Even when you can’t travel, you can still bring the sounds of a far-off city to you.

in Switzerland; and from just about everywhere, young voices mingled with splashing, seeming like a message across years. In Ray Bradbury’s book, “Dandelion Wine,” a dying man longs to hear the sounds of Mexico City. He calls a friend there and asks him to hold the phone to an open window so he can hear the “hot yellow noon” of a populated place he once knew. Metal horns, squealing brakes and “the calls of vendors selling red-purple bananas and jungle oranges” travel through the phone line. For most of us, our individual worlds are a bit quieter right now, or at least aurally altered by stay-at-home orders. Out-of-school neighborhood children are playing on their lawns and roller-skating up and down the sidewalk. And the conversation of early-spring birds is more apparent, partly because we have more time to listen. While the pandemic has paused our ability to travel, we can still press a conch shell to our ears. Various websites, sound projects and commercial offerings provide audio of global destinations. Numerous recordings from around the world give us subway doors closing, taxi horns, sirens and crowded cafes. Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist devoted to preserving the world’s quiet places, says travel is adventure listening. Speaking by phone from his home in Port Townsend, Wash., Hempton describes sound as our original surveillance system. “We’re wired to process sound,” he says, “much more than looking. “Our eyes are in front of our head; we see only the surface of objects.” The current social distancing has the positive effect, he says, of reconnecting us with our ability to listen to our surroundings because we’re “time wealthy,” as Hempton says. During this period of hunkering down, frustrated travelers can rekindle their listening skills as they prep for their next excursion. Hempton’s Sound Tracker label features albums of ambient recordings he has made of various quiet places (generally defined as no human sound for 15 minutes). The albums, available on iTunes, are invitations for people to virtually travel before actually visiting those same spots to hear what Hempton calls “the live concert.” He’s a founding partner of Quiet Parks International, a global nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving quiet places. The Zabalo River in Ecuador is the first certified wilderness quiet park. Hempton has recorded the Zabalo Park and it’s not quiet. Rather, it’s rich with animal voices and other ambient sounds. Quiet Parks plans to


‘We’re closed for your hiking business.’ Communities near national parks urge non-locals to stay away.

limited or suspended.” It added that parks would remain open and entrance-fee-free “where it is possible to adhere to federal, state, and local health guidance” and urged visitors to follow social distancing and other measures to prevent the spread of the virus. Many outdoor enthusiasts find the closures confusing, if not extreme, especially in light of Bernhardt’s recent announcement. A quick scroll on RMNP’s Facebook page shows comments like, “This is insane, we’re shutting down the outdoors now!” But Katie Boué believes most hikers and campers just don’t realize their impact. “A lot of us don’t fully understand all those touch points we hit along the way,” said the founder of the Outdoor Advocacy Project, a benefit corporation (these are for-profit businesses committed to creating public benefit) designed to empower the outdoor community to do good. “You touch your car and then the handle on the gas pump, and then you get to the park and grab a pamphlet from the donation box that may or may not have been put back by the previous user, and then you drink from your water bottle. All those touch points add up and that’s how the virus spreads.” Frank Zadravecz, an epidemiologist and emergency medicine resident physician at the University of Utah, agrees with Boué. With packed trails and parks comes a higher risk of infection, thanks to the virus’s ability to live on various surfaces for extended periods of time. According to Zadravecz, a recent study showed that SARS-CoV-2 remains viable in aerosols for up to three hours. However, he says it’s unlikely that you’ll just walk through an infected air cloud while out hiking. “More likely, [the virus] is being transmitted by droplets with coughs or sneezes, and they only travel a short distance before being forced by gravity to land on surfaces,” he says. “Contact with the virus that has been spread from droplets on many types of shared public surfaces may actually present more of a threat than aerosols.” Zadravecz adds that hiking itself is fine, but it’s the ripple effect that concerns him. “We need to keep those gateway communities as burden-free as possible,” he says. The bottom line is this: Don’t use the coronavirus as an excuse to take a quarantine vacation. “We’ll be here when you come back later,” Bradford said. “But now is the time to find a gem in your own backyard.” travel@washpost.com


12 board games that allow homebound Americans to travel in their imagination

Last weekend, the novel coronavirus and a snowstorm trapped my husband and me inside our one-bedroom home above Lake Tahoe in Nevada. We canceled our travel plans through summer and celebrated my sister-in-law’s 40th birthday over FaceTime. And as five feet of snow piled up and update upon update on the coronavirus grew into an even larger pile of anxiety, we fought cabin fever by curing a fictional pandemic. We were relying on a time-honored way to entertain ourselves: the humble board game. In this instance, it was the frighteningly relevant Pandemic, which whisks two players or teams around the globe while they work together to save the human race from disease. Social distancing and self-isolation are crucial to slowing the spread of the coronavirus. And as millions of Americans forgo travel and worry about covid-19’s effects, we’ll be confined at home with crushing stress and none of the distraction that vacations or weekend trips can bring. Enter travel board games, which allow us to embark on imaginary journeys or learn about the people and places we dream of visiting. Since the first time we passed by the Gumdrop Mountains in Candy Land or strolled the streets of Atlantic City in Monopoly, we learned that every board game with a trail offers a voyage with a payoff. Through these games, we can travel anywhere from our living rooms — and we won’t even need a visa to visit Carcassonne or settle in Catan. “One of the great things about travel games is they tend to be some of the more thematic games out there and often have very nice art,” said Antonio Uriarte, a game guru at Victory Point Cafe in Berkeley, Calif. “If those of us stuck in isolation can feel more immersed in the experience of getting out there and seeing different parts of the world, I think there is a lot of value in that for a lot of people.” Games in general give us a chance to connect and be fully present with our family or roommates. They provide a temporary respite from the barrage of news and a distraction from monotony. “Focusing on something that helps take your mind to another place is a very helpful escape right now,” Uriarte added. Suddenly, that trivia game doesn’t seem so trivial. On Capitol Hill, Labyrinth Games and Puzzles’s phones are ringing nonstop. The store is offering curbside


Worried the coronavirus came home with you? Tips for cleaning your gear post-trip.

Weeks into the novel coronavirus crisis, travelers have grown familiar with how to protect themselves on airplanes, in hotel rooms and among crowds. But what about the risk of returning home with potentially contaminated travel gear? Can you catch or spread the virus through your luggage or clothing? Medical experts say the threat is low but suggest several precautions you can take to reduce the worry even more. Global health organizations and professionals do not yet know how long the coronavirus can live on certain materials, so they are basing their information on similar viruses, such as the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). The World Health Organization estimates the coronavirus’s survival time from a few hours to several days, depending on various factors, such as type of material, air temperature and humidity. Hard, nonporous materials such as metal, plastic and glass are more welcoming habitats for viruses than soft goods like fabrics. In travel terms, this means the virus might hang out longer on the aluminum handle of your carry-on than on your canvas tote. Fortunately, the coronavirus is an enveloped virus and probably does not have a long survival rate on surfaces, according to Ann R. Falsey, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. By comparison, the norovirus, the previous bane of cruise ships, is a non-enveloped virus and has a longer shelf life. Falsey said the coronavirus can probably survive two to four days on hard surfaces, generally less than a day on fabrics and other porous materials, and 30 minutes to an hour on hands. Greg Poland, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said that to contract the virus from your luggage, you would need a very specific series of events to occur. “You’d literally have to have someone sneeze all over it, get mucus on it and then, within minutes to a few hours, you would have to touch your bag and then your face,” he said. To ease any concerns, he said travelers can wipe down the parts of their luggage that might have been handled by other people, such as airline baggage handlers, bellhops and airport shuttle drivers. He suggests swiping the exposed area with a disinfectant towelette or squeezing anti-bacterial gel onto your hand and spreading it over the vulnerable area. When asked about disinfecting the entire


SBA program reopens with new glitches and new scrutiny after NBA franchise returns loan funds

Borrowers get an interest rate of just 1 percent and can have the loan entirely forgiven if they keep paying employees through the crisis. Small businesses are allowed to self-certify that they qualify for the funds, allowing lenders to bypass much of the paperwork usually required for loan approvals. Concerns remain that too much of the funding went to industry insiders or businesses that should have found money elsewhere. Some lenders limited their lending activities to businesses with which they had existing relationships, raising concerns that too much of the funding went to those who had an inside track. Nearly 80 percent of the small businesses that applied for a loan were still waiting for an answer when the first round of funding ran out, according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business. The Main Street Alliance, an advocacy group representing small businesses, argues that there are still serious problems with the program. “The dangerous inequities we saw with the first round will not be resolved” in the second round of funding, said the group’s executive director, Amanda Ballantyne. “With funding likely to run out in 48 hours, it is ludicrous that Congress thinks it has already done its job supporting small businesses.” Congress also carved out $60 billion of the $310 billion in the second round of funding for small community banks in hopes of reaching more mom-and-pop companies without connections to the country’s biggest lenders. But some small bankers complained Monday that the SBA had allowed lenders to submit applications in batches of 5,000. That’s more than most small institutions can process at once, giving large banks another advantage, they say. “Community lenders aren’t going to be even submitting 5,000 loans at a time,” said Merski of the Independent Community Bankers of America. “It’s not first-come, first-served. It’s an exercise of randomness for who gets a loan or not. It is just a frustrating process.” New Jersey-based First Bank was prepared to submit 350 loan applications seeking $45 million when the program relaunched Monday morning. By late afternoon it had secured less than two dozen, said Patrick Ryan, the bank’s chief executive. “We’re trying to help our customers, and they’re extremely nervous,” Ryan said. “If there is a silver lining, if no one can get into the system you can’t run out of money.” Jonathan O’Connell, Steven Rich and Erica Werner contributed to this report.


