginian: Masks are scientifically proven to reduce the spread of this disease, plain and simple.” Northam, a former Army doctor and pediatrician, said his and his wife’s symptoms were mild. He warned Virginians not to let down their guard, particularly as cooler fall temperatures and shrinking daylight hours make outdoor socializing less appealing. The governor said he is unlikely to ease pandemic-related restrictions in the near term. He acknowledged pressure to return to in-person education at public schools but urged continued caution. “Numbers are going up in a number of states across this country, so we’re not out of the woods,” he said. “We’re nowhere close to being out of the woods.” The greater Washington region on Tuesday reported 1,763 additional coronavirus cases and 20 deaths. Virginia added 1,235 cases and 11 deaths, Maryland added 482 cases and nine deaths, and the District added 46 cases and no deaths. Virginia’s daily caseload was above its rolling seven-day average, lifting that number to 1,089 — the state’s highest daily average since Aug. 13. The seven-day average in Northern Virginia rose Tuesday to 264 cases, a four-month high in the region. Daily caseloads Tuesday in Maryland and the District were below their rolling seven-day averages. It’s the third consecutive day that both jurisdictions reported new infections at or below their recent average amid an uptick that began earlier this month. The recent caseload rise across the region has coincided with the outbreak at the White House, although local health officials have said it’s unclear whether there’s a connection.


Scientists have a powerful new tool for controlling the coronavirus: Its own genetic code.

at a school are sick, but all have

different
sub-strains of the virus. This suggests the virus was brought into the school from outside, but did not spread within it. The school can safely stay open. Scienceville is a fantasy. But in some countries, researchers and governments are racing to make it a reality — for this pandemic and the ones that follow. The six British patients seemed to have little in common besides this: Each was dealing with kidney failure, and each had tested positive for the coronavirus. They were among scores of virus-stricken people showing up at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge in the early weeks of April. Had they lived in the United States instead of the United Kingdom, the link that allowed the contagion to spread among them might have slipped by unnoticed. But the U.K. had done something in the early days of the pandemic that the United States and many other nations had not. It funded a national push to repeatedly decode the coronavirus genome as it made its way across the country. The process reveals tiny, otherwise invisible changes in the virus’s genetic code, leaving a fingerprint that gives scientists valuable glimpses into how the disease is spreading. It’s a cutting-edge technique that was not widely available in previous global pandemics but that researchers think can help hasten the end of this one. Experts cite this practice, known as “genomic epidemiology,” as one more tool the United States has failed to fully employ in the fight against the virus. Though it first sequenced the 3 billion-base-pair human genome 20 years ago and spends more on basic biomedical research than almost any other nation, the United States has yet to muster the kind of well funded and comprehensive national effort that could produce a more precise accounting of how the coronavirus is infiltrating communities around the country. In the case of the six British patients, sequencing revealed they had been infected by almost identical sub-strains of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19. Epidemiologists soon determined that all six had visited the same outpatient dialysis clinic on the same day of the week. Many had ridden in the same small transport van that regularly brought patients for treatment from across the surrounding area. Officials promptly put in place new safety measures, including


with color, said Paraic Kenny, a cancer researcher-turned-coronavirus geneticist at the Gundersen Health System in La Crosse, Wis. Diagnostic tests can answer a single, binary question about covid-19: infected or not. “But once you start seeing in color, there are all kinds of implications,” Kenny said. It’s possible to know who shares similar sub-strains of the virus, and where those strains likely originated. The shades and nuances of an outbreak become much clearer. This makes viral sequencing a key source of information for contact tracing, which is essential to curbing disease spread before cities and states get overwhelmed. And unlike people, viral genomes don’t lie or forget where they’ve been. Yet for genomic epidemiology to work, scientists say, scale and speed matter. Since one of the most important pieces of information that a genome can reveal is its connection to other cases, the technique becomes more valuable the more samples have been sequenced. The process must also happen quickly enough for health officials to act on the results. In the Netherlands, for instance, sequences can be produced just one day after the initial coronavirus test, said Marion Koopmans of the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, who began working with health authorities to set up sequencing there in January. “What we’ve shown is that you can do it quickly, and then you can feed back the results to clinicians and infection control teams, and you can really investigate outbreaks in real time and put in interventions that help to control them,” said Török, the Cambridge researcher. “There’s no point in doing this weeks or months or years later." The value of sequencing has been clear since it helped fight another deadly disease: Ebola. In 2014, Pardis Sabeti, a computational biologist at the Broad Institute, used sequencing to reveal that the devastating Ebola outbreak in West Africa began with a single spillover from an animal to a human in Guinea. From there, it spread from person to person across the region. The findings strengthened the health response to the epidemic by documenting how contact with infected people, rather than bats and other animal hosts, was the most important mode of transmission. After that outbreak, Sabeti became an evangelist for genomic surveillance of infectious diseases in the United States. She got a grant from the CDC to train employees at state and city public health departments in sequencing and analysis. She urged


The small city farm: An oasis in food deserts, during the pandemic and beyond

eight feet and filled with deep, rich soil. That’s a lot of growing area; the beds generate bushels of edible plants for most of the year. A shed houses tools, a single beehive is active, a few fruit trees ring the area, and one side is devoted to little benches for little people. The center, which normally houses classes for 188 children up to age 5, has been closed because of the pandemic, though a limited reopening is in the works. Williams, a teacher and the garden coordinator, shows me cool-season veggies growing in the fall, young plants of kale, collards, cauliflower, broccoli and red cabbage. In other planters, mature plants are seeing out the season in robust vigor. The most obvious is a single pepper plant — now taller than Williams — whose leaves hide unripe green chiles that hang like ornaments. This is a mighty hot pepper from Trinidad named Scorpion, she said, and I have no doubt that it has a sting in its tail. Nearby, a Japanese eggplant is full of purple streaked fruit. Along another path, Williams stops to lift a wayward cherry tomato vine and places it back in its bed. “I don’t like to step on my babies,” she said. Elsewhere, wizened sunflowers have had their day. “We bring the kids out, we show them how to plant seeds, what the plants need,” she said. “It’s getting folks exposed to the garden.” Food from the garden is used in the center’s kitchen. Thus the children (and their families) get a sense that food comes from the soil. This is not so obvious a connection in Ward 8. In this corner of the capital of the United States, there is one full-service grocery store for 80,000 people, and access to something as basic as fresh vegetables is limited. “We have a lack of grocery stores,” said Jahni Threatt, the CSA market manager for the nonprofit Building Bridges Across the River. “In Wards 7 and 8, we have three grocery stores.” Residents eat from fast-food chains or out of convenience stores and liquor stores. “The food that’s available isn’t necessarily healthy,” she said. Under Community Supported Agriculture programs, or CSAs, growers provide direct weekly harvests to subscribers. The Baby Bloomers Urban Farm that Williams coordinates at the National Children’s Center is one of seven in a network of city farms east of the Anacostia River,


Covid-19 is shaking up pop culture. Imagine what it’ll do to everything else.

of foreign viewers if the American box office becomes less lucrative. Even if movies don’t die, the transformation of a populist art form that gave us common touchstones into yet another driver of America’s cultural continental drift would be a seismic change. And though streaming has fared well during the pandemic, television isn’t without its challenges. According to an industry report That dip, a product of pandemic-induced production shutdowns, isn’t likely to be permanent — at least, as long as Netflix continues throwing money around and other outlets stay in an arms race with it. Still, it wouldn’t be shocking if we’ve seen the absolute heights of Peak TV and now are settling into a world with somewhat less television, especially given the costs associated with keeping casts and crews safe during an ongoing pandemic. Those budget realities have already killed — or un-renewed — some shows. It will be intriguing to see if coronavirus considerations change, at least in the short term, outlets’ estimations of what shows cost to make, and correspondingly, what they’re willing to greenlight. It’s harder to imagine seeing battle scenes — or sex scenes — on the scale that “Game of Thrones” staged them before a vaccine is available worldwide. And finally, it’s worth watching how the pandemic affects Hollywood’s push for gender equity. English actress Keira Knightley recently dropped out of an Apple TV+ show she was starring in and producing because she couldn’t work out a child-care arrangement that felt safe to her. Stars have different resources than ordinary working women, but if the pandemic drives actresses and female directors out of the workplace, it could set back an industry that wasn’t very far along in the journey toward equity to begin with. In recent years, blockbuster movies have conditioned us to treat world-upending disasters as entertainment. But in the movies, when aliens invade or cities turn into rubble, everything else stays pretty much the same. Now, a real catastrophe is here. The havoc the pandemic wreaks on our diversions might be just the beginning. Read more Peter Franchot: We can’t let Main Street become a ghost town Gina Raimondo and Mary Kay Henry: Women are bearing the brunt of the economic crisis. They have to lead our recovery plans. Megan McArdle: Be prepared to say goodbye to movie theaters David Ignatius: There’s no question we’ll be living in a different world post-pandemic


D.C. region’s coronavirus caseload hits two-month high; officials say small gatherings are fueling rise

The number of new coronavirus infections across the greater Washington region jumped to a two-month high Wednesday as D.C.’s top health official said small social gatherings are helping to fuel the virus’s spread. The seven-day rolling average of new cases across Virginia, Maryland and the District stood at 1,801 — the highest since the average hit 1,916 cases Aug. 13. The increase has coincided with cooler temperatures and an outbreak at the White House, although local health officials say any connection to a late-September Rose Garden event is unclear. Among patients who contracted the novel coronavirus in D.C. in the first week of October, nearly a quarter had attended a social gathering of at least five people in the two weeks before they got sick, city Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt said Wednesday. One out of 5 had eaten at a restaurant. Nesbitt provided some of the most detailed information yet on what contact tracers have learned about the sources of coronavirus infection in the nation’s capital. She said about 17 percent of patients had recently traveled outside the Washington area before testing positive for the virus, and nearly 22 percent reported going to work. The most common type of work for those who tested positive was in the health-care industry. Nesbitt said work, travel, restaurant dining and socializing are the four most concerning types of activities that health officials are noticing, but she added that almost half of the 374 patients in the sample reported doing none of those four activities. That doesn’t mean half the patients stayed home, she said. They might have shopped at a grocery store, met in person with one or two friends, worshiped in church, worked out at the gym or gotten a manicure. About 6 percent of patients reported worshiping at a faith activity, and 6 percent also reported a “personal care” activity such as a haircut. Nesbitt said both of those numbers were higher in early October than at any other point during the pandemic. Contact tracers do not ask those who visited restaurants whether they ate indoors or outdoors, she said, but they do ask details about the social gatherings that patients attended. Nesbitt said about half the gatherings included five to 10 people, while 20 percent had more than 20 attendees. Health officials in Maryland and Virginia have also said small social gatherings are helping to fuel an increase in the


(MVA) in Prince George’s County died of the coronavirus, and four other workers in the department’s Largo branch office have tested positive. Whitney Nichels, a Maryland MVA spokeswoman, said the agency was notified of the first case Oct. 5. Officials were also told about the most recent case of an employee testing positive Oct. 10. “We are deeply saddened to share that one of those employees has since passed away,” Nichels said in a statement. “We have been in contact with that team member’s family, and grief counselors are being arranged for staff at the Largo branch office as we get through this tragedy together as an MDOT MVA family.” Nichels said the branch office, which assists the public with driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations, has been cleaned and disinfected twice in the past two weeks, once Oct. 5 and again Tuesday. The state confirmed the death and the additional coronavirus cases after the union representing state workers made the outbreak public. Union officials said the administration of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) did not notify workers of the positive cases and failed to protect them. Nichels said contact-tracing is underway and that employees who had interactions with the infected co-workers are in quarantine. “My heart goes out to our members who are dealing with this crisis,” Mildred Womble, the AFSCME MVA local president and Council 3 executive vice president, said in a statement. “This was all preventable if management had taken the safety of their employees seriously.” Walter Powell, who works as a customer agent and serves as shop steward, said he has been in quarantine because he was in contact with a worker who tested positive. Powell said he found out about the death of his colleague on Facebook and notified his manager. “We service the public,” he said. “How many people have been in contact with [the agent who died] and the other workers?” The Largo branch has 76 employees, Nichels said, which means nearly 7 percent of the staff has contracted the virus in recent weeks. The greater Washington region Wednesday reported 1,444 additional coronavirus cases and 20 deaths. Virginia added 805 cases and nine deaths, Maryland added 575 cases and 10 deaths, and the District added 64 cases and one death. While caseloads have risen across the region this month, the rolling seven-day average death toll has held steady at about 20 daily virus-related fatalities.