Maryland to release data on virus outbreaks at nursing homes; Va. judge rules governor exceeded authority in closing indoor gun ranges

The number of known coronavirus cases in the District, Maryland and Virginia was 36,958 on Monday, with 19,502 cases in Maryland, 13,560 in Virginia and 3,896 in the District. The number of virus-related deaths was 952 in Maryland, 464 in Virginia and 186 in the District, for a total of 1,602 fatalities. Here are some of the most significant recent developments as the region responds to the pandemic of the novel coronavirus, which causes the covid-19 disease: • Maryland will soon release data on coronavirus outbreaks at its nursing homes, which account for 40 percent of the state’s total cases. The information will include the names of individual facilities and how many cases and deaths have occurred among residents there. • A Virginia Circuit Court judge ruled Monday the governor exceeded his authority and violated the state constitution’s right to bear arms by forcing an indoor gun range in Lynchburg to close as part of his March order shuttering some nonessential businesses. • D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) is enlisting prominent national figures to aid the city’s coronavirus response, including former first lady Michelle Obama, who has recorded robocalls and radio ads reminding Washingtonians to stay at home and offering information on testing sites. • The number of coronavirus fatalities climbed to 1,602 on Monday. The number of new deaths announced across the three jurisdictions was 53, which is down from recent days. When might local restrictions ease?


Bowser taps Michelle Obama, José Andrés, Fenty to help with pandemic response

fatalities also included three residents in their 90s. The per capita covid-19 death rate in the nation’s capital is the highest in the region: 27.2 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to a Washington Post tally. Prince George’s County, a majority-black jurisdiction that has been especially hard hit, had 21.8 deaths per 100,000 residents Monday, compared with 20.2 in Montgomery County, 8.8 in Fairfax County and 11.5 in Alexandria. The total number of deaths across the District, Maryland and Virginia as of Monday afternoon was 1,602, and the total number of cases was 36,958, with 1,522 new cases reported since Sunday. The per capita death rate in the three jurisdictions — in Maryland it is 15.8 per 100,000 residents and in Virginia it is 5.4 — is still dramatically lower than in states that have become hot spots for the virus, according to data from The Post and Johns Hopkins University. The states with the highest per capita death rates per 100,000 are New York with 115, New Jersey with 68 and Connecticut with 54. Officials in Maryland, the District and Virginia say they have not yet seen the downward trend in new cases or hospitalization rates that would allow them to ease the broad economic and societal shutdown, although the rates of increase have slowed. They are warning residents that it is important for them to stay home and continue practicing social distancing. D.C. Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt said she cannot draw conclusions about where people are contracting the virus because contact tracing is still reserved for high-priority groups, such as health-care workers and residents of homeless shelters. She said household transmissions appear to be a problem. Mike Ricci, a spokesman for Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), said the administration is not surprised by the increased number of infections reported daily, because the state has ramped up testing. He also said the state expects its death numbers to increase because the tally lags behind infections by about two weeks. On Monday, Hogan directed the Health Department to publish data related to cases at individual nursing homes, after calls for transparency from families who said they were not told about cases at their loved ones’ facilities. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has ordered nursing homes to report information on outbreaks to patients and their families and to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the number of cases


Britain’s national health authority issued a worrisome alert about children, covid-19 and potential complications

Kenny, the National Health Service clinical director for children and young people, said in a statement emailed to The Washington Post the alert was issued because “it is important that clinicians are made aware of any potential emerging links so that they are able to give children and young people the right care fast.” While there are no approved treatments that target the virus itself, physicians can provide oxygen, blood thinners, antibiotics and other supportive care that can help children avoid complications and keep them alive while their bodies clear the virus on their own. Moreover, the alert serves as a warning to physicians that those children may be infectious. The Pediatric Intensive Care Society of the U.K. said in a statement Monday its members received the alert about “a small rise” in the number of cases of children presenting with “an unusual clinical picture” over the weekend. Some of the children had tested positive for covid-19 while others had not. Those potential complications included toxic shock syndrome, a rare and potentially fatal condition that involves the release of toxins from a bacterial infection. It’s often talked about in the context of tampon use and women who are menstruating. Kawasaki disease, which affects mostly children under age 5, is characterized by an inflammation of blood vessels throughout the body that can lead to heart attacks or aneurysms. The U.K. National Health Service said abdominal pain and gastrointestinal symptoms have been “a common feature” in these rare cases, along with cardiac inflammation. The cases have involved “blood parameters consistent with severe COVID-19 in children,” the alert stressed, but it is possible there may be a different “unidentified infectious pathogen” associated with these cases. The Pediatric Intensive Care Society said while it’s “too early to say with confidence,” children in these cases appear to have irregularly high readings of three blood markers of inflammation. After the alert was issued, doctors from Italy, Spain and other parts of the world tweeted they had seen similar cases. Doctors at prominent pediatric hospitals in U.S. hot zones from Seattle to New York said they had not observed alarming increases in the number of pediatric patients being hospitalized for covid-19. Instead, physicians said they felt that increase correlated with a rise in cases in the general population, rather than an emerging threat to children. Michael Agus, chief of medical critical care at Boston Children’s Hospital, said


Quarantinis are a meme of this crisis. But relying on alcohol could lead to serious problems.

are consuming on average each day, sales are still up; online alcohol sales increased 26.2 percent in the week ending April 11 from the same period in 2019, according to Nielsen. In addition to people who have relapsed, SheRecovers is seeing more people without a diagnosis reaching out to discuss whether they might have a problem. U.S. dietary guidelines define moderate drinking as one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men, although no amount is considered healthy. Heavy alcohol use is defined as more than four drinks on any day for men or more than three drinks for women, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. But numbers alone don’t indicate when you should be concerned. If you find yourself becoming more preoccupied with drinking — such as thinking ahead to what you’re going to drink and when you can start imbibing, Chester said, you might be developing a problem. Watch for signs that drinking is interfering with your emotional stability, including spikes in irritability, anxiety and depression. Of course, gauging normal in a crisis isn’t easy, said Ruby Warrington, author of “Sober Curious” and the forthcoming “Sober Curious Reset.” Many people are coping with far more than they normally would, from the stress of juggling remote work and home schooling their kids, to the loss of a job or fear about a loved one working in an essential business. “But I think you could ask the question, ‘If I can’t imagine my day without a drink why is that?’” Warrington said. If you’re concerned, she and other sober influencers suggest trying a day without alcohol to see how difficult it is and note any differences you experience in your energy, emotions and sleep. If you decide you might have an unhealthy relationship with booze, you can find support to quit from 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, which has taken its meetings online during the pandemic, or in recovery communities such as In the Rooms. In addition, the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids has launched a new text-messaging support service to help the increasing numbers struggling with alcohol consumption during isolation. For those who are more sober curious, coaches recommend spending this time in quarantine cultivating positive booze-free influences on social media by searching for hashtags such as #SoberCurious or #SoberLife, listening to podcasts such as “The Bubble Hour” or “Sober Curious,”


CDC confirms six coronavirus symptoms showing up in patients over and over

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added six symptoms of the novel coronavirus to its list, suggesting health experts are learning more about the growing number of ways physicians see the virus affecting patients. The symptoms, which the CDC reports could appear two to 14 days after exposure to the virus, are: Previously, the CDC listed just three known symptoms: shortness of breath, cough and fever. Mario Ramirez, the former acting director of the Office of Pandemics and Emerging Threats under President Barack Obama, told The Washington Post that the frequency of symptoms in new diseases changes with time, even with recurring illnesses such as seasonal influenza. The recent additions, he said, reflect the CDC’s confidence in stating: “We can say reliably that these six symptoms go with covid-19.” Ramirez, who is also an emergency room physician, said that confidence stems in part from the growing number of patients being treated for covid-19 in the United States. Local trends in symptoms, in conjunction with data from other countries, allow the CDC to present information that captures the right segment of the population for testing, he added. “You don’t want to list 20-something symptoms, especially if half the population has those symptoms,” Ramirez said. “You’re trying to balance targeting the right people to come in for testing, so it must be specific.” The additions confirm what patients and doctors have been reporting anecdotally for weeks. In particular, the loss of taste or smell has been known to appear in patients since at least mid-March when a British group of ear, nose and throat doctors published a statement amid growing concern that it could be an early sign someone is infected but otherwise asymptomatic. A study of European covid-19 patients found that between 85.6 percent and 88 percent of patients “reported olfactory and gustatory dysfunctions, respectively.” In an Iranian study, 76 percent of covid-19 patients who reported a loss of smell said it had a sudden onset. In many of the cases, anosmia, as it’s called, appeared before other symptoms. “It scared the hell out of me,” said Vallery Lomas, a 34-year-old champion baker, who feared she would never get her senses of smell and taste back. “I could smell nothing for probably five days.” Lomas was presumed positive for covid-19 in the midst of writing a cookbook. Smell and taste are intertwined, so some people who think they have lost