Don’t be fooled. Myanmar’s ‘democratic election’ is a sham.

of their lives is controlled by the state. It is important to stress that we are not concerned only about Rohingya rights. In an extremely worrying move, the Myanmar election commission is allowing the generals to decide whether people living in conflict-affected areas will be excluded from voting. The military is fighting conflicts against ethnic armed groups in several parts of the country. This potentially means that other minority communities — Shan, Karen, Kachin — could also be stripped of the vote at the military’s whim. At the same time, the authorities continue to impose arbitrary Internet bans across two states, denying people access to the information they need to make an informed choice. A fresh outbreak of the coronavirus complicates things further. Lockdown restrictions have particularly hampered smaller parties that lack the name recognition of Suu Kyi’s NLD. The government’s handling of the virus has been suspect at best. A government spokesperson has even claimed that Myanmar people’s superior “lifestyle and diet” protects them from the virus. The United States and the rest of the international community should not fall for this charade. They should push the Myanmar government to ensure that democratic rights are protected, for Rohingya inside Myanmar and in Bangladesh, as well as for all those caught in areas of conflict or under threat of covid-19. Democracies around the world can no longer stand by and watch Myanmar continue to erase Rohingya from our homes, our territory, our shared history and now from political life. As Americans prepare to vote, they are being reminded of how important free and fair elections are to the integrity of any democracy. They also know that one election cannot make up for broken institutions. For my people, and other ethnic communities, military rule continues unabated. The approaching election in Myanmar highlights the civilian government’s complicity with the generals’ continuing abuse of power. We count on democratic countries around the world, including the United States, to stand with us in our struggle. Read more Christian Caryl: One of the world’s most vulnerable groups now finds itself confronting covid-19 The Post’s View: Three years since their genocide began, the Rohingya remain desperate for help Maung Zarni: Why Myanmar’s genocide denial will come back to haunt it The Post’s View: For Myanmar, too much impunity and too little accountability António Guterres: The Rohingya are victims of ethnic cleansing. The world has failed them.


The Health 202: A court with Amy Coney Barrett is more likely to reinterpret Roe than reverse it

experts have called for greater disclosure given the intense public interest in the trials. Johnson & Johnson is the second pharmaceutical company to pause a late-stage vaccine trial. AstraZeneca paused its trial twice after two participants experienced rare neurological side effects. The trial was quickly restarted in most countries after the second pause in early September, but it remains halted in the United States. U.S. coronavirus cases are rising with 40 states reporting week-to-week increases in infections, even as at least a dozen states are reporting increased hospitalizations, The Post’s William Wan and Jacqueline Dupree report. “For almost a month, new U.S. cases have been trending upward. Since Saturday, more than 20 states have hit a new high in their seven-day average of case counts, and more than half of those states set records again on Tuesday, according to data tracked by The Washington Post,” Wan and Dupree report. Midwestern states, many of which were spared in the early months of the virus, are now being hit especially hard. It’s still not clear what is driving the uptick, although it could be related to a combination of factors, including changing weather, reopening of businesses and schools, or people relaxing their social distancing precautions as the pandemic wears on. “The rising numbers are especially concerning because they set the stage for an even greater surge this winter when the virus will be helped by drier conditions and people spending more time indoors,” Wan and Dupree write. “The upward trend comes before the increased mingling of people expected to arrive with Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.” By repeatedly sequencing the coronavirus genome as it spreads, scientists in the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland and other countries can detect minute changes in the genetic code and trace outbreaks. The United States, however, has lagged far behind other countries in decoding virus genomes, The Post’s Brady Dennis, Chris Mooney, Sarah Kaplan and Harry Stevens report. “Nearly 10 months after infections began surfacing in the United States, the country has sequenced just 0.4 percent of its more than 7 million coronavirus cases — a proportion surpassed by 40 other countries,” Dennis, Mooney, Kaplan and Stevens write. Genetic epidemiology can give scientists insights into the source of an outbreak. If three children at the same school all test positive with the virus, genetic sequencing of the virus could help determine if the children all contracted the same sub-strain,


Transcript: America’s Health Future: The Impact of COVID-19 on Our Health Systems

negative. They used this Abbott BinaxNOW test, which is not meant for this, and so they're using the wrong test. But more importantly, it is unquestionable to me based on all the evidence that we have and all the deception that the president suffered from a COVID pneumonia, that his chest, lung CT scan was abnormal due to pneumonia, and he also had significant desaturation of his oxygen. Now, the CDC states that that should be a 20-day time, not 10 days. So, basically, it's at odds with the CDC guidelines for moderate to severe, that is, a COVID pneumonia case. And that's unfortunate because this is just not communicated properly, and the wrong tests are being done. This has nothing to do with having to do a physical examination of the president, Paige. This is about knowing what the guidelines are and the fact that there's these missing pieces of data that seem to be a recurrent issue throughout the entire communication path of the president's illness. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, I know we need to wrap up soon. I know we could talk forever about these matters. I just want to ask you one more question. Scientific American recently endorsed Joe Biden for president, and we've seen the New England Journal of Medicine call for Trump to be voted out of office. Should scientific publications voice political opinions like this or remain nonpartisan? DR. TOPOL: Well, yeah, and you can add to that list, Paige, Science magazine and The Lancet, and yes, I do think that we are at a rarified time in our lives as far as politics having invaded science. If we had let science lead the way in the pandemic for the U.S., we'd be in a different state right now. So, the reckless--the things that have happened since the beginning of the U.S. pandemic with this denial and total mismanagement leads to these important editors of journals and magazines to call for a change and to call out this as "dangerously incompetent," as the New England Journal put it, and the lies and the anti-science. So, we have to stand up for that, and yes, it's unusual. It's unprecedented, but so is our time being unprecedented. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it at that, but thank you so much, Dr. Eric Topol, for being with us today. DR.


the final example of calls for essentially trying to get to herd immunity, without a vaccine available, without any other essential interventions taken. In this case, they're calling it "focused protection." So, their idea is that they would focus some kinds of rings of protection around the most vulnerable, you know, senior citizens stay-in-your-cage kind of approach. But the only countries around the world that have had real success in holding their COVID numbers down to quite minimal infections and really small numbers of deaths have been individual nations that have taken very strict social distancing approaches, mandated nationally the use of masks, and then once they got their levels way down and the amount of virus circulating in the nation came to some reasonably low level, then they approached focused testing, focused cluster analysis, contact tracing to find each outbreak as it might occur and stop it before it spread further. So, we're talking about countries like Japan, Iceland, New Zealand, Finland, and China, frankly, but here in the United States, we've taken a total chaos response. We have a different strategy in every single state, and in some states, we have strategies that vary county by county. We have no consistent pattern of response and no agreed-upon strategic goal from one part of the country to the other and certainly not at the federal level. So we're not in a position to sit around waiting for herd immunity, and I would add that more and more nations around the world, especially in Europe, are finding that the major spreaders of COVID-19 are, in fact, the very age group that the Great Barrington Declaration thinks should be allowed to roam freely and no longer be under mask orders or restrictions on their behavior, namely people aged between 20 and 40. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: I want to ask you about that topic of what we know about how much people spread the virus at different ages and particularly on the school issue, and as you know, we've seen many, many districts go to all virtual. But what we've seen--I know at The Post, we've reported this--there have been fewer outbreaks at least at K-through-12 schools than many had originally projected, and I feel like I'm hearing increasing frustration that we took this sort of aggressive approach to schools which, as you know, have huge effects on kids. Can you talk


what should they do, how should they do it, so that the nation was really coordinated in a single epidemic response. We do not have that today. We have none of that. Zero of what I just described is going on today. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: I know that you've taken a lot of time looking at other countries and how they've responded to the pandemic, and I'd love to hear which countries you think have done the best job versus not as good of a job in controlling the virus. And I'd also like you, if you would, to comment on Sweden because its response has become the topic of much controversy and debate. We know it stayed away from the lockdowns early on and had a very high death rate, and yet now it looks like it's having one of the lowest rates of new cases in Europe. So, what do you think about Sweden specifically and then other countries overall? MS. GARRETT: Yeah. There are many countries that we should look to that have had tremendous success and that we can hold up as examples to the world, and they are not all rich countries. I mean, let's start with the whole continent of Africa, startlingly low levels of COVID-19 across the entire continent. South Africa had a scare, but they seem to have brought it really, truly under control. And I think, you know, six months ago, everybody would have said, hands down, the worst epidemics will all be in Africa because of their resource scarcities and their paucity of health care facilities, but that's not been the case. And we could talk about why. And then let me just jump to a few other countries, circle back to whatever interests you. I mentioned Japan earlier. Japan had a very aggressive response. They went on lockdown for six weeks and came out of it with just cluster responses here and there. They have a prevalence of COVID-19--actually, it's an incidence of 1.2 per 100,000 population, whereas compare that to us, we're at 66 per 100,000. So, we are far, far worse than Japan. You can take a country like Vietnam, not a booming economy, not a huge prosperous nation, and yet they've had almost no COVID crisis at all. Ditto Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, and what's in common about much of these Asian countries that I'm naming--South


start with the whole continent of Africa, startlingly low levels of COVID-19 across the entire continent. South Africa had a scare, but they seem to have brought it really, truly under control. And I think, you know, six months ago, everybody would have said, hands down, the worst epidemics will all be in Africa because of their resource scarcities and their paucity of health care facilities, but that's not been the case. And we could talk about why. And then let me just jump to a few other countries, circle back to whatever interests you. I mentioned Japan earlier. Japan had a very aggressive response. They went on lockdown for six weeks and came out of it with just cluster responses here and there. They have a prevalence of COVID-19--actually, it's an incidence of 1.2 per 100,000 population, whereas compare that to us, we're at 66 per 100,000. So, we are far, far worse than Japan. You can take a country like Vietnam, not a booming economy, not a huge prosperous nation, and yet they've had almost no COVID crisis at all. Ditto Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, and what's in common about much of these Asian countries that I'm naming--South Korea would be one that struggled and then brought things under control--is that they had prior experience with either SARS or MERS, the other two big coronaviruses. And they learned a lot from that. They've instituted policies that were based from the very beginning of this COVID crisis on their learning experiences with SARS or, in the case of South Korea, with MERS, the Middle East respiratory syndrome virus. In Europe, the best examples of real success are Iceland, Finland, which has had a far better response to the COVID crisis than Sweden, ranks number one among the Nordic nations, and we might also consider looking carefully at Germany, which is [audio distortion] now but had good results before now. In Latin America, we see some real progress, and it's hard to name a real success story in Latin America, certainly not [audio distortion]. [Technical difficulties] MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Do you project more global pandemic of this nature? MS. GARRETT: I'm sorry. There's some technical interference. I'm hearing somebody talk in the background while I'm on the line, and I don't hear you. Well, I will speak to you, and hopefully, somebody at your end will correct this issue. But


During the pandemic, a lifelong travel writer takes a journey inward to reflect on what he has learned around the globe

aurora borealis, I wondered aloud if sheep in their winter pens could dream. And if sheep could dream, did they dream of green grasses and a glorious summer with no darkness? Of blue fjords and glaciers and mushrooms? We all agreed that they must. As I sit here now, wearing the musty old Bevar Christiania sweatshirt (its pocket hanging by a thread), typing in the present tense, all this feels like another lifetime ago. We are different people now. When I visit Trine these days, I stay with her family, and we trade stories about our children. We’re much more likely to eat at one of Copenhagen’s world-class “new Nordic” restaurants than to visit Christiania. I am no longer the sort of naively adventurous person who lights out for politically unstable places with a backpack. In Italy, on my visits to Pieve San Giacomo, I now take time to stop by the gravesites of Paolo and Aunt Gina, who both died years ago. We aren’t the only ones to have changed. The places themselves have, too. So many foreign tourists visit Iceland that, in recent years, it has become a cautionary tale of the consequences of overtourism. Nicaragua has slid backward, run for the past decade by authoritarian Ortega, whose paramilitary forces have killed hundreds. Even the Italy I first encountered is quite different than it was three decades ago, and likely will be transformed even more after its oldest generation was hit hard by the pandemic. What travel has taught me is that the things of the world are only ever temporary — though, once in a while, the temporary can become eternal. I hope that we will be able to travel, to interact with and witness the world again in the near future. When we do, it will certainly seem strange. But when has travel not been strange? We don’t need a pandemic to show us this, but the pause we’re experiencing can highlight a basic truth: We may or may not walk this way again, and even if we do, we will never be precisely the same people who experienced that journey in the first place. Travel is only ever about a moment in time and space, but it’s also about how we choose to hold that moment in our memories. It is always both present and past. Jason Wilson has been the series editor of “