New York edges toward lifting some coronavirus restrictions in some areas in May

documents under review by administration officials. As confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 3 million worldwide, with about 210,000 deaths, the World Health Organization warned that the pandemic is disrupting lifesaving vaccination campaigns for polio and other diseases. Amid border closures and travel restrictions, at least 21 countries have vaccine shortages, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. Spain launched one of the largest studies worldwide into the spread of the virus on Monday, as the country begins to ease a six-week confinement. This week, children under 14 are allowed outdoors for short walks. The study, designed by Spain’s Carlos III Institute, will examine some 90,000 randomly selected people through a combination of tests, allowing researchers to calculate the percentage of the population that has been exposed to the virus and to detect active infections. Spain has the second-highest number of confirmed cases globally, at about 230,000. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned to work Monday after weeks of illness and recovery from covid-19, and the famed French Grand Prix road race was postponed. It had been scheduled for June 28. In the United States, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Congress might need to consider offering guaranteed income to some Americans to help the country recover from the worst economic downturn in decades, caused by the pandemic. “We may have to think in terms of some different ways to put money in people’s pockets,” Pelosi said as House Democrats push to unveil a major new economic rescue bill in the coming days. “Others have suggested a minimum income, a guaranteed income for people. Is that worthy of attention now? Perhaps so,” she said on MSNBC. The emerging new economic response bill, which if passed would be the nation’s fifth, is expected to center on an infusion of cash to stabilize state and local budgets, which Pelosi has suggested could be about $700 billion. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said it’s time to hit the “pause” button on spending more money, at least until lawmakers return to the Capitol in person. That’s supposed to happen May 4, though it’s unclear if that deadline will be met. Trump raised doubt about his support for another rescue bill on that scale, asking on Twitter why what he called “poorly run states” led by Democrats should be seeking “bailout help.” “Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run


Nursing homes are flying blind during a pandemic. They deserve better.

MORE THAN a fifth of the 55,000 known covid-19 deaths in the United States have occurred at nursing homes and other elder-care facilities. Federal and state governments have largely turned a blind eye, often making no effort to test residents or staffs and leaving relatives, surrounding communities and the public in the dark. In at least a half-dozen states — most notably Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas and Louisiana — officials have refused to make public the names of facilities wracked by the virus, even as residents and employees there are dying. The states’ nominal reason for their secrecy, privacy protections for institutions, is akin to refusing to identify an airline whose plane has crashed. With few exceptions, states and the federal government have made little or no effort to verify the disease’s death toll at nursing homes and similar facilities, conservatively estimated at 11,000 in a tally by the Associated Press. [Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic] The effects of government negligence and lack of transparency are incalculable but profound: families uncertain whether to place their elderly loved ones in a nursing home or remove them from one. Hospitals blithely transferring fragile patients to homes overwhelmed by unannounced outbreaks of the pandemic. Homes with no means to provide testing left to guess at a diagnosis when residents or staff succumb. A survey by The Post found that almost a tenth of the nation’s 15,000 nursing homes have publicly reported that residents or staff have tested positive for the virus. But the available data are staggeringly incomplete — as in New York, by far the country’s hardest-hit state, where officials have released the names only of homes where at least five people have died. Many nursing homes have made good-faith efforts to keep relatives informed when outbreaks occur; others have not or simply don’t know. The federal government recently mandated that residents and relatives — but not the public — be alerted when an individual in a home has tested positive. Yet the order is all but meaningless without testing, to which an industry group estimates that just one-third of facilities have access. Just one governor, Jim Justice (R) of West Virginia, has ordered universal testing at every nursing home in the state. Staffing shortages at elder-care facilities, widespread for years before the pandemic, have probably accelerated the spread of infection as many employees hold down simultaneous jobs at two


We should be worried about Trump’s rants

work ethic during the pandemic. [Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic] Then things got really weird. In his next barrage of tweets, Trump demanded to know: “When will all of the ‘reporters’ who have received Noble Prizes for their work on Russia, Russia, Russia, only to have been proven totally wrong (and, in fact, it was the other side who committed the crimes), be turning back their cherished ‘Nobles’ so that they can be given to the REAL REPORTERS AND JOURNALISTS who got it right? . . . When will the Noble Committee Act?” Where to begin? Could the president really have intended to refer to “Nobel” prizes and simply misspelled the name? And since there is no Nobel awarded for journalism, could he have been thinking of the Pulitzer Prize won by journalists, including those at The Post, for their work covering Russian interference in the 2016 election? Those who see Trump as a brilliant communicator might think the garble was deliberate, an invitation to snooty know-it-alls to jump all over him so he could portray himself to his aggrieved base as a victim of fake-news “elites.” But this view is inconsistent with what happened later in the day. Trump tweeted a purported explanation: “Does anybody get the meaning of what a so-called Noble (not Nobel) Prize is, especially as it pertains to Reporters and Journalists? Noble is defined as, ‘having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals.’ Does sarcasm ever work?” “Sarcasm” is becoming a familiar claim from the president. After speculating nonsensically last week at a coronavirus briefing that disinfectants or powerful light could be used “inside the body” to combat covid-19, and being widely ridiculed for the suggestion, Trump claimed he was just being sarcastic. But it’s not much of a defense when Trump invokes it while also trying to make the comments he is justifying disappear. At some point overnight, the earlier “Noble Prize” tweets vanished from Trump’s feed (though not before journalists had archived them). [The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us.] If these episodes aren’t strategy, what are they? If tweeting and retweeting attacks on The Post, CNN, MSNBC and even Fox News calmed Trump, his apologists might argue that they’re a form of recreation. But the pressure doesn’t seem to be going down.


The Daily 202: Barr memo threatening lawsuits against coronavirus restrictions is a warning shot

outlined the effort at a White House news conference where he was joined by some major retailers, who said they had ramped up the rate of testing and the production of medical supplies. They predicted that they would only accelerate in the month ahead, doubling their rate of testing and the number of sites that would be available to the public. The administration’s top testing official, meanwhile, promised that the United States would conduct at least 8 million tests a month by the end of May. But a previous high-profile public-private initiative announced by the president in March … has been slow to materialize.” The agency says these can appear two to 14 days after exposure: Chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and loss of taste or smell. “Previously, the CDC listed just three known symptoms: shortness of breath, cough and fever,” Angela Fritz, Michael Brice-Saddler and Maura Judkis report. “Though not listed on the CDC website, fatigue also has been reported in people who have either tested positive or told to assume they have covid-19 when testing was not available. … During the past few weeks, health experts have noted how covid-19 attacks many organs in the body. In some patients, physicians are reporting a blood-clotting complication that does not respond to anticoagulants. Some patients’ lungs fill with hundreds of microclots, autopsies have shown, and larger clots can break off and travel to the brain or heart, causing a stroke or heart attack.” Cancer patients — especially those with blood or lung malignancies, or tumors that have spread throughout the body — have a higher risk of death or other severe complications from covid-19. That’s according to a study published this morning, which involved 14 hospitals in Hubei province in central China, where the pandemic emerged, included 105 cancer patients and 536 non-cancer patients of the same age — all of whom had covid-19, Laurie McGinley reports. “There’s new evidence the disease may be associated with surprising complications in a small number of children. [The National Health Service] issued an alert to physicians warning of an ‘apparent rise in the number of children of all ages presenting with a multi-system inflammatory state requiring intensive care across London and also in other regions’ that may be related to covid-19,” Ariana Eunjung Cha and Chelsea Janes report. “The [NHS] said the cases, seen during the past three


Three doctored covid-19 protest photos -- and other lessons on fake news

This is the latest installment of a weekly feature on this blog — lessons from the nonprofit News Literacy Project, which aims to teach students how to distinguish between what’s real and fake in the age of digital communication and a president who routinely denounces real news as “fake.” The material comes from the project’s newsletter, the Sift, which takes the most recent viral rumors, conspiracy theories, hoaxes and journalistic ethics issues and turns them into timely lessons with discussion prompts and links. The Sift, which is published weekly during the school year, has more than 10,000 subscribers, most of them educators. The News Literacy Project also offers a program called Checkology, a browser-based platform designed for students in grades six through 12 that helps prepare the next generation to easily identify misinformation. Now, during the novel coronavirus pandemic, the project is offering access to Checkology Premium at no cost to educators and parents in the United States. In just two weeks of the offer, more than 1,100 educators and parents in 49 states and the District have registered to use the platform with as many as 90,000 students. You can learn more about the News Literacy Project and all of the educational resources it provides in this piece, but here’s a rundown: Founded more than a decade ago by Alan Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Los Angeles Times, the News Literacy Project is now the leading provider of news literacy education. It creates digital curriculums and other resources and works with educators and journalists to teach middle school and high school students how to recognize news and information to trust — and provides them with the tools they need to be informed and engaged participants in a democracy. It uses the standards of high-quality journalism as an aspirational yardstick against which to measure all news and information. Just as important, it provides the next generation with an appreciation of the First Amendment and the role of a free press. The following lessons come from the April 27 edition of the Sift and relate to the pandemic that has shut down public life in much of the world, including in the United States. Viral rumor rundown NO: YES: YES: Note: NO: YES: NO: YES: YES: Related: Discuss: Idea: The next decade is critical for the future of journalism, and the covid-19 pandemic is deepening existing crises that already