Lights on the track are helping runners shatter world records

and Cheptegei ran the remainder of their respective races solo, accompanied to the finish line by only the flashing lights. While the blue bulbs might have aided Cheptegei’s pacers, he downplayed their impact on his 5,000-meter record. “My mind was not actually on the wavelight,” he told LetsRun.com in August. “After the pacemakers were going, I was not after the light. It was Cheptegei and the world record.” But others see clear benefits, and Gidey and Cheptegei showed remarkable consistency throughout their lengthy runs. For Cheptegei’s 10,000-meter record (26:11.00), except for his final 1,000-meter stretch, every other 1,000-meter split was within a second of 2:37, a metronomic mark that would be difficult to replicate with just a watch. The steady pacing allowed Cheptegei to break the 10,000-meter mark by 6.53 seconds, barely seven weeks after he bettered the 5,000 record by two seconds. Gidey’s run in the 5,000 last week (14:06.62) shed nearly five seconds off the record. Molly Huddle, a two-time Olympian from the United States, watched the runs online and could immediately see the benefits. While many factors go into a record-breaking run, previous generations didn’t have the aid of mechanical pacing. “It’s so hard to find pacing for the level of running needed to get things like world records,” she said in an email, “that I think it’s an exciting piece of technology that can help record setters in many different categories have a visual incentive to chase when they are alone on the track after pacers step away.” Cheptegei, Gidey and this whole generation of distance runners have turned to high-tech shoes, such as Nike’s Dragonfly and Vaporfly spikes. After much debate, World Athletics gave a green light to the shoes earlier this year. Drawing less attention, it also amended its rule book to allow for “electronic lights or similar appliance indicating progressive times during a race.” “We are in 2020,” Cheptegei told LetsRun.com. “We are not in 1980s; we are not in 1990s; we are not in 1970s. So every time we have to accept the new developments in the sport, the new technology.” Hermens, who staged last week’s Valencia meet, has heard from detractors but said every generation has faced an older guard that resists change. “Should we go back to the Greek times and run barefoot? Come on,” he said. “Let’s be honest: Our sport is already suffering, and if we listen to


Community deaths

neighborhood children near her home in Berwyn Heights, Md., died Oct. 1 at an assisted-living center in Adelphi, Md. The cause was atherosclerosis, said a daughter, Joanne Howard. Mrs. Beardsley was born Phyllis Miller in York County, Pa., and grew up in the Washington area. She was a child-care provider from 1995 to 2000. Earlier, she was a proofreader for six years for the Beardsley-Howard TV production and graphic design company. Ana Maria Pezo, 67, a lawyer who for 20 years practiced family law and immigration law in Arlington, Va., and then Annandale, Va., died Sept. 5 at a hospital in Baltimore. The cause was multiple myeloma and amyloidosis, said a daughter, Inez Pezo. Mrs. Pezo, a resident of McLean, Va., was born Ana Maria Cuitino in Valparaiso, Chile. She was a law professor in Lima, Peru, before settling in the United States in 1989. She had her own law practice from 1997 to 2018. She specialized in representing minorities in litigation in federal courts. Willard Jasper, 84, an Army lieutenant colonel and Vietnam War veteran who served in the Medical Service Corps, died Oct. 4 at his home at Fort Belvoir, Va. The cause was complications of a duodenal ulcer, said a son-in-law, Steven Feldman. Col. Jasper was born in Brooklyn, W.Va., and served 21 years in the Army before retiring in 1980 as a specialist in computerizing medical records. In retirement, he was president of a real estate holding company, a vice president and director of corporate services at Dichroma, a defense contractor specializing in facilities management. He was a deacon at Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., and vice chairman of the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority. John Kafka, 99, a psychoanalyst who was clinical professor emeritus of psychiatry at George Washington University, where he taught for 34 years until his retirement in 2007, died Oct. 13 at a hospital in Bethesda, Md. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a son, Alexander Kafka. Dr. Kafka, who lived in Bethesda, was born in Linz, Austria. He had a private psychoanalytic practice in the Washington area since 1957 and served as a training analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute since 1973. He was a staff psychiatrist at the Chestnut Lodge psychiatric institution in Rockville, Md., for 10 years until 1967, a past president of the Washington Psychoanalytic Society, a life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association


Why you may want to consider a travel agent during the pandemic

Whenever Americans start traveling again, they will quickly find that travel planning looks significantly different in the era of covid-19. Instead of scouring the Internet for the best deals and new destinations, they will have to study border restrictions and quarantine requirements. To navigate the complicated landscape of traveling during the pandemic, people are turning to travel agents, some for the first time. InteleTravel As someone who normally relies on her own incessant Googling to plan travel, I wanted to clear up my misconceptions about travel agents (increasingly known as travel advisers) about what they do, what they charge and how they can be helpful. So I spoke with Ferrara and Bahar Schmidt, the co-founder of the travel agency and resale platform Eluxit, about the appeal. For many people, travel is something to do for fun. For travel agents, it’s work. We may have stopped planning trips when the pandemic started, but travel agents continued to study it for their clients’ needs. Schmidt says Eluxit agents have been staying informed by attending webinars hosted by airlines, hotel brands and destinations to better advise clients. “There are hundreds [of webinars] on a daily basis to choose from,” Schmidt says. Unlike the average traveler, travel agents are constantly studying the industry. They’re surveying when an airline releases new routes, watching for updates on passport services, monitoring when countries open their borders to Americans. Then they digest that information and share what’s important with their clients. They are also focusing on new safety concerns. Some agencies coordinate rapid coronavirus testing for customers, or they provide updated safety information for travelers’ peace of mind. For example, Schmidt recently worked with a client to decide on an airline based on its covid-19 precautions and a car transfer that she knew followed social distancing strictly. “A lot of people are still kind of worried about traveling. It’s comforting just to hear somebody’s voice saying, it’s okay ... this is what they’re going to serve you on the airplane, this is what you should prepare for,” Schmidt says. At a time when many travelers are scrounging for refunds on canceled flights, travel agents are better equipped to deal with those hassles. “We have expert access. We have industry relationships. There are tools we can use,” Ferrara says. He says “when customers have had to sit on the phone, wait and wait and wait, and the system hangs


China’s Xi lays out plan to build Shenzhen into global rival to troubled Hong Kong

SEOUL — Shenzhen and Hong Kong have long represented two visions of China's development, separated only by a seam of water. To the north of the Sham Chun River, Shenzhen is governed by mainland law and is home to China's high-tech champions Huawei and Tencent. To the south, Hong Kong was the outward-facing one, an English-speaking center of finance and trade that was allowed — until recently — a greater measure of free speech. Beijing is now pushing the balance in favor of Shenzhen, with a new blueprint to turn the city into a world-class hub for finance, trade and other sectors that have long been Hong Kong's remit. It is, in effect, doubling down on its domestic economic experiment, while leaving the prospects uncertain for the other one across the river, the former British colony that continues to resist Beijing's rule. In a speech Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans to build Shenzhen into a "model city" of innovative industries and rule of law, while touting closer integration of Hong Kong into the mainland economy. In the audience was Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who had delayed her annual policy address to attend. "We are forming a new development pattern with the domestic economy cycle playing a leading role," Xi said. The top-level support for Shenzhen was meant to be a message for Hong Kong, said Victor Gao, a professor at China's Soochow University and a former Foreign Ministry official. "If you do not have stability, if you are caught up in revolution, or great turmoil, or anarchy, then you will lose out on whatever advantages and resources you may have previously had," Gao said. "Then your economic development will reverse course." Since last year, Hong Kong has been rocked by sometimes violent protests against Beijing's tightening grip on the city. The ensuing crackdown led to thousands of arrests and China's imposition of a national security law that sharply curtails political freedoms and has spurred doubts among international businesses about Hong Kong's viability as a base for their operations. On Wednesday, Xi gave the speech in Shenzhen to mark the 40th anniversary of the city’s designation as a special economic zone, or SEZ. That event helped turn China into an economic powerhouse. The country’s leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, designated the then fishing village as a test bed for international trade and market overhauls. Shenzhen holds


Edward C. Meyer, general who revamped post-Vietnam ‘hollow Army,’ dies at 91

1981, military funding increased, and Gen. Meyer led an effort to modernize the Army and raise the readiness and morale of troops. When he took over the Army’s top post, he said only six of its 10 divisions at the time were combat-ready. Almost half of the Army’s 750,000 troops were overseas, leaving many stateside units threadbare or depleted. The Army had a shortage of sergeants and reserve officers, and unit leaders were rotated so often that they scarcely got to know the troops under their command. In Gen. Meyer’s first year on the job, more than 20 senior generals retired or were replaced, easing the way toward new approaches to the Army’s internal organization and procedures. It was essential, Gen. Meyer said, to create a “vision of where we were going so that we weren’t trapped, as armies in the past have been, into just being a mirror of the kind of army we were before.” He came to terms with the post-Vietnam, all-volunteer Army, although he would have preferred a return to military draft. “I have great concern about the future of a nation in which there is no responsibility for service placed upon the people,” Gen. Meyer told the Times in 1983. “Soldiers should not go off to war without having the nation behind them,” he said. One of the lessons of Vietnam, he added, was that “it became quite clear that the will of the people, the resources of the nation, and the Army weren’t clearly linked in that war.” Gen. Meyer sought to improve the pay and educational benefits for enlisted service members and noncommissioned officers, which helped in recruitment. He toughened the Army’s training requirements, adding two weeks to basic training and an hour to each day’s drills. One of Gen. Meyer’s most notable innovations was the “cohort program,” which kept company-size units, generally consisting of about 120 troops, relatively intact for three years, creating greater cohesion. He used a similar approach for larger units of 1,000 soldiers or more, maintaining stability when they were deployed to bases abroad. Some changes that seemed minor to outsiders — such as allowing members of airborne units to wear distinctive burgundy berets — helped boost esprit de corps. Throughout his four-year tenure as chief of staff, Gen. Meyer sought to modernize the Army’s weapon systems, moving away from the heavy tanks built for the Cold War to


NCAA will allow winter-sport athletes to receive an extra season of eligibility

The NCAA’s Division I Council voted to give eligibility relief to winter-sport athletes regardless of how many games they play during the 2020-21 academic year. Athletes now have the opportunity to play five seasons within a six-year span rather than the typical four seasons in five years. Winter sports are set to begin in the upcoming months, and some of those seasons will resemble a normal schedule. However, the circumstances presented by the novel coronavirus pandemic will make the experience different from what athletes envisioned when they pursued college sports. With the virus still spreading throughout the country, teams could face postponements or cancellations during their seasons. Some athletes also might want to opt out given the risks of contracting the virus as a result of participating in practices and competition. “The pandemic will continue to impact winter sport seasons in ways we can’t predict. Council members opted to provide for winter sport student-athletes the same flexibility given spring and fall sports previously,” M. Grace Calhoun, the Division I Council chair and the athletic director at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. “The actions today ensure the continuation of local decision-making in the best interest of each institution and its student-athletes.” Winter sports include basketball, gymnastics, swimming and diving, indoor track and field, ice hockey and wrestling. The NCAA delayed the start of the men’s and women’s college basketball seasons two weeks, with games set to tip off Nov. 25. The council already granted eligibility relief to spring-sport athletes whose seasons were cut short because of the pandemic, as well as fall-sport athletes. Some conferences are playing fall sports as scheduled and others have postponed until the spring, but regardless of the circumstances, this year will not count against an athlete’s eligibility. Many winter-sport athletes missed out on the postseason of their 2019-20 campaigns, but they did not receive any eligibility relief, with the council noting that those athletes had the opportunity to compete in nearly their entire seasons. The NCAA canceled all championship events, including the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, March 12, abruptly ending the seasons and careers of many athletes. Eligibility relief is viewed as a fair resolution for athletes whose seasons have been affected by the pandemic, but it’s complex and presents logistical challenges. Schools self-apply this waiver for eligibility relief, meaning they get to choose whether athletes are allowed the extra season. Some