is deepening existing crises that already threaten free and independent reporting, Reporters Without Borders said April 21 as it released its annual World Press Freedom Index, which ranks 180 countries and regions on the level of freedom they afford journalists. Christophe Deloire, secretary general of the global media advocacy organization (also known as Reporters Sans Frontières, or RSF), said the pandemic is exacerbating “the negative factors threatening the right to reliable information”: a geopolitical crisis, a technological crisis, a democratic crisis, a crisis of trust and an economic crisis. In its overview of the rankings, RSF noted “a clear correlation between suppression of media freedom in response to the coronavirus pandemic and a country’s ranking.” China (177th) and Iran (173rd) censored information about the spread of covid-19, RSF said. The director of RSF’s London office, Rebecca Vincent, rebuked the Chinese government for its lack of truthful reporting when it first had the opportunity to provide information. “If there had been a free press in China, if these whistleblowers hadn’t been silenced, then this could have been prevented from turning into a pandemic,” she told CNN Business. “Sometimes we can talk about press freedom in a theoretical way, but this shows the impact can at times be physical. It can affect all of our health.” A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Geng Shuang, dismissed RSF’s criticism, saying that the organization “has always held deep-rooted prejudice against China” and that its report “is not worth rebutting.” The United States was 45th this year in the RSF rankings, an improvement of three places from 2019. Norway ranks first, as it has since 2017, and North Korea dropped one place to become the least-free country, as it was in 2018 and 2017 (Turkmenistan occupied last place in 2019). Due to changes brought about by general elections in May 2018, Malaysia had the largest improvement (22 places) to 101st, while Haiti — where protesters have targeted journalists — experienced the most significant drop (21 places) to 83rd. While RSF’s “global indicator” — its measure of the overall state of press freedom — improved by 0.9 percent in 2020, it has declined by 12 percent since its creation in 2013. According to that indicator, press freedom is in a “very serious situation” in 13 percent of the countries and regions around the world, an increase of two percentage points from 2019. Discuss: Idea: Resource:


The Energy 202: Plastic bags are back. Environmentalists hope it’s not for good.

products. “Right now, the data indicate that the coronavirus actually persists longer on plastics than on other materials,” the Ocean Conservancy wrote in a blog post. “…[T]here are no data to indicate that reusable bags are any more contaminated than other surfaces in public areas — including the checkout counter at grocery stores, where single-use plastic bags are usually stored and handled by any number of people.” But proponents of plastic bags say bringing reusable totes into stores is an “unnecessary risk” for grocery store workers. “There’s no doubt that if you’re bringing an item of any sort – in most cases, reusable bags are the most obvious thing – the question is where has it been and has it been washed,” said Matt Seaholm, executive director of the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance, an arm of the Plastics Industry Association. “I think unfortunately, the situation we find ourselves in has greatly raised the issues of hygiene and of sanitizing items and of just cross-contamination as a whole.” In some places, consumers may not have a choice but to opt for more plastic. In California, where a single-use plastic bag ban passed in 2016, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced an executive order Thursday to allow stores to provide disposable plastic bags to customers for 60 days. San Francisco, the first major city to outlaw single-use plastic bags in 2007, banned reusable bags to try to curb the virus’s spread. An update last month to the city health department’s shelter-in-place guidelines required stores to restrict customers from bringing their “own bags, mugs, or other reusable items from home.” Massachusetts also temporarily banned the use of reusable shopping bags and ordered stores not to charge for plastic or paper bags. Maine delayed the state’s planned ban on single-use bags until Jan. 15, 2021. In Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney (D) also delayed the city’s bag ban until the beginning of next year. “This is not an announcement we want to make during Earth Week. We know the climate crisis and plastic pollution remain two very serious threats to our planet and society,” Kenney said last week. “There are higher-priority things to be thinking about right now; the number one priority is keeping ourselves and our families and communities safe,” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste. “I’m not going to lose any sleep over increased plastic packaging here or there in


Antibody tests support what’s been obvious: Covid-19 is much more lethal than the flu

in New York City. At that rate, the United States could potentially experience 1 million deaths if half the population became infected and no efforts were made to limit the contagion through social distancing, a vaccine or proven therapeutics, Shaman said. “That’s 20 times worse than a bad flu season,” he said Monday. This is obviously a highly politicized pandemic, and some critics of the nationwide shutdown have seized on this early antibody data to argue that covid-19 isn’t all that deadly. A common refrain is that the disease is not significantly worse than the flu. In this view, the pandemic threat has been wildly exaggerated. “Pandemic Is Over. Let’s Stop the Economic Suicide, and Get Back to Work,” declared a headline on a column by free market advocate George Gilder on the RealClearMarkets website. He said policies to control the viral spread “should be reversed summarily and acknowledged to be a mistake, perpetrated by statisticians with erroneous computer models.” Kevin McCullough, a columnist for the conservative website Town Hall, wrote a column that ran last week with the headline “Antibody Testing: Proves We’ve Been Had!” “Nearly everything we’ve been told about models, rates of infection, deaths, and recoveries was inaccurate,” he wrote. “The death rate in New York State isn’t 7.4%, it is actually .75%.” But the two numbers describe different things: The first is a case fatality rate, reflecting deaths among people with confirmed diagnoses of covid-19. The second is the infection fatality rate, extrapolated from the antibody surveys. In other words, both numbers can be correct, and useful. “Those higher numbers of case fatality rates, they’re still true,” Viboud said. “It’s your probability of dying if you’re clinically sick with it, which is something that people may care about, too.” Moreover, the fatality rate of a virus, however it is defined, is not an innate feature of the pathogen. It depends on many variables, including the age and health of the population and access to health care. Timing matters, too: In China the fatality rate was high during the initial phase of the outbreak, when hospitals were overwhelmed and doctors struggled to cope with the crisis. There are so many numbers flying around that it is understandable that people may struggle to make sense of them. That’s become even more difficult in recent days due to serological studies that haven’t been peer-reviewed but have been presented to


the public, typically with dramatic public health conclusions attached. The most controversial such study came out of Santa Clara County, Calif., the heart of Silicon Valley. It claimed that the true number of infections in the county in early April may have been 50 to 85 times the official coronavirus case counts. Extrapolating from that, it gave an estimated infection fatality rate of between 0.12 and 0.2 percent. That provided what seemed like reliable ammunition to those who believe the danger of covid-19 has been overstated. They said the numbers show this disease is not much different from seasonal flu. A commonly cited statistic about seasonal flu is that it has a fatality rate of 0.1 percent, That, however, is a case fatality rate. The infection fatality rate for flu is perhaps only half that, Viboud said. Shaman estimated that it’s about one-quarter the case fatality rate. Thus, even if the Santa Clara numbers are roughly accurate about the spread of the virus and its lethality, it would still be deadlier than the flu. Statisticians and other epidemiologists have argued that there were also errors in data analysis in the Santa Clara report, which was led by researchers at Stanford University. The researchers used advertisements on Facebook to call for volunteers, and critics said that may have led to an unrepresentative sampling of the county. The critics noted that even a small rate of false positives can skew a survey in which the targeted disease has low prevalence. Shaman, the epidemiologist, said he hopes the higher estimates for infections and commensurately lower fatality rates are correct. Everyone needs more testing and better data, he said. For now, the preponderance of evidence describes an exceptional pathogen. For someone like Shaman, who wears a mask when he walks the dog in New York City and is conscientious about washing his hands, there is no doubt that the endgame is far away — that until a vaccine or reliable therapeutics are in place, or when so many people have been sickened and then recovered that the country achieves “herd immunity,” everyone needs to try to limit the spread of the virus. “We have completely disrupted our society through our social distancing practices, shutting our businesses, closing our schools, and still this thing has already killed 53,000 people in the United States,” he said. “We have a very long way to go until we


Tokyo Olympics in 2021 could be canceled, not postponed, without coronavirus vaccine

For the second straight week, a Japanese medical expert questioned whether the Tokyo Olympics can move forward next summer without a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. “In my view, it would be difficult to hold the Olympics unless effective vaccines are developed,” Yoshitake Yokokura, a surgeon who heads the Japan Medical Association, told reporters in a video news conference Tuesday. The Tokyo Games were postponed by a year amid the pandemic, which has caused 389 deaths in Japan, the country’s health ministry said Tuesday. In announcing the postponement last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the Olympics would be held in full in 2021 ″as a testament to victory over the infection.” But Tuesday, the president of Japan’s organizing committee told the Nikkan Sports newspaper that the Games would not be postponed again if the pandemic is not under control by next summer. “No, in that situation, it will be canceled,” Yoshiro Mori said, per the AP. “In the past, when there were such problems, like wartime, it has been canceled. This time, we are fighting an invisible enemy.” Earlier this month, the chief executive of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, Toshiro Muto, told reporters that he could not guarantee that the Olympics will go on as planned next summer, a sentiment Mori echoed Tuesday. “This is a gamble for mankind,” he said. “If the world triumphs over the virus and we can hold the Olympics, then our Games will be so many times more valuable than any past Olympics.” A vaccine is seen as key to the Olympics moving forward, and last week a professor of infectious disease at Kobe University expressed his doubts that one will be developed in time. “I am very pessimistic about holding the Olympic Games next summer unless you hold the Olympic Games in a totally different structure such as no audience, or a very limited participation,” Kentaro Iwata said. Scientists around the globe are working to develop a coronavirus vaccine, with one laboratory at Oxford University hoping to have a few million doses available by September if its vaccine proves effective. Meanwhile, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which is funding nine vaccine projects, said Monday that a vaccine could be ready to administer to health-care workers and other vulnerable groups this year. Abe declared a state of emergency in seven of Japan’s 47 prefectures April 7 and expanded it nationwide April 16


Beware of studies claiming covid-19 death rates are smaller than expected

George Q. Daley is the dean of Harvard Medical School. Stephen Elledge is a professor and researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Galit Alter is a professor and researcher at the Ragon Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital. Michael Springer is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. The covid-19 pandemic is sowing death, suffering and economic devastation across the world. Containing its deadly march will require answers to many questions, most of which we are only beginning to chip away at. Among the most critical: How many people have been infected, and how many are going to die? Does the virus kill in 1 in 20 or 1 in a 1,000? Two recent studies from California, using antibody tests designed to look for immune markers of previous infections, seem to suggest that the virus is much less deadly than many previously thought. But beware of these findings: They have not been vetted and should be recognized as such. The two studies, conducted in Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties, provide a cautionary tale. The results suggest the number of people unknowingly infected may be 50- to 85-fold greater than previously suspected. If true, this rate of infection would imply a significantly lower mortality rate — around 0.12 to 0.2 percent, similar to the flu. That would be great news, but until proved otherwise, these findings should be treated as preliminary at best. Here’s why: Neither of the two studies has been peer-reviewed. One of the papers appears on a pre-print server; the other one, no longer available online, was summarized in a news release. Unfortunately, such unverified findings have been widely covered in the news and welcomed by those seeking to hasten the relaxation of current social distancing measures in their rush to reopen the economy. This could erode public confidence in current protective measures. Given the disastrous impact of reigniting a lethal epidemic that could result in millions of deaths, preliminary findings must be handled with great care — no matter how alluring their implications. We call on policymakers and the public to take a deep breath and apply a healthy dose of skepticism to such studies. We have several concerns about their methodologies. First, both studies used a commercial diagnostic test known to yield false positive results (detecting the presence of antibodies to the virus where there were none). The researchers, relying on a small set of control


significantly lower mortality rate — around 0.12 to 0.2 percent, similar to the flu. That would be great news, but until proved otherwise, these findings should be treated as preliminary at best. Here’s why: Neither of the two studies has been peer-reviewed. One of the papers appears on a pre-print server; the other one, no longer available online, was summarized in a news release. Unfortunately, such unverified findings have been widely covered in the news and welcomed by those seeking to hasten the relaxation of current social distancing measures in their rush to reopen the economy. This could erode public confidence in current protective measures. Given the disastrous impact of reigniting a lethal epidemic that could result in millions of deaths, preliminary findings must be handled with great care — no matter how alluring their implications. We call on policymakers and the public to take a deep breath and apply a healthy dose of skepticism to such studies. We have several concerns about their methodologies. First, both studies used a commercial diagnostic test known to yield false positive results (detecting the presence of antibodies to the virus where there were none). The researchers, relying on a small set of control tests mostly performed by the tests’ manufacturer, claim a false positive rate of 0.5 percent, but independent analyses of the same test have yielded much higher false positive rates that could render their conclusions invalid. Second, in one of the studies, researchers used Facebook to recruit volunteers. This raises concerns of self-selection bias, as these individuals made the effort to leave their homes and drive to a designated location for a blood test and thus might be motivated to seek testing for various reasons, including recent symptoms or engaging in high-risk activities that boost their risk for infection. For this reason alone, one might expect a misleading higher rate of positive tests. Third, researchers used different types of blood to establish the accuracy of the diagnostic test than used for the volunteers. They compared frozen pre-pandemic processed blood samples with the fresh blood of volunteers obtained via finger pricks. But not all blood is the same; the biochemical differences between frozen and fresh blood could interfere with the accuracy of the reading. These findings also obscure an indisputable fact: Hospital intensive care units in hot-spot cities have been overrun with seriously ill covid-19 patients. We do not see this even


Patients with certain cancers are nearly three times as likely to die of covid-19, study says

Cancer patients — especially those with blood or lung malignancies, or tumors that have spread throughout the body — have a higher risk of death or other severe complications from covid-19 compared with those without cancer, according to a study published Tuesday. The study, which involved 14 hospitals in the Hubei province in central China, where the pandemic emerged, included 105 cancer patients and 536 non-cancer patients of the same age — all of whom had covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The co-authors, from China, Singapore and the United States, found that cancer patients who developed covid-19 had nearly a threefold higher death rate from the virus than that estimated for the general population. Cancer patients also were more likely to experience “severe events,” such as being admitted to intensive care units and needing mechanical ventilation, than people without cancer. Risk factors included not just age, but also the kind of cancer, the stage and the treatment. “These findings suggest that patients with cancer are a much more vulnerable population in the current covid-19 outbreak,” the authors concluded. The study was released at the American Association for Cancer Research’s virtual annual meeting and published in the organization’s peer-reviewed journal, Cancer Discovery. The only previous study of cancer patients and covid-19 included just 18 patients. Cancer patients are more vulnerable for several reasons, according to the paper’s authors and other experts. Cancer itself depresses the immune system, and patients tend to be older, which is itself a risk factor for serious complications from covid-19. Blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma attack the immune system, reducing patients’ natural defenses and making them prone to dangerous infections. Another high-risk group — patients with lung cancer — are likely more vulnerable because of reduced lung function, the authors of the study said. In addition, some treatments, such as chemotherapy and surgery, also suppress the immune system. The paper found that even cancer patients who had completed treatment had higher risks of serious covid-19 complications than those who had never had cancer. But those with early-stage disease — localized malignancies — had results similar to those of non-cancer patients. J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, which was not involved in the study, called it “important,” adding that it “reflects what we had heard previously — that cancer patients are more susceptible to the virus,


The grocery store has become our anxiety-filled hellscape

at once,” says Stephanie Preston, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “At the grocery store, first off, you’re anxious about being able to get the supplies you want. And then the idea of fighting over resources is extremely aversive, so you have internal conflict, and that’s anxiety-producing in turn.” That’s a lot on its own. Under all these compounding factors pinging across our lizard brains is a near-crippling fear that has turned what used to be a mundane errand into a veritable visit to the Thunderdome: “What you’re really scared of is that you’re thinking, ‘What if I make one little mistake and I get sick or I get someone else sick?’ ” says therapist Jennie Steinberg, who owns Through the Woods Therapy Center in Los Angeles. Some people have mental-health or other disorders that already made shopping difficult, even in pre-pandemic times. Agoraphobes have trouble leaving the house, obsessive-compulsive disorders can create fears of germs, and some people simply feel panicky among crowds. But experts say the pandemic has created circumstances that can lead to stress and anxiety for anyone simply trying to fill their pantry. For many people, the experience of procuring food involves layers and layers of stress. Even the precautions that many grocery stores and chains are taking, while they might make workers and customers safer, can be a source of worry. Various stores are managing their sanitation and distancing measures differently, some requiring masks, many putting up plastic shields, marking out safe social distances for line-standers or creating one-way aisles. “Wal-Mart has a different way of dealing with this than Trader Joe’s,” says Phil Lempert, the editor of SupermarketGuru.com, an industry publication. “There’s no uniformity between grocery chains, and that can make people worry if it’s enough.” He also notes growing reports of sick grocery store workers may stoke fears. Of course, people can avoid this scenario entirely using online shopping. Services like Instacart and FreshDirect have seen business spike in recent weeks. Even if you can afford such a luxury, you might not be able to snag a delivery window, with some platforms mired in weeks-long delays. And many people still worry about the safety of goods delivered to their homes, given the virus’s ability to linger on surfaces. Grocery stores were already prime territory for choice overload, and the pandemic has only multiplied the dilemmas, big and small,


involves layers and layers of stress. Even the precautions that many grocery stores and chains are taking, while they might make workers and customers safer, can be a source of worry. Various stores are managing their sanitation and distancing measures differently, some requiring masks, many putting up plastic shields, marking out safe social distances for line-standers or creating one-way aisles. “Wal-Mart has a different way of dealing with this than Trader Joe’s,” says Phil Lempert, the editor of SupermarketGuru.com, an industry publication. “There’s no uniformity between grocery chains, and that can make people worry if it’s enough.” He also notes growing reports of sick grocery store workers may stoke fears. Of course, people can avoid this scenario entirely using online shopping. Services like Instacart and FreshDirect have seen business spike in recent weeks. Even if you can afford such a luxury, you might not be able to snag a delivery window, with some platforms mired in weeks-long delays. And many people still worry about the safety of goods delivered to their homes, given the virus’s ability to linger on surfaces. Grocery stores were already prime territory for choice overload, and the pandemic has only multiplied the dilemmas, big and small, that we must navigate under the fluorescent lights. Steinberg cited a study by Cornell University that found the average person already makes about 200 decisions about food every day, mostly “micro” ones. “In a grocery store, you are inundated with choices, which can absolutely be stressful,” she said. “People can get totally paralyzed when facing 35 brands of ketchup.” With new risks involved, the decisions about when to shop, what to buy and how much to stock up on are more fraught. And with shortages at many stores, even if you arrived with a list tailored to the meals you planned to make, you might have to revise all of that on the fly — meaning you’re making dozens more decisions. “For all people have been told about food supply chains being okay, they’re still walking in and not being able to buy toilet paper, and that’s scary,” Lempert said. The reason behind many of those ravaged shelves? Yes, anxiety is both cause and effect. The average person might think of hoarding as a disorder that afflicts those people we see on reality TV. While that is a real pathology, Preston says we’re all susceptible in the moment to the


The pandemic at sea

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. Cruise ships kept sailing for weeks after the coronavirus was first detected, carrying the virus around the globe. President’s intelligence briefing book repeatedly cited the coronavirus threat. He skipped them. Young caregivers are used to social isolation. Covid-19 is bringing added stress as it threatens resources they depend upon.