Transcript: Race in America: Ending Poverty

conversation, it will make you and your organization stronger on a collection of different fronts. And it goes back to this other fundamental thing that when we're talking about businesses, what they can do is, are we actually supporting financial institutions, vendors and suppliers who are minority-owned, Black-owned organizations? I think about what's happening right now, the fact that we have 5,100 banks in this country right now that represent approximately $20 trillion in assets. Now, if you break that down, there are 18 Black banks which represent $18 billion in assets. These are financial institutions that oftentimes have the closest connections to the communities. I can tell you right now, for a young entrepreneur in East Baltimore, you know, one of the--if they have an interesting idea and they're looking for capital, I can tell you one of the first places they're looking to go access capital is Harbor Bank. It's the local bank. It's the CDFI. It's the MDI. And so, we as a corporate community also have to be really thoughtful about what it means to be able to better protect and support and elevate our financial institutions, our businesses, our suppliers and vendors, and that means that it gives the business community a really creative opportunity to be thoughtful about ways they are impacting social change in the communities that they are actually driving customers as well. MS. NORRIS: But there's a--there's a little bit of a snag that I hear over and over again from the business community. You had said in September that this is not just an issue of economics and equality; it's an issue of humanity. But when you're talking about equality and social justice, it has taken on a partisan patina, that some people feel like if they get involved in this, that they're choosing sides, that it's like if we support social justice, we're supporting the liberals. How do you also address and interrogate that issue? Because that's preventing some people and some businesses, and businesses with a lot of capital and a lot of muscle from effectively stepping into this arena. MR. MOORE: I think part of the thing we have to remind the business community is that humanity--humanity doesn't have a side. You know, people's basic dignity does not have a side. It does not have a party affiliation. It does not vote one way versus another way.


Transcript: Confronting America’s Digital Divide

right direction. Tokenistic announcements don't help. The actual data, bottom-up data when we survey shows Black and Hispanic about 10 years behind. The penetration rate is changing. That is when we start to see a difference. MR. SCOTT: You know, one approach to the digital divide that we are hearing quite often, it's about the issue of rights and this being a civil right. The access to Internet is a fundamental right, even a prerequisite to being able to function completely in a modern society. What are your thoughts on that? MR. WALIA: Yes, absolutely. You know, COVID showed us the lack of access to connectivity and tech can have a major impact in one's life on health. So yes, I do believe going forward this is something which is going to change globally and just especially in the U.S., which connectivity is going to become a fundamental right. MR. SCOTT: I've also read some of your work and seen interviews, and you've talked about the digital divide being a ticking time bomb, the idea that, you know, we don't have forever to address this issue. You've even been a bit disappointed that there's still been some resistance to moving forward in the direction that you deem is best. Can you talk a bit about the reasons for that resistance? MR. WALIA: I think one has to accept reality. You know, it's very important to know the data is there which shows this gap. So I'm going to give you a perspective from an investment perspective of if you look at the spectrum of digitization, what it's doing globally, and look at, say, the country, break it from 1 to 100, from skilled to unskilled, what digitization is doing and big tech is doing is essentially through the automation it's sucking up productivity from the bottom half of the skilled force and transferring through world [unclear] to the top 5 percent. That's why the question I was always asked, why are the markets not reflecting the underlying economy, of what's happening in the underlying country, that disconnect that is there. And then on top of that you've got this powerful backstop of [unclear] which has gone up for quite some time, which provide liquidity to these companies and markets where every time there is some slowdown or correction the backstop gives an ability to behave and go out there and


the country, rural areas mostly, where there is no viable access to the Internet. But then there are the pockets we are focused on where adoption is really the larger issue, and that's urban centers, metropolitan areas, where the Internet access is readily available, yet and still there's so many barriers to adoption, quite frankly. If we take a step back and just think about poverty in this country, you know, you talked about those children, 38 million people in America are living in poverty, and amidst COVID every single challenge they're facing, including lack of Internet access, has been exacerbated, whether it's job security, housing security, knowing where your next meal is going to come from. All of these are very complicating before COVID and certainly complicated now. And so, we've decided that our focus would be on what we consider to be the three most significant barriers to adoption. In this time of COVID, many more partners have joined us in fighting this digital divide, this opportunity divide. But those three barriers are simply, one is affordability. We've had our Internet Essentials product, high-speed Internet, $9.95 a month. Second is access to equipment, so access to free and discounted laptops, tablets. We know these are key devices to Internet access, especially from home. While smartphone access is available to many, we all know that applying for a job, trying to access health care, and of course virtual schooling is impossible with just smartphone access. And probably the most critical barrier is just access to skills, awareness, and knowledge. So, some families believe, well, out of necessity, you know, I need to work outside the home, I don't have children in the home, so it seems like, you know, it's not a critical tool that you need. Or there's trust issues. We see this a lot in immigrant populations. But we know that once people are connected and have access and know how to access resources, whether it's access to free, high-quality job training, health care resources, et cetera, that that makes all the difference and really helps stave that adoption process. And that's really what we're trying to promote, those three barriers. We know we can't do it alone but we're committed to doing everything we can to support that. MR. DIAZ-BALART: Delila, I'm just wondering, I've seen Internet Essentials evolve, and given COVID-19, and the situation has


New ways to protect your 2021 vacation

widely. And coverage is largely untested. In other words, travelers have filed relatively few covid-19 claims, and we don’t know how the insurance companies will process these claims. The travel insurance site Squaremouth reports that 81 percent of policies purchased include trip cancellation benefits. Twenty-two percent of all policies provide “cancel for any reason” insurance, a 552 percent increase from last year. Policies that cover any cancellation will cost 10 to 12 percent of the cost of your trip — roughly double the price of regular travel insurance — and they refund 50 to 75 percent of the cost of your trip. The travel insurance site AARDY.com says more than half of its customers are choosing cancel-for-any-reason coverage, despite the higher cost. Health insurance is an item often overlooked by travelers. “Most U.S. health insurance plans will not cover you outside of the United States in the event of a medical emergency, such as an injury or sickness that requires hospitalization or evacuation,” says Christine Buggy, vice president of marketing at Travelex Insurance. The fix is a supplemental health insurance plan. (If you’re on Medicare, look for a Medigap policy that covers you overseas.) Many travel insurance policies also cover health-care expenses on international trips. Cautious travelers can go beyond travel and supplemental health insurance, buying a membership in a service such as Medjet or Global Rescue. Coverage has changed to address the coronavirus outbreak. In October, for instance, Medjet added new covid-19 coverage to its plans. If you’re infected and hospitalized while traveling in the United States, Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean, Medjet will transport you to the hospital of your choice at home. Extra-cautious travelers may also want to consider a travel assistance plan offered by a company like FocusPoint International, which specializes in travel risk management. You can buy a FocusPoint plan as part of Medjet coverage or as stand-alone protection. FocusPoint assistance includes evacuation for medical emergencies that result in hospitalization. Its plans also provide help in such situations as natural disasters, riots, strikes and, of course, pandemics. But there’s one thing you can’t do: Make your next trip risk-free. No refund policy or travel insurance company can protect your vacation from everything. Looking ahead to 2021, experts are cautiously optimistic that the pandemic will end and that normal travel will resume. But no one knows for sure when — or if — that will happen.