Americans support state restrictions on businesses and halt to immigration during virus outbreak, Post-U. Md. poll finds

opposing. Among independents, 67 percent say they support such a move. (The poll began after Trump announced a general suspension of immigration to the United States on April 20 that he said would temporarily suspend nearly all immigration, but before details of the policy were announced two days later.) The poll finds broad support for temporarily blocking immigration, including by at least 6 in 10 whites and nonwhites, men and women, and older and younger adults. “One of the most surprising results is that majorities of 18- to 29-year-olds, who tend to be more open to immigration and have a more global perspective, support the proposal to block immigration,” said Michael Hanmer, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland who co-directed the survey. “One way for people to deal with the reality that so many scientific and policy questions have yet to be answered is to look to concrete solutions.” Although the discussion nationally and in many states has shifted to the topic of how and when to start to ease restrictions, Americans remain worried about the possibility that they will become infected with the virus. Six in 10 say they are either very or somewhat worried about becoming infected and seriously ill from the coronavirus, essentially unchanged from 57 percent in a Post-U. Md. poll taken a week earlier. There are partisan divisions, with 70 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of independents and 45 percent of Republicans citing their worries. Still, about 4 in 10 or more Americans in every demographic or partisan grouping express fears about getting seriously ill from the virus. Views about personal vulnerability to the virus are tied to attitudes about current restrictions on businesses and public gatherings. Among those who are very or somewhat worried about becoming seriously ill, 73 percent say their state’s business restrictions are appropriate, compared with 56 percent among those who are not as worried about becoming ill. Both Republicans and Democrats who are more personally concerned about becoming ill also are significantly more likely to say the restrictions on businesses are appropriate. The public continues to have a somewhat negative view of Trump’s handling of the crisis, with 52 percent saying that the way he’s dealt with it is either “not so good” or “poor,” and 47 percent saying that the job he has done is “excellent” or “good.” The president’s ratings are similar, though


What will the covid-19 memorial look like?

terrorist violence or collateral damage from a response to decades of militant, oil-soaked American foreign policy in the Middle East? Some argued in those bellicose years that yes, they died in the first battle of a “war on terror,” a way of framing the event as part of a longer war. But over time this logic has worn thin, and more and more we see them as people who went to work and didn’t come home; they weren’t warriors, and yet their names are still engraved, next to the firefighters and the police who also died that day. New disaster research challenges the idea that a disaster is a single event with a clear ending point — we now see disasters as slow, unreeling over decades and generations. For example, historian Edward Linenthal’s concept of the “unfinished” 1995 Oklahoma City bombing suggests memorialization is part of a long-term disaster recovery process. Disaster researchers now view PTSD, lingering health effects and victim long-term compensation as factors we must attend to in order to collectively heal. Memorials at their best can be sites for ongoing research, the collection of oral histories, gathering visitor responses, the donation of artifacts, archiving legal proceedings and the maintenance of health registries. Past debates about memorials may guide us as we consider what forms of memorialization will be appropriate to mark a global pandemic, affecting people differently in every corner of the globe. Who will we be memorializing, and why? Will we be memorializing the victims themselves, the nature of the threat or the global response to it? Will we want to memorialize the dead precisely because many of them may have lived had governmental responses been swifter and more competent? Is it proper for a U.S. memorial to include the names of the victims in Italy, Spain or China? Memorialization efforts will have to grapple with questions like government inaction during the early stages of the disease, and how to include sacrifices made by ordinary people — health-care workers, grocery store clerks and those who stayed home to “flatten the curve.” They will also have to explain what makes the victims of covid-19 more worthy of memorialization than the people who have died during this period by other, unrelated causes. One clue might lie in the unique nature of death in the time of covid-19, in which large numbers of victims died in the isolation of


D.C. police arrest suspect in January killing in Carver-Langston neighborhood

D.C. police on Tuesday arrested a suspect in the January fatal shooting of a man in the Carver-Langston neighborhood of Northeast Washington. Knico Wheaton, 23, of Southeast Washington was charged with first-degree murder while armed. He was arrested by members of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force. Police charged Wheaton with killing Tavon Cox, 41, who lived in the Reisterstown area of Baltimore County, northwest of Baltimore City. Cox was inside a vehicle when he was shot shortly after 8 p.m. on Jan. 11 in the 700 block of 24th Street NE, a residential area off Benning Road. He died at a hospital on Jan. 12. A police report listed drugs as a possible factor in the shooting. The report says that before he died, Cox told police that he was involved in a transaction with two other people through the front driver’s side window and that one of the people “pulled out a pistol and shot him in the head.” peter.hermann@washpost.com


MLB teams expected to update ticket policies this week for games lost to coronavirus

Fans holding tickets for Major League Baseball games in 2020, a season on hold indefinitely amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, could be notified as soon as Wednesday about options for exchanges or in some cases refunds, with specific ticket policies to be decided by individual teams. MLB on Tuesday was preparing to offer guidance to its teams on how to handle ticketing matters for games lost because of the pandemic, with those policies expected to be rolled out this week. Opening Day was to have been March 26, and until now MLB had asked teams not to announce ticket policies; games lost to this point had been designated as postponed and not canceled. At least initially, the offer of refunds is expected to be limited to games scheduled for March and April, according to an industry source familiar with MLB’s plans. The expected rollout of individual teams’ ticket policies was first reported Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal. The sport still hopes to salvage a 2020 season, most likely starting this summer with games in empty stadiums in locations where government and public health officials have lifted stay-at-home directives. Among the plans considered recently by MLB was sequestering players in protective, isolated bubbles at spring training facilities in Arizona or Florida. The hope would be to permit fans to attend games later in the modified season, perhaps in limited numbers to allow for social distancing. In the meantime, MLB has come under increasing pressure from fans and politicians to clarify its ticket policies, with the delay of the regular season now in its fifth week and teams holding millions of dollars in ticket revenue for games that are unlikely to be played. At least one lawsuit, which is seeking class-action certification, has been filed in U.S. District Court against MLB teams and ticket agencies seeking refunds for fans, and a handful of members of Congress have been vocal in appealing to sports leagues and ticketing agencies to refund ticket money to consumers. Similar political pressure has been placed on the entertainment industry for events lost during the pandemic. “With Americans weathering the brutal and continuing impacts of this global crisis, your decision to confiscate their money is reprehensible and should be reversed immediately,” Reps. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) and Katie Porter (D-Calif.) wrote this month in a scathing letter to Ticketmaster. MLB, a $10.7 billion industry, is facing a massive


The pandemic at sea

How the cruise industry carried coronavirus around the globe. The briefings Trump skipped. And, how young caregivers are impacted by social distancing.


Franklin Roosevelt’s battle with polio taught him lessons relevant today

Much has been written about the links between the current “war” against the coronavirus and its relevance to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s mobilization of the nation in World War II, as well as his leadership in the fight against the Great Depression. But Roosevelt’s struggle against polio — the mysterious virus that swept through the country in epidemics that terrified Americans in a manner not unlike the fear generated by the coronavirus today — is perhaps more relevant to the current battle against covid-19 than his presidential tenure. It was out of this experience that Roosevelt gained a deep appreciation for the science of medicine, and the important role that the federal government can and must play in the promotion of public health. The first major outbreak of “infantile paralysis” as the disease was then known, occurred in 1916, with more than 27,000 cases of the virus ravaging the Northeast, leaving 6,000 people dead. Because this outbreak originated in a heavily populated immigrant community in Brooklyn, the initial attack led to an increase in xenophobia in more rural and affluent parts of the country, and the widespread assumption that immigrants carried the disease. Closely associated with this perception that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were undesirable and unfit was the eugenic notion that “crippled individuals” were somehow inferior, flawed in character as well as body, to be shunted away and kept from public view. Many of these perceptions changed, however, when news broke in 1921 that Roosevelt had come down with polio while vacationing with his family off the east coast of Maine. The fact that such a well-known public figure — the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1920 — from a wealthy family had acquired the disease helped transform the public’s perception of polio. So too did the increasing number of middle- and upper-class Americans who had contracted the illness. Though paralyzed from the waist down, Roosevelt never lost hope that he might recover the use of his legs. In 1924 he read about a young man who appeared to have regained his ability to walk by swimming in the warm waters of a resort in Warm Springs, Ga. Inspired by this story, Roosevelt traveled to Warm Springs, “took the waters” and became so convinced of the springs’ restorative qualities that he not only bought the resort, but also soon turned it into the nation’s first major center for


Meet the new bipartisan consensus on China, just as wrong as the old bipartisan consensus on China

raised about China’s new tools of global influence and fears are expressed about China’s quest for global leadership. Some of these concerns are justified. Still, the past week also highlights the fact that even if one believes that China’s moves must be countered, the way the United States has gone about it has been counterproductive at best and disastrous at worst. As numerous observers noted, Cotton’s approach to Chinese students would accomplish little beyond turbocharging China’s indigenous capabilities in quantum computing. The New York Times’ Ben Smith noted last week that the State Department’s tit-for-tat with China over expelling press people has hurt the United States far more than it has hurt China. As Smith wrote, “The United States made its point — but paid a big price for it. China lost reporters for low-impact state media outlets, while American citizens and leaders lost access to rare up-close reporting in an increasingly closed state.” The damage has been so obvious that even Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has acknowledged the screw-up, something he does not generally do even in private. Then there is the administration’s plan to starve the World Health Organization of aid. My Post colleagues John Hudson, Josh Dawsey and Souad Mekhennet wrote about what the administration is thinking on this question: “President Trump and his top aides are working behind the scenes to sideline the World Health Organization on several fronts as they seek to shift blame for the novel coronavirus pandemic to the world body, according to U.S. and foreign officials involved in the discussions.” To be blunt, what they are thinking is nonsense. So far the only effect of the U.S. effort has been to stymie action at the U.N. Security Council and G-20. The fact that the United States cannot even get buy-in from its G-7 partners speaks to the absurdity of this idea. Traditionally, townsfolk do not look too kindly on the mayor who suggests disbanding the fire department in the middle of a raging fire. As the foreign policy community thinks about what to do with China, it would be great if it recognized two important facts. The first is that it is likely overestimating China’s current power and prestige. Beijing has fared almost as badly as Washington in its response, and is lashing out as well. Even a modest return by the United States to its traditional leadership role would probably


You can help slow the virus if you talk about it accurately online

As the coronavirus pandemic tears through the United States, and as some governors move toward reopening the economy, reducing the impact of the catastrophe depends on persuading large numbers of people to continue to follow public health guidance. Government mandates in many cities and states have reduced the rate of new infections, but even in states where stay-at-home orders remain in full force, the effect of individual choices remains crucial in preventing a resurgence of the pandemic. In this context, how can ordinary citizens amplify the most important public health information to keep more people safe while we wait for scientists to develop vaccines and treatments? Behavioral psychology and communication science offer some answers. Social norms are powerful, and ideas are contagious — meaning we each can play a role in spreading the word. This is especially important in our current situation, where misinformation is common. Many of you reading this may already be able to recite the guidelines from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in your sleep: Wash hands more frequently (and for 20 seconds each time), avoid in-person social gatherings even if you don’t feel sick and wear a mask if you must go out. Simply doing those things is a great start. When people see your mask and hear you warmly respond when invited to a group outing, “Let’s do it on FaceTime instead,” they are more likely to act in those ways themselves. In addition to setting a good example for others, research also suggests that sharing and repeating public health messages — in conversations, on social media and elsewhere — can help change behavior. One study of 518 students found that those living in dorms where researchers posted messages promoting the benefits of hand-washing washed their hands more frequently compared to those living in dorms where the researchers didn’t post messages; and the more that students reported talking about the campaign with their friends, the more they also reported washing their hands. Word-of-mouth made the campaign effective even among students in dorms that weren’t directly exposed to the original campaign. Conveniently, you can start this process close to home: In an analysis of 28 studies that collectively included 138,898 participants, conversations about public-health messages had the most effect when related from one romantic partner to another. So, what kinds of messages should you focus on sharing with others,


The Health 202: The newest way to test for coronavirus: Spitting in a tube

testing capabilities in up to 1000 CVS pharmacies,” Merlo said at the White House press conference. “We’ll be using our drive-through’s and our parking lots with swab testing.” Warnings about the virus were included in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for the president in those months, Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima report. Still, in that time, Trump downplayed the threat. The briefings are meant to call attention to significant global developments and security threats. Officials said the attention to the coronavirus in the briefings is comparable to periods when analysts tracked active terrorism threats or conflicts overseas. “For weeks, the PDB — as the report is known — traced the virus’s spread around the globe, made clear that China was suppressing information about the contagion’s transmissibility and lethal toll, and raised the prospect of dire political and economic consequences,” our colleagues write. “But the alarms appear to have failed to register with the president, who routinely skips reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience for even the oral summary he takes two or three times per week.” An analysis of federal data found the number of deaths then far exceed the number that were at the time publicly attributed to covid-19, Emma Brown, Andrew Ba Tran, Beth Reinhard and Monica Ulmanu report. There were 15,400 excess deaths in March and through April 4. At the time, 8,128 coronavirus deaths were publicly reported. “The excess deaths are not necessarily attributable directly to covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. They could include people who died because of the epidemic but not from the disease, such as those who were afraid to seek medical treatment for unrelated illnesses, as well as some number of deaths that are part of the ordinary variation in the death rate,” our colleagues report. “The count is also affected by increases or decreases in other categories of deaths, such as suicides, homicides and motor vehicle accidents.” The analysis of federal data was conducted by the Yale School of Public Health. “It’s really important to get the right numbers to inform policymakers so they can understand how the epidemic is evolving and how severe it is in different places,” said Daniel Weinberger, a Yale professor of epidemiology and the leader of the research team. “The national tally also shapes the public’s perception of how serious the disease is, and therefore how necessary it


the time publicly attributed to covid-19, Emma Brown, Andrew Ba Tran, Beth Reinhard and Monica Ulmanu report. There were 15,400 excess deaths in March and through April 4. At the time, 8,128 coronavirus deaths were publicly reported. “The excess deaths are not necessarily attributable directly to covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. They could include people who died because of the epidemic but not from the disease, such as those who were afraid to seek medical treatment for unrelated illnesses, as well as some number of deaths that are part of the ordinary variation in the death rate,” our colleagues report. “The count is also affected by increases or decreases in other categories of deaths, such as suicides, homicides and motor vehicle accidents.” The analysis of federal data was conducted by the Yale School of Public Health. “It’s really important to get the right numbers to inform policymakers so they can understand how the epidemic is evolving and how severe it is in different places,” said Daniel Weinberger, a Yale professor of epidemiology and the leader of the research team. “The national tally also shapes the public’s perception of how serious the disease is, and therefore how necessary it is to continue social distancing despite economic disruption,” they add. “The figure has political implications for President Trump, who initially played down the threat of the virus and whose administration failed to ramp up covid-19 testing quickly, allowing the virus to spread undetected for weeks.” The addition of the symptoms signals that health experts are still learning about the virus and how it affects people. The CDC says these symptoms — chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat or new loss of taste or smell — could show up two to 14 days after exposure. Previously, the CDC had listed just shortness of breath, cough and fever as known symptoms. “The additions confirm what patients and doctors have been reporting anecdotally for weeks,” Angela Fritz, Michael Brice-Saddler and Maura Judkis report. “In particular, the loss of taste or smell has been known to appear in patients since at least mid-March when a British group of ear, nose and throat doctors published a statement amid growing concern that it could be an early sign someone is infected but otherwise asymptomatic.” Knowing there are additional symptoms could help individuals decide when to request a test. It could also help


Some businesses won’t return funds despite pressure from Trump administration

larger companies like [Ashford] and [Braemar] as it is at smaller companies,” the statement added. The loan payments to the companies have come under scrutiny, given Bennett’s political donations. Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Bennett has given more than $370,000 to support President Trump and the Republican National Committee, and has given to a slew of other GOP campaigns in the House and Senate, as well as their party committees. Ashford’s statement said Bennett owns a “significant amount of common stock” in two of the companies, for which he did not receive first-quarter dividends. Bennett also owns “a large portion” of preferred shares in Ashford, for which dividends were halved in the first quarter, the statement said. One company contacted by The Post, Nortech Systems, appeared to be on the fence, saying it had not yet decided whether it would return the money. A Maple Grove, Minn., maker of medical devices and parts, Nortech said it thought it met all SBA guidelines when applying for a $6.1 million loan, including the strict definition of a small company. “Without an influx of cash, specifically at this time, we potentially jeopardize people’s jobs at the company and we won’t be able to hire the additional staff needed to work on crucial ventilator parts for a large customer that has contracted to supply ventilators to the U.S. Federal Government,” Nortech said in a statement. The company, which employs 470 people in the United States, also said its current market value of less than $10 million “severely limits our ability to raise additional capital via the public markets.” Another company, Quantum, a digital storage manufacturer headquartered in San Jose with offices in four other states, also defended its receipt of the money. It noted in a statement that the company’s head count of 550 in the United States is fewer than the 1,250 it said the SBA had set for businesses like Quantum to qualify for a loan. “The PPP loan is saving American jobs at Quantum — without it we would most certainly be forced to reduce head count,” the statement said. “We owe it to our employees — who’ve stuck with us through a long and difficult turnaround — to do everything we can to save their jobs during this crisis.” Quantum has a market valuation of just under under $158 million. Its stock closed down $0.05 Tuesday, to $3.95 a share.