U.S. schooling during covid-19 doesn’t deserve a passing grade. Here’s the way forward.

must be reported in context — both in terms of the population size in question (not just case counts) and whether infections were actually transmitted in schools rather than in the broader community. We’ve grown accustomed to population-level statistics at the city, state and national levels (e.g., 14-day cases per 100,000 people); we should insist on the same rigor for school-based measures. Data on covid-19 clusters within schools, when they occur, should also be reported alongside information on which risk mitigation measures (e.g., masks, ventilation, etc.) were in place. Third, any policy analysis must ask, “Compared with what?” While remote learning is often called the “safest option,” that view assumes children are at home, safely distancing from others. But policymakers must consider that in many households, parents have to work, meaning children are often in teaching “pods,” nanny shares or group hangouts at local playgrounds. This leads to a series of mixed interactions between children and adults. Given this reality, it’s possible that hybrid models and remote learning may not reduce infection risk relative to in-person schooling that requires masks and keeps kids in smaller, contained groups. But we need better data to make that determination. In addition to tracking cases in schools, as the New York Times is doing, districts should collect anonymous survey data from parents on how children are spending time outside school and what risk-mitigation strategies they use. Contact tracers should assess whether these informal arrangements are leading to outbreaks, and should share that information with schools so that we can understand the risks of alternatives. Finally, policy choices should not focus on just one outcome. We need a richer accounting of the costs and benefits of schooling models beyond just virus transmission. Key metrics should include student learning, engagement and well-being. How many students are consistently attending school (either in person or remotely), completing assignments and meeting learning objectives? How many have a stable Internet connection and quiet place to work? How many are missing meals or health-care services they typically receive at school? Many districts and state education departments are creating scorecards and benchmarks to assess transmission risk within schools. Similar benchmarks are needed for these other measures of well-being, with close attention paid to equity issues. Schooling decisions risk widening existing education achievement gaps by socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity; tracking these effects on equity is critical. We also must consider economic costs


Montgomery County halts plan to lift restrictions as D.C. region’s coronavirus cases rise

gatherings with friends and family should be limited or avoided. Transmission of the coronavirus has similarities to that of a sexually transmitted illness, he said. “You may have intercourse with one person, but they’re having intercourse with two other people, so you’ve been exposed to those people, too,” Petri said. He said gatherings with others are never risk-free, but possible exposure will be most limited with a small group, while also knowing everyone within the group and the safety precautions they are taking. He warned against taking “unnecessary risks,” saying people should ask themselves whether planned social interactions outweigh the risk of exposure to the virus. Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine and interim chief public health officer at the university, said a second wave of cases that experts predicted months ago is now unfolding. “Even in March and April people said, ‘There’s going to be another wave,’ and here we are,” she said. “We’re bracing ourselves and hoping it won’t be as bad as the spring, but we’re also preparing for the worst.” Mishori said that in the District the mortality rate is stable and hospitals have the capacity for more patients. She said, “The question on everyone’s mind is, is this going to explode?” She said adherence to the same safety protocols used for months will determine the virus’s spread as temperatures drop. “It’s hard to predict what will happen,” Mishori said, noting that much of it depends on the public’s behavior, such as social distancing, washing hands, avoiding large gatherings and wearing a mask in public. She said health experts are seeing what she calls “behavior creep,” such as eating indoors instead of outdoors or having friends visit a backyard — while not wearing masks or maintaining social distancing — after months of avoiding such situations. Those scenarios offer the virus additional opportunities to spread, she said. “The notion that we can return to normal without a vaccine is misguided,” she said. “There’s not going to be any normal for a foreseeable future. The pandemic has continued to create economic hardships in the region. Labor Department figures released Thursday showed 25,443 people in Virginia, Maryland and the District had filed new unemployment claims for the week ending Oct. 10. That’s up from 23,486 claims filed one week earlier. In addition to 1,995 new cases, the region on Thursday recorded


Defense Department study finds low risk of coronavirus infection through air on a packed airline flight

said the rate at which the researchers assumed passengers would shed the virus was consistent with breathing but that someone talking might release 10 times more. Nonetheless, she called the findings “reassuring.” “It shows the risk is quite low if people are not talking,” she said. Researchers looking at real-world cases have identified examples of likely transmission aboard aircraft. In one case, a woman traveling from London to Hanoi in March appears to have infected as many as 15 other passengers and crew members. In one case, South Korean researchers believe a woman might have been infected when she removed a protective mask while using an airplane bathroom. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said it has investigated about 1,600 cases of infectious people traveling, identifying some 11,000 others who were exposed to the virus as a result. But the agency has not been able to confirm a case of transmission, saying that pinpointing the exact moment someone was infected is tricky and that contact-tracing information is sometimes incomplete. The CDC continues to say that air travel presents some risk because it involves being in close quarters with other people and encountering frequently touched surfaces. In a recent review of studies, David Freedman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Annelies Wilder-Smith, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the research remains limited across the globe, writing that “the opportunities for rigorous studies have been few.” The researchers tentatively concluded that strict use of masks offers protection and said more studies to quantify the risk when they are worn should be a priority. The team that conducted the mannequin study recommended continued use of masks and additional cleaning to guard against transmission from large droplets and surfaces. They said that it was critical for planes’ air filters to continue to run even when they are on the ground and that boarding passengers in small groups to maintain social distancing is probably beneficial. Mewbourne, the Transportation Command official, said his team would review several policies in light of the study’s findings and might make changes to how full the Defense Department allows flights to be and tweak its contact-tracing and quarantining rules. But no decisions have been made. The airline industry has sought to convince people that flight is safe since the virus began spreading. Last week, the International Air