Bill Gates: Here are the innovations we need to reopen the economy

Germany’s example: interview everyone who tests positive and use a database to make sure someone follows up with all their contacts. This approach is far from perfect, because it relies on the infected person to report their contacts accurately and requires a lot of staff to follow up with everyone in person. But it would be an improvement over the sporadic way that contact tracing is being done across the United States now. An even better solution would be the broad, voluntary adoption of digital tools. For example, there are apps that will help you remember where you have been; if you ever test positive, you can review the history or choose to share it with whoever comes to interview you about your contacts. And some people have proposed allowing phones to detect other phones that are near them by using Bluetooth and emitting sounds that humans can’t hear. If someone tested positive, their phone would send a message to the other phones, and their owners could get tested. If most people chose to install this kind of application, it would probably help some. Naturally, anyone who tests positive will immediately want to know about treatment options. Yet, right now, there is no treatment for covid-19. Hydroxychloroquine, which works by changing the way the human body reacts to a virus, has received a lot of attention. Our foundation is funding a clinical trial that will give an indication whether it works on covid-19 by the end of May, and it appears the benefits will be modest at best. But several more-promising candidates are on the horizon. One involves drawing blood from patients who have recovered from covid-19, making sure it is free of the coronavirus and other infections, and giving the plasma (and the antibodies it contains) to sick people. Several major companies are working together to see whether this succeeds. Another type of drug candidate involves identifying the antibodies that are most effective against the novel coronavirus, and then manufacturing them in a lab. If this works, it is not yet clear how many doses could be produced; it depends on how much antibody material is needed per dose. In 2021, manufacturers may be able to make as few as 100,000 treatments or many millions. If, a year from now, people are going to big public events — such as games or concerts in a stadium — it will


NBA to reopen practice facilities where local stay-at-home restrictions eased

NBA teams will soon be allowed to reopen their practice facilities during the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic if their local governments have loosened stay-at-home orders. Under the league’s guidelines revealed Saturday, players in affected areas would have been able to conduct individual workouts beginning May 1. On Monday, however, the league pushed back the possible reopening date to May 8. Teams still will not be allowed to hold organized group workouts or practices. The move was first reported by ESPN. All NBA arenas and practice facilities were shuttered to players as part of the league’s indefinite suspension following Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert’s positive test for the coronavirus March 11. This new policy would steer players to their team’s private facilities — which are theoretically a safer and more controlled environment — and away from public gyms, which could be reopened as state and local governments adjust their protocols in the coming weeks. Currently, all NBA players are prohibited from using non-team facilities like public fitness centers and gyms, even if they are open to the general public. Not all NBA teams will be affected equally under this framework. In Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp (R) reopened gyms and other nonessential business Friday, members of the Atlanta Hawks would theoretically be allowed to use the team’s practice facility. In states where tighter restrictions are still in place, players would still be forced to work out at home for now. Concerned about possible competitive balance issues that could arise from the market-to-market disparity in gym access, the NBA will prohibit coaches from being in attendance during workouts at team facilities. Additionally, no more than four players can be at the facility simultaneously and group activities and scrimmages are prohibited. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said April 17 that the league has no formal timeline for returning to play, and that he has not set a cutoff date for determining whether the rest of the 2019-20 season will be played or canceled. Silver added that the NBA has “not seriously engaged yet” in plans for pursuing a single-site postseason format. “It’s about the data and not the date,” Silver said on a conference call following the league’s annual Board of Governors meeting. “There’s too much unknown to set a timeline. There is no appetite [among owners] to compromise the well-being of our players. In terms of priorities, you begin with safety. We’re not


Arduous exercise can lower immunity, so don’t overdo it during the pandemic

On Easter Sunday, 35-year-old Pensacola, Fla.-based Caleb Carmichael finished his seventh marathon in as many days, an effort to fundraise for two covid-19-related charities. Noble? Absolutely. Healthy? Perhaps not. During the pandemic, social media has encouraged people to dive into fitness challenges. With extra time on their hands, exercise buffs are taking up running and streaming high-intensity interval training, with the goal of reaching their fittest level ever. But there’s a case to be made for keeping things in check. Moderate levels of exercise benefit the immune system. Going beyond that, however, could weaken it, which is not a good thing with the coronavirus sickening and killing people around the world. Years of research into the relationship between hard and/or long efforts and their impact on immunity reveal that once you’ve crossed a certain line, you become more susceptible to illness. One of the seminal studies on the topic came from David Nieman, director of the human performance laboratory at Appalachian State University. By following nearly 2,400 runners at the 1987 Los Angeles Marathon before and after the race, “we were able to identify thresholds of exercise where your immunity begins to decrease,” Nieman says. That study touched specifically on duration of exercise and found that, for the most part, up until about the 90-minute mark, immunity remains strong. After that point, however, it weakens. Runners in Nieman’s study who completed the marathon — an effort much longer than 90 minutes — became sick in the week following the race at a rate of 5.9 percent higher than those who trained but did not complete the race. Although not 100 percent certain about why immunity decreases as duration increases, Nieman says that draining the body of its main energy source, glycogen, is probably to blame. “Your brain registers the lack of glycogen, and then you get the negative immune response,” he says. More evidence that intense physical and mental stress can suppress the immune system came from a study of the Finnish team at the 2018 Winter Olympics, which comprised both endurance and shorter-duration event athletes. It found that 45 percent of the athletes suffered from the common cold during a 21-day observation period surrounding the competition. Amelia Boone, a 36-year-old attorney and world-champion obstacle course racer from Golden, Colo., has taken this knowledge to heart and is keeping her training in check at the moment. “I have extra time


duration of exercise and found that, for the most part, up until about the 90-minute mark, immunity remains strong. After that point, however, it weakens. Runners in Nieman’s study who completed the marathon — an effort much longer than 90 minutes — became sick in the week following the race at a rate of 5.9 percent higher than those who trained but did not complete the race. Although not 100 percent certain about why immunity decreases as duration increases, Nieman says that draining the body of its main energy source, glycogen, is probably to blame. “Your brain registers the lack of glycogen, and then you get the negative immune response,” he says. More evidence that intense physical and mental stress can suppress the immune system came from a study of the Finnish team at the 2018 Winter Olympics, which comprised both endurance and shorter-duration event athletes. It found that 45 percent of the athletes suffered from the common cold during a 21-day observation period surrounding the competition. Amelia Boone, a 36-year-old attorney and world-champion obstacle course racer from Golden, Colo., has taken this knowledge to heart and is keeping her training in check at the moment. “I have extra time on my hands because I’m not commuting, so it’s tempting to do more,” she says. “More training would be good stress management, too, but it’s just not smart right now.” Not everyone is an endurance athlete, however, so what about other forms of exercise and their impact on immunity? That’s an ongoing debate, and the most recent research could not form a solid conclusion. However, the key point of agreement is that many factors go into making us susceptible to infection when we exercise intensely. Those factors include anxiety, sleep, nutritional deficits, exposure and travel. The CDC warns that the coronavirus outbreak can be stressful to many people. “Regular exercise boosts immunity, very hard efforts temporarily lower immunity, and chronic overtraining lowers immunity in more enduring ways,” says Brad Stulberg, a California-based performance coach and author of “The Passion Paradox.” “Right now, you want to keep your exercise program in the first two buckets, and ideally, the first.” Another reason to prioritize moderate exercise, Stulberg says, is that it will lessen the risk of injury at a time when physical therapists, massage therapists and other practitioners are unavailable for hands-on visits. Nieman sees exercise along a risk-benefit continuum. “It’s important


Pandemic eating: You can make nutritious, affordable meals with canned or frozen foods

She recommends buying canned foods that are low in sodium when possible. “You can use herbs and spices to add flavor and minimize the need for salt,” Kirchner says. And Reist recommends rinsing the liquid off canned vegetables so they don’t taste too salty in meals. Rinsing canned vegetables can reduce sodium content by up to 41 percent. You can also find a variety of nutritious, shelf-stable goods in containers other than cans, including jars (think peanut butter and tomato sauce), and aseptic cartons, often used for nondairy milks, soups and tofu. Peanut butter lasts for about 12 months (unopened) in the pantry, or six to eight months once opened (and refrigerated). Foods in aseptic packages (think shelf-stable almond milk) are as safe as canned foods. The food is put into sterilized containers, then hermetically sealed with a sterilized closure to prevent bacterial contamination. Bonus: Aseptic-packaged food has an even longer shelf life than canned goods, plus better nutritional and sensory properties. Freezing is one of the most common methods of food preservation. Once a food is frozen, there’s no water available for microbial development, which means bacteria can’t grow. This gives frozen foods a long shelf life. Vegetables last for eight months in the freezer, while fruit lasts 12 months. Meat and poultry can be frozen for up to one year, lean fish or seafood for six months, and fattier fish such as salmon for three months. Because vegetables and fruits are processed immediately after harvesting, nutrient losses are minimal. “Frozen fruits and vegetables are picked at the peak of freshness, then flash-frozen to maintain nutritional quality until used in your home,” Meyer says. Studies show that frozen vegetables and fruit have the same amount — and sometimes even higher quantities — of vitamins, minerals and fiber, when compared with fresh produce. Kirchner says she always has corn, edamame and a variety of fruit in her freezer. My convenient favorites include frozen peas, leafy greens, shrimp, fish, chicken, meatballs and bread. With a few other pantry staples, you can create nutritious, tasty and affordable meals that start with canned or frozen items. Here are a few suggestions for a family of four, taking prices from the Walmart site in early April, to get you started. Try combining a box of whole-wheat spaghetti ($1) with two cans of chickpeas ($1.48), a can of diced tomatoes ($0.46) and frozen spinach ($1